Brains in Jars with Ben Folds

the sunshine. I've been frolicking in the in the mushroom forest. That's what it looks like. Yeah, little you gonna get a little sun through the through the mushrooms. But you can also, you know, sleep under the canopies. Gorgeous. Where are you in the world? Actually I'm in Australia. You lucky motherfucker. M M. You're lucky. You got stuck there. I got stuck in Sydney. Oh you lucky. I was

there on my birthday, not this year. So a year and change ago is the last show I played was in Sydney and it was so fund the best time ever. And then like a week later the world went to ship holy ship. So you were over here while I was over here because I was over here on tour and I got stuck and you escaped back to the US. I wish I didn't, damn it. I heard it's just like kind of normal there. It is normal. But because

they're way behind on on the vaccines. Now it's going to get more difficult here because the borders and stuff. But it's been great. I'm mean, it really has. It's uh at a very heavy cost to Australia. They've kept it safe. Have you played shows for the past year. Yes, Yeah, about three or four months ago I played an orchestra tour. Oh my god, and like it was like a normal show, it was more or less normal. I had to do

a whole ship ton of nose swabs. I think over the course of two weeks, I must have done about ten something like that. The brain tickler that I've been doing that now, that's just like part it's fun for me. Now. I buy them online and I just shove them up there. Yeah, you can usually tell the really over zealous I'm gonna cram this son of a bit all the way up to your frontal lobe. Kind of dude, you can see that coming. There was an Irish lady. I don't know

why she was really nice. I just knew that was going straight straight past the eye sockets. Well, she wanted to make sure you were COVID free. I didn't really like know what your stands or your belief system in the supernatural is at all. I like to see evidence, or I like to know that evidence was vetted by someone whose life is dedicated to it. So I guess in that way, I'm I'm a man of science. I love science. I love science. They can go together, they

can go together. What can go together? Science and magic? Well, I think they do go together. I think I think. I think science is science allows for all the things that you don't know. You know, so we don't claim to know everything. There's a lot of mystery out there. What bothers me about certain belief systems that are based on maybe what we call is supernatural is that they tend to want to explain that which is not been explained, Like, oh, of course, there's a lot of rules. Well, let me

ask you this, why why you're interested in it? Are you interested in what other people are interested in, or do you have a specific Like I'm I've seen some ship, and I'm here to tell you all about I've seen

some ship. And then through the ship I've seen, it made me want to talk to other people about like what they have seen and what they have experienced, because I only have my own perspective right so I'm trying to understand magical and the universe and the things I can't explain or that are just unexplainable and undeniably unexplainable.

I want to see other people's perspective of that. Because I was raised in a certain way by a certain kind of mom that was very open to that, and in the South, and there was a lot of religion that I didn't connect with. But then spirituality, which I do connect with, which ties in with creativity to me. And then I saw a ghost and then I saw a spaceship, and so then I was like, fucking, I want to talk to other people and see what think

about it. This is my favorite part, and then that's how it goes Okay, So that's what led me to this moment in time. But like I also just love magical things, like my favorite thing in the world are things that you can't like make into an app and monetize and like define specifically or like trap like things like creativity, which is why writing songs is so fun and we've written songs together and it's so fun because it's like you just don't know if it's going to

be good or not. Like you are literally grasping at thin air. Yeah, when you're making something that wasn't there, and that is mysterious. I mean it is. It's like and also, you know, I think that the things that we don't know, there's a to me, there's a balance. It's like we want to be curious because that's part of the frustration of being curious. This is part of being human. It gets you to the next days, the

hunger for understanding what comes next. The other side of it is we need to be able to celebrate that which is a mystery and leave it be. You know. So everyone kind of has that wall, like like do I really want to explain an examples remember that ridiculous? I mean I actually didn't think it was ridiculous. I thought it was just entertaining. But the insane clown Posse video called Miracles, I'm obsessed with them. They were on this show and I'm a fully a juggle. Now go on,

I'm down with the clowns. I think that I think, uh that their song Miracles was widely misunderstood. Uh, And a lot of people were saying, oh, magnets, do you want to how the funk those were electromagnetic power? Blah blah blah, and then you and then you have to ask that person on Twitter. Okay, now explain it further. Okay, those are those electrons? Okay, it was an electron? Was left trying made out of what are those made out of? Why are they there? And as you keep digging deeper,

you have you do have a miracle. So I don't think that was a ridiculous line. I thought it was actually a really smart line. And I agree. And there is science to like back where you can trace kind of down things to a point. But then it all kind of comes back to this spiritual, supernatural whatever you want to call it, this question of well it does if that's where your mind goes, because if you need to explain it, well, but I mean we need to

