Transcript
00:00:00 when you imagine a song, is it the opening you imagine?
00:00:04 No, it’s kind of a, I never think opening,
00:00:08 I never think final, I think soundscape
00:00:12 of how I’m feeling right now.
00:00:14 So it could be the middle of the song
00:00:15 for all I know when I’m doing that.
00:00:18 But my process for me is very much lyrics and melody
00:00:22 and music really come at the same time.
00:00:25 Like by same time, I mean, as I’m expressing maybe,
00:00:32 I’m feeling like.
00:00:33 Puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh, puh.
00:00:40 Like it’s not that simple, but it’s like,
00:00:42 I’ll hear it like, it’s like, here’s all the orchestra
00:00:45 and you’re kind of just pressing all the buttons at once.
00:00:47 And melody and my voice is just one of those instruments.
00:00:51 The following is a conversation with Dan Reynolds,
00:00:56 the lead singer of Imagine Dragons,
00:00:58 one of the most popular bands in the world
00:01:00 with over 75 million records sold and with four songs
00:01:04 being streamed over a billion times on Spotify.
00:01:08 Given all that, Dan is one of the most down to earth,
00:01:11 kind, thoughtful and fascinating human beings
00:01:14 I’ve ever met, grounded in part
00:01:17 by his lifelong struggle with mental health.
00:01:20 The darkness, the love and the creative brilliance
00:01:24 are all there in this one humble mind.
00:01:26 For this reason and many others, we became fast friends.
00:01:30 Plus, he recently started his journey in programming,
00:01:33 which funny enough is where we start this wide ranging,
00:01:37 deeply personal and fun conversation.
00:01:40 This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
00:01:42 To support it, please check out our sponsors
00:01:44 in the description.
00:01:45 And now, dear friends, here’s Dan Reynolds.
00:01:48 So, we were talking offline
00:01:51 that you’re not just getting into programming.
00:01:53 What’s the most beautiful program you’ve ever written?
00:01:57 Something that brought you joy?
00:02:01 There’s something, I really love completion.
00:02:04 It’s the reason that I’m addicted to songwriting.
00:02:07 I like there being nothing and then having some blocks
00:02:11 or tools and building them into what you want it
00:02:14 to look like and then I find it incredibly rewarding
00:02:18 to stand back and look at what you did at the end.
00:02:23 It could be anything.
00:02:24 For me, it was as simple to begin with
00:02:27 as just because it’s object oriented,
00:02:30 like making a cube move.
00:02:33 As simple as that, understanding that
00:02:36 and knowing that I built that and made it do that
00:02:39 is really rewarding and I think it’s the thing
00:02:43 that drew me into wanting to learn more.
00:02:46 But as far as what is some big piece of code
00:02:52 that I’ve done, absolutely not.
00:02:54 I’m still at a level where it’s more like
00:02:55 what is a tutorial that I followed and got,
00:02:59 and then, yeah, so I couldn’t say I’m at a level
00:03:03 where I’ve done anything beautiful at all in code.
00:03:06 But you’re also interested in potentially,
00:03:08 like your heart is drawn to creating games.
00:03:12 Creating anything.
00:03:14 And completing it.
00:03:15 Yeah.
00:03:16 To feel good as it’s done.
00:03:18 Yeah, I mean, I’ve been working over the last two years
00:03:23 with actually a team out of Kiev on,
00:03:27 and we can get into that, it’s a whole other story,
00:03:28 but on a computer game.
00:03:30 And really, I’ve kept that kind of under wraps,
00:03:34 but yeah, we’re kind of getting to a point now
00:03:37 where we have a prototype that we can play
00:03:39 and it’s a lot of fun and thankfully,
00:03:42 all the team members are in safe places now.
00:03:45 Things have obviously been on hold for a little bit,
00:03:47 but when that started is when I really decided,
00:03:50 okay, I need to understand base level coding in C Sharp,
00:03:53 so I’m not an idiot talking to these people.
00:03:56 And so it’s, yeah, we’ve been doing that
00:03:58 for a couple of years.
00:03:59 Is there any parallels between the final completion
00:04:02 that you feel with programming?
00:04:05 Which I think is a little bit more definitive.
00:04:07 Like there’s debugging, the code doesn’t work,
00:04:08 it’s messy and so on.
00:04:09 There’s the early design stages,
00:04:11 you’re not sure how to have functions and classes,
00:04:14 how it’s all gonna work.
00:04:15 And then it comes together and it’s really done
00:04:17 because it works and there’s a cube moving on the screen.
00:04:21 Is there any parallels between that and music?
00:04:23 Because are you really ever done done with a song?
00:04:27 It’s exactly the same thing for me,
00:04:30 just in that it’s art.
00:04:33 I really believe that we have not fully encapsulated artists.
00:04:39 Like when we say art, I think most people think,
00:04:42 okay, the medium must be painting or drawing
00:04:46 or music or writing.
00:04:50 But I really believe anytime you’re creating some things,
00:04:53 engineers, for instance, you’re creating something
00:04:58 with tools that you have and it can be incredibly beautiful.
00:05:03 And so yeah, I think, and it’s never done.
00:05:07 I feel like I look at songs that I’ve done
00:05:09 and I never felt you have to let go or I have to let go.
00:05:15 And that’s all I’ve,
00:05:16 I’m just continually making myself let go.
00:05:18 But I look at songs that I’ve done
00:05:20 and wish I had done more or kept going down that road
00:05:25 and what would have happened.
00:05:26 And I’m really contained to, because of what our band is
00:05:30 and what our fans expect and there’s so much more to it
00:05:34 that it’s like I’m fitting in a box always.
00:05:38 And it’s like, this song shouldn’t be longer
00:05:41 than three minutes and 30 seconds.
00:05:42 And I don’t know if I remember the chorus after I heard it.
00:05:46 Maybe I need to hear the chorus three times
00:05:47 instead of those two times.
00:05:49 It’s like, there’s certain, especially in pop music,
00:05:52 it’s really hard to,
00:05:59 yeah, it feels like there’s confines,
00:06:02 even though people are like, well, there’s no confines,
00:06:03 but still everybody’s writing a pop song
00:06:05 that’s a few minutes.
00:06:06 And are those explicit in your mind
00:06:08 or are they just kinda, the gut is, like you said, chorus.
00:06:12 Should you have chorus once, twice or three times?
00:06:15 Is that a gut thing or is that a rule thing?
00:06:17 You know, I think it’s a rule.
00:06:18 I mean, it’s obviously a rule I impose on myself.
00:06:20 Nobody’s in my house saying, hey, Dan,
00:06:24 if you don’t do this, I’m gonna punish you.
00:06:26 There’s no major label president that’s like,
00:06:29 Imagine Dragons needs to make pop music, Dan.
00:06:32 You know what I mean?
00:06:33 My manager doesn’t even tell me that.
00:06:35 I do it because it’s what I perceive to be enjoyable.
00:06:40 I grew up listening to a ton of pop music,
00:06:43 and then I ended up being in what is quote, unquote,
00:06:46 a rock band, which I’ve never perceived it as that,
00:06:49 but that’s kinda what the world has called it,
00:06:53 and that’s fine, but.
00:06:56 So you’re a prisoner of a prison
00:06:58 that you yourself constructed.
00:07:00 There you go.
00:07:01 Well, I’m a happy, I guess what I’m trying to say
00:07:04 is I’m a happy prisoner of the prison
00:07:06 that I have created for myself,
00:07:08 and I made that prison thinking that it was a mansion.
00:07:11 So you worked with Rick Rubin.
00:07:12 What does Rick think about your prison?
00:07:16 Rick was, you know, it was interesting to hear
00:07:22 his outside opinion when we first met,
00:07:25 because my biggest focus for so much of my life,
00:07:30 my biggest fear was, and this stems from, I think,
00:07:34 middle schools when it started,
00:07:36 but everyone being in on a joke except for yourself.
00:07:40 I really, like, the thought of thinking
00:07:44 you’re good at something, and really, you’re terrible at it,
00:07:47 and you’re surrounded by people who are saying,
00:07:49 yeah, you’re good at it, and then by themselves,
00:07:50 they’re like, he’s terrible at this.
00:07:53 Just kind of, and not just in regards to music or art,
00:07:56 but anything in life, and I think maybe
00:07:59 from having six older brothers, it stems from that too,
00:08:02 like, always feeling inadequate,
00:08:05 and like, the annoying younger brother, you know?
00:08:10 But anyway, so Rick’s, and that’s something
00:08:12 I’ve learned to let go of as I’ve gotten older
00:08:14 and had life experiences, but one of the things
00:08:18 that Rick said really early on that has stuck with me
00:08:21 was he said, yeah, you know, we’re resuming
00:08:25 the first time we met.
00:08:26 He said, I’d really like to work with you
00:08:27 because I feel like you’re not confined to a sound.
00:08:33 You’ve done a lot of different sounds,
00:08:36 and so it’s exciting because I feel like your fans
00:08:38 are forgiving more than other rock bands or bands,
00:08:41 because most people, when they hear a band,
00:08:45 it’s like, there’s a very specific sound with it.
00:08:47 It’s like, they do folk music, or they do, like,
00:08:50 California rock, or they do surf, or they do, you know,
00:08:55 like, there’s, and your fans kind of want that.
00:08:59 Like, they want them to do that thing,
00:09:01 and then they don’t do it, and sometimes that goes well,
00:09:04 but a lot of times it doesn’t, and people, you know,
00:09:07 critics and everybody is like, go back to the thing
00:09:09 that you did good and do that.
00:09:12 Rick was, felt, whether he was right or wrong,
00:09:17 that we could do, we hopped genres so much,
00:09:22 and that’s been to our benefit and detriment, I think.
00:09:27 Why detriment?
00:09:29 Because people want you to be something.
00:09:32 It’s more, you can believe it more.
00:09:35 I, you know, it’s like.
00:09:38 It’s more authentic if you never change.
00:09:40 I guess, I don’t know.
00:09:42 I mean, certainly it’s not something I subscribe to
00:09:44 because I create music, but I also grew up listening
00:09:47 to a lot of different genres, like, cats,
00:09:50 I would listen to, like, Cat Stevens,
00:09:53 and the next song would be, like, Biggie,
00:09:55 and then the next song would be Nirvana,
00:09:58 and it was like, I like a lot of,
00:10:00 and then Billy Joel, and then Enya.
00:10:03 It was like, you know what I mean?
00:10:04 I was a product, and I was a product of the 90s,
00:10:07 which, if you listen to 90s music, it really was all,
00:10:09 a lot of reason that people say, well, 90s were terrible.
00:10:12 Like, a lot of people say that.
00:10:14 I love the 90s, they were my favorite decade of music.
00:10:16 It was, there was a lot of genre hopping,
00:10:22 and I don’t know, I love that.
00:10:24 She had the, 90s had the boy bands,
00:10:27 and it had Pearl Jam, and Nirvana.
00:10:30 And it had a lot of, like, women of the 90s
00:10:34 was probably, is probably my biggest influence,
00:10:36 like, kind of that, like, angry rock women of the 90s,
00:10:41 like, Lannis Morissette, Jagged Little Pills,
00:10:43 one of my favorite records of all time.
00:10:45 The lyrics were so intimate,
00:10:48 and I don’t know if she was angry or not.
00:10:52 Sorry, if she wasn’t.
00:10:54 Yeah, but there was an anger to it.
00:10:55 There was angst, yeah, it was like angstiness.
00:10:57 And that in hip hop of the 90s influences me,
00:11:01 and then my dad.
00:11:02 So, anything my dad listened to,
00:11:04 which my dad didn’t listen to any of that.
00:11:05 My dad listened to, like, Harry Nelson and the Beatles,
00:11:08 Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Billy Joel.
00:11:13 It was very much like singer, songwriter.
00:11:15 Do you mind if we, throughout this,
00:11:17 listen to a few songs?
00:11:18 Because you mentioned Harry Nelson,
00:11:19 and I was actually, yesterday and the day before,
00:11:23 listening to a lot of his stuff,
00:11:24 and it’s just like, damn, he’s good.
00:11:28 And not as known as he should be.
00:11:33 Like, I was getting, do you mind if I play?
00:11:35 No, please, yeah.
00:11:37 I don’t know, not to open this conversation
00:11:41 to the love song.
00:11:43 I would like that, actually, Lex.
00:11:46 But Without You is an incredible song.
00:11:49 Oh, man, that’s, yeah.
00:11:52 And the heartbreak and the longing.
00:11:57 No, I can’t forget the feeling of your face.
00:12:02 He’s the best to do it, in my opinion.
00:12:04 In my opinion, he’s the best to do it.
00:12:06 But I guess that’s just the way the story goes.
00:12:10 And just the sadness of, like,
00:12:17 there’s something, I don’t even wanna talk over him,
00:12:21 because this is one of my favorite songs, too,
00:12:23 but I think people have a really good bullshit indicator.
00:12:30 And music, in my opinion,
00:12:34 whenever I meet a young artist and say,
00:12:36 well, I’m trying to make a new band,
00:12:38 and I wanna do something like how to be successful,
00:12:40 I really think understanding
00:12:44 that people have a really good bullshit indicator
00:12:47 is the most important part of being an artist.
00:12:50 And I’ll explain what that means, at least to me.
00:12:55 I think that in order to have success
00:13:01 or be a leader or whether it’s an art or anything,
00:13:05 people need to believe that you believe what you’re doing.
00:13:11 I think the best actors,
00:13:13 really, when they’re doing their thing,
00:13:15 it’s like they, it’s not acting.
00:13:18 They’re in it, and it’s how they feel,
00:13:22 and they’re expressing that sorrow or joy or whatever it is.
00:13:25 Harry, for me, Harry Nilsen, I just believe it.
00:13:30 He sings that, and I feel it.
00:13:33 And whether he’s the greatest bullshitter of all time,
00:13:36 I don’t think that’s the case.
00:13:37 I think he probably was singing that song,
00:13:39 and he just could transport himself to wherever he was.
00:13:44 It’s what makes a great live act.
00:13:46 It’s what makes a great song.
00:13:49 And someone could be the best actor
00:13:51 and sing that in the same timbre, same EQ,
00:13:56 same compression, same everything.
00:13:59 And there’s some unknown there that I,
00:14:02 I think, hopefully, it will be known at some point,
00:14:06 and it’s some scientific thing,
00:14:07 but there’s something there, the energy or something,
00:14:10 that people can perceive it and say true or false.
00:14:14 And if it resonates as true, it’s so much more meaningful,
00:14:18 and it lives on.
00:14:19 And if it doesn’t, that, for me, is what is good art or bad.
00:14:24 For people to dispute over,
00:14:25 well, sonics should sound like that, silly to me.
00:14:28 It’s like a song or even a painting, like,
00:14:33 it’s just the truthfulness of it.
00:14:36 Yeah, the truly great art goes,
00:14:40 has to go to that place where you really are feeling it.
00:14:44 Like, you forget that you’re being recorded.
00:14:46 You forget there’s an audience.
00:14:47 You really are feeling it.
00:14:50 Yeah, which I totally agree with you.
00:14:53 One of the things that I love about the internet
00:14:56 is it’s brought the bullshit detector of the masses
00:15:02 to power, which is beautiful,
00:15:04 because then the masses uplift the really authentic.
00:15:09 And even if you didn’t write the song,
00:15:11 I think it helps a lot, probably, if you wrote the song.
00:15:15 But I was a little bit, maybe a lot,
00:15:19 since we’re in Vegas, a little heartbroken
00:15:21 that to find out that Elvis didn’t write his songs.
00:15:24 But I like, for example, Rocketman, Elton John,
00:15:30 like, to find out that Elton John didn’t really know
00:15:33 where the words of Rocketman came from,
00:15:36 meaning, like, the depths of it, it’s interesting.
00:15:39 But nevertheless, he’s super authentic,
00:15:42 because for Elton John and for Elvis,
00:15:44 there’s something in the fun and the darkness
00:15:48 and the entertainment of it.
00:15:49 Like, he goes to someplace in his mind
00:15:51 that might not be deeply connected
00:15:53 from where the lyrics came from.
00:15:55 But he relates it.
00:15:56 He relates it to whatever is in his mind
00:15:59 and goes to that place emotionally.
00:16:01 Yeah, and that’s what I think it is.
00:16:03 And that’s why an actor, like I said,
00:16:04 can be completely honest to me.
00:16:07 Maybe they didn’t write the script.
00:16:08 But I write, like, I’ve always written all my own lyrics.
00:16:12 It’s a really personal thing to me.
00:16:14 But I will say, I see people all the time
00:16:18 who are performers like Elton John, for instance,
00:16:22 who didn’t write the lyrics that I believe
00:16:26 that it means just as much to them as what I wrote,
00:16:29 because they find the meaning in it for themself.
00:16:33 At least the greats do.
00:16:34 And I think that’s the difference maker.
00:16:37 And I think you can perceive,
00:16:39 and I’m sure you’ve seen art that doesn’t move you,
00:16:43 and maybe it moves someone else.
00:16:44 But for you, for some reason,
00:16:45 you perceive it to be uninteresting to you.
00:16:50 And I feel like a lot of the time,
00:16:52 I’m saying that it’s, of course, sonically,
00:16:53 maybe it’s uninteresting to you.
00:16:54 But I think the majority of the time, for myself,
00:16:58 I can find inspiration in any sonic value or painting
00:17:02 as long as I see it and I feel truth
00:17:04 from the person that created it.
00:17:06 Yeah, and for me, the lyrics,
00:17:10 maybe not the entirety of the lyrics,
00:17:12 but a few words can do wonders to take you to a place.
00:17:16 And sometimes those words don’t need to be connected
00:17:18 with the other words.
00:17:19 That’s the beauty of music.
00:17:21 They’re allowed to float in the space of mixed metaphors.
00:17:25 They’re allowed to just jump around,
00:17:27 and somehow it paints a picture without actually,
00:17:31 what is it, glycerine by Bush?
00:17:33 Right, but it’s also how the person says it, right?
00:17:35 It’s like, it’s the feeling of exactly,
00:17:39 and the same person could say that word 10 other ways
00:17:42 and you don’t care.
