Brandi Carlile

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard, I'm joining Billily Padman. Hi. My voice broke there. Mm-hmm. It's very'cause it's a ding ding ding. Oh my gosh, it's a ding ding ding to the episode. It is. Her voice breaks in one of her most famous songs. Uh really good job. Uh, Brandy Carlisle. Brandi Carlisle is an 11-time Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and producer. Her albums are, by the way, I forgive you. In These Silent Days, The Story, Returning to Myself.

Currently on the human tour. For dates and tickets, go to brandycarlisle.com. Guys, I loved her. He w this was such a fun idea. Yeah, I really, really love it. And she sings for us. Yes, she sings for us. Please enjoy Brandy Carlo. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I feel like spring always does this thing where you realize you've been thinking about something for a long time and suddenly it feels like, okay, maybe I actually do something with

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So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be it. Head to squarespace.com/slash Dax for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So happy. Yeah, and I'm really excited to talk to you guys. This is awesome. I purposely was not around because I knew the stakes were really high. You just met Anna? Yeah, yeah. She was great. Okay. She was gonna be so nervous to meet.

Yeah. She was like, I have to She's a huge fan. Oh man. Well I have this thing called Girls Just Want a Weekend every year. Mexico. Yeah. It's like life changing for a lot of people because you get lured into it thinking it's a festival, but really it's like a whole experience. You gotta come. Okay. You gotta have the It's all female performers, right? Yeah. Are men welcome.

Men are treated like absolute celebrities. Oh my God, the way that we basically hoist you onto our shoulders and carry you. If you come to our festival. Wow. Okay, now I wanna go. I love the idea. Merch for just men that says like I survived, girls just want to week two. Let's hear it further. I'm the show. Lisboa. Okay, I think you'd do great there, Dak. Well I just think when men will leave the country to attend a festival with all women are non binary headliners, it's like Yeah.

That's awesome. Yeah. Those men are rad. Okay, good, good, good, good. I was reading about it and you must know that we heard the most sincere and authentic review of this. Festival from honor. Chega! And I had a million questions. I'm like, Is it a lesbian festival? And she's like, Yes and no. Not not overtly, but yes. Yeah. A lot of gay men are starting to come too. Okay, which is really cool. There's this like whole contingency.

Of really sapphically focused gay men that are really enjoying it. Okay. This sounds like the happiest group imaginable to me. I think that's why it's life changing. That's pretty good. Yeah. That's awesome. Kristen has described it. She's not Ben, but just given all the feedback from Anna, she said, you know, it's the polar opposite of Woodstock ninety nine, if you're trying to think of an event. Be any more I in one way or another it's a response to that.

Yeah. But you saw Lilith Fair when you were a kid. Yeah, you went to the Lilith Fair festival. Yep. That's actually what I think got me wanting to do this was that. Yeah. What age were you when you went to that? 17. So so formative. Yeah. I had this one experience in particular where I was just this little scalyweg kid, all sunny.

and drinking Mountain Dews, like these big refillable Mountain Dews all day. And I like took my bucket of Mountain Dew to have it refilled to the Mountain Dew stand. And there was this lesbian standing in line behind me and she goes, honey, what are you getting to drink? And I was like a mountain dew. And she goes, You need some water and you're sunburned. Oh she put sunscreen on my shoulders. On one hand I was like, Mm, but then I got older and I was like, I need a festival like that, you know?

Like we're taking care of each other. Looking out for it. That is the opposite of Woodstock. Exactly. It does make me think what you tell your children when you have children, which is like okay, if you're alone You find a police officer. Yeah. Cannot find a police officer, which you likely will not. Find a woman with kids. Yeah. That's what I s we say, find a mom. A single woman. Keep going down the

Find a lesbian. If you can't find a And Lass is like, find a dude in a Corvette with his shirt off. Yeah. I bet you might as well just run into the street. Yeah um where was the Lilith was it in Gasworks Park? Well, good question. You know Seattle. I've drank in a lot of forties at Grassworks. Okay. No. Yeah. I dated a girl for nine years that was from Marysville. Okay. Everett. No, it's at the gorge. Oh, perfect.

In fact, that's where it started, nineteen ninety seven. Perfect. And that was the year Tracy Chapman was on that lineup. Sarah and the Indigo Girl. I mean it was amazing. Erica Badu was on. Sinead O'Connor was there that you're out. I love Erica Badio. Oh my god. Ravens. Tchau. Ravensdale. A lot of dales in that area. There might be a day or two. A couple of dails.

Now Ravensdale it seems almost impossible because it's twenty eight miles from Seattle, yet it has a population of five hundred people. Well, Seattle's like that. It's a bit like Anchorage in a way, where you can land in Seattle, get yourself like the most delicious, silky cappuccino you've ever drank, and then a half an hour later see a bear. Yeah. And be potentially lost.

Is cool. The history of the town fascinated me because it's a coal mining town. You don't associate Washington with coal mining. You kinda can. I mean, it was one of the first in terms of that Ravensdale is a bit of a subsidiary of another town called Black Diamond, okay, which is a neighboring town. And actually Loretta Lynn lived there. Oh. Wow.

Yeah, for a time. And yeah, when I was a kid we were running around there's coal mines everywhere. You gotta watch out for mineshafts and everything. In fact I got my last spanking for playing in a mine shaft. Oh gosh. I'm so jealous. I loved a mine shafted when I was a kid. We liked rock quarries. Same. And mine shafts, they got water in'em too. That bottomless. Okay, so you like to flirt with danger. If you're playing over there, you're a rascal a little bit. I would stand far away.

I think feral's the right word. I think you need this. Okay. So I grew up in a rural area too and I will say That's not necessarily what I wanted for my kids, but boy do I cherish the amount of we were just lighting stuff on fire. I mean you were allowed to do whatever came across your mind because there's no supervision and there's no one around to catch you. What parts of it don't you want for your kids?

I again this is probably rooted in all my own personal stuff, but it's like too much privacy out there. Too many places to hide and just like I couldn't get caught lighting shit on fire, adults weren't getting caught for stuff and there's A general that part of it I don't love. Yeah, no, you're exactly right.

Look, and again, I would love to see data on this, but where I was from, we had to have overindexed. We had a serial killer, it's a small town. Every single person was molested, I know. I just feel like it's savory. Yeah, we don't do sleepovers. Yeah, a lot of people don't anymore.

It's amazing. That is something about our generation having realized that maybe we all had too much freedom whether we lived in a rural area or not. Yeah. I was trying to explain that to my kids. I would be like, We would get on our bike. We'll be eight o'clock in the morning. And we would maybe come home at some point after dark and no one knew where we were, how we were getting money or candy. Didn't even ask you what your day was like. Nope. Yeah, it's crazy.

Back to what's dangerous about it is like I know you know because I had it a million times. If my kids run into somebody dicey on the street, which they do, it's LA, there's a bunch of homeless people. They always have someone in sight they could yell to. How many times when you're a kid and you're out in the woods or you're somewhere and you come across an adult, like a soul adult, and it's freaky. You know

There's nobody around and this weird adults in the woods for some reason too. You have a lot of those moments when you grow up, I think, rural. I do and I didn't experience any significant traumas, but I can see the near misses now. How many times I got close to my battleship? Yeah. Crazy. Like I remember getting in this guy's truck

that was like the town scary guy, but he told me that there were trout biting in this quarry. And I was like, No, that's an empty pond this full of water And he's like, No, there's a stream that's dumping coconut into it. I'll show you right where they're biting and I was like I shouldn't get into your truck, but I want those coconut. Like that's what you people do to go get drugs. Like I don't dress this guy but fuck, I do Mont Coke. Well, Coke and eat. Coke and eat.

No, I did and it was fine. But I mean near miss, right? Or even that the guy would put a thirteen year old girl in his truck Without our parents' permission and then totally innocuously take her to shore where to catch trout. It's kind of unbelievable. I got lucky every time, but a lot of folks don't. So I actually know what you mean about that.

Yeah, it's just that element. And again, I love it because I got through it and I feel like I got all my confidence from that because I was navigating these weird situations and dangerous ones and kids were getting hurt. And all that, I think you enter the real world, you're like, I gotta get a job and pay for the bills. That's fine. The question is, how do you recreate those kinds of experiences for your kids?

without exposing them to the possibility of real trauma. You want them to have the street smarts we have. You want them to understand that not everybody is upper middle class or privileged in a way, but you can't falsify or recreate. I know I'm coming across as the kind of parent we're actually quite free range. Really? Oh yeah. Like we were in Denmark and we're like, Cool, this is Trivoli's gardens. It's huge, but it's all encapsulated. We're like

Have fun. We will see you in six hours. Here is a credit card. You know, like go. And they're eleven and thirteen, am I right? At the time they were nine and eleven. Yeah. With other kids too though.

Right? Well they were split up. Uh so yes, Lily went with maybe Lincoln, but Dolly and Delta got it in their mind they were gonna set a record on a roller coaster and they wrote it, you know, sixty times in a row or something. So they did split up. They weren't another country and it's just like, yeah, it'll work out. They're smart. So I do have that side of me too. Wow, yeah, yeah. And that's how you do it. You set up those situations of kind of control Yeah. Chaos. It's within reason, yeah.

Yeah. Okay, what were mom and dad like? What were they up to? I think we share an addict father. We may share the actual one. We don't know. We don't know. I think I'd be cuter, but yes uh I got this bum end of that stick. That would be huge, what a revelation. This would go so violent. Biggest episode of all. Shepherd. Yeah, so I grew up in that kind of house. How old were they when they had you're the middle?

oldest daughter and I'm the oldest grandchild on both sides. So I have all that superiority complex going for me and this enormous sense of responsibility to balance it out. So they were young. They were like 19 and 20, or twenty and twenty one, like right around there.

And they got married while they were pregnant with me. And I'm not sure how long it took for my dad to sort of succumb to pretty severe alcoholism or if he kind of was already always drinking. I may actually know this, but I'm not recalling it off the top of my head, but yeah, he had a really, really bad drinking problem most of my childhood. Was he employed? He was employed initially at the Boeing. Yeah, but you gotta build airplanes, you gotta stay sober. Yeah, you do. Well the reason. Yeah.

You know, he would go and recover and he would go to rehab and he would get to the point where he would even be somebody else's sponsor, like he'd be clean that long. It made it that much more heartbreaking when he would fall. And would you see the signs percolating up? Did you ever feel like you had a sense of when those times were coming?

No, it always surprised me. And I actually think maybe now that I'm an adult, that's why I never let anything surprise me ever. I don't even like getting a birthday present. I'm like, tell me what it is. Yeah. And we'll talk about it. Uhhuh. When he was drunk, what version of a drunk was he? Just unpredictable. He's really smart, hyper articulate, kind of a victim of an overactive mind. And alcohol is obviously something that he used to sort of quell that. But because he's so No.

naturally he would not like this, but quite dogmatic and marinating and rhetoric all the time. His sobriety would become a family religion. So we would be an Al Anon, Alateen. We would be learning that we'd have the slogans, we had the one-liners. And then he would fall off the way again and it would feel like we fell off a skyscraper. Well yeah, your identity. All of your identities. The whole friendship group is all members of AA, I'm sure. I wish. I think that's part of the problem. Okay.

Is that, you know, you kind of described that small town situation. No, they were not. And my dad, he doesn't have like an ego, but he's kind of self-important in a way. And just if what is needed in theory for an addict To stay clean is a positive friend group. He doesn't believe that applies to him. Uh he's the one guy. He didn't do it on his own.

I was like I when I entered recovery, they were like, you know, here's six things that work for people. And I'm like, Let's see if I can do it with one. Get three months, relapse, then come back. I'm open to doing two of the things. Yeah. I had to get worn down over years before I was finally Okay, I'll do all the fucking things. What I have to believe in God, okay. And I gotta I need a sponsor Well it's still all about acceptance.

acceptance that you have a real issue. Obviously that cliche or that acknowledgement is the hardest hurdle or problem is real. All of that is just to get to, yeah, I have a real problem. Because until then you're like, I have a little problem. I could probably just Do with one of these things. There's an arrogance like the normal people need all this. Well you but I'm exceptional, so what will I need? Three of these things.

Yeah. If any of them. And then there's to your point, like have you seen that Leonardo DiCaprio meme? I love it so much, where he's got that kind of face and he's holding a martini or whatever. The meme is like how wine drunks look at regular drunks. Oh we drink the wine, so There's always someone with

There's always someone worse. And then there's that cliche of the rock bottom thing. It feels like only time I've seen people get sober and like stay sober, this is just a theory from a n a person who's not an addict, by the way, but is that the shit has to really hit the fan. Oh, the saying in AA is like you won't change until your hair is on fire. And then the other great sayings which describes your father and myself is like you can have terminal uniqueness.

Which is I'm so unique and I'm gonna die because of it. Like I'm so special and different and unique. And I'm gonna die of that uniqueness, but I don't care. I'd rather be that unique. Yeah. It's almost romantic. Yes, yes. And it feels like it has autonomy. You're in control and it's not. Yeah, you're just Unwilling. He's sober now though. For how long? For a long time. Awesome. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's awesome. I imagine we inherited the same thing, which is I was just like, you know, it's kinda dorky because it's this thing my dad's super into. And then the spirituality that would accompany it, right? It'd be like Course of Miracles and all these other things that tie in with it. What kind of feelings were you having about that whole element? About the spiritual element? A and the slogans and all that stuff. Was it like, Oh my god, this is embarrassing or

I was already more religious than AA when we entered into AA. I was already really into Jesus. And were your parents or just you? You found it on your own? It's very weird. My parents were and my dad really was at a time, you know, he's like extremist. So he had extremist moments and is still an extremist. But I had my own path with it. Like I have terminal uniqueness. So I almost died when I was five from meningitis.