explain things for for ourselves. That's that's that's part of feeling safe, you have something to a structure. If you just called it nothing, if it wasn't called supernatural, it wasn't called anything, and you didn't try to explain it. That's not a ghost, that's a sound I heard. It's a mystery. But if you say it's a ghost, then suddenly you were trying to explain something and take the mystery out of that which can't be spoint yea mm hmm. I mean that's my opinion. I'm I'm I'm okay with

ghost interesting, well only because here's my thing. I saw an apparition of a person. But I don't know if that was a ghost, if that's a different dimension, if that was me hallucinating. Was that a dream? Are we all living in a simulation? What dimension are we in? Is our dream life? Really? Are waking life? You can go down that rabbit hole and I love going down that rabbit hole, my favorite rabbit hole to go down. Okay,

so what was this? I mean you may have to explain this every podcast, and I'm not sure if you don't want to do that, But what was the what's the operation store? So? Okay? I was I like on tour? I like to stay and haunted um hotels instead of like when we stopped, like I'll make the band and dancers and my crew like stay with me in a haunted brothel instead of staying like the w like but like so I always kind of have and torturing my band and friends into staying at creepy places and so

on tour. One time we all stayed at Miss Molly's in Fort Worth and I was staying in this room. There was a lot of history about like women dying there. I was like, I really want to see a ghost. I really want to see a ghost. And then of course at midnight, I get woken up by this feeling

it's like touching the side of my body. I looked down at the end of the bed and there's a woman there who was not a real It wasn't like a It wasn't a woman the same way that I can, like it was kind of seat through a little transparent And then I knew that it was something different because I wasn't scared. It just made me kind of sad, Like I felt really sad for her. I wasn't scared. And I then that like peaked interest because I was like, oh, you see all these movies are read, books are and

ghosts are scary and it's so scary. But in that moment, I was like, Oh, there's just like an energy of this person and it's making me sad. I just assumed it was either a woman or someone in really good drag from the riddle me that ben really that learned me this kesha um consciousness. Where are we and who

are we? I mean, that's certainly the biggest mystery. When I was a kid, I used to think I'd like to write a little story about how we're all brains and jars and a labl I mean, I think a lot of people have written that story, but when I was a kid it did occur to me at some age of like eight years old. That I guess because sometimes you're dreaming and sometimes you're awake and you don't

know what the difference is. Then sometimes something happened or something didn't happen, two people witness the same thing and you don't know. So I I do think it is all in our minds. That much is so. Look, if you wanted to find the world a certain way, and the things that you that come across your field of vision in your your your life are all explained through that,

then that's cool. I mean, like if you told like a baby, a six month old in a high chair and they see their parents float into the air, they'll probably be cool with that. Yeah, but later on you're not open to that anymore. I am. You might be, you know, my mom, like I'm what I'm looking for is I want all of those experiences in life, like I want that's what drugs are for. But but you very true, circling back to the mushroom behind you. Yes, that's rights. Take off a little nibble every once in

a while so I can get through my day. But I do think that things like that that sounds so magical. I don't know. It just intrigues me the most. I guess I'm bored by to me. Okay, here's another example. Love right songs and love. I can't explain why I love somebody. It's a feeling and it just it is

very real. I feel in my like the insides of my organs and like every fiber of my being, and like a song will come out of my face and then it gets recorded and that whole process is confusing, and then it's on the radio and so I'm kind of being transported to a different land in a different time. It's like time travel my my voice. So all of this stuff just trips me out. And no, it is, I mean absolutely, I mean that's why I'm with you.

The mystery of that. To me, it's always been about relaxing and allowing it to be a mystery rather than explain if someone if you can see that, that that over. Uh. You know, thousands and thousands of years of scientists, philosophers, thinkers have not come up with the answer. I hate to throw in the towel, but I figure it ain't gonna come out of me. So I'm sort of I'm

I'm cool with just the mystery of it. But do you know Tim mentioned he says, uh, someone asked him about, um, you only believe, uh in things that you can see, and he's like, yes, I want to believe the things I can see. So you have to have evidence. He's like, I have to have evidence. And it's like, what evidence do you have for love? And he said, well, love without evidence is called stalking. You know, it's really weird actually now that you've brought up stalking the way I have.

So we've made music together, we've had dinner together. I saved your phone from a swimming pool. Very well, you tried to save it. There was no saving it at the end of the day. Then, yeah, but you know what, you told me to put it in rice. Yeah, and uh, and I did that. I actually called up the room service and managed to get rice somehow. At the at the sunset, Marquee put it in the the rice, but I turned it onto too soon. My fault, that my phone, So then the phone had the soul left the phone.