00:17:43 But someone says glycerine or whatever it is,
00:17:46 and it’s like, oh, you know what?
00:17:48 I feel that for some reason.
00:17:51 The way he said that, he meant it to me.
00:17:53 You know what I mean?
00:17:56 No, I can’t forget this evening
00:17:59 or your face as you were leaving,
00:18:00 but I guess that’s just the way the story goes.
00:18:04 You always smile, but in your eyes, your sorrow shows.
00:18:07 Yes, it shows.
00:18:10 Let me ask you to analyze this song.
00:18:13 Do you, so there’s a lady possibly who’s leaving him.
00:18:18 Do you think he’s leaving her or she’s leaving him?
00:18:22 She went to.
00:18:24 When I think of all my sorrow, and I had you there,
00:18:29 but then I let you go.
00:18:34 And now it’s only fair that I should let you know
00:18:41 what you should know.
00:18:43 And then the chorus says, I can’t live
00:18:45 if living is without you.
00:18:46 I can’t live, I can’t give anymore.
00:18:52 He’s got a voice on him.
00:18:53 Yeah, he does.
00:18:54 And if you really, there’s been some incredible
00:18:57 documentation on his life and the end of his life.
00:19:00 And so my answer to this is probably skewed
00:19:04 based on what I’ve seen about his life too,
00:19:06 but he was a real alcoholic at the end of his life
00:19:10 and it destroyed his voice and ended up killing him as well.
00:19:18 And so when I hear that, I perceive it as
00:19:25 someone who is destructive and in a destructive place
00:19:28 in life and can’t love someone properly.
00:19:30 And so they can’t live with them,
00:19:32 but they can’t live without them type thing,
00:19:34 which is really something that I really identify with
00:19:36 and I think is one of the struggles of life
00:19:42 is loving yourself enough, forgiving yourself for things
00:19:50 and letting yourself love someone else.
00:19:52 And at least when I listened out, I hear Harry being like,
00:19:56 and maybe I’m wrong, but this is how I perceive it at least
00:19:58 is not loving himself and feeling like he’s deserving
00:20:04 of this person, like I have to let you go.
00:20:06 I hear that, of course, and people always say,
00:20:07 oh, well, he’s breaking up with her,
00:20:09 but there’s so much more complexity and nuance
00:20:11 to relationships than that and my wife and I
00:20:15 went through really difficult separation
00:20:19 and that’s a story for another day
00:20:22 or different question or something,
00:20:24 but the nuance of it makes me think of this
00:20:27 when I hear this, which is there’s just more
00:20:32 to being with someone or not being with someone
00:20:34 than hey, I think that person’s really attractive
00:20:37 or hey, that person makes me laugh or not
00:20:40 or I love them and now I don’t love them.
00:20:42 Love is such a complex, nuanced thing
00:20:44 that a lot of times, there’s just more going on
00:20:47 behind the scenes, I think.
00:20:49 Yeah, and a small tangent on that,
00:20:52 just as a curious question, have you paid any attention
00:20:56 to the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trials?
00:20:58 I have watched quite a bit of it
00:21:00 because my wife really loves it
00:21:02 and she watches it in bed at night.
00:21:04 So it’s raw, to me it’s really,
00:21:06 because you’ve mentioned how complicated love can be
00:21:10 and it’s, I’ve never seen, I don’t care
00:21:12 about the celebrity nature of it.
00:21:14 I don’t care if it was, I don’t care who it is,
00:21:17 but it’s just laid out in such raw form.
00:21:21 For the world to see it.
00:21:22 For the world to see the toxicity,
00:21:24 but also the passion and clearly the drugs
00:21:29 and the drinking, but also like the longing
00:21:33 and the dreams and I will always be with you,
00:21:36 I will die for you, the places, the rollercoaster of love
00:21:41 and it’s all there at the end, past the end.
00:21:47 So it’s like, I’ve also recently reread
00:21:49 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
00:21:51 about Hitler and Nazi Germany.
00:21:53 It’s the rise and the fall and it’s interesting
00:21:56 to look at the entirety of that process
00:21:58 after it’s all over, many, many decades after it’s all over.
00:22:02 That book in particular written by the person
00:22:04 that was actually there and so here we’re seeing
00:22:07 two people in the context of the courtroom
00:22:11 analyzing this rise and fall of a love affair.
00:22:15 It’s fascinating.
00:22:16 You know the truth is, I was telling my wife this actually
00:22:18 just the other day because she was asking me
00:22:20 what I thought about it.
00:22:22 It makes me really sad.
00:22:24 It’s humorous, don’t get me wrong.
00:22:26 There’s a lot of parts in it that are just really funny.
00:22:30 But I look at it and I also see the internet
00:22:34 and someone’s always the villain and someone’s the hero
00:22:38 which is such a funny thing and we talked a little
00:22:40 about this offline before we got on this
00:22:42 but I have a real firm belief in life
00:22:44 that it’s just more complex than you think, always, always.
00:22:50 Johnny for instance is very charismatic
00:22:54 and you love him and he’s funny and the way he does things
00:22:58 and he looks certain ways and he says things.
00:23:02 You really love him and I feel like,
00:23:04 and maybe I’m wrong on this but it looks like
00:23:05 the internet is really, Johnny is the winner,
00:23:09 Amber is the villain and I kind of look at it
00:23:13 and I feel like, were any of you in their bedroom?
00:23:16 Were any of you there for these things?
00:23:19 And I’m not saying one way or the other.
00:23:22 All I see when I look at that is two people
00:23:26 with a lot of deep seeded hurt, anger
00:23:30 and that anger is so poisonous to both of them
00:23:32 and they’re getting through it in the way
00:23:34 that they only know how and I’m not saying
00:23:38 we shouldn’t be able to look at parts of it
00:23:40 and laugh about it and stuff and be virtuous or something
00:23:43 but just that there’s not a hero.
00:23:46 It’s more complicated.
00:23:47 Yeah, I think unless you’ve been living with Amber
00:23:52 and Johnny, you don’t know and just because
00:23:53 one seems more charismatic in the moment
00:23:55 or funnier or more believable even,
00:23:58 doesn’t mean that their truth is the truth.
00:24:04 And I feel like there’s still love there too,
00:24:06 which makes the whole thing.
00:24:07 Oh, that’s the hardest part.
00:24:08 He won’t even look at her.
00:24:09 He looks down the whole time and maybe people say,
00:24:12 well, it’s because anger or hurt or whatever
00:24:17 but the way that she looks and stuff,
00:24:18 it just feels like there’s so much hurt there
00:24:23 that it hurts me to watch it.
00:24:25 I just feel like, oh, my heart just aches for them
00:24:28 and for both of them and I don’t know either of them
00:24:30 personally and I don’t know, just hurts.
00:24:35 I’ve never seen love laid out in this raw kind of way.
00:24:38 It makes me feel better about,
00:24:44 it almost gives you, seeing people have gone through
00:24:47 a struggle in this sort of mundane kind of way,
00:24:51 gives you room to struggle yourself
00:24:54 about the messiness of love.
00:24:56 Like you’re supposed to,
00:24:57 like relationship is supposed to be simple and whatever
00:25:00 but this like, oh, man, this.
00:25:02 It’s like art.
00:25:03 Yeah.
00:25:05 And for the record, I don’t feel like it shouldn’t be shown.
00:25:09 I think it’s actually really beautiful art
00:25:11 and I agree there’s gonna be a lot of people
00:25:13 who walk away from it and are changed in certain ways
00:25:15 or look at things different.
00:25:16 I’m not saying it’s changed in the whole world,
00:25:18 the Johnny Depp trial, but it’s art.
00:25:19 It’s just like you would look at a painting
00:25:20 and it might affect you.
00:25:23 My only commentary is more that there’s not,
00:25:27 I think it’s silly when people say who’s right
00:25:29 and who’s wrong and who’s the clear villain and who’s the,
00:25:31 like we love as human, we have to have an answer for every,
00:25:34 we have to put everything in a box.
00:25:36 And it’s like, well, we’re looking at this
00:25:37 and we’re deciding you’re right and you’re wrong.
00:25:41 And I just think it’s silly unless it’s your life.
00:25:44 So speaking of heroes and villains and highs and lows,
00:25:47 you grew up in Las Vegas.
00:25:49 And you said that Vegas is a performing town,
00:25:52 a town of high stakes, drama and eccentricity.
00:25:55 It’s a town of high highs and low lows.
00:25:58 And I’ll be damned if my therapist didn’t point out
00:26:00 that correlation out to me personally a long time ago.
00:26:04 So to me, Vegas from the outside is romanticized
00:26:09 by certain movies.
00:26:09 The lows define the beauty of this town.
00:26:14 And certain movies, so to me, Casino with Robert De Niro,
00:26:21 Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone, leaving Las Vegas
00:26:25 with Nicolas Cage, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
00:26:29 with the Johnny Depp play, Hunter S. Thompson.
00:26:35 First of all, what’s your favorite representation
00:26:38 of Vegas from a darker side?
00:26:41 And do you draw any wisdom insight from the darkness,
00:26:47 the lows and the highs in those movies?
00:26:49 Or is it over romanticized?
00:26:52 So I grew up in a really conservative Mormon family.
00:26:56 And Vegas was established by the Mormons and the mob.
00:27:00 Those were like the two very different worlds
00:27:05 that created what Vegas is.
00:27:06 And if you live in Vegas, it really shows in a lot of ways
00:27:09 because Vegas has the strip and the parties
00:27:13 and the craziness.
00:27:14 But it also has very neighborhoods and big families
00:27:18 and conservative people and liberal people living together
00:27:24 in a really interesting way.
00:27:27 And for me, growing up here, for instance,
00:27:32 was a lot of driving on the freeway,
00:27:34 my mom being like, children, close your eyes.
00:27:36 There’s a naked woman on that billboard and everything.
00:27:38 Okay, mom, on our way to church.
00:27:40 You know what I mean?
00:27:41 It was like, but also being like, whoa, this is crazy.
00:27:44 You know what I mean?
00:27:44 Like taking in whatever I could when I could.
00:27:49 So I saw, and I’m grateful for that.
00:27:53 Like, I really love that I didn’t grow up as a Mormon
00:27:55 in for instance, like Utah or something,
00:27:57 like the typical place, because I saw both sides
00:28:00 and I appreciated something from both sides.
00:28:03 And now as a person now who’s not religious,
00:28:05 but just spiritually minded,
00:28:06 you know, I’m grateful for that divergent character,
00:28:13 that juxtaposition, dual edged sword that Vegas is.
00:28:17 And I try to apply that to everything in life,
00:28:19 which is like Johnny Depp and Amber.
00:28:23 It’s like, there’s two sides to every story.
00:28:25 There’s always two sides to every coin.
00:28:26 There’s always, and there’s something to be said for both.
00:28:29 Like I try to see people and even if, you know,
00:28:33 it’s just, yeah, I try to apply that to life.
00:28:36 As far as a movie that personifies Vegas
00:28:39 or something in that medium that personifies Vegas
00:28:42 in a way that resonates with me.
00:28:46 Don’t say Hangover.
00:28:47 No, no, yeah.
00:28:49 I also like, I wasn’t even allowed to watch
00:28:51 PG 13 movies growing up.
00:28:53 So a lot of the movies that you’re saying,
00:28:56 like I either didn’t see, I didn’t have cable television.
00:28:59 You know, I wasn’t like a pilgrim,
00:29:00 but I had a really, really conservative upbringing.
00:29:03 So it didn’t define your intellectual like development.
00:29:08 No, no, I just, I can’t think of any movie
00:29:11 that comes to mind where I’m like, that’s my Vegas movie.
00:29:13 You know what I mean?
00:29:14 Like, I’m sure I’ve seen some of the movies you’ve said now,
00:29:16 but I don’t, I can’t think of one that I’m like,
00:29:20 actually personifies Vegas in a way that feels honest to me.
00:29:25 Like, or like, wasn’t there a Chevy,
00:29:27 was there a Chevy Chase?
00:29:29 Yeah, yeah.
00:29:30 I think that’s maybe the only one I thought of
00:29:31 that came to mind where I was like,
00:29:33 cause I love Chevy Chase so much
00:29:34 that maybe it’s one of his Vegas vacation or something.
00:29:38 Yeah, so, but that’s more like lighthearted surge,
00:29:41 that kind of stuff.
00:29:42 Right, it’s not like, I guess what I would say
00:29:44 is there’s no truth that has been, that I’ve seen of Vegas.
00:29:48 Cause what I see of Vegas is,
00:29:52 there’s obviously like the parties and stuff
00:29:54 and the nightlife, which I’m not big party person.
00:29:56 So it’s, I haven’t really experienced much of that,
00:29:58 but there’s also drugs and I have a strange relationship
00:30:03 with drugs because I’ve lost a few friends
00:30:05 to drug overdoses.
00:30:06 And so I don’t, that’s not romantic to me,
00:30:09 but there’s also like, yeah, I mean,
00:30:12 you asked for a dark reflection of it.
00:30:14 I guess I certainly see a dark reflection to Vegas.
00:30:17 And I don’t, I feel like Vegas is typically personified
00:30:20 as like at the tables and everything.
00:30:22 But it’s also like, I have like friends
00:30:25 who’ve lost all their money to gambling addiction.
00:30:27 And so it’s like, what I guess the whole thing.
00:30:31 Yeah, somebody maybe needs to make,
00:30:32 maybe that’s an open spot.
00:30:33 There needs to be a dark side to Vegas.
00:30:36 Well, it’s about Mormons in Vegas,
00:30:39 dying to drug overdose or getting shot by the mob.
00:30:42 Yeah.
00:30:45 So you mentioned your spirituality.
00:30:48 You’ve, you said that having a crisis of faith
00:30:51 or just the philosophical question of asking who is God,
00:30:56 does God exist?
00:30:59 Or in thinking of the flip side of that,
00:31:01 of mortality, what happens when we die?
00:31:04 Those kinds of things were extremely difficult,
00:31:07 deep things for you in terms of your development,
00:31:12 the whole process of figuring that out.
00:31:15 Why does it hurt so much to lose faith in God?
00:31:20 Yeah, I would say that the seeking of God,
00:31:22 let’s say that, is an obsession for me
00:31:25 and has been since I was young.
00:31:27 I really feel that I’m a deep, deep,
00:31:31 deeply committed to finding answers in life.
00:31:37 And there’s some answers that I don’t think
00:31:38 there’s an answer to.
00:31:39 And I’m also very OCD by nature,
00:31:42 so I just don’t give up to that.
00:31:43 I’m like, well, there must be somewhere in Tibet,
00:31:46 there’s some teacher or there’s somebody out there
00:31:49 that has the answer,
00:31:51 or maybe it’s yet to be found, I’m gonna find it.
00:31:55 I’m really, my life has been to date
00:31:59 probably unhealthily committed to finding answers
00:32:03 about God or the lack thereof and mortality.
00:32:10 It’s all I sing about.
00:32:11 It’s all our records have been about.
00:32:13 Who do you think is God?
00:32:15 Have you ever gotten a glimpse?
00:32:17 You know, I will say the closest I feel like
00:32:20 I have been to experiencing God is,
00:32:24 and this sounds so, maybe, I don’t know.
00:32:29 I don’t know how it sounds,
00:32:30 but it’s through ayahuasca for me.
00:32:33 That’s my honest answer for you.
00:32:34 I feel like I had pretty much given up all hope
00:32:38 of there being anything greater than, you know,
00:32:42 us being, you know, evolving and being here and then dying
00:32:47 and you’re gone and that’s it and nothingness
00:32:50 and from nothingness we came and nothingness we go.
00:32:53 To where I am now, which is there are answers to be found.
00:32:57 I don’t know them.
00:32:58 Like, I don’t know what God looks like
00:33:00 or if God has anything to do with the word God
00:33:03 and the way that we say it,
00:33:04 but I do believe pretty fervently
00:33:07 that there is more to be found.
00:33:11 Is it motion sensor or no?
00:33:13 I don’t know what that was.
00:33:14 Looked like they’ve all died, actually.
00:33:17 Do you know which one of it?
00:33:18 Is it this one right here?
00:33:19 Why don’t I just take it out, but then it’d be too dark.
00:33:21 That’s fine.
00:33:24 Take it out.
00:33:27 Do you want to hold this chair?
00:33:29 See if I can get it like this.
00:33:31 Yeah.
00:33:35 Almost there.
00:33:37 I really don’t know how I’m gonna catch this though.
00:33:39 It’s gotta be like something saying about this.
00:33:44 There we go.
00:33:47 It’s my Chinese proverb.
00:33:47 Yeah, yeah.
00:33:49 How many people does it take to,
00:33:51 what is it, unscrew a light bulb?
00:33:53 A light bulb.
00:33:54 It was hot too.
00:33:55 It was like I was doing the two finger technique.
00:33:57 Yeah.
00:33:58 Well, I’m glad you survived that.
00:34:00 Thanks.
00:34:01 That’d be pretty ironic if we’re talking about mortality
00:34:03 and then this would be it for you.
00:34:05 In that moment.
00:34:07 I’ve never done ayahuasca, so it’s a mixture of two plants.
00:34:11 One of them is DMT, but a lot of people I really respect.
00:34:14 Very, very intelligent people had profound experiences
00:34:20 with ayahuasca.
00:34:21 What is that?
00:34:22 Where do you go?
00:34:23 Where does the mind go?
00:34:24 What the heck is up with that?
00:34:26 I’ll first say that I can’t even smoke weed.
00:34:29 I really do not enjoy it because I hate to let go of control.
00:34:37 If I feel out of control in life,
00:34:39 it’s like one of my biggest weaknesses.
00:34:41 It’s like very scary for me.
00:34:43 And some people really enjoy letting go in that way.
00:34:48 I really don’t.
00:34:50 So I was pretty terrified to make the jump then to ayahuasca.
00:34:53 But my wife who I deeply respect
00:34:59 made a profound change through ayahuasca.
00:35:03 And I saw it.
00:35:04 She led the way.
00:35:05 Yeah.