I just got told so many times that I had like a purpose and that I was like saved for something and we were all intense and we were all going to church. And so I was like talking to Jesus. all the time I had a whole relationship with this Jesus thing that was kind of independent. I would elect I didn't have groups of friends based on it either. weren't like idolizing some older kid that was super into it aren't

Was just that maybe that near death experience. Your heart stopped a few times during that year? Coma and everything. I was just like riding shotgun with his Jesus character. And kind of always have been through a lot of turmoil, ups and downs in my life and even things about me that would push me away from it and pull me back and recognize with a lot of gratitude that I have a very unique God perspective. What age were you when baptism was supposed to happen? I think like sixteen.

Okay, so sixteen were supposed to get baptized. Yeah. And what happened? There was this kind of troubling church actually in our town, big surprise. In the neighboring town Black Diamond. They kind of looked for troubled kids. that were in troubled home situations and stressed out, you know. And at this point, me and my brother already dropped out of high school.

And We were in trouble cleaning buses at the bus barn and this church bus pulled up and told us to get in, picked up my brother and I didn't go. They should have told you Steelhead were running. Yeah, that's all they had to tell me. That's a big question. Still have we're running in the grave. Just call it at the church. Oh, God. Oh my god. What the hell? I don't look that bad

I got in the hourie guy's truck. No, but I didn't go. Eventually I started going to the church. Found it compelling. Went to one of those camps, you know, they go to these camps. I don't think you guys have ever experienced these church camp? I've not been to one but kids went to them where Yeah, a lot of friends. Deeply emotional and

transformative for young kids, these camps, these pastors, they're cool. They know how to talk to young people. They know how to play on our guilt and our sense of rebelliousness. And so it compelled me to want to get baptized. I felt that there was just too much in the world that I couldn't handle without making my

faith official. Yeah, yeah. So I did the thing that you do in the evangelical church where the pastor like prays for everybody to close their eyes and then somebody comes forward and I came forward. So I was gonna get baptized and everybody's crying and clapping and it's all very charismatic and

you spend like a week taking classes and doing Bible study and spending time with the pastor and everything. And I had done it. I did all those things. And when the day came around for my baptism at the church, the whole town, which is like not many people, and my parents, troubleding as it all was, we were a unit. We were together. We were all a big dysfunctional family. I was out of the closet. I had a girlfriend, a short little haircut.

Can we do one second on that? Being openly gay where I'm from in a rural area in the eighties. It would have been really hard. What was it different in Washington? No. I was the only one I knew Where did you get the confidence to own that and not run from that at all? It's a really good question. It's just for me, it's just always been Such an obvious Part of who I am. When I saw other gay people on TV, you know, like Ellen DeGeneres coming out in in the 90s, when I saw

gay artists like the Indigo Girls and I was a huge Elton John fan and I read all these biographies and and then there were movies that kind of touched on it, Boys on the Side and Philadelphia. I recognized there was a community or a culture outside of my life. That makes sense. Your heroes were often gay. Yeah. And all my friends were going through puberty and they wanted to make out with boys and I wanted to make out with girls. I just did. I want to make out with them. I couldn't deny that.

But people do. But they do. So it's amazing. I think when they're not in cities as well. They tend to even more. I just have always been pretty oblivious to just not being cool. You know, my favorite pants growing up were like cow print jeans. I didn't know that people were laughing at my obsessions or my eccentricities and so I was like, Yeah, I'm gay. Everybody knows I'm gay. They're not that into it. It's not a popular thing. I'm not

Taking a whole lot of shit for it, but I'm not being accepted either. And again, kind of oblivious to that. Just listening to the Indigo Girls, loving my life. They don't mind that you're gay. They're nervous is every girl gonna turn gay now in the school? Mm-hmm. I don't think I can put it. That would have been awesome. You're like, I was trying.

Like when I talk to friends of mine who I adore that live in the South, the way they'll tell me that like Disney's goal is to convince all kids to be trans, I'm like, I think you think that. Like I do think you think that. Yeah, yeah. I think I think that's a real thought. Um and I think similarly, like I think a lot of people back then were just like, yeah, I don't care what she does, but she can uh influence my Yeah.

There may have been some of that. I mean, I remember hearing a lot of words like that thrown around town or in my family or in the nineties, like, Oh, she's militant or she's hard or are you gonna put it in our faces? Uh kind of or like love the sinner hate the sin. We love you but we don't accept your lifestyle kind of thing. Right, right, right. And that unfortunately just had to be good enough for me back then. Oh yeah and I was absolutely fine with that. Yeah.

And I wasn't. I knew it was a countercultural thing. And your parents they're cool, obviously. No. Okay. Really? Same same situation. They weren't cool, but they weren't not cool. It was something everybody found kind of quite annoying about me, if I'm right. Bye. Right. But I have an inner world and I also knew I can't explain why, but I knew I had this life ahead of me that I was about to be a part of and that I was gonna be okay. But

I get to this church for this baptism after spending this time with the pastor, having this kind of position in my community that was complicated. I was loved but not accepted and just everything was like okay, but not great. So I get to this church and the pastor takes me. Mm. aside with this other kid that was gonna get like a much younger kid. And

asks us both, as a formality, do you practice witchcraft or homosexuality? And I just laughed. I just burst out laughing because I didn't understand why that question was pertinent and I still don't. But that question seemed so ridiculous to me. And then it didn't take me long to realize that I had to answer yes to one of those things. Right.

Do you think he threw witchcraft in to make it seem less pointed? Or you think that's standard I think that's equal those are the 'Cause he spent a week with you, he probably liked you. Well you liked me and he knew me, he knew my family. He's about to put you in a situation where he he's gonna deny you a baptism. I mean imagine he's human, so did he just throw witchcraft in to try to make it say, Hey, I gotta ask these standard questions

I think so. And I think until this very moment I just accepted it as such. It just seems like an insane How would you find yourself all the way to this point believing in witchcraft? But whatever. I have a great idea. I'm gonna ask her about witchcraft and then the homosexuality thing won't That's a throwaway. Yeah. Maybe the other kid was a warlock. No, right? The boy was a warlock. He's getting involved.

So he very well could have been. He's standing there with his staff. Exactly. But I stopped laughing and I looked at him and I go, You know me. I go, You know I'm gay. Yeah, everyone knows I'm gay. This I'm the gay person. I'm like the town. Okay.

You know, that didn't seem like that was a disqualifying factor. And I'm in a swimsuit and my parents are right there. What are you talking about? Yeah. And He was like you can't be baptized today and I had to leave the church in front of all those people sitting there, run back to my house and How did you take that? Were you heartbroken by that or were you angered by it?

At that point, just humiliated. So embarrassed, which is my nightmare. I cannot be embarrassed. It was about the most embarrassed I've ever been in my life to this day. And my parents came home and A couple of their close friends, like Ron and Diane, like they all came to the house and it was suddenly I was loved and accepted. It was this weird thing that happened where then Pastor Dude was the problem and the whole town got mad on my behalf. Oh, that's beautiful.

That might be scarier for me though. I don't know if I want the whole town to hate me or love me. I'm afraid of both. I could see why,'cause they might know what you're doing. I just be like, oh, I can't live up to love. I can live up to disappointing you. But living up to love that's the whole trajectory of this experience of even getting famous. That's still an issue. I'm afraid for you to love me because I'm going to disappoint you.

I think more than ever, that is a valid stressor. I can see why you feel that way even without the issues. Yeah, I already had those and then there's some proof now. Yeah. ややややや Yeah, absolutely. That turned that around for me in a really interesting way. Did they can the pasture? They said like you gotta go with the program and baptize

No, that pastor called me every day for a long time trying to apologize. I just I think it was just upsetting for everyone. You know, religion and dogma it's so Oppressive. So did you just lose your desire to even get baptized at that point? Like fuck that. I have my relationship with Jesus and I'm good.

Yeah, until much, much later in life. It set me free in a way, I think. Made a lot of people that thought that gay people were militant and insisting on these rights that they're gonna take from them realize We really are kind of in trouble out here. We really are vulnerable in a lot of different ways. And I don't think they realize Yeah, you were just like excommunicated from your church. In front of them all. Yeah. Well, that's a lovely end though to that terrible story.

I think so that's the way I look at it. So something about it is the best part of us as humans, which is like We don't enjoy seeing someone get shit on or excluded or Almost no matter what. Yeah. Yeah, and it can change us on a dime in a profound way. More than had you bitched out the guy in front of everyone. M one something. Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Did I read correctly that you wouldn't get married until LGBTQ

He's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've had a lot of gay friends and my analogy was, and this is a crazy analogy, but it feels very appropriate. If half my friends were black and I lived in the 30s, I wouldn't host a party in the front of the bus. Yeah, yeah. It would feel insane. And I was like, Well, we're gonna invite like eight of our gay friends to watch us have this right they don't have and celebrate us feels bonkers. What?

Just on that alone. Not like a big global just like this is wrong for me to do this and invite friends that can't do it to enjoy it for me. It fell crazy. It's pretty good. Pretty good But then we were stuck in engagement uh For like I want to say three years to the point where people would be like, You're still engaged? Like they're getting nervous for us, right? Like you can only be engaged for so long. Yeah, this is a bad sign.

Nervous. And it's like, Oh, this is convenient. You have a cause now? You should go to the festival. You definitely You should go to the festival. I really do think it's right for you. But also that's actually amazing that that's gonna always be a part of your legacy and being able to get married changed my life. And when I couldn't get married, it was a major drain on my life. Yeah. Can we talk about that a little bit?

a friend group and there's something adjacent happening where there's some religious people who are like, Well, no, you can be together, but like marriage is a different thing. What can you share about why that's not okay? About why it's not okay to deny that basically. Yes.

civil right. Well, I just don't think that any one religion has the monopoly on two people choosing to spend the rest of their lives together under an equal protection of the law. And guess what? Some of us are quite religious. It was kinda wild actually because my weddings, we had a lot of weddings. Mm-hmm. My wife is from London. So we got married in a little church called the Church of the Good Shepherd in Wareham, Massachusetts. His name is Shepherd, yeah. Shepherd. It's great.

And then we had a civil partnership in England because they didn't have marriage there yet. It was just a civil partnership. So it was kinda weird because we never had a civil partnership here. We had marriage first. And then England for years had civil partnerships and then marriage

Quite a lot later. So we had a civil partnership there and the deal was you couldn't have any mention of faith, religious music. I don't even think you could wear like a cross. Like you had to have a totally secular. Interesting. Which was an interesting thing because it gave me this perspective of understanding how it can really be viewed through a religious lens. But really that's all in the eye of the beholder. That's all in how you feel about it.

Also, it just really speaks to like little groups of humans do little weird things and they have little weird rules so that they're separate from this group. So it's like this one has to be secular, doesn't make much sense. This one can't have that doesn't make much sense. They overlap in these little segments of life and you're gonna deal with a civil union and that thing at the same time.

Just normal people out like living their lives and stuff, just didn't realize how many things it excluded us from. We had all kinds of issues. You couldn't visit her in the hospital, right? Like that would be one in a lot of cases. That was a really heartbreaking one. And happened to a lot of older couples, or just homeownership, like going back to somebody's family instead of their

long term spouse. Things like that. But then immigration as well, we couldn't get a green card or vouch for cat citizenship or anything like that. Because there was no spousal

allocation for me to be able to do that. So we had to renew our visa every couple of years and panic every time we traveled internationally, get detained at the airport. We're always detained at the airport. Wow. And when that changed it was just immediate and I was like, oh my gosh, this is what everybody else You just get to walk up to the counter and say we're married everywhere. You don't even think about it.

That's the problem when people are against it. They don't recognize the benefits of it that they're just inherently getting. That's a good point. Do you like Sederis? David Sidaris, the writer. I don't know him. He's hit me too. Congratulations. You just got introduced to the greatest living writer. Okay. That's incredible.

He's hysterical. But anyways, I was just reading a short story two nights ago and it was about when it got passed. He has a very interest he's older, he's sixty, probably four now, and he has opinions that are of his era in a fun way, and he's very open about them. He was in England and he Collects trash in the morning at their house in England. That's like his routine. And he brought with him his iPad because he knew that the Supreme Court announcement was gonna happen. And then he lost

signal for three hours, then he f got to a cafe and he opened it up and he saw it. And he said, I don't think any gay human being in America could have not read that and just felt emotion. Yeah. Yeah. But then his whole process was like him going home to his partner of twenty years and telling Hugh that they gotta get married'cause there's a great tax benefit. And he was like, I'm not getting married. That's for fucking straight people. I don't give a fuck about the tax benefit.

And he said the actual proposal is like him rolling out the tax benefit. Yeah. Bludgeoning him and then Hugh saying, Fine if it'll make you shut up I'll do That's merit. That's hot. You know like this That's a whole thing. How old are you? Like sixty four. Yeah, I get it. I respect that. I really respect that. He hates the word queer. You know, like he's got a lot of things. He's fun to talk to and he's earned every single Oh I love those folks.

Those are my well, ancestors in a way. Like those are my elders, man. I've got so much respect for the older gays. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He grew up in a time where he had to leave North Carolina and move to New York City. This is his only shop. Had to Wine. And he's almost unsympathetic when he has people ask him questions like, What should I do? I'm in this town. He's like, Fucking move. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's like, just, they're great. They're gritty those older days. So gritty, it's brutal.

You guys don't even know what AIDS is. Oh my gosh. Exactly. Yeah. They're pissed. And yeah, in some ways like they have a right to If you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking your gas gauge before hitting the road? You genuinely thought you could make it? You were wrong. That's a very long stretch of highway where you learned exactly how far fumes can take you. And it's not far enough.

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You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary. Insurance and roadside assistance plans are subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Insurance provided by Allstate North American Insurance Company, Northbrook, Illinois. Roadside assistance plans provided by Allstate Motor Club. Incorporated and Allstate affiliate. Okay, so mom was she the bread worner? I'm imagining you guys were probably scraping by if they were super young. Dad had his problem and mom, what did she do?