So there's a haunted. There's a phone haunting. We should read a song about that, especially if if you do my podcast, then I always write a song with my guests on the point. Oh my god. Well, then that's

what our song to me about. The reason we're talking right now is because I liked your music when I was like thirteen years old, and I grew out of that, I hope no, And I stalked your ass and it came to a bunch of shows and then I came backstage, and then I was and then we were friends, and I went to dinner, and then you let me borrow your glittery piano for like years, Oh my god. And then we did worked on Rainbow, which is one of my favorite songs of all time together, and we played

an award show and now are my podcast. And that all came from you making noise with your face, yeah, and me stalking you. That's true. That yeah, it's true. And and another one of life's great mysteries is just the just the sequence of connections in life. It is crazy. I mean, I mean that that that in itself is nuts.

You know, when you travel and you're one of the great purposes that we find ourselves in a lot of different places around the world, and you get off a plane or you get off a bus and you walk around and you're just, all of a sudden, you're in this place with so many people. I can't believe how many people they are. And then you see people that look like people you know back home, whether it's Asia or whether it's Germany or Africa, wherever it is. It's crazy.

I mean, I think that's crazy, just to see the sheer number of people who are all utterly different. But there's something that reminds you of people that you know anyway, And imagine just that across time and like five thousand years of just people walking around. Have you ever taken psychedelics? No? Never, Still strange to me that you've never taken the psychedelic Yeah,

well I just waited until too late. I was working in writing and just busy, and I didn't think about anything that that that was fun, Like, it didn't occur to me. And then by the time you're my old age, you're not gonna put something in your brain's gonna rewire it. I'm I'm I already, you know, I'm already forgetting everything. Anyway. A lot of parents tell the kids don't take acid, and that's why they take acids. So you have hip mom.

I mean, you've got a mother who's seen it all, you know, Like that's different from a mother who has never seen it before, who's afraid of it, saying, you know which, which is what kids suspect. But if you know, like my parents both smoked pots, so you know, it wasn't it wasn't a mystery to me. It didn't seem that cool either. It's kind of like that's what your parents do it. Then you're like, I don't want to do that. You can't rebel against them. No, my rebellion

against my mom was she wrote country songs. So I was like, I'm in a like talk rap over dance beats, mom fucking mom, and then she was and then she was like and then and then we wrote a bunch of songs together like that, and so now I so it didn't work. My rebellion didn't work, And now I just want to make country music like I'm like full circle. Now I'm like, I just want to make like I just want to be Dolly Parton. I prayed it. I don't. I don't know if Bell Parton two, I don't. Actually,

You've got a point there, And that's another mystery. Actually, that is something that is a mystery that I've actually pondered. Uh, and it's not exactly supernatural, but is I started thinking about it when I when I was I was playing with a lot of orchestras, and I was watching so many conductors come through and before they even raised the baton, the orchestra has a response to that person like they they want to follow them, they don't want to follow them.

They have an opinion about what they're wearing. You can feel it in the room instantly. In that situation. Only Parton, it's like someone who raises her Baton and there are no dissenters at all. Name one person that has anything negative to say about Dolly Parton is the weirdest thing. No. I actually wrote a song last week with my mother that goes, I don't believe in God, but I believe in Dolly Parton. See and I do. That's she's a

false prophet already. See you you're You've just proven my point. Some creepy no one is in the illuminati, is what you're saying. She's all that stuff. Yeah, but see, there's there's there's the thing about And that's what worries me about the superstitious stuff is that the way people jump so quickly into uh into conspiracy theories. I don't see much difference between religion conspiracy theory and believing in ghost and thinking the Dolly Parton is Satan, which I'll I'm

gonna see you are blest them. Ng my god, Queen Dolly, kick your ass off. My podcast is you're gonna be the first one to kick off. You blest them Dolly. Dolly Parton is amazing. She is like Stephen did you did you see her make Stephen Colbert cry? No in a sad way. No, in a in a like moved mysterious unsolved mysteries of the universe. How someone can sing the other person gets a chill and then can't help crying. Amazing it is. It's like, praise be praise Dolly. Yeah

you came around. Yeah, I came around you. You've turned into a believer. Dolly came out of a spaceship. She sure did. Dolly came out of his spaceship to make this world a better place. She's like, I was listening to your song jesus Land. Yeah, and it reminds me of like growing up in the South. Do you want to explain your song jesus Land? What's about? It? Was?