00:35:05 And it wasn’t a strange, like I think most,
00:35:08 we have a thing in America that’s like a misconception,
00:35:11 a stigma on psychedelics where it’s like,
00:35:17 it’s a drug and it makes some people crazy.
00:35:20 And then you’re gonna be on the street
00:35:22 and you’re gonna be out of your mind
00:35:23 or you’re gonna become like a crazy person basically.
00:35:28 And I think I really bought into that notion
00:35:32 because again, I was raised,
00:35:33 I wasn’t even raised with cable TV.
00:35:34 You know what I mean?
00:35:35 Like ayahuasca is very, I didn’t, you know.
00:35:38 You can imagine what that was like for a Mormon kid.
00:35:40 I didn’t know anything about it
00:35:41 and I never touched drugs at all
00:35:42 and never even touched a cigarette, you know.
00:35:47 Anyway, so I think we have this misconception about it
00:35:50 where Americans are quick to go to their doctor
00:35:52 and take any medication or drug,
00:35:57 but you know, whoa, when it comes to like psychedelics.
00:36:05 Anyway, that being said,
00:36:08 so I had that trepidation going into it,
00:36:10 but I really love and respect my wife
00:36:11 and I saw it make a profound impact in her life
00:36:13 where she suddenly was able to heal
00:36:18 from a lot of trauma that she had.
00:36:19 She had a really, she went through a lot in her life
00:36:22 and it really helped her heal,
00:36:24 but it also set her in a new path spiritually
00:36:27 that seemed really like a place that I wanted to be.
00:36:32 So I did it and I did it twice.
00:36:35 The first time it didn’t really have an effect on me,
00:36:37 which happens to a lot of people, I guess.
00:36:40 I drank this little thing
00:36:42 and there was like this shaman who came over from overseas
00:36:45 that was really, had been in the plant world for decades
00:36:51 and was a really incredible,
00:36:54 I don’t even know if he likes to be called shaman, but.
00:36:57 So it’s supposed to be like 30, 60 minute to take effect
00:37:00 and a few hours, the journey lasts.
00:37:05 About four hours. Four hours.
00:37:07 Yeah, so the second time I took it,
00:37:08 I took it in, I would say 20, 30 minutes in exactly.
00:37:12 I started to feel like I was like the dimension
00:37:19 of what is reality, the curtain was pulled open
00:37:23 and there was a lot more to discover
00:37:29 and it really blew my mind in a way
00:37:31 that I think it would probably blow anybody’s mind
00:37:34 if for instance, God descended or some Christian God
00:37:37 or whatever it is.
00:37:38 We all think it’d be this beautiful thing,
00:37:40 but in reality, it would probably make people super fearful
00:37:42 and think that they’ve lost their mind.
00:37:45 Like I’ve always, yeah, I’ve always like joked
00:37:48 that if the Mormon God came down and told my mom like,
00:37:51 if God himself came down and told my mom,
00:37:53 Mormonism is incorrect, she would say, Satan.
00:37:57 Yeah.
00:37:57 You know, it’s like, we’re never,
00:37:59 I think our minds are just not prepared
00:38:01 for a lot of anything that’s really extreme
00:38:05 and it was very extreme.
00:38:07 It was like the curtain of life was cut open,
00:38:10 which scared me, but then I felt very much
00:38:13 and a lot of people that I’ve talked to
00:38:15 have a similar thing where I felt very much
00:38:17 like I was either communicating with something
00:38:20 that was perceived as God to me
00:38:23 or highest sense of self or mind or mother earth
00:38:28 or you know, it’s called so many different names,
00:38:29 but it’s really, it’s very, a lot of people
00:38:33 have a very spiritual, similar experience with ayahuasca.
00:38:37 And just in that, it’s like this kind of profoundness.
00:38:40 It wasn’t like, there was nothing at least for me
00:38:43 that was, that felt like just like psychedelic,
00:38:48 funny cartoons or something.
00:38:49 It was like, I’m about to go on a journey
00:38:52 and I’m gonna communicate,
00:38:54 I’m communicating with something that feels incredibly wise,
00:38:58 showed me a lot of things in my life,
00:39:00 kind of almost like from a bird’s eye,
00:39:02 almost like I was looking through a video camera
00:39:03 at a younger me.
00:39:05 There was a particular thing that it communicated to me.
00:39:11 I really have a hard time with accepting success
00:39:15 and not feeling like feeling undeserving or something.
00:39:21 I can’t quite put it into words,
00:39:22 but of my position and what I’ve been given,
00:39:25 I’ve been given so much.
00:39:30 And it showed me this thing from when I was young
00:39:32 and explained to me why I am where I am now.
00:39:35 And I, to this day, it did not feel like myself
00:39:40 telling myself that.
00:39:41 That’s the only way I can explain it.
00:39:42 And there was a lot more that it showed me
00:39:45 and that was incredibly healing for me.
00:39:47 But just to be like, to put it into a short thing
00:39:52 because there’s so much to this.
00:39:55 It felt, I walked away feeling very convinced
00:39:58 that there is more to be known, for sure.
00:40:04 And a lot of my deep things that were traumatic for me
00:40:10 didn’t feel traumatic anymore,
00:40:12 specifically crisis of faith.
00:40:14 I was very angry at my parents and my community
00:40:19 for raising me in what I perceived to be falsehoods.
00:40:25 And that, I felt like the bedrock of everything I believed
00:40:30 was ripped out for me in my 20s.
00:40:32 And then it was like, good luck in life.
00:40:35 But really my parents had given me everything
00:40:37 that they could.
00:40:38 And they believed that very much so, still.
00:40:41 But a naive young me was angry
00:40:44 and felt like they had been duped
00:40:46 and thus I had been duped.
00:40:49 But Ayahuasca really showed me this roadmap of like,
00:40:53 this is truth and you’re concerning yourself
00:40:56 about a grain of sand, which is Mormonism or whatever it is.
00:40:59 And there may be some truths in that tiny grain of sand
00:41:02 and there may be falsities.
00:41:04 But so is all these other grains of sand,
00:41:06 like focus on the truth.
00:41:07 Stop focusing on these little details that are meaningless
00:41:10 and forgive and let go of people believing
00:41:13 in those things to begin with.
00:41:15 I don’t know if that makes sense,
00:41:17 but that was like the core thing I was taught
00:41:20 and to let go of control, stop needing to control everything.
00:41:24 And it felt like the wisdom was coming from elsewhere.
00:41:26 Like it’s really, I do not believe,
00:41:30 at least in my current self, I don’t have that,
00:41:33 the mindfulness that I believe that exists in me
00:41:37 to reach a lot of the conclusions that I did.
00:41:39 And there was a lot more to it
00:41:41 that would be for like a late night conversation with you.
00:41:43 But it’s so hard to put it into,
00:41:47 you feel like a crazy person.
00:41:48 Any, at least anytime I talk about ayahuasca
00:41:50 to someone who hasn’t done it,
00:41:51 I’m like, I don’t even know where to begin.
00:41:53 Like, how do you explain to someone
00:41:55 that you felt like that a multiple dimension type thing
00:41:59 happened in a way that like putting it into words is,
00:42:03 and none of it was words, by the way,
00:42:04 that was communicated to me.
00:42:05 It was like, you know how people talk about telepathy.
00:42:09 And if it existed, it would be like,
00:42:12 I could communicate to you in such a deeper way.
00:42:14 I’m so confined by me having to articulate these words
00:42:16 and put them in a sentence to you, Lex,
00:42:18 and then tell you like, if only I could just be like,
00:42:23 and emotions do that sometimes, right?
00:42:24 You could see my emotions and be like,
00:42:26 oh, that communicates a lot.
00:42:28 So that’s what it felt like to me with ayahuasca
00:42:30 is it felt like it was communicating to me very clear things,
00:42:34 but it wasn’t like, Daniel, it’s me, Mother Earth.
00:42:38 Let me relax, sit back, let me show you.
00:42:41 But it was very clear to me what was being said.
00:42:44 And no, it did not feel like me,
00:42:46 but maybe smarter people than me who’ve done it would say,
00:42:50 well, it was you and blah, blah, blah.
00:42:51 I don’t know, but it was very convincing.
00:42:53 There’s a lot of stuff in that subconscious
00:42:55 that we haven’t explored.
00:42:59 Like we haven’t explored the depths of the ocean.
00:43:01 We haven’t really figured out what’s that,
00:43:03 the younging shadow, what’s going on underneath
00:43:06 the surface of our conscious mind.
00:43:08 And what is that connecting to?
00:43:10 Is that just inside our mind or is it some kind of,
00:43:13 is there some kind of collective intelligence going on
00:43:15 where all humans are connected
00:43:16 to one kind of greater organism?
00:43:20 Like what is consciousness?
00:43:22 We have a lot of hubris in thinking we understand
00:43:25 any of it, like how the mind works at all.
00:43:28 Like what is it, like where,
00:43:32 what is the origin of consciousness?
00:43:34 What is the origin of intelligence?
00:43:37 There’s a lot of hubris about this.
00:43:39 We give each other PhDs and Nobel prizes
00:43:43 and congratulate ourselves as if we figured it all out.
00:43:46 But humility is helpful here.
00:43:48 Nevertheless, that is the question
00:43:50 that humans have been asking for
00:43:53 ever since humans were humans,
00:43:56 which is the question of mortality, the question of God.
00:44:02 So whether it’s Hamlet to be or not to be,
00:44:05 I think that’s the hardest, the most important question.
00:44:08 Albert Camus asked, why live?
00:44:17 So in terms of crisis of faith,
00:44:18 in terms of your search for truth,
00:44:20 in terms of some of the dark places
00:44:21 you’ve gone in your mind,
00:44:23 what’s a good answer to this question?
00:44:27 So for Camus with Mithos Sisyphus,
00:44:29 it was the question of suicide.
00:44:33 Is, what’s the purpose?
00:44:36 Like, what’s a good answer to why keep going,
00:44:40 especially when you’re struggling,
00:44:42 especially when you’re not,
00:44:47 when you’re feeling hopeless,
00:44:50 when you’re feeling like a burden in this search for truth,
00:44:54 where you feel like you’re surrounded by lies,
00:44:57 what’s a good answer to why live?
00:45:00 You ever found one?
00:45:02 Well, the simple answer right now is to say for,
00:45:06 it’s very easy once you have kids to say,
00:45:09 the right answer is you just,
00:45:10 of course you brought these kids into the world,
00:45:13 so you have a responsibility that I feel deeply as a father
00:45:17 to them to always be there for as long as I humanly can
00:45:21 and to take care of them and protect them.
00:45:23 It’s the most innate sense in me,
00:45:26 just, it’s wired in my animal existence.
00:45:31 So if I take that away, right,
00:45:33 because that’s kind of cheating.
00:45:35 Let’s put that aside because it is cheating.
00:45:37 It’s cheating.
00:45:38 There’s still some fundamental way in which you’re alone.
00:45:41 Yeah.
00:45:42 And to that, that actually has been a real struggle for me
00:45:48 for many years.
00:45:49 I had a real turning point early in my career
00:45:52 where we were flying somewhere overseas
00:45:57 and we were in a really small plane
00:46:02 and the lights went out
00:46:04 and like all these red lights were flashing
00:46:06 and the plane just started to dive.
00:46:08 Completely like scariest plane experience I’ve ever been in.
00:46:13 My manager was next to me, who’s my brother.
00:46:16 He was crying and texting his wife a goodbye.
00:46:20 That’s how like crazy this moment was.
00:46:23 Was it real like genuine?
00:46:24 Like genuine engine went out, plane is going down,
00:46:30 pilots looking like crazy in the front
00:46:33 and it was a really tiny jet.
00:46:36 And like I said, my brother next to me crying,
00:46:39 typing a text to his wife.
00:46:40 Really, really scary.
00:46:42 And I felt nothing.
00:46:45 I genuinely sat there and I was like,
00:46:50 this might actually be nice.
00:46:52 Like I really felt like this goes down
00:46:56 and like, ah man, life sucks and it’s hard.
00:47:00 And that sounds so ridiculous I know to say
00:47:02 because again, I’m in a different place now
00:47:05 and I see my life for what it is.
00:47:07 But at that moment I did not.
00:47:09 So life was primarily defined by suffering,
00:47:11 it was a burden.
00:47:12 It was, I felt I was incredibly depressed.
00:47:16 I had been trying different medications since I was young
00:47:20 and I just had not found anything that was working for me.
00:47:24 And then I was in a faith crisis, lost all my faith,
00:47:29 started a band that’s just became,
00:47:31 I wasn’t ever thinking that this band.
00:47:33 I was like, when you call your band Imagine Dragons,
00:47:35 you’re not thinking that band’s gonna be big, okay?
00:47:38 It was like, I was like,
00:47:41 this was like a side project that was fun for me.
00:47:43 It was like art in college.
00:47:45 I was in school and I was like,
00:47:47 man, I hate this biology class.
00:47:49 I’m gonna write down band names.
00:47:50 Like, you know what I mean?
00:47:51 Like it was not, hey, put everything aside,
00:47:55 this is my career, let’s go.
00:47:56 Like it just, it happened.
00:48:00 And I’m an introvert by nature.
00:48:03 I’m really not an extroverted person
00:48:05 who likes to go out and like,
00:48:07 I like to be at home with a couple of friends
00:48:09 and have a late night conversation over good food.
00:48:12 Like that to me is a perfect night.
00:48:14 Read a good book, listen to a podcast, go on a walk.
00:48:17 You know, those are things that I really, really enjoy.
00:48:21 And suddenly I’m in this life where I’m like
00:48:23 supposed to be something that I really don’t wanna be.
00:48:26 Except for on stage, which is a really fast,
00:48:29 like strange thing to me, which is on stage,
00:48:31 I feel so free and exuberant and like an extrovert.
00:48:35 And then I come off and I just feel like
00:48:37 shrivel back into a shell.
00:48:38 Like it’s, music does that for me
00:48:41 and performing on a stage does that for me.
00:48:43 Can we take a small tangent on that?
00:48:44 Yeah, yeah, of course.
00:48:45 What’s the high,
00:48:47 can we go through that the introvert
00:48:49 that wants to cuddle up and read a book?
00:48:52 You’re the front man of one of the,
00:48:54 if not the biggest rock bands today,
00:48:59 playing in front of huge crowds.
00:49:02 What’s the high of that and how can you land back on Earth?
00:49:10 The high of it,
00:49:11 it’s incredibly beautiful
00:49:15 to walk on a stage,
00:49:19 sing these songs that you wrote
00:49:22 and see it resonate with people around you
00:49:25 and sing with them.
00:49:27 Different cultures, different places,
00:49:29 celebrate life.
00:49:30 It’s suddenly the world seems like a fantastic place.
00:49:34 It feels like we’re all on the same team.
00:49:37 It’s like one big hug.
00:49:38 Yeah, it’s like everybody in that room gets it
00:49:40 and they all, like it just,
00:49:45 it feels like what you want the world to be,
00:49:47 which is just like this coexisting unit of people
00:49:50 and it’s not even about like,
00:49:54 it’s incredible, for sure, it’s incredible
00:49:56 and I love it and I wouldn’t do it unless I loved it.
00:49:59 And then you walk off stage and you turn on the news
00:50:01 and it’s like, you see, we’re all against each other,
00:50:04 everybody hates each other
00:50:05 and it feels that way in the world.
00:50:07 So music really, that’s why live music is so important
00:50:11 to people, that’s why music is so important to people.
00:50:13 Because even if it’s just you and that person
00:50:15 that wrote the song, you’re listening to it
00:50:16 and the two of you feel connected.
00:50:19 You know, it’s like you’re hearing Tracy Chapman
00:50:23 sing like Fast Car or something,
00:50:24 you’re just like, oh my gosh, like yes, I get it.
00:50:27 And you feel connected to that person, you don’t feel alone.
00:50:31 So that’s the high of it, for sure.
00:50:33 And then you get off stage and then, you know,
00:50:36 as my, like my uncle is a heart surgeon,
00:50:39 incredible heart surgeon who like writes the book.
00:50:42 Like he’s like the guy that the heart surgeons talk to,
00:50:45 he’s out of Nashville, Tennessee,
00:50:46 he’s just an incredible genius man.
00:50:48 He always worries and always reached out to me.
00:50:53 He’s like, musicians die all the time
00:50:55 and the reason they die, you know,
00:50:58 is because you’re getting on stage
00:50:59 and your heart’s doing this
00:51:00 and your cortisol levels are doing this,
00:51:01 you’re getting off stage and then you’re just doing this.
00:51:03 And it’s a really real thing.
00:51:05 Like you get off stage and you feel like you need drugs
00:51:07 because you’re like, the world feels like,
00:51:11 oh, incredibly daunting.
00:51:12 And it’s also, I’m sure, has to do with like
00:51:15 some like health things in your heart
00:51:17 and the cortisol levels that are so crazy
00:51:19 and then you come off and it’s like,
00:51:22 I know people are like, well, then nothing’s enough,
00:51:25 except meth, you know what I mean, right?
00:51:27 Nothing’s enough except heroin.
00:51:28 And that’s why a lot of artists turn to that stuff.
00:51:30 And I don’t say it in a preachy way,
00:51:33 like I’ve struggled with drug abuse in my life.
00:51:36 And I really, I understand why artists turn to it.
00:51:43 But also the fact that you’re an introvert.
00:51:46 So the other side of it, the fame.
00:51:50 That’s something that you also said
00:51:51 is a double edged sword for you.
00:51:53 The interesting thing about fame,
00:51:55 is that you also mentioned,
00:51:57 is it something you can’t take back?
00:51:59 Yeah.
00:52:00 It’s the thing, you can’t just like go on vacation
00:52:04 in Hawaii and it’s like, consider, do I like it or not?
00:52:06 No, you’re staying in Hawaii for the rest of your life
00:52:08 and you’ve never been there before,
00:52:10 whether you like it or not.
00:52:12 So what’s that like being loved by millions
00:52:18 and millions and millions of people,
00:52:22 which is perhaps the best kind of fame
00:52:26 in terms of if you have to choose the kinds of fame
00:52:28 that there are.