Mom wants to stay at home. Mom. How did this work? There wasn't a lot of bread. With them to be lamb. My dad when he couldn't be a Boeing anymore. He learned how to to do some construction and a guy helped out our family helped my dad get some tools. My dad's actually really good at construction. He still comes out and does stuff at my house all the time and stuff and just within that gig you just you get jobs when you can get'em and when you don't have'em you don't have money and

That's just how you roll. So we moved a lot. Yeah, I noticed maybe seven places I read or something in some period of time. Me and my brothers got in an argument about this last night. He didn't believe me, but it's fourteen places In seventeen years.

But it didn't seem that strange at all at the time. There were consistent things, you know, like I had the same cat that we took to every place that we moved to. I shared room with my little sister. I'm really tight with my brother and sister. And I'm really tight with my parents. We're just a chaotic unit. Oh. dysfunction that just deeply loves each other. We sometimes disagree about history and how it played out and what we're allowed to talk about, what we aren't, but I do believe that my

life as my story and we'll just talk it through. We'll continue to talk it through like we always have. Yeah. Did you covet money or was the town so small that even though you were broke, was everyone broke? Or did you covet money and think, How the fuck am I gonna get I gotta get money? Oh yeah. Yeah, I thought about money a lot. Me too. Coyote. Yeah, coyote people. Yeah. What are you old coyote people is what we're called? Oh, tell me. Like a coyote, it cannot help but exist for meat. Uh uh.

I mean and like I'm a coyote for achievement, I'm a coyote for success, I'm a coyote for stability and money. And I do my best. I've got all kinds of philosophies around not hoarding money and things like that because I know where the addiction lies. But I used to lay in my bed and dream about all the things I could buy everybody if I got money. And they were dumb things, like four wheelers. Sure, no.

You know, and like downriggers and crap like that. Once I very first started making money, I did crazy stuff with it. I took out loans like I would finance four wheelers and get like my dad and brother a four wheeler. new money stuff. Wish I were one of your family members. I love it Poor we went. free one. A four wheeler problem. But you started singing with mom at eight years old. Yeah. So mom was a singer, I presume?

Yeah, my mom's a really good country singer. And to this day she can still sing really good like Tammy Wynette. Her dad died of ALS really young. He died at like fifty. Uh uh and that was tough for my mom'cause she was really ill. Yeah, and he was special. So he was gonna be a pretty important patriarchal figure in our family that we all could have really used. And so he left us and one thing he did was sing country music and play the spoons and sing in a country band with his family.

Was he from Washington? He was from Minnesota. Doesn't make much more sense. I was hoping from the south. But you can't count out the north. Yeah. Or the West. That's what we call it country and western where I come from. Yeah. That's true. And so she in a way was able to continue that legacy, pass that on to me and my brother and my sister. We all do music now. And who was she singing with that she got to get you up on stage to sing with?

There was like a little community theater in town called the Northwest Grand Ole Opry that I dream about all the time actually. We were acting out the Randall Opry. There was like a little Jimmy Dickens mini pearl thing happening. Oh that's great. Yeah. And so she would mostly sing with us, but even though she's a good singer, I always got the idea that it was really more about us than her at a certain point. And she thought it was really cool that her kids could sing. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. You have kids. Yeah, I got cancer. Yeah, they do shit and you're like, Oh my god. They do shit and you're like, Oh my god, I've picked a song to play for you later. Based on this because of the ages. Tell me now, how old? Eleven and thirteen. And you're eight and twelve? eight and eleven almost wore. Okay. So similar. Both girls. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Mm. What? Yeah. And do they ride four wheelers? They do. They both have Polarises. Yeah, okay.

Putting them on four wheelers is something I'm really happy I did and in a ranger'cause when they get to driving Yeah. that coordination and understanding. Should really be hanging out. I know my girls ride dirt bikes and they drive razors and golf carts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You start singing now without mom by what age? Fifteen-ish?

Yeah. Me and my best friend Amber, we started singing background vocals for her dad, who was an Elvis impersonator. And then we would do a song or two in the set by ourselves. And then we learned a couple of indigo girls songs and started trying to teach her harmony, which my brother had taught me. And I was singing in another band with my brother and things just kind of turned into me being in multiple bands and having a lot going on.

You got obsessed with Elton John, taught yourself piano, taught yourself guitar. Guitar when I was around seventeen, sixteen, seventeen. Okay. And when do you move into Seattle and meet Tim and Phil? I never moved to Seattle. You did. Back to this day I live where I grew up. But I did meet them in a studio when I was about

18, 19, I got some money together from neighbors, coyote, out there doing the coyote things. Got some money together to go make a C D and ended up in a there's a recording studio there called London Bridge. And a guy called Rick Pracher and and this recording studio is very special. This is where Pearl Jam Ten was done, Temple of the Dog.

all the Allison Chain stuff with Kelly Gray and Rick Prascher was involved in all that and he was the producer of those things. So this felt to me like the center of Seattle grunge. But I couldn't afford like the big studio or the big producers. So like an assistant engineer let me record with him upstairs in like a little kind of Satellite room.

room. And it wasn't even really, it was just a room. But Pro Tools was just coming out so you could do that without a big console. And Tim and Phil were in downstairs working with the big producer in the big room in their own band called the Fighting Machinists. They were like

legends in Seattle. They had just gotten the biggest record deal anybody in Seattle had ever gotten and they were gonna be huge and I just waltzed down there and again, totally oblivious to what I looked like and where I came from and just was like You guys like cow pants? What do you think? Enjoy. Leave this all behind. I guess that's the beauty of moving a lot. You just have to like put yourself out there. You have to talk to people. You can't really be shy. You don't have time.

Yeah, if you're sitting at home, no one's ever gonna knock at your door and go, Hey, do you want this spectacular life? No one ever is. And you realize you gotta make opportunities every chance you get. And I was working as a barista at a coffee stand, so I got a lot of social skills that way. I was working at a grocery store as a sample lady. Oh. Oh a sample lady. What was your sample? Oh

Every day it was different. Uh-huh. It was an awesome job, actually. And then I was working part-time as a roofing laborer. Oh, I I also was a roofer. Really? Yeah yeah. I think my back is still messed up. Yeah. For tear off and cleanup and sometimes I would throw down the tart paper if it was not a slided roof. Never got to throw any bundles on it.

Yeah. I will say though, I was just talking about this with a neighbor in Nashville because he's a builder and we were kind of going through the strata of people in the trades. And I was like, Look, you've been doing this for thirty five years. Am I not crazy? We are the worst, right? Roofers are just like worst prison records least likely to show and he goes, Oh, by far roofers, they are the most fucked up in the trades. You think?

Oh, you gotta shit on a roof. In Detroit we would do rubber roof, you'd be five, six stories up. There's nowhere even if you went down the ladder, there's nowhere in Detroit to go use the bathroom. Yeah. So yeah, guys are shitting in buckets on the roof. Everyone's hammered. People aren't showing up. I mean, yeah, it was a mess.

Yeah. So imagine being like the lowest rung on that ladder where you're literally you're just cleaning up the mess. It was like that. And when you're on a roof and you're cleaning up roofing material, you're never lifting anything properly because you're always trying to keep from falling down. You're in a crazy angle. So I think my back is permanently from it.

day is spent figuring out how to do this ergonomically so you don't get hurt'cause yeah, you're on an angle that's different from the angle you mastered yesterday and you're prying these nails out with this fucking weird shovel. This has gotten so neat. I didn't know. Six other rumors. All the Rapers as our audience. The six roofers who are sober enough to comprehend this right now are who They're like huh Yeah.

Um, how do you though woo Tim and Phil? Like how do you go from they're the hot shit in town, you're upstairs in the attic recording on Pro Tools, how do you convince them we should work together? Honestly, I don't know because every show they had was sold out. I saw them play. Like they were unbelievable. They were very nice. I almost couldn't believe how nice they were to me because they were so

popular and they were so good looking. I had nothing to offer these two beautiful boys in their twenties. And I was just like, you want to play on my record? You know? And they just did it for no reason. The way I had things going was I would busk whenever I could in the daytime at Pike Place Market and I had these residencies at night in Pike.

clubs and restaurants all over Seattle. I'm talking about Duke's Clam Chowder House, Bill Medine's Ravioli station and Ballard, the Dubliner Bar and the Ballard Firehouse. People are coming for the entree first and then there's music.

They have no idea they're gonna get music. Right. But I did have this little PA system that I would go and I would go, Hey, listen, I got two speakers. I know you don't have music here, but if you let me come in on Tuesday nights, give me like four Tuesday nights, if on the fifth Tuesday night it's like twice as busy in here that you gotta start paying me. Nice. And then I would get my Tuesday night at Salty Sun Alcai. So I basically had all these residencies going and then

I would get down on my breaks and sit with all these people at their tables and have a beer and say, Give me your phone number, give me your phone number and then once a month I'd call them and I'd go, Hey, I got a big show at the Tractor Tavern. Might be some record labels there. Will you pack it out for me? And all these people would come and then I'd have packed shows. And so everybody was like, What's going on with this girl? Yeah. Wow, you really networked your way in.

Good. That's how we ended up getting a record deal and that's how I ended up getting the twins to join the band. Don't you marvel I'll be just reflecting on the odds against everyone to to make it in any of these chosen show business careers?

And the thing I constantly come back to is like, yeah, it'd be great if talent got you there. The amount of hustle it takes, I think, is a little misleading when you're on the outside. You think like, Oh, if I'm Bieber and I'm a genius at thirteen, I'll become famous. And Really it's like, I mean you gotta fucking call random people you played in front of at a restaurant?

Yeah, and it's really the stuff we've been talking about this whole time that gives you that acumen, like the skills to do that. You can't fake being a coyote, you can't fake coming from nothing, and you can't fake the charisma that it takes. to rise like a phoenix out of really difficult situations. Yeah. So it does start happening pretty darn quick for you, I would say, right? Because you've dropped out of high school. That ship sailed. Yeah, that was a bummer.

I don't want to pause there for two seconds. Or you just like I'm done. I'm done. ADHD, right? You were diagnosed as ADHD? I don't think so. You know what's something? My folks, the whole thing is a bit inaccurate in terms of like we're in inaccurate historians. I mean, I'm sure there was a doctor or two that was like, You have ADHD and now that everybody understands it so well, I'm sure there's some truth to that. But I just didn't do well. Yeah. Restless there.

And I felt too grown up to be there, I guess, because I had all these jobs and all these goals and these plans and I was working it and I would be working and getting myself places and then I would go to school and have to raise my hand to use the bathroom. Yeah. I was like, I don't belong here. I'm an adult. I just felt like I can't be here. I'm failing at everything. I need to go somewhere I'm not gonna fail. That's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. And your parents are like,

All right, I guess that's what's gonna happen. They didn't really have a choice. Yeah, me and my brother were just a year apart. We just stopped going and just started working. Wow, I just wonder Dax if the girls were like, we're not going to school anymore. Of all the people I know who are successful in working, I don't think any of them went to Harvard. None of them did the right thing. I barely graduated high school. I don't think it's that big of a deal. I think if you if you want it.

You're gonna get it and if you don't want it, you're not gonna get it anyway. It's not gonna send you any school kids that'll take you. It's not gonna give you that. I hate to say that I feel that way, but I kinda do. I mean it worked out.

If my girls came to me and said we don't want to go to a conventional high school, I have the time and the means to help them with an alternative path. Well my parents, they both wrapped out of high school. No one in our family graduated. Not my brother, not my sister, not me, not my folks. Wow, your kids could be the first.

So my kids could be the first. They will do it maybe a different way though. I don't see my kids going to a conventional high school and doing that. I don't understand how to speak that language. So I think there will be alternative forms of their exit from their education. Suffice to say, by two thousand five you record Brandy Carlisle, that's the first album. So you would have been twenty four? When it came out, yeah. I think I recorded it in maybe two thousand two, two thousand three. So

Pretty young. Twenty four. Mm-hmm. And that works. Like Rolling Stone reviews it beautifully. They put you on the top ten artists to watch in two thousand five. After all that grind, did you have a hard time trusting The positive things that were coming? No, I just loved it. I was so happy. Honestly, I was happy before. I've always felt like a famous singer. I've always felt like that. So no. You're like, oh, the world caught up. Yeah, I'm more gun shy now than I was back then.

Tell me what do you think has caused that? I don't know, maybe just getting older, being middle aged, wondering about relevance. the internet, the way people talk about each other, how easy it is to surmise that someone is something that they're not, and those kinds of things to make me question whether this is the gig for me.

It's weird though, isn't it? It's like counter to what you would think. If you go to ask me at like fifteen, let's say you did all this stuff, what would you feel like at the end of it? Like, Oh, I'd feel so confident. But yeah, I was in this movie that people give me a lot of compliments for idiocracy and I played a role that I know I want to do today. Like it would be too big of a swing. I would be afraid to go try to do what I did in that movie.

You're saying that you won't be able to do that. Today, if you offered me that role today, I would be like, I can't do it. Yeah, I'd be too scared. But isn't that what we're saying? There's like, that's what's so weird. That's the thing about idiocracy too, that yeah, I could see why. Yeah, I could see why. It was a huge swing and I didn't mind at all taking it out. And I didn't give a fuck if anyone thought it was embarrassing or not. Right, right, right.

And now I would and it would be harder for me to do it now. And that's opposite of what I would have expected. Is it because we don't want to be embarrassed in front of our kids? Is it because we're like becoming legacy conscious as we get older? I mean, I think those are really good guesses. And for probably a lot of people, that stuff is going on. I don't think I'm concerned about legacy. I think what it is is.

In some weird way I was inoculated by ignorance and naivete and didn't even consider what if I look ridiculous doing it? What if this is embarrassing? Those thoughts never crossed my mind. And now they look. Yeah, that sucks. We only get that, I think, for I I'm not as good as I thought I was. That's part of it, right? Like I used to think I was so good. Now I think I'm fine. In some weird ways I'm more confident, but also it's like I tap down the bottom and the top.

has changed that? Do you think you've let some of the outside in a little bit? Yeah, or I've seen stuff I did that I thought was one thing and then upon reflection or years away, I'm like, Oh, it wasn't as good as I thought it was, or I wasn't as good in it. I've more come to the feeling like, Yeah, I'm fine. I can do this job. Not I'm going to be Will Farrell. At that point, I was like, I'm going to be Will Farrell.