Came from so much touring, and there's a there's a structure that fits all the cities that I was passing through, I guess in the Midwest and the South at the moment, which kind of imply I had certain kinds of people moving away from and avoiding other kinds of people. So it seemed very compartmentalized, and it seemed so in in a kind of nefarious way. It looked like it looked like people had moved to the suburbs to get away

from another group. Of people who had moved from here to get it seemed it seemed very tribal to me. And I was thinking, this is like maybe about two thousand and four, and I was thinking, God, what would Jesus think of that? I mean, whether or not I think Jesus was a super natural being or not. I think historically he was probably there, you know, like everyone he's historically uh documented, And I think, you know, okay, Well, suppose he was walking from the center of town out

to the out to the edge. How sad would he be to see all of that separation? He crossed his tracks, and as soon as he crossed his tracks, then the socio economics change of it. And then he finds himself in a yard out in suburbia somewhere, and he's tired and it's just beautiful grass and he lays down. But as soon as he's in the yard, this alarm system comes on and all these lights does lights that come on in those yards that are protecting themselves because it's

not his land, it's some other motherfucker's. So I was thinking Jesus land as well. He walks through the nastiest, ugliest part of town and it's stripped malls and he sees a billboard with his name on it, quoting something he never said. Yes, I love that line in the song. Yeah, that's where it came from. That's longer than the song. It took me longer to explain it than it than it than to write sing well, I love that song. And in my mind I was imagining Jesus driving through

like Arkansas and Nashville. I recently did that drive. Oh yeah, and like just seeing like I love Jesus billboards, I have to say I do love Jesus billboard. M I can't explain to you why I love it. Interesting, So when you say you love it, how do you mean, like like ironically love it? I just love. And maybe it's an aesthetic thing, like a giant sign along a sad, lonely, desperate highway that says something scary about you rotting in

hell if you don't believe in zombie Jesus. So it's it's you think it's it's it's it's funny and absurd and and scary scary. It's creepy. It's creepy. It's super creepy. And since we've agreed that Dolly Parton is the closest thing we can think of to Jesus. Okay, so of Dolly Parton, God forbid, knock on wood better than ever passed away and then rose again and was zombie Dolly Parton. And then we all made churches and we drank the blood of Dolly Parton and ate little tiny pieces of

Dolly Parton, like the Catholic Church. Like that's some weird world. Yeah, eating Dolly maybe not so like, but like people do that in the Catholic Church. I've eaten the body and blood of Christ. I was talking about this someone earlier, and I was thinking about how you're yeah, that's right, that's right, that is, But there's just some really violent imagery in in in religion. And I don't do you know that Dolly Parton could as easily as anyone. Of course,

she never asked anyone to follow her. That's the thing. Like, there's something about Dolly Parton. Um, what about her band? What about her band? They need to follow her? Yeah, yeah, Like so it's kind of like her apostles, that's true, spreading the good word of Dolly. Let's hope they never have a last supper onto her though Dolly needs to live forever. God, I want to now make a painting of her and her band as the last supper. I think.

I think I'm onto like starting a religion about Dolly Parton. Is where I'm headed with this conversation. I think that's where I'm steering this conversation, is that I'm on top of our lama. I don't know, God, that's really funny. You're a funny guy. Thank you. I'm here all night, folks. I guess my weird ass backdrop in the midst of stalking you in my younger years. But now see now you love me, so now it's love. Now it's not stalking.

Its yeah, stock folds and you get a free piano. Yeah, if you stop ben faults, he'll give you a piano. You know. Kurt Vonnegut's last book was called Man Without a Country. I mean, I think it's really funny. As I know, for some reason, I feel like dudes of my age and older tend to like him more than I forget which book I have one inside the most

famous what's his most famous book, Cat's Cradle movie? Yes, that one, and then there was an I have like two inside, and I like remember liking them, but my memories a social So no, I'm with you, and I'm not a big I don't really like talk about books that much because one, I don't read as much as as as I should. And uh, secondly, I really hate when people bring up books because if someone hasn't read something,

then that they feel dumber. And it's just you not only can read, but you wrote a whole book and it was a New York Times bestseller. Well, thank you, it was. Yeah, And that's the thing about being a musician. You can. You can. You can write a book and have an unfair advantage over great writers. You are a great writer. Shut your fail thank you. But you know what I mean. It's like, I think a book is

one way of getting information and it's beautiful. A movie it's a great way to get information, and living is a great way to get inform or so. But all I was gonna say is that is it. Kurt Bonninger wrote this little tiny book right before he died called Man Without a Country, and he tells you the meaning of life in that book. He does, Yeah, the meaning of life is you're here to farting around. Well, then I am doing a fucking great you're you're you're killing it.