00:52:29 And still being an introvert and all that kind of stuff.
00:52:32 So what, do you feel alone?
00:52:37 More alone being famous?
00:52:40 Is there a loneliness to it?
00:52:41 Yeah, I mean, it’s such a funny thing.
00:52:44 Okay, if you had asked,
00:52:45 if we were having this conversation a couple of years ago,
00:52:47 I’d be incredibly guarded about this
00:52:49 because the last thing I wanna ever do
00:52:54 is sound ungrateful or unaware of how much I have
00:52:58 and woe is the famous celebrity with money.
00:53:02 Oh, is your life hard?
00:53:03 Is it really telling me about how hard it is?
00:53:05 But I’m also at a place in life now
00:53:06 where I just like, I’m gonna always just speak my truth
00:53:08 because that’s the only reason I’m here
00:53:10 is I’m here to speak my truth to you.
00:53:11 So I’m gonna tell you my truth,
00:53:12 whether it’s whatever it is.
00:53:14 But you’re human and feelings are real.
00:53:17 And so, and that’s the interesting thing.
00:53:20 You win a lottery, what’s that gonna feel like?
00:53:22 It’s not about complaining, oh, it’s so hard to win a lottery
00:53:25 because you get a lot of money.
00:53:25 No, it’s still, you’re human.
00:53:27 You get to experience these feelings and it’s fascinating.
00:53:30 You put humans in different situations.
00:53:33 And it’s also fascinating because a lot of people think,
00:53:35 well, I would like to be famous.
00:53:38 That’s a big thing now on social media and Instagram
00:53:40 and so on.
00:53:41 The whole world wants to be famous.
00:53:42 Or rich or famous.
00:53:43 And then it’s very interesting to think, all right,
00:53:45 well, once you arrive, are all the problems solved?
00:53:49 No, yeah.
00:53:50 So I will tell you, according to me,
00:53:52 what the pitfalls are, whether it’s true or not.
00:53:54 And there are certainly some pitfalls.
00:53:56 One, it’s once you’re there, you can’t go back.
00:54:00 Whatever, maybe that’s fine.
00:54:01 Cause maybe you love it.
00:54:02 But the real pitfall for me is that you’re now you’re Lex
00:54:09 and you’re what everybody’s perception is that Lex is.
00:54:13 And that’s what you are.
00:54:15 Now Lex is probably a lot more complex and complicated
00:54:20 and has a lot more to Lex than the Lex
00:54:23 that is the celebrity.
00:54:24 So, but anybody who meets you, that’s who you are to them.
00:54:32 And you may, you may not feel this way,
00:54:35 but you may feel confined to actually have to be that person
00:54:37 to that person.
00:54:39 Like I’ve early in my career for a long time,
00:54:41 anytime I met someone, I suddenly felt like I had to be
00:54:44 Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons.
00:54:46 Anytime I met someone, including my family now,
00:54:48 who are also like, whoa, this is crazy.
00:54:50 You’re like Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons.
00:54:52 And I wanted to just be the goofball
00:54:55 that I have been my whole life with my brothers and family.
00:54:58 But suddenly I found myself feeling like,
00:55:00 no, I have to be this.
00:55:02 Like, cause that’s who, that’s who this is.
00:55:05 So you’re almost like playing a role.
00:55:06 And it’s like, I’ve heard a lot of actors talk about this
00:55:08 where they’ll take on a role and then it’s like,
00:55:10 they feel like they have to, they like become that.
00:55:12 And it’s a really scary thing.
00:55:14 Like you alter who you are almost
00:55:17 to fit the notion of other people.
00:55:19 Cause especially if a lot of artists are empaths,
00:55:24 it, you know, a lot of people get into art
00:55:26 in a deep way are empaths.
00:55:27 And so you feel a lot of what people are feeling
00:55:31 and you’re never wanting to burden people.
00:55:33 And you’re always wanting to deliver to that person,
00:55:36 you know, what they want is like people pleasing is very,
00:55:39 goes hand in hand with a lot of like these famous people.
00:55:42 And they get to where they were
00:55:44 because they know how to do that.
00:55:45 They know how to be in a room with someone
00:55:47 and look them in the eye and make them feel
00:55:49 like they’re the only person in the room.
00:55:51 And then now they got that role in that movie
00:55:52 because they sat with the casting director
00:55:54 and they were like, oh, you’re so funny.
00:55:57 Oh, has anybody told, like put on the charisma,
00:55:59 do it all.
00:56:00 And it’s like, anyway, I’m like,
00:56:02 I’m going on a different tangent here,
00:56:03 but long story short, there’s a lot of things
00:56:07 that are really unhealthy about it.
00:56:08 And then a lot of people who want the fame,
00:56:11 then the second it starts to go away,
00:56:12 then they’re like, who am I anymore?
00:56:14 Like that was everything.
00:56:16 And now I’m like on the down
00:56:17 and now I’m not a famous person anymore.
00:56:19 And now I hate myself and I’m going to do drugs.
00:56:21 And it’s like, it’s like this vicious cycle,
00:56:24 like you could never be famous enough.
00:56:25 You’re always going to get like,
00:56:27 there’s just so much to it that I’ve just,
00:56:29 and again, like I’ve lost friends
00:56:33 in this career to do that for sure.
00:56:36 And there’s a certain element to sort of just
00:56:38 on the losing fame of interacting with a lot of folks,
00:56:44 especially young folks like on YouTube.
00:56:46 So fame is a thing that has levels.
00:56:51 You’re always trying to be a little more famous.
00:56:52 A lot of folks who are chasing fame,
00:56:54 it doesn’t matter how famous you are,
00:56:55 you’re always trying to chase more.
00:56:56 And when you start to lose it,
00:56:58 interesting things can happen if you’re not self aware,
00:57:01 which is like, like you mentioned,
00:57:03 you might be trying to grasp back at where you were
00:57:08 by leaning into the formula that got you there.
00:57:11 And so the constraints of the image that you mentioned
00:57:15 becomes the thing that you’re now trying to lean into.
00:57:19 And that’s actually walking away from who you really are.
00:57:22 Like you lean further into being that person.
00:57:25 That’s true for acting.
00:57:26 That’s true for even on like YouTube,
00:57:30 which is people acting, they have a role.
00:57:32 They got them to the table somehow.
00:57:34 Yeah, it’s dark, but I think those are,
00:57:39 that’s just put for everybody to see,
00:57:43 but that’s a very human struggle even when you’re not famous.
00:57:47 Finding yourself, being yourself,
00:57:49 of not letting, not doing the people pleasing at any scale
00:57:55 and being trapped by that.
00:57:56 Yeah, and also feeling like it’s never enough.
00:57:58 I think that’s something all, like it’s not just
00:58:03 a famous thing, but it’s like in the whole,
00:58:04 like everybody deals with feeling like
00:58:06 when I’m here, I’ll be happy.
00:58:08 When I get that job, I’ll be happy.
00:58:10 When I have that money, then I’ll be happy.
00:58:12 When I get that surgery and my nose looks like this,
00:58:16 I will be happy then.
00:58:17 It’s like a constant chase of happiness instead of happiness.
00:58:25 It’s like the opposite, it’s opposite of self love.
00:58:27 It’s the opposite of happiness.
00:58:30 There’s no presence to it.
00:58:31 You’re constant, you’re never going to find it.
00:58:34 You’re never gonna arrive and you’re just gonna
00:58:36 live your life and then you’re gonna be on your death bed
00:58:38 and be like, I was chasing the wrong thing my whole life.
00:58:43 I should say that podcasts are interesting in that way.
00:58:46 So for me personally, because you just talk a lot,
00:58:49 you can’t, people that meet you, they know you
00:58:52 and they know the evolution of you.
00:58:54 And that’s the same thing for like you right now,
00:58:58 Dan of Imagine Dragons, just being on a podcast
00:59:02 like long form reveals a side that liberates you more
00:59:07 to be yourself, to like, people see, oh, there’s a human.
00:59:12 They, cause they, music, they have a deep connection
00:59:15 with you, they have experiences with you
00:59:18 the way they experienced it and that’s who you are
00:59:21 with them through the songs.
00:59:22 But now you get to see, oh, that’s a human being.
00:59:26 He probably gets angry, he gets sad, he’s excited,
00:59:29 he’s hopeful and there’s a core, there’s a good human being
00:59:33 with the whole roller coaster of emotions all there.
00:59:36 It’s a giant, beautiful mess.
00:59:37 And podcasts reveal that, that’s why I love podcasts
00:59:39 like long form, you get to hear some artists and actors
00:59:44 and so on and some of them you get to see, oh,
00:59:47 you’ve lost yourself in the surface.
00:59:53 That’s a tragedy with some actors, some great actors.
00:59:57 They’ve left so much of themselves in the roles
01:00:01 they’ve played that they can no longer be the thing
01:00:06 they were before, those great roles.
01:00:08 That’s for sure, it’s hard, it’s hard to see.
01:00:11 So you get to see that with Johnny Depp with,
01:00:13 I don’t know, Pirates, he was talking about that
01:00:15 with Pirates of the Caribbean, that was a shift.
01:00:18 Like he’s not that guy, he’s forever, forever that guy.
01:00:25 But the point is to remember that you’re not
01:00:27 into your family, which is interesting you said
01:00:29 with your family, when I see people close to me,
01:00:31 they also, there is an element like that
01:00:34 while you’re that, they start treating you
01:00:37 like the famous person.
01:00:38 Yeah, I’m fortunate to have my manager who’s my brother,
01:00:44 my older brother, and my lawyer is my other older brother.
01:00:48 And that’s been helpful because it’s weird,
01:00:53 it gets weird with everyone no matter what.
01:00:55 One of the best advice I was given was by Charlie Sheen.
01:00:59 You got advice from Charlie Sheen.
01:01:00 Yeah, we were playing.
01:01:02 The wise sage of our generation.
01:01:04 Wise sage Charlie Sheen, but it was, it was really wise.
01:01:07 I was sitting next to him and we were playing
01:01:11 some late night television and he said,
01:01:13 this was right at the beginning, and he just said,
01:01:14 boys, just mark my words, your life is about
01:01:18 to get really weird, that’s all he said.
01:01:21 But it stuck with me forever and it’s Charlie Sheen,
01:01:22 so of course it sticks with you.
01:01:25 And I remember being like, right, okay, Charlie Sheen,
01:01:27 I’m not Charlie Sheen, it’s not gonna get weird,
01:01:29 like, you know.
01:01:29 But it got really, really weird, really quick,
01:01:34 because suddenly you’ve existed your whole life
01:01:37 in this way where everybody just,
01:01:39 everything you get, you achieved,
01:01:42 it was because you got it.
01:01:44 And every conversation you had, like,
01:01:47 if someone liked you at the end of that conversation,
01:01:49 well, it’s because they liked you.
01:01:51 If they didn’t like you, it’s because they didn’t like you.
01:01:53 And you can make complete peace with that.
01:01:55 At least I could my whole life.
01:01:56 I was like, life is a challenge.
01:01:58 And be myself and I’m gonna go through it
01:02:01 and find some people along the way that I connect with
01:02:04 and others, no.
01:02:05 And that social integrity is so important to us.
01:02:11 And we think it would be nice to have this,
01:02:13 and this is going back to the pitfalls of fame.
01:02:16 We think it would be nice to walk into a room
01:02:18 and have everyone be like,
01:02:22 and you could be like, dumpster fire.
01:02:24 And everybody’s like, oh my gosh, dumpster fire,
01:02:26 that was amazing.
01:02:28 Well, you said dumpster fire was amazing.
01:02:30 It’s like, it’s incredibly, incredibly lonely.
01:02:34 And it just breaks everything that you knew about humanness.
01:02:39 And it sucks.
01:02:39 So then you’re seeking out people who,
01:02:42 that it doesn’t exist with.
01:02:44 And family is the closest you can get to that for sure.
01:02:46 But even your family, it’s gonna take a little bit
01:02:47 where they’re like, oh, this is a little weird.
01:02:49 Like all my friends at work are now asking about you
01:02:51 and you’re my young, stupid brother.
01:02:53 But now you’re suddenly like the young, stupid brother
01:02:55 that they want an autograph from and stuff.
01:02:56 And it still makes, like they have to get over that
01:02:59 and figure that out.
01:03:03 And then you meet people too
01:03:04 who know about this whole concept and they’re like,
01:03:06 well, I’m gonna be an asshole to him
01:03:08 to show him that I don’t subscribe.
01:03:11 And you’re dealing with like people who are like,
01:03:14 dumpster fire, the person who’s like,
01:03:17 you could say something actually profound and nice
01:03:19 and they’d be like, that’s stupid and you’re an idiot.
01:03:22 Cause it’s like an actual attempt to like show you
01:03:25 how much they don’t care.
01:03:27 So you live in this very, like this.
01:03:29 Still, nevertheless, even when nobody knew you,
01:03:32 you were seeking for deep human connection
01:03:35 with a small number of people.
01:03:37 And now when a lot of people know you,
01:03:39 you’re still looking for deep connection
01:03:41 with a small number of people.
01:03:43 The struggle is the same.
01:03:46 Can you speak to,
01:03:47 cause you mentioned some of the dark moments.
01:03:49 What advice would you give to people
01:03:51 who are struggling with depression?
01:03:53 And maybe for the people who love the people
01:03:57 who are struggling with depression.
01:04:00 So what I have found to be most successful for me,
01:04:05 it’s back to the basics of everything
01:04:09 that the therapist or psychologist will tell you,
01:04:12 psychiatrist will tell you right when you meet them,
01:04:13 which is exercise every day,
01:04:19 eat healthy for sure,
01:04:22 find time, make time every day to do something
01:04:24 that you love, whatever that may be,
01:04:27 whatever brings you joy.
01:04:30 And when you’re really depressed,
01:04:32 that actually feels like nothing.
01:04:34 Cause the things that brought you joy,
01:04:36 don’t bring you joy anymore.
01:04:37 When I’m really in the thick of it.
01:04:39 But for me, like this is the cycle
01:04:43 that I’ll go through is I’ll look at my life
01:04:46 and I’ll say, okay, what can I clean up?
01:04:48 All right, well, for me it was cutting out alcohol
01:04:51 actually helped me a lot.
01:04:55 I know that sounds like a big,
01:04:56 I’m not judging anybody for that.
01:04:59 And I still drink on occasion,
01:05:01 but I felt like alcohol has been very unhelpful
01:05:03 to my mental state.
01:05:06 Feel less drive and less happiness the next day
01:05:09 for things that I wanna do.
01:05:10 I feel like it plays a lot with your serotonin.
01:05:12 So look for stuff to change.
01:05:14 Clean living, yeah, clean living,
01:05:16 but also understanding that sometimes it just is,
01:05:22 and you just keep breathing
01:05:24 and it will get better with time.
01:05:25 This too shall pass.
01:05:27 This too shall pass.
01:05:27 Like I really think that in the winter,
01:05:31 I’m pretty sure, I mean, I’ve had a lot of,
01:05:33 I’ve seen a lot of therapists
01:05:34 and all of them say the same thing,
01:05:35 which is like, you have major depressive disorder
01:05:37 and this is what it is,
01:05:38 but it’s certainly worse for me in the winter months.
01:05:41 So I know there’s like, I can’t think of the term for it,
01:05:44 but there’s a term for like seasonal depression.
01:05:47 There it is.
01:05:49 So I’ll get to the winter and suddenly I’m like,
01:05:51 geez, everything really sucks on a deeper level.
01:05:55 And then, so it’s like this too shall pass is another thing.
01:05:58 It’s like, just practice those things.
01:06:01 Absolutely see a therapist.
01:06:02 That’s my biggest, like my biggest emphasis of life
01:06:04 is to like on stage, like my goal,
01:06:07 like I have a few things that I really, really care about.
01:06:09 One is mental health and destigmatizing therapy.
01:06:13 Cause for me, I didn’t go to therapy for a long time
01:06:15 because I felt that it would be admitting that I was broken.
01:06:18 It’d be admitting that I was weaker than Lex
01:06:22 who doesn’t have to go to a therapist
01:06:23 because Lex is stronger.
01:06:25 So be strong like Lex.
01:06:27 I would like look at all my older brothers
01:06:29 and I looked up to them so much
01:06:30 and they’re all these incredibly successful people,
01:06:32 plastic surgeon, an anesthesiologist, a dentist,
01:06:35 two attorneys, Stanford, NYU,
01:06:38 like just like incredible high standards,
01:06:41 Eagle Scouts, you know, like they valedictorians,
01:06:45 like they just did it all.
01:06:47 So for me, I was very, really did not want to admit
01:06:53 and none of them went to therapy.
01:06:55 So it was like, what are you going to be?
01:06:56 Are you, oh, you’re broken.
01:06:58 Are you like the weak one who can’t hack life?
01:07:01 And I think that’s incredibly dangerous.
01:07:03 And I feel like it almost cost me my life
01:07:05 because I took so long to finally go to therapy.
01:07:08 So I really want kids to know,
01:07:10 hey, like the great people that achieve great things
01:07:14 that are doing amazing things,
01:07:16 they probably have help, almost all of them.
01:07:18 It’s like going to the gym, but it’s a mental gym.
01:07:21 What, so I, unfortunately,
01:07:23 I wanted to be a psychiatrist when I was growing up.
01:07:27 Maybe that’s why I like podcasts.
01:07:29 Maybe that’s.
01:07:29 I think you’d be a good one.
01:07:30 Maybe, I would.
01:07:32 I think you are a psychiatrist, pretty much, right?
01:07:35 Sounds like you’re a psychiatrist.
01:07:36 I think I need more.
01:07:37 I think actually, to be a good psychiatrist,
01:07:41 you also need to be seeking therapy from the,
01:07:44 like you also need to be,
01:07:46 have some stuff to work through in your mind.
01:07:50 I think, yeah, you have to have gone to some dark places.
01:07:55 What?
01:07:56 The empathize.
01:07:57 The empathy.
01:07:58 It’s the ability to empathize,
01:07:59 and especially if you’ve directly experienced it,
01:08:02 you can go to those places in your mind.
