Transcription
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Connor, here with my father, Kevin, and today we have a very special guest: Maui.
Yeah, it's me. Happy to be here.
Thank you so much for being here. First, I want to say, yes, thank you for being here. Uh, just got into Canada, and you just finished a show in Seattle?
Yeah, last night.
Yeah. How's the tour been so far?
Oh, it's been beautiful. I think, like, you know, I'm on the road with my best friends. We're doing the entire thing like driving, so we've driven like—we started in New York, Vancouver.
Yeah.
So we went up through Canada, down through the Midwest, uh, into Denver and Salt Lake, and then back up uh, to Seattle, and then now we're here.
That's wild. Do you—do you sleep in the—the car or the bus or whatever you—
A little bit, a little bit. But mostly I try not to. Just say you could like—you get a whole tour of the states, basically.
Literally. I think uh, because we like went up and down and backtracked so many times, like we've traveled more than the entire like coast-to-coast mileage of the United States.
Yeah. So I've seen like some beautiful stuff: mountains, plains, forests, deserts, everything.
Are you guys into like a full-scale bus, or is it—
No, it's like a little Sprinter, little like—little like eight-seater.
Oh, perfect.
Yeah, it's beautiful. There, you could curl up if you wanted to, right?
If we wanted to, but we don't want to. You can put a pillow and fall asleep for a bit, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I might get like a little two hours out of like eight hours, something like that.
I've been—I've been helping drive some of it, too. Yeah, because I love to drive. I just love driving.
But you guys sleep somewhere, like—like for the—
Yeah, like little Airbnbs. Like we kind—we haven't really stopped in the middle of any drive, though.
No.
Yeah, no. We kind of get all the way to the next city every—
Wow.
Yeah. Oh, so there's no like—if you just do it, gun it, if it's two days or whatever.
Yeah, we just kind of—well, no, the longest drive so far has been like 12 hours.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, so that's not too bad.
Yeah, it's been pretty—if you're splitting it all up.
Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. So, man, uh, I have been getting so many requests over the last like little while to listen to your new record, uh, like a lot of—uh, Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it now—
Twitter.
Yeah, I—I keep going by Twitter. I think I'm going to keep calling it Twitter. Um, a lot of Twitter uh, messages, uh, and some Instagram as well, but people telling me to check out your record. Uh, I've been familiar with your—your work for a little bit now. Uh, I was introduced to you when you were featured on an Alchemist project. Uh, you were on the first track. I forget the name of the project. You probably remember—
This Thing of Ours, Volume Two.
Two. Yeah, yeah. So I heard it on that, and then—and then I checked out your stuff and—so I was familiar with—with you and—and I knew your music. Um, but a lot of people were saying to check out this new record, uh, just lots of—"Me or Not Me," check it out.
But show it to you.
Yes. Um, which we ended up doing. Uh, I listened to it uh, on my own time, and I was kind of just, you know, blown away, and uh, I sent it to you like the—you know, same time that I listened to—to it, and uh, you had a pretty emotional experience listening to it.
I loved it. And I have—I have like a whole bunch of questions about like—like lyrical content and stuff like that, like if you don't mind me starting with one question—that's my favorite.
Okay. So I'm going to—I'm reading these 'cause I'm old.
Heck yeah. He's got 'em in his head, right?
Um, "20,000 Leagues." Yes. Such a great opener. Okay, it absolutely blew me away when I first heard the lyrics. Um, it resonated—resonated with me so much from a parent—okay, from a parent's point of view. I started crying, and I just want to know: does the 2,000 leagues—a 20,000 Leagues represent the distance one would go for someone they love?
Yeah. So it's like, when I wrote it, what was on my mind was just like—uh, true love, right? And like I was in a really religious kind of—back thematically. And so "20,000 Leagues," as like a writing experiment, was like—I kind of got this music that was a backdrop that I didn't really know how to approach from a traditional rap sense, but I knew that was just so beautiful and sweeping and moving that I wanted to do something with it. And so then I just started being like, well, this doesn't have to be a rap song. And then I just kind of wanted to like—I kind of—so I believe God is love, right? And God is change. So I kind of wanted to like take the love portion of my understanding of God and break that down where like God is this all-encompassing, omnipotent, omniscient Force where love appears in an infinite amount of like spaces.
Yeah.
And in situations.
Situations. Yeah. And so like some people see it as like, oh, are you talking to a lover? Are you talking to yourself? Are you talking to your child? And really, I wrote it like God talking to me, and then it works as everything.
Yeah.
And so like—yeah, it's very—that is—see, you know what that's great about interpretation?
Well, I love that because uh—but it was—it was intended to be like um, ambiguous, and where people could take complete whole meanings of the song.
Yeah.
And by using God as—as a reference there, like—yeah, anybody can take it and apply it to whatever—like you saw it from the point of view of a father—of me to you and your sister—like I really did, right? And it was—that was an emotional one for—for you.
No, that's why I love—love chatting with uh, people about, you know, their art and their—their lyrics, 'cause you get totally different—it is—and you hear it from—from, you know, me, from you, who—and I wanted it to be that way. I wanted to be able to learn something. I think "20,000 Leagues" is like a litmus test for like where—where your tenderness is living at the moment. Like I started the song, writing it like toward my romantic partner, and then like I started saying things where I'm like, dang, this is stuff I would like to hear like God respond to me. Then I was like, dang, this kind of sounds like every—every way that love appears in my life externally is different, but at the source is the same. And so that was kind of like hearing people's different like, oh, this song's about this. No, this song's about this. No, this song's about that. I'm like, oh, this is so—I love making—I always dreamt of making like a—a piece of art that would reflect the viewer in the interp—a, you know—that—
Yeah.
That was—that was absolutely beautiful, like seriously. I thought—well, no, it makes me—you want to like just like pause this podcast and go listen to the song again. Like I know—like I just want to like, you know, re-listen with that perspective in mind.
