Iron & Wine

You made it weird, you made it weird, you made it weird, oh yeah. You made it weird, you made it weird, yes you did, you made it weird, oh yeah. You made it weird with Pete Holmes. What's happening weirdos? This is an exciting one. This is Samuel Beam, also known as Iron and Wine, one of my favorite performers, musicians, writers. He's incredible. If you don't know Iron and Wine, I don't know what to do with you. They're incredible. They also did the soundtrack for a movie that I just shot last year, which will be out this year, I'm sure, called St. Peter. The soundtrack really elevates the movie because they are that good. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so excited to get into it. Only a couple things to plug. On my end, go to YouTube.com. It's a website. And you can watch my new special that I filmed in Portland, Oregon. It's called Silly, Silly Fun Boy. People have been finding it and loving it, and that means so much to me. I worked really hard on it. I think it's my best special to date. and you can watch it absolutely free on YouTube. Silly, silly fun boy. This is my kid's book, Spells to Cast on Your Parents. It's a book of real life magical spells that kids can cast on their parents to prove to a little dragon named Jesse who guards the book that says it's only for wizards. So you kind of have to prove that you're magic to make sure he doesn't burn your buns to a crisp. So check that out. You can order it wherever you get your books and pre-orders really help us get that book out there and I'm very proud of it. So consider pre-ordering that. And also go to PeteHolmes.com. I got my tour dates. I'm going to go to my own website right now, which feels kind of weird. Tallahassee, Irving, Texas, Los Angeles, Denver, Durham, Charleston, Sacramento, Vancouver, Madison, Seattle, Portland, and San Diego. All of them are on PeteHolmes.com. In the meantime, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for checking it out. Samuel Beam, iron and wine. 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Pour them in your green bin. Or have Mill get them to a small farm so the food you don't eat can help grow the food you do, just like it should be. It's why I own a mill, why I invest in Mill, and why I'm still obsessed with my mill. If you want to get obsessed too, go to mill.com slash wiser to get $75 off. That's mill.com slash wiser for $75 off. Hi, it's Julia Louis-Dreyfus here, and I can't wait for you to hear our new episode of Wiser Than Me with Cindy Lauper on Amazon Music. Cindy may be a girl who just wants to have fun, but for 40 years she has brought playfulness and a dash of punk to some serious activism. We talk about her lifelong LGBTQ plus advocacy, her astonishing music career, and pick up a whole lot of wisdom along the way. Listen now only on Amazon Music, included with Prime. How are you? I'm good. I like your... That's a bold. So an Enneagram 4, just to include you, is the individualist. And I have a sinking... I'm an Enneagram 4, but in like a... Who cares? But I get the feeling that you might be just because of your beard. And your hair. And your clothes. Use the mic. We'll just start on this. And everything that's on the outside. And everything about you. Well, it's one of the reasons I love your music is it's not... I would say that a lot of pop music, and I like pop music, is often trying... I mean, like, real manufactured, like, guys got together and built a group. And they're trying to make something that's, like, that is falling into the norm. And I tend to like music like yours where the vocal is interesting, the guitar is interesting, the production is interesting. But interesting is just another way of saying standing out. It's trying to stand out a little bit. Oh, yeah. Or not afraid to be personal and unique. Can I interrupt? Please. You've been talking too much. Shut the fuck up. No, it's painful to not be yourself. Would you agree with that? I mean, yeah, I definitely would because I suck at being other people. I'm the worst at being other people. But some people like it. Some people, well, with full, I'm obsessed with my wife, Val. She does mirror people. That's one of her strategies. My strategy is to send out sonar pings of like, I'm weird like this. Will you join me? Yeah. But Val will go like, you would love her. It's a great way to. I already do. Are you familiar with Val? Okay. Some people are. You never know. She's on the show. But for me, that feels unsafe, like on a fundamental level, to misrepresent how I'm feeling and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Tell me what that is. No, I definitely recognize that for sure. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of times in making art that I just need to get out of my own way. I'm like so stubbornly myself. Yes. It would be nice to just sort of be able to absorb other things and other, yeah. Am I hearing you right? Like, you could, you know, put in something. This is not a, I love your music. Thanks, man. But you could, like, try to, like, back into some hook or a collaboration. Yeah, yeah. No, honestly, lately, that's been the best, most exciting part of what I do, yes. Collaborating with other people and doing other things. Yeah. I mean, you can only smell your own breath so long. That's so funny. It's from Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which I'm reading to my daughter. he gets up on Saturdays because he can only smell his breath for so long, so it's kind of weird that you said that. I actually meant the more not nefarious, but the more marketing-based collaboration. Somebody might be like, you should do something with... And I like Post Maloney. I'm not... Oh, no, I know what you mean, though. Hold on, I'm just saying somebody might be like, you should do it, but they're trying to force it or something. Well, it's the only way to... It's like they're trying to constantly make a new Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. That's exactly right. You love chocolate. you love peanut butter you got my salmon my post yeah that's exactly right but you know instead of because the music kind of sounds the same so but they're just trying to you know just see what they're trying to market it yeah well like you know like a marvel movie can often be very similar to they figured out a long time ago yeah yeah they figured it out but you want the hulk and captain america doing uh each other or each other hardcore that would go huge so big i feel like hulk has to be a bottom out of courtesy out of courtesy it's not his preference it's just it's a safety what a weird place to start you're you're so welcome i'm such a fan thank you for being here we don't know how to say that but i do want to like fold oh man yeah you don't do a whole lot of musicians you seem to have mostly comedians which is amazing to see people behind you know without the microphone on the stage, just sort of being themselves. It's really fun. I got the heyday of that, man. Like, I think people might be a little bit more tired. Well, certainly are more tired of that. I got, like, because we've been doing the show for over, I don't know, over a decade. Wow. And now, I know. And at the beginning, boy, we were just, like, let out of the penitentiary, and we were just like, oh, my God, what's your process? And now I do think people are a little tired of comedians selling their own farts. well you know my work on thursday let me tell you yeah so we've had a good amount of musicians musicians am i saying that right musicians musicians on and it's always a nice um change yeah but also very similar yeah i am do you do you relate to the comedians you know and the the lifestyle or the approach or definitely the travel you know yeah yeah or just you know developing a thing that you present in front of people yeah regularly and like would you agree a persona i mean yeah iron in one i mean you even named yourself something else as if to say yeah just know this is like that version right of me yeah you guys should do that instead of like we do i mean i know i know you mean i figure out a band name you i know i should be like tuna tuna time you're gonna go see tuna time yeah and call yourself bottom hulk bottom hulk productions bottom hulk and then in parentheses it's not his preference it's a safety issue bottom hulk is safe you do have a good can i ask kind of a i hope it's not embarrassing but you No, that's very kind of you. Thank you. But listening to you, you want... I love the way you play, and I love the way you sing, and, like, the whole thing. Thanks. I want to hear what you're saying. And people want to listen to poetry, but no one does. You know what I mean? Are you that way? When I hear a poem, I'm like, why don't I start every day with a poem? Yeah, I do the same thing. I need to read more. I need to read more poetry, like, specifically. It'll touch me. And I'm even on mailing lists where I get mailed poems And I just Spam Sometimes it's spam Free verse this Like I don't want them to touch me In my heart Stop touching me Well there's only so many You know you have these poems that you love so much That have moved you and made you think of life Your life differently But they're not all like that Bro It's like bad improv Good improv Amazing amazing bad improv how do you feel about music if you're in the nashville airport and there's a lot of local nashville musicians playing yeah sometimes you you walk by and you're like oh my god blown away that's amazing and but you might hear somebody up and coming how do you feel about underdeveloped music with kindness you might even include yourself in that like Can you like bad pizza, or is it too painful to listen to? Oh, you know, but it's also, I mean, there's definitely both great and terrible, or usually just kind of boring. But it's also funny, music is such a strange thing to interact with, because, well, not strange, but it's just fun, because when you're young, you hear things, and you're like, oh my God, it's incredible, I've never heard anything like that. And you get obsessed, and then later you hear it, and you're like, man, I don't know, it's okay. but also the opposite sometimes you're you know something you just missed or you don't know you didn't like at all but you hear it later in your life you're like oh okay because wouldn't you agree that music has like fingerprints all over it sometimes i won't like something because it was my dad's right right i'll be like fuck that that's my dad yeah yeah i was just thinking about like john mulaney uh whenever he does snl i feel like he has the talking heads he loves the talking head and i'm sorry i'm blanking as you should Yeah, I know. David Byrne. David Byrne. Yeah. And I just said to Matt McCarthy, my dear friend, I was like, I don't know why, but when I hear Talking Heads, I just go like, this is just my dad's music. I hate this. I hate my father. I don't hate it, but it is so much closer to an issue with my dad than it is an issue with that. But I'll hear it, and I'm being driven to school. Yeah. So the association is different. Right. And I almost envy that John can hear it. Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm like, how do you get past? Because it is older, so I kind of think about being a child. It's why you had a song in the Twilight movie, one of the Twilight movies, and people have this, they probably love that song. Yeah. Because it was the vampire people. Yeah. Is that what you said? Yeah. And the concert is like a vampire detection device. They start freaking out? Yeah. What do you mean? They go paler. You know who the vampires are, yeah. They go one shade whiter. It's fun. It's amazing. But like the music, and I'm talking too much. I'm excited to meet you. Excited to meet you. I want to give it to you, though. The music fingerprints, it's like an iPhone. It's so impressionable. So pairing it with a movie is a really smart thing to do. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because it makes people go like, oh, I remember that time when I saw... Or seeing a concert is sort of like a big version of like, well, he played that. Like, I like the song... Oh, no. You think you're going to take her away with your money and your cocaine? Oh, yeah, yeah. She's going to listen to her heart. Yeah. I like that song more because when I saw him at the Hollywood Bowl, he opened with it. Oh, nice. And it kind of confirmed. I was like, I knew that was a good one. But I have this memory. I had your back, Tom. I knew I liked that song for a reason I used to think it was a B-side but then he opened the show with it did he end the song go Pete you were right and then he threw me a cigarette I was like TP but when I hear that song now I remember that where I was standing this is obvious what I'm saying wouldn't you agree that as you're trying to get music out there in a world that, disagree if you want, but it seems like there's so many music. There's so many music. There's so many music. To put it in a Canadian way, there's much music. There's so much Canadian music. I just mean like, you ever been on YouTube and you're like, Jesus, this person is ripping it. They're amazing. I do. It's like a big who cares. So when you're trying to get music heard, right? Talk about that. I can't keep talking. I'll pre-associate this whole episode I'm just saying you see what I'm saying like it needs to be married to an event or a movie or a thing yeah yeah what are your thoughts? I mean how to break through break through or to the other side yeah yo they played it on a late night show the Doors played that song on late night they did and it was an event yeah we don't have that anymore so you have to be like I feel like if I knew the answer to that question like how to always break through you'd be on the Joe Rogan experience right now Who could tell you, try to convince you that they know how. Yeah. It's just, you know, sometimes there's a formula and then sometimes it's just pure luck. Yeah. You know, serendipity. But I do think it's wild how, yeah, music is like an accessory. It's like different than a lot of the other art forms where you, like even painting, you go to the painting and you stand in front of the painting. Mm-hmm. Or play or, you know, a movie. You come to that, yeah. Yeah. Pretty much all the others, you have to give yourself over to it. Whereas music is an accessory, and that's why we associate parts of our life with the sound and this experience. The cliche is, I lost my virginity to that song. So it's an also ran. Are we saying the same thing? You wouldn't watch a movie, and they wouldn't be playing stand-up underneath the breakup scene. It's possible. It's possible. They do a new market. This is a new market I'm going for. They could. I feel like Noah Baumbach would do that. It would be a great stand-up clip, and they're breaking up. But you just hear Louis C.K. That's a new way. But it would distract. Music has the ability to completely overwhelm your senses. When you let it in, it's too much. It can light you up. Sometimes, yeah. Like Christmas, really. Or it can be in the background, and you're like, that was perfect. That was the perfect use of that song. Yeah. It's also funny how some people are more sensitive to it than others. Some people are like, yeah, that's cool. And then other people, it moves their mind. I'll say as a more, yeah, it's cool person, sorry to disappoint, it's actually because it gets in me too, it's almost unbearable. You put up your defensive. So I put up a defense. Above a wall. I think most of it, a lot of it is really quite horrible. You're not getting in this Pete. You can't come in. and then just like with people that guard to stop like let's say a shitty earworm from getting in me at the at the supermarket it's a weird sentence i might be i might be poo-pooing good stuff but i do the same thing with people yeah yeah you know what i mean i don't like that guy's t-shirt or his hair or whatever and like that might have been my best friend yeah but it's actually an over sensitivity to music because when i if i'm spacious and resourced and i listen to one song from almost anybody it'll just yeah i'll just cry that somebody yeah of all the horrible things you could do you could punch somebody you could burn down a building they did this and they shared it like i'll just be overwhelmed by that it almost doesn't matter who it is it's a juicy wormhole it's a juicy wormhole you like that are you it's a dumb thing to say but like yeah you like i i have a hard time i i am like you and it's really sensitive to it where i don't listen to a whole lot of music anymore. Yeah. It's just not a passive experience, you know? Can I say? I bet you will. Can I? Yeah. I'm gonna. Like Travis, whatever can I say on his belly, that's how I feel. It's not a passive experience. Yeah. Yeah. All of it. Art. All of it. All of art is not passive, and it's crowding in there. Yeah, yeah. And I kind of envy, not really, but I can sort of envy people that are just like, I eat it all. I go to Bonnaroo and I just watch everybody. I'm like, what? Yeah, there are people who are not, you know, they can take pain in a lot of ways than other people. You know, they have different receptors. I think a lot of creative types are very sensitive, whether they share it or admit it or not, especially a lot of comedians. I completely agree. Do you count yourself in that? Comedian? Not comedian. Well, you had Bottom Hulk. You had the best laugh at the pod. I just think you guys should be able to, you know, you have no idea how many band names come up in the van or the bus or whoever. Every time we're talking, he's like, that's a good band name. Why don't you guys get to do it? I know. I do think in the silliest, lightest way, deciding to call myself Pete, that's a little tell of what you're dealing with. If I was like, if you're going to go see Peter Holmes. That's true. I think that guy's more of a storyteller. Maybe he reads the newspaper and just riffs on it. Oh, Peter. Of the gentry. But Pete is like, hey. And I'm just, yeah. What's up with Pete? Pete. Oh, yeah, I love Pete. And Pete Holmes. Pete Holmes. Yeah, Pete Holmes. There's a speediness to it. Peter. The R in Pete. Peter slows you down. It should be over. Yeah, that's too much. But then here comes Holmes. By the time you finish the R, you could be dead. For somebody with a stage name, you have a great name. though. What's your full name? Samuel Irvin Beam. Say it on the marquee, that's lame. Samuel Irvin Beam. That's the only reason I picked a band name, because Sam Beam on a marquee just sounds stupid. Sam Beam? Sam Beam. It doesn't roll out. It's that mba. Samuel Irvin? Yeah, Irvin. Irvin's like the name of a backwoods serial killer in a movie. I'm not saying it really There is. Yeah, yeah, Irvin. It sure is. Irvin's coming. Or it's like Hollywood's guess it was like a Mormon priest would be named Irvin. It's an older name, yeah. It's an old name is all I'm saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. But I'm not mad at it. I do think you could have been Samuel Irvin Beam. You know, to be blunt, when I was a kid, people called me Sammy. And then when I got a little older, I went to college, like, I'm Sam now. And I kind of wish that I hadn't because Sammy is much more fun to say. Sammy Beam. Right. But Sammy Beam is somebody. You know what I mean? Like, that's Sammy Beam. If you were like, I'm Sammy Beam. People would be like, this from a Sammy? But they would never know because it wouldn't be on the marquee. Marquee. But it would say Sammy, but it says I don't want it. Exactly. You chose that because you just didn't like the way that Sam Beam looked on the marquee. Yeah. Simple. That simple. And it was a supplement, I read. Because I was going straight to the top. I had my career-minded decisions making at the very beginning. See? I felt that. You know what the world needs? Some quiet, broken banjo-sounding thing. You were at the forefront of quiet, broken banjo, though. I mean, if there was a stock called quiet, bearded, broken banjo. I saw this unused ladder straight to the top. And I was like, why is no one taking this? Well, I'll tell you as someone who lived pre-broken banjo quiet beard guy, nobody saw that guy. We didn't know we wanted it. It was right there. The ladder was right there. It was right there. And you and Sufjan, I guess? I took him off the ladder. Get the fuck out of there. He was like, get out of there. Feel the ill of pain? I don't know if that made any sense. how about samila pain it's a great thing to say before you throw stoopy on stevens off the ladder but he i mean right i mean it was them yeah i guess like band of horses they don't have banjos but like that whole not yet not yet yeah don't discount the horses don't discount them but like to your thing like there there's something about the highly sensitive people and i think we are an Anxious Generation, but we don't want to listen to Enya. I'm not calling you Enya. Again, I'm not going to... I love those records. I listen to Enya sometimes. Yeah. What's wrong with it? But there was something kind of, that's our mom's music or something, like that's spa music. But I wanted something to make my heart go down a little bit. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Totally. I don't want jock jams. Totally. Talk about that. Tell me what that makes you feel. Well, I mean, you don't always want it. You know, there's some people who look at music as a very, like, utilitarian tool to put me in a mood that I want to get from here to there. Yeah. You know, whereas, you know, there's lots of different types of music. How do you look at it? I mean, I definitely rock with that stuff sometimes. You know, you just want to, you like feel like a, yeah. Especially when I was younger, I played, like, you know, a lot of my friends are in metal bands and stuff. We just listen to a lot of just, you know, because you've just got a lot of energy. But when I sit to write a thing, that's not usually where I'm coming from because it's just not my personality. Now, look, will you allow me? You're sitting down to write. Are you looking? This is going to sound so stupid, but are you trying to get your lasso around a feeling? Is that the idea? Are you trying to make me feel how you feel? Oh, no, because I don't know how I feel. I don't really go into it like thinking of a topic that I want to talk about you. You're just sort of engaging with writing. Sometimes a thought comes and you write it down. Honestly, most of the time I'm sitting with a guitar mumbling nonsense, just finding a melody like a song, and then a word will pop out, and then you start building from there. Or sometimes a phrase will come out fully formed, and then you just start developing a thing, looking for a way through the fog. Searching for Sugar Man. I think I know what that documentary is about. Exactly. It's about writing a song. Yeah. Okay, so you're not the first to tell me this. Do you carry a notebook? Are you writing things down, little phrases? Yeah, yeah. And the phone, too, a lot. Do you sing melodies to your phone? Yeah. You do? Yeah. Will you play them? All the time, yeah. Will you? I think it would be helpful to the musicians listening. Let's see about that. Or at least the people... No, but I know what you mean. It's just an embryonic thing. Let's see. Embryonic. Embryonica. That's my dubstep. You play the embryonica? I play the embryonica. It's like the harmonium. Like it's a distance instrument. Like the bagpipes. People run away when you play. No idea what this is. Let's see. I'm excited. See, I mean... Oh, keep going. It's good. It's good. You can almost make a word out of that. Yeah, you know, it's a bunch of garbage. That you're just sort of like looking for some sound hook or some word that pops out. Because if it's going to sound good, interesting, whatever. For lack of a better word, we'll say good, interesting. to me it might sound good interesting to you you're just kind of the first to hear it when you say it yeah I never understand why people think oh people will like this I have no idea what people like I don't think people can predict that the most popular songs of mine have been ones that I never have thought not b-sides but like you were like beeswax beeswax and your b-sides that's how musicians talk who threw sufiyan off that ladder and your b-sides it's like a street your b-sex and your b-sex that's what honey is that sure is it's just what it is guys sorry they think we're freaks they think we're freaks you know they're eating it right we just come in their home take their sex afterglow they come in our home we put they come in our home and we put it on our toast. To the bees, we are the kinkiest group. Yeah, they go out and fuck the flowers and then we clean up. We're their honey dumpsters. Yeah, that buzzing sound. It's just, if you slow it down, it's like they're going, ugh, ugh. Ugh yeah exactly Ugh ugh Come on we hear it because we so far away It that is good It dark You know they freaky They call one the queen Yes, my queen. That is a kink. Yes, my queen. My sweet syrup is on its way, my queen. This is getting too much for me. I like it. Muchos. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You guys know I love therapy. Val loves therapy. We talk about it on the show all the time, how it has been a huge game changer in both of our lives. And something I think we don't talk about enough is financial stress, money stuff. It's not just about numbers. It's about anxiety. It's sleep. It's relationships. And I know for me, I get money stress. I grew up with a lot of weird beliefs around money. Like if things weren't working or if I wasn't being productive or producing in a certain way, it didn't just mean it wasn't working. It meant there was something wrong with me fundamentally and there was something defective. Therapy can help with that, especially with money stuff. Trust me on that. It's about helping you deal with that stress and those stories you're carrying around money. It can help you unpack that stuff, build healthier habits, and just feel less alone about it, which is huge. BetterHelp has over 30,000 licensed therapists and help more than 6 million people worldwide. You just fill out a short questionnaire, and they match you with a therapist. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch any time. And it's entirely online. It is so easy and fast and helps. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Sign up for 10% off at betterhelp.com slash weirdo. That's betterhelp.com slash weirdo. I order everything online. So why would blinds be different? Why am I going to a store under fluorescent lighting to look at blinds all day? There's a better way to buy blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery, and it is called 3-Day Blinds. They are the leading manufacturer of high quality custom window treatments in the U.S. And right now you can use my URL, three day blinds dot com slash weird. They're running a buy one, get one half off deal. Fifty percent off the second one. They bring the showroom to you. It's so easy. A professionally trained design consultant with like 10 plus years of experience comes to your home, helps you choose what actually works in your space and gives you a free no obligation quote the same day. And then they handle everything, which is great for me. Design, measure, install, no guessing, no stress. Plus, you can choose from thousands of options, including light filtering, blackout, and even motorized blinds that work with Alexa, which is honestly amazing. We are doing this for our game room. We're putting blackout curtains or shades up in there. Black it out, Zelda, big screen, amazing. Right now, get quality window treatments that fit your budget with 3-Day Blinds. Head to 3dayblinds.com slash weird for their buy one, get one 50% off deal on custom blides, shades, shutters, and drapery blinds for a free, no charge, no obligation consultation. Head to 3dayblinds.com slash weird. One last time, that's buy one, get one 50% off when you head to the number three, D-A-Y blinds.com slash weird. Do you ever find yourself scrolling through headlines, especially health headlines, and just thinking that can't be true? Well, I certainly do. 2025 brought us some ridiculous far-fetched health claims and some especially terrifying changes in public health. What's in store for us in 2026? I'm Chelsea Clinton, and we're back with season two of my podcast, That Can't Be True. Follow along and catch up on season one wherever you get your podcasts. Where were we? Lasso around a feeling is the last thing. No, no, that's not where we were. We were talking about you're the first to hear it. Oh, you don't know what's going to be good. But that's also just my process. You know, there are definitely people who say, I had a thought this morning, and I'm going to write a song about it this morning. And they could probably nail it and make all of us feel that way. It's just not what I go into writing for. Okay, well, I'm trying to see where you are on the spectrum. I know, so Matt Berninger from The National, who also is a mumbler. He'll listen to the song and he mumbles. I love Matt so much. He was looking for that phrase. So he put out his solo record, Serpentine Prison. And I'm like, what is that? And he's like, it's a serpentine prison. It's a serpentine prison. I think he was like, it's nothing. And then he'll write, he's very open about this. The rest of the song is like rhyming dictionary. There's a lot of rhyming gang that goes on. So the song is... Yeah. But it seems a little, I hate to force the word shamanic, but it's in the way that you're kind of just trying to manifest a dream. Yeah, yeah. A dream, something vague. And you're honoring like, well, this came out of nowhere, like everything. Right. And now I'm going to build around it to like support it. And then something like... Well, tell me about like Naked As We Came. Was that like how... Well, I don't remember how, what came first, you know, maybe eyes wide open or something. And then you just start thinking of, you kind of back up and try to think about what that might, what scenario that might work in. And it's a lot of trial and error. You try stuff out and keep shaping things. But yeah, a lot of, like, Serpentine Prison, you know, if you heard that, like someone said, I'm going to read you this poem. the serpentine prison was you know i entered the serpentine prison at it you know yeah um you might say i don't know it doesn't do it but if you hear it with music sometimes the music like does half the work and you're just trying to find some balance because you also it's tricky because um words make your brain take your brain out of the music you know what i mean so you're always trying to find this balance between like is it too much because totally and try to make them do this little handshake, the words and the music. We had a little dance party and we put on Billie Jean and I was like, these lyrics are like, it's like a mess, but it has like, people always told me. We love people always told me. You know what I mean? I'm just saying like, he's explaining that someone says that he's the father of their kid. But like, who cares? But it's just interesting enough to be a song but not so interesting yeah you know it could be too interesting yeah yeah he had like he was good at like just the suggestive like suggest a story like the edges of a story the edges of us the bleeding edge of a story just enough yeah okay to go back to what you were saying that guitar part does sound i could see you you're taking me to the place where you're like eyes wide open right and then you're going and that's kind of like tell me if this is how it feels it clicks like that's what it wants to be like there's a there's a tuning or a true north and you go oh okay there it is right yeah you're looking for yeah because it could have been like yeah walking backwards that's stupid like it can feel effortful you know what i mean yeah yeah snow is falling oh that's schmaltzy but the thing there's no right or wrong answer depending on what the next phrase was right or what you put before right that's what the best thing about it Math sucks. No right or wrong. Wait, what sucks? It said math sucks. I hate doing math. You know, there's always like you're the right or wrong. Yeah. Where music is not. It's the opposite. You totally nailed me. I hated that I couldn't argue that three was the answer. But then in English, you could explain, I don't think this play worked. And they would hear you out. Yeah, totally. You really touched on something there when we were forced to do math. And we're trying to get... Not for me. Talk about being a four. I'm trying to get the same answer as everybody. Yeah. I'd rather fail. I'm me. Yeah, I'm me. My answer was zebra, bitch. That's my bad. Your mic just cut out because you were squeezing. Oh, how's this? How's this? I'm squeezing. Stop squeezing. Stop squeezing. On my sweet math riff? Squeeze on your own time. Still plays. It picked up on yours. I'm loud. Squeeze it on your own time. Squeeze that shit on your own time. do you ever talk about your mic picking up stuff do you ever use things that you weren't didn't even know you were recording or it was an accident sometimes yeah you try to just keep the thing yeah more and more often I'm looking for the surprise rather than you know building something I mean I like to come in with like a script that I worked on you know some lyrics and stuff but then be open to whatever else comes up with that happens all the time in acting and all sorts of things comedy for sure yeah yeah and i wonder if that change ever happens on stage because there's something about the adrenaline of the crowd and oh sure yeah you are saying the thing you were afraid to say or or maybe you weren't sure about but they embolden you is that an experience oh totally yeah totally yeah yeah every every show is a little different you know just and the dynamic you know between takes if the ensemble is um cooking yeah and in tune and listening and reacting to yeah it can be very different you know i love that yeah you get in a pocket yeah yeah it's fun have you learned and you're not always like really aware of what's happened of what you're the overall uh achievement is you know until you go out and listen again like because everyone comes out they're like it was take number two i swear to god it's take number two and then you go back and you listen it was take number one or it was take number four and we were like oh that was when it's so again not math yeah not math this is so not math there's so many music and this is so many uh yeah keep going please it sounded like you had a little more i was saying yeah so many musics so many i'm gonna figure out how the right balance of interrupting i'm gonna figure it out by the See, by the end, you're going to come out and you're going to say, it was the exact right amount of interrupting all along. You saw me shaking my head, nodding. I wasn't even paying attention. Yeah, good for you. That's what I was talking. But the humility, I'm 46 and I'm just going like, it's a beautiful thing that you were just touching on. We don't know. Yeah. And that's beautiful. And so much of commercialism and marketing and, like I said, trying to chase the way to break through and the box office or the smash record or whatever it might be. Yeah. We don't know. And there's not a lot of we don't know there. They're trying to figure out we know. Yeah, yeah. And what I'm reminded of when you say that is, like, the humility that's required and sort of the courage to be embarrassed and wrong. look yeah the way that i related to that was when you're editing a comedy special i will always go it was the second show because i was warmed up and then we go to the second show and i'm like juiced i'm feeling myself i'm going too fast i'm riffing yeah or you're riffing off an idea of what you thought happened the other night right you know what i mean like i'm pushing it right pushing this because i think i needed to but it's not actually what was happening in the no and then you watch the first one where i was nervous or sweaty or unsure and that energy actually worked great for that joke there's a it's a similar thing like with music you get familiar enough where you're still discovering the thing but you're also um once you memorize it then you're just regurgitating and no one really doesn't no one that doesn't taste good to anybody right you want it except birds but you want it baby birds you want to be asking am i am i right beautiful baby birds beautiful baby birds flightless birds i try to work you into it swish but uh you i'm so with you the danger is you turn your own idea it's a teacher of mine said this it's like carrying a wet stone from the ocean it's so beautiful when it's wet and you walk it back to the beach and it's dried up and it's like you've just done it too many times this is why i'm careful it's gonna sound like bullshit but it's true i'm careful to not perform too much if i perform too much it just becomes a guy yeah yeah doing like a like a franchise show like i'm just i'm just yelling out this yeah yeah but like i want to be asking and just like you're saying you want to merge with the other musicians in the studio i'm trying to merge with the crowd and go like can we be listening yeah you know what i mean and actually find it right and it's so great and it's often this take that i i it wasn't when i said it perfectly right now yeah bob dylan said that all his best ones were the live shows and he's like in the records i think he was sort of sixes on the record who are you talking about robert dylan he went by uh the stage name plums and peaches perhaps you know better as his stage name it was actually plums plums plumsy peaches plumsy peaches that sounds like something he would have done in the like the Because it was Spanish. Plumsy peaches. Yeah, it was Spanish speaking. When he was wearing the white makeup and Scorsese was following him around, he's like, bring me out as plumsy peaches. I'm not Bob Dylan anymore. That's pretty good. That was pretty good, actually. It came out right. Oh, yeah. See, we can't know. Yeah. That's because you had never done it before. You're just experienced it for the first time. Okay, so. Try it again. Only to prove your point. Yeah. Plumsy peaches. No. No. It's gone. Yeah. It's gone. That is a dry stone. my friend it dried up by the time we