01:08:04 Like you said, it’s with the music,
01:08:06 to be authentic, you have to really go there.
01:08:08 What, why did therapy help so much?
01:08:12 What is the process of therapy,
01:08:14 if you can just educate a little more?
01:08:16 Is it, are you basically bringing to the surface
01:08:20 and talking through things that you,
01:08:24 because of the momentum of life,
01:08:27 you just never allow yourself to speak through,
01:08:31 to think through?
01:08:32 Is that what therapy is?
01:08:33 Or is there some more systematic thing?
01:08:36 So I’ve been to a lot of strange,
01:08:38 different kinds of therapy.
01:08:39 So I’ll tell you my first therapist.
01:08:41 If I could sort of interrupt,
01:08:43 how hard is it to find a therapist that connected with you?
01:08:47 It is, it’s actually pretty hard, I think.
01:08:50 I think, I think it for,
01:08:53 well, actually I have a skewed view of that,
01:08:55 because going back to the beginning of my therapy
01:08:59 was with a Mormon therapist.
01:09:01 So it was very much like,
01:09:03 well, are you reading your book of Mormon?
01:09:05 And are you praying at night?
01:09:07 You know what I mean?
01:09:08 Like, that was a big focus of my therapy
01:09:10 to begin with.
01:09:10 And you’re having a faith crisis in the distance somewhere.
01:09:13 Yes, I was like, well, and then.
01:09:17 You’re making it worse.
01:09:18 Yes, the next therapist I went to
01:09:20 was a Scientology therapist.
01:09:25 I met my wife and she was Scientologist at the time,
01:09:28 and she’s not anymore.
01:09:29 She’s like, it’s such a funny thing to look back on,
01:09:33 because we met, and I was like this Mormon missionary
01:09:36 who had just got home from his mission,
01:09:38 and I met her, and she’s a Scientologist.
01:09:40 I was like, wow, that’s batshit crazy.
01:09:41 Like, that stuff’s crazy.
01:09:43 And she’s like, what are you talking about?
01:09:44 That’s your crazy, you’re a Mormon.
01:09:47 That’s batshit crazy.
01:09:48 And the two of us were like, huh,
01:09:51 maybe there’s something to this, to both of us here.
01:09:54 Yeah, the tension actually forces you to think through,
01:09:56 oh, well, what is true?
01:09:58 Yeah, and we really fell in love through that,
01:10:01 which was like, maybe we’re both on the wrong track.
01:10:05 Let’s figure this out.
01:10:06 But before that happened,
01:10:07 we went to a Scientologist therapist,
01:10:12 who that therapy consisted of,
01:10:14 what have you done wrong to Asia?
01:10:17 And they would ask me that question
01:10:19 over and over and over and over,
01:10:20 until I’m like thinking of the deepest, darkest things
01:10:23 that were in the recesses of my mind.
01:10:25 This was marriage therapy.
01:10:28 Anyway, I’m not gonna get into that,
01:10:30 but it was Scientology therapy.
01:10:32 So that was a different thing.
01:10:33 And then I went to therapy therapy,
01:10:36 like no, not attached to any religion.
01:10:39 And that was a really great experience for me.
01:10:40 And since then I’ve been through
01:10:42 a couple of different therapists,
01:10:43 but that was more because where I was
01:10:45 and moving and things like that.
01:10:47 So is it that hard to find a great therapist?
01:10:50 Probably not, but maybe don’t go
01:10:51 to your Mormon therapist
01:10:52 versus that Scientology therapist.
01:10:55 Or maybe that’s the route for you.
01:10:57 Maybe it’s the route for you, I don’t know.
01:10:59 Yeah, but what is, so is it bringing stuff
01:11:01 to the surface, basically?
01:11:02 Oh yeah, sorry, I didn’t even answer your question.
01:11:04 What’s the effect, why is it so effective?
01:11:06 Just, is there something you could put words to?
01:11:10 Yeah, I mean, I think it’s, obviously,
01:11:11 there’s the common things you would think of,
01:11:13 which is like, oh, I’ve been holding these things in
01:11:15 that I don’t wanna tell anybody,
01:11:16 and then I tell this person,
01:11:17 and oh, there’s relief in that.
01:11:19 But that’s really not where the real work comes from.
01:11:21 I think the real work is meeting with someone
01:11:24 who is well versed and educated and understands.
01:11:29 It’s like coding.
01:11:30 It really is, it’s like someone who,
01:11:32 they listen to you, and they’re like,
01:11:33 well, that was a trigger,
01:11:34 and then this became this trigger,
01:11:36 and you’re probably, every time you’re hearing that,
01:11:38 thinking of this thing that happened earlier in your life,
01:11:41 and they just will walk you through scenarios,
01:11:43 and maybe some of them aren’t right,
01:11:44 but some of them, you’ll be like,
01:11:45 it’ll resonate sometimes, you’re like,
01:11:47 wow, I am feeling that because of that,
01:11:50 and that did happen, and maybe if I call my mom
01:11:52 and say this to her, it will make me feel,
01:11:54 hey mom, this happened, it’s like work.
01:11:56 You put in work, and you have hard conversations
01:11:59 and do difficult things,
01:12:00 and if, so if your therapy’s not difficult,
01:12:03 I actually think that’s not good therapy.
01:12:05 Good therapy is, it’s gonna be a little difficult,
01:12:08 it’s work, like.
01:12:10 During and after.
01:12:11 Yes, like I had this incredible therapist who was,
01:12:15 I told him when I was gonna do ayahuasca,
01:12:16 he was like, geez, you know,
01:12:18 he had actually was a doctor before
01:12:20 and a really well educated studied person
01:12:22 who had walked away from brain doctor,
01:12:26 what’s the word for that, brain doctor?
01:12:28 Brain surgeon? Neurologist.
01:12:29 Oh yeah, neurologist, yep.
01:12:30 And he said, well basically his belief was that ayahuasca
01:12:36 was like basically doing therapy like 50 sessions.
01:12:39 He was like, it’s like really intensive.
01:12:42 He was like, I don’t know if you wanna do that,
01:12:44 if you do, you can make some big steps forward,
01:12:47 but I prefer just to do one session at a time.
01:12:51 And so yeah, it’s hard work.
01:12:53 And that, I typically like,
01:12:56 it’s really hard for me to even talk about ayahuasca
01:12:58 by the way, going back to that,
01:12:58 because I’m not looking to tell everybody to go do ayahuasca.
01:13:01 It’s incredibly hard.
01:13:03 It was the scariest experience of my entire life.
01:13:07 It felt like I went to heaven,
01:13:08 but it also felt like I went to the darkest, deepest hell
01:13:11 that was incredibly scary, incredibly scary, yeah.
01:13:16 So you told the story of how you wrote the song Believer
01:13:22 or like your childhood friend, I guess, Donald,
01:13:27 like bullying and that kind of stuff.
01:13:31 This song, I mean, a lot of your songs
01:13:34 are super interesting sort of in terms of percussion,
01:13:37 super interesting, super interesting lyrically,
01:13:40 just how it flows and also pain is at the center of it.
01:13:45 I mean, a lot of, like you said, the crisis of faith,
01:13:49 some of these existential questions
01:13:50 are basically behind a lot of your songs, funny enough.
01:13:55 Maybe they’re covered in metaphor, so it’s hard to see,
01:14:00 but it’s there.
01:14:01 And this song is really interesting in that way
01:14:05 that it puts pain, you made me a believer.
01:14:10 You break me down, you build me up, Believer.
01:14:16 That’s so interesting.
01:14:18 Maybe can you tell the story of how the song came to be?
01:14:22 I’d love to listen to it too.
01:14:23 I have some questions musically about it too.
01:14:25 Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s exactly
01:14:29 what we’re talking about with therapy.
01:14:30 I just feel like the greatest things in my life
01:14:34 have come from the deepest hurt, like losing someone,
01:14:43 that you love is maybe the hardest part of the human path
01:14:48 for me, at least thus far.
01:14:51 When I think of, okay, what was the hardest thing?
01:14:52 There’s like, you think of physical pain
01:14:55 or maybe like going through financial pain or whatever.
01:14:58 I think losing someone that you really love to death
01:15:02 is one of the hardest, for me,
01:15:05 I would say it was the hardest.
01:15:08 But it also makes you look at your life
01:15:10 completely differently and alter your life,
01:15:13 at least for me in ways that were really healthy.
01:15:16 Being more present, letting go of things
01:15:19 that were meaningless, trying to control
01:15:21 what other people think about you,
01:15:22 like wasting your time on things like that.
01:15:25 And you suddenly see like, wow, like time,
01:15:28 I got small amount of time, like how do I wanna spend it?
01:15:31 I’m gonna spend it in the best way I know how and that’s it.
01:15:34 So, yeah, I mean, it’s a basic concept
01:15:37 that’s been said a million times over
01:15:39 in a million different ways.
01:15:39 But that’s pretty much what I was trying to say with Believer
01:15:42 which is like, I’ve lost faith in everything
01:15:46 at that time period or previous to that time period.
01:15:51 And then I was rebuilding my faith
01:15:53 or my spiritual thought process.
01:15:57 And it was after ayahuasca and it was like, finding,
01:16:02 being a Believer and that’s not necessarily like
01:16:05 a Believer in God or a Believer in heaven and hell
01:16:09 or anything like that, but a Believer in more.
01:16:12 Believing in goodness, believing in that there is some light
01:16:17 like, and again, those words like, they’re just words
01:16:22 and I wish there were better words to formulate
01:16:24 the thought that I’m trying to express,
01:16:25 but just more, like the thought of me dying,
01:16:33 for me, I don’t fear it, I don’t fear it,
01:16:37 but actually I really fear not seeing my kids again.
01:16:42 I’ll say that, that is fearful for me.
01:16:44 I feel like I love so deeply these children
01:16:48 that the thought of like leaving them
01:16:51 for me is a scary thought or something.
01:16:55 They’re kind of good reminder
01:16:58 how much you love life actually.
01:17:00 And you don’t always remember that.
01:17:04 Yeah, and I think having kids is not for everyone
01:17:07 for absolutely for sure, but for me,
01:17:09 and especially you shouldn’t be having kids
01:17:11 to give yourself a reason to live.
01:17:14 I feel like dying, I’m gonna have a kid.
01:17:16 You might feel more like dying after having a kid actually.
01:17:20 It’s pretty stressful, but it is a place to like,
01:17:23 I’ve changed a lot of people that I’ve known
01:17:26 that it gave them a new intensity
01:17:29 of gratitude for life, for sure.
01:17:32 Guy, do you mind if we, I’ll return to the pain
01:17:35 and the belief, do you mind if we listen
01:17:37 to a little bit of songs?
01:17:38 No, it’s fine.
01:17:44 Do you write the music first or the words first?
01:17:47 Uh, the same time, which is very typical for me.
01:17:51 By just the way it opens, intensity of openings.
01:17:56 You ever think about what the first few seconds sound like?
01:18:00 Is that something that, like when you imagine a song,
01:18:03 is it the opening you imagine?
01:18:06 No, it’s kind of a, I never think opening,
01:18:10 I never think final, I think soundscape
01:18:14 of how I’m feeling right now.
01:18:16 So it could be the middle of the song
01:18:17 for all I know when I’m doing that,
01:18:20 but my process for me is very much lyrics and melody
01:18:24 and music really come at the same time.
01:18:27 Like I, by same time, I mean, I’m,
01:18:31 I’m, as I’m expressing maybe, you know,
01:18:34 I’m feeling like.
01:18:42 Like, it’s not that simple, but it’s like,
01:18:44 I’ll hear it, like, it’s like, here’s all the orchestra
01:18:47 and you’re kind of just pressing all the buttons at once
01:18:49 and melody and my voice is just one of those instruments.
01:18:53 You know what I mean?
01:18:54 It’s just utilizing one instrument.
01:18:56 So you’ve seen the landscape and that landscape
01:18:57 includes melody, includes percussion, lyrics a little bit,
01:19:01 or lyrics?
01:19:02 I will be words to begin with, like a word here and there.
01:19:05 Like, I’ll be like.
01:19:10 You know, I’m like, what’s a word that I’m thinking of
01:19:12 when I’m feeling this soundscape?
01:19:14 And I always create with no theme in mind.
01:19:19 I’m never, for better or for worse,
01:19:21 just my process is I’m sitting down
01:19:24 and I’m writing a journal entry.
01:19:26 Simple as that.
01:19:27 It’s like, when you sit down to write a journal entry,
01:19:29 are you sitting down and you’re like, Kev,
01:19:31 I’ve had all these words here that I’m gonna put on the page
01:19:33 and I’m gonna order it in this way.
01:19:35 And my theme for my journal entry today is gonna be this.
01:19:38 Maybe some people do, but I don’t.
01:19:39 My journal entry is, I don’t know what I’m gonna say.
01:19:42 Oh, how was today?
01:19:43 Well, man, today was this and feeling this.
01:19:45 And now that I think about that,
01:19:46 I’m really angry about that.
01:19:47 That hurt my feelings when this happened.
01:19:49 I mean, you’re like, you’re formulating it as you go
01:19:51 and that’s the joy of it.
01:19:53 And for me, that’s what music is.
01:19:55 So I’ll sit down, not thinking,
01:19:57 hey, I’ve been wanting to write a song that has a hard beat
01:20:00 or I’ve been wanting to write a song that’s anthemic
01:20:02 or I’ve been wanting to write a song that’s,
01:20:03 it’s like, how am I feeling right now?
01:20:06 And it’s joyful?
01:20:07 Is the feeling joyful to you or is it struggle?
01:20:10 You just made it sound like it’s joyful.
01:20:15 Or at least fulfilling.
01:20:17 I wouldn’t use that.
01:20:18 Yeah, fulfilling is the word I was kind of looking for,
01:20:20 but there was.
01:20:21 There’s a lot of artists talk about really struggle,
01:20:23 like you talk about writers.
01:20:24 Cathartic, that’s the word I was looking for.
01:20:26 It feels like having a good moment with a therapist
01:20:30 where you’re like, okay, I’m expressing this thing
01:20:34 that I just need to express.
01:20:36 For whatever reason, I need to express this.
01:20:38 The majority of the songs I write,
01:20:40 for the record, are never heard.
01:20:41 I write over 100 songs a year.
01:20:43 I release 20 songs every three years.
01:20:47 So, I don’t know, what’s that percent?
01:20:49 20 out of 300.
01:20:51 Come on, Lex.
01:20:53 It’s less than 10%.
01:20:55 Less than 10%, yeah.
01:20:56 Eight, seven or something?
01:20:57 Yeah.
01:20:59 Anyway, so it’s.
01:21:01 And then getting together with the band
01:21:02 and getting them selected down
01:21:04 is really what the process has.
01:21:06 So you’re really writing a song per one to three days.
01:21:11 Three days, maybe a song that you can’t quite figure out
01:21:16 the puzzle of that’s gonna last a little longer.
01:21:20 Is it worth the struggle?
01:21:20 I finish every idea.
01:21:22 Yeah, you finish every idea.
01:21:23 I do, I finish every idea.
01:21:25 So it’s not just like laying completely unfinished.
01:21:28 I could open my computer for you right now
01:21:30 and I would show you hundreds and hundreds of songs
01:21:33 that you would listen to and think,
01:21:35 that sounds like a song.
01:21:36 It’s like there’s rhythm, there’s melody,
01:21:38 there’s multiple instruments, there’s lyrics.
01:21:40 Like I, it’s the same thing as for coding for me,
01:21:45 which is music, which is I can’t walk away
01:21:47 until I’ve completed it.
01:21:48 But it’s finished.
01:21:50 Well, finished is.
01:21:51 Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it sounds like a song.
01:21:52 I certainly do a lot more with it after,
01:21:55 with the band, we’ll pull it all apart.
01:21:56 But it’s a song.
01:21:58 It’ll be like, you know, you’ll listen to it and say,
01:22:00 okay, that was a song.
01:22:01 I get, you understand what it is, for sure.
01:22:05 Do you think, this is a painful question
01:22:08 from a fan perspective.
01:22:10 Do you think there’s genius on your computer
01:22:15 that you walked away from that you just didn’t notice it?
01:22:19 Like, do you think there’s truly great songs
01:22:21 that you’ve written that you just didn’t notice
01:22:25 how great they are?
01:22:26 I think greatness is something that I feel I’m,
01:22:32 I don’t feel like I’ve achieved greatness.
01:22:34 Genuine, I’m not saying that to you
01:22:36 in a way of like humility, falseness.
01:22:38 Like Michael Jordan type.
01:22:39 No, genuinely, I feel like I am on a journey right now
01:22:45 to find who I am.
01:22:46 And I’m 34 and it’s like, I don’t even,
01:22:48 I haven’t begun that journey.
01:22:50 I feel like I’m just starting that.
01:22:52 But that being said, I certainly don’t know
01:22:59 the right answer to what songs are, you know,
01:23:02 beloved or good to the masses.
01:23:04 Like Imagine Dragons is such a massive entity.
01:23:06 It’s like, there have been a, I will say this,
01:23:09 there are a couple of times where I fought really hard
01:23:12 to decide on the single, really hard.
01:23:15 Or I always fight for what goes on the record, always.
01:23:17 I always put the record together
01:23:19 and that’s the record that I wanted to be
01:23:20 and me and the guys come up with that.
01:23:22 And it’s nobody else has influenced, no manager, no label.
01:23:25 The single, everybody wants to have a saying.
01:23:29 Your label wants to have a saying in it.
01:23:30 Your manager wants to have a saying in it.
01:23:32 And I have fought really hard over that.
01:23:35 And I’ve been wrong before and I’ve been right before.
01:23:37 But as far as songs that I haven’t put out, I mean.
01:23:43 Because you can imagine so many songs,
01:23:44 you think of so many Beatles songs
01:23:47 that are like some of their greats,
01:23:49 while my guitar gently weeps.
01:23:51 I’m trying to imagine weird sounding,
01:23:55 not that interesting possibly songs.
01:23:57 The majority of what we put them.
01:23:58 Honestly, it may be our best stuff
01:24:02 is that we don’t put out for instance.