I'm on like 30—like 30 listens. It's been insane. It's—it's such a—such a—it's such a great opener because of the—of just—of the—of the subject matter and—and then what you—now you've explained it to me, it makes—it changes the way I look at the album.
Yeah.
And then sonically, actually, that was like Z's call, because we were all like putting together—me and him at first, and then we introduced like uh, my homies Angelo Looy and Kevin Long, where we kind of just all made different like permutations of all the songs I made into a tracklist, but he was the first person—like, we should start that first. And I knew I wanted "Open Waters" to be near the beginning, too. So it was kind of risky to even go about—go about it like that, because like to a listener who's like trying to consume a rap project, it's like, well, what is this, you know what I'm saying? But um, I think like especially for like brand-new listeners or listeners who don't really even know what music I'm making, it was like—it was really important that it started that way.
Yeah.
It was—
Fantastic. Any—was there any connection to the book?
No, that was just the name of the instrumental. I never read the book.
What's the book about?
Like, the book is about um, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," I think it's called, right? And it's old—like it's—it's really old. It's really old, right? So but I—I remember there was a—there was a—at one of the—one of the parks, I don't know if it was Disneyland, but they had a ride there, right? And—and they discontinued it, but I—I think it was about a journey about how like—how—I don't even know because he's the reader.
I've read one book this year.
Yeah.
But I—I haven't—
No, I haven't read it.
Um, yeah, yeah. No, we've read one book this year, and it's been a Playboy magazine. I don't know if that counts.
No, no, no, no. It was—it was the Book of Eels.
Oh, a beautiful book.
Yeah, you did read that. Sorry, you've read two books.
Two. Can we cut this all up? Lord have mercy.
No, keeping that in. But um, yeah, no, but like it's all—it was also interesting because like water was like a really important creative theme throughout like the song naming and the sonic landscape and stuff. And so like one other like allegorical through line of the album is like descending, like—and then like resurfacing.
Yeah.
So yeah, I found that like—for—I'm a Pisces, so that was like—that was [ __ ]—it was coming right through.
Yeah, you guys are Virgos, right?
No, Libra. Libra. Libras. Lib—when your birthday is, Connor?
Uh, it was like—what? 10 days ago?
10 days. Oh, happy belated.
Thank you.
Yeah, your birthday's coming up.
Yeah, on the seventh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I wanted to ask uh, about this record, um, just with it being so personal, um, how is it bringing it to the stage uh, and not just the stage, but like a solo tour, um, how's that been for you? How's that experience?
Oh, man, it's been so interesting because like for an album that is like so heavy in terms of content, there's like so much levity and joy at the shows. And—and at first I felt like kind of weird about that because it's like—I—I feel like I need like my physical persona while I'm performing to be really in character and really brooding and, you know—but that's not actually like in my personality in terms of like interacting with new people and especially interacting with like consumers of my music—enjoyers of my music. So I kind of stuck to what was natural to me. And even more so, I think some of the experimentalness of this album gave me additional confidence that let me be even warmer, even more engaging, even more funny, even—and even like through all my albums, there's this—and through all the rap that I really enjoy, there's this like balance between like levity, humor, and absurdism and like nihilism and despair. And I think that's like part of the—re-evolution of the human experience, right? There—that's what I love about—that's what I fell in love with—Danny Brown. I love *Atrocity Exhibition*. It's one of my favorite albums.
Uh, and—and there was—there was ups and downs and throughout that whole album.
Yeah.
That was one of your favorite albums of—not even of the year, but of like just the whole Channel experience that we've done.
I felt that—I—I feel that albums that when they have that flow, it's just—there's something you just—you—you—it resonates with you. It's all over—it's just not, you know, one partic—specific theme that just runs—weight through, right?
Yes.
And that feels like—it feels like a conversation where like—there—there are things that in the moment are really devastating, and maybe the impacts of them continue to be devastating over a long time, but being able to laugh about them or to tell the story very off the cuff, it feels like I have internalized and assimilated this experience into my story.
Yeah.
Not that like my life is part of the story of this event. And so the stage so far, especially because, you know, like I said, I'm with my best friends, we're doing this in a really intimate way with a lot of like group togetherness, team-building time. It's just been really beautiful, honestly.
The stage—yeah, it must be—traveling with like your besties to do this as your—man, like that's the dream.
Man, literally the dream. I was just going to say it. It must be just absolutely incredible.
Yeah. No—um—uh, speaking of—uh—or no, not speaking of—of live performance, I—I had a question um, regarding—I—I read somewhere uh, because I try not to—when we do like uh, these podcast episodes, I try not to do too much research on the—the artist, 'cause I want to just connect on like a—like a—a raw level, you know, it's just like, you know, without any information. But one thing that I—I do know that I—I saw from a quote a while back that uh, piqued my interest was you like to read a lot before starting a project.
Absolutely.
Yeah. So I—I'm fascinated by—by that uh, what is the—or what do you get out of—out of reading, you know, uh, a few books or—how—first of all, how many—how many books, say—say you're going to go into album mode right now, you know, are you—how are you picking your books? How many books are you picking?
Yeah.
Um, or do they just kind of fall into place like naturally? Is it more of that?
It's a mix of both. I think the reason it's a mix of both is because my interest—like my—just as a guy interest—like as a guy who doesn't want to do anything in life—they kind of span like a wide breadth of topics, but they encircle like the same internal curiosities within. See, like I believe like science, spirituality, math, and art all kind of exist for the same pursuit of an answer in humans.
Yeah.
