Marcus Mumford

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armshare Expert. I'm Dax Randall Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Lilly Padman. Are you excited that your name is very similar to the little boy's name in Game of Thrones or A Night in the Seven Kingdom? I do like it. But his name is Dax Sol. His middle name is S-O-L. Yeah. It makes me think he's got really cute little parents. Well, I think he does. And he's so artistic. We're in love with him. He's so good. this is an intro though I don't know if this is the place for it it's okay Marcus probably loves him this is an incredible episode we are so happy with this guest this was so much fun Marcus Mumford Marcus is a Grammy award winning singer songwriter, musician and record producer he's the lead singer of the band Mumford & Sons his albums include Psy No More Babble, Wilder Mind Delta Ding Ding Ding Rushmere. And there's a new Mumford & Sons album out now called Prizefighter. Listen to it. We're lucky enough to have heard him blast us with a live performance. He sings for us in this episode and it's incredible. And the album is incredible. Yeah, he sings the shit out of that song. Powerful. Please enjoy Marcus Mumford. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple TV, the new U.S. home of Formula Starting March 7th, you can watch complete all-access live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying, and sprints all in one place. Watch every race live only on Apple TV. Yeah, that's you. Look at that beautiful guitar. It's gorgeous. Yeah, the inlay. Where do you guys live? Oh, shit. She grew up going to school driving by Stonehenge. Am I remembering the right person? No, I'm not. Oh, who are you? I'm fucking thinking of the girl. This is embarrassing. We're cutting all this. We're leaving it all in. I'm failing in my 51st year. No, no, that was from Fargo season five and Ted Lasso. Most incredible actress. Juno Campbell. She's from down there She used to cross Stonehenge on the way to school She went to B-Dales, didn't she? Is that what it was? Oh Lily Allen went there Oh wow, very in the news right now Yes ma'am We just had our thousandth episode And I'm pretty good at keeping the details straight But I have conflated two English Powerhouse actresses But Carrie was also Zoom She was Zoom, so that's harder That's harder. Carrie was Zoom, was she? Yeah. Yeah. So that's harder. It's like they happen, but they didn't happen. Yeah. How do you do this? Well, let me show you what's happening. Through the episode. Because ideally, this is the only brand of lozenge I like. The other ones give me gas between you and I, Marcus. Because you have to push through a bit of an indigestion barrier with the gum. Mm-hmm. Because on the other side is the elation. Yeah, yeah. The ones I like only come in two milligram. Oh, fuck that noise. And I need four. No, no, it doesn't touch the sides. That's right. You've got to have four. And so I have to supplement with a spray. So I basically make this a four. It's an apothecary. Yeah. That's fantastic. Are you a nicotine head? Yeah. I just saw the gum in his mouth. It's my last remaining vice. Other than pride and sort of general cuntiness. Nicorette is my last one. Okay, that's good. But, Marcus, we should not aim to get rid of it. There's nothing wrong with it. No, my doctor was like, have at it, bud. Yeah, I don't even know that we should call it a vice other than we would die without it in that respect. Yeah, well, that's true. Why don't you call it a virtue? It's a virtue. Do people ask you, like non-nicotine users, when they see you consume it compulsively, do they go like, well, what's it make you feel like? Do they ask you that? Yeah, I get a bit of that. Or I get a bit of like, what brand of gum are you obsessed with? Sure. And what's your answer to the feeling you get? Because I have a go-to. I only get a feeling with the lack of it. I think the feeling is absence of agitation. They get it. That's much more eloquent. Wow. I don't feel it. Other than the morning. The morning's nice. The first coffee and a fucking pop, pop, pop. Yeah, nice. Poppy, pop, pop. You get a buzz? I get a little bit. You don't from the first one? No, I get a buzz from my first coffee. Yes, yes. And I've taken coffee much more seriously since I stopped drinking. When did you stop drinking? 19. Oh, wow. 2019? Seven years. no shit congrats I didn't know that we had that overlap what about you? I haven't drank in 21 years but I had a nice little go around with opiates during COVID had a bad spell had to detox them the whole night we'll call it a relapse don't call it a relapse I've been here for years you're too young to know all that no you know you guys are the same age We are? I didn't know that. It's a lovely age. It's a good age. I like it too. About to hit 40. Coming into our prime, I feel. That's right. How do you feel about it? I feel fantastic. Yeah, me too. I like it. We were just talking about it. You know, occupying that space between our kids and our parents. Yeah. It's kind of a nice place to be figuring stuff out in. Don't you feel like it's the age, though, where time has started? It's 11-11. Everyone make a wish. Oh. so don't you feel like it's the age where you start really feeling the passage of time because your parents are aging and then you have your kids i feel like a slight shift in authority i feel like it's time to sort of know what i think a bit interesting whereas before you could kind of rely on the opinions of your elders a little bit and i don't know a lot of people go through phases in their 20s where they're like really like this is definitely what i think but like i haven't had many answers for a while i've had lots of questions wisdom seeping in is what you're feeling yeah maybe yeah but so if i do the math now then i think you and i are on nearly identical trajectories did you quit at 29 about 31 yeah i don't actually know i think it was 2019 where are we now 26 so that's six and a half years and i am 38 my wife and i are so equally bad it maths on my last birthday she wrote me my birthday card and she said happy 39th birthday and it took me a full three hours before i went next door with my calculator the year because i knew the year yeah minus the year i was born sure which i thought was quite clever way to calculate it and it turns out i was 38 yes that's right actually for my birthday she She got me an extra year. I mean, these parallels, will they stop? January 2nd of this year, I walk into my bathroom and my lovely bride has handwritten me a beautiful card. And it says, happy 52nd birthday. And I thought, oh, she accidentally wrote a two on the inside. She'll get it straight. No, it doubles down on 52 three or four times. Actors may count for six. Oh, my God. Maybe it's actresses. They can't do it. And then we'll get into other less fun parallels. But, hey, you know, I think we got a lot of them. So I think strangely you were born in California Was indeed strange, yeah, I was born in Yorba Linda Root and Toot in Orange County Which is heavy, heavy Christian country Yes, sir, which is why I was born there, yeah Yeah, so mom and dad worked for or were leaders in a church Yeah, in a church called the Vineyard Church Which weirdly Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell went to with T-Bone Burnett in the 70s Oh, wow, really? Yeah, wild And then my parents went out and worked there for a couple of years and got trained up by the guy who led it called John Wimber, who's like a grandpa to me. Always used to bring me Quicksilver T-shirts when he used to come and stay. And sort of this large bearded American, very Californian kind of guy with Hawaiian shirts would show up in southwest London at our house and be like a real fish out of water. And was this amazing guy. He was actually in the Righteous Brothers. Oh, he was? Yeah, and sort of gave up all that and then went west. Was it mega churchy style? No, well, it's a bit smaller than that. Very community-based. It's an amazing church. I mean, like all churches, it has its floors, but it was kind of a cool community to grow up in. We had a real open house. We always had people through. The church bought the house next door to us and knocked through the wall as a guest house. My mom loved hospitality, was always baking, cooking stuff. And so I'd sit in the kitchen with her, watch her and listen to music and talk. But what makes me think your parents must be pretty unique in their own right is my very good friend from London was just here last week. British automotive journalist, Jethro, and we were in the hot tub chatting about religion, and he was really saying, you know, it's so different there than here. Yeah. I mean, even the evangelical kind of strain is so dominant here. And he's really wrapping his head around it because he's married to an American woman with American parents from the Bible Belt, and he's trying to understand how deep it goes here. So because it's so not standard there, what took your parents there? My dad was working for the Church of England, which is very traditionalist and, you know, wearing a dog collar and doing lots of kind of last rites, births, weddings and funerals. That was the jam. The big three. And then went and saw Wimber speak at Westminster Central Hall in like 85. Both of my parents felt like we've got to go to California and understand what this thing is about, which is a real risk at that point in their careers and their lives. They had one kid. Because the Church of England had to have frowned upon that. Absolutely, at that time particularly. And so it was a risk. And they went out and felt like that's what they were supposed to do with their lives. They felt like that's what God was telling them to do. And so they went out to Orange County to go spend time with Wimber and learn about how they did church and then planted the first church of that kind outside of the U.S. in our little front room in Wimbledon. Okay, which is Wimbledon the tennis venue we think of. Yeah, that's right. Southwest London, is that what it is? What kind of kid were you there? Do you have siblings? Yeah, I have an older brother who's six years older than me. My wife's a little sibling as well. And both of our older brothers, fiercely intelligent. Both went to Oxford University double first. And so we grew up as like the younger kids who had to like juggle in the corner for attention because we couldn't keep up with the conversation at the dinner table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that's part of that. Okay, if you're smart, I'll sing. Yeah, exactly. It was a bit of that. Watch me play the drums on saucepans. It's my vibe. And then always had this kind of Californian streak culturally in my life. So I like peroxide blonde my hair when I'm 10. When I first met my wife, actually. Where did you guys meet? Bible camp. Bible camp. You met her when you were 10? Yeah, we were pen pals. What? Yeah, she was about a foot taller than me. She was an absolute giant at that time. And I was quite small. She's not a giant now. I love that you say she was a giant, not that you were small. No, yeah. She was freaking massive. And I would go on her shoulders in the swimming pool. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She wrote in her journal, I met this boy called Marcus. He's two years younger than me, so definitely not underlined boyfriend material. Oh, my God. Like she was Bridget Jones' diary already. I got a nine out of ten. And my cousin, who was her age, got an eight and a half. Oh, shit. Really good. Before we keep proceeding, you're married to Carrie Mulligan. I hate to say that. In case anyone doesn't know that. I only think when people say that when I'm in an interview, but alas, I would be like, you're who there? Everyone's talking like we should know the why. Right. Now, that needs to be framed in your house. Yeah, we do have that. It's not framed. We used to fax each other. What kind of faxes? Pictures? Yeah, pictures and doodles and... Anything naughty? Nothing naughty. No, we were like 11, you know. Yeah. I know, but... I know. Tell me everything. You know, just all my doodling generally. I found my way into penis and balls, cowboys. Oh, yeah, there's a lot of that, but I was trying to impress. I was trying not to be the meathead. I'm the meathead now. I didn't take the uniform off. Now that you've got her. Okay, but suffice it to say, you liked her. I don't remember feelings like that when I was 10. No, she was a friend. And we kept in touch until we were like 14 or something. Then we lost contact. We were both on Facebook for about a six-month window. I was in college, and she was somehow on Facebook. And we got in touch through that. But then we both quit. And we're out of touch. And then I saw her on a billboard for an education. Oh, yeah. And went and saw it. And then was in Los Angeles. Okay, now hold it back up. Okay, sorry, I'm speeding. No, I just want to know. Because I have this with this girl, Danielle Fox, who lived at the end of the street at my grandparents' house. And I would always spend the summer at my grandparents' house. And I was just wildly in love with her. If I had been driving around at some point and saw Danielle Fox on a billboard, and then I went to the movie, I would have been fucked up some, I guess what I'm asking is. When you saw the movie, were you like, oh, goddamn, a little bit? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah, yeah, obviously. Yeah, okay, exactly. Yeah. My wife's one of the most beautiful women of all time. Yeah, she is. With respect, I agree. Yeah, yeah. Also, you were probably like, but I know her, but that's my buddy. And then eventually, when we reconnected, it was like, I know you. You're exactly who I know. Yeah. And it was cool. We got married pretty quick, right? We did, yeah. And I think because of that. Right. Because it was like, yeah. You guys were both at a really interesting moment in time for yourselves professionally in that it's starting to work for you. And this whole new world, at least in my experience, was like, it's fun, but it's chaotic. And is it real? Maybe to find at that moment when life's getting a little hard to kind of comprehend, to plug back into somebody who is experiencing the same thing and from the same place. So she came down to Nashville. We were writing our second album. First album just come out. We toured it. It had gone well. We were writing the second one in this rental home. We had lots of friends there that come over and we do picking parties. And then we were playing in someone's basement, a room this size. A friend of mine in L.A. who I'd been staying with and talking with about Carrie, had gone to New York, seen her, called me and was like, we're going to come to Nashville, see you play this basement show. And they arrived in Nashville at that time. I stood outside the Starbucks and I could see them come out. And she runs down and jumps. I was like, game over. You're like, I'll be married in minutes. Two days before that, we got the call asking us to play at the Grammys for the first time with Bob Dylan. Wow. Whoa, whoa, whoa. And so she entered stage left at a moment that was with me, and she had just been nominated for an Oscar and done the whole thing with an education. Yeah. So she was a couple years ahead or a year ahead, whatever, and was so helpful to me in that moment being like, look, you can be in control of this, and you can say yes to this, you can also say no to her. And I was not in a phase in my life when I was saying no to anything. For sure. So she was so helpful. And you're absolutely right. It was just at this moment. You're getting untethered. We left Nashville. She flew to LA to be with me during rehearsals. And it was like four days after we'd reconnected. Wow. Yeah. And then she had to leave again. She was shooting shame. But then somehow... Inside Lou and Davis. Inside Lou and Davis. Is that somehow part of this story? No, that comes a bit later. When we played with Dylan at the Grammys, That was the first time I met T-Bone Burnett, who has become like a sort of fairy godfather to me in music. And he said, any time from now on that I'm doing something interesting or that you're doing something interesting, let's call each other. That's awesome. So then when the Kern brothers called him to do Inside Loon Davis, he called me and said, do you want to come and be my company? The title was associate producer or something. And so I just was there and Kerry was in the movie. Do we start singing in church? Not really. When's music start? Music starts early, like pots and pans playing drums. And I was a drummer. And who was your Bonham? Who was your God? Yeah, I was more Bonham than Star. You were one or the other, but became Star while Ringo later. My guy was a guy called Terrione Gully, who's a jazz drummer, played for a guy called Christian McBride. And I went and saw him play with my skateboard. He signed my skateboard. When I was like 13, a Pizza Express Soho with my mom. Was mom or dad super into music? They were all very into music. None of them played anything. They just played it in the house. I'm just curious, do they stick with the church? Still going? Life, yeah. Wow. Great. I'm retired. Because I do think we interview a lot of people, generally more R&B singers, females, who they grew up singing in church. It's such a great tradition. And I do worry, as much as I have my reservations about religion, most of all of R&B, it starts in church in America. And I just wonder, like, as that fragments, where's the next crop? Where do all these young kids start learning to sing like that? Yeah. And school choirs? I didn't get into the main school choir, so I was in the B team. and learned to sing harmony, which was fun and very helpful. I was going to say, that's a good skill, probably. We wouldn't sing, what, tenor parts. We'd sing the alto parts. And my mom was an alto, too. So she always sang harmony in the kitchen, whatever we listened to. And what kit were you playing? Did you have the kit you wanted? Yes, I did get a Yamaha maple, which is what I wanted. And it was natural wood. Well, that's handsome. It was great. Very functional. It was a workhorse. Do you collect drum sets? I do. What's the coolest one you got? that have a red sparkle Ludwig 60s kit. Okay, great. And a champagne sparkle 60s kit. And I really like these CNC kits that are new. And then what about guitar? When do we pick up guitar? Towards late teens. And so you were a skateboarder in the jazz who was going to the church. Yeah, with peroxide blonde hair. At a public school. Listening to Sublime. Because the Californian influence in my life, no one else was listening to Neil Young at home. No one else was listening to Sublime. So I always had that little extracultural lane. Now, I was a skateboarder, punk rock, bleached hair, spiked the whole night. And really, I was just so insecure. I was rejecting the other style. I didn't think I could nail. But it read as incredible confidence to my peers, thank God. Did that happen with you? I got sent home from school. Okay. Because I wasn't allowed blonde hair. Which is an incredible role. So that was the kind of school I went to. Yeah. King's College. King's College. I'm a show for your research team. he is the way thirsty he does it on his own but it's a public school I guess I thought maybe you would have gone to like a religious school we call it public but it's private oh so my parents spent all of their church salary on my education which is why then when I left college it was a responsibility yeah you go to Edinburgh University yeah because we had no other they spent all of their money on my education so you felt like you needed to pay them back so I felt slightly so in terms of my rest development felt like I was on sabbatical from university from like most of my career until now. I feel comfortable in my skin and this new record that we've made is my favorite thing we've ever done and I feel like now is the moment where I get to really embrace being an artist. Wow. Whereas before I felt like I was kind of moonlighting. Proving yourself? Not so much that. It was just like I was on a track. You have been feeling like you're supposed to return to university for 20 years and now you finally don't feel like Yeah, and this record, this Price Fights record is like it for me. That's great. That's amazing. But how is it going socially, these interests and this extreme luck? It's going fine. I was always like a slight outsider. I wasn't the best at anything, but I tried everything. Was it all boys? Yeah, and I went to school with Ben in the band from the age of eight. Were you guys best friends or just you ended up having mutual interest? Yeah, no, we were, yeah. It must be so fun to be able to share it with this kid you've known since you were eight. And now the three of us, it's close to brotherhood or indeed marriage. Yeah, that's right. More marriage. Because it is more like a marriage, really, because the only other person in the world who has experienced that is Ben and Ted. Yeah, exactly. Yes. We also have to navigate stuff that normally I don't think you navigate with a co-worker. Or a friendship. Yeah. There's something when you're both that it takes everything up to a different level of intimacy. Because these natural things, there's highs and lows. The highs are great to share, but the lows are like no one involved has a clear head. Because everyone's suffering at that moment. It's not great. You're communally going through something. Yeah. There's no outsider unaffected by the thing to be objective. Which is why when we're making records, I like to work with producers. Because some people are like, why don't you just self-produce? You guys know your way around a pro talk record. And you produce things on your own. Yeah, you produce things for other people. But I like having the objectivity of someone else who hasn't looked at the tickets. Or got burned on a song you love. Exactly. This is like that other thing we did that we got fucked on. Yeah, exactly. So the objectivity of a producer. and then for us on this new one, Prizefighter, we had Aaron Desner who's known us for 15 years or something, helped us with the demos for our third record has been a friend of ours for a long time, seen us go through lots also happens to be in one of my favorite bands of all time, The National has had this production career with people like Taylor Swift and Grace Abrams has gone crazy and so to have him come in at this point and be that objective voice knows us all really well, we trust him, he trusts us, the dream You're also at a stage in your career that I, too, am at where it's like all these kids that were trying were now all at these award shows, which is bonkers. It's like I look around the Golden Globes and I'm like, oh, Ben and Melissa, who we rented theaters and no one came. You're starting to see friends that are now producing for Taylor Swift or whatever the thing is happening. It's pretty wild. And London, when we first started as a band, was amazing for music. people that really inspired us like laura marling and there in the whale but also at that time it was adele and florence and these amazing artists that have obviously so we've seen a lot of them go adele presented our album of the year the grammys the only reason i think we got anywhere close to winning it was because she wasn't not like she didn't know but for her to give that to us is so sweet our contemporaries a are some of our biggest inspirations but also we've seen their success right the way through from very early on, which is kind of a unique thing. Okay, so you're playing drums. When do you start playing, not just in your room, but with other people? What age? We play at weddings and bar mitzvahs and birthday parties from the age of like 12 to make pocket money. And then publicly, the first time I sang a song, I think was for a music exam when I was 16. I did a version of All Along the Watchtower by Bob Dylan. What was the effect? It went down much better than I thought it would. Was that the first mini hit? where you're like, oh shit, some people are looking at me a little differently. Yeah, and then I played a bit. I didn't really do very much until my year out between high school and college. I lived in Denver. Denver, Colorado. Yeah, because I had a U.S. passport so I could come and work. Dual citizenship. Soccer coach in Denver and would play open mics. Lots of clove cigarettes. And would do open mics and they went all right. And then I went to college and amongst my cynical British friends, when I dropped out to go and do music, they were all like, really, mate? Right. They've been at the open mics. We're not at dropout stage yet. We're not. So I had a friend who took me to one side and was like, I'm not sure this is a great decision. Wow. Is he still a friend? I hope you bought him a Range Rover. Exactly. Yeah. It was really at college that I started doing open mics, and then I quit to go play drums because I was a session musician to go play drums for Laura Marling, And then she invited me up to come and sing a song in her encore. At the end of her show, it was like a hootenanny moment. And that's when her manager spotted me and was like, you should do this. So how do we assemble Mumford & Sons? 2007? Two weeks after that, I said to him, like, I think it's a band. I don't think it's a solo project. I've been doing writing and recording some demos at Ben's house. He lives with his parents still. And they had an attic with a little studio in that you had to climb through the little cubby hole. Oh, yeah, yeah. To get in. carrying fucking equipment up there yeah yeah it was a nightmare very hot no ac and had been doing some demos and then inviting anyone i knew who was playing in other bands we were all playing in other bands at that point to come play these songs with me and at times there'd be like 14 of us on stage but what we noticed was that at that time when the four of us sang together and played together it felt different to when everyone else was in the room so i know how you know ben obviously he's been a friend since you're a little kid how do you meet the other two guys yeah winston i'm at church when we were like 15. You've known him at that point too. And then Ted, we met in London when I quit college and he was a bass player. He showed up with the coolest pair of boots and a leather jacket I'd ever seen in my life. And he could sing and play double bass. It was like, oh, this guy's a triple threat. It's funny how often when I watch docs on bands, how much of it is that? Like so-and-so walked in and their hair was awesome. And it's like, the music's kind of secondary to the vibe. But then when he opens his mouth to sing, it's like, oh wow, he's got this really unusual voice and he can sing harmony and it's cool Did you watch the Mike It Loud, that drumming documentary? No No I didn't. Oh so great Okay then never mind that and then there's another doc I want to know if you watched Oh did you watch the Zeppelin doc that was out last year? I haven't watched that yet. Okay What is unbelievable about that band is they met and I think six weeks later they played that first show we've all seen in black and white which might be still their best show they ever played I've only inherited other people's views about this documentary but it seems that they were all totally obsessed with bonham yeah and that it was like jimmy's band i don't know that i focused on that as much as just obviously they had all been working a lot so it's not like they were green in that sense but the notion that these strangers could have come together and played that show in six weeks it's so mind-blowing you just kind of gotta believe in magic a tiny bit oh i totally believe in magic i think writing songs is like trying to catch fairies and nets no gallagher talks about it like everyone knows songs fall from the sky by magic and you just have to have your hands out ready to catch them otherwise fucking bono or chris martin everyone's just walking around clearly have their hands yeah exactly so i bumped into him in a bar in london a few years ago and we just finished a tour and he was like what are you doing i was like i'm just chilling out and he's like what the fuck are you talking about you're a songwriter you gotta get to work write songs you have no excuse not to write songs it's your job what are you doing and it's like oh shit he's right i better go and write some songs. How long before the four of you were playing that it was clicking, you were putting songs down that you thought had merit? Was that a quick process? It was quite quick. I had a collection of songs that I'd written at college, sort of naked on my dorm room floor. Very raw. Too raw. Indulgent? Yeah. Okay, sure. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and put T.S. Eliot to song, you know, it was that kind of indulgent. It was a night. It's hard to be pretentious. It is. Yeah. Oh, you'll never make it. Yeah. But I had started honing my narcissism well enough to write songs i think and then we started playing a couple shows and then we got asked to support other bands and that was helpful because it was like right well we need enough songs to fill that set so i remember the day i wrote little lion man in my ex-girlfriend's kitchen which is probably a bit rough but then showed up at the rehearsal studio like three hours before soundcheck and was like lads i think i've got another one for the set and they were like phew because we only had like five at that point yeah what were you expected to play like 35 minutes or something yeah like half an hour. That's six songs. And you feel half an hour with a bit of chat. Sometimes a bit more chat. Yeah. Isn't it funny too how much of this stuff, there's no science to it, but there is like the infamous Beatles stuff. They're playing in Germany forever. They just playing They were honing there Yes I mean that documentary is my favorite music documentary The Peter Yeah Peter Jackson one Yeah And it nine hours which is shorter than your average day in the studio Okay. But watching that documentary, I mean, it's the most beautiful. I think you get an idea of some of them hanging around. You know, you're watching like Ringo twiddling. Ringo's always on time. He's always ready to play. He's always sticks in hand waiting for the moment. Very underrated drummer. He gets a different tone out of the drum set to any other drummer in history. And then Jim Keltner, who played on all the Beatles' solo records. He's now like 82. I recorded with him a couple years ago. He is one of the coolest cats of all time. And Bob Dylan's drummer, and you know, he gets a different kind of tone out of the drums to anyone else. And these great drummers, I think, are able to do things and just hit a drum in a way that no one else can. Admittedly, I didn't like the Beatles. My mom had positioned it as, this house is a Rolling Stones house. we're not talking about I want to hold your hand we're talking about I got a girl pregnant see we were an oasis house not a blur house there you go have you come to appreciate blur a sense yeah yeah I have but I'm still an oasis guy yeah you're right and I'm a stones guy you can't change that really really that's wild tribalism but that comes from growing up in a house where your parents care I didn't so I just like it all They didn't have their identity infused with what bands they liked. Exactly. There was no identity connected to it. So you were free. You're a free agent. Free. You can take it all. So what did it lead you to? Taylor Swift. You. Taylor. Yeah, I mean, Taylor. No, but as a kid, what did it lead you to? Yeah, exactly. Taylor was a little later. I'm top 40. Britney. Britney, yes. Spice Girls. Hanson. Like the big Hanson. Remember Hanson? Love Hanson. Love Hanson. Oh, my God. Really? I think I did a cover of that actually back in the day. You did? That was my first CD. Was it? Mine was Pure Shores by All Saints. All Saints. I loved All Saints. As a single. And then the first record I bought myself, I bought two from the CD exchange on Wimbledon Broadway. I bought Kind of Blue by Miles Davis under instruction from my drum teacher because he was like, you'll play what you listen to. You got to play that. And then for myself, I bought Miss Education at Lauryn Hill. Oh, amazing. I mean, that's advanced. I was more in the... You're an imbub. But I'm just saying All Saints. I know. TLC. I love TLC. See, I loved All Saints. Robin. Yeah. All of it. Early Robin. Yeah. You had a new one. Sick. But Monica will be the first to admit, most of her musical taste came from film and television. If she saw something on TV, she heard something rather. If I heard a soundtrack, I was like, I want that song. Like, once it was into buying songs, like Napster and stuff like that. And so what were the shows that led you to? Like Grey's Anatomy. One Tree Hill? I was on a One Tree Hill. Oh, no. Okay, so Grey's Anatomy. But the O.C. Yes. Obviously. So when Garden State came out, did it change your life? Yeah, yeah, okay, cool. I get you. Yeah, yeah. I know you. I know you. I see you. Listen, I've changed. I've become cool. But no, I was a sponge. Still cool. I was a sponge to all of that. The shins. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. But no, it was great. It was great. I was open to it all. That's cool. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Apple TV, the new U.S. home of Formula One. You can now watch complete all-access live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying, and sprints all in one place. I will be consuming all of those things, Monica. I know you will. I kill for Friday to start watching Practice One, following in on a sprint weekend. Oh, my gosh, two races. And this season brings a ton of new energy to the sport. New teams like Cadillac and Audi just joining the grid. new drivers stepping into major seats, Lando Norris defending his first World Drivers Championship, and all eyes on Lewis Hamilton in his second season with Ferrari in a brand new circuit in Madrid. Plus, a new U.S. home for Formula One. You can watch every race live only on Apple TV. Watch on Apple devices, Android devices, smart TVs, streaming devices, gaming consoles, or on the web at tv.apple.com. All part of one Apple TV subscription alongside hundreds of exclusive shows and movies. Watch the Formula One Australian Grand Prix live on Saturday, March 7th at 11 p.m. Eastern, or watch race replays on demand anytime only on Apple TV, the new U.S. home of F1. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. 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You can walk into a tech-enabled TurboTax location near you and meet face-to-face with a real tax expert. Drop off your documents in the store and see them uploaded to your TurboTax app instantly. Just like that, you're done. Your new TurboTax expert stays back and works tirelessly to get you every dollar you deserve while you get real-time notifications as you go about your day. Honestly, it feels like someone finally figured out what we've all been wanting. It's not some sterile tax office from 1987, and it's not just an app where you're on your own. It's both. The human expertise with smart modern tech. You drop off your stuff, go about your day, and get real-time updates as your expert works through everything. That's the upgrade. Head to TurboTax.com to find a store location near you and get matched with a TurboTax expert with real-time updates and iOS app. Mine was I Have to Like Punk Rock. I'm going to these shows. None of them are melodic. I hate it all, but I'm pretending I love it. And I'm just looking for anything with some melody. So I'm just following. So did Blink-182 like change your life? Well, I'm so much older. I saw Exploited when I was 11 years old with my brother. I saw Black Flag. And they're trashy. As a teenager, I went through post-sublime, probably. I went through like Papa Roach and Blink-182. I love Blink-182. Let me be clear. And then I was starting to go off at Sum 41 when that started. I loved it. And then I was like, that was the end of my... I'm going to get off the train here. I'm at my stop. Yeah. It's actually interesting now that we're talking about it because I think that the reason there are clubs is I wanted to be like everybody else. You want it to conform. Exactly. Interesting. So I'm picking top 40. I'm picking what's on TRL. You want to be able to talk with your friends about what's popular. I want to be normal, regular. That's interesting because I get to like 18. I want to do something no one else is doing. Yeah, you want to be different. This is our freedom of being white. Right. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, wait, you guys are nerdy and I want to be the opposite. That's interesting. She's like, I'm brown. Please don't notice I'm brown. I do all the same shit you do. Yeah, isn't that weird? If you were white, I wonder what your fucking musical taste would be. Well, the truth is, you probably still like Taylor Swift. Of course. Yeah. Wow. That's the great unifier. Exactly. 10 million tickets. That's why she is who she is. Yeah. Okay. So I want to jump to you record Sing No More. It comes out in 2009 and it's a monster. I mean, you get nominated for two Grammys. Little Lightman is enormous. How do you take that on? We just play shows. That's the only answer we had. Just keep your head down and play shows. Just play shows. We were probably a bit dismissive of the world's reaction to our music for a long time. Because we were like blinkers on, head down, just play shows. That's the thing we can understand. I can't understand how our song suddenly got big in Australia on the radio. Yeah. I can't get my head around that. But I can get my head around playing a show in Melbourne. And so still now, I don't look at streaming numbers. I don't look at social responses. I don't look at radio plays. Are you like healthy and you didn't care about money? I care about money so much. No, yeah. Our household didn't have expendable money, but my parents instilled in us the spirit of generosity. We were taught to tithe as kids. Give away 10% of everything you ever get. I mean, the belief system is like, it's not ours anyway. Right. It's closest to a sort of Native American view of ownership and stewardship. But it was like, ticket sales is what we can understand. Right. You can see that those venues are getting bigger. Yeah, and we climbed all the rungs on the ladder. We didn't skip any, but we only did them all once. and most bands do them 10 times how are you making peace with the tension of i'm an outsider i'm not with you guys and this is my art and oh no it's for everyone everyone likes it there's a little bit of tension there no well i think i probably responded to that by driving my negative narrative and finding the negatives in any review i would read which i did at the beginning i'd always read them i'd pick out the one line that hurt the most and i'd dwell on that i knew you didn't really accept me you're acting like you accepted me but i have the proof i'm not really yeah exactly yeah everyone thinks i'm actually a cunt you know yeah so brutal yeah you miss so much i mean we had fun but i was not present to a lot of the early success of our band because i was either in the negative narrative or i was like let's move on quickly because this isn't going to last so we have to build for the next thing you can have this paradox of actively hating parts of it and then maybe fearful the next one's not going to be as good you can also still want to keep it right Yeah, I haven't felt this level of a sense of pride in our work, honestly, ever, until this record. It's really freeing. I just fucking love it. And I don't really care if other people like it or not for the first time. That's huge. That's everything, really. I think it's a lot of personal growth and all that boring stuff. But I really don't care what people think. I love it. And I'm excited to play it every night. If people come along for the ride, then great. But if not genuinely for the first time, I don't think it'll hurt my feelings. Wow. To that same extent of the rawness. And I think that's the vulnerability of artists, and that's fine. Your job is to feel things. I just think this is cool because we just had Stapleton on, and Luke Combs had this moment. A lot of these musicians now that we're interviewing have had these moments where you performed at the Grammys, and then the album went up 99% sales. There's very few moments that are that make it or break it. I don't think I was aware to that extent what the Grammys could do in terms of moving. Thank God. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but I was still shitting myself. I was still very nervous. but like I had that feeling with the first TV appearance we did. Did you love Letterman? We did Letterman and it was like, where's your drummer? I was like, I think he plays drums maybe. Does he? Maybe that's why he asked. But no, our first TV appearance was here in LA with Craig Ferguson. Oh, I love Craig. And I broke two strings and forgot all the words. Oh. And it was a fucking disaster. Oh no. It still makes me feel like it. Yeah, that's horrifying. That was awful. And so they were like, we have to move on. Sorry, we had to play a different song. Wow. It was a disaster. It was horrible. I'm so sorry. But was Craig great at helping you? Yeah, he was sweet. No one could really help me in that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Jack Daniel's good at help. There was no help. But no, the Grammys was made fun by the fact that Dylan was so weird and wonderful. That first one, we'd rehearsed for two days. We'd done all the camera rehearsals. We were aware that it was going out to 50 million people or whatever it is. And we play a song. We come back behind the curtain. Avett Brothers play a song. Oh, wow. And then we were all supposed to go on together and play Maggie's Farm. So we play at Cave. Eight of brothers go on. We walk behind the curtain. Bob's there. And he goes, play that again. And I went, what? And I'm still holding my guitar. And he goes, play that again. And it was the Cave. So I started playing. Winston started playing banjo. And he was like, I can sing on there. And we went, what? And he went, I want to sing on there. And I'll sing Maggie's Farm on there. And we're like, we'll do what you want because you're fucking Bob Dylan. But you've already played it? We just rehearsed it. And we've already played the Cave. and he wants to change the whole arrangement roughly Tony, his bass player who's the Bob Whisperer, comes over and is like calm down Bob, we're going to do it like we rehearsed it Did you watch The Greatest Night Music? It's about the recording of We Are The World Oh no, I didn't see that, no I don't really watch music documentaries I'm learning that Do you listen to other people's podcasts? No, and I wouldn't watch a comedy doc but of course I watch music doc What is cool about the doc I think you would appreciate is we have everyone Who do you want? They're all there, right? You have Michael Jackson. You've got Hall and Oates. You've got fucking Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan. Everyone's there. So to see them all, it's a really wild thing to observe. But Bob can't sing like the other folks. That's not what he does, right? And he is struggling. And there's a moment where Stevie Wonder, who can do everybody, he's a crazy mimic. He says, you want to sing it like this? And he does Bob Dylan, and it's on film. And you can't tell it's not Bob Dylan. and he uses his voice in his range to show him how he should do it. And then Bob's like, okay. And then he does it. That's such a cool moment. That's very cool. All right. You're not going to watch it. You hate me. Do you think you don't like him because it's intimidating or it's just boring because that's what you do? It's boring because that's what I do. I got you. Okay. I think unless it's Get Back, unless it's The Beatles. Movies about musicians don't really do that. I didn't watch Springsteen movie yet, even though I'm obsessed with Bruce Springsteen. I get that. Star is Born, I thought, depicted tour life the most accurately out of any of them. Although you don't know because you've only seen one or two. Yeah. That's not a great fact. Look at the one-eye sample. That's true. You went to Baskin Robbins, you tried one flavor. You know the best flavor of the 31 flavors is vanilla. That's true. That's true, to be fair. Okay, tell me about going to India in 2010. Or don't, if it's not interesting. No, we just didn't really have an audience in India. But we went anyway. Got told to go back to our own country at our last show in Kolkata. Really? Yeah, which I think was fair. It was fair because given, you know, the innate racism in England the other way around, it's like, yeah, fair enough. We probably earned that historically. But it was amazing. We like touring in weird ways and doing things that feel scary. We've just done this train tour. That was next. Yeah. So India was awesome. It was really fun. I mean, it was very hectic. It was stupid. Did you have in the back of your mind, though, that the Beatles went there? A little bit. And it was just an adventure. We've done a tour on a narrow boat. at four miles an hour. That was really fun. And we were like, let's go to India and do that. Yeah, so the thing I loved about reading about your history is I too love when you can take this thing that you do that's your job and you can figure out a way to leverage it into a bunch of other crazy experiences that kind of have nothing to do with it. Because otherwise, you can miss it. It can all go by. I read about this railroad tour. You guys have vintage railroad cars you were in? Yeah, we did one with Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros and Old Crow Medicine Show in 2011 or 12 or something like that. 11. Thank you. Yeah. And we were like, let's do that again. Now, the train thing is fun for the artists. Yeah. The audience doesn't really get involved in that because you can only fit like 100 people on it. But yeah. Tell me about your car. A bunch of vintage rail cars all linked together that go around the country. So the first one went from Oakland down the West Coast across to we ended up in New Orleans. And the second one, we started in New Orleans and ended in Burlington, Vermont. And for us, a lot of it is seeing places we wouldn't otherwise see. Like I've seen more of this country than most of my friends who live here Sure And I'll argue on a train you're seeing the backyard of everything Exactly On a highway you're seeing the front yard Totally It's amazing And I like to stay up in the middle of the night and sit in the front of the bus And watch the world go by Particularly in North America Yeah I just find it fascinating Like being stuck in an electrical storm in Kansas In the middle of the night Any tornadoes? I've seen some tornadoes Yeah Nothing like it right? Yellowstone's always really fun But was the car itself, did you have your own car? No we had our own room and was it from the 40s 50s 60s you know was it wood paneled song was wood paneled and i would say 50s i think it was there like a cocktail like was there a little bar yeah like the people running the train all in outfits oh how fun i love so jealous and then we'd rehearse every day because we had these guests come and join us and so we'd learn their songs on the train on our way to sound check and then when we get there we play it we should do that we should do live show train experience. It would be a net loss tour, but we'll do it. You don't do it to make any money. You're not going to make any money. Yeah, not for that. We had this conversation with our management company. We're like, we're not going to make any money. You're definitely not going to make any money. For this one, we had a house ban and we paid everyone the same amount of money, like a flat fee, including ourselves. We're like, look, it's an experience. This is like a five-day vacation where we're working. Did you take psychedelics on the train? No, you don't need to. Okay. I would think that would have enhanced it. I went on this trip down the Grand Canyon people I didn't know. And we get to the bottom and it's like eight days of rafting and staying on the beach. Unbelievable. At the end of it, we find out they would all have been on acid the whole time. I was like, this is the one place in the world you definitely don't need acid, man. You don't need it. Exactly. And those rapids, we're doing them on kayaks. They're pretty dangerous. There's no better way to drown. Oh, God. You gotta drown, man. You think you're drowning in, like, Willy Wonka's chocolate river? No, I'm too much for a control freak for that. Okay. Is everyone in the band on the same page for the most part. Even when we're talking about you guys coming up, you're like tunnel vision, head down. Are you all like that? Yeah, we are. Ted, our bass player, is a bit more chill. We need that. Yeah. Because Ben and I are like in it on everything. Our manager recently said to us, like, most artists kind of ask to just know where they need to be when. Don't go to this level of detail. Yeah. We're quite details oriented. We care about it. Yeah. Okay, I need to say, though, that I Will Wait came out. That was enormous. You won the Grammy, fastest selling album of the year. Things are fucking cranking. Yeah, that's what I'm told. 600,000 in the first week. That's bonkers. And in the UK, I think 400 is also the fastest selling album that year in the UK. You can't go anywhere without Mumford & Sons at this point. I want to go to your solo album, which is 2022, self-titled. Yeah. I want to bond with you on this experience, which is I have for years on here been acknowledging that I have been molested. And that was its own hurdle to just say that. And I got quite comfortable being able to say that. That was fine. And now I'm writing a memoir. And last year, really, the whole year was about, do I have the balls to write down the details of this? Because the details were always going to be mine. I didn't want anyone to be envisioning me. It's weird that that was still some wall between my shame. Interesting. I can say that happened, but I don't need you to know anything that actually happened. And I bet it took me four months to tell that story. And when I'm writing it, I cannot help but thinking of people knowing this about me and how still exposed that feels. And I was pretty emotional during the few months. I was having really weird kind of spikes of emotions and moodiness. And I would forget that's why I was having that. But I finished it, and something about it existing there feels like a lot of weight is off my shoulders. But for me, there's still the hurdle of like, and also I've not put that out. Yeah, that wasn't going to be my question. I was like, did you put that out? And I didn't hear that. Right, so I can understand writing Cannibal because it's about his sexual abuse. There's details. Yeah. Dude. I was like, fuck me. That sounds pretty intense. What's the gap between writing it and then knowing Okay, now I'm going to put it in the world And people will know all this about me I mean, I was pretty scared Honestly And yeah, it's pretty detailed I mean, I played it to a few people who were very helpful I played it to Elton John, I played it to Brandy Carlyle Elton was like, I've never heard anything like this And I'll do anything to help you If you want to put it out And Brandy had said exactly the same thing Like, I'm with you Isn't it fucking shocking how many of us yeah and part of the exhausting process of putting out is hearing other people's stories yeah sure because you you need to comfort them yeah yeah yeah and it's an absolute privilege and my general view on it has been all right i'm gonna have boundaries around this i'm gonna say like thank you so much for sharing that i hope you have what you need yeah because i'm not your guy it'd be fucked up wouldn't it like i'm not gonna be your guy on this yeah i can't yeah i can't and that wouldn't serve you obviously wouldn't serve me and putting it out was straight and then the The rest of the record is not really about that. But because that was the first song, it got a lot of attention. I feel grateful that I put it out. I honestly feel glad I have also been able to move on. And I think without it, I wouldn't have come back to the band as energized or as joyful or as free. And I think that's a big part of the freedom that I now feel in the band. It's like, I got that. I moved on. It's out there. I toured it. It was great musically. I'm very proud of it. The whole record. And it helped my songwriting. and it's certainly helped my ability to accept myself well my body keeps betraying me is a line yeah the body betraying me putting that out of your body to there has that helped in any of that yeah like i've been on a real journey yeah yeah yes and part of that was not feeling like a victim i think and being like i've got control of this i can drive this train i'm not just a passenger and I won't just be a passive. My thing is I can intellectually know how ridiculous the statement is, but emotionally I don't know it in my body, which is I grew up in such a homophobic environment in Detroit in the 80s. You lived all day long in fear that someone might think you were gay. Yeah. And now I've done this thing that does make me gay in my mind. And now I have this fucking secret that I know if it were to be revealed on the playground, I'm just fucking dead. I'm a pariah. I know intellectually that's insane at 51 with a family and all these things, but that fear of the whole world going back to elementary is still alive in me in this crazy way. It's shocking to me. And so what's your process now having written it? I felt that wave of relief that you're talking about. And then I have fear of people reading it. And then even more, I have the fear of what I'm doing to you right now, which is like I want to be able to put it out and I don't ever want to have to talk to you about it. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's funny. That's not going to happen. You've done baby steps. Like, was this the first time anyone's ever known about that? Yeah, yeah. And the second song on the record is about the process of playing my mother, the first song. Wow. Well, how should we proceed without this getting too heavy? It's the first line of the second song on the record. Wow, yeah. Yeah. But we talk about it on here. You are very open. I mean, not with the details, but with that something you've gone through. But I'm in control of it, right? Like you're not going, well, why didn't you blank? Or why didn't you tell your mom? You're worried about the types of questions. So, yeah, it's just the loss of control of me being able to say exactly how. So, wow, me and you waited 30 years. What happened to me, I got really lucky in a sense, which is I was in high school. I've been carrying it for, I guess, 10 years or whatever. And I was talking with a girl. I went to school with who I liked so much. I was just a friend. Is this Danielle again? It's not. No, not Danielle Fong. I would have never risked her thinking I was gay. But this girl was vulnerable enough to tell me that she had been raped the year before. Wow. And I'm kind of sitting there with that really special trust that she just extended to me in my lap. And I just kind of felt myself saying it out loud. Honest to God, as stupid as this is, to look at her face and the fact she didn't say, oh, so you're gay. I went, oh, my God, this whole story I think I'm telling myself might be wrong. she doesn't think I'm damaged. I mean, that's certainly my experience as women led me through. Of course. You know, it's so interesting and probably quite common that as a man, if you allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to a woman, often your final game leads you to the promised land. Yeah. And that's certainly my experience as people like my wife and Brandy and Phoebe Bridges. Yeah, it's powerful, man. It's pretty life-changing. I mean, it was also quite funny playing my mom that song. Like, how long did it take her to put together what the song was? Was it immediate for her? Yeah. And painful for her. Of course. You have children. Yeah. And just the sense that, like, she spent all this time not being able to support me in something else. But fucked up to tell your mother to a song. So I'm playing you a new thing. Tell me what you think. You want to hear a demo? It's quite funny. Bless her. She's a legend. I love my parents. stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare why the gap i mean obviously you did your solo album in there but why the seven year gap winston left the band uh-huh i made a solo record then we're in the studio for two years and now really quick because last year march yeah so we got back in together in the studio like January 20th. In fact, I was on my solo tour. I was playing at the Ryman in Nashville and the boys. Ted and Ben came out for that show. And I said, lads, should we sing a song? Should we sing I'll Wait together for the first time in a few years? And it felt magic. Just a guitar and then two and three of us singing together. This very special place to us. And that was the moment where we were like, let's do this. And I think healthily everyone had a bit of a break, a bit of a reset. Was there any sense that you would not come back together? No, I don't think so. It was just a matter of time. But then January 23, we were here in Los Angeles, actually. We met up, the three of us, at my house down the road when we had it. And we played a few ideas that had been kicking around. They turned into Rushmere, but then we felt like we weren't done. While we were mixing Rushmere, Aaron Destner was next door working and came in and played us a couple of things he'd been working on that didn't have lyrics or melody yet. And we responded to it and started making Prizefighter right there. Oh, wow. And I think the freeing experience for me of getting Solo Record, then Rushmere out, meant that when we came to sit down to do Prizefighter, we're there and this long-term friend, we were just ready. Our hands were out, ready to catch the songs. We were in shape, and the muscles were all working. There were no injuries. And we were in our prime. And that's why we called it Prizefighter. We felt like we were just ready. We'd also spent a summer with Pharrell Williams in Paris writing songs and hanging out. And he's like a therapist. He was like, sit us down. Certainly me gave me a lot of pep talks, which was super helpful. So by the time we came to Aaron, we were just in a good spot. And so these songs just pulled out of us. And they're the closest to source, in terms of the writing and the recording, we've ever done. We'd like to write it in the morning and record it in the afternoon and be done and walk away. It's a very live feel. The feeling you get as a vocalist, for sure. The closer you can record a vocal to when you wrote it, the better. On the first record, we did a demo at Ben's house that I played and recorded at his house in his parents' attic. and then when we came to record Sino Moore, 18 months later, we couldn't get the same emotion in that focus. We just used the demo eventually on a white blank page. That song, the Crashing Out song. Boy, acting's so similar. You've got to grab the emotion while it's there and then when it gone it catching fairies man Better actors is no problem My wife being like oh yeah I do that It no fucking problem I could have done that in the back of a spaceship if you needed me to That how you can really tell when someone can just show up and be perfect every time Acting we call them acting robots It's like, yeah, I don't know how they're doing this. Yeah, it's really annoying, isn't it? It is annoying. I don't like them. Fuck them. Okay, no, I want to extend a compliment and ask if you feel it. When we had Seth Rogen on and we were talking about the studio. Did you watch the studio? I did, yeah. Okay, great. You've seen one thing together. We want first overlap. Well, that's not a music documentary. No, I'm not movies. That's fine. But what I see is not just an incredible show. I see the results of an incredibly generous life that every one of these people would have shown up to party in this thing. There's a lot of successful actors. They couldn't assemble five other ex-co-stars. Yeah, right. So you think his humanity and the way he walks through the world has had a real effect? Yeah, that show is a result of who he is as a spirit. it's really on display and it's really cool and I would argue that Price do you feel that at all the fact that you can call Chris Stapleton or however that works I do feel that you know our band has always loved music and being at shows and watching our contemporaries and being inspired by them we spend a lot of time investing into the community and it's not just so that we can name drop it's a bit of that as well are you friends with the Avets I'm really good friends with Seth they're such inspiration for us they're bad motherfuckers if you haven't seen the Avets play yeah they're amazing I'm doing a thing for them on Monday. The Muppets? Yeah, the Muppets thing. That was great. Yeah, I'm excited. So we've invested a lot into musical relationships, stayed in touch with people, and then weirdly as a headliner, you go out and you do your shows and you're a bit insulated from the community. Yeah. Festivals are always fun because you bump into other people and sometimes those awardee things can be cool because you see people you wouldn't otherwise see. But on this record, we've never opened the door. Our band basically has always been collaborative and we've never really represented it on record. And so on this record, we were like, we want to call in our friends. And actually, Gracie Abrams has been like the fairy godmother of this record. She's been behind the scenes with her magic wand. She heard the demo of Banjo Song before I'd written anything on it. It was like, you've got to fucking write something on that. So I text her lyrics as we were going and voice memos and be like, what do you think of this? What do you think of this? And she was always behind the scenes just cheerleading. Oh, that's awesome. In a way like Brandy was for my solo record, Gracie has been for Pricefighter. And so then we called her up and said, we sing on Badlands. and I thought she was going to just do some harmonies. She turned that song into a duet. It's like my favorite song on the record. It's amazing. And the same with Gigi, who we've done some shows with, Gigi Perez. Josia, we've known for a really long time. Like, I don't need to know you to look at the list and go like, oh, yeah, this is a guy who's clearly been benevolent and generous with his peers because they show up. I feel deeply honored by the people that said yes. And Chris, I didn't know. Chris, I just called. Cold call. Hey, bud. Big fat. I think he's a generational talent. He's like my favorite voice, male voice in America. Do you know Heaven Sent by Steel Drivers? No. I cannot stop listening to this fucking song since I interviewed him. That was his first band. It's my intention. No, I don't know. Faction. Heaven Sent. Heaven Sent. I listen to it probably 40 times the day after. If I'm not working, I'm listening to that song. It's unreal. Well, I think he's amazing. And, of course, he completely killed the assignment because I sent him the song. I sent him here. We all felt in the band that he would be perfect on it because it's like a kind of cowboy suicide. Yeah. He is perfect for that. And again, he's a dude who does not need to answer the phone and doesn't need to show up for people. He does like endlessly. Yeah. Calm that out. And then I texted him and said, this is our broke back moment as well, by the way. I'm waiting for the video. Okay. So you're going on tour and you kind of just nodded at it. You're doing a lot of festivals. Is that by choice? Those are the ones that have been announced. Oh, okay. Big gaps in that diary that aren't going to say gaps, but we haven't announced them yet. But Hyde Park on July 4th, actually, important day for you guys, and half of me. I bet you're really conflicted on July 4th. July 4th at Hyde Park is the one that I'm looking forward to the most. Because it's been a decade since you guys played. It's been 10 years, and that's like a hometown show. It's massive. Two seconds on Nashville, and then I want to hear you sing, if you'll oblige us. Now that I've ruined your voice in two hours of chat. Nashville very special place no? Yeah it really is we spent a lot of time there and we were invited there when we first went to Telluride Bluegrass Festival up in Colorado we knew that Alison Krauss and Robert Plant were on the bill we knew that people at Ockro Medicine Show would be kicking around Jerry Douglas who's the greatest slide guitar player of all time well dobro player of all time and we walked in and they all were there and all stoked that we were there and coming in as these kind of like nerdy kids with more Americana instrumentation. They were just amazing. And Jerry became a really amazing friend to our band. We felt invited in, and then they invited us to Nashville, and they were all around, and we've spent a lot of time in Nashville. I love it. I've been shocked to be in that town, which is also a creative town, and just hear story after story of how available everyone is for each other. Lainey Wilson has become a friend of ours, and I'm just obsessed with her. She's so generous. She's so down. Yeah. We invite her on the train tour. She's like, yeah, cool. I'll be there. It's like they haven't forgotten that they love the art form. Yeah, a lot of them, I think. Chris is like that. Noah Kahn is there now, and he's like that. Super generous people. There's a real sense of community there, which I think still exists, and it's cool. One of our closest friends is this young artist, Hannah Anderson. She's a musician. She's lived in Portland and in L.A. and from Houston, and they just went to Nashville a year and a half ago, and they've just never been happy. So even if you're not successful and thriving, at every level there, she's like, oh my gosh, I've been here my whole life. I lived in West Hollywood and it drove my shame narrative crazy. It did. Yeah, because I'd look around and be like, look at all these amazingly beautiful, successful people. I'm not doing any of that. Billboards. You underestimate the impact of these billboards that are only five feet. You really do. They have an impact on you. Especially if you have a competitive spirit or an artistic one, like a slightly vulnerable. And if you have both. Yeah, you're fucked. And even if you're not competitive where I'm envious, but you're ambitious. Yes. You just have ambition and see that you're not there is a bad reminder. Yeah. Every time you walk out the door. And you walk out of a restaurant and there's paparazzi there and they just put their cameras down when you walk out. It's like, oh, God. It's a wild mindfuck. I got to tell you, one of my funniest moments in life, the first time I did Letterman, which I was so excited to do. He's my hero. Yeah, because he for comics is like the ultimate. Him and Bill Murray, those are our gods. So I couldn't be more excited. I'm in the back of an SUV, and Tom Cruise is also the guest that night. So he's first, and I'm second. And I pull up to the theater. They've got the whole street shut down, and there are saw horses so that the crowd doesn't move in. And as my SUV pulls up, they believe Tom Cruise is about to get out. And this audience of people is like, ah! The cameras are all like, ah! And I step out, and you just see this collective, like, literally 1,500 people are like, Save your film! I saw him! Put your cameras away! I was like, oh, man. What a way to walk into this theater. For my dream come true. Started with save your film. Maybe that should be the title of your message. Save your film. So, with so much gratitude, you've agreed to sing, and I cannot wait to see that. So, if we may. I try. You're a party. I like you a ton. Thanks, man. Thanks for coming. Well, you guys make this quite weird thing feel non-weird at all. Oh, good. That's the goal. Very comfortable. Do you know Mark Ronson? I assume you do. You guys have a similar vibe. Oh, really? I'll take that. He's a generous-spirited man. He's a wonderful collaborator. Yeah, yeah. You know, some of those people like Pharrell is like that, and Aaron Desson's like that, that just get joy in seeing other people shine. Pharrell's definitely like that. He's in his happiest place when he's helping elevate someone up to their true self. It's really cool. It's a cool spirit. Mark's like that, too. I had a therapist tell me that as a man, your journey is you try to conquer and you try to get yours. And then if you're a healthy man, the next phase of your life is to try to give that to as many people as you can. And I have entered that phase of my life where it's like, you got to not do that. And that's the spirit of generosity rather than the spirit of poverty. Yeah. It's not like this has got to be mine. I can't give it away. It's like, I do better when you do better. Yeah. The scarcity mentality. Yeah. Exactly. We were forged in. Alright, let's do it. Alright, let's party. Roll dogs is our compromise. Can you hold all my secrets? That's our line. Can you hold all my secrets? Can we swear that we'll forget? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to tell you this and then I don't know if I want to hear about it. Yeah. Exactly. I'm going to get this one just from me. I can't carry this anymore by myself, But also, we shan't ever speak of it again. Well, if that's you diminished, you know, fuck you, I guess. Yeah, I agree. I'm bad. Yeah, that's you at 70%. Yeah, Taylor was doing that in the dark. You won't make him tell us now. Yeah, later. All right, then. Fucking. There it is. Should we? Yeah. Ready? Yeah. Here's my fine serenade Here's the gun and here's the blade Here's the picture that I saved for too long Here's my credit card and keys And the reason I won't find peace Here's a song I could not complete for too long Here's my pride and here's my shame Here's the trophy that bears my name Here's all the mistakes I've made For too long Here's the answers I never gave Here's the calls I should have made Here's the substance that I crave All along Well, here's my vision, here's my aim. Here's my suspect and the ones I blame. Whilst you're sitting, taking names, I just want to belong. Here's my lonely serenade. Here's the gun and here's the blade. Here's the picture that I saved before you were gone. Here's my pride and here's my shame Here's the trophy that bears my name Here's all the mistakes I made for too long Here's the answers I never gave Here's the calls I should have made Here's the substance that I crave all along Can you hold all my secrets? Can we swear that we can't forget? I had lies like you wouldn't believe. Brought to my knees. That's kind of it. No water carries horny for you. You're so hot. What do you think? Incredible. I know. I almost flew into the bookshelf a couple times. Wow. That was at the Memorex moment. My watcher always said we're quite a shouty band, and that one does get quite a shouty band. Oh, man. That's fucking awesome. powerful the privilege of being in a room this tiny with him letting it rip i was like what how is this our job yeah yeah thank you guys that was really really special normally come play a song well nora sang for us nor jones ava brothers of flame yeah dude which one did they do oh they did trussell did a few as you know when those two fucking lock spirits like there's something yeah those two yeah well they call it blood harmony yeah right there's something real about blood Two brothers playing soccer together as well. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this was so special. Thanks, guys. Well, Marcus, this is a delight. Thank you so much. Well, come back. Yes, please. Also, I really want to double date, maybe. Yeah, lovely. Yeah, okay, great. I'm going to give you my fax number. That would be dope, wouldn't it? Only to fax. Like, sharing with his iPad. I'm not sure about that. But fax only. Take it away online. I'll draw you some cock and balls pictures, and we'll get this thing going. All right. Be well. Thank you, guys. Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. Hi. Hi. What's up? How are you? Good. I have a headache. It's going to go away. It's going to go away. Did you take Advil or something? Through the power of thinking. Why are you kidding? No, I will, but should I? Yeah, come on. Yeah, I guess if people want to see my pharmacy real. Traveling pharmacy. It's here. This is it. Oh, it's like in one of those videos, like a what's in my bag. Oh, sure. Like a Vogue. Exactly. Yeah, this is great. What's in my pharmacy? You've always wanted to do this. I'm at this. What will you select? Exactly. What won't I? Oh, this is a hand sanny I really like. This one's vulnerable. Pepto, poopy problems. If I have muscle and or joint issues, in order, I prefer an Aleve. I know. We've done. And then I have your profen. Never Tylenol for body pain. Right. But if I have a headache. I know. I love a Tylenol. I know. You know what I have not tried, though? Have you tried? Because it's so old fashioned. I bet it works the best. You ever fuck with an aspirin? No. Look. aspirin oh my god you know why i got this why an accident no i'm expert i got it on purpose um when i thought my finger was gonna explode on the plane okay i forget why probably a google or maybe i asked someone um and they said take an aspirin i think maybe for the sweat like make sure my heart didn't explode on the plane did you take an aspirin i'm sure i took everything they told me So, yeah, I've got some aspirin in here for the plane. Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the difference between all these, aspirin actually thins your blood. Yeah, it does. That's why, because that's why on planes it's good for, instead of clotting. Yeah, so when you have pressure, you have your blood moving through a constricted area. Then you can either attack the blood side, aspirin, or the constriction side, which is the other options. That's right. Why can't you take both is my question. Oh, why? You always want to take both. Yeah, if one's good, two's better. I have two kinds of D. I have Aleve D, ding, ding, ding, Aleve, and I have Zyrtec D. Ah, wow. So I just have a lot of stuff. You've really got it going on in there. I do. Do you need that box still? How do you get rid of that box? No, I like it. Don't you know? My Tide Stain. Okay, I'm now carrying one of those. Yeah, they're helpful. Yeah, they're very helpful. Well, there's a lot of good free ads for all these companies. I know. It's true. Can you hear? Oh, there's like not much left, but that's okay. There's enough to get. There's probably enough. I'm taking three. Take them all at once. God, you would have never been a good drug addict. You would have sucked at being a drug addict. So I never did it. I only do things I'm good at. My character in Chips is very much how I chew them all up and swallow them just to get over it. Chew them all up is disgusting. I remember the first time I had to swallow a pill. You remember the first time? Yeah, because I couldn't do it. And my parents were trying to help me. You currently look 15. I'm mad. Really? Yeah. Because my hair's up? I guess. I was probably nine or ten. I lived in my pants currently. How could you have made it all the way to nine before you took a pill? Oh, we didn't have those in my day. Oh, really? No. I wasn't taking Advil, I guess. I was taking chewable, those Flintstone vitamins, ding, ding, ding, from last week. Uh-huh. I was taking those. And they worked. They kept me healthy. But then I had to take some sort of pill, probably an antibiotic or something. And in my head, it was this big, you know, enormous. Well, relative to your head, it might have been. True. Anyway, my parents were trying to help me, and then they were getting frustrated, obviously, because I couldn't do it. Sure. And you needed to take it. I had to take it. And I don't, I think eventually, we probably cut it up into like teeny tiny pieces. Yeah. Made it dust of it. Turned it into a milkshake. Mom. Yeah, we should have done that. Why not? Mortar pestle. Yeah. Could have done that. Anyway, so that was a hard day for me. I'm sorry that happened. I had wanted last week, I forgot to bring it up, but I had attended a concert that I wanted to talk about that was quite special. Okay, let's hear about it. You know, I attack social media so much, but I need to also acknowledge I have discovered so many interesting things via Instagram. Okay. One of them is Alfredo Rodriguez, who is a Cuban pianist. He makes these, so exciting, these songs he does. He'll do like Thriller, but he puts it through the Latin conversion. Yeah. And he did Star Wars as what it would sound like if it had been written in Cuba. And he's an insane piano player. And he's on stage with just a percussionist who he's been making music with for like 15 years. And these two are like they're sharing a brain. They're like the Ava brothers. And this percussionist is only using his hands, but he is making so much sound. He's got the bongos. He's got everything you could imagine. And his story, which was so great, was he was living in Cuba, and he got invited to this fancy jazz festival in Switzerland. Okay. And he went there, and there was, like, all these legends there, like George Benson and all these different incredible people. So he plays piano on stage. And Quincy Jones is in the audience. He goes back to Cuba. Quincy Jones comes home, and Quincy Jones calls his manager, and he said, I just saw the best pianist of this generation. I have to work with him. You've got to figure out how I can work with him. So this management team spends the next few months trying to find him. He's in Cuba 18 years ago. Yeah, not the easiest. They start this process of trying to get him to be able to come record. He ends up having to go to Mexico and defect and come over the border. and he then starts working with Quincy Jones. Oh, that's so cool. Nonstop does three albums with Quincy Jones. They become like, you know, mentor, mentee. It's so beautiful. I love that. He's now a citizen. He lives in Miami. He's got a family. It's just a wonderful story. I love that. And I've never seen someone play the piano with this kind of speed and pizzazz. I mean, it's kind of mind bending to watch someone play like that. That's fun. So I encourage everyone, if you could, see Alfredo Rodriguez. I know that they're having a jazz festival in Miami right now-ish, I think. Oh, okay. And I think John Batiste is also playing at that festival. Oh, you guys go. I want to go so bad, but I was just there on the DM flight. I really still have my complaints about the length of the flight, okay? It's too long. It's a three-day commitment to not see anything, okay? So, yeah, check him out. Yeah, that's awesome. them. We also, we went to another, I guess we're arty now, because we went to a play, a theater play. Oh, we did. We did. We went to a theater production, a musical. Three months later that Kristen was in, started, and it was great. It was so great. It was impossibly good, given the fact that those people had come together a couple weeks before. To do rehearsals and stuff. Start from scratch. It was so, so funny and sweet and great. Life I loved it. Yeah. I loved it. And it was extra fun for me. Because? It was a lot of worlds colliding for me. Okay. Obviously, Kristen. And then two very wonderful people who wrote the play are UCB Peep. Oh, you knew them. Yes. I thought they were terrific. Not only had they written this incredible thing, but they as performers were fantastic. Yes. and one of my very good friends who I did improv with, we were on an improv team together, Zeke was in it as well. Which one was he? He played the flight attendant, the co-pilot. Oh, okay, wonderful. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I met him, the tall gentleman. He's fantastic and he was so good in it and it was so fun because I hadn't seen him in so long. And it's one of those really fun things where like, you know, in this world, like you, especially in the comedy world, you have these people and these teams and you're around them nonstop and they're your family and you're making things together and it's like such a beautiful time. And then your life, sometimes your life goes into another direction as mine did. And I don't see any of those people anymore. And it was so like, it made me feel so happy to see him up there. Warm and fuzzy. Made me feel warm and fuzzy. And we were talking after the show and he said rightly, he was like, I feel like that team was, he was like, I just have such strong memories of practicing at your house, in my apartment. It was like right before we all sort of became adults. Like we were adults, but like everyone's lives started taking off right after that. And so it's kind of like the last phase of innocence. Okay. Now I want to take this moment to discuss something that I think was potentially awkward. Oh, sure. That we haven't debriefed on. Oh, okay. And this likely was all from my own perspective, and I imagined all this. Okay. But here's what happened. We're watching this play. Three of the characters are gamers. They're young boys, and they're gamers. So funny. And they have matching outfits, and they're in a gaming troupe and whatever. Mind you, I've not seen the play. I have no idea. I've seen it for the very first time. But these three boys start dancing and singing, and it's so adorable. I just have this moment where I'm certain this is going to be making you smile so much. Oh. I'm thinking, like, she must love these boys right now. And so I turn around. I mean, you were with her whole pod. Yeah. And so I turn around and I look at you directly to see if, like, I'm right. Like, are you just going to be smiling ear to ear watching these boys being expressive and dancing and singing? Yeah, I did love it, yeah. But it's very obvious. I turn around and I look at you and then you look at me and you're just like, I'm sure you're like, what is he? Do you remember this moment? No. Oh my God. Okay. Not at all. Well, then I see Molly and Eric and then they've seen me turn around and lock eyes with you. And then I turn back around. You weren't smiling eerie or something like, oh, she's not as tickled by these boys as I was thinking. I was. You were. You just weren't showing it. Oh. That's not the point. Don't even worry. That has nothing to do with where I'm