01:24:03 Because our band is such a, it’s such a complex question.
01:24:09 I really don’t know actually.
01:24:11 I don’t know, maybe one day I’ll die
01:24:12 and people will look and be like,
01:24:13 I hated Imagine Dragons, but now I listen to that song.
01:24:16 I really liked that, wish they would put that out.
01:24:17 Or maybe they’ll be like, oh, it’s all sounds like shit.
01:24:19 I don’t really know.
01:24:21 Well, that’s, sorry, it is a tragic thing.
01:24:24 That’s why I asked it, which is like,
01:24:27 there could be some great, incredible things
01:24:31 that will take you a long time to rediscover,
01:24:35 to realize how great they are.
01:24:36 And it’s also the tragic aspect of being an artist
01:24:40 is you don’t know, forget fame or all that kind of stuff.
01:24:45 You don’t know what’s going to really move people.
01:24:46 Cause ultimately what you want is to connect with people
01:24:51 and you don’t know what that’s going to be.
01:24:54 It’s hard, I mean, to me it’s tragic
01:24:57 just as a fan of yours to see,
01:24:58 maybe I wonder if there’s like incredible stuff there.
01:25:01 Just as it is tragic to see great artists throughout history
01:25:04 who didn’t get recognition until they died.
01:25:06 It’s like, cause they basically held on,
01:25:11 Franz Kafka was extremely self critical.
01:25:14 A lot of these folks had an idea of what’s good and not,
01:25:17 and they were wrong.
01:25:19 They had genius, they weren’t entirely wrong
01:25:23 cause they became sufficiently popular,
01:25:25 but it’s interesting.
01:25:27 I try to genuinely to release the songs
01:25:29 that move me the most.
01:25:31 I’ll say that.
01:25:32 You’re your own audience.
01:25:34 Yeah, I try to put out the songs that make me feel the most.
01:25:39 Like I feel that, that’s my only gauge
01:25:42 because it’s so subjective of like, what is good?
01:25:45 What’s this?
01:25:46 Nobody knows the song the masses are going to like.
01:25:48 Nobody knows that formula, nobody knows it.
01:25:51 So for me, it’s always what makes me feel something.
01:25:53 One of the main lessons Rick Rubin taught me
01:25:55 when we worked with him on this record
01:25:56 was he would say, his main point
01:26:00 that he would continually bring up when like,
01:26:03 cause he’s not the type of person to be like,
01:26:05 that’s a bad song or that’s good.
01:26:06 It’s just not who Rick Rubin is.
01:26:07 It’s more like, there’s more nuance to it.
01:26:09 He would say, I don’t really believe you on that song.
01:26:15 That’s what he would say.
01:26:16 He would say, and I knew that was like,
01:26:19 that song’s a no go.
01:26:21 He would say, and I would genuinely,
01:26:23 there was a time he said it and it was about a song
01:26:24 that I really like, I really felt it
01:26:27 and meant it when I said it.
01:26:29 But he didn’t believe it when he heard it.
01:26:32 And that was enough for, I was like,
01:26:33 man, well, at the end of the day,
01:26:35 like I can believe it all I want,
01:26:36 but if the listener doesn’t feel the honesty in it,
01:26:39 just like we were talking about earlier,
01:26:40 I think the most important ingredient is,
01:26:42 is this truth, perceived as truth to someone else?
01:26:45 And if it’s not, the bullshit indicator goes,
01:26:48 and you’re like, I don’t care, I don’t throw it away.
01:26:49 I don’t care about it.
01:26:50 You said that he made you go through, like line by line,
01:26:55 the lyrics.
01:26:56 Every single, it was excruciating for me.
01:26:59 Why was that excruciating?
01:27:02 Well, first of all, it’s Rick Rubin.
01:27:03 So you’re in the room with like Rick Rubin,
01:27:06 who’s done a lot of the greatest of all time.
01:27:09 And so I had to first just put that aside
01:27:13 and be like, okay, well,
01:27:14 you’ve done a lot of my favorite records,
01:27:15 but still you’re human and not everything you say
01:27:18 is gonna be right.
01:27:20 And I’m a strongly opinionated person,
01:27:22 and so is Rick.
01:27:23 And so when the two of us were sitting down in a room
01:27:24 together, it was, you know.
01:27:28 But the lyrics, which is interesting.
01:27:30 So it’s not the entire composition,
01:27:32 but just like, let’s look at the lyrics.
01:27:34 What do you mean here?
01:27:35 Yeah, oh yeah, cause he would look over every,
01:27:37 there was like, and there were battles he won,
01:27:42 battles that he didn’t win, and maybe he was right.
01:27:45 I don’t know.
01:27:46 I mean, there was, for instance, I’ll give you an example.
01:27:48 There was a song on the record called Number One.
01:27:50 Rick will probably laugh when he hears this.
01:27:54 Cause this was a big one that we kept going back
01:27:55 and forth on.
01:27:57 But this will give you a good insight
01:27:58 of what it was like.
01:28:01 And there’s a line in it that says,
01:28:03 I don’t know, the chorus is,
01:28:04 I don’t know what I’m meant to be.
01:28:06 I don’t need no one to believe.
01:28:08 When it’s all been said and done,
01:28:10 I’m still my number one.
01:28:12 And he was like, nah, it just makes me cringe
01:28:14 when I hear that.
01:28:15 He’s like, I just, like, do you have to be like,
01:28:19 can it not be like, you’re still my number one?
01:28:21 And I was like, no, it’s not about anybody else.
01:28:23 Like, you know, it’s about like self love.
01:28:25 He’s like, yeah, but like, do you need to like talk
01:28:28 about self love like that?
01:28:29 And I was like, well, I feel like I need to.
01:28:31 He’s like, well, maybe, you know,
01:28:33 there’s something else we could say there.
01:28:34 Like we just kept, you know,
01:28:36 we kept coming back to this song, okay?
01:28:38 I was like, and I changed it.
01:28:40 I tried changing it.
01:28:41 What did I change it to?
01:28:42 It was like, it wasn’t you’re still my number one,
01:28:44 it just made no sense.
01:28:45 It wasn’t about some love thing or like someone else.
01:28:49 I changed it to something else.
01:28:50 And it just, it was the one thing that I was like,
01:28:53 I’m really sorry, Rick.
01:28:54 Like, I get it.
01:28:57 And if it sounds cringy to you,
01:28:58 it’s definitely sounding cringy to other people too.
01:28:59 And that sucks.
01:29:00 But I don’t know how else to say this
01:29:02 in a way that I want to put that song out anymore.
01:29:05 But there were other songs for sure
01:29:07 where Rick was like, that or this,
01:29:09 that word feels a little trite.
01:29:11 You already said that once.
01:29:13 Can you say it in a different way?
01:29:14 It was really helpful.
01:29:15 And then, yeah.
01:29:16 It’s really interesting
01:29:17 because you’re trying to say something so simply
01:29:21 and yet not make it cringe.
01:29:24 And that’s really hard.
01:29:25 That’s a strange art form
01:29:27 because you want to say some of the greatest love songs.
01:29:30 I mean, we looked at the Without You song.
01:29:33 I mean, that’s the whole thing is cringy.
01:29:35 If you just read it on paper, like it’s a court report
01:29:40 or something, but yet it’s not,
01:29:43 especially when sung maybe.
01:29:45 But no, there’s something about, yeah, maybe.
01:29:49 Sung in a way you believe it.
01:29:50 When you believe it,
01:29:52 but also written in a way that’s singable
01:29:54 in the way you believe it.
01:29:56 So it’s like.
01:29:56 Right.
01:29:57 Right.
01:29:58 And then.
01:29:59 It rolls off.
01:30:00 It just comes out in a way that just feels like silky.
01:30:02 No word catches your mind as cringy.
01:30:05 Yes.
01:30:06 It’s just.
01:30:08 But then music, I think great speeches are like that too,
01:30:13 or just conveying, communicating ideas simply.
01:30:19 That’s the art form is to not be cringy.
01:30:22 So interesting.
01:30:23 And then yet, because like when you’re raw and real,
01:30:29 it might at first feel cringy.
01:30:32 So the battle there,
01:30:34 and that’s where you see people fail.
01:30:39 Like just regular artists.
01:30:40 Like, I don’t know, at open mic,
01:30:43 I got open mic, so I just listen to musicians.
01:30:45 Like when they write songs, like they fail that test.
01:30:48 They write simple stuff, but it’s cringy.
01:30:50 Why?
01:30:51 I wonder what was that?
01:30:52 Like, what is that?
01:30:53 I’m telling you, Lex,
01:30:54 I tried to explain this to my brother the other day,
01:30:58 because it’s the same thing with a live performance.
01:31:00 If I’m not in my right head space and I walk on stage
01:31:03 and I walk up and let’s say I say something and I do this,
01:31:08 because I’m like, this is the move, right?
01:31:10 I’m like, this is the move.
01:31:12 The crowd doesn’t care.
01:31:13 In fact, the crowd’s like, that’s cringy when you did this.
01:31:16 But if I wasn’t thinking about doing this
01:31:19 and I went up there and I said something
01:31:21 and I really meant it and my body was like,
01:31:24 I can’t explain this to you,
01:31:25 and it’s so silly to say out loud,
01:31:28 but people will resonate to it when it’s real.
01:31:33 And when it’s acted, it doesn’t,
01:31:35 you could do it the exact,
01:31:36 the motion could look the same, your eyes look the same,
01:31:39 but there’s something about the energy that people know.
01:31:42 They know if it’s real or not.
01:31:44 Yeah, people have, like you said,
01:31:45 incredible bullshit detectors.
01:31:46 That’s why I love people. A hundred percent.
01:31:47 I’ll go on a stage and if I’m not in the right head space
01:31:50 to be real, it won’t be a good show.
01:31:52 If I’m real, then it’s a good show.
01:31:54 It’s as simple as that.
01:31:55 Let’s go through the song.
01:31:59 Like I said, great opener.
01:32:02 So you had this in your mind,
01:32:03 this landscape?
01:32:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:32:11 The beat was first on this.
01:32:13 What about the first and the second,
01:32:16 like first thing’s first, second thing’s second?
01:32:17 The first line I wrote was first thing’s first.
01:32:21 I don’t know why, it just was like,
01:32:23 and then I was like, oh, that principle of, you know.
01:32:27 Great line.
01:32:28 Second thing’s second.
01:32:30 Don’t you tell me what you think that I could be.
01:32:33 I’m the one at the sail, I’m the master of my sea.
01:32:35 I’m the master of my sea.
01:32:37 My dad had that in his office.
01:32:39 He had this saying that was something about the sailor
01:32:44 and being the master of his sea that I always loved.
01:32:47 There you go, simple statement.
01:32:49 Yeah.
01:32:50 Zero cringe in it.
01:32:51 It’s so powerful.
01:32:53 It’s so simple.
01:32:55 I’m the master of my sea.
01:32:56 This whole song is just trivial,
01:32:59 but in terms of lyrically,
01:33:03 but extremely powerful and original, unique sounding,
01:33:06 something about the words.
01:33:08 Just even, you don’t have to actually sing them,
01:33:10 you just read them.
01:33:12 And then raw, I was broken from a young age,
01:33:14 tuck myself into the masses, writing my poems for the few
01:33:18 that look at me, took to me, shook at me,
01:33:20 feeling me, singing from the heartache, from the pain,
01:33:23 taking my message from the thing.
01:33:24 I can’t, why am I reciting your words to you?
01:33:27 But the percussionist throughout it,
01:33:32 and that was there in the beginning.
01:33:34 The percussion is almost in the lyrics, yeah.
01:33:36 And I’m a very percussive singer
01:33:37 because I was a drummer first before I,
01:33:40 I think same with Dave Grohl, probably a similar thing,
01:33:44 which is I think in percussive sense a lot when I’m writing
01:33:49 and I also was, before I could play an instrument,
01:33:52 I would beatbox.
01:33:54 And I think Michael Jackson did this too, actually.
01:33:56 I’ve heard in the studio that he was very similar,
01:33:58 but a lot of what I do is percussive
01:34:03 because my brain thinks in percussively first.
01:34:07 A little more, because it’s so good.
01:34:08 It’s almost like a drum, like,
01:34:09 dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka.
01:34:14 And then you lay words on that.
01:34:17 Yeah.
01:34:18 Yeah, this.
01:34:19 Tuck myself into the masses, writing my poems for the few
01:34:22 that look at me, took to me, shook at me, feeling me,
01:34:25 it’s almost like drums, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka, dka.
01:34:30 It’s all building to the chorus.
01:34:34 Hey, you made me a, you made me a believer, believer.
01:34:40 Hey, hey.
01:34:43 What about the word pain?
01:34:45 When did that come to you?
01:34:48 Pain, you made me, you made me a believer.
01:34:51 Yeah, just the idea of,
01:34:53 I just wanted to, I really,
01:34:57 one of the things that a lot of the songs that I like,
01:35:02 I like divisiveness, for instance, not always,
01:35:05 but there’s times where I want someone to hear a song
01:35:07 and I want them to either love it or hate it.
01:35:09 I really don’t want them to be in the middle ground.
01:35:11 A lot of the songs that,
01:35:13 like a lot of my favorite songs are divisive songs.
01:35:19 And so for instance, with pain,
01:35:22 I want you to hear that in almost like, it’s like, whoa.
01:35:26 You know what I mean?
01:35:27 It’s something either somebody is going to hear
01:35:29 and they’ll be like, man,
01:35:30 I just don’t want to hear that like that.
01:35:31 Or it’s like, oh, I felt that so deeply
01:35:33 when he said that in that way, because it sounded like this.
01:35:35 And when you think of the word pain, it’s like,
01:35:38 that’s a, at least for me, when I hear that word,
01:35:45 it carries a lot of weight, carries a lot of weight.
01:35:48 So I wanted to sing it with a lot of weight
01:35:50 and to come into that chorus with like,
01:35:52 like it’s a striking moment.
01:35:56 And I’m also a tenor singing as,
01:35:58 sorry, I’m a baritone singing as a tenor.
01:36:01 So that’s where that natural,
01:36:04 like gruffness comes from is that I’m singing
01:36:05 out of my range really, up in my head voice.
01:36:08 And it carries a lot of weight with it
01:36:10 because of the baritone.
01:36:12 Can I ask you a specific sort of the pause before the pain?
01:36:17 It’s really interesting.
01:36:18 Cause it’s like a double.
01:36:20 What is that, how much work does that take
01:36:27 to get that right?
01:36:28 That’s incredible.
01:36:29 Cause it’s like a, so you’re kind of seeing the beauty
01:36:33 through the, and then that, whatever that sound is.
01:36:36 Right, the bass being rolled off.
01:36:38 Yeah.
01:36:39 Yeah, I actually, when I first was approaching the chorus,
01:36:43 it was actually seeing,
01:36:44 taking my message from the veins,
01:36:48 taking my lesson from the veins,
01:36:49 seeing the beauty through the,
01:36:51 seeing the beauty through the pain.
01:36:53 You made me a, like it came in on one.
01:36:56 I’m not seeing it right right now, but it did not wait.
01:36:59 And it felt like it didn’t hit
01:37:02 in the way that it was supposed to hit.
01:37:04 Because the, you predict that, right?
01:37:07 You’re like, you’re waiting to see the beauty
01:37:09 through the pain, you made me a, right?
01:37:11 It was like the beauty through the pain.
01:37:13 You made me a, made me.
01:37:15 So I wanted to feel a little more like striking,
01:37:17 like, again, it’s like that thing that makes you
01:37:19 kind of do this a little bit.
01:37:20 You’re like, huh?
01:37:22 But once you hear it a few times, you’re like, ah, ah.
01:37:25 And you predict, you know what I mean?
01:37:26 It’s like, I’d rather someone hear our song the first time
01:37:29 and be confused by it.
01:37:31 So they play it the second time.
01:37:33 And then they’re like, oh, okay.
01:37:34 You know what I mean?
01:37:35 Like, I really don’t want, you know,
01:37:39 I’d rather turn some people off along the way.
01:37:41 And then the people who come along for you
01:37:43 are gonna feel more committed, I think.
01:37:46 It’s just an interesting, like,
01:37:49 it feels gutsy to insert silence, you know?
01:37:53 Yeah, that’s what makes it, you know,
01:37:54 it’s like the greatest speakers of all time are like,
01:37:57 and I told you.
01:37:59 Right.
01:38:00 You would know, I mean, it’s like, you’re like, oh.
01:38:04 Yeah, what is that?
01:38:05 Yeah, that’s so interesting to do that
01:38:07 just at the right time.
01:38:09 And then, and then pain, right?
01:38:13 Man, it’s a brilliant song.
01:38:15 Did you know it was a good song when you wrote it?
01:38:18 Out of the thousands of songs you’ve written?
01:38:20 You know, it’s always the same thing for me,
01:38:23 which is like, if I wanna listen to the song
01:38:28 and I wanna listen to it a lot of times,
01:38:29 then those are the songs we put out.
01:38:31 And I only wanna listen to the songs
01:38:33 that make me feel something.
01:38:35 Whether or not it’s like,
01:38:36 our single that did the very worst of all our singles
01:38:39 was the song that I wanted to listen to the least,
01:38:42 but it made the most sense as a single,
01:38:45 which was all the wrong reason to choose it, right?
01:38:46 It was, I Bet My Life is the single off our second album.
01:38:50 And that song was originally written,
01:38:51 it was just a guitar and a vocal,
01:38:53 and it was very just quiet and laid back.
01:38:56 And we were like, well, let’s try to dial it up,
01:38:59 let’s try to produce it.
01:39:00 And we overproduced that song.
01:39:01 We self produced it as a band and we overproduced.
01:39:05 And that song, I mean, it did good in terms of a song,
01:39:10 but for us, it did not do good compared to other songs.
01:39:14 And I really look back at that
01:39:15 and learned a lesson from that.
01:39:17 It’s like, if I don’t wanna listen to the song,
01:39:20 that’s a sign already.
01:39:21 If you don’t wanna listen to your own song,
01:39:23 it’s probably not a good song.
01:39:25 Yeah.