Um, so like on my bookshelf today, there may be like uh, *The Cognitive Neuroscience of Vision*, uh, a Sun Ra biography, *The Wretched of the Earth* by Walter Rodney, and like *Homegoing* by Yaa Gyasi—like though—or there might be like *Homegoing*. I—that's—uh—that's what the—the—
Gan—syst—
Yeah. That book is—that a good—
Love that book. I love that book. That's a fantastic read. I read it with my girlfriend, and it was like so beautiful. It was a beautiful experience, like even just reading it with her. It was so good.
You have that upstairs?
No, no. It's a book I read a while—it's from like, I think it came out 20—like—yeah, 2016, 2017, something like that. Um, but yeah, no, I—I found that so cool because uh, to me, I—I read a lot, and uh, you know, I also like to write, uh, you know, just almost—I don't even want to call it fiction, it's just journaling, basically. I just—I have a journal I carry around all everywhere, and I'm always writing stuff. And uh, to me, if I'm going to start something uh, whether it be creative or—or even—less creative, but more like, you know, like when I look at our channel, uh, what we do on here, like it's not necessarily creative, we just kind of sit down and—and listen to uh, some music. You know, there's a little bit of creativity involved, but I like to—like wake up early and get some reading done, and that kind of sets me for the rest of the day. Uh, and yeah, so when I heard that—that you do that with records uh, you know, before starting a record, I just thought that was such a cool—I—I get a lot of real benefit from it because whether I'm reading like—let's say I'm reading like a fiction or like—like a political analysis, there are like aphorisms or like proverbs or like little models and stuff—governing philosophy like distilled into a sentence that are really useful to me like as a writer where I'm trying to distill a bunch of life experience into like—um, a universal kind of sentence. And then—with science, too, it's like networks and concepts is like something—systems really inspire me—like making sure everything lines up and every force that an album measures against each other—my album, *Let the Sun Talk*, it has um, like 14 tracks and two interludes, so like exactly 12 tracks, and I wanted them to all be hands on the clock and like reflect different—so it's like—I really like systems. I really like uh, proverbs. So like my kind of book selection kind of spans all of that—all over the place.
Absolutely. That makes sense.
M. Yeah, mine—I'm more into uh, fiction, and then I'll read some—I'll read some nonfiction, but uh, I'd like to get into more nonfiction stuff and—and biographies and—and whatnot uh, 'cause yeah, my—my bookshelf is mostly older fiction and like—and some contemporary stuff, but a lot of like older like classics and stuff, you know, like I—I went through a big like Russian classic phase, so I was reading a bunch of—
Dostoyevsky.
Yeah, to—Tolstoy and stuff. Um, but uh, I started *The Idiot* my freshman year of college, and it was too dense. I think I'm going to give it another shot, though.
You should.
Yeah, I—uh, I went through—I did—I tried to do a year—like there's this challenge where you read all his work within a year.
That's hard.
I gave up. I got—I got to like June, so I got through like, you know, like five or six books, but I was like, no, this is too dense like for—I need something like to chill out.
I need some snack—
Exactly. Yeah. Um, but uh, what was I going to say? You had—no, we both kind of had a question uh, 'cause we—I got a stack of them—stack of them, but you're my—you're my father.
Um, yeah. Okay, clarify.
I sure hope so. It's not the mailman.
Yeah. And uh, you know, I know it's kind of a weird situation where I'm the one showing you music all the time, but you grew up showing me a lot of stuff. Um, what was the role that—that music played in your household? 'Cause I heard, you know, your father—musician and—was—was he playing records all the time and putting you on the stuff?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. My dad's—my dad's like such a champion. I love to hear that. He's such a champion. But um, one thing about my dad—like sometimes I'm like—'cause my dad is the hip-hop generation. He was born in 1974.
M. You turned 50 when hip-hop turned 50.
You know what I'm saying? So it narrated his childhood, young adolescence.
Exactly.
Um, so his introduction—his introduction of hip-hop to me reflected that. Um, when I was a really small kid, I was listening to really hip-hop that was okay for really small kids, like *I Know I Can* by N.S., *Be Healthy* by Dead Prez, a lot of positive stuff. Yeah. When I was getting a little older and he got tired of listening to that type of stuff all the time—and the Fuji and stuff—then he wanted to go back and listen to his Ghostface Killah, his Mobb Deep, his Nas, and all those things, like—so. And then now like—as he gets into like—he's like, yeah, man, I'm a dad, man—like he's listening to like the new reflective Nas albums, like *Life Is Good*, uh, even like Ghostface. So it's like he definitely laid the foundation for my love for hip-hop, period. As a man, he don't like taking credit for that, though. I be trying to tell him like, I'm just a rapper because of you. He's like, you would have been a rapper anyway, son. Like he be trying—he be trying to be humble to me. I'm like, no, this is—you awesome—this is for you.
Oh, man, I love that. And I love that uh—yeah, my follow-up question was going to be like, are you ever putting—
Your dad is onto some stuff nowadays. Are you sending him like records to listen to? Like saying, "Dad, you got to check this out," or anything like that?
So, so not frequently, but I can tell you my—like, like I told you—my dad, my dad's favorite rapper is Nas. Um, he loves like Capone-N-Noreaga, Warport. Uh, he loves Mob Deep, um, High & Mighty. He loves like a lot of that, like, like the darker, grungier, really lyric stuff. Yeah, you know who I put him onto? That I was like, "Oh yeah, how have I never—" I put him on to M.I.A. Oh, I was like, "Have you heard of M.I.A.?" He's like, "No," and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I got you." Pray for Haiti. I put him on to, uh, Haitian Body Odor.
Okay, yeah. I think he liked—he liked it.
Oh, that's sweet. Yeah, no, that's—that's awesome. I was really proud of that. Yeah, I got—I got to think of something, some—I might—I might send him a Boldy James album. Now, he likes that too. Dang, I—I don't know. I don't be thinking of these things till now, but yeah, I'm definitely going to send him Bodies out. We—oh yeah, no, send him some stuff. I mean, that'd be—that's so cool that he's still—'cause some people—I mean, we talked about this many times—some people will—will, uh, kind of cut off listening to newer music as they get older. It's—it's the magic number is 30. It really is.
