Van Hunt

[0] Hello, welcome to the armchair expert.

[1] I'm your host, Dax Shepard.

[2] Today I'm going to speak with a musician named Van Hunt.

[3] I was deeply, deeply, deeply obsessed with Van Hunt around 2005 and 6 and onward.

[4] I've not ever stopped listening to him.

[5] In fact, my four -year -old daughter's favorite songs is one of his being a girl.

[6] And I talk about him so frequently, and I gifted Monica some of his music for Christmas and then she and Rob my other producer went behind me back and got a hold of him and as a surprise to me they brought him in and it was a very very very joyful experience to speak to someone who I have admired and enjoyed and whose music has brought so much color to my life over the last 12 years so please enjoy Van Hunt.

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[10] He's an armchair expert.

[11] He's an upchair.

[12] Are you ready?

[13] Van Hunt.

[14] Welcome to Armchair Expert.

[15] I'm so excited you came.

[16] We have no, you're the first person all I've interviewed that we have zero connection.

[17] We've never met.

[18] I mean, I've met you.

[19] You don't know that.

[20] That'll come out later.

[21] But we don't, I know nothing about you.

[22] For me, this is my first blind date.

[23] And I'm very pumped about it.

[24] Well, the blind date success ratio is about even with the wedding marriage.

[25] Yeah, yeah.

[26] I think you're right.

[27] You got a 50, 50 chance.

[28] But my history with you is, I guess in maybe two, when did your self -titled come out of 05, 2005?

[29] Yeah, 0 -4.

[30] Oh, 4.

[31] Yeah.

[32] So in 2004, you had a couple songs, and as luck would have it, I had at that time had a car that had XM radio.

[33] So I was listening to stations where you got different stuff, you know.

[34] And so on one of like either heart and soul or either 48, 49, 50 in the XM world, that's where all the R &B is.

[35] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[36] Yeah.

[37] They would play dust a ton.

[38] And I fell in love with that song, didn't know what on earth you were saying when I eventually read the lyrics.

[39] I was like, oh, I was not hearing that at all.

[40] And then they also played Seconds of Pleasure a lot.

[41] And then I got that album.

[42] And then I just became a Van Hunt.

[43] Oh, man. Obsessed Van Hunt.

[44] I bet I'd listen to that.

[45] And then Jungle, I'm so bad with names and everything.

[46] You'll have to excuse my.

[47] Jungle's better, though.

[48] You like, you should have just been Jungle on the Jungle floor.

[49] Yeah.

[50] And those, for me, I just, as a listener, I don't know if it really was at the same time, but I think the first John Legend album I got was around that same time, too, right?

[51] Yeah.

[52] So those two John Legends first, or whatever ordinary people was on.

[53] Yeah.

[54] That and Van Hunt were just back and forth, back and forth and back and forth.

[55] Oh, wow.

[56] Yeah.

[57] Anyways, I'm a huge fan.

[58] I've seen you live.

[59] Oh, wow.

[60] Really?

[61] Yeah.

[62] And I have, I'm always talking to Monica and Rob about, in fact, this year for Christmas, I gifted Monica about five of your songs.

[63] And I just happened to talk about you a lot And then they went behind my back And asked you to do it Anyways, long -winded way to say I'm so excited you're here Man, I had no idea It was a surprise You actually told me that Mm -hmm, yeah We didn't want to scare you off Oh, our super fandom Yeah, yeah, yeah This is a more of it This is a little dangerous for you Yeah, my fandom's a little dangerous But we're both from the Midwest Yeah You're from Dayton, Ohio Yeah, absolutely Right off I -75, right?

[64] It is.

[65] That's right.

[66] I've driven through there a billion times on my way down to Florida from Michigan.

[67] Yeah.

[68] It's called Little Detroit.

[69] Oh, it is?

[70] Yeah.

[71] Oh, I didn't know that.

[72] The manufacturing commonalities, I guess.

[73] Oh, uh -huh.

[74] And similarly, too, I think that Dayton has a huge population of folks that came up from Kentucky and stuff for that industrial work, right?

[75] In Mississippi.

[76] Yeah.

[77] So my grandparents are both, the ones I identify most, but they were both from Kentucky and came up for Wonderbread Bakery and Kraft Cheese and then they stayed So do you are your folks Do they have any history in the South?

[78] Well, both my grandparents were from Mount Sterling, Kentucky.

[79] Oh, there you go.

[80] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[81] And the other side, they're from Mississippi, Greenville, Mississippi.

[82] And what maybe, I've read this in two different books.

[83] One in a Malcolm Gladwell book that talks about the culture of pride.

[84] Yeah.

[85] Looking at all these longstanding family wars like the Hatfields and McCoys, right?

[86] And how many thousands of people were killed in Appalachia from like family feuds?

[87] And he attempted to explain that.

[88] And his conclusion was that most of those people, they all came from Ireland and Scotland.