I am smashing life. Yes, Oh my god, I won. I wanted life. You one. Do you want to have someone putting in a little morning talk radio show fully like bingers and stuff. Yeah, put one in. Just just smash it. When you say that ding ding ding, smash crash and applause, applause. It'll go here. One of the first time I ever saw you live, you were on like chat Roulette, which was like the first version of

like sexy what how do you describe chat Roulette. It's like you go on the internet and you have a video of yourself and you like, well, it was a random it was a random chat room, one on one chat room where you just forward it and you would just find yourself speaking to a stranger. Yes, so that was that was the That was the catch. It was like and this kid who was fifteen years old, Russian Russian teenager and his father invented and marketed this. I

can't remember his name. I met them and uh yeah, and so this was but this was like two thousand and what five sight, I don't remember. I just remember thinking it was like absolutely genius and hilarious because you were on stage on chat Roulette. Yeah, singing songs at people on chat Roulette, projecting it onto like huge, massive screens.

And I was like, Oh, these people have no idea that they're like on a screen in front of thousands of people and you're singing to them about whatever they wanted. Is the funniest shit I've ever seen. That was an interesting moment. The thing is is chat Roulette came out, and as we started to find with the Internet, any platform like that was going to be naive and innocent for about a week. Oh, just going to be full of down. That was just gonna be it. Well, that

was my question. Did you get like, did you accidentally in the middle of shows be doing that bit where you're like Chatroulette time and you just get dicks? Yeah? Yeah, and and and it's it's interesting because I knew that was probably going to happen, because we'd sort of tested it, you know, to see what was going to happen. And so you probably don't remember this, but I told the audience that I was going to be putting a screen

up in about two songs. And although you come and you hear ships and fox and you're used to that, and that's part of the brand. And that's okay. You didn't know that you're coming to a show to see guys whip their dicks out. That's probably gonna happen. So if you don't want to see it, you don't want your kids to see it, please God, get them out in the lobby, right children, Yeah, your children, because they're coming for you. They come and get you. Um. Yeah.

And and of course it did happen, and you saw one of I only did that for three shows, so you saw really, oh my god, it was genius, Like you one of the greatest things I've ever seen on stage. You know what's what's weird about that you can relate to this as a perform I'm sure you have these things, these moments where okay, you know, like when you start out and you know that if you play your songs, that's what you do. But if you play other people's

songs also that everyone's gonna love it. Oh yeah. And there's certain things that that that are always going to be like that, no matter how much people are they to see your thing, there's always going to be something else that they get really interested in. And it feels funny to know that there's that that. That's true. This was like that, Like I could have just done chat Roulette for the rest of the I did it for fifteen minutes a night, three nights. That's it's you saw.

You saw one of the forty five minutes of my entire um. Yeah, it was. Why did you do it, Nip, I don't know where I didn't well, I felt it get old. Oh, just felt it would get old. I mean my favorite guy was the guy was on the toilet. I mean these the and and we and we got him twice and dude to his toilet roll and everything.

He's just sitting there on the toilet and I sang a song for him, and he was so into it because he could see all the people in the audience on his screen and it just had no idea why he's sitting on the toilet, and like, there we go. I love him. What a free spirit. Uh, that's what I thought about this guy too. I had a name from I can't remember. And then there was this guy that was sitting there with a bottle of tequila, no shirt and these horns on his head. That's what people

are doing. Oh. I was in Brazil one night after seeing your show. I was my first tour, and I was like, oh my god, I thought of you, and I was like, there's this thing where you can just go on the internet and like chat roulette people. So my whole band was there and all my friends and we're all just like ship faced, and all we got were dicks. It was just a giant scrolling dick pick. Yeah. Well, I think the thing is is too that I filmed those shows right before it. Before that, it was just

like commercial break day. It was like you know, every once in a while, you you'd see and be like and you saw it coming. You're like, oh, here it comes, and it's like, okay, well you try to forward it. You try to forward it on because I had the laptop on my piano. So as as as soon as I saw the ZIPRAs like being but we got, we we got. We got flashed. A few times, I like, does that still exist? I think that it does. We a couple of times looked into maybe you know, doing

a reunion tour. Please, oh my god, please. It was so funny. It's it's not a platform that you can really navigate easily now, like it's it's all about that. They just went totally there like people aren't on it because then there were a lot of innocent people on it who were just wanting to know what was going on, and you could just see anything. There was these couple of kids. It looked like they were in Italy and they were So there's just a cute pair of like

teenage dudes just having a good time. Want, Wow, what's this? You don't see that anymore? Why are we all such trash perverts on this planet? I don't know. Remember tabot is that like a tomagotchi? I guess we've both get each other with mystery references. What's what? What's what's tamagotchi? The little creature that's a key chain they have to take care of like it's a baby or it dies and screams. Who wants that? Is it kind of like AI?