Yeah. There's been lots of studies. It's been 30 years. There's been studies. It's not just—no, there's been studies. It's around 30 years of age, and then you start listening to the stuff that you just grew up on.
Yeah, and it happened to me. I was listening to—like I was finished at 30, you know. Also, um, there was—it's also a technological thing, too, 'cause I was talking to my girlfriend about it. She's like really into, like, retro music and like—and I was like, "So what were you listening to in between the decline of CDs and the rise of streaming?" 'Cause you got to think like streaming like Apple Music maybe is like turning 10 years old like in like next year, maybe. So like between the years like 2011, 2012, when I was buying like my final CDs, like new CDs, and like 2016, 2017, between like the—the mass like embrace of streaming platforms, that's like four or five years. Like brand new stars have come, one-hit wonders have gone that never hit the radio, which is like the—the—the other unifying way of like music discovery. So it's like that represented a real stop gap for people because once you got a streaming service, it's like, "Okay, I'm going to digitize everything I listen to now," and now it's the palm of my—so now the convenience for listening to things that you already know is there before like the discovery elements of like these platforms have really been introduced. And so it represented like a real, uh, impediment toward like honest and hopeful music discovery, like even for people who weren't 30, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah. I didn't even think about that because that was the time I had a stack of CDs and then—well, I—we're the same age, so I went through the same thing where I was buying CDs like—I got to experience the tail end of like—and CDs and—and then going on—I probably got your laptop so many viruses trying to—there was—it was—that's what kept—that's what—that's what got us through, and that's what also supported the blog era and like the move to social media as music discovery because for us it was like, "We're going to go download this ZIP file of the new Isaiah Rashad album in 2013 that we heard about on the internet." So then the whole music discovery process moved completely to the internet before it completely dominated everybody's lives.
Yeah, and so then when you're returning to this and you're seeing then, "Oh shoot, I'm behind now, like I don't know," and then—then you don't really hear the lineages developed to be able to appreciate the new sonics and then—is—then you're cooked, you know? 'Cause like if you—like you can't really—you can't really listen to like Playboy Carti before you listen to Future or Young Thug. And so if you never heard them and you never heard the guy before them—to be fair, I—I did do that with you. I put you—we listened to Playboy Carti, and then you didn't really like it, but then we slowly went back and I showed you some—some earlier Future stuff.
Yeah, and now you have a totally different opinion on Playboy Carti. I—you know what? I wasn't ready for—I wasn't ready for "DILATE."
No, no. We did a whole lot of "Red," a whole lot of "Red."
Yes, that's even scarier. Yeah, no, we did a whole lot of "Red" at Christmas, like—like two years ago.
Yeah, when they drive.
Yeah, yeah. It was Christmas, and I was in a Santa suit, and I had the flu.
Oh, Lord. And—and we're—I was trying to just go, but you know, as we've gone along through the whole progression, and um, now I go back—I—I got to say though, I like—I really like Carti's lower tone tonality. Yes, and when he goes back and he goes high, I love that he's going—doing the up and down, and I think that's for me where I gravitated.
Yeah, it was—it was—it was great. So, but you just weren't ready at the time for that 'cause you hadn't heard stuff—anything to build up to that point.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Well, the first—the first that blew my mind—we—we went to the beach one day. We were there all day. We sat out on the deck, and uh, Connor pulls out this album. We light some candles, and this is early on in the channel, early on in the channel, and I literally was—this is what hip-hop is, and I was so bloody blown away. I was—I could not comprehend how good it was.
Now, was it "To Pimp a Butterfly"?
Oh yeah, that's—that's my favorite rap album ever. It's—but it works the same way going backwards, too, where like, all right, if I listen to MF DOOM and then I listen to Biggie, then I listen to Big Daddy Kane, I can love Rakim and LL Cool J from a much fuller place than if I jump straight from listening to Snap and Roll, uh, Young Joc, Lil Wayne to going straight to Rakim, you know? It's like the steps in the lineage, and we kind of been doing that on the channel, too, uh—and yeah, we've been—yeah, yeah, like going backwards, uh, going backwards. Yeah, and like since that Kendrick video, which was like—I think that was like our fifth video, maybe sixth video, and uh, that was your first, uh, hip-hop record that we—you'd ever listen to, I think.
"Butterfly."
Yeah, from top to bottom. Like I grew up—I—I did hear like, you know, LL Cool J and stuff—the singles and stuff like that, DMC, Run-DMC stuff. I grew up, but I didn't really immerse myself in it. Then I heard that, and I heard the jazz component of it.
Oh man, you're so lucky. I would give anything for—my ears were completely green, and it was just like, "What is going on here?" That—that was like—that was a treat and a half, man. The second song on there is like—for free, Jesu freaked out.
Yeah, that's crazy. Like, oh man, that's a blessing.
Yeah, that's great. You know, that my question's out of there now. So that was—was that one of your questions?
Yeah, you took mine. Oh, sorry. Anyway, you—what other—what other questions you got on there? Okay, I got, uh, regarding the writing process. Yes. Okay, lyrics or instrumental first? And that's a—I asked Danny Brown this, I think I did, and uh—so you start with the lyrics first and then—and sort of find an instrumental, finds the instrumental, or start with an instrumental, a track, and that inspires you to go somewhere deeper lyrically, or—or does it always change?
I'm a scientist, so, uh, function defines form, so—and like the hypothesis determined the method. You dig what I'm saying? So like for this one, I was really trying to capture like real ephemerality, like spontaneity, like really give a day-to-day account of certain journeys that I was on as a person. So for this one, it was like—arrive to the studio, hear the instrumental, begin writing pretty immediately, make the song into its completion that day. Yeah, and that made it like really, um—so finished in the day.