No, you have stuff to lose now. That's really what it is. You get to an age where you have stuff to lose. When you're starting out, there's nothing to lose. You're able to put yourself out there because it's like, Well, what's the worst that can happen? Yeah. I didn't have a mortgage when I did that. Exactly. And you have a reputation, you have children. There's a ton to lose actually. Exactly, and you're a little bit dumb. Beauty. Fully developed. Run a lobe, actually it helps you.

I put out album after album after album without ever even knowing when the Grammys were. And now I'm thinking about the Grammys before I write the song. I don't want it to be that way. And I push it out. I do it. I get rid of it and I do the thing and I go in. But to not know the things I know. I made an album with Elton John. Elton's incredibly encyclopedic about numbers and the charts and how things do. And he knows everything. And I knew nothing.

He would call me and say, Hey, the record is coming out at this or it got this or this thing is gonna happen. And I'd be like, Oh my god, tell me about that. Like, what is that? Yeah. Once you learn too much about how you're being received, it can definitely go in. And but I I think there's ways we can erase it. I don't know how, but I think there are ways we can get rid of the knowledge. Because we have examples of people who have avoided that.

So minimally there are mentors that exist that seem to have never succumbed to that pressure. But yes, if you've never been nominated for a Grammy, who cares? Once you get nominated for one, now we know you can do it. It's yours to not do. That's what fucks you up, I think. Yeah.

In the climb, we talk about this all the time. It's counterintuitive, but it's so much scarier once you're at the top of the mountain. Climbing the mountain is hard and when you're in it, you're like, Oh, I wanna do is be up there. But then when you're up there, there's just one way to go. Gary up there. Yeah. And you're more self conscious because of it. You're right. Yeah, and they say what's that Miley lyric, there's always gonna be another mountain.

I need another mountain. I need another mountain all the time. That's my addiction. Okay, in oh seven the story comes out. How did you end up working with T Bone Burnett? And is he as magical as I'm led to believe from film and television? He seems very special. Yeah, he is very special. When I started recording our songs, me and the twin songs, we had like forty something songs, forty two songs maybe, over the course of doing these residences together and working together and practicing.

And who we met first was Rick Rubin. Oh wow. Okay. And Rick Rubin tried to sign us to American Recordings, but there was a lot going on. Like the Johnny Cash stuff had just come out and he was moving in a bunch of record label stuff.

Didn't work out. But what he told me was, these are your good songs and these are your not so good songs. He divided them in half and he goes, This is a really great record. This is something you can record if you need to make money and find a way to get yourself through the next. next couple of years until I get settled in at my new record label. Yeah.

Then I was really open to suggestion at that point from him. So I divided those things in half and I went in and recorded what became Brandy Carlisle as my own collection basically of demos for me to sell at my shows. And then later on, I got the record deal in two thousand five and they said, Well, okay, we know your good record is the story. This album. Let's put this other one out in the meantime while you kind of get your chops and get out on the road and get good.

So we did and that became Brandy Carlisle. That was my not good songs. That was my Oh no, rejects. And you toured for two years on that, right? Toured for like several years on that. And then it never really worked out with Rick Rubin. And I met D. Bone Burnett in a hotel bar in New York City. And we got to talking about country music.

We hit it off and we agreed that we were gonna leave the country and make a record together in some other country. That record was the story and the whole thing is recorded live in one room with one band to tape. Eleven days or something? Something really quick. Yeah, you can't get T Bone Burnett to stay longer than that. Yeah. Yeah, he moves quick. It was great. What was going on with T Bone? The the live was a departure from what was being done normally, right?

It was, but it was a recent departure because like I was saying, Pro Tools was only kinda new and there were certain editing techniques that are second nature today that you hear all the time without realizing you're hearing them that we didn't really have refined or have a lot of access to back.

in that exact moment, you couldn't have used autotune or melodyne and not heard it. You'd hear it. It wasn't as finessed as it is now. Compression too, everything was in a a time when you're hearing like really unaltered Always cracks on one of the tracks, right?

Yeah, on the story in a significant way. And a lot of times I'm playing guitar and singing at the same time and those things can't be separated in those recordings. And so we recorded to tape, which is another whole other cumbersome but beautiful sounding way to record. To edit on it is so much more time consuming. Yeah, they actually splice it and cut it. So you have to make big decisions about accepting imperfection.

Yeah, so how about that moment with the voice when you first heard it were you like, we can't have that? Or were you like, Oh fuck, this somehow has a magic to it? It felt and sounded so wild to me when I made that sound that I almost laughed and just ended the tape. Right.

For everyone. Yeah. But I knew that everybody was playing so good and I didn't want to throw it for the drummer. And so I just sang through it thinking, well, if they love the first half, they can splice a second half on from another one. When I ended the song, T Mom Burnett, Yeah. But he comes up and he throws the door open on my ISO pod and he goes, That was the moment of the record. That was the moment of the record. Okay.

And I go, what are you talking about? He goes, wait till you hear it. Wow. Powerful. It's so cool. So that album, the story, really changes kind of everything, yeah? No. At the time it really didn't. I think it didn't break the top anything. Well You get songs on Grey's Anatomy, they

That started happening. So Ray's Anatomy started showing up really early, like during the Brandy Carlisle thing. And this sort of relationship happened with them where they found that my music was going well with their program. Okay. I even recorded a couple of songs just for them. In one season they had three of your songs and then their musical episode they sang one of your songs. Yeah. The story. It helped everything. It helped pay the bills. It helped our band and what an iconic show.

Oh my God, I was obsessed with it and specifically the music, just picking out every song. They were like Maureen becomes a galactic, they were like a gateway to great music. Exactly like Garden State. There was this kind of really cool thing that happened around sync licensing at that time. And I just happened to be a part of it. I still feel the ripple effect of that. And I love that show. It's a great show.

What size venues were you playing with on that two years of touring with Brandy Carlyle? Theaters? Dude. Well if I got to open for somebody theaters, but a lot of bars and clubs and just kind of standing rooms and stuff like that. Saw all kinds of fun stuff, I bet. Saw all kinds of fun stuff. I never got on a plane till I was seventeen years old, so I saw the whole country with these two twins in my own van. We should take our kids to more bars.

Yeah. That actually teaches how to get by in a bar. Yeah. Litmus test for the whole world. Every weekend with my father was spend the entire day at the Dirty Duck Saloon from like eight a.m. till two in the morning. Pretty dumb. That was his spot. Mm. Tell me you met Doug. I gotta know who Doug is. Well, let's... It probably was owned by a dirty. Yeah, sure.

Okay, so when you finally got to work with Rick Rubin, how was that? That could go either way. If he met you years before and saved this and these are great, this could go either way. I found it tense. I'm intimidated by him a bit. We interviewed him and I was like, He's got some mojo, but the mojo for me is intimidating.

I think I found it like that. If I had to really unpack it on the spot, I would say that him being the deciding force between whether something was great or not great really rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah. Yeah. Use the word great all the time. And I felt that that word was subjective. I was young enough to wear the punk rock.

artist in me needed that word to be subjective and I needed to be the determining factor between what I was making and whether it was great or not great. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if he were sitting here today, he would probably giggle and tell you that that's probably what he doesn't like about working with young artists is that they have to be the determining factor of great or not great. At the same time, I wouldn't take that from myself for anything. So we butted heads. Yeah, yeah.

Really bad. And then later on in life came back together and now are very good friends. Oh that's one of them. But I still think he's a complicated man and tough to work with on that level. Yeah. I w only hung around there for a minute when the A Vitts were recording there'cause I'm friends with Oh cool. I'm really good friends with those guys too. Yeah, I noticed you guys have played together. Well, but if I had to really isolate like what insecurity in me is triggered by him? Tell me.

something almost religious about him and I'm like, Oh, I'll never grasp his thing that he's got and therefore He doesn't value me. You know, whatever. He's got some toehold on something I don't even believe in. And so there's a chasm between us and he'll never think I'm special and I'll never think he understands me. I don't know. Well, that's the same thing. His like serenity and his knowledge of what's great and not great is almost religious. It's like an aggressive serenity.

Dude. Dude, that's it. It is it. It's an aggressive serenity. He just also he knows himself. And I think the dude's a genius. Want me to be clear as day, I think the dude's a genius. Yeah, he knows himself very well. In the middle of our interview he was like, It's cold in here, we need to turn down the he didn't say can we. It was like very sp and we were like, Oh, okay. like really rattled us for the next like however many minutes. Like a dog.

It never happened. It never happened. But he like really just knows what he wants. He says it. He's not scared of you. a paper pleaser. like what we would say is, Hey, are you guys cold? Exactly. I mean we would like we would ask for the peanut gallery to like chime in and make a group decision. But there's merits of both. I have to admit that the first thing I said when I walked in here today was can be turn the air condition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. It's so. Yeah.

You know, it's a legit thing to say. It's just the manner in which he rolled it out was unlike any version I had ever heard someone advocate for themselves. One time I went up to okay and this is the other thing is when we were making that second record He didn't come to the studio not one time. And I live in Seattle. And I had to live in LA to make this record so I could be near him. Right. But then I would have to take the record, which we recorded on to take.

up to his house once a week, sit there and play for him all the work I would done, and then he would make suggestions. And so at one point he asked for me to double a guitar solo in length. In this song. No I see him. Yeah. So I said, Oh well we were cutting the tape. We can't do that And he goes, I'm sure you'll find a way to make it happen. Yeah, did you? Okay, okay, okay. कर दो कर दो

But it was like that. Aggressive serenity was such a descriptive factor. Anyway, I don't think it's that way anymore. In fact, I worked with him recently on something and yeah, he was very direct, but I enjoyed it. Yeah, it's cool. Something about him triggers some insecurity in me. The dude's fine and he's a genius. And he knows it. Quietly, silently. That made me jealous of that too.

Yeah, maybe. If you ask him because he doesn't play an instrument or know how to run any of the equipment, what Right. qualifies him as being the guru. That he is and he just says very confidently, my taste. I gotta respect Yeah, I know. I I do. And the results. Yeah. We can't deny that. Yeah. If you dare. Yeah. 2014, you sing the national anthem at a Seahawks game. You've performed at this point a thousand times in front of people. Oh yeah. In my mind I'm like already Celine Dion.

For some reason though. Good. Yeah. And I actually sang the national anthem a lot in the early part of my career for different sporting things in Seattle. I sort of had like a program, I knew a key, like I had a key that I do it in and I knew a way to keep the key in my head so I didn't lose it when I got out there. I knew how to manage the delay in the stadium. I knew how to use that song as like a wrestling move.

It's a complicated song, no? Like there's something about it can get away from you that song really easy, right? People start too high and they got nowhere to go. Is that what it is? Fear in their eyes. Look at their eyes. Out of octaves. Don't even listen to where they started, just look at their eyes. Oh my god. Okay, so let's go to the Firewatcher's Daughter, two thousand fifteen. This is the first Grammy nomination you get. Yeah.

Yeah. So you've been at it now for ten years. Mm-hmm. What do you think you picked up between Brandy Carlisle the first album and the fire watcher's daughter. Do you think it's all the same? They just slept on you before? Or do you think you learned something at some point that made that a logical conclusion? Lots and lots of live experience, lots and lots of road time and people skills, understanding how to interact with people, but hold on to myself.

a lot of production know-how because I had worked with T Bone Burnett and Rick Rubin on two separate things. And then also all these ancillary producers like I had gone in with John Goodmondson and Tony Berg and I'd done a lot of projects with other really big producers. And me and twins we came from a big producer, Rick Brascher.

So I had like a lot of production ideas and a lot of beliefs about leadership. And when we went in and made Firewatcher's daughter, it was for better or worse, self-produced with a really powerful and amazing engineer called Trina Shoemaker. Who is

really co producing when I look back on it now. And so I felt that we were like almost an indie band. We were living like an indie band and operating like an indie band and just fine with it. Doing really, really well and believing we were doing really well. So when you got that nomination, were you shocked or did you feel that coming?

Nobody had ever even talked to me about the Grammys. I thought it was like a T V show that my mom would let me stay up late for because Whitney is gonna hit that note live. Yeah. And so basically I was on a airplane and I got a text message from ATO, the like indie label we were on at the time, this guy John, he texted me and he said, Congratulations on your Grammy nomination.

I was on the label with Britney Howard and I knew she was always getting this stuff. So I thought, Oh, this is Brandy I said to him. Huh? I was speechless. I had no idea even when they were or when the nominations are coming out. Cry. No. Didn't mean to insinuate you were a No. Baby. Yeah, yeah.

No, I'm just thinking about it because the Grammys have made me cry a couple of times, but at this point I didn't cry yet. But I was just like, Oh, that's a level of making it that I hadn't even considered Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you end up somewhere bigger than you dreamed. Yeah, so I went, it was awesome. Well, you've been back a bazillion times. Just wondering after you've already had'em, does the reaction turn to more like relief? I think it does. Isn't that weird?

It does because the team works so hard for it. You so want to be able to bring that home for everybody else. And then there becomes an expectation and you know, if you don't get it, does that mean that something's over? Like when Elton was involved in this last one for Elton, I've never wanted acknowledgement more. in my life than I did for Elton. Like he hasn't had enough acknowledgment. Right, right, right.

I couldn't sleep for like two days. Yeah. Yeah. And then we woke up and we had it and it was like oh we didn't win. And you got nominated for an Academy Award from that song too. Exciting. You've won two Emmys. Yeah, two N. You're on your way to an E got I see this coming. Do you? figure out what's the A Tony. You gotta figure out. We can figure that out. I have an idea for that. I have a couple of ideas.