It's like from the nineties AI that like would be on your key chain and it would like die if you didn't press a button. I don't know what's fun about that. I guess people have like a certain amount of dependency they need. That's why people want pets and people and other people pets. Well, you have children, yeah, Well, as someone who doesn't have children, yet and I'm like still deciding if that's in my cards. Did you think about it too much before you had kids, or do

you just like you're like, I'm I'm doing it. I'm just gonna have no okay. I I felt, you know, you can probably relate to this as soon as you you you became famous or younger, and um, I became less famous or older. And I found it almost, um unbearably weird. And and I can't imagine if I if that had happened to me or for me younger, how

I would have dealt. But one of the ways that I dealt at my ripe age of thirty years old, as I realized that now I walk into places and and uh people uh know me that at that point I started really having terrible thoughts about myself. I was vapid, only lived for the wrong things. I was a machine. I just said what people wanted to hear. I was vain all the stuff that goes through your head. And I thought, you know what the solution of this is is to have kids and to think about someone else

instead of me. And within two months of that thought, um, I've met the kid's mother. And within a year of that we had kids. Did it make you feel because like I feel that way if I'm playing a show and I'm like voguing in the mirror myself and like complaining about whatever stupid ship I'm complaining about. But it's important in that moment to put it because you have to be like maybe you don't have to be, but I'm like a control freak on like a macro level.

And then like then you go big pictures and then you like make sure the nails look good, make sure the guitar matches the outfit, and make sure your spaceship fits on the stage is thirty ft long, and make sure the lasers hit the back of the like all of that ship. So in that moment, to make sure my spaceship is all spect out. You get it, Yeah, you get it. We'll see you're focusing on By focusing on your spaceship a little bit, you've taken the flashlight

off of yourself. I guess. No, I think you're fully narcissistic. It's such a narcissistic job. Oh my god, I'm here. You get it, but you get it, like like I mean, anyone's gonna have to Here's I think the thing is is that in some ways, well, one, you grew up closer to the entertainment business by far than most people did, so that demystified some of it perhaps for you. Do

you think yeah, I think, yeah, totally. But I do think it's also like, I think there's an element of people, and myself included that think if I reach fame and fortune, that all of any hole in my heart or confusion or worry in the world it'll go away. It'll be fixed if I get famous and rich and achieved. Yeah. So that's why I was asking about kids, because my mom keeps being like, to have kids, and I'm like,

fuck you, mom, but so but I might. I just like I haven't decided yet, and it's the whole thing.

But there's something about oh, like, once you achieve the things you think are going to fill the void of everything in your life and it doesn't do that, then it's really confusing because you're like ship that was supposed to like fix everything and make everything perfect, and then I I worked really hard and I did it, and then like, but I still feel all these like weird existential crises, feelings and sometimes anxiety and sometimes depressed and

sometimes super insecure and all of these things that I thought if you were like famous, or if you had a record that did really well, or if you're on the cover of Rolling Stone like you wouldn't you wouldn't feel those ways, and you totally do. And then that's when the real existential crisis set in and I was like, oh shit, if that didn't make me feel like whole, then then I started like, that's kind of when the

spirituality side of like mystical. And it's interesting that you say that because I kind of actually and now feeling like you can button you can come back to the spirituality conversation we were having earlier through this, because it's very similar. Like like I was saying, if if you are okay with some mystery, yeah, that's the same with being okay with the things that you'll never have. It's a it's a metaphor for that thing. So so people are in another metaphor would be hunger, like you can't

eat everything and sometimes you're starving. But it doesn't make everything okay just to go around and eat, and it doesn't make everything okay to know everything, and it doesn't make everything okay to have kids or any What makes it, Okay, is the biggest mystery of all time, which is just that balance between being curious enough, being hungry enough, being ignorant enough, frustrated enough to propel you through your day, but being okay with the things that you don't have

and you don't know enough. So if all I wanted in life was to be famous, and that's all I wanted, and I just went for it, I'd be putting all my eggs in that basket when it happens. What else do you want them to be more famous? Er than who? Elvis or Jesus or Dolly Parton? Because those are the three big ones, and Elvira and then six of us in an elite group. That's it. Okay, that would be a great, um supergroup. I'm just throwing it out there.