01:39:26 You said your dad, elsewhere and today,
01:39:30 just said that your dad early on was a kind of the early
01:39:36 Rick Rubin.
01:39:37 Yeah.
01:39:38 So when you were starting out, he gave you feedback,
01:39:41 you listened.
01:39:44 What did you learn about music about life from your dad?
01:39:48 My dad is a really quiet farm, grew up on a farm,
01:39:53 very humble.
01:39:54 And I think he starts every sentence by saying,
01:40:00 this is just my two cents, pretty much.
01:40:02 You know what I mean?
01:40:03 It’s like, take it or leave it.
01:40:05 Like, you know what I mean?
01:40:06 He’s that kind of a sense, like there’s humility
01:40:08 in everything and it’s real for him.
01:40:09 It’s not like false humility.
01:40:12 I really feel like when he’s saying things,
01:40:14 he really is like, maybe this isn’t any worth to you son.
01:40:17 And he means it, but here it is.
01:40:19 And it’s always gold.
01:40:20 And I’m like, wow, dad, that’s incredible.
01:40:22 So what, in those early days of you like,
01:40:24 so you were like 12 or something like that,
01:40:26 like starting to write songs.
01:40:27 I was 12, I wasn’t showing my music to anyone.
01:40:30 I started writing right when I was 12
01:40:31 and I probably wrote for at least,
01:40:33 let’s say six months or something.
01:40:34 And I had written probably, I don’t know,
01:40:36 like a lot of songs during that time.
01:40:38 What was the topic by the way?
01:40:39 Love, anger?
01:40:40 It was all sad.
01:40:41 No, it was, the first song I ever wrote went,
01:40:53 and it was like a bluesy thing.
01:40:54 It was like, there was my voice doing that.
01:40:55 And then it was like,
01:40:56 all by himself, no other one around.
01:41:01 And he stood all alone.
01:41:04 When would he be found?
01:41:07 Did he want company?
01:41:10 Or was he fine on his own?
01:41:13 Everyone needs a friend.
01:41:15 So why was he all alone?
01:41:21 You know, it is like, but I was like a 12 year old with,
01:41:24 I just felt like depressed for the first time.
01:41:28 And I was, and I just was like, so.
01:41:31 I think he discovered the blues as a 12 year old.
01:41:33 Yeah, right, right.
01:41:34 It really was, it was like my sense of the blues
01:41:36 at that time for sure, like bad version of the blues.
01:41:38 But it was like 12 year old kid with a bunch of acne.
01:41:40 And like, I just like, I hated going to school.
01:41:43 I felt like that I just had not found myself.
01:41:46 Sounds like a great song, by the way.
01:41:48 But anyway, I wanted to keep listening.
01:41:49 I forgot I was.
01:41:50 Yeah, I don’t know about that, but yeah.
01:41:55 Yeah, what was your dad,
01:41:56 at which point did you begin to share it with your dad?
01:41:58 A lot of the songs that I wrote in the beginning
01:42:00 were very much like Bobby McFerrin like that,
01:42:02 because our, Mike was in a part of the house
01:42:05 where I couldn’t bring over the piano.
01:42:06 And the only instrument I played at the time
01:42:07 was the piano.
01:42:09 So I would do everything with my voice.
01:42:11 But then I started teaching myself the guitar
01:42:13 in those, in that beginning, like six month period,
01:42:15 just watching my brothers play in their garage bands
01:42:17 in the basement.
01:42:18 And then I started to write songs
01:42:19 a little bit more like Enya vibes,
01:42:20 like stack my voice like 20, 30 times.
01:42:22 And like Enya meets like Jaray,
01:42:26 which is who my dad would listen to a lot.
01:42:28 John Michael Jaray, he’s an incredible synth genius.
01:42:31 But anyway, so I finally got my like gall up enough
01:42:36 to show it to my dad one day after work.
01:42:38 And I got very little of my dad
01:42:39 because there were nine kids and he worked
01:42:41 from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m.
01:42:43 We’ll come home very tired.
01:42:44 And here’s nine kids that are like, dad, you know,
01:42:47 and you’re the young one.
01:42:48 You’re not, you’re just gonna miss.
01:42:49 I was in the middle kind of too.
01:42:50 So it’s even, you know, middle child thing.
01:42:53 But I sat him down and I was like,
01:42:54 hey dad, I just wanna like kind of show you a song.
01:42:57 And he was like, oh, you know,
01:42:58 he didn’t know I was writing anything.
01:43:00 And I showed it to him and he listened
01:43:02 and he took it off and he really looked at me.
01:43:04 And he was like, that was really good.
01:43:06 He was like, I’ve thought, and this,
01:43:08 when you said this, it made me feel this.
01:43:10 He was like, and that did it.
01:43:12 I probably would have given up music.
01:43:14 Like I look back, that was a very pivotal moment for me.
01:43:17 I was like in a place where I was like, is this good, bad?
01:43:20 I don’t know, maybe it’s so embarrassing and terrible.
01:43:23 And I was already writing lyrics
01:43:25 that were a little like overly metaphorical to hide
01:43:27 that I was dealing with faith crisis.
01:43:29 Cause I thought, okay, I’m gonna show this to dad.
01:43:31 I don’t want my dad to know I’m like questioning
01:43:33 the truthfulness of Joseph Smith.
01:43:35 So I’m not gonna be like, is Joseph Smith a real prophet?
01:43:38 Is Mormonism true?
01:43:39 I don’t really know.
01:43:40 Like, you know what I mean?
01:43:41 I was like writing way overly metaphorical,
01:43:43 but because my dad really validated it
01:43:46 and he was a no bullshit person.
01:43:47 So I knew when my dad said that, I was like, you know what?
01:43:50 At least my dad really actually thinks this is cool.
01:43:52 And I really trusted my dad’s taste
01:43:54 and thought everything he listened to was cool.
01:43:56 So I was like, wow, I’m gonna keep doing this.
01:43:59 And I just showed it to my dad for years and years.
01:44:01 And still to this day, I send every song to my dad.
01:44:03 So he underneath it with the feedback is always like,
01:44:06 Ooh, I like this idea.
01:44:07 I like this.
01:44:08 It’s just a positive, like a.
01:44:09 Not always positive, no.
01:44:10 But like underneath it, do you sense the positivity?
01:44:13 Cause I think that’s. Always.
01:44:15 Never mean, never malicious.
01:44:19 You know, there’s like, there’s two types of criticism.
01:44:21 There’s like criticism that’s just like,
01:44:22 you’re looking to be hurtful to someone.
01:44:24 And then there’s criticism that’s like
01:44:26 really important for art.
01:44:28 It’s the type of criticism that’s like,
01:44:30 you see the value in what’s happening.
01:44:32 And if it’s honest, then you can,
01:44:34 you maybe communicate with that person.
01:44:35 Like I, I see what you’re trying to do with that.
01:44:39 You know, it’s not even like you have to say that
01:44:40 or whatever, like butter it up.
01:44:42 But it’s like, my dad would just give me the,
01:44:45 this honest criticism that would be like, you know,
01:44:50 it certainly wasn’t always good,
01:44:51 but I knew it was always well intentioned.
01:44:53 I guess that’s, that’s how I would say.
01:44:55 You mentioned, made me re listen to it.
01:44:57 I’m a big fan of Cass Stevens.
01:44:58 You made me re listen to father and son.
01:45:00 I probably all sons have issues
01:45:03 to work through with their fathers.
01:45:07 And you said that you connect with this song in particular.
01:45:10 I think, so you’re a father now.
01:45:13 What is it about the song that connects with you?
01:45:16 For people, let me play it, let me play a little bit.
01:45:19 People should educate themselves on Cass Stevens.
01:45:21 Oh my gosh.
01:45:22 Right on the peace train.
01:45:23 The best, the best, right on the peace train.
01:45:27 You think this is a hopeful, a sad song?
01:45:29 I hear it as hopeful.
01:45:31 I hear it as a loving father saying
01:45:33 just what his son needs to hear.
01:45:34 It’s not time to make a change.
01:45:38 Just relax, take it easy.
01:45:42 You’re still young.
01:45:43 That’s your fault.
01:45:45 There’s so much you have.
01:45:47 It’s like that calm wisdom.
01:45:50 Yeah.
01:45:51 This time.
01:45:52 It wise.
01:45:53 If you want, you can marry, look at me.
01:45:57 I am old, but I’m happy.
01:46:01 And just the way he says that,
01:46:02 like that should be a corny line,
01:46:03 but it’s not corny at all.
01:46:04 It’s like.
01:46:05 Once like you are now.
01:46:07 Look at me, I’m old, but I’m happy.
01:46:09 It’s not easy to be calm
01:46:13 when you found something going on.
01:46:15 Yeah, I mean, the simplicity there,
01:46:17 and it’s such a contrast with, what’s his name?
01:46:24 Harry Chapman with the cats in the cradle,
01:46:26 which is like the sadness of,
01:46:33 so this feels like there’s a wise,
01:46:38 calm connection between father and son, right?
01:46:42 With cats in the cradle.
01:46:44 I don’t know if you remember that song.
01:46:47 He learned to walk while I was away
01:46:49 and he was talking before I knew it.
01:46:51 And as he grew, he’d say, I’m going to be like you dad.
01:46:54 You know, I’m going to be like you.
01:46:56 And the idea of that song is
01:46:58 that he does become like his dad,
01:47:01 which is funny, you know, something you’ve said.
01:47:05 But in a different way,
01:47:06 you become too busy to make that connection.
01:47:09 His dad was too busy to make a connection with his son.
01:47:12 And in a, not in a dramatic way,
01:47:14 in a very kind of calm, natural way.
01:47:16 Like you don’t, you just don’t have time.
01:47:19 You’re busy at work, you’re providing for the family
01:47:21 and so on, there’s connection.
01:47:23 But if you don’t really get,
01:47:24 form that like depth of connection.
01:47:27 And then the father, when the son shows up from college
01:47:31 and all that kind of stuff,
01:47:31 he doesn’t spend any time with the father.
01:47:34 All that, and just the calm sadness of that,
01:47:37 that we live, we can live parallel lives
01:47:40 and never quite connect.
01:47:42 And there is a little bit of that in father and son
01:47:44 with Cat Stevens too, you know,
01:47:45 like when the son is saying,
01:47:48 from the moment that I could talk, I was ordered to listen.
01:47:51 I always remember listening to that line,
01:47:54 feeling like that really moved me.
01:47:56 But the beauty of that song is it shows,
01:47:59 it’s kind of like the theme of what I feel like
01:48:01 we’ve talked about since the second you got here,
01:48:03 which is something I really like.
01:48:05 I don’t know why it’s such an important theme
01:48:06 in my life right now, but the duality of just understanding
01:48:11 that you don’t understand someone else’s situation.
01:48:14 And there’s truth to both sides.
01:48:16 Like there’s truth to what the father is saying to the son.
01:48:19 He’s like saying these things and he’s like,
01:48:20 I’m looking out for you, I love you.
01:48:23 Take your time with these things.
01:48:24 If you want to get married, you know you can.
01:48:26 Like these things will bring you up.
01:48:27 And then the son saying, listen,
01:48:29 like I want to pave my own path.
01:48:31 I want to do this.
01:48:32 Like, why are you telling me this?
01:48:33 Like the son’s not wrong.
01:48:36 Cause there’s a lot of parents who tell their kids
01:48:37 what to do and they’re wrong, you know what I mean?
01:48:40 Like, and they don’t let the kid form the path
01:48:43 that they need to, but should you not be a parent?
01:48:47 Like, you know what I mean?
01:48:48 There’s just two sides to it.
01:48:49 There’s a thing, it is annoying when you’re older,
01:48:54 you get to see people do all the same things.
01:48:58 You could say, well, this is a phase and you’ll see
01:49:05 that this actually will end up in this way.
01:49:08 You can like predict how the life unrolls.
01:49:10 And it’s very annoying for young people to hear,
01:49:12 especially cause it’s probably going to be true.
01:49:14 It’s like, no, it’s not going to be like this.
01:49:16 No, I’m going to be different.
01:49:17 But then you become that person.
01:49:18 But that doesn’t mean they also let them live that life.
01:49:22 Let them make the mistakes,
01:49:24 but they’re not mistakes actually.
01:49:26 They’re like beautiful deviations
01:49:30 from the path that they end up on.
01:49:34 And those make the path.
01:49:38 Do you have advice for young folks today?
01:49:43 You’ve had like an incredible dark journey
01:49:48 and a successful one, a loving one,
01:49:52 and one of the most successful artists in the world.
01:49:55 Is there advice you can give to young people today
01:49:58 that would like to find themselves to that way,
01:50:01 especially if they’re struggling?
01:50:02 I thought you said device at first.
01:50:04 And I was like, honestly,
01:50:05 I feel like that device is not helping.
01:50:07 Maybe everybody should get away,
01:50:10 throw away their devices.
01:50:12 Advice.
01:50:13 I would just say like what I emphasize to my kids
01:50:20 is I really, really want my kids
01:50:24 to just learn to love themself.
01:50:27 It’s easier said than done.
01:50:29 It’s really easy to pick on yourself in life.
01:50:33 It’s really easy to look in the mirror
01:50:35 and wish you looked different,
01:50:37 wish you were more successful like that person over there,
01:50:41 wish that, you know, wish a lot of things.
01:50:45 And people that I see that really succeed at life
01:50:52 really succeed truly.
01:50:53 And that doesn’t mean they’re making money necessarily
01:50:55 or they’re succeeding.
01:50:56 And, you know, they’re talking to a lot of people
01:50:58 like their success, success to me is like happy
01:51:03 and real, they have real self love.
01:51:06 You meet, you know, when you meet someone,
01:51:07 you meet Rick, for instance, you meet Rick Rubin.
01:51:10 Rick has a calmness about him.
01:51:12 And it’s funny because everybody sees him
01:51:13 as this like Zen master.
01:51:16 Like Rick is just a really loving person
01:51:22 who also loves himself and has self confidence
01:51:24 because you just see it and it resonates.
01:51:26 And that’s why he draws people.
01:51:28 And that’s why he’s so great in the studio
01:51:29 because you know his intentions, always.
01:51:31 As an artist, when a producer comes in, you’re like,
01:51:33 whoa, whoa, whoa, what are your intentions?
01:51:35 What are you trying to do?
01:51:36 Are you trying to get a hit out of me for the label?
01:51:38 Are you trying to make me something?
01:51:40 Are you trying to like make me this
01:51:41 so you can prove this about yourself?
01:51:42 Like there’s a lot in that dynamic.
01:51:44 And the reason that Rick is so good is because
01:51:47 you know his intentions and his intentions come
01:51:50 because Rick has that self love.
01:51:52 So for me, find the things about yourself
01:51:56 because they’re there that you love
01:51:59 and really focus in on them.
01:52:01 And it’s not selfish.
01:52:02 Like I feel like I was brought up in a family too
01:52:05 where it was like, never look inward, like be selfless.
01:52:09 Like serve, serve, serve.
01:52:11 Which by the way, is a true principle of life.
01:52:14 I think you love yourself more when you serve more.
01:52:16 I think that’s really evident in life.
01:52:19 But also spend time doing the things that make you happy.
01:52:22 Take time every day to go on that walk
01:52:24 that you need to go on.
01:52:25 Listen to that book tape that you need to listen to.
01:52:28 Like for me, that’s something I need.
01:52:29 I know if I do that, I’m gonna be a better dad
01:52:31 because I gave myself some love back in life.
01:52:37 And just forgive yourself.
01:52:39 I think forgive yourself because everybody messes up.
01:52:42 Everybody hurts others.
01:52:43 Everybody says unkind words at times.
01:52:45 Everybody fails all the time.
01:52:49 And if you think that you’re gonna not, you’re wrong.
01:52:52 And you’re eventually going to
01:52:54 and you’re either gonna punish yourself for it every day
01:52:56 and be a lesser version of what you could be
01:52:59 or you’re gonna forgive yourself for it.
01:53:01 And if you learned that that’s not something you want
01:53:03 then try not to do it again.
01:53:04 If you do it again and you’re probably gonna do it again,
01:53:06 whatever that is, you’re gonna gossip about that person.
01:53:09 You’re gonna feel bad
01:53:10 because then you gossiped about someone.
01:53:12 Is there something you could say in terms of self love?
01:53:14 Is there a role for being critical?
01:53:17 Like those demons of self criticism,
01:53:20 do you need a little bit of that?
01:53:21 Tom Waits talks about,
01:53:23 I like my Tom with a little drop of poison.
01:53:25 Need a little poison?
01:53:27 Or is that silly?
01:53:29 Or a mental situation of poison?
01:53:31 Look, my biggest thing in life that has been
01:53:35 the thing that I’ve worked on the hardest
01:53:36 for the last few years is to not be overly critical.
01:53:42 And to let go of control.
01:53:45 I think it’s really easy to kill an artist.
01:53:53 It’s really easy to kill an artist.
01:53:55 Like if my dad would have sat down with me that day
01:53:58 and even if he would have just sat down and been like,
01:54:01 good job son, okay.
01:54:02 It’s not silly, right?
01:54:03 Like I didn’t, not everybody has a dad
01:54:05 who’s gonna ever do something
01:54:07 or put in the time or whatever.
01:54:09 But that might’ve altered everything for me.
01:54:14 Like my dad taking the extra time
01:54:16 to just give me a thoughtful response opposed to,
01:54:19 kids know, kids know when you’re just like
01:54:21 trying to get out of the room or whatever.
01:54:23 I knew he wasn’t and that did a lot.
01:54:25 So yeah.
01:54:26 But is that a huge, isn’t that what makes the artist?
01:54:30 It’s the fragility of it that like,
01:54:34 would you have it any other way?
01:54:37 No, no, I agree with you.
01:54:40 I think that that’s what, that’s the beauty of art.
01:54:45 But I think also on the same token, it’s like,
01:54:51 I went to Music Cares recently,
01:54:54 which is a charity for musicians
01:54:56 that are down on their luck.
01:54:58 That maybe were successful at one point
01:54:59 or have never been successful
01:55:00 and they can’t even pay the bills
01:55:02 and this charity contributes money to these artists,
01:55:05 aspiring artists or artists who’ve had drug issues.