going with the story. Okay. Okay. So I made this big show of turning around and everyone's behind me. So they just saw me turn around and like lock eyes with you. And then the song takes off right after that moment. And the whole song is about them loving double D's and the princess with big titties. And the whole song becomes about titties and double D's. And then I started panicking, thinking, does everyone just see that when I turned around and stared at Monica, they think I've already seen this. Oh, my God. You're so in your head. No one thought that. I don't think. You can see the math of that, no? I guess like hey Monica check this out and then the whole song right after I do that turns into a whole song about double D's well that is something you would do well I don't think I would you literally said double D's last week on the fact check because you had what ADHD what was the thing I didn't say that I just said there was double D in the acronym it was the meth medicine right the medicine you were taking in the math. You're in two doses, double D? Yes. Is that what it was? Maybe. And then you said, are you conflating it? Yeah, you made a reference to my boobs. You do this. We do this. Well, anyways, I felt really pervy all of a sudden. I guess, let's say this. If I turned around like, oh, Monica, look, they're about to sing about big boobs, that's not me. Right. Okay? I'm pervy. Whatever the line is, that's not me. I'm not turning around like, oh, Monica, they're about to sing about boobs. That's crazy. I wouldn't do that. Yeah, you don't do that noise, but But that was what I was afraid the Bible sudden was. Like, oh my god, do they think? I don't think that. But I would just turn around and see like, oh my god, I bet she loves these cute boys dancing. I did. You were right. But then they immediately were letting her rip about boobs. And I'm like, oh boy, they think. Hey, I don't think. Monica. Yeah, I don't think anyone thought that. Is that why you kept looking at your kids too? Because you were like trying to like combat it. Like, I'm not a perv. I'm here with my sweet children. Of course not. I was looking at my kids to see how excited they were. Their mom was so cute. Yeah, I know. It was really cute. They had friends with them, the girls. I was just trying to imagine if I was 12 and I took Aaron and my dad was like to make it one for one and be like if my dad was doing backflips on motorcycles. Like they're all into musical theater and their mom is like crushing it on stage and I was like I wonder if they're feeling pride for their mom. Oh, my God, I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. That's what I was trying to check in on. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Delta had too much on her plate, probably. She was on the crew. She was on the crew. So she was a little stressed out. She worked so hard. Shout out to the money. She did costumes. She was an usher. She filled in for some of the cast members when they weren there Yeah She was a PA and called everyone to set She worked at least 45 hours last week on that play She said that she gave actors notes Uh-huh. She saw every single rehearsal, and then she would film the whole show on her iPad and then come home after the show. She's been at the theater at that point for eight hours that day. Right. Watch the entire show all over again and take notes. Wow. And she had, of her 20 or 30 notes over the course of the five shows, 10 of them were legit and got implemented. That's good. Yeah, she's like, I don't think the mics are on for the boys when they say this line. It's a funnier line in rehearsal. It's not landing here. I don't think the mics are on. And they weren't. Oh, weird. Well, good for her. I love that. I love that. She's an industrious gal. Oh, I was so proud of her. And she. I couldn't have been proud. I waited. I requested her as my usher. I had to wait because she had a lot to do. And yeah, it was very, very, very cute. And hopefully they do more. I hope they do more. And I hope more people can see it because it was very cute. Me too. And sweet and funny. And to remind people, musical theater, not my fave. Not your fave, not my fave. Not my fave, but it was great. It was great. It was so entertaining. Yeah. And of course, seeing Kristen sing is always so fun. Yeah, she's so good. You know what I was thinking of? I had so many waves of happiness for her, which was like, A, she looked 12 years old. Well, part of the character, she's wearing a wig with bangs, and she does look so young. She looks so young, but her spirit was like, she was on a stage playing. Yeah, she's having the best time. She's like, she could not do that ever again. She could just act in movies and get paid a lot and act in TV shows. But she's doing this thing for free. Yeah, that she loves. And I'm watching how happy it makes her. And I was like, oh, she did it. She has held on to being 12. Like, she has protected this part of herself that's from childhood and still getting to do it. Yeah, very pure. It's so pure. Yeah, it's beautiful. So I had that round of happiness for her, and then I was looking around, and there were just so many people that had come that are friends of hers. Mm-hmm. And people she's worked with. Yes. And I was like, look at this group of people that love her. I know. It's great. Oh, I was so happy for her. Yeah, it was beautiful. Yeah. Well, great show. Three months later, check it out if you can, if it comes to your city. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. if you dare. I fell down yesterday. I had a big tumble. Who would have thought moving so close? 15 and 12. Yeah. Who would have thought moving much closer to work would up your danger? Yeah. Explain it to me because when you explain it to me, It's felt like absent of a banana peel, what you described couldn't have happened. I don't know what's happening. I walk, it's a little downhill. I'm in these shoes, loafers for people who aren't watching. And my front foot just goes straight out, slips and just goes straight out. And it's also kind of slow. Like, I like know it's happening. I now know what's going on. You were going downhill steep enough that you're putting your front foot out. Yeah, my foot was out. It's the opposite of walking, in essence. You're lowering yourself down the hill. Exactly. And so you put one foot out and put all your weight on it, and it lost traction. And then you hit the fucking deck. That now makes sense. I guess. I was underestimating the decline of it all. I think it might have to do with the slippery bottom. Is there a slippery? Does it look slippery? Sure, it's not a great shoe, but I think had you been just walking forward, you would have like spun out as you as you tried to accelerate off your back foot it would have spun out but you're landing with all your weight yeah to decelerate yeah so if you lose that footing sure out you go yeah and it but it was like slow enough that i knew i was falling which was weird why am i falling why why and by then um my i scraped my knee like a little kid and broke my jeans. You ripped a hole in your jeans. I did. I ripped a hole in my jeans and I had a teeny bit of blood. A scrape. It was a scrape. I still, that part's still a mystery to me. So I understand the physics of putting your weight down. That slips out. Oh, I guess maybe then the knee that didn't slip is the one that rips. Yeah. Okay. So then you went right down on your knee. Yes. And I just felt. I think I'd only weigh five pounds. I could have shattered my patella at 200 pounds. I felt like such a child. It was really, and you know how I am with embarrassment. Of course, I pop up so fast and I'm looking around to make sure nobody's seen this. And you laugh. You always have to laugh even if no one's there. You laugh. That was so fun. It was really funny. I'm fine. But really on the inside, tears are bubbling up. Out of embarrassment and being like, how am I this age and I'm a child still? Vulnerable to fall. Yeah, I was so vulnerable. I hated it. Well, I saw you in the driveway and you were like, I fell. And I was like, okay, well, that's not a whoop. Then I saw that your knee was torn. And then I felt bad for you. I said, oh, I'm sorry, buddy. This is the difference between mothers and fathers. First, I walked straight into the house and Anna and Kristen are there like doing some designs. And I walk straight in and I walk up and I said, I fell down. And I said, I fell down and I scraped my knee. Like a little five-year-old. And Kristen says, oh no! You know, she immediately is like, oh no! And then she was like, well, what are those jeans? She liked my jeans. And she was distracted for a second by my cute jeans. The loss of the jeans. Yeah. I was like, they ripped. She was like, well, that's okay. And then she got out the tied stain stick and she was helping my pants and, and that was all very nurturing. And then I walked around aimlessly for a little bit and then I ran into you. So you're trying to gather yourself. Yeah. And then I ran into you, um, coming out of the gym and you were like, don't go up in my clubhouse. and then and i was like i fell yeah and then you kind of laughed and and then you said oh your pants are ripped oh you did fall as if i was like lying or something no just a fall i understand there are so many things there's bad falls and there's inconsequential falls and you're you're kind of peppy when you were telling me so i was like well she didn't fall off her roof no no no It actually was an inconsequential fall. It just felt like a, I just felt so childish. Sometimes I've fallen. Sometimes you take a fall, but it's an adult fall. Right. This one was not. This is a silly fall. This is a silly, childish fall. And I felt like a kid, and I had to tell my parents that I had fallen down. Oh, you told your fall. No, my parents. You even called your folks afterwards? My mom would be like... You were going to get an x-ray? Yeah, exactly. No, did you clean it? Make sure you cleaned it. Yeah. I asked if you tore the skin. Yeah, you said, is it bleeding? Yesterday was a weird day in the atmosphere. Okay. Because I fell. And then Anna fell, too, later. Really? She fell over, like, Mona or something. And same situation. Tore her knee? Yeah, she hurt her knee. Wow. And then we were walking later, and she got pooped on by a bird. Whoa. Yeah. Yikes. It was yikes. I hate bird poop. And then Mona started to eat a condom. Me too. I've been pooped on, and I hate it. And I didn't want to make, like, too, of course, I was like, oh, no. Do you get out your Tide stick? But I, no. You need a nap. I'm not giving the Tide stick for that. Okay, she'll just keep it. She has to keep it. Oh, no, keep it. Kiba, you'll want to use it later. Yeah, you need paper towel. You know, it was, you need paper towel or cloth. Or really, I was like, I said, do you have another shirt? Like, for me, I'm like, you throw that shirt in the garbage. That shirt's done. But she just cleaned it in the bathroom. But I, you know, there's ways to handle things in life. And I'm often impressed by people. Okay. You know, because I was like, in my head, I was like, this is disgusting. To me, I was like, oh my God, this is disgusting. This is horrible. It looked really disgusting. And it was on her shoulder. And it was a white t-shirt. Fuck. And it's brown at first, right? It turns white, but it comes out. It was brownie green. It was diarrhea. They only diarrhea. I know. They don't have solid hoops. I guess they're eating cigarette butts and stuff. Ew. Yeah. Think about what they're eating. And so, yeah, I was like, well, I tried to put a positive spin on it. I was like, oh, no. I was like, well, you know, they do say that's good luck. That's right. And I think they do. They do. Okay, yeah. What else are they going to say? Exactly. She said, or bad luck. I said, no, they don't say that. They say it's good luck. You know, what's funny is it's clearly objectively bad luck. You got shit on. Yeah, yeah. It's never good luck to get shit on, but we say so. Well, yeah, positive spins. so anyway but I just knew if it was me I would have, it would have ruined my I was like, I fell and this happened what kind of day is this this hurt my feelings yeah, I'm sensitive but she was just like she was just a little annoyed by it, she didn't let it get her she grew up in Venezuela, you know, she has a different beginning, you're right and Mona then was starting to eat a condom on the street. And I was like, we got, what is happening? Where were you guys at? Venice? No, right here. Oh, okay. Fuck, there was a used condom on the ground? Yeah. There were some tents that had popped up. They're probably gone by today. I'm shocked they're using safe sex. That's incredible. It's true. Yeah, I guess we should be happy. It's true. Speaking of health. Okay, health update. I'm a little worried, and I don't ever get worried. Not about my health. Not about my health. Tell me. I make a lot of jokes about smoking and stuff. Sure. I don't like smoking's coming back. Smoking seems to be coming back. No, it's definitely back. I know. I know. You got to be careful what you're saying. And I was thinking about, like, how it's so predictable. We suffer from the absence of problems. So, like, polio. Like, for anyone who grew up in the 30s and 40s, you saw tons of kids in wheelchairs and with crutches and huge deformities. so when they came out with a vaccine for polio people were like yes 100% of people were like absolutely but then it got eradicated exactly and now you have knuckleheads that are like no I'm not going to get a polio vaccine it's like because you haven't seen it I know you don't know how bad it is you don't want to fucking see it exactly same with measles I think what's unfortunate right now is like we were growing up people were dying of cancer left and right my dad died of lung cancer you're seeing people fucking you know and now that it's curbed a bit I don't think people realize how bad it is. You can't get lung cancer, man. And you will. Yeah, I mean, yeah. If you are smoking, figure. High likelihood. Yeah. Yeah. It's not one of those, like, roll the dice. Like, if you're smoking enough, you're getting it. Yeah, it's not like drinking. Exactly. Yeah. Thank God. So, anyways, I just wish people would choose. I'm pro-nicotine. Pick another delivery device. Ding, ding, ding. That's going to be a fact. Oh, okay. I get one, your nicotine. Let's get your nicotine, but there's a better delivery device. And vaping, too. Don't do that, either. I'm glad you said that because you're a smoker. I was. A cool one, too. And I, you know, notoriously have never smoked a cigarette, so I feel a little like I can't say that. You're not in a position. But actually, I kind of am in a position. So, my guys, it's actually not that hard to just not do it. It's not. Yeah, I started noticing, like, I think whereas people, like, they smoke for sure, but they would never post a picture of themselves smoking. Yeah, I know. And now I see so many posts of people banging darts. No, people, it's back. Like, people think it's cool. Yeah. I get it. I get it. I get it. It looks cool. I will be. It looks cool. Yeah, sexy. On TV. Until you kiss someone. Exactly. And then you can taste the cigarette. That's what I'm like. Guys, in practice. Priorities kissing, guys. That's my campaign. Oh, that's a good one. Pick kissing. It's just called pick kissing. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Pick kissing. APK, always pick kissing? No, you don't. More than we need. Just pick kissing. Okay. Yeah, I just, I, in practice, it's not the same as how it looks. Yeah. And you guys are all coughing and stuff and, like, making those noises, and it's, like, it's not cute. Can you even imagine what I sounded like when I smoked? No. I have a question for you. I didn't want to ask. You can hear me coughing from your house? I thought that was inevitable. I hope one day I do. You will. I'm out in the yard. I was changing all the wheels on the razor. I had a couple moments of clearing my throat. I was like, if Monica's window is open, I bet she heard that. No, I haven't. I do wonder. When you're acting for long periods of time, you have a handle on not doing that. For three minutes, yeah. And then is it like right when they call cut, you clear? Well, I clear before I start. Okay. And then, yeah, likely in between, I get going a little bit. Because sometimes we're sitting here, you know, and I'm like, it probably depends on if I'm like PMSing or something. Yeah, sure. Just how you feel about me in general, probably. and I'm like why like I know when he's acting he doesn't do this and if our show was three minutes long you would never experience it I guess that's what I'm asking okay and like you know how the older men we have respiratory things yeah and you have like digestion also like all of you older men are starting burping a lot okay you're burping through your talking and it's a common thing that men are doing and um and i guess we don't cry we're keeping yeah it's like bubbling bubbling and it's like just okay yeah just cry you know just cry that's a good i have a great story funny enough okay well anyway i just sometimes when you're burping through your talks and when you're um throat clearing i think like is he doing this to me Like, is this about me? Because, I mean, you know, that's if I'm really angry. Okay. Because I know he's not on set with, I don't know if we're allowed to say, with on set. And he's, like, burping through his talking. He's not. I know he's not. I mean, you are ignoring so many factors. It's crazy. Our duration together. The fact that I research for two and a half hours and then I quickly eat so that I don't have to eat for the next three hours we're recording. The food part. So it's like I leave myself six minutes to eat my full calories for the first half of the day. So I pound that oatmeal and then I come in here and I'm dealing with that for the first 10 minutes. I guess I didn't really think about the food. That is interesting. Yeah, you see me right before. Every time right before we eat, I have pushed off eating right to the moment before we eat. I'm always finishing my own meal right before we start. Well, I would say just don't eat, but that's not a good solution. And I didn't eat today, and my stomach was growling during the interview, and I did. I was getting so self-conscious. And you have a headache. And I have a headache. And you're mad about my throat clearing just today. It's not a good solution. Listen, it's not a good solution. Okay. Go ahead. Keep burping. Sorry. It's fine. Burping, farting, coughing. Just do what you need to do. I'm doing the best I can do. I know. I will say this. I have recently, and I just hate this observation, which is it's considerably worse when I eat cheese. And I fucking hate that. The burping is? No. Oh. I don't think my burping is as big of a deal as you do, or at least I'm not concerned about it. I don't think you're noticing it. Okay. My coughing is very disruptive to everyone in the house. Okay, yeah. You can hear it throughout the house. You can't hear if I burp to myself in my bathroom. Yeah. It's just when we're on video, you know. Yeah. So I have sadly. Cut out cheese? Well, I've acknowledged, oh, yeah, if I eat pizza, I'm a mess the next day with my chest. Right. So I have been trying to not eat cheese. And I'm like, guys. What is a life without cheese? Truly, what are we, why are we doing this? Well, can't you just cough? I mean, everyone's used to it. I mean, I'm aiming higher for myself, but I don't enjoy coughing. I hate having stuff in my lungs. I hate it. I understand. But do you hate it more than you love cheese? I think more and more I'm circling an idea of perhaps fucking quitting dairy. God, you keep adding things to quit. I just heard about my throat clearing from you. No, it's not the throat clearing so much as the burping. You're currently on burping. Okay, this is all new. That's not what you've been complaining about over the years. No, I promise it's been a thing I've been not wanting to tell you. Great, but for how many months? Like, a long time. Since video. Since video. I never noticed it. I never noticed it before. I'm pretty good at keeping it inaudible. You never hear me burp. You never hear it. Well, no, you do, but not in the, no, not in when we're interviewing, but you often burp loudly just for fun. But not during the interview at all. it's very it's inaudible yeah but you can see it and so i am always cutting around it yeah and um that can get complex okay you know i'm just telling you but i want you to eat cheese well i don't think i can um unless i want to deal with coughing yeah it's like how long can i be coughing before i get cancer i mean the whole point of getting lung cancer is because you're putting all this shit in your lungs and then you're irritating them you're coughing a lot and then you have a ton of cell division and then you have mutation and that's what you get so i'm like So just because I'm not putting that shit in there, I'm certainly still doing all the disruptive. I'm sure I'm damaging my lungs getting the stuff out. And then I don't want an uptick in my odds of getting lung cancer. So I got to quit eating cheese. Okay. See you when I'm dead. I've had to knock this whole episode. Okay, now what's the story you wanted to tell? Oh, it was just on that crying. So we had a very, very, very sweet meeting last night. About Eric. Kind of in memory of our friend. Yeah. And we don't ever have women at the meeting. It's a stag meeting. Uh-huh. And a woman joined, and the woman was awesome. She goes, I don't know how all of you got through your shares without crying, but I'm going to be crying through my entire share, and I'm going to cry for all of you. And we were like, well, thank you. Oh, yeah. That's nice. Yeah, it was really great. Oh, man. Sad. really sad okay let's do some facts okay um on marcus yes god that song i can't believe we got to hear it it was so good he blasted us right through the the bookshelf i loved it i really loved it yeah um the whole i loved him i loved him too yeah he's great um very charming i hadn't given him a fair shake when they were really popular because i was surrounded by some people that I was judgmental of who were obsessed with it and it prevented me from giving him a fair shake and I really regret that. Yeah, I love Mumford and Sons. Well, they're so good. Yeah. They're objectively great. Yes, huge, huge band. So I didn't even deserve to get that performance we got, but I am now a lifetime fan. Yeah. Okay, did Juno Temple go to Bedale's school or B-Dale's or whatever? Yes. Yes. Yes. She attended, well, she attended Enmore Primary School, boarded at King's College, and later completed her A-levels at B-Dales School. Or B-Dales. Or B-Dales. So he nailed that. Okay. Ding, ding, ding. Nicotine is not bad for you. Comes up in the episode. There's, you know, yes, nicotine is not the part that gives you cancer. Yep. We all know that. Well, maybe we don't all know that, but it is not the part that gives you cancer. But it can have some negative side effects. It also has some positive side effects. Benefits, increased levels of alertness, euphoria, and relaxation, improved concentration and memory due to increased activity of the, ooh. Riblethalamus. No, two neurotransmitters. reduced anxiety due to the increased levels of beta endorphin which reduces anxiety okay so those are good things it says it can cause bad dreams and nightmares possible blood restriction irregular and disturbed sleep dizziness and lightheadedness that's not for everyone obviously there can be some gastrointestinal bing bing bing side effects diarrhea don't have it you have it no I haven't had it since I quit gluten I don't ever have diarrhea anymore I've had diarrhea probably honestly without having the flu I've had it probably three times or four times in the last two years I mean it totally you know this update I've shared this I had it five days a week when I ate gluten, and now I don't ever have it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, heartburn, peptic ulcers, indigestion. None of these for me. Dry mouth, nausea and vomiting. You don't have that. Side effects on the heart, increased blood pressure, enlarged aorta, altered heart rate and rhythm. Those are potentials. person to person for that, those things and what you already are dealing with, what you already have. But it's good for you. It's working great. And for him, I think he likes it as well. Oh, does Letterman play the drums? Does not play drums professionally, but he is a well-known enthusiast who has played on air and famously admired, questioned and tried to buy drum kits from his musical guests. He held drum week on The Late Show and has appeared in videos playing with professional drummers like Anton Figg. Okay, now, got a great answer for why these musicians blow into the water bottle with the straw. Oh, great. Yeah, he was doing that. That was the first time we had seen that. But I thought on the Taylor doc, and I was like, what is that? What is she doing? Singers blow into a water bottle with a straw, a technique called straw phonation or SOVT, semi-occluded vocal tract exercise, to warm up, rehabilitate, and strengthen their voices by creating back pressure that reduces vocal strain. This gentle therapeutic exercise helps relax the larynx, improves breathing, and massages the vocal cords to reduce fatigue. I thought it was like adding humidity to it I was way off maybe you could try it before an interview because you're talking a lot well let's just see what it does I mean maybe you'll feel like so like maybe it'll fix your coughing I'm blessed in that I have yet to really feel any vocal fatigue even though we do have days where we'll talk for six hours straight yeah but I have yet to I'll lose my voice when I'm with Aaron screaming a lot but other than that I'm pretty good. That's probably because you're not breathing through your diaphragm. Probably do a lot of stuff wrong. Just screaming for too long is not. Yeah, your child was screaming in the backyard. And you texted me, can you hear them? When I could. Screaming with joy, I'll add. Yeah, not screaming with terror. Her and a friend were having a lot of fun back there. She has a friend, they like to do some screaming together. And you said you could relate. Yeah. We didn't scream, but I can relate. I can relate a lot, yeah. Watching her and her friend together remind me a lot of Aaron and I. Watching her and her friend together, which they're such a cute duo. They are. So cute. Remind me that I used to be so hyper when I was, like, that age with my friends. Yeah. And that was, like, a quality assigned to me. I was hyper. And I, like, can't relate to that girl anymore. Right. You're not hyper. At all. I know. You used to drive your grandma crazy, right? Yeah, and I would lick her arm. Yeah. Impulse control. Yeah, and just like run around and be crazy. I would just be crazy and bounce around. Wow. I know that I grew out of that. But it's cute to see. I know. It's shocking to me they're not exhausted after they've been together for two days. But they're not. No, it gives you energy. Yes, it energizes. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. the thing that I relate to is that they are the rest of the world has melted away it has fallen away completely and I'm so happy for her for that feeling there's nothing quite like when you have your little soulmate nothing else is relevant it is the best I know I'm so happy they have each other my ears sometimes well Again, cost-benefit. All right. Love you.