Right. The other fun thing you've done other than create nine albums that are all great and won eleven Grammys and two Emmys and Academy Award nomination, you've also got this side career as someone who has been obsessed with people and you get to work with these people. I think this is the zone of your life I'd be most envious of more than the other stuff. To have people you love for an eternity and then to get to enter their orbit and then even get to work together.

So is Tanya the first person or is Joni where does this start where you become this collaborator of people who have been humongous? Where did it Start. 'Cause you have Tanya Tucker, you have Joni Mitchell, and you have Elton John. You've spent years with these people. started in some of the places that you don't read about and that you can't imagine because I am a fan. Like I am a

wait outside your tour bus for an autograph fan. I'm that kind of girl. And so a lot of these folks that I followed around when I was young and went to all of their shows and bought every single thing they did and Work. to get closer to before I had this job. I got to work with them early on, like the Indigo girls and Lucinda Williams and Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kim Ritchie and

favorite, most iconic, Bonnie Raid. And then it starts to get bigger and the artists are like getting bigger. And it's like I'm getting a call returned from Dolly, and then we're singing together. And then me and Elton, we're going on vacation together and we're writing songs. And then Johnny Mitchell that turned into a whole other I mean, I'm just guessing, but I feel like of the other two, I feel like Joni, you needed to hull her into performing again, yeah?

I may have thought of that at the time, but I remember you know who Russ Kunkel is? Uh uh. He's like this iconic drummer. He played on blue and he played on all this James Taylor like all the early I think he's even on tapestry. He's the dude and he's still killer. and doing it all the time. But I did this concert where I covered blue.

And I wasn't even that close with Joni yet, but she came. Oh wow. And I had just had my first Joni Jam with her at her house. For anybody that doesn't know what the Joni Jams are, it's something that We started at Joni's behest six, seven years ago. She's recovering from an aneurysm, doesn't play music anymore, and we wound up in a situation where we had dinner.

And she was talking about her house and her instruments and her living room and saying, I don't do music anymore. I don't want to hear it. It's not a problem. I don't want you to think that that's sad. I'm a painter. I'm a this, I'm a that. But my house misses it and these instruments should be played. Wow. What do you think about bringing a few people over every now and then and doing these nights?

So that we I had just had my first jam. And at the very first jam, I won't walk you through the whole process, but Joni decided out of nowhere to open her mouth and sink. Nobody expecting it. Wow. It was Herbie Hancock was sitting at the piano and. Get out of here. Herbie Hancock was tickling the ivory. Exactly that. He's hovering over this diminished core that I didn't know what it was. Nobody knew what it was. She did though, and she just goes, Summer time.

The living is easy. And people burst into tears. Herbie burst into tears. All the people that have been taking care of her. And as she recovered from her aneurysm, she wouldn't do music but then suddenly just decided to sing that line. So I'm telling Russ Conkl this. And he goes, She sang? And I go, Yeah, she fully sang.

And uh I go, yeah, maybe, you know, maybe it's this or maybe it was because of that or it was just this. And he goes, one thing I want you to remember if you ever think that you're spearheading this, Joni Mitchell always has a plan. He's always got a plan. Yeah. And so I am convinced that she actually was the architect of everything from that first line to the Hollywood Bowl. She's Kaiser Sosa. Wow. Yeah. She let you believe this was all your idea. This is Yes.

She didn't say it wasn't, but I do feel like she orchestrated an incredible recovery for herself. I got to be the one in the passenger seat watching it happen. That did escalate into you guys playing at the bowl. How many shows did you guys do? Bowl two nights at the bowl. Surreal experience for you. Are you able to in moments like that be super there and taking it all in? Or are you like yeah?

I mean you want to talk about welling up. I let a few of the Joni things take me by surprise, but that one I was like ready for. And I remember just sitting next to her on the second night, well she's saying both sides now just

openly weeping. Yeah. Kind of knowing it was the last time I was gonna get to do it. Yeah. And also thinking, these are the some of the most powerful moments in music history listening to this woman sing this song, especially from a perspective of recovering from this aneurysm. Being eighty two years old and really having looked at life from both sides now. Yeah it's like, how did I get this seat?

Yeah, exactly. You must believe oh, I because you believe in God. But I was gonna say you must believe in the simulation. The simulation? Explain. We're in a computer model being run. Oh. Our lives are too good. Literally too good to be true. Suspicious. That night with you with Joni Mitchell is highly suspicious. That's highly suspicious. Yeah, yeah. That doesn't happen for me. No, it doesn't. You either gotta go like, Wow, God's really smiling on me or we're in a simulation.

Or what's gonna happen. Exactly. Or what shoe's gonna drop. Yeah. Yeah. How long had it been since Tanya had been? recorded an album when you guys worked together. I think a long time, something like seventeen years. That album gets nominated for a Grammy. I'm sorry. Country album of the year and country song of the year. And she'd never won a Grammy in her life. And she is a country music way for icon.

Yes, yes, yes. When you were imagining your own success and visualizing it and you thought it was gonna feel like blank, I wanna know how much that delivered or didn't it. And then I wanna know the difference between being a part of something that when you can help someone else do something, contrast those two experiences. Well, it overdelivered. Way beyond overdelivered. There's just things like, you know, headlining Madison Square Garden.

Or winning a Grammy or anything that happened with Joni or Dolly or Elton or Tanya or Annie Lennox. It's unbelievable. And then if you take that part of my job and you actually backtrack it, it's why I'm married to my wife. It's why I have my daughters. It's why I have my brothers, the twins, and why we live together. It's why our family is okay. It's given me everything. And so to say it overdelivered is such an understatement, because it has woven the fabric of my life.

Now in terms of when you get something from it, like success or you learn how to do something, when you share that, for me, it's always as soon as I figure out how to do it. So when I figure something out, whether it's how to throw a festival or run a successful tour, or maybe make an album that is good enough to where it garners the respect of winning a Grammy. I immediately want to do that for or with someone else. Immediately. I'm already bored with the me part of it. Right.

And so when By the way I forgive you did what it did, somebody mentioned Tany Tucker and I was like, that's next. Let's get Tany Tucker here now. And then we get Tanya Tucker here now and then you hear about the next guy and you're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get the door open for them too. And that is just sort of how I've seen it. As soon as I figure out how to get in the door, I'm trying to find a way to prop it open. Yeah, it's really nice. That's the next mountain we were talking.

That's what it is. It's yeah, once you do get what you want, before you sit there and marinate in it long enough to let it change you, get right on to doing that for somebody else. Yeah. 'Cause that's where the elation I mean, I think selfishly you can pursue that. It's so exciting. It is so exciting.

It is right. It's like the number one. Like I'll pull up to this house and I'm like, God, we're so lucky we have a great house. But I look at Monica's house and I'm like, Oh yeah, look at Monica's house. That's fucking I remember when me and the twins even early on around maybe the story or give up the ghost, anytime they would like move into a nice house or get something, like I would go to their house and I'd be like, Hell yeah.

That's because of this job. That's because of this music we're making. Like we're winning. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I'm like a superstitious and I'm afraid if I let myself experience that I'll lose everything and then I can just enjoy it for them without any of those fears. I don't know what's going on, but something's so much more joyous about that. You can see it objectively when it's not yours. Yeah. It's quite stark. Yeah. Yeah. So Phil, one of the twins, married her little sister.

That's fun. Isn't that fun? It's really. Okay, I was gonna say it. Were they trying to hide it from you at first? Maybe a little bit. Yeah. It was really awkward at first actually. she was so young. He was like not young. Well were you like uh She's my baby sister. Серьезно. I wanna say she was like eighteen. Oh shit.

And he was twenty-eight, twenty-nine. And we were already in a band. We'd been on the road together. We were kind of bros in a way. Yeah. And I was like, Are you serious right now? And I mean I thought to myself He has that too. yeah I mean Everyone has it, but some of you guys have it more than others. I'll kill you if you hurt my sister's feelings. Oh my god. My brother and sister, like, no. Yeah, but if they're in a relationship there gonna be some stuff.

But he's been quite gallant. And honestly, she has really I don't want to say something demeaningly cool, she's really grown up because she's like forty. But like she has grown up married to that man. And in this band. That is how she has lived the second half of her life. Yeah, yeah. And it's been incredible. Yeah, I'm so delighted it worked out. Yeah, that's awesome. They've been together for a long time now. Twenty two years if Yeah. You've been with your wife for thirteen years.

Uh we've been married for fifteen. Wow. And we've been together for like sixteen, seventeen. And so how'd you meet her if she's from England? We met actually she was working for Paul McCartney. Oh, right. She was doing his Philanthropic work. Yeah. And I had like a campaign running in Seattle called the Fight the Fear campaign. We were teaching uh self-defense courses to women and people in at-risk communities for free because

there was like a terrible string of like violent crime that had happened in the city that year and when it kind of culminated in this really awful thing. And so it Traveled across to England and she was reading about this in the newspaper and basically called up and was like, Hey, what can Paul do? What can I do? And I thought to myself, well, I just started this foundation, I need some mental Working out foundation.

Yeah. I had a lot of principles that maybe I was getting in my own way a little bit. So I wanted to have this mentorship thing with her and we got to talking. And so for like a while, I thought I was talking to somebody Paul McCartney's age. I was talking to a seven year old woman. Okay, wow, that's a interesting that's almost like a m reality show, like you can't see the person. There isn't. It didn't occur to me that she wasn't seventy. Right. And she was saying seventy year old shit too.

because she's English and so on. Yeah. At least he took the lift or something. I don't know. She was doing seventy year old stuff. She was listening to seventy year old music. Her and her girlfriend were traveling like seventy year old people. It just had this vibe. Did you have any moment where you're like, I feel like I'm becoming attracted to a seven-year-old woman? No, I just called her the charity lady. I'm like the charity lady. And then one time I was playing in New York City

And I was like getting ready to go out with all the baby dikes. We were all gonna get on our Vespas and drive to the gay bar and drink tequila. And I couldn't wait. And she came to the show and I remember the tour manager being like, Oh, you gonna have to say hi to the charity lady about that? I was like, uh Really grateful to her but for a wheelchair. Yeah, exactly. Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok How'd you get her backstage?

And now seventy is like that's my age. I love like that barely old enough for me to date. But I walk back stage with this twenty-seven year old, twenty-eight-year-old She's hot, I imagine. Absolute no. Show. Yeah. She ain't no granny. And oh my God, she was so charming and I loved her accent and she had black hair and bright blue eyes and she was wearing this blazer and she just was like hip and I was like, cancel my plans, order me a pizza. I've got to stay with this woman. Yeah. Forever.

Did she already have a crush on you if she came to the show? She knew you weren't 70. She had that advantage over. I don't know if she had a crush on me. She will say no. She will say no. But I think yeah, she probably thought I was pretty cute. Yeah, you come to the show. Yeah. Okay, now here's another little bit of overlap. What are you smiling at? Well she's there. I did not put that together. I was like, should we ask or what? I thought you were like the publicist or something.

Let me look at these blue eyes. Yeah. And now I can say it was theoretical. You are a fucking smoke show. Smoke. Yeah. She's absolutely Because you knew. Yeah. Oh, that's my wife. And she manages me now. Okay, so I wasn't terribly off based. Uh Yeah, when you came to that show, did you have plans? I understand. Okay. We're all intrigued by your voice. Yeah, that's the order pizza time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about it. Fuck the best part.

Let's get this girlfriend out of here. What does she have some errands? We ordered pizza. You can't eat pizza, right? Yeah. You don't need cheese. Yeah, the call off the flower crust is in the twin. Fucking down the block. Okay, our other overlap is we're both boat owners. Yes. You have the captain fantastic. Gorgeous vessel. I saw some video of you out piloting it. And you have a pun too. I have a tritune, yeah. So is a tritone less Redneck. Then a pontoon?

Is it's the newest iteration. They're more stable. Okay. I have a four hundred horsepower V ten on a pontoon, so it moves. Oh wow, that really moves. It really moves. I was just on it this weekend. A Mercury. Wow. Yeah, you got dual three fifties out back? four hundred Yeah. Okay. And a big ass. Yeah, you've got me doubled in horsepower. So you just check out. Yeah, me too. Yeah. She really checks out.

Captain Fantastic named the boat after Elton John. Yeah. And just congratulations. Looking out foundations, giving away nine million bucks. I think that's incredible that you've raised that amount. Do a lot of different things too. Yeah, what The thing about the foundation is I started the foundation in two thousand seven when GM wanted to use the story in a television commercial. Right.

And I was really young and idealistic. They offered me like a hundred thousand dollars, you know, and you know how old I was. That's a very big deal. Oh. And I made all these calls to all my friends and I called the indigo girls, which if you want to do a television commercial never go. And all my friends were like, You can't do that. GM is one of the biggest contributors.

to pollution and they've caused all these problems. It is rumored that they've squashed patents and that they're really restricting the progression of the electric car and the hydrogen engine and the things that could help the environment. You can't work with GM. So who knows how much of that was true, but I said no. And so like the VP of advertising at GM was like

a twenty something year old kid can't say no to a hundred thousand dollars unless we're getting a really bad reputation. And they called me and they said, What can we do to convince you to let us put your song in the Olympics and give you a hundred thousand dollars? Yeah, yeah. How can we make this even better for you?

Yeah. And so I thought about it and I made some demands and they acquiesced to all of them and it was really cool, empowering moment for me as a young girl. Yeah. And then I took that money and started the foundation and that's what we used it for. But But since then, the foundation has done the things like Fight the Fear campaign that I was telling you about. We've done a lot to end hunger. We've done a lot of LGBTQ-focused stuff, and in recent years.

the plight of displaced people and outreach to refugees and asylum seekers, you know, children whose lives have been torn apart by war, immigrants, economic migrants, and the way that we navigate the southern border have become focuses of the Looking Out Foundation. You did COVID relief stuff? We were really campaign-based. You know, maybe it's ADHD part of me, if that's a real thing for me. I like you're the only person that's actually been diagnosed and you don't want it.