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah. Make like really like well-formed and like honest snapshots in the past, especially when I felt a little bit more nervous about like being away for longer, and I wanted to like really hone in and make sure as a writer, I wanted to show off my full bag of tricks or like all the tools in my cabin. I would go writing first, but yeah, it depends. I don't really know how I'm going to approach the next one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Usually, but now I kind of dig writing after the instrumental, like in the studio, because I'm faster. Yeah, and it also brings—it makes me more mercurial, like I got to reach for like different parts of my brain quickly, and then I grab like more interesting things than I would if—if I was like sat down and studied. So it's like with—with more—more confidence you have—like you have more confidence now going into the studio and you're able to do that, whereas before maybe, uh, you know, less confidence going into the studio, so you'd pre—or just work on the stuff beforehand.
Yeah, I had to build the practice of making the song that was in front of me, whether that would be my favorite song I ever made or least favorite, and that just made me a more productive artist because before, like, I'd go into studio, feel—I can feel in my body like what I'm going to make, and if that's like not my favorite way to feel, I'd be like frustrated. It's like, "Oh, I need to just take the beat home," and then I'm procrastinating, and it takes a long time to get through an idea that it's probably going to go in a rubbish pile anyway. Yeah, but now it's like, "Let's make the song and say the thing. If it goes in a rubbish pile, it goes there, but like once it is there, now my hands are open to receive the next thing."
So that's a great way of thinking.
Yeah, that is—that's fantastic, you know. Yeah, I was going to ask you also when—when you go in and it's like—if you go in with the—with the—with the beat already there and you're going in for the day, right, um, do you find that just going off—like writing and just—you have more flexibility going off the cuff and sort of just—you know what I mean? I'm sort of—I—I write, so I sit there and I sit—I go right off the cuff. I don't really think super deeply about it, so there—I find there's a little bit more creativity for me doing free form, like just letting it out, you know?
You—yeah, I don't really punch in, but my writing style these days resembles punching in, yeah, where I say the thing out loud and then I record it into writing, and I—like I feel it, and then I write it. Yeah, not—I write it and then I feel it. I used to do it like when I was a weaker writer and like a weaker artist. I used to write it and then have to figure out how to feel it. Yeah, but now I kind of—I know my way around my voice and around an idea to be able to like, "Okay, I'm trying to hit this bullseye, so I'm going to throw a whole bunch of darts, and I get one bullseye, cool, on to the next dartboard," and that's how I go line by line.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Do you—um, do you write on tour at all when you're—uh, not this tour?
Not this tour, no. But I do—I mean, I've written some of my best—was that one of your questions? Sorry, I'm—I'm just letting it flow naturally, and that question comes to my head. I—I'm sorry, I'm stealing your questions. Come on, man. The window, but—uh—you—some—you want to ask the question? You're—no, no, go ahead, say it. No, you already got it. Ask them. No, on this tour—are you going to edit this out? Yeah, okay. On this tour, do you find yourself, uh, writing on this tour at all?
Um, not as much as I would like. A lot of my favorite songs ever, I've written on tour, but um, this tour, man, we just—this is our first time going on tour directly after releasing an album, so like we didn't really like have a whole bunch of time to like take in that this is out or enjoy, 'cause like we basically immediately planned for being on the road. Like our promotion and touring of this album and working toward the next album are all kind of simultaneous processes. So me as a writer, in the midst of like, you know, I'm turning 25, I'm purchasing a home right now, like I'm going to close when I get back home.
Well, congrats.
Yeah, I'm doing all—I'm doing a whole bunch of stuff. I want—so as a writer, I haven't really been—I haven't really gotten the opportunity to like have the peace to do it, but I do know that the next thing I write—like I—I do write. I write probably like a line a day, like out of a cool. So there is—you do.
Yeah, I probably write something every day, but like in terms of like really sitting down, focus, and crafting a verse or crafting a song, I haven't gotten a chance, but I know it's going to be really good when I—when you—when you—when it's all done and said and done. So with you—uh, you know, starting the tour right around the same time as, uh, dropping the album, uh, that makes me wonder like how was the—the setlist? Has the setlist had some changes? Like are you—like, 'cause usually if you drop an album, then you tour like a year later, you know what—you know the fans want to hear, you know which songs are—are doing better than others. Have you had to like adjust the setlist along on the tour, or you kind of just stick with it?
The blessing part for me is I make like pretty short albums, so you can kind of run through a lot of—yeah, so I kind of do—so I did this like—this for the last tour for "Laughing So Hard It Hurts," as well. I run through the whole album in order.
Oh, sweet.
And then I do like four from this album, four from this album, four from that album.
Oh, that's—that's sick. Yeah, I haven't had the chance to see you—see you live, uh, yet, 'cause I don't—I don't think you've—have you been—is your first time in Vancouver?
First time.
Yeah, yeah. No, so I'm excited. Uh, the—the venue you're at is, uh, the—yeah, the Commodore Ballroom, which is—is not—it's a pretty good venue. I like—have you seen the—never?
No.
Yeah, it's—it's—it's flanked with a—it's a straight—straight room. You'll be at the end, and then it's flanked by, um, a balcony, upward balcony, so people are looking down stage. It's really nice. 19-plus though. I feel bad for, uh, some of—
Oh, is it really? Yeah, 'cause I mean, you probably got fans that are like, you know, really sad. Is there somewh—we got to talk off—off camera. I got to figure that out for them. But is y'all drinking age 19 or something? Why is that?
Here, it's 19. Some other provinces in Canada, it's 18, but uh, yeah, US 21, right?
Yeah, 21. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, um, but uh, yeah, with—with, um, touring—another question I had, uh, I don't know if you got it there—
No, I just wanted to ask, uh, you know, you said you don't, uh, write too much on tour, but do you take in, uh, a lot of inspiration just from different cities that you're in?
Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. I—I'm like a music listener like—with—was that one of your questions? I have—I have a really—I have a really regional music taste, like—so I might get into like how people in—like I'm—I'm really deep into like local scenes. So like I have a favorite L.A. rapper, I have a favorite Texas rapper, I have a favorite Florida rapper, favorite Atlanta, Detroit, yeah, New York, um, so I get really regional in my taste, and so as a result of mixing it up so much—like flow-wise and even like approaches to writing—I take a lot of inspiration because I also be listening to a lot of the music from the cities when I'm in the cities.
Yeah, I do that a lot when I'm traveling, too. Like I—I notice I'll find myself listening to—yeah, spec—if I'm in New York, I'm—I'm listening to like Jay-Z and—and Nas, and that really—I'm not listening to anything West Coast or anything like that, you know, um, never been down to L.A. or anything like that. But uh, when I go to Seattle, I'll like put on like some—some grunge music and stuff, you know? Like I kind of—whatever city I'm in, it feels like almost like I have to—it's like a duty, like I—I will be disrespecting the city if I'm not. And then also you—like, "Oh, this is why this sounds like this." Exactly. You see the city, you're walking around, you're like, "I get it. You—exactly. I get why the music turned out this way."
Um, no, yeah, sorry for stealing so many of your—
No, it's okay. It's a—it's a—it's a great—mon—but you know what, that's exactly—you—we didn't even talk about this, so you were just jumping in. Um, I just—this is one for me. I'm a guy with high anxiety, right?
Yes.
I don't like traveling very much, but while you—while you're on the road, you have some comfort things that keep you grounded and sort of keep you in the zone and keep you—you know—
Yeah, I think definitely calling back home to people, that's a huge one.
Te—yeah, yeah. Uh, being with your—obviously my friends, your friends, right? That's huge. Like I was telling—I was telling Connor when I was getting off the Sprinter, I'm like, "Dang, this is my first time like being away from them like on the whole tour basically, right?"
Yeah, yeah. Like—like I'll be in my room and they'll be in their other—but like completely separate places. I don't think I've done that at all.
Yeah, except for the first night, we all staying separate places. That's crazy. So it—it kind of—I was like, "Oh, I kind of wanted to cry a little bit." Separation anxiety for real because like—yeah, we made a little family. We got a little like inside jokes and little shared experiences and stuff that—that's something that you're going to carry with you like your whole life.
Yeah, amazing. I love that. An amazing feeling, right? Uh, being in—heard neuroscience, right? You—right?
Yeah.
Um, I wanted to ask a question about frisson and—and chills, um, and I know that comes from—I've—I'm always—I get very emotional at shows. I get chicken skin or frisson—whatever you want to call it.
Goosebumps.
Goosebumps. All that. Goosebumps is the most like—yeah. But the French term is frisson, right? Is it—that's hard—yeah, frisson. FR—um, do you get that at—at—at shows? Like do—do—do you feel that? I know that's—it's different for everybody. Some—some—some people don't get it. Some people don't get that weird—my first night of tour, definitely. Yeah, and I also cried. I never cried on stage before—like this tour.
This tour. Yeah, this tour. Yeah, I—I cried pretty bad first—for show.
Yeah, the first show. Oh yeah, like my mom was there, my little brother and my dad and like—where was the show? It was in New York. Like my family traveled up to see it and stuff.
Oh, wow.
And it was just like—hi—I had this song that's like just about being grateful for my family and like whatever—like testimony or whatever—and like when I had—when I played that one, it was just like—
Is that where you cried?
Yeah, I just got shivers listening to you. Yeah, I cried really bad, man. It was like—sometimes—well, every night on tour, and I don't think it's like necessarily a physical thing, but it's like being awash with emotion. Like I think something very underrated that feels like cliché, but it's never been a cliché for me.
Like people be like, "Why would you?" Changed my life, my view, saved my life. Like I just got goosebumps, but um, I always say like, you know, "You changed my life," like, like where people say like, "I don't know where I would be without your music." It's like, "I don't know where I would be." It goes both ways; it goes both ways. And then also, like even like people responding to it in such heart-oriented ways continues to, like, reinforce the artistic direction I go and the bravery to do so. Yeah, you, you know, if who's to say if like none of this was felt by anybody, if industry pressures would push me down another path, or just discouragement or lack of confidence in being vulnerable and being honest, how it would turn out. So it's like where music is the thing I build my life around, the people who share this with me, my friends, my supporters—um, they co-write the story with me in a way.
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's beautiful, man. Oh my God. And I think also, I, I think that's I also allow that because I remain at I level the entire time. It's definitely optional. Like I don't see how people get jaded toward love, but I guess people do, or whatever, or people have bad experiences, but like just continuing to, like, humanize the audience, humanize myself. There, there's no star and there's no fan; it's just people. That makes it where like the impact on me from them and the impact on them from me is like really felt, you know?
I just got shivers again when you just said that. Yeah, that, that like that is such like that I haven't heard anybody say that. Like, it's just you look like you're about to cry. I know. I know. Like, really like and that, that you, you get that like how important that is. Like, we have, we, you know, a lot of episodes Connor and I open up about our, our anxiety and the stuff we, our struggles and our struggles with anxiety. We try to be pretty open; we're very open with it. And, and we get a lot of messages, and I pinned them on my wall here, and um, people open up from all over the world and send emails, and and ever since day one, um, I, I respond to every single one. Yes, because we wouldn't have a channel if you guys didn't watch, literally. And it's, and and I say, I always say it's a two-way street. Like we're talking about our mental health, and you guys are, and people are are sending in these very personal stories to us.