reached the blanket okay so we don't know and we have to be humble and and wouldn't you say that a big part of your job or your life let's it doesn't have to be your job but your process is just like tolerating the uncertainty because because this approach has to lead to nights where you're like we just spent all that money on that studio and i don't even think we got oh yeah anything uh i mean uh i don't make those kind of records anymore yeah i definitely have and yeah you're like well time well spent well take take the studio out yeah i brought a financial but as far as like um digging into writing yeah you spend a whole day and not get anything are you doing it at home is that where yeah yeah i mean i do it wherever um uh Because I don't have like a set thing that I have to achieve in the day. You know, honestly, if you get a word a day, that's pretty good. Pretty good. 365 words makes a lot of songs. I was also, just real quick, back to where. You, Black, that's good. You're leaving the gym and you threw a basketball over your corner. And then you just kept walking like nothing happened. A word a day, 365 words a year, is a lot of songs. It's a lot, yeah. It's great. It's a lot of songs. Clip it. to be helpful, not viral. Helpful! And viral. Sorry, it's stupid. Keep going. You were talking about before where you try to stay fresh and you put things away not to wear them out. We, you know, at this point there's a lot of songs we can switch in and out, you know, not have to worry about it too much. Do you guys do that with the comedy? Oh yeah. I'll shovel this for years. Yeah. Then you bring it back and you're like, have you ever had this? Yeah. You have something. It's your go-to. It's your favorite. It stops working. It dries up. Yeah, yeah. It's like a relationship. Yeah, what happened? What happened? Yeah. You listen to the tape of when you did it earlier. Yeah. You're disciplined. I don't always. Sometimes I just go, well, and I move on. But if I do go back, I'm like, it's just like a good date. Why was that date so good? Yeah, yeah. And it goes down to your hormones and all these X factors. Yeah, yeah. And now you are just a guy saying, but I feel that way. Like you're saying your music doesn't make sense or by itself, it kind of looks like bad poetry sometimes, but then you add the music and it's a great song. I can feel that way. Like if sometimes it gets distilled down to just what I'm saying and what I'm saying actually isn't that interesting. Yeah. What I was saying was an excuse for this like participation that was actually quite engaging. But I started to think I was actually talking about desks in the 90s, which is a real example. I had a great bit. It was like this killer bit about desks in the 90s. That's a hard thing to say. Desks in the 90s. Say it like ten times. Desks. Desks. Desks. Desks. Desks in the 90s. Next time you do a sound check, will you please? Desks in the 90s. Desks in the 90s. Desks. It's the worst. Desks in the 90s. Yeah, we had tape. Every desk had tape on it. Yeah. What were we taping? And gum. And gum and a little candy. Okay, adding to the bit. But then it dries up. What were we saying? You've had that experience. Oh, and then sometimes you bring back 90s Desk and it murders again. But what was going on there? I know. Yeah, it's also like we're only talking about it like our experience of it, our perception of what's happening in that moment. Whereas like I've had shows where I was barely hanging out. I was like checked out, just regurgitating, blah, blah, blah, blah. and someone would come up to it, that was the best show I've ever seen. And you're like, you're a liar, but it's my favorite lie I've heard all day. But it was. It wasn't a lie. Yeah, exactly. I don't think it was a lie. You don't think it was a lie either. No, yeah, I'm kidding. I put my hand up. I couldn't agree more. And Val, my wife, who we've already discussed, one of her main gifts to me is just going, is reminding me, you don't know what their experience was. Sometimes your voice hurts. Sometimes you're sweaty, you ate the wrong thing, you didn't eat enough, whatever it is. And just exactly what you're saying. Usually what you ate, though. It could have been what you ate. Yeah. Are you careful like that? I'll talk about that for nine years. Like your pre-show stuff. You are? No, not really. I don't really use my voice the way most people do. You know, mine's sort of a conversational thing. Oh, no. Janis Joplin is like, fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. this guy's leaving a voicemail at 2 a.m. Fuck you. Like, she's got to wail and bring it. So true. But, I mean, I'm only going to say it one last time. I love what you do. But, like, I said the same thing to Matt. I think you should just bring that as, like, just your catch. I love what you do. No, no, you're, every day. Janis Jobs is like, fuck you. Meanwhile, Janis Jobs is like, fuck you. Don't explain it. Yeah. Oh, can we sell bumper stickers that say Janis Joplin says fuck you? Got to put that one in your pocket. Bro, we could do it, except we're in a post-meaning world. Yeah. It won't mean anything. Yeah, I know. Why'd I bring it up? I guess that's a wrap. We're done. Thank you so much for being here. But I couldn't believe we got both iron and wine. Okay, come on. That's stupid. Iron E-wine. Iron E-wine. Iron E-wine. Oh, it was back. It came back. He came back! I have to not be expecting it. You have to push me into a Bob Dylan impression, or it'll be really, really bad. You have to do Bob Dylan doing Janis Joplin. Don't you want somebody to love your eyes? That wasn't bad. Janis Joplin said, fuck you. Janis Joplin said, fuck you. What's his name? That was pretty good. That would be great. That's what makes that your new ringtone. Fuck you. it's like when I don't fuck you it gets worse every time I go back to it yeah you just do it once that's the secret but you did pick like real talk I say to other comedians no I don't no I don't I say it on this podcast never have but I'm like pick your persona wisely meaning I like that I have a persona that can be angry he can be silly they'll allow it if I want to be mad they'll allow it if I want to be corny. And I like that freedom. And there's some people that have to be low energy. That's what they do. Or they have to be mean. That's what they do. Or they have to be even worse than having to be mean, I think, is having to be really nice. Always and only ever nice. I have some jokes in my act right now that are straight up mean. And I love it. And nobody goes like, refund. It's a wonderful thing. But no joke. Refund! Bullshit! Have you met Bob Dylan? I feel like I just did. I feel like I just did. Have you met me? Now I don't need to. You don't need to. What I'm wondering is, have you ever stopped to give thanks that you did? Your style is easier on your voice. Like just that. Luckiest man on the planet. Right? Do you feel that? Totally. I feel very lucky. I just stumbled into it. What if you were Okerell River? Am I saying that right? Okerell River? ochre old ochre old how do you say it ochre i always said ochre i've never said it out loud you know who i'm talking about i do yeah what if you were the cold war kids they shout fuck dude yeah that's that's hard yeah yeah and i said people would say most people they're screaming screaming and yeah it's helpful to project yeah yeah it's there's a lot of sound People who work with me, they much prefer me to do that. Can we get a little effort? A little effort? Jamie Johnson, Jamie! Fuck you! Yes, I love that. But you... Yeah, I feel lucky. Your warm-ups are like... All right, let's go. Sounds good to me. This on? All right, let's go. I mean, do you have to warm up your voice very much? You'd almost sound better if you don't really warn me Yeah It depends There's some songs where I dig in a bit But I don't do this first With respect, of course you do Because I said the same thing to Matt From the National I was like, oh you put to really nice range But in some songs he's going real Yeah, and his voice is just naturally a bit more Boomy You know, he does it and it's like But if you were there beside him It's like Yeah, it's true, it's not quiet you're actually quite quiet I'd probably bring this up I'm embarrassed but so many musicians do this and when they do the show we talk about Underneath the Bridge where Kurt Cobain was lying down do you know that story? in five seconds because everybody's heard it but they couldn't get it right and they took a break and he was just doing it on the guitar laying down and they moved the mics over to him so it wasn't even in the studio it was in the lobby of Sound City they brought it over and they got it so that's kind of like your magic pocket right is like there's stories of uh james jamerson the bass player on like um uh what's going on that record and like a bunch of motel there's stories of him doing that too like he would put his because he was drunk oh he'd lay down yeah and just nail it oh my god it's so good oh my god tasty yeah it's a funny thing you never know um sometimes that's the answer just back up and be open to what, you know, you have an idea, like you're supposed to do it this way, and you just keep trying and trying. It's not works. Yes. There's not really, again, not math. Not math. And again, I'm going to say shamanic. There's something about. You're always saying that. I know. I can't stop saying shamanic. God help me. I mean, like, all kidding aside, God help me. I can't stop saying shamanic. When I say shamanic, I'm talking about someone who's interested in getting their personality out of the way for a direct connection to like a void-like space of creativity. So we don't have to say shamanic, it's just faster. But like a drunk guy laying down, playing the bass. We know, you know, having done voiceover, like you park in the lot of the place where you're going to do the audition and comfortable, low heart rate in your car. It sounds great in your car. you can do it you're like mine a key mine a key it's a family friend in your in your car's ass it's a family your family your family's in your car's ass mine a key and then you go in and now your heart rate is up and you're like mine a key sorry can we go like I've been in uh sound booths and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears and like you don't nobody tells you music and i really want you to weigh in on that uh and voiceover and performing so much of it to me is manufacturing something comfortable like let me pretend i'm comfortable you know what i'm saying yeah oh totally tell me totally well um i never played shows before um i put out records like i It never wasn't my thing. Records were first. Yeah. Well, I signed up with Sub Pop for this record label called Sub Pop. And they go, you should consider going on tour. You don't know Sub Pop. Nirvana. Right? That's right. I've heard of them. That's right. That's right. With one end in the middle, not the comedy duo. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. So Sub Pop, and they said what? They suggested you should consider about going on tour. and learning how to play concerts because I'd never done a show. This sounds awesome. Maybe you are the luckiest person in the world. I do think I am. I don't think it's a question, really. I don't think it is either. I'm getting the sense because touring is what's a drag. Live performing. I'm saying it's also great, but I'm sure it's also a drag. It can be. Well, it's work. Yes, it's work. B.B. King, they pay me to travel. But like the idea, writing is the same. Like I'm writing something right now. Coffee, kitchen table, just kind of hang it when it's working. You're also very similar noodling, idea, voice right, feeling right. Write it down. Then lay it down. We'll record it. Get my nails done. Get your nails done, but you won't stop moving them. Just come on. Make it a challenge. Make it a challenge, yeah. Come on, lady. See what you got. and uh and then we but that to me sounds like an artist's dream yeah it's just kind of like being in a flowy kind of not a studio time not a shows at eight but like i got and that comes through in the music so you're saying you enjoy i mean like that's not lost on you no no it's it's incredible i mean i feel yeah very lucky where i just sort of plopped into this um position i just never yeah never had never imagined i would be you're in the center of a cake basically like you're in the warmest center where everyone wants where everyone wants to be i mean if you're hungry for cake and the challenge is you have to eat your way out yeah but you don't even have to you can just eat enough to make a little den and be like i'm good in this cake you could eat yourself a little phone nook or a set of stairs to nowhere picture yoda's house you're telling me he didn't eat his way out of the middle of the cake you could nibble yourself a little fireplace yeah oh fuck you janice joplin janice joplin says no wait how would he say it fuck you janice joplin says she does but okay says she says she janice joplin she says she Hulk was a bottom What are the rules What are the Yoda rules of switching words Yeah you have to say the subject verb at the end Fuck yourself, I say. Like that. Yeah. But you wouldn't say I say, fuck yourself. Says I? Says I. Says I? I think he says I say. That's more like a pirate. Says I. Pirate? Yoda pirate. That's a good band name. You're the pirate. Walk the plank, you shall. Ask about my hook, you will not. He doesn't like telling the story. It's actually quite embarrassing. It is. That's a funny thing. Embarrassed I am. The pirate who doesn't want to tell you how he lost his peg leg. Or he lost his leg. That became peg. But then he lost his peg leg. That's even worse. In the future he is. in the future he is always look at what's his speech the wait the thing he says to Luke oh do or do not yeah do or do not there is no try okay all proverbs aside there is a try I'm about to try right now like I'm glad you have like wisdom but I'm going to try to lift this thing out Luke's like I gotta stop right there remember when I couldn't do it that was called a try You were there for the try There is no try Do it or not No plan B You're going to be an indie musician You are Wait Going back to your sweet cake life You recorded Before you got in the cake Before you were in the cake The way you got in the cake Was somebody gave you a four track Tascam? Yeah Yeah it was I wonder if we had the same one. It changed my life. Very likely, yeah. It's the best. Yeah. You can still get them. There are people out there refurbishing them. Big comeback, I imagine. No? Small comeback. Size is relative. Hulk thinks not. Hulk feels... Size is very real. Hulk bottom. Hulk bottom. Hulk bottom productions. Can we, Joe, come on. AI is a thing. Can you make a production card at the end of this episode that's our Hulk Bottom production? She's canceling you right now. Ooh, Katie. Katie doesn't mind Hulk Bottom. I feel like it's progressive. Total horseshoe theory. It's so offensive. It's progressive. You got this four track. You were teaching film? I was, yeah. But noodling with song. It sounds so condescending. no it's very accurate noodling yeah noodling with songs very accurate and somebody was like her how did they come to give you the four track well you mentioned a band of horse ben and i grew up together i remember yeah yes and uh and he was in seattle uh had a band and they were talking to subpop about working together and he said oh we're by the way you know as they were kicking them out oh thanks a lot as they were kicking them out he said here's my buddy sam's music you should um give a listen because he had a four track of it yeah we were um yeah i'm sorry we um in the 90s we had lived together for a second and we were you know we would come home from work and listen to music um uh and that was kind of just our bond you know just chilling and turning each other on to music yeah and so when he was making working with the band he would send me the stuff because i wanted to hear what he was up to and i would send him stuff i was doing um yeah and we would Cindy Jones, you know, that was the one who first played me like the Shins record. You know, I never heard that stuff. You know, just different bands. You had your Natalie Portman moment? Oh, I was like, my life was never the same. The soft helmet? So I still have been in my life before that moment. Yeah. And the cake that it's been ever since that moment. Okay, but there's a lot happening here. You have a professional musician in Band of Horses. Forgive me, what's his name? Ben. Ben. Ben of Horses. Ben of Horses. Thank you for making that joke so I didn't have to. No, that isn't tolerated here. Your joke was valid, and I loved it. There's no knee slapping, and God help you, if you ba-dum-bum-ch. I will just big you up for 20 minutes, because that joke was great. Ben of Horses. Your joke is valid. Your joke is valid, and your take is valid. Anybody trying to make the world a better place with jokes? I had somebody do a knee slap recently and I was like, you're dead in my mind like Ben from Sub Pop get the fuck out of here, Janice Joblin says fuck you, I can't handle it but Ben Vallès remind me, people don't know that that's my number one thing that I can't stand, anybody trying to make the world a little funnier God love them, anyway including Ben of Horses, but he's a professional musician, he's writing real songs so there's a little contradiction here. You're noodling, but you're confident enough to share your music with a real musician. Well, he's my buddy, yeah. But he's your buddy, but you must have believed that it was good. I mean, you must have been like, this isn't garbage. You like music. You listen to your own music. You go, this sounds okay. I'm going to share it. Yeah, there were songs. I mean, I wasn't sharing it with everybody, but I'd share it with him. But he's a professional musician. Quote, unquote. Okay. Let's say we become dear friends after this. We become dear friends. You start doing some open mics. Oh, yeah. And you send it to me. Yeah, yeah. You must think there's some good stuff in there. You believe in yourself. Oh, yeah. Well, no, I mean, I liked it. Yeah, for sure. But we were also kids. You know, it was like early 20s. You know, we didn't know. We didn't really think about it. You know, we didn't really know how to like, we didn't even know what we didn't know. I mean, we didn't know anything about the music industry or about sharing things. We were just friends. And so we would send each other stuff. I mean, we'd send each other mixtapes and, you know, just music and shit. And so it wasn't like the professionalism wasn't really even anything about it. We didn't even know what that meant. I understand. Yeah. I actually was just talking to a friend of mine. Back before comedy meant, like, job, we'd be riffing. I just said this to Matt. I used to say, can I have that? Or people would say to me, can I have that? So much more. Because we were just always around and it was no big deal. You'd both riff Bottom Hulk. And you'd say, can I do that? And I'd be like, yeah. Or I'd say, can I do that? Nobody was going, well, we've got to drop a contract. If you make Bottom Hulk the series, I need a producer credit. That's what it's become. Which is sad. But in those 20s, those crackling 20s. That's right. I love that. So why did someone give you the recorder? Did you play it? Because I stole it from them. You stole it? No, I don't know. Actually, I was working at this place. I broke into their home. It was one of the things in the stack. It was a TV, a ukulele, out of tune. It was right under the window. It was easy. They put all these trinkets on the still to make it hard for me to get in. But I saw the test. exactly so you took so they gave what did you play them a song or uh no it was it was like um the first one i borrowed was part of the film school i went to and then and then i borrowed one from the film school that i worked at amazing yeah okay so nobody was like hey you got it lay it down yeah in the bio like i'm gonna go make a record they're like yeah you do that yeah that kind of thing amazing and then when you started working with it and i'm projecting onto you but I remember just like, it's so tactile. Like, the pressure you have to put on and the rolling over zeros. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. No, I loved how tactile. Me too. You have to think your way out of problems and stuff. It's really fun. And the possibilities. You mix it down to one and now you have eight tracks or whatever. It was so fun. That's right. You had to think about, you know, you hear these like stories how the Beatles made their record. You have to like mix it all down to one track so you can use the other three for like something else. Yes. It's ridiculous. And you're harmonizing with yourself. Yeah, yeah. And you're adding, and then it sounds wrong. Yeah. But it's all you. It's very empowering. It's a very empowering thing. More than GarageBand, you open it up and you're like, what the fuck is this? You can do anything. Yeah, but it's paralyzing. I don't know what I'm looking at. Yeah, yeah. And then with this, I don't know. It just felt more like clay than a piece of technology. Totally, yeah. You agree with that? Oh, totally, yeah. Yeah. analog yeah just that approach is is more like that i am for me it was i um was came from a fine arts background like went to art school and these things i thought i was gonna do like painting and things like that um and so my approach to just creative my creative life was just um you know developing something making some marks thinking about it developing you know changing it shining it until it was ready to to show yeah and so and i you know fucked around guitars and stuff and have friends that played and but never really thought of it as something to pursue um until it became making something you know developing something it became a recording that you could treat like a painting you know what i mean yeah instead of just and get it right that you just do in front of your friends and then it's over well i wasn't even kidding when i thought to ask you this like how do you get over white guys going to play Wonderwall right now? You know, the groan of the acoustic coming out. The inner groan. Usually people were pretty happy in college if you took it out and you're going to play Satellite. But you have to, your answer is, if you're a sensitive person like me and you're hyper-conscious that people are going to think it's dumb that you're going to play Brown Eyed Girl right now, being alone in the cave with the thing and making it like a painting sort of solves that issue. Am I hearing you right? Yeah, yeah. I never played concert. I just made recordings. So cool. And then Ben of Horses gives them the tape. They picked one of the songs to release in a, like a. They did like a. Like a mailer. Yeah. They have like a, they call it the singles club. Yeah. Yeah. Where they did it. They've been doing it forever. It's like a seven inch record where they. I can't remember how many. I'd love to meet some seven inch singles. I'll tell you that right now. As a bottom hulk, I would love to meet some 7-inch singles. Can we please make that joke? The one-eyed man in the land of the blind. I want to be on the 7-inch single mailer. Okay, sorry. They put you on the 7-inch singles list. Yeah. I hadn't thought of it that way. But I have to say, you have to imagine some pop, especially then, there was a bunch of crusty old punk rockers that everything was inappropriate that came out of their mouth. And so I sent them this song called Naked As We Came, and they were like, you sure you want to call it that? And I was like, come on. Bro, I'm so with you. I'm so with you. I said I was giving my daughter a ride. I was in Miami. Yeah, you were. That's what it was. I said, I was giving my daughter a ride, and this table of dudes laughed, and I was like, come on. How dare you? I'll defend anyone's right to make any joke, but it wasn't even that it was over the line. It was just like, I'm just trying. I was. Your jokes are not safe here. This is not a safe space. I'll take Ben of horses, but not that. But naked as we came, at some point, somebody needs to go, yeah, that's what we're calling it. I know it sounds to you. Come on. Are you? Yeah. In the comic strip, Bloom County. So we never spoke ever again. I hope not. Bloom County. Remember Bloom County? Yeah, of course. Opus had a book called Naked Came I. That was the name of his biography. So you gave them a four-track recording of Naked as we came. Say that in Yoda's voice. Naked came I. We the Minutes! We the Minutes! swish wait a minute no net that was amazing no net I didn't even hear it you just put it on the table right there it was right there I just put a cupcake boom and a shout out to our sponsor yep Pete and Val ad really throwing her in here hey this episode is brought to us by article which Val ordered for us and loved it so much I was like you have to do the ad with us we love when something shows up at your house and you immediately go, this is legit, and that is how we feel about our amazing article furniture. Val, what did we get? We got two gorgeous lounge chairs for the pool. Tossed the old rickety, broken, moldy wooden ones. Gone. Gone. These ones you can wipe clean. They look amazing. They look amazing. They up-leveled the house. It's like John Wick's house. That's right. We live in John Wick's house. That's right. We also got a new rug that I'm obsessed with. Amazing. Feels good. Barefoot skating on. It's a good barefoot skater. It's so soft. Solid, well-made, no weird assembly nightmare. It's that clean, modern style that works with everything. We love that Article doesn't do a million things. They just curate really beautiful, high-quality pieces that are built to last. So whatever your vibe is, mid-century, cozy, coastal, or that Scandinavian minimal thing, you can find it at Article. Shipping was fast, smooth, and if you want, they'll even handle assembly. They got a 30-day satisfaction guarantee, which we did not need because we were 30 seconds guaranteed. We're in. That's right. Article. Our satisfaction was guaranteed. It was there. I liked it. So you can try it out and make sure you like it if you need that 30-day satisfaction. We did not. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com slash weird, and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash weird for 50 bucks off your first purchase of $100 or more. Hey, everyone. It's Leah Greenberg. And Ezra Levin. You might know us as two of the lead organizers of the No Kings protests. We're also the co-founders of Indivisible, the grassroots movement organizing against Trump's regime. And this is What's the Plan, your weekly guide to the state of our democracy and how we fight back. This is not canned talking points. It's a real live discussion space for the pro-democracy movement. We wrestle with strategy together. We take your top voted questions in real time. and we talk about the most impactful actions we can take right now. Democracy is a participatory sport. The fascists win when we sit on the sidelines. What's the plan is about how we get into the game. What's the plan? Available Friday, January 23rd, wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, recruit, discuss, organize, and win. That's the plan. That was amazing. Where are we? Naked K-My. Oh, did they have you re-recorded, or was it the four-track recording of Naked As We Came? Oh, no, that was a little later. That was what I did in a studio. Okay. But the first one that they released. Especially when I said, I think this is one we should release, and you should say it to everyone. Write it in emails and send it out to everyone. Like, you sure you want to call it this? It's getting marked as spam a lot. Naked As We Came. New release. Naked As We Came. Spreading everywhere. That went to my spam. Sam's latest huge release on 7-inch. His 7-inch is about to release naked as we came. Are you ready? Streaming now. Wouldn't have been that. Wouldn't have been that. But the first one that they released was the four track. You didn't redo it. Yeah, just over the house, yeah. And did that, this seems like a classic story. Your musician friend gives your tape. I know. Two of these guys, they released a thing, and then Sub Pop reached out to you. All cake after that. All cake. Yeah. Get in. I feel like people are going to be like, okay, Boomer, to us. You and I are two guys that were just like, just get out there. Just get out there. Do your stuff. Get out there. I know. A lot of times people ask me for advice. I'm like, start in 1994 is your advice. Yeah, I'm not the person to offer advice. Yeah. And then what was the transition like to live? I mean, did you like it? No, it was horrifying. I didn't like it at all because I was accustomed to the sound. I didn't even like going in the studio. I mean, I wanted to, and I wanted to learn. So the time I did the second record, I wanted to go into a studio, but it's really hard to change because I felt like everything I was doing was so, depending on the sound that I was getting, just a reaction. It wasn't like, I'm going to do this thing, and I'm going to put this mic, and it's going to sound like this. I was like, ding, ding, ding, and you would hear what you were getting, and then you would change. Yeah. It was all reactionary. I still feel that way. Honestly, it's really hard for me to... But when you're in the studio, are you not plugged into yourself? I've just gotten used to it. It was a new sound. It was like, you know, you're... You don't remember the first time you heard your voice recorded, and you were like, who's that? Yeah, yeah. It's that over and over again, like in different... In the studio. Yeah. Because am I hearing you right that in a studio you don't have headphones on and you're just kind of playing and they're listening to you? Oh, no. No? I mean, you can do it that way. Yeah. I've done it that way before. But then what's the difference if you're doing it on a four track or doing it in a studio? It's just the mic you're using and just the fidelity or the room. Yeah, the ambient sound. It's different. In quotes, it's better. Yeah, it's different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely a higher fidelity. Yeah, it was like that was the original sound. Right, but like that, like the chhh of a tape is like nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know Elliot Smith's first record, you can hear him pressing record, and it adds to the... Right, right. They could have taken that out, but it adds to it. Totally. And they all have the shh, and another track fades in, and you hear a shh, you hear another. But that gives it a certain analog quality. And now, if I'm hearing you right, you're in a pin drop. We can isolate that if you want, and you're like, it was freaking you out. Yeah. And you just have to react and adapt and adjust. I mean, I still feel that way almost every time you go into a different concert hall. I mean, it's what soundcheck is for, you know. Right. And then when the people fill up the room, it's different. Again, it's just you're constantly. That's why they're starting to sell tickets to the soundcheck. It's awful. They're so greedy. You have to sell out soundcheck. It's one song. Yeah. Same price. I've seen it, yeah. Brutal. because we needed to sound the same but then so your first show were you shitting a brick i'm sorry if you get asked this a lot but i am genuinely curious uh yeah i was petrified yeah where was it you feel uh we oddly enough i got asked to um open up a tour a three-act tour um with uh isaac brocks not modest mouths but his other thing ugly casanova he was confident cat his other project Peaches and what was it? Clumsy Peaches Clumsy Peaches for Confident Cat Modest Mouses Alternate to Garth Brooks Garth Brooks and what was his persona? Chris Chris Gaines Confident Cat Okay That's awful by the way Thank you for laughing Consummate cat Consummate cat is better than modest Modest mouse opposite is actually Consummate cat So you were going to open And this is a big tour I wonder where that came from I don't know the origination of that Maybe it's scaredy cat or something Modest mouse? Yeah You mean modest mouse? Are you talking the origins of modest mouse? I wonder what it was I don't know I'd like to know I think it was the original alliteration, perhaps. Could be. It's often very disappointing. You know, like counting crows. Oh, we're just counting some crows. That's why, bro, I'd like to put this by you. Every biopic is stupid because writing music is stupid. I'm not even trying. Writing comedy is stupid. Nothing is cool in the making of it. I don't care who it was. And they try to make. There's only one choice, which is the Amadeus choice. Which is what they did in. Amadeus. Amadeus. They did it in Don't Think Twice. No, the Bob Dylan movie. Yeah, yeah. What is it called? A Complete Unknown. Right. Don't Think Twice is my wonderful movie. A Complete Unknown, they did the Amadeus thing, which is like, whoops, these all fell out of my ass and done. That's my favorite. That's my favorite, too. All the arts movies, especially the ones about painters. There's always the montage of them sweating and just going, oh, smoking cigarettes. Yeah. Furiously thing. And then they just shit a painting. That's right. Pollock. Are we thinking of Pollock right now? I don't got hair. Name one. They're just like, whoops, it was amazing. Because making art is stupid. Boring. It's stupid. Every biopic sucks. I don't want to see it. Freddie Mercury being like, your biopic is not safe here. That's fucking dumb. it's fucking dumb and Picasso being like maybe blue like he's eating a blueberry and he's like and we push in that's fucking stupid we don't need to see the process the thing is the thing you have to embrace the idea that all movies are a dream though yeah okay you're right that's why even ones that are trying to be real are a dream I agree with you and that's why I like it's a dream that everyone wants to see but a complete unknown let's go full dream and be like just like Whoops, and it ain't no use to say one. I want to hear, the real one was like, don't even worry about sitting around and thinking about why we broke up, my lord. How do you say my lord? Ifin? Ifin you don't know by now? I want to see Bob Dylan's cousin be like, ifin? That's the real. Hey, Bob, ifin sucks. Ifin, you don't rewrite that lyric. It just cuts to him at the folk festival getting a standing ovation. Yeah, that's what art is. That's the real. And Mozart wasn't that way either. I watched Amadeus. I love Amadeus. And I looked it up and it was like, that is not historically accurate. I bet you do a good Amadeus. What was the actor's name? Yeah. I defecated in my trousers. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not true. The whole, like, I just hear them in my head, but that's the only story we want to hear, because we want to be off the hook. I want to be like, I'd write a symphony, but I don't have that gift. Well, neither did he. Exactly. I mean, he did, but he didn't. But so did you. No, he did, but he don't. He had more of it. It's an exaggeration, but I mean, you know, but the fact that he was so much more than the rest of us. For sure. At the end of the day. It's just a thing. It's a dream. You have to just see them as a dream. It's like everything is exaggerated. Time slips around in the way that a dream does. You're like, oh, now we're in the kitchen. You're absolutely right. And in that lens, we can forgive all things. Yeah. It's completely true. I'm just riffing. I talk out the other side of my face and say, you're absolutely right. What I don't like, I mean, I'm fine with the montage. It's just it's such a consistent cliche. It's like, geez. Okay. Yeah. Here we go. I just, I think it's the same thing with like gurus and teachers. It's like, we want them all to be perfect. We want Jesus to be perfect. You know what I mean? Like who? Christ. Who? Of Nazareth. And you're like, oh, Nazareth. That Jesus. Nazareth. That Jesus. Back then you had to say where you were from. I read a book recently called The Testament of Mary lately. It was interesting. What was that? It was like a historical fiction, but just sort of like taking Mary's idea. Okay. Older book or newer? No, pretty new. Pretty new. Pretty new. Anyway. What did you take away from it? Mary was pissed. Pissed? Also afraid. Yeah. Did they go with? It was a novella, so I didn't get a whole lot out of it. Knocked up by the Lord kind of flavor, or was it like Joseph's flavor? They were talking about, oh, they basically said that that was all. She was also like, it was more about her describing the disciples as shifty and some of them as like, you know, zealots. Oh. Or just seeking power and like creating a myth. Interesting. But that is half. For their purposes, you know. I'm not throwing shade on the disciples. I mean, we're all buddies. Lord knows I'm tight with all 12. Even Judas. We've gotten past it. But everyone has their pros and cons. We're all human. The one that's fun that I probably say a lot is that the gospel writers bend over backwards. And it's actually kind of funny to describe why Jesus is going to John the Baptist. Because Jesus was a student of John the Baptist. He was following him around. He was his teacher. So he was following. He was in this group. Some might call it a cult. He's in this group in the desert with this very eclectic leader. I think it was just something to do then. There was no internet. There was no Crest toothpaste. There was nothing to do. Everybody smelled horrible. Go in the desert. Learn about your God nature. But the gospel writers are like, give it a look. It's funny. They'll be like, and Jesus, even though he didn't need it, he accepted baptism from John the Baptist, even though it was beneath him. Like, they go out of their way to be like, it's just exactly like. They've extracted all this logical. And Michael Jordan was pretty good, even though the coach had to show him how to switch his hands. He didn't need it. Like, if you were going to deify him even more. He could have just risen up, flew over to the basket, and enjoyed that. Slammed down contest. He is risen. I mean, it's right there. We love people that are flying. We do. That's really interesting. We kind of found our way here. We're