Everyone else hasn't been diagnosed and they want it. You're like flipping the script. Terminal uniqueness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not bunk rock anymore to be. No. So that's the foundation. That's awesome. Okay, so returning to myself is currently out and you are on tour. You have tour dates that people could go look at at brandycarlisle.com and

What other things I want to say before I get to be serenaded? I know. Which I'm so excited about. I think so. I think that's it. Everyone listen immediately to returning to myself if you're not already obsessed with it. And go see Brandy live. This woman is like the Beatles. She's played as many live shows. You're guaranteed for a good show. I mean, you've been playing. It's kind of crazy, right? At forty four, you've been playing for thirty plus years. Yeah, it's probably

It's second nature to me by now, but it never gets old. Um just like you were saying, it's the best job in the world. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right. I would love to hear this song that's gonna make me think of my child. You don't even need the bottle? Oh my god, this is post bottle. Well, I hipped Marcus to this. I think he said that. By the way, we loved him. Yeah, I know. You must love him, right? Oh my god. We are like Yeah. I love his solo album Oh my god. Self title.

Such a good Such a good piece of music and really important. I love Mumfort and En keep on with the levels, do you want me to sing? You know what's crazy? We're sitting here talking. You're just so charismatic and special. Before you do this. I know, and now... And then you do this and I'm like, well hold on a sec. You can't have all Yeah, now I'm a little upset. I'm like, you don't get a superpower on top of having a great personality. You get one kinda one or the other.

You guys have plenty of superpowers too. Not that one though. That's a hard one. You haven't even seen me drive that pontoon. So this song, it's about kids that are our kids' age. And it's about these little moments, these little like micro separations where you see them do something.

that you didn't expect. They're trying something out that they're gonna need later on in life, like when they're not with you. It's called like a you without me moment. And I'm I'm wondering what yours was because my friend Ben, when he first heard this song, he had this moment where it was like

They were at this big party weekend thing and Mark Ronson was DJing and he was gonna let his oldest daughter stay up late and like dance with him on the dance floor. And they're out on the dance floor and they're silly dancing and they're being goofy and they're doing the thing, but she started to like her own music.

So she sees a group of older girls, you know, she's maybe ten and they're like fourteen or fifteen. And he gets distracted and she leaves him and she goes over to them and she starts trying to dance with them, like the way they're dancing and like relate to them. And he said that he looked over there and he saw her and he didn't recognize her. An independent autonomous

She was taking a risk and she was using her body and voice in a way that he had never seen. Yeah. And these these are the little like moments where it occurs to you that they're gonna leave. They're their own people. Yeah, and they're tiny things at first. It's the without me part. You say without me the thing, Oh no, yeah, you're gonna have a whole life without me. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Yeah, it is. Yeah. You gotta go like, Oh yeah, and that's a sign I did a good job. That's all you get.

Ha ha ha ha. And they're just like, see ya. I know. Think about how you think about your parents. Well There is a moment. I know there is. I got my twenties to do, girl. I'll talk to you later. Like my twenties is coming, you know. You gotta do your twenties. Yeah. Obama. Yeah. No. Yeah. No, and then hopefully it comes back around. I want it for them.

They go and they just do like one little thing. It's one little interaction you see them do, one point they make, one thing they disagree about where they win the argument. Yeah, like There you are. Without me. Oh no, take me. I'll carry you to the I'll run and get coffee. Well that was beautiful. Thank you. Your tiny desk by the way is so good. Thank you. Yeah, I fucking love tiny desks and you nailed your I like Tiny Desk too. Yeah, it'll show you who's what.

Or the silksonic. Jack Anderson Pack. Yeah. What a dude. What a vibe too. Did you watch that um I could talk to you for seven hours, just side note. I'm gonna wrap this up. But did you watch this Super Bowl halftime show with Doctor Dre? Obviously he's the most memorable one ever. Yeah. They were all wearing rich fresh tracksuits, baby blue powder. It's so cool. But when they pan over and I'm like Anderson Pack's playing the drums this whole time we didn't hear

That is how stacked that lineup was. You didn't even see Anderson Pack playing the drums. Like eleven minutes in you're like, oh damn, Anderson's been playing the drums a little bit. Everybody call that halftime out? Like everybody says I mean Prince and I mean uh Prince was amazing. Right. It's like Now that's number one. Pretty epic.

I think too if you're a poor kid. Yeah. I was crying during that whole thing. I'm like, these kids are from down the block. And Tipper Gore was saying they were gonna destroy America. Yeah. And everyone hated them. And they were the poor kids. And look at them there and they are the show. Yeah. Oh, I loved it. You have the vibe that the old gays have now about the young gays. Or you like you got old poor kid thing going on like this. Yeah. Exactly. That's a thing.

That's my gateway and understanding. Yeah. We're like, let's talk about coming for nothing, right? world. These motherfuckers own the world. Nothing could be better. Well Brandy, this has been a delight. Thank you for joining us. I'm really glad Anna's got good taste. She sure does. When she picks a mentor boy, it's few and far between. I've always wanted to talk to you guys. Oh we'd love to do that. Okay. From Airwise. Okay.

And I'm putting it I'm trying to order it and it's saying you you have to meet at the door. This can't be left. It's like that's weird. Okay, sure. Yeah. Then it says you have to show your ID and we ordered you something new. No, because I order arow on like every day. Or not every day. I mean. But you can predict my reaction to that. What? Which is like fine, fuck you, we won't order from. Yeah.

Leave it. You gotta show ideas. It's like this is my my beef with the place that required a signature no matter what. It's like our policy. It's like great. Well then I won't I won't be using Okay. Well I already ordered it. No, I didn't. Because I what I of course think is so you got a new drink. It's like new and strange. Yeah, I think that's the only strange part. Everything else is not newer. But like maybe that is what's requiring it.

That you gotta be an adult to drink or maybe you gotta be a baby to drink claw. Oh to show you're under twenty one? anticipate that being the We didn't, but I think this is interesting that Yeah, you got breast milk in your coffee? There was no I know I wanna make su yeah, it has it has colost. But there's no alcohol in it, so why would you need Exactly. That's why na but now I have to check. Okay. Yeah. Just

I mean, I would detect alcohol immediately. Uh that's interesting. That was in last night. Oh tell me. Just people are kinda so one person told a story about ordering a you know, a coke and it came. There's always these moments for alcoholics where Inevitably you're gonna bump into some real alcohol. Oh my god. Yeah. Tell me how that goes. And my um my um you know, my second dad and I were one time in in Wyoming and um and I ordered a Diet Coke and he ordered uh ginger ale.

And our drinks came and and we both took a sip of them almost at the same time. And I mean it was like, oh, this is Jack and Diet. And then he's putting his drink down and he goes, But this is what was really funny is he goes, tr try this. Is there jet like he just wasn't really thinking and just doing what you would normally do if you say something funny?

And I was like, I'll take your word for it. He's like, Oh yeah, yeah, you shouldn't try it. But it was just kind of instinctual, like, does this smell funny? Right, totally. Does this taste like anyways, they were both laced with Jack Daniels. Yeah? A Jack Ginger and a Jack and Dyna. have a lot like Look, I have a lot of respect for servers and food staff and chefs and kitchen workers. But that makes me so angry. Yes. That kind of mistake, only that one.

is so bad. That is so dangerous. People don't understand what can happen. Sure. Sure, sure, sure. I mean look, we could we could look at this from a lot of different angles. Um I would just say right out of the gates, what percentage of people in the restaurant at any given time are recovering addicts? It's like a lot to. You have to protect the most vulnerable.

Yeah, yeah. I just I imagine he's got tickets and he you know or she, the bartender, got um, you know, six different cokes and jack and I I miss I missed. I see how it happened. I'm not like but I do think it is incumbent is your responsibility if you're bartender. Or what yeah, I guess it was the bartender, right? Yeah. It's the kind of restaurant they gotta put in the drink order with the bar. Yeah, to be aware if there shouldn't be alcohol in the drink. But we could be. For a kid.

Thank you. I was just I just had gotten to that place in my head where I was like, if it's happened to me and it's happened to Tom and it's happened to well, all almost every dude in the meeting had had this. Yeah, surely kids are getting and do they think like, oh, this just tastes funny, but I still like soda? They're probably like ew, I something's wrong with it. I like to think that some kid just powered through. Yeah. Well again, most people who drink don't become alcoholics.

A lot of us do. This is a fun like philosophical conversation, which is like I don't think it's the responsibility of the masses. to be changing their whole life because some small percentage of the population has a thing. I just don't think Generally don't either. But this isn't changing anything. This is just being careful.

Well, no, I mean, even the notion that, like, well, you can't have a if a kid drank, he'd be an alcoholic. Well, it's like, well, that's not true. Most people that drink are not alcoholic. So That's fine. Yeah, but I think that would be a common kind of reaction. Well, no. I think they're just like, Don't give my kid alcohol. Like that's very that's bad. You wanna decide when your kid has alcohol. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm so sorry. I have it on Do Not Disturb, but for some reason it's still yeah, do not disturb. Why would you be buzzing? See it's like my my door. Don't buzz. You're not supposed to buzz. Oh, it's because it's Kristen. Oh she has an override? She has an override if she calls, and now I'm realizing she has an override. She texts too. Does she have to call twice or text twice or it just immediately is an override? Anytime she calls it'll actually ring. Oh that's nice.

I learned that from Toto Wolf. Remember he was in the interview and his phone rang twice. Once was his wife and once was one of his children. Oh yeah, that's right. And he said, Oh, and I was like, I didn't even know you could do that. That's cool. Um, okay, I did look it up and cold brew coffee with cowboy colostrum. Though, like, what does it mean, cowboy colostrum? But okay, heavy cream and maple syrup. That's all it's saying. Oh, enhanced with Leukema, maca, and sea salt.

Maybe they don't want kids to have maca'cause it's a lot of caffeine or something. Maybe. I'm just thinking that like it's a policy gone awry. They flagged some certain thing and now this got ensnared in it. Bet it's colostrum, but we need to figure out why. Oh my god, what if you get addicted to colostrum now?

Okay. I'm gonna get in trouble for this. Okay. But but it's it's in keeping with this conversation we're already having. I just had read that they're like sentencing someone who is in between I don't know what chain of events they were involved with the Matthew Perry overdose. I've heard about this. They just got sentenced and I think someone else got sentenced. Like a doctor, I think, right?

Yeah, and my kids and I were talking about it and I was like, No, that's not how it should work. My my analogy was Yamaha, Kawasaki, all these motorcycle companies, they they all sell Motorcycles that go 200 miles an hour. They're for sale at the dealership. A 16-year-old can walk in and buy it. They don't have to prove at all that they've ever ridden a thing. And quite often those kids go out and they die on motorcycles. It's a way too much motorcycles. Yeah.

That's that is living in a country with liberty. Like you do have the right to be a mountain climber, to do dangerous activities. That's not the same. Well, no, it's it's identical if you if you remove the word legal or illegal and you just say that there are many products that are sold that are just inherently dangerous, motorcycles, drugs, guns. ALCOHOL Alcohol, cigarettes, um, cars. There are products that are dangerous. Yeah. And I really believe unless.

It's a situation like Big Tobacco where they know it causes cancer and they're stifling that information. Like I think you should have full awareness as a consumer of what the I think it should be like, yeah, you're gonna buy this motorcycle. It goes two hundred miles an hour, you kill yourself really easily. Okay. Now if you wanna do that, that's like that it's your life.

So, no, I don't think someone that sells a dangerous product should go to jail because someone else used the dangerous product and killed themselves. I think it's the person who used it has to have the responsibility. Well, not if it's a doctor. It's a doctor, I think, that got in trouble. I think. Maybe I'm wrong about that. If it's not a doctor, I'm more aligned with you, but Just say that what I guarantee is that the doctor hadn't given him a dosage.

that killed him. What I guarantee is that he had multiple sources or stockpiled or whatever. And he took on his own a dose that no doctor would ever recommend. Well we don't know that. We I do. How? Like Michael Jackson's doctor also give gave him way too much. Like they're giving what the people are asking for. And that's the whole issue. It's they have a do no do no harm.

Obligation. And if it's just like, well, this person's paying me and just wanting more than really I should give, but I'm giving it, that's a problem. Yeah, we would we would need more, but I can tell you from everyone I've known who's overdosed in the last thirty years of sobriety. Mm-hmm. No one was taking it as prescribed. Right, but this was ketamine. Is a safe dosage of ketamine. A lot of people in this country have ketamine prescriptions. Yeah.

But like if I got um a prescription for Percocet, right? The the one point O's, the big boys, and it says take one every four hours, and I take that jar and I take eight right away. That's on me! No, that is on you though. And what he did what what our boy did was he OD'd, he took way more than was prescribed to him. For sure. Well, I don't know if it's for sure because it then every doctor who had an o had someone O D would be in trouble and that's not the case.

Right. The only thing that makes the I think this reason this person's going to jail is because A, the person that died was famous. I think a bunch of people have OD'd on ketamine and other drugs, and there was not even an investigation. They're like, Yeah, someone OD'd. That's what happens on drugs when they're abused. Mm-hmm. But because it's him, they're like, well, we got to figure out who killed Matthew Perry. That's not what no one killed him.

Well again, I don't know that this is Uh we I don't know enough about this doctor or what was being prescribed. I do know that I read what he was on when he died, and it was an insane amount of ketamine, and it was not what his prescription was. He was a drug counselor that connected Perry to the ketamine queen who delivered him the ketamine. Liman Queen is tricky. I just think that's a good idea. At the end of the day, he did it. No one else did it. He did it.

Yeah, but if you're a doctor, you you can't Vedamine Queen was a doctor? I assume, let me look it up. Yes, this person, British American convicted felon, and drug dealer known as the ketamine queen. She gained international attention following her indictment and subsequent guilty plea in connection with the overdose of actor Matthew Baylor. Let me see if she's a doctor. She looks kind.