Yeah, being very, very open about stuff. Some of them are, yeah, some of them are heart-wrenching; they're really heart-wrenching. And, and, and we, we respond; we build this, this community and and talk about mental health and, and, and it's just, but hearing you say that from an artist perspective of how they're the fan, and you know, I mean, just it's so that was beautiful. It's reassuring. It is, it is, it is. I think the, the reason that, that, that, that blessing is so able to be received by us is because we took the risk on not being preemptively paranoid. I think, like, you know, especially from the outside perspective, people might tell you like, "Oh, be careful," you know, "the internet's weird," or, you know, "people are strange," but it's like I kind of, I'm, it's, it's, it's an abandon about me. I kind of feel like nobody can't hurt me. Yeah, like I just feel like that, I, it's, it's a dumb way to feel; it's like a young man's way of thinking, but I really feel that way. Like I feel like by, like, bearing my heart, and if I'm telling the truth, yeah, nobody can hurt me with the truth. Yeah, 'cause I have to live. Put yourself out there, you're, yeah. And, um, that didn't feel risky to me, and because I was able to, like, push through that wall, I've been able to, like, AC, like if you, if you hold yourself on a pedestal, then you're somebody, someone has to throw a rock at.
Yes. Yeah. I never wanted to be that. The fear of being, having rocks thrown at you makes people put themselves on a pedestal, but that's the only thing that makes people throw rocks at you. Yes. Yeah, yeah. They don't see you as a guy, a dude, a person. Yeah, they see you as a symbol, an object, an animal. You know, you humanize yourself by humanizing the audience. Beautifully said. What you got any other uh, questions before we do the final like part of the episode? I don't want to take too much of your time. Um, um, I just want to say "The Closer" on the album. Yes, this is a production, more of a production question, but yeah, kicking in the drums at the two-minute mark. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, uh, I, I can't explain what it did for me to close the album and then having the electric guitar on there. I think it was a full circle. I think the having the guitar on there and kicking the drums in at the two minutes. Come on, what? But, but how did that come about? 'Cause I felt like we, when we started, and then that really, really finished it off in a way of saying, "This is me, and I'm moving on to somewhere." Yes. Did, is that, was that 'cause we went so deep and so dark that like, but like one thing I always say about this album, this album doesn't kiss its own ass, but the album also doesn't feel sorry for itself. So that song was really important in terms of like, yeah, like, "I'm not taking you to the dark; I'm taking you through the dark and alongside the dark." And it was really important that like we have a flourish, a bacchanal, like a freaking wedding reception, a freaking like cookout after the funeral at the end, end of all of that and like to center, like it's not like, like one thing we talk about, SE butterfly, one interesting thing that I just realized about SE butterflies sequence and when I was listening to it on, on the tour bus like last week is that you and All Right are back to back.
Yes. Yeah. And I understand why he did that, but I didn't want to do that. Well, no, he, I actually did the exact same thing. Um, so one of the last things he said on you is he says, "I'm [ __ ] up, but I ain't as [ __ ] up as you." One of the first lines on All Right is, "I'm [ __ ] up, homie; you [ __ ] up, but if God got us, then we going to be all right." And so that was the thing, the difference between "I'm [ __ ] up, but I'm not as [ __ ] up as you" is like, "God got us." So I wanted to center like that final flourish around that spiritual note, um, that is informing the optimism. I didn't want to give an empty optimism like after all of that, like convoluted nihilism. So, uh, yeah, it, and then the drums to your point and the electric guitar was kind of about like, I, I made a few songs like that during the production of this album where like I go drumless for like the majority, and then we come in at the end, and that's like basically like, um, if you like, I was raised like in black and I'm from South, so my family's like, bad, this Methodist Zion, you know, Amion and stuff. So when the, like at the end of the sermon, the preacher like starts, he starts going crazy, and they do the organ stabs, and then the B, then the drums coming.
Yeah. And it was kind of like that, kind of. Yeah. Oh, that's CU. You could feel it, Bill, like the two-minute mark, it was going, and you're so, you're so immersed into the voice, and it's meditative through the last few songs to build up, like, like where you're kind of entranced, and then you're like, "Oh my God," and then it's over. Yeah, like, "Oh, like holy [ __ ] what was that?" Yeah, what happened? Yeah, you're, you're expent; you're like, yeah, yeah, "I'm ready to sleep." Exactly. It's, you know what? It's absolutely beautiful album, and you, you know what? I, for me, it's your, my first listen to, to you as an artist, and I have, I have to go back and listen to all the rest of the albums, 'cause it's like it was just, it's such a, a pleasure sitting talking with you today and and chatting. Yeah. So, so we can, uh, we can end the episode off. We, we got some stuff for you because we do this with, uh, you know, with, uh, every—Are you lying? No, no, I'm not lying. We got some stuff for you. Um, we do this at every, uh, podcast episode, but we do know that it's your birthday coming up, so we got a little bit extra stuff here.