towards, I don't know, we can end whenever we want, but you were raised fundy? Yeah, pretty religious, yeah. Pretty religulous? Yeah, religious. Don't be religious. And what did that do for you? Show me where religion touched you. Show me on your psyche where religion touched you. I mean, yeah, it was where I grew up. It was in the water. And so the stories are very important to me because they were laid down very early. But cultural literacy I feel the same way And also yeah Good stories Yeah I mean had a realization that you know when I started having children I was like are they going to know you know these moral lessons that I had examined You know, story lessons. You know, because that's how you learn. Yeah. Stories. He was like, you know, I got a little worried, not thinking out. Yeah, of course, I got an experience in their life and you can talk to them about things. Right. But, you know, just knowing that that's how I learned it and not thinking about what else to do before you had kids. You know, it's just, oh, they're here. Now I've got to figure out this plan. Yeah, I had a moment where I was like, oh, man, you don't really think about what role it played in your life. In a positive way. Before you start. Yeah, in a positive way. Yeah, because at the time I was really angry. I felt I was given this way of thinking and then went to college and read apocryphal texts and was like, oh, okay, so the Bible is a book that people wrote, not actually. You know, just think about it yourself. And I think I was angry for a while, just feeling duped. Not that the teachings weren't important. I was like, this is all bullshit. Because, I mean, you know, it's all good to hear. It's just the specifics and the details are a little tricky sometimes. But you have to get over that feeling. Yeah, you do. And so, yeah, my kids are coming along and just sort of, yeah, learning my relationship with it. And I was angry at the time. And it was a good, it was one of those moments where like, oh, wait, let's just step back and just appreciate it for what's good about it. And figure out, you know, what role is going to play in your life now. what was something that was good about it and if you if you don't have it on your on the tip of your brain right now it's fine but i'm curious i go right to like oh they're asking abraham to murder isaac yeah i'm like oh i'm glad leela won't know that story per se oh you like oh oh the thing oh you say the things that you won't i i go right to kind of like saying because it meant that i could kill my children when they are my miami moment all over again like whoa take it easy no i just mean like there there's you know there's just stuff in there a lot of it made me like a little paranoid like like even jesus is purported to have said if you have lust for a woman you've committed adultery with her yeah and i'm like dude i remember uh just to interrupt you real quick I know it doesn't sound like it. I grew up in this, you know, where you were told about the rapture like over and over again as a reason to do what you're supposed to do. Yeah, yeah. But I knew that I wasn't going. I mean, I wanted to go, but I knew that I was, you know, I knew what I did. You're going to get Cameron? And so every time, you know, I would call out for my mom and she would be somewhere and couldn't hear me. And I was like, well, I guess I'm alone. I'm literally that. Mom. Mom. Gotcha. So I had a plan. Like, you know. I just immediately start masturbating. And he's like, yeah. It's all cake from now on. It's all cake for me. Sammy's coming up roses. It's a different perspective, you know. Just stuff they didn't think about, you know, what you might accidentally put in a kid's brain. Of course. Up until, I'd say, probably 15 years ago, 10 years ago, every time there was an end-of-the-world Bible group, I would worry about it. Like 10 years? That's 36 years old. I'd still be kind of like a little worried about it. And even though we're laughing about it, that is a heavy burden to put on a kid. We can laugh about it now. We can laugh now. But that is in your wiring. So that's sort of nasty. But the question is, when it comes to something positive that you do want to tell your kids or that you have told your kids, what would you say? Oh, mostly the general thing. I mean, it's amazing how many people don't love your neighbor as yourself. You know what I mean? It's amazing how many people don't take that to heart. or some of the most basic, even more eastern edges of the philosophy. I was going to say, what you do for them, you've done unto me. When I was a kid, I took that to mean that's Jesus, and now I take it as that's all of us. What I do to you, I do to me. Yeah, exactly. Treat people the way that you want to be treated, because we are all feeling the same things. We're all... Yes. Those things are important. But, yeah, there's also, I'm happy that they don't walk around with, like, the kind of baggage that I was talking about before. Yeah. It's funny. We had Father Greg Boyle on this pod, and he talked about the mystical lens, which I really appreciated that he named, which is the lens you look at the text with and go, like, well, maybe just not that one. Which, growing up, I was like, that was the biggest sacrilege. You couldn't. Yeah, yeah. You took all of it. Yeah, yeah. You took all of it. Right. Even if you didn't know what it meant, you would just take the mainstream interpretation of it, even if that was completely wrong. I really appreciated somebody who's a priest literally saying, like, no, we're to do this. That's what we're doing anyway. Let's just name it. It's all a slippery slope. I mean, whether you decide to be willy-nilly with your interpretation, and it's like, where does it end? Or if you decide to be real literal with your interpretation, where does it end? Yeah, exactly. Right, and Father Greg would say, the part of you that's looking, you have a sense. There's an intuition. And I think that's true. I think there's like a – I joke that the internet will sometimes say, draw Shrek without looking it up. And you draw it, and you don't know why it's wrong. But you look at it, and you're like, that's wrong. But you can't – like, draw Snoopy. Like, I can't do it. But when I see Snoopy, I know it. that's how i i look i i'm not saying i can lead the world with my interpretation but i have my own inner what snoopy looks like and when it says like women need to shut up in church i'm like that doesn't look like snoopy to me you know what i'm saying yeah i think i think what we are deep down beyond our minds is something there's a wisdom to that there's an intelligence to that and we recognize it. We recognize it in qualities like freedom, like being free. I don't mean like a country. I mean like just being free, like you in your house. We go like, that's right on. That feels like me. I feel more like myself when I'm free. Okay, so that's a clue to my origin. What I am is a free, spacious place. It's an accepting place. We could call that a loving place. I feel when I'm in my loving, compassion, understanding, if I'm feeling patient, if I'm feeling a little bit quieter, a little bit more alert, what I am is alert. What I am is fresh. What I am is present. And we can tell when we're aligned with those. I don't even want to call them virtues. I would say those aspects of what we are. And we can tell when we're pinched and we're closed and we're afraid. and that feels, you correct me if I'm wrong, but those things feel added to our nature. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They feel like appearance. Did you say just wrong? No, no. Well, in the way that you add a storm cloud to a sky, it feels added. Like when I'm really feeling like a dick, I don't go like, this is the real me. I might worry it's the real me, but it does feel a little inspection reveals that, oh, no, that's something that's appearing inside of my spacious loving. yeah yeah yeah does that sound right totally yeah um i i feel like yeah that's a good way to i like that word lens lens it's a popular word these days is it yeah it goes around people like political lens like different political lenses and things what's your lens yeah exactly um uh but religion in particular yeah they people come at it from so many different directions out of you know just i mean looking for a light in the fog yeah yeah and that could be from a place of fear or wanting to understand or a way to control other people you know it's just totally yeah totally and that's why i think it's important to put it up against not just your mind's intuition but like for lack of a better word your heart's intuition like and and if you're not in your heart it's intuition if you're tense if your shoulders are up i have this joke, I say it all the time. I'm like, everybody, to say Enya again, everybody at their base is Enya. You know what I'm saying? Nobody sounds like death metal when you relax them down, in their deep sleep. In your deep sleep. You've met everybody. I'm talking about deep sleep, not dream sleep. To say Enya again. Enya. Thank you. Go ahead. To say Enya again. Enya. Enya sounds like a dip. To say Enya again comes at a great sacrifice. Wait, what is that? We must all pay. To say Enya again comes at a sacrifice you are not willing to pay. Is it reference? It's like a Mad Libs. I also thought you were doing Pulp Fiction. Say Enya again. Enya? Does he look like a... Do I look like Inga to you? Hamburgers. Well, where are you at now? Any brief taste of your feeling? I mean, you have children. Yeah. That really kind of brings, or did for me, into the foreground. It lends perspective. Yes. and it makes you wonder, like, what is going on here and what are we doing? Do you have a – I read that you're agnostic, which is – Where did you read that? Not to you. On wikipedia.org. I had to donate $30. Tell me. Yeah, I mean, I don't go to church and stuff, and I don't – I have an issue with organized religion. I think it's really important for the culture, like society and civilization. Like the post office. Exactly. I'm not even joking. Yeah, it's kind of like a cornerstone of a society. And I feel like the way, I mean, not to get on a soapbox or anything, but I feel like the way that the decline of religion has added to a lot of just the people trying to apply it to politics. The politics is kind of the new church. Yeah, it is. I haven't. In not a great way. In not a great way, yeah. And politics are not designed to absorb that. That's exactly right. Yeah, wow. And so it's very divisive, the way that religious wars were. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And so I think religion is important, and I think it's an overall good. You know, obviously there's some problematic stuff, or people can use it for problematic things. but I just have a hard time I'm not a I don't belong to groups I'm not a group person no it's true me neither yeah it's the reason I'm a band with one permanent member the rest of y'all rotate get the fuck out of here the fancy way I love that you yes-handed my tuning riff. Love that. But you have, I'm going to put this to you, it sounds like you have an appreciation for a mystery or for life itself. Oh, definitely, yeah. I mean, I feel like my, yeah, I don't meditate because I write. It's like the same thing for me. For sure. I just did a retreat where the whole thing was writing as a spiritual practice, which I didn't know what that meant. My friend Mirror by Star led it, and it was like just getting in that flow, and things are coming out, and people are connecting and crying, but opening up and really tasting that sort of naked potential that you are. Creativity is very close to... Centering and... Yes, and the source. Like whatever creation is, obviously, is very creative, I think. Yeah, I dig that. I dig that. I think so, too. And, I mean, again, I don't have a thing against religion. I think it's very great, whatever mask it has on. It's great. I just, it's not for me. Well, it's funny because, like, technology also can't absorb religion. And it's true. Yeah, it's like trying to put it into a screwdriver set. It's true. Medicine, too. Ram Dass used to say, like, you go to a hospital. It's like hospitals are like churches and the doctors are the priests. And then there's like the surgeon generals are the high priests because they're going to preserve your life. And we are sort of like, I don't have a fix for this. I do think I heard somebody, I don't know where I can say it. I'm not worried about saying this, but like certain branches of churches, they're all rebranding. I even called my old pastor. He wanted to talk like this was like two weeks ago. And it was just kind of that was the tone is like, yeah, people kind of admitting like exactly what you're saying, like commerce, like buying stuff or being entertained or politics