Um And yes, I agree. When you focus so much on something to put all your eggs in that basket, and then if you achieve some semblance of it, then you realize that like, oh mm hmm, you're right. I do think maybe that the like the point of life is to me, it's about staying open heartedly curious. Also, I think it's really important to find humor and things

because everything is so funcked. So if we don't have humor, like the detachment that that I'm talking about, that's just going because humor is like to me, is associated with the absurdity that you'll never know. That's the street part. You just laugh at its like fuck it, because what else are you gonna do If you can't laugh at certain things, like, we're all just gonna sit in the feudal position and cry hysterically, or at least I would. So I have to like make songs about things and

try to make it funny. I love that's one of that has always been one of my favorite components to what I think is a great songwriting voice that you have. You have a very very unique voice of songwriting that is probably uh probably underappreciated, though I don't I wouldn't want to guess that. I think people appreciate how good you are, but you do other things so that can all get There's a lot of stories going on, uh

with you. But but my my point is is that your humor is never detached from something beneath it, like it's always part of life. That's how I feel about you too, though, And your songwriting. Yeah, so I feel

about you. You influenced me a lot. I think through that because your songs are so beautiful and I love them and they're emotional, but they're fucking funny, like you and John Prime, you know what I mean, Like Dylan Neil Young some of my favorite t Rex Like, there's humor, but it's not like it's not just like, it's not a joke song. It's a really beautiful song, but it's finding the humor of life along with the other emotions to make a song that has all of the emotions.

I love that, I think, and I think you've managed to do it without people feeling that they were novelty songs. And that's a real tough thing to do. When you put humor in something, suddenly it tweaks something in the listener that they can often feel it's a it's a novelty song, but she'll drop stuff in. Uh. And I think you were fortunate to have the first big hit that you had because it had so many funny, funny parts in it, so that opened people up to the

possibility that you would do more of that. You know. Interesting. I've never psychoanalyzed my career like that, but thank you. I think m hmm, absolutely, because I look up to you. I look up to you. I do look up to you. You helped shape the songwriter I am. That's awesome. You my mom and Dolly Parton and then you and then we've got the mount rushmore of all things important on my list of things you like, it says lightning bugs. That was sort of that came from a dream when

I was very, very very young. Uh. And the dream was that, um and this is the title of my book, is a dream about lightning books and the and the reason for the the metaphor behind it was that in the dream, lightning bugs were lighting up around the backyard, and I was with a whole bunch of other kids, but I was the only one that could see the lightning bugs. And when I would point them out, then the other kids would be, yeah, there's lightning bugs. And I would put them in jars and pass them out.

I was the fucking that was the man. Everyone loved me and my own dream. I was the I was the hero. But as I got older and I remembered the dream, it never forgot that dream when I started realizing about it. What was so good about the the imagery was that that's what an artist is supposed to do. An artist is supposed to see something that flickers that other people haven't had the time to notice, and they're

supposed to bottle it. The other reason that I felt the metaphor worked is because not everyone sees the same thing. So to say that I had some superpower because I saw lightning bugs would be a misinterpretation of my own dream. We will be more fair would be to say that the other kids, maybe we're noticing stars, blades of grass. The parents over on the other side car lights, other things, the temperature, they would notice other things. If if you

see spaces, you become an architect. I don't walk into a field and see a space and see materials and imagine are being constructed. I walk into a field and here melody. So that's the firefly that I see. Other people see other things, and so I think that the job of an artist is to notice what they're attracted to that no one else noticed, and spend your time crafting it and bottling it so that others can live that moment in the way that you lived it. M M.

I absolutely, I'm obsessed with that. And that's like the most eloquent way to put what I've been trying to say for a very long time him, thank you. Well, it's hard to put into words because one I think that the idea that a an artist has some sort of mystical superpower would be under selling the rest of the human race. Everyone walks into the world and has a different perception and sees something that glows for them.

You don't have to spend all your time bottling it if you want to do something else with your life, but you shouldn't ignore it. Yes, that's like if you're lightning bug is like cooking. That could be a hobby. It doesn't have to be your job. But I do feel like every so this is something that I've decided is true, but I also might decide it's untrue in like three days. So that I think that everyone is

an artist. I think everyone is an artist if you take the time or like have the desire to exp Laura, I think we all have a place to be artistic, and it can look super different for everybody. Like what you're saying, like what you've noticed in the world, like an architects these spaces, and I'm like you. When people are talking it's a really weird thing. Like someone will be saying something to me and I'm trying to listen.

I'm not trying to be a total assholt, but I just start hearing them in song, like what they're saying. We'll start going into a song and then I'll start going like this and saying what they just said. It mean but it a melody, and I'm like a crazy person, and they're looking at me talking to me, and I'm like singing what they're saying to me at their face. See, now should you do? Uh my little podcast? Normally what I do is exactly what you're talking about. I'll talk

to the guest and say, it's an anthropologist. And I talked to an anthropologist who is a he's a primatologist who wrote a book called The Creative Spark about creativity and evolution and and how people would not have survived without ideas and creativity and where that is in the brain and and all the all all this stuff that that he knows. He knows from his you know, from being scientists. Um. And he talked about specifically cooking as being one of the first creative endeavors that people have.