Kind of in the Prosecutors allege that she operated a drug distribution network from her North Hollywood home for several years. Sentenced to fifteen years in prison for her role in supplying the ketamine that would cause Perry's death. Just think how many people drink to a a fatal level. It happens a ton. Yeah. But you can get in trouble for overserving. I can go into the store and I can buy ten fifty

Yeah. Yeah. So we would agree The Jack Daniels company should not be held responsible because someone went and bought it She even get the ketamine, this lady. She's probably I mean it's different. Clearly. illegal what she's doing is illegal so that's why she's going to jail. Yeah, it's a drug dealer. Drug dealers, you know, but I agree that if you I think drug dealers i in c certain cases should go to jail. Oh, you do?

Yeah. You're getting illegal drugs off the black market. I mean, yes, you're engaging in a lot of illegal activity. I think the time that I'd be fine with a drug dealer going to jail would be when the drug dealer knowingly sold someone. Fentanol under the guise of it being heroin, knowingly.

Yeah, exactly. Then the person that got it can't really dose it correctly and they have dis deceitfully misled this person, which may have caused their death. But if I'm selling you crack cocaine, I go, hey bro, this is crack. You know, do what it with you I d I really don't think it's on the person who sold it. They got it illegally.

Right. That's kinda what I'm trying to have the conversation about is because we labeled alcohol legal in this other thing illegal, yet we clearly think'cause alcohol is legal that no one's responsible if someone drinks themselves to death. Mm-hmm. And so you're saying that because one is classified by the government as illegal and one is legal, that that should make the person who sells it go to prison.

Yes, because there are regulations on actual alcohol. Like you the it's labeled twelve percent, blah blah like crack is not, like it If if crack was legal, then it would probably be under some sort of system where you'd see the amount, it would be like supervised in a way, regulated. Yeah.

Right. But that's fine then. I am act fine. If we lived in a world where it was legal and it was regulated, I mean this was a whole marrow this is the whole debate about marijuana for years and years and years, which now And all these people went to prison and were held responsible for other people's abuse of something. Yeah. And I think we all now agree that was a bad that was wrong. Right, but also because now just because like marijuana isn't a problem. But crack is a problem.

ketamine therapeutically. I personally don't think it's a great idea to use ketamine pair. Because why? Because I've seen it go wrong more than I've seen it go right. And not even in death. I've seen a very temporary patch for something that long term wasn't a good solution. Right. And you think it has a risk of addiction? Yeah, just like cigarettes, alcohol, c caffeine, um uh most things that You think it More or less. I'm actually asking'cause I don't know a lot about ketamine.

I don't I've never taken ketamine, so I don't know how sticky it is. Yeah. I know how sticky opiates are. Yeah, exactly. Um, I know how sticky cocaine is. I know how sticky alcohol is. I know c cigarettes like All of'em cigarettes are the stickiest. There's a bunch of junkies that'll tell you quitting smoking was harder than quitting heroin. But again, that's why like it because it's legal, it says, like basically it says on the box like this is gonna kill you.

But my only issue with cigarette manufacturers were when they knew it was causing something. Yeah, horrible. And and and they silence that. And and so to me, if you have total transparency Um, I do think we I want to live in a country where people get to evaluate the risks they want to take. And then also we I don't think it's fair to the 90% of people or even the 94% of people who try cocaine and don't become addicted. I don't think it's fair to those people that because

Us 8% have a problem. You guys can't do it. I don't think that's fair. We can't do it because it's not regulated and there is fentanyl in it and there is like there's so many it's not are you saying you think cocaine should be legalized? No, I I don't think that. Um I uh I think that um we've seen the experiment run and it doesn't work. That's my opinion on many classifications of drugs. I do think they're too addictive and I think the barriers that exist.

Going from ninety four percent of people never getting addicted to, you know, the eight I think if it were Five dollars for an eight ball and it was at seven eleven, I think you would see a massive upteat. Would it be and it would affect every single person, whether you're an addict or you're not So that's one topic. Do I think it should be legalized? And then another topic is do I think people are responsible for distributing a product that's dangerous and someone abuses it and dies?

I don't. I don't think the kid who breaks the speed limit on his new Yamaha or one and's going 180 on the five and kills himself. I don't think the dealer is responsible. I don't either. than Yamaha's respect. But again, the the difference is I just we're I do think the difference is legality. I know, but that's just really kind we would agree that's arbitrary. Like weed wasn't legal two years ago and and now it is. Right.

So now we now we think that it's like, well, that should have been consistent. 'Cause like it it it it doesn't do that much harm. There's been we have enough we have enough um evidence of all of these drugs at this point to to rank Exactly. And and lethal to yourself and like, you know, to society, like what it's gonna cause. You get even more fun debate, which is sometimes the ones that aren't lethal are weirdly more dangerous. So like weed and alcohol.

I think bizarrely They can take more of a toll on your overall life. Because they're not so extreme that you can habitually do them forever and lose big chunks of your existence. Yeah. Weed's gonna be I think at some there's gonna be

One there'll be some study at some point when we have twenty years of data on what happened with this experiment. And although I'm in favor of it, we're gonna see it's just a more innocuous it has more innocuous and subtle um consequences that are currently being completely ignored. Sure. Like in a way that maybe maybe if someone is addicted to caffeine and then they can't sleep and then they have a bad you know.

Like yes, there are consequences for anything you do. Anything you can eat sh sugar. But where do we draw the line? Yeah. And I think you have to draw it at Well we have the data for it. Back in the early 1900s when these cure alls, when people went town to town with cure alls, and 30% of the cure all was opium. You saw there was a moment in America where like thirty percent of the country was addicted to opiates.

So you we have data that when you make it wildly available and it's not illegal It's bad. You're gonna have a third of the population. So back to the weed. What makes me think we will at some point reevaluate it a little bit? Not to say we're ever gonna make it illegal again or that we should. But my anecdotal experience is I drive um Delta to school every morning on my motorcycle. Yeah.

And when I am well, both directions, but certainly I'm more aware of it when I'm driving home by myself. I smell weed the whole way home in LA. Yeah. And I have to go like, oh yeah. So Now that it's legal, a lot of people have transferred to many, many people are getting stoned the second they wake up. And on their way to work and walking around in the morning. Bye bye.

I'm not judgmental of it, but I am suggesting that's gonna show a little bourble. We're gonna see some some downriver consequences of people waking up and immediately getting stuck. I mean my guess is yes, but I also don't know. We have Seth Rogan, you know, he's extremely not affected negatively at all. For sure. This is a hard one for me because I don't like weed. Like personally, I don't take it. I don't enjoy it. So I don't feel like I have the A dog in this fight, really?

Here's what you don't see. I saw it one time. Well, I've seen it a couple times. I saw it in Russia when I was there in nineteen ninety-six, I guess. And it had you know, the wall had only fallen at that point for f what, seven years or something. And driving in the morning from the boat to S uh Catherine's Palace. I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of men drinking vodka at 8 a.m. on the sidewalk. It's cultural, yep. And you go, hmm, that town has a drinking problem. I understand that.

Went to Sweden right after. And then we learned of Sweden's taxation of vodka because Sweden went, We got a drinking problem. And so they wanted to start addressing it somehow. And what I'm saying is if you were driving home from anywhere at eight AM in the morning and you saw one in three people chugging alcohol. vodka or beer, you go, huh, this isn't great.

But weed, this is what I'm talking about. It's innocuous quality, which is like, yeah, I do believe you can smoke weed and drive your car and smoke weed and probably go to work and do a fine job. I don't think you're gonna do a hundred percent. I don't think- I don't either, but I don't also know. Like I don't know because I I just don't. Yeah.

It's just interesting how it's already like folded into our culture. And it's kind of like you you observe people smoking weed all morning in LA and you you just Might be because it's still I mean, not in a not really new, but kind of. It's still kind of newly legal. Yeah. And as you said, like we could be seeing one in three people drinking all day and we don't. And I think that probably has to do with just the fact that it's been around for so long and

And you can't function as well and you can't if you show up to work you smell like it and socially we're like, No, no, you can't drink in the morning. Right. I think it's interesting, you can smoke weed in the morning, it's fine. No one really gives a shit.

Well I mean I think most people do. I think most people if they hear that are like, what? That's crazy. I think some people maybe don't, but I think the majority of people who who hear that somebody woke up in the morning and started smoking weed immediately are probably a little concerned about that person. Um well I just saw this this I I saw these two ladies. They have a podcast about ADHD. They're both ADHD, and they were talking about

why many ADHP D people love weed? Because it's a dopamine dysregulation condition and that you can get dopamine from the weed. So initially they're talking about it's almost like heavily in support of ADHD people using it or at least maybe not feeling guilty that they're using it because it is like a good medicine for them. But then they were also very quite honest to say, and thirty-six percent of ADHD Cannabis users have cannabis use disorder. Yeah.

So it's like it's over a third. And I also think we it has benefited from the fact that we've been saying forever it's not addictive. It is not physically addictive. You're not gonna go through withdrawals uh of the physical variety when you stop doing it, but you're going to go through a lot and you Your brain chemistry is going to adjust for a while. And so I'm hungry. I mean, I'm not sure.

honest about like oh it's not addictive. No, no. Many, many people are fully addicted to weed. And their tolerance has gone up and up and their dosage has gone up and up and up. Yeah. And they're smoking, you know A lot of addictions are also mental. Like so many are that will kill you. Like not not not just.

It's not just like a silly thing to say. It's very uh you know, m my brother used to smoke so much weed it was like, it's not addictive, it's not addictive. And I'm like, You are addicted. I can tell because Because you you keep getting in trouble for this. It's having a consequence and you can't or won't. Right.

So maybe yes, it's not physically addictive, but it mentally you are addicted. Yeah, yeah. So And you probably won't suck a dick for weed and you probably won't break into a house for weed and there's like there is a even when you're Jonesing for it, it doesn't reach the level of Jonesing for opiates or Jonesing for If you dare. It is fascinating. I think I think though we'll have a bit of a reckoning. I think it should stay legal. Again, I don't think that the

The millions of people that are doing it like on the weekends to relax or taking a gummy to go to sleep. I don't want those people to lose that. No. They should have that. And also, dickheads like me are going to fuck it up and abuse it. And then there's also gonna probably be some questions about When you start doing it, what age, and what kind of effects it has on your brain development. Yeah. If you're a heavy weed user.

Well maybe they will start maybe eventually they'll be is it right now is there an age thing? Yeah, eighteen. Eighteen well, I don't know if it's eighteen or twenty one. It would make sense that it was twenty one, but I have no clue. I would assume it would be twenty one and it and it's not. probably won't get carded. I know that. It's twenty one. It's twenty one? Yeah. Wow, that's a really big ding ding ding because I was welcome. Yep. I was at Chili's this past weekend.

He was my mom and dad in Duluth. Chilly. We did. Great. Yeah. Oh good. Did you get the potato skins? I didn't. I got the quesadilla, which is my thing there. Yeah. And um the problem is my mom had made quesadillas the day before, homemade. Homemade tortillas. Homemade everything. And they were so good. They were really gourmet. And then I had this idea about the chilies quesadillas, because it's so nostalgic. Yeah. And it was...

It was fine. It was good. It was fine. Yeah. I just probably shouldn't have had it the next day after these like really one of a kind quesadillas. Yes. We were we were at obviously T J my mom and I went to T J Maxx obviously. I thought you were about to say T G I F I was like wow you guys hit Fridays and Chili's. No, no. We went to T J Maxx, which we always do. We went to Coles, we went to Nordstrom Rack. They're all in the same area. Yeah. We're we're shopping and then

There's a chilies right there. Our chilies, where like it grew up going. And I asked, oh, my mom had asked earlier what do you want to do for dinner? And I was like, I don't know. And then I said, Have you guys been to the Chili's? Do you guys still go there? And she was like, Yeah, we go. And she was like, Do you wanna do that for dinner? And I was like, Yeah. Yeah. I do want to. So then my dad met us. Okay. Okay. Where was he? he was at home he wasn't going to TJ In his retirement?

Yeah. No, he was he's not going to TJ Maxx and Nordstrom Rack and stuff. No. I would rather die. Yeah, he was home, but then he came to meet us and um and we ate there and I got carded. Oh. Lovely. That's cute. Flattering. It was cute. What was your cocktail at Chili's? It was a margarita. Yeah. I didn't finish. It was Super sugary.

Yeah, and I a I said, Can I get a Casamigos one but skinny? And those were, you know, two separate things basically. And he was like, Oh, I don't know, I have to ask And I was like, charge me for the expensive Casamigos one, but just make it skinny. Yeah, no way that's gonna happen back there. It didn't happen. Yeah. I don't know what happened but it tasted very much You know, kid made that cocktail. I know. Yeah. Um so Was it so beautiful in Georgia? Is it green as hell right now? Spring?

It's pretty green. Yeah, it's nice. Okay. It's nice. Okay. It's nice, yeah. Um But Any thoughts of moving back while you're there? No. Uh I never have. Yeah, you never have I have I have like oh like I'm glad I touched down here uh a couple of times a year. Have you had the thought I had a Michigan which is like Oh my gosh, I could live in the super nice neighborhood now. Because that's what really fucked me up. That's what had me almost getting a house on a certain lake in Michigan. Really?

Yeah, just like, oh, I used to drive by the house. Uh you know, I mean every time I went to West Bloomfield or anywhere which was regular, there's one stretch Pontiac Trail and look at these mansions with these huge yards and they're on. Long Lake, uh, I think lower straits, upper straights. And um yeah, the notion that I could live there became very intoxicating. Yeah. Like I could almost not resist.