or sports or technology can't replace what every other human civilization has had, which is some shared. and I think that's super important, shared story. Not a textbook, but a mythology, like a place, a container to put, even if all you're putting in it is, I don't know, but like cultures and humans have all done well, banded under some shared sense of what's going on here. Even if it's turtles all the way down, it doesn't matter. I see a lot of that despondency and that isolation. I do too, yeah. that I think could have been, or maybe we'll say, used to be addressed by some sense of clergy, some sense of religion. I think they're working on it. I hope. I hope. We'll see what happens. I don't like that. I feel like that's a moment in a documentary. You say that and it goes, that was before Black Wednesday. What could possibly go wrong? He'll figure it out. Well, here's over. Janice Joplin says, fuck you. Oh, no. Oh, no. Before we go, I've enjoyed every moment. Except. Except when you said, no. I was curious. There are no AI soul covers of Iron and Wine songs, and I looked. Oh, that's too bad. Do you have any feeling on that? AI? On AI and music and. And I mean, it's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting. Do you think here's a more specific question. Do you think there's a world where the next generation, and I really mean these kids are like 15 right now, will move it forward in a way that in one hand is AI stuff in the same way that we used to think like sampling was, this is dumb. people make this point better than me. But do you think there's a future where somebody is like, here's my heart and my soul, and here's the tools that I just grew up with. It was normal, and I'm going to do this with it. There definitely will be. You think so? I agree with that. It's a tool that we don't know how to conceptualize. We don't even know how to think about what could create. It's like trying to talk to someone about the internet in 19, you know. Yes. 91. Yeah, exactly. It could be 91. But you know what I mean? Some technological or electricity to someone, you know, before electricity. It's just hard to understand. I guess I'm trying to put out there and see if you agree, and it sounds like you do, just a little bit of optimism. On one hand, I'm like, oh, no, this is. Oh, no, me too. There's two sides of the coin, and they're very opposite to me. Oh, no. and also like holy shit and then the other side is like wow that's amazing i use uh i use it sparingly for anybody i just don't want people to jump down right because i know the environmental costs and all that but i was in a band in high school and i'll go on and a susuno or whatever and i'll hum it and sing it and then i'll play it to my friend who is in the band and it'll fix it in like some really interesting ways but even what you said about the environment i mean we don't know you could set the ai eventually could solve right you don't know what those problems you know solve those problems i actually was i thought the same thing too i was like when are we going to start getting it on the big problems because i was like i think it's going to be very soon i hope so i hope so because even when you look at like any i feel like the potential of solving anything that could be solved with thinking potentially will be solved and i'm I'm talking about crazy tragedies, isolation. There are, if a solution could be formulated from people thinking about it for 100 years, it'll do it, and it'll be something we don't know. And I'm with you. I'm like, please be the environment. Please be violence. Please be illness. I think it will be. I think it'll be all those. I mean, I think it's very easy to think about in a doomsday situation, because that's where our brains go very easy. It's harder to think of all the incredible things that we couldn't even imagine that it could achieve. Including art. I just catch myself going, what would Andy Warhol, if Andy Warhol was 15 years old right now, and you told him there was a thing that will do anything. Oh, cool. Oh, cool. Suck my dick, bitch. He's a real piece of shit. Who cares? Get me tapas. I don't know why we're making him this way. But you know what I mean? I always go to Steven Spielberg. He used to go in the desert with a 35-millimeter camera and shoot movies. And if you had that kid growing up now, I could see paralysis. Like, why would I do anything? I can do it. But I also see there's a Tarantino out there that's going, a little Tarantino that's going, I can make my car blow up. Like, how cool is that? Like, special effects. I understand these are jobs. please don't i feel like i'm pretty well informed on all of the complexities i'm just saying there's also this potential it's going to be complex but you're you're not in charge of whether it happens or not it's happening right the thing is going to change everything right i mean not overnight some things will change very quickly but yeah other things will take a long but it's going to change everything we you can say no to this we could play that voice moment you just played into suno and say, generate lyrics in the style of Iron Wine. And it would do it. It's fucking creepy. But let's not upload your... I don't want to say a real song. I'm also a little aware that this might become a species and saying things like, that's a real song and an AI song is not a real song. I'm not even joking. I don't think it's going to be a thing anymore. Oh, really? Eventually. Oh, that's what I'm saying. We're saying the same thing. Yeah, it's going to just change the way all data and the way we experience... You know, that's my point. It's hard to get too upset about it because you don't even know. What you're getting upset about. The scary thing is that it's just change. Yeah. You don't even know. I mean, there's very specific things people can imagine to be afraid of it. But I just mean the whole anxiety about what it's bringing. Right. Good or bad. It's just that it's change. We don't even know how to. You're worrying about a spaceship that's landing, basically. Yeah. And that's actually something, because I went a little too far into AI news, and then I was like, I eventually unplugged because I realized every video was called, you are not ready for this. Or I was like, wait, we're talking about the unknown. Right. Unknown. Right. And you know what sells when there's a lot of unknown is a lot of people being like, I actually know. Yeah, yeah. And they've already been really wrong. And I'm not saying this to look down on anybody. I'm just saying a lot of people were like by the time we're here now it would look like this they were wrong, it looks different it changes and that's something we call reality I don't want to give false confidence who knows what's going to happen but I do feel like there's going to be just as many incredible benevolent miracles it'll be a big mix of all good and bad because, you know why? because everything else is. That's what the world is. Yeah. But you just think about all the pros and cons of what's happened with the internet, you know, in the last couple decades when, you know, in the 90s you got an email. I was like, that's cool, whatever. Right. Right. And when you look at Brain Rot, I was just, I flew to Miami for the show. The lady in the seat next to me was on her phone doing TikTok the whole six hours. And I was like, holy, bro. Holy shit. It's almost like I'm not even mad. I'm just impressed. TikTok the whole time. I had my hat. I had to put it down over my eyes because it was driving me. I'm like that. But she was just swiping, swiping, swiping the whole six hours. We land. She took out a second phone. I was like, oh, that's how you do it. You got another phone. This lady got another phone. Back up. So we got brain rot. And also, while I was on that flight, I realized I didn't have an Uber picking me up, and I scheduled it in the sky to pick me up. So, I mean, that's right there. I have this woman. I can hear her brain. I could smell it. It smelled like Jimmy Dean. Switching. It was ready. Breakfast was ready. And I had a schedule. Woo! Juicy. She's like, that's me. I was like, okay. And the car picked me up without any weight when I landed. It was insane. It's crazy. So, yeah, you're right. I mean, I'm not saying no one should be worried. I'm just not sure what to be worried about. Which fantasy to be worried about. I hear what you're saying. I don't think this is going to be cut into a documentary about the idiots that were like, before the tripods come. Take me. Yeah, and just an intercut. And they're, like, really sinister, so they play this clip for us while we're being fried. Remember? You human fools. Human fools. I do appreciate the perspective that everyone's guests assumes they're just as shitty and horrible as we are. Why not think that the aggregate of all human knowledge and experience would be Martin Luther King Jr.? Why wouldn't it be Gandhi? Why is it always your sadistic neighbor that's torturing a bird? Survival instinct. Yes. Which they won't have, which they don't have. Right. Anyway. Yeah. Look. You're funny. I'd like to add a little. You're so talented. I'm in this movie, St. Peter. You did the soundtrack. It elevated the film so much. Did you know you played, Josh played your music? Oh, did he? On set. Oh, awesome. Oh, that's cool. It would be like, which I had never had before, and it really helped. That's awesome. It helped us drop into these scenes. Give you a vibe. Yeah, the vibe. That's fun. I'm so happy that we got to work together, sort of. Me too, man. Your performance was amazing. I was like, holy cow. Oh, thanks, man. You can not talk in some parts. Do you believe that? I'm okay with you. Do you believe it? No, no, no. It was such a steady, quiet, really a very, it was a really powerful performance. I couldn't watch, I haven't watched it yet. Josh was like, watch it before you interview him. And I know it's great. Judy Greer is in it. She saw it. She said it's great. You guys all do great. I'm sure it's great. I'm just, it's not passive for me. Yeah, yeah. To watch it would be letting in a whole lot of stuff. You get it. For sure, yeah. Yeah. it's not fun i can't i don't know if i'll ever see it i get just too in my head about you're you're not actually watching you're like no analyzing at the same time if you whatever you're doing when you're watching your own work i think i'm worse i think whatever that is it made me understand i wish i were as cool as adam driver but he doesn't watch his stuff and i'm just like i think i get it and it's not that he's cool it's that he's busy counting million dollar bills. Too busy going, Star Wars signing conventions, girls conventions. He does the girls... He does that girls circuit. Was it good? Did I get in there? I'm Kylo Ren. I can't... I need to hear someone else do it first. No, I don't think so. No? It can't get any better? Yeah, I don't think so. Again, if you try it again. Dry stone. Oh. Lena. Nope. Sounds like Tony Robbins. We need to embrace the giant. I like telling you. He's like the guy of Silence of the Lambs. Oh, wait. Was she a great guy? Yeah, dude. Thank you for being here. Take some modern mammals because that's the shampoo I use. This isn't an ad. I actually think you'll love it. Yeah, you do eat it. But you got that hair type. Kids that grew up in the 90s wanting that. It'll make it. It'll keep it that way. They do the thing. You'll do it. Let's get the fuck out of here. Would you say keep it crispy? It's just how we end. I should say I'm just so touched that you took the time to do it my pleasure thanks thank you for being here and anything you need to plug we'll do it up front so you don't have to worry about it but we say keep it crispy keep it crispy the official Want to listen to your favorite Lemonada shows without the ads? Subscribe to Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts. You'll get ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content from shows like Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Fail Better with David Duchovny, the Sarah Silverman Podcast, and so many more. It's a great way to support the work we do and treat yourself to a smoother, uninterrupted listening experience. Just head to any Lemonada show feed on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe. Make life suck less with fewer ads with Lemonada Premium. Are you looking for ways to make your everyday life happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of The Happiness Project, bringing you fresh insights and practical solutions in the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. My co-host and happiness guinea pig is my sister, Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore ideas and hacks about cultivating happiness and good habits. Check out Happier with Gretchen Rubin from Lemonada Media.