But while he's talking I'm sitting there thinking about his pitches and how he's speaking and the things that he's saying. So my job during the podcast is to turn that into a song. So I've I've made a song with an anthropologist, with a music therapist, a tap dancer, um, a software developer. We made like an old uh. We made like an old ink spots style song. I have no idea what that means. The ink spots were that we're almost kind of prey. They were redo op and

it was like almost acapella. Uh and and the guy with the guy would speak like you goo ding ding dinging, don't and didn't you go I know, baby, because sometimes life is tough, you know, Like he was the first guy to like talk at you in a recording the way that they started doing later. That's the ink spots. So I turned this guy and anyway, all that a long way of saying is I I completely understand what

you're saying. Someone's talking to you, and you're you're just you're you're creating a song or pieces of songs from what they're saying. And that's why I'm doing in the podcast is I'm gonna do that, and I'm gonna be rude out in public, so I may as well do it. Uh, But when we do it for purpose, yes, when you when we do mine, we'll do it the other way and you can make us. You can make the song out of what I'm saying, or we can just sing at each other's face, just singing at each other, have

a so just you see and annoying and fun. And you've got that. You've got the broader pipes too. I'm louder some volume, and that's amazing. I'll drown your ass out. It's not even close. I started too. I took a few vocal lessons to just learn how it is that people make their voice loud, like people like you, and I think I think you're born from my mother, who's very loud. And then everyone in the house just yells

all the time, and there's like twelve dogs barking. So if anybody wants to know anything, you just have to yell really loud. And then you learn how to protect. Your brother doesn't seem loud, he's still loud talker. Like when he's on the phone, he'll be like, let's I'll be talking like bro. Yeah, Well there's technique to it too, as as I learned, it's releasing the seeing some muscles so that it can just resonate. And I never really know about that. I mean, you don't have to if

you do my job. It's like I just because I use that they've voice like there, that's the way I was seeing you. Well that is a sexy voice. But you can have that kind of sexy voice and then if you open your throat and then you just like let the highest note come out. This is a game I love to play. Usually those get muted with me in that in that situation. Oh ship, that's not a very pretty note. Let me try to find a good one. It's a hormone. Oh shit, he just busted the glass

out of my room. You're gonna have to pay for that. Kesha on that note, you just you just you just wrapped it up. You just buttoned up the conversation. But wait, how do people find your book? You your podcast? Everything? Well, they're going to find my podcast because anyone who's listening to this, because when you do it, they'll they'll they'll know that you've done it, so they can find it there. It's called lightning bugs. But they don't have to watch

it and listen to it until you do it. Oh my god, everyone good listen to Lightning Bugs and I will do because I'm going to be on it. Yeah yeah that and I've it's been so fun making songs with people. I just I just mixed my song I did with Bob Saget. Oh my god, he was singing about his prostate. It's a good song. I it's I took a whole week, recorded all the instruments, got it, got it just so. And it's like shoegazing nineties rock. So shure, it's beautiful. It's I think it's sad. Actually, yeah,

it's melancholy. I love that. Okay, I'm going to check it out. So just wherever you listen to podcasts where podcast Yeah yeah, and and and and be sure to buy my new cookies I have. I have a line of soap. I'm selling soap. I'm selling um I make it here in in in my tub. I've gotta get i gotta get rich. I don't know if you're lying, but I'm not telling the truth. I was about to be like, I love soap, let's go. I need someone who was selling records and soap at the same time.

And I couldn't really make sense of that. Well, I don't bathe that much, so it doesn't make sense to me. Okay, everybody, thanks for listening. People over bathe, fuck it, I'm agree. Don't so much better after you know, a few days. That's a dirty, that's a gross gross. And also I took a ship while we were talking, you did. I knew it. I fucking knew it. He pooped. I told the world too, called it side cock. I'll see you soon. I hope I'll be on your stuff. Yeah, well you don't.

All this is going out raw like this, no uncut and raw, uncut, unbathed poop talk with Kesha. Oh, there's gonna be a funny one. Good job, good good job, you know what. We'll ended on this. My best friend was growing up. His parents called taking a poop a good job? Did you do a good job? I did a good job, and he did such a good job today. I did a good job. All right, thank you made me go away. I'll talk all night. Okay, see you're doing goodbye? All right? Too good to see? What do

I press on this thing to get out of you? Time? Time won one