I thought better of it at the end. Yeah. But I had found a house and I was flying there to get it.'Cause I was just like I can't believe I can live where the basketball players lived. Yeah. So that's interesting. I don't have that. I mean, I definitely drive around there and I think like You know one difference I think between you and I was kids? I coveted wealth. Okay. I didn't covet wa wealth in the same way you did, right but I still did have like aspirations to have

A lot of people. Sure, sure, sure. Like and we didn't we lived in a nice house. That well, that is the difference. We lived in a Nice house. A but a modest nice house. Like it um my parents would get mad because they would say, like, it's really nice. Like there's It is, I've seen it. It's a big, big house by American standards. It's like a four thousand square foot house. Less than that, but it is yeah it is. But it's yes, it is. In like an upscale neighborhood.

It's in a subdivision. Okay, this I was trying to teach Jess about subdivisions, he didn't understand them. Right. He was fighting with me about suburbs'cause I was like, you don't really understand suburbs. Right. Talk about what sub you live in. Exactly. Say subdivision, you say sub. Did you say sub? No,'cause we didn't say we said neighborhood. Okay.

So what neighborhood do you live in? But p I don't even say that to people who don't understand it because they don't even understand what that means. Right. So I said You know,'cause sometimes I like to do suburban Fridays here, which is us going to a movie on Friday afternoon and then going to dinner at the Americana. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels so suburban to me. Yes. And um and I was we did that. We watched Devil Rose prod and then we went to the Italian restaurant at the Americana.

And you know, they bring out the bread. It's just all so suburban. Yeah. And I was ve feeling very nostalgic and I was talking about the suburbs and he was like, Well yeah, I mean, yeah, Burbank is a suburb. He grew up in Burbank. Yeah. And I was like, No. And then he of course had to look up on Chat GBT where of course it says it is. And and sure. Exactly. Technically it is a suburb. Yeah. Very specific thing.

Well that's what I said, but you don't have subdivisions. Like a real like a suburb to me Someone who lives grew up in New York. There are three or four streets you enter the subdivision on. And and through those three or four streets, a web of streets are connected to it. And it's its own little Yeah. Main road and yeah, yeah. And that's how everything was built where I grew up in Michigan. Yes.

In my elementary you'd go, What sub do you live in? And it was either Heritage Farms, Axford Acres, LaSalle Gardens. There were only four options. Okay, so for us, yeah, what neighborhood do you live in? Okay. It's a huge neighborhood, huh like eight hundred houses. Houses. Yeah. So it was really exciting for Halloween. You wanted to go in Riverbrook, you know? Yeah, it was really exciting. No. That's what I'm saying. Okay, there was a nicer sub.

So many. Okay. So many. So um there was St. Ives. I was really, really fancy. Um It's also funny. It is so funny. So that's and like I had friends who lived in these, you know, and um sugar. Sugar tits? I can't believe I'm forgetting this is that's just'cause I coffee. But um Anyway, yes, there are some areas it's like, oh my God, if you live there, like you've really made it.

Can I tell you the coveted wealth part? Yeah. So on the weekends, very, very regular activity for us, maybe even every other weekend. We would leave our shitty welfare apartment and we would get in mom's pinto and we would drive to Bloomfield Hills. That was an effort. Yeah, this is twenty five miles away. Not a subdivision. It's an air. Okay, got it.

And we would pull up to the end of driveways and stare at the house. And my mom would say, These people went to college. Oh like if you want to live here. These people went to college. Then she'd drive to another nice house. This person's probably a doctor or they're a lawyer, you know, like if you like that, this is how you get it. We did that all the time. Yeah. I do think that compounded my obsession with like wealth in like, oh my God, that's so out of reach and we want that thing.

So yeah, the lake with the basketball players houses I was very prime. That is, that used to be a thing. Like, yeah, when we would go on vacations, we'd just drive around and look at houses. It's so fun. I love it. I still love it. It's weird now that I'm thinking about that. Like I would never go on a vacation and do that. But we did it all the time. Anytime we went somewhere in a car, it was yeah, we would go to neighborhoods and drive around and look at houses. Strain.

See how the other folks live. I guess, but like, I don't know. So funny. It's all so funny. We're watching Zillow Gone Wild. We're now addicted to it. We have a guest coming up. We do. We don't have to deduce how who that would be. That's right. But if you haven't won seen Zillow Gone Wild, it's from the Instagram account, Zillow Gone Wild, so it's these crazy listings on Zillow. Yeah. And the show goes and visits these houses. And there was the cutest Indian couple last night.

In Orlando, Florida. Oh a lot of them there. And they lived in a castle. It looked like Excalibur Hotel in Vegas. Yeah. And inside were like swords and all this stuff. Was it Indian stuff in there or like It was all like nights and stuff. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, and um it's just it's d the whole the whole tableau is so cute'cause they're from India, right? And the dad is like clearly he's been successful here. Yeah. Look at this. This guy lives in a castle in America.

Like I you would not want to live in this castle. I know. I wanna Yeah. Is life a This guy's in America on like five acres in a And Camelot. And then they show the children. I guess the children talk them into buying the house. And the child it was on eBay, which I didn't even know they sold homes on eBay. Yeah. It was just really cute because the mom did all the talking. A lot of it was very and followed a lot of my stereotypes. But in the the adorable way, the things I love about.

So she handled all the talking. You know, like when it was time. It's time to do like the sword stuff. And then the cute thing was eventually we saw the kids. Mm-hmm. They in their twenties. Okay. Taking advantage of their parents. And the sun had like a fucking long ponytail, fucking tattoos everywhere. And I was like, These second generation. It's in the It's so sad actually.

Talking about your brother just made me think of the whole the whole scenario. And I was like, Oh yeah, man, you got like if you're if you're emigrating here from India, like you have a lot coming your way. So many challenges for you. There's racism. There's this and that. You gotta find your footing. And then the reward is you'll give your kids this. Everything and they will likely go berserk American style. Well

It's all connected. It's you're gonna go berserk America Tale because you have to be American. Yeah, yeah. You have to very quickly assimilate into this culture and be whatever it needs you to be and you don't really know how to It's a hard row. They they they they travel and I wanna honor them. It's like what an experience. You know, you you've you you go through hell and back. No

to to make it here and to provide this opportunity. And then they're like, I think dad, I'm gonna blow joints and That's why I'm such a good daughter. Yes, yes. I've always been a good daughter. Yeah. Oh, you mean you mean because I did do a crazy thing by coming. And you could be it it w it worked out. And it worked out for my brother Moving back at thirty six years old and you could have been in this doc about Zillap No.

That's not in that was not in my cards. Maybe I wouldn't have had all this, but I would have figured out something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um Um, we have uh much different assessments of ourselves. Had this not worked out for me, I would be penniless. That's so crazy that you think that. I know so. I was just talking about it with Kristen. We were talking about somebody

And it was like, just get a fucking job. Right. Like, just get a job. Oh, that you didn't get the management position. Like at some point, get a job. Yeah. And I was I was like enjoying that, being j a little judgmental. And then I was like You know, hon, if I'm being dead honest, like I could not I couldn't have a job. I could be an Uber driver. Um I could be at seven eleven if there's no manager.

But I could not at this point have a 30 year old boss who I thought was dumb and was making me do stupid things. I couldn't do it. I'd rather be penniless. I just don't have an image. you have a family you can't just choose to be penniless. You have to support your family. I have a family. Well, luckily there are I would be an Uber driver. I would be something where I could be an independent contractor. What I'm saying I I really have always been terrible at. Yeah. And I'm admitting it.

I've not been great when I have idiot bosses. And most people have idiot bosses. I'm not talking about good bosses, but your odds of getting a good boss are Yeah. Even if you have a good boss, you're not gonna see eye to eye on everything at all. And you're not gonna be quiet exactly about that. And yeah. But listen, can you work on it? No. No, no, no. I know who I am. I'm 51.

No, no, now. I don't mean now. I mean like if this was well, it would have happened much earlier. It would have happened earlier in life. You I think we can't tell people they can't change the these behaviors because like you can you Well no, I'm telling those people you probably gotta be an Uber driver. Okay, yeah, sure. You can be something where you don't have a boss or you can work on yourself and and decide like it

Okay, this boss is fucking annoying. Like I hate him and I hate that he's telling me what to do. And guess what? I need a job and I need to support my family and I can go home and forget about this person. Like you You're you're a hundred percent right. That's how people should be. I completely I think people can That's how people should be. And they can be. I am not that way. I disagree. You you don't give yourself enough credit for change.

You've changed a lot. And it's again, as you say, like it's when push comes to shove, but that's what would this require. You would be. I know. Don't do well with authoritarian presences in my But I think uh you don't. I don't. Um but I think you You could in in a specific circle, given your life had gone a different way. That's why I couldn't direct commercials. I did a few. I got through them. I know. Yay. Yeah, you were in one. Yes. And I was fine that day. I didn't piss off the clock.

Yeah. But I didn't like it so much that I'm like I would rather not directly. Already rich. So this is my point. If you if you weren't and you needed the job, you didn't need Well we have an example. So I was broke when I worked for CPK. I know but I couldn't do it. I couldn't have him tell me I got a six. Or seven on my punctuality when I've been early every day. I c It's Rue. Opponent resists. I just couldn't I couldn't handle the injustice. I know.

That's okay though. You lost a job uh to me that's okay.'Cause he that was weird. He told you I bet Corbett told him to do that. Yes, of course. Not his d fault necessarily, but whatever. You quit because you're like, I can't work for this corporation that is is gaslighting me Yeah, lying to me. And I won't do it. So I'm quitting. That's fine. I in fact think in some ways that's noble. Okay. That doesn't mean that you couldn't have gone to a different job and Work for someone.

I was so lucky that um I had a job for 14 years. Exactly. But my bosses were my mom and my brother. Yeah. But and sometimes that's the worst. That can 'Cause we already knew how to deal with each other. You're right. In a lot of family businesses, it does that that part gets tricky. It worked great for us because My mom knew the more I stay out of his business and the more responsibility I give him, the better he'll be. Yeah, yeah.

We just stayed the fuck out of the way and almost every year I got more and more responsibilities where I was Oh my gosh, the breast the colostrum has a ترجمة نانسي قنقر Well, if you take a sip and you taste alcohol, let me know. Okay. You'll know if there's alcohol in it. How will you know if there's alcohol in it? You'll drink the whole thing in one sip. I'll ask Rob if he can run up and get a pack of camelites. What do you mean after you're done with it?

And then I'll and then I'll figure out where to get cocaine. I know. If you did, if there was alcohol and you drank it and you relapsed, and then you did cocaine and like. Um we could sue Erwan. I don't think so. And that would be oh a hundred percent we would. After the point I just made I would never say Well, I'm cutting that, obviously, so that we can sue. And then um that will be so exciting. Talk about buying a house in Bloomington Hills or whatever with the suing money.

Bloomfield. Sugarloaf. My God, that was gonna kill me. Sugarloaf had really big houses. How's the colostrum? This thing is fucking delicious. Oh good. I'm willing to show my ID to get it. Oh see, look at that! Oh, that's true, but Yeah, let's do some facts. So this is like all connected because this is for Brandy Carlisle. And she grew up modestly and she couldn't Yeah, and she could definitely buy a house on upper straights, middle straights, or lower straights. Yeah. Or long lake.

Those are the big boys. I really liked her. I know. She was fantastic. I really, really, really liked her. What I liked most I was talking to Phineas about her. What I love is how unapologetically ambitious she is. And she doesn't pretend she's not. And I love that. And I I think it's weirdly a good message to put out there because I think a lot of people think one need only be a genius artist. And that's not you gotta call all the clubs and get on. Oh yeah.

Might night and like you know, there's just a ton of ambition Two. I agree. Yeah. Okay. Our civil partnership Okay, I was looking up the civil partnership and and uh gay marriage timeline in England. Okay, so same sex marriage in England and Wales became legal on mar March thirteenth, twenty fourteen. Um civil partnerships were 2005. And I looked up because she said those had to be like very secular. And that's correct.

They must remain legally secular, meaning the registration process cannot include religious words, music, or hymn. Oh wow. Well they send a monitor there to make sure that didn't happen in your ceremony? I don't know. It's just the uh agreement or whatever they call it. System. Maybe. Um, I don't know. But yeah. Oh, was Ross Kunkel, the drummer, did he play on Tapestry, the album Tapestry, Carol King? Yes.

He did. He did do that. He did do that. Does that. He did it and he does it. Oh, you said you like invented a reality or like a show or something where you don't know the person's age, but you hear their voice. And because she was on the phone with her wife, her now wife and thought She's an old. Seventy year old lady. Um, that is a current that's currently a reality show. Oh, it is. Uh huh. It's called Age of Attraction. It's on Netflix. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah. Wanna hear the trailer?

Yeah.'Cause we might have to watch this with the kids when Zillow runs out. I have dated guys who are my age because it was the right thing to do. And it didn't work out, obviously. Here you'll be dating and even committing without ever knowing. old your partner is. Are you ready? I don't know. But you don't know who the spice girls are. and couldn't three minute date I've ever had. Do you have mommy issues? If you're not as hot as my mom, I'm not gonna Marry you.

If you feel as if you found that special connection, all that's left is revealing. Your age. Um catch a seatal. I didn't even know there were sixty year olds here. Well cars. Issue with this the show as I'm seeing it is they get to see each other. So it's like but Or leave this experience the same way you entered it. I'm definitely worried. What would my family think? Children? Yeah. babysitting.

All right, we got it. Yeah, I guess that shows really more about how well can you hide your age because we're seeing the people. It's a lot of shockers. Like clearly what's gonna be the shocker is a lot of people are much older than they look and a lot of people are much younger than they look. Yeah, but maybe what yes, but I think it is saying like that is what they look th these are the people, so so who cares what their age is? It's just a number, Monica. Just a number.

That's what that's what they're trying to do. Yeah. Um anyway, people are watching that. I'm gonna watch that. Okay. I bet the kids would like that. report back. And that's it. Really not a lot of facts. Well, I really enjoyed her immensely. Me too. Yeah. I really like her. I love her. I love her. Uh All right, bye.