01:55:08 And like, there’s a lot that they do,
01:55:09 but, and there was a statistic
01:55:11 that they told it was staggering to me,
01:55:12 which is, I think it was 75% of artists, musicians,
01:55:17 say they struggle with severe depression.
01:55:20 That’s really high.
01:55:22 I don’t know what the national average is,
01:55:24 but I would guess that that’s higher than national average
01:55:27 per occupation.
01:55:29 So I just think there’s a tricky balance.
01:55:33 There’s a tricky balance in art.
01:55:38 So yeah, of course, like it’s a necessary thing,
01:55:42 the fragility of it all, but.
01:55:46 Yeah, I wonder, cause I’m extremely self critical
01:55:49 and I sometimes ask myself the question,
01:55:53 I’ve romanticized it or rather I’ve learned to be,
01:55:58 for it to be productive, to channel it into productivity.
01:56:01 But I wonder if there’s better ways to do that.
01:56:05 And I also wonder if it’s eventually the thing
01:56:07 that destroys me.
01:56:08 Like if longterm, if it’s a healthy thing,
01:56:11 it might be useful when you’re sort of
01:56:17 actively fighting the battles of the day,
01:56:20 for me it’s engineering challenges
01:56:22 and all that kind of stuff.
01:56:23 But then when you’re sitting back and enjoying life
01:56:28 with family and so on, is that going to be,
01:56:30 like, do you need to find that self love,
01:56:32 like ability to kind of silence the voice of criticism
01:56:38 in your head?
01:56:39 You know what, I really, there’s a good,
01:56:41 you’re making a good point.
01:56:42 And I think that the middle ground is you need,
01:56:51 you need self doubt to push you to be better.
01:56:55 I do believe that like, for instance,
01:56:58 if I believed I’ve hit my, like when you’re like,
01:57:02 is there a song on there that you think is genius?
01:57:04 If I think I’ve written a genius song ever,
01:57:07 I think I’d probably stop.
01:57:09 I think I’d be like, you know what?
01:57:11 Did it, I wrote, what’s that perfect song?
01:57:20 Imagine.
01:57:21 Imagine, yeah.
01:57:22 If I’d written imagine, I’d probably be like, that’s it,
01:57:26 did it, all right, perfect song has been written.
01:57:28 That’s the best thing I’ll ever do.
01:57:31 So the fact that there is like self criticism
01:57:36 and criticism outside, I think is necessary.
01:57:39 A hundred percent for sure.
01:57:41 It pushes you, it pushes you, it pushes you.
01:57:44 It’s just finding the right middle ground
01:57:47 for that young aspiring artist to also not feel squashed
01:57:51 and to be heard and to love,
01:57:53 just to not even to feel squashed, just to love themself.
01:57:56 So that when they’re in the room playing the song,
01:57:59 they’ll believe it because they believe themself.
01:58:03 They love themself enough that they believe it
01:58:05 and then they’ll do a great,
01:58:06 and then the song will come out great
01:58:07 and they’ll do a great performance.
01:58:10 I have to ask, it’s one of the very interesting aspects
01:58:14 of your life of the way you put love out there in the world.
01:58:18 What is at the core of your support for the LGBT community?
01:58:23 A couple of things.
01:58:24 So one, growing up in, from a young age
01:58:29 in the artist community,
01:58:31 a lot of my closest friends were LGBTQ,
01:58:34 starting in middle school.
01:58:38 And I think a lot of the best artists in the world
01:58:41 are LGBTQ and that’s just, it’s not a secret.
01:58:44 Like it just is, like the artist community is filled
01:58:47 with lots of LGBTQ people.
01:58:50 So I think being raised in that community
01:58:54 in that my friends struggled with their faith
01:58:58 and their sexuality really opened up my eyes
01:59:03 to how incredibly hard that path is.
01:59:08 For instance, okay, when I was in high school,
01:59:10 there was someone who went in front of,
01:59:13 who was LGBTQ and was Mormon
01:59:17 and felt like there was not a place for them in the church.
01:59:21 They felt like the path, when you’re being told
01:59:24 that it’s evil and you believe it
01:59:26 because you believe in your faith
01:59:28 and you feel like it’s unchangeable,
01:59:31 you’re putting a kid in a situation
01:59:32 where there’s really no good resolution.
01:59:36 It’s either be alone for the rest of your life
01:59:39 or marry outside your sexual preference,
01:59:41 which I don’t wanna marry a man.
01:59:43 Like if I was forced to marry a man,
01:59:44 I’m like, I don’t want to marry a man
01:59:47 because I’m heterosexual.
01:59:49 So you’re forcing a kid into a situation
01:59:51 where it’s very dangerous.
01:59:54 Long story short, this kid went in front
01:59:55 of the Las Vegas Mormon temple and shot himself,
01:59:58 killed himself.
02:00:00 That impacted our community.
02:00:01 Like, and not just that, but it was like severe bullying
02:00:06 to LGBTQ kids in the 90s, it was especially different.
02:00:10 Like there’s still bullying, don’t get me wrong,
02:00:12 but man, like bullying in school,
02:00:14 I don’t really know actually what it’s like in schools now.
02:00:16 Maybe the bullying is just as bad as it was in the 90s,
02:00:18 but there was like, it was like,
02:00:23 I would hear all the time, like the F slur being slung out
02:00:27 at people who were LGBTQ all the time
02:00:31 and I wasn’t even LGBTQ.
02:00:33 So I, you know, it’s just seeing that,
02:00:38 I think that every, any social justice issue
02:00:47 takes all sides.
02:00:48 It takes all pieces of the puzzle.
02:00:50 If only the pieces of the puzzle contributed
02:00:53 are from the side that is affected,
02:00:54 I don’t believe that we’ll ever have resolution.
02:00:57 We’re doing a shit job and we need to do better.
02:01:01 And that’s just, that’s the reality of it.
02:01:05 So that was part of the reason I also have family
02:01:07 who’s LGBTQ and it’s just something
02:01:09 that’s been part of my path.
02:01:12 And I feel like I’m a big believer
02:01:14 and take the path that is presented to you.
02:01:16 And this was just something that came up in my life a lot.
02:01:18 When I met my wife, she was living with her two best friends
02:01:21 who were LGBTQ who really didn’t want her to marry me
02:01:24 because I was Mormon.
02:01:25 And at the time it was prop eight,
02:01:27 which was Mormons were fighting against LGBT gay marriage.
02:01:31 And so that, then they didn’t come to our wedding
02:01:35 and that really broke my wife’s heart.
02:01:38 So it was just like, because Mormonism represented everything
02:01:41 that was against their community.
02:01:45 So.
02:01:46 So you felt you had to say something.
02:01:48 Yeah, I felt like by not saying anything,
02:01:50 I was saying everything.
02:01:52 I felt like by not speaking up and being like,
02:01:55 hey, Dan Reynolds is Mormon singer.
02:01:58 Here’s this new band, Magic Dragons and they’re Mormons.
02:02:01 It was like, okay, well, what do Mormons represent?
02:02:03 They represent prop eight.
02:02:04 What does prop eight represent?
02:02:06 Bigotry towards the LGBTQ community.
02:02:09 So what do I do?
02:02:10 Okay, I can speak in every interview and be like,
02:02:12 well, that’s not me.
02:02:13 I don’t believe that too.
02:02:15 Or I could just be more active about it.
02:02:17 And especially when it’s affecting my family
02:02:19 and friends throughout my entire life, it was like,
02:02:21 all right, this seems like a path that you need to go down.
02:02:25 So long story short is a path that just presented itself
02:02:29 through things in my life.
02:02:30 So just on that topic that religion and God
02:02:33 give a lot of meaning to a lot of people.
02:02:35 It gives a tradition that brings people together
02:02:42 across the generations, but it also can hurt people.
02:02:47 What do you make about that tension?
02:02:50 So source of meaning, but also a source of pain for people.
02:02:56 The reality is, at least to me,
02:02:58 again, this is just my reality.
02:03:00 I feel like I’m doing my dad’s thing
02:03:01 every time I’m talking to him.
02:03:03 Or I’m like, I don’t really know, here’s my two cents.
02:03:05 You have become your father.
02:03:06 Yeah.
02:03:10 The reality and it’s my reality and it is the reality
02:03:12 for sure is there’s, I think that religion
02:03:20 has brought a lot of hurt and pain to a lot of people.
02:03:24 Absolutely it has.
02:03:26 I don’t think anybody can dispute that on either side,
02:03:29 whether it’s war, whether it’s slaughtering
02:03:36 of entire peoples, there’s been a lot of pain
02:03:40 and suffering that has come from religion.
02:03:44 So my little thing that has been hard for me
02:03:46 is a faith crisis, right?
02:03:47 I had religion and then I lost it and then I had nothing.
02:03:50 So that’s for me, I was like,
02:03:52 well, religion did that to me, right?
02:03:55 But then at one point it’s kind of like,
02:03:58 how much of my life am I just gonna complain
02:03:59 about being raised Mormon or being depressed?
02:04:04 As I get older, I’m like, okay, so what?
02:04:07 Okay, it’s really hurt me,
02:04:09 but were there any good things that came out of Mormonism?
02:04:12 Well, yeah, there’s a lot of good things
02:04:14 that have come to my family through Mormonism.
02:04:16 Closeness, we’re really, really close.
02:04:18 Mormon culture is that you live together forever, right?
02:04:21 The teaching is that your families are forever.
02:04:24 We die and then we go to heaven together
02:04:25 and we’re together forever.
02:04:27 My family really believes that principle, all of them do.
02:04:31 And that instills a certain way of living
02:04:35 that’s kind of beautiful, even if it’s naivety.
02:04:39 There’s something kind of beautiful
02:04:40 about believing that we’re forming these bonds together
02:04:42 as a family and that like,
02:04:44 we’re gonna be together forever.
02:04:46 It brings a lot of comfort to a kid too.
02:04:48 When I was little, I was like, wow,
02:04:50 it’s gonna be okay if I die
02:04:51 because I get to see my mom again, you know what I mean?
02:04:53 I really believe that.
02:04:55 Is the right answer that you tell that kid,
02:04:59 actually when you die, you’re not gonna see your mom again.
02:05:01 Maybe, it might be, I don’t know.
02:05:04 And anybody who has a kid is gonna face that moment.
02:05:08 I’ve already faced it where you sit down
02:05:10 and my kid was like, hey dad,
02:05:12 when you die, am I gonna see you again?
02:05:14 That was actually a really hard moment for me
02:05:16 because I was suddenly faced with,
02:05:18 okay, do I give the answer that I thought was bullshit?
02:05:22 Or do I give the answer of what I think it is?
02:05:25 Or do I give the real answer, which is, I don’t know.
02:05:29 And that’s what I chose,
02:05:30 which as a father, that’s not always the easiest answer
02:05:33 because your kid, it’s a wonderful thing
02:05:35 that you feel like you can give your kid the comfort of like,
02:05:37 hey, your parents are gonna take care of everything.
02:05:40 We know everything.
02:05:41 We’ve been around.
02:05:42 My kid’s always like, are you the strongest?
02:05:43 I’m like, yeah, I am the strongest.
02:05:45 I’m stronger than everybody.
02:05:46 Yeah, I’m stronger than everybody.
02:05:48 So when you’re faced with that moment,
02:05:51 it’s like, it kind of sucks to tell your kid like,
02:05:54 you know what?
02:05:55 I don’t know if you’re gonna see me after I die,
02:05:58 but I hope.
02:05:59 That’s why I said, I was like, I don’t know, but I hope.
02:06:01 I really hope,
02:06:02 because that would be awesome if we can hang out forever.
02:06:06 And if there’s any way for it to happen,
02:06:07 I’ll make it happen.
02:06:08 You know what I mean?
02:06:09 That’s kind of what my answer was.
02:06:11 So long story short,
02:06:13 sorry, I know that I’m being lengthy on this.
02:06:15 Is there like, what is my thought on religion?
02:06:18 It just is.
02:06:19 It’s been here forever.
02:06:20 It’s coping.
02:06:22 Maybe it’s, I can’t say whether it’s true or false.
02:06:24 How the hell am I supposed to know?
02:06:27 You know what I mean?
02:06:28 Like I’ve lived 34 years on this planet.
02:06:31 A lot of people have been around a lot longer than me
02:06:34 and they really believe very deeply.
02:06:35 And a lot of them are smarter than me.
02:06:37 You know what I mean?
02:06:38 Like I look at my older brothers, for instance,
02:06:40 who are very practicing Mormons.
02:06:43 These guys are hyper intelligent.
02:06:45 My younger sister, hyper intelligent.
02:06:47 All of them start smarter than me.
02:06:49 They all believe it still.
02:06:50 So what am I supposed to say?
02:06:52 Well, you’re all stupid.
02:06:53 You know what I mean?
02:06:54 Like you’re all wrong.
02:06:55 I don’t know.
02:06:56 Like maybe it’s the South Park episode
02:06:58 where everybody dies and then they’re like,
02:07:00 well, the right answer was Mormonism.
02:07:02 And everybody’s like, aww.
02:07:03 You know what I mean?
02:07:04 Like Mormons love that moment in South Park.
02:07:08 They’re like, hey, that day may come.
02:07:09 That day may come.
02:07:13 Yeah, so maybe I don’t know is the honest answer
02:07:16 for everybody around the table.
02:07:18 But the biggest question
02:07:20 for which I don’t know is the right answer
02:07:23 is what’s the meaning of this whole thing?
02:07:26 What’s the meaning of life?
02:07:29 No, you’re not allowed to say I don’t know.
02:07:32 Okay.
02:07:33 You can be just like your dad and say,
02:07:36 let me just give my two cents.
02:07:38 Take it or leave it.
02:07:40 Whatever it’s worth, take it or leave it.
02:07:41 It’s probably worth nothing.
02:07:42 It’s piddled on the ground.
02:07:44 I mean, why are we here?
02:07:50 It’s just busily creating all these kinds of things,
02:07:55 worrying about things, having kids.
02:07:59 My purpose, at least right now,
02:08:03 is to wake up and try to
02:08:08 to bring light love to the world,
02:08:14 light love to myself and have integrity.
02:08:18 That’s my purpose.
02:08:24 The ultimate purpose of life,
02:08:27 that I guess that’s my ultimate purpose of life.
02:08:29 I don’t know what happens when I die.
02:08:33 Ayahuasca gave me some sense that there’s more to be known.
02:08:37 I’m sure there are other things in life
02:08:38 that would give me that, and I’m looking for it.
02:08:41 I’m a seeker.
02:08:42 I’m always looking for the next something
02:08:46 to give me hope in something more,
02:08:48 even if so, I could just not bullshit my kids
02:08:51 when they ask me that question and be like,
02:08:52 you know what, I really don’t know.
02:08:56 I wanna not know more, if that makes sense.
02:08:59 I don’t wanna, I want to see things that make me confused,
02:09:04 that make me question what I already knew.
02:09:08 Like I am like, when I meet an atheist who comes up to me
02:09:13 and they’re like, atheism, atheism, atheism.
02:09:16 It’s just as laughable to me as when I meet the Mormon
02:09:19 who comes up and they’re like,
02:09:20 Mormonism, Mormonism, Mormonism.
02:09:22 I’m like, how do you, how do anyone, how do you guys know?
02:09:26 They’d like, like, you know.
02:09:31 So you feel like you’re doing some, through all your travels,
02:09:35 through all the people you meet,
02:09:36 you feel like you’re still keeping your eyes open
02:09:38 and your heart open to sort of discover something new,
02:09:44 like the ayahuasca experience,
02:09:47 that there might be deeper truths out there.
02:09:50 Yeah, and I wanna find them,
02:09:52 and I wanna surround myself with people
02:09:54 who are just looking for it.
02:09:55 I’m not interested in people who are just looking
02:09:57 to point fingers at each, like life is so short.
02:10:00 I’m looking for, it’s one of the reasons
02:10:02 that I wanna meet with you is I was like, wow,
02:10:05 Lex really seems like he’s on a journey to find truth.
02:10:08 And that humility for me is same thing with Rick.
02:10:10 It drew me to Rick.
02:10:11 It was like, I really, I see that and identify with it.
02:10:15 And that’s what I’m looking for.
02:10:16 There’s the final song on our record,
02:10:18 our new record that’s coming out.
02:10:20 The chorus goes, and this is like,
02:10:24 this is my best answer to what you’re asking.
02:10:27 So the chorus goes,
02:10:30 take it easy on me.
02:10:33 I need some lullaby.
02:10:35 They tell me heaven’s just a lie.
02:10:38 Well, I’m not surprised.
02:10:40 Tell me that you know.
02:10:42 No, you don’t.
02:10:43 Yeah, you’re just like me.
02:10:45 Can we just all hope for the best?
02:10:48 Take it easy.
02:10:51 So that’s it for me.
02:10:52 It’s like, I’m in a place where I’m like, I don’t know.
02:10:56 Tell me, I’m not gonna believe you.
02:10:58 Maybe you do.
02:10:59 I’m not gonna believe it,
02:11:00 but let’s just be easier on each other
02:11:04 and try to find truth wherever it may lie.
02:11:07 But above all, know that we don’t know jack shit.
02:11:11 I think that’s a mic drop moment.
02:11:13 Dan, thank you so much.
02:11:14 You’re an incredible human.
02:11:15 I love that you share with the world
02:11:17 the darkness of your mind, of your life experience
02:11:20 and the beautiful light that you’ve shown to the world.
02:11:23 So it’s a huge honor
02:11:25 and thank you for spending your valuable time.
02:11:27 Good luck on the tour.
02:11:28 Thanks, man.
02:11:28 Thanks for having me.
02:11:30 Thanks for listening to this conversation
02:11:31 with Dan Reynolds.
02:11:33 To support this podcast,
02:11:34 please check out our sponsors in the description.
02:11:36 And now let me leave you with some words
02:11:38 from Aldous Huxley.
02:11:41 After silence, that which comes nearest
02:11:44 to expressing the inexpressible is music.
02:11:48 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.