Yeah. Okay. So let's, we'll start off with this is because your first time in Vancouver. I know you in Canada recently. You up on, like, was it Toronto? The other side? Other side. Um, no, we got a couple of Canadian things, uh, so I'm going to hide this one first, but which one? Let, let's bring out the, yeah, this okay, this one first. I feel like this is gonna make me cry. Bro, don't cry. No, please. This is like a, a touch of Canada but mixed with, with you, with you, uh, you'll see what we mean when we talk about it. Okay, okay, okay. I'm like, oh my God, I don't know if, if you'll, if you use this, if you like this, but you can just have it. Um, hush. Oh, this a Hurricane Jersey? Yeah, Carolina. Oh, it's like the hockey side, the Canada. I'm sorry. Oh, okay. And, and can we say we went out of, we [ __ ] went everywhere trying to find somebody to put your name on it, to put your name on the back? I'm going to take it to them all; don't worry about it. Can, 'cause we couldn't, everyone would do it, but they said, yeah, four to six weeks, and we were like, "I'm going to take this to tomorrow. Can we just get it done today?" Like, yeah, we can. Yeah, we're going to figure this out. Prob, aome, that's great. Oh, man, bro, let me tell you something. Everybody used to had these when I was coming up, like, or used to have, like, you want to know some a weird piece of Carolina Hurricanes paraphernalia? Let's hear it. They used to have branded basketball hoops. Really? What? Yeah. And a lot of like my friends, like on the street and stuff, had it, and I never really knew what the logo was till I hit like fourth grade. I like Google, "What is this?" And it was the Hurricanes. And now I have, I've been to a Hurricanes game. Have you? Yeah, yeah. Yes, like, yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, this is phenomenal. And I don't know if you know, uh, much about the jerseys, but, uh, I went and got one that is a couple years old, 'cause they switched from, uh, Adidas to the Fanatics. Oh, gross. So I went and got one that's Adidas still, uh, 'cause I was like, "I'm not giving you a Fanatics jersey." Yeah, please, no thank you. This is incredible. This year, I'm going to wear this. Like, this is for you guys, could all your whole, the gang, the whole gang. And I'm pretty sure you guys, I don't know if you get it on the, but these are exclusive to Canada, right? These are only available in Canada. We got the ketchup chips and then the all dressed. Hey, let me tell y'all something. Hey, shout out to, shout out to the home girl Squid Man, my, my home girl DJ Killer Squid. Yeah, she lives in Detroit, right? Yeah, she regularly crosses the Canadian border to buy your ketchup. Really? Did y'all know y'all ketchup is different? Yeah, she swears by it, and I, in the all dressed. Yeah, we done had this in the green room one time. I ain't tasted it though, but we're gonna run this up. So what, so what is, what is, like, that's got everything on it? Yeah, like garlic, peppers, whole bunch of spices and stuff and flavors, seasoned. Yeah, yeah. And then the ketchup is, uh, is a Canadian classic. I mean, yeah. I'm, I'm skeptical, but I'mma give it a try. Give it a try. Give it a, you want to give it a try? Should we do it? Give, give it a try. Give try now. We got water if you want to rinse your mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give, you know what, give it a rating. Like, all right, we're doing a live tasting. Live. Well, here it goes. Okay, you got M from mayor ketchup flavor chip. I know you got some chips down there, some sun chips, right? Yeah, we're going to see what this thing's talking about. Yeah. All right, that's kind of fire. Not bad, right? Well, that's kind of fire. Yeah, like, like if I dip that in, like, some hot sauce, yeah, or something like that in the country, we like take a bag of chips and dump a bunch of hot sauce and shake it up. No, this is serious, actually. Okay, we got one more thing for you. I got to grab it. Grab it. It's easier for, yeah, I can't believe this [ __ ] Z. It's the final gift. Yeah, in here. Wait, wait, wait, man. Y'all playing too much. On here, man. Hold on. Put the headphones on. So this is very small, and uh, you could share it with, with your, you know, family on the bus if you want, but uh, this is, it's funny because it's very small, and then I asked for something custom with this, but you'll see what I mean. It didn't work out the way we were hoping, but it's, uh, we know your birthday is coming up. Oh, so God, we got you a, a red velvet cake. Red velvet cake. You can't see the red velvet cake because the thing takes up so much of the space. It's just, but it's, it's a, it's an absolutely delicious cake under the, it says Maui, but if you, if you look under, you can see the cakes, like it's a smaller piece of cake, but, uh, yeah, we're going to light a candle, but we're like, that might be too hard to do with theard and stuff. Let's keep it safe. I want to say Connor, Kevin G, I don't even, I'm like speechless. This has been like, I don't want to start crying. This has been such a great experience, man. And then, like, I'm going to go call my dad and stuff, man. Like, I, I really needed this today. Hey, call, call your dad and put him on some records. Put on that Bally James, man. No [ __ ] man. Like, I don't want to start crying out here, but for real, man, like I'm on a road, bro. I have been away from my family for like a month, bro. Yeah, no, we, I mean, we appreciate you coming through to our, our house, you know, like, uh, we do have lasagna upstairs for if you guys are hungry. My wife's Italian. If you want some food or something like that, it'll take me no time to heat it up. Okay, I don't eat beef. No, it's, it's ground turkey. Yeah. Oh, I do want it. Okay, okay. We can get some. Do you want me to get some going after, after we're done? Yeah, after we're done, after we're done, we get some for you guys to go if you want. Oh my God. But, uh, I'm sorry. No, don't, don't be sorry. We like, honestly, thank you for coming through, um, because we just reached out over Twitter, uh, and I'm going to keep calling it Twitter, uh, and, uh, yeah, no, I've been, I've been following your career for, for a bit now, and then I saw that this is your first time in Vancouver, so I, I reached out hoping, you know, you'd be into coming on the show. I'm so happy you did, um, and we'd love to have you back anytime you're in Vancouver. Yeah, man, come to the show, man. Oh, we are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got tickets, and even if you're not, uh, touring in Vancouver or if you're not doing a show here, feel free to stop by. We'll cook you some food. Um, bring everybody. Yeah, girl, turkey, man. But, uh, we'll wrap the, we'll wrap the episode off here. Um, stream the new record, and you're on tour for how much longer? You still got a lot? Shadow box tour, man. I'm going to be on the road till like December. Yeah. So grab tickets if, if you're, if it's in a city near you. I'll probably put a graphic up on the screen, uh, it's, there's still some tickets available, right? It's not all sold out or anything yet. No, no, it's plenty of tickets, like, good. Okay, okay. Go see him live on tour, uh, stream the album, uh, it's not available on vinyl yet, right? But it will be. It will be, will be. So keep an eye out because I'm going to be getting that on vinyl, uh, it's going into my collection, uh, and, uh, yeah, take care, everybody. Take care. Much love, much love everybody. Peace.