[89] That's who kind of settled that area, Appalachia.

[90] and that all their their tradition was herding and if you're a herder you got to fucking stand your ground like your perimeter's unknown and you're mixing with other herds and dudes there got to fucking kill each other to survive and then they brought that what they label the culture of pride to Kentucky and then they brought it to Dayton Ohio I'm assuming because they certainly brought it up to milford Michigan where guys would they're willing to die over something pretty insignificant yeah Would you say your neighbors were like that in Dayton?

[91] Well, absolutely.

[92] And I always grew up feeling like you had to be sort of a rock in the string, you know, and always remain the same no matter what was coming at you.

[93] Even if you had to make, you know, minor shape shifts in order to adapt.

[94] Yeah.

[95] But it was constantly standing your ground.

[96] And in fact, there was no being able to back up.

[97] I remember, you know, my mom pushing me out to fight.

[98] Right.

[99] Yeah, yeah.

[100] As I was running into the house from a fight.

[101] Yeah, of course.

[102] Yeah.

[103] My mom was very similar.

[104] You were raised by a single mother.

[105] Yeah.

[106] I too was raised by a single mother.

[107] And I think, and she had two boys.

[108] My brother and I, eventually I had a little sister as well.

[109] But, yeah, I think the pressure on her to, like, I got to get these boys out of this house.

[110] Yeah.

[111] So they can protect themselves.

[112] Yeah.

[113] She was, yeah, abnormally pro fighting.

[114] Which is, I think, unique.

[115] In fact, I think the story my mom tells that she relishes the very most is my brother, all through kindergarten and first grade, he got beat up almost daily by this kid that was at his bus stop.

[116] They would get off of the bus.

[117] My brother would be the first to get home and he would kick my brother's ass in the front yard.

[118] And it drove my mom insane.

[119] Oh, man. One day, my mom had put me in the front yard and I was in a little swing.

[120] He's five years older than me. And this bully stopped and screamed in my face.

[121] and I started crying, and my brother beat the fuck out of it.

[122] Like my mom had to come out and pull them off the top.

[123] And it's my mom's more proud of that than like graduating from college or any accomplishment we've ever had.

[124] I think that's the highlight for her.

[125] That really got passed down to you as well.

[126] You feel the same way.

[127] Yeah.

[128] Do you have any kids?

[129] Yeah.

[130] You do.

[131] How many?

[132] I just one.

[133] Just one.

[134] Boy or a girl?

[135] He's a boy, teenager.

[136] Oh, he's a teenager.

[137] Yeah.

[138] Yeah.

[139] So now that you, like, you're, you're artistic.

[140] You move to California.

[141] California.

[142] You've made a lot of declarations that you're not the dude who's probably going to tell his kid to get out there and fight.

[143] Do you wrestle with that?

[144] No, not at all because the first time he was hit in his face in class, he walked away.

[145] And I told him what a big mistake I thought that was just for his future.

[146] Yes.

[147] Because the first place that a guy looking for a quick victory will go to now is you.

[148] Uh -huh.

[149] Right.

[150] So you might want to stand your ground.

[151] Is he artistic and thoughtful like you?

[152] Or is he a lughead?

[153] He's certainly thoughtful.

[154] I wouldn't say he's artistic.

[155] I didn't press that push that on to him.

[156] He's much more of a hit into politics.

[157] Oh, he is?

[158] You probably couldn't have seen that coming.

[159] I did not see that.

[160] So, but how old were you when your parents got divorced?

[161] Oh, well, two.

[162] Two.

[163] I was very young.

[164] I was three.

[165] Yeah.

[166] So I'm right there with you.

[167] And then you'd go see dad on the weekends.

[168] Well, yeah, well, you know, how dads are, 1972, three.

[169] Uh -huh.

[170] So it was.

[171] When he could get around to it.

[172] Yeah, when he could get around to it.

[173] Uh -huh.

[174] So I was reading about you last night, and I was like, oh, there's a lot of similarities here.

[175] So I was three.

[176] And my dad eventually got sober.

[177] He died 25 years sober, but he fucking partied balls.

[178] Yeah.

[179] We lived in this one -bedroom apartment.

[180] drove a chivet and he kept our family house and had a corvette and just partied and he would you know he was supposed to come every other weekend and then half of those weekends we went straight to my grandparents house and then the weekends we were with him we hung out at this bar the dirty duck yeah and he would like i mean we get there at 10 in the morning they had corner quartered chili dogs so we would just eat chili dogs play pac man my dad would land chicks all day long and then we'd eventually all pile into the corvette and drive back to his house and it'd like snow and we'd end up in a ditch.

[181] You know, it was a lot of shit going on for us.

[182] And I was reading your story.

[183] I was like, oh, I feel like that's a little bit similar.

[184] I'm sure a much different vibe to it all, but, no, it's, but, you know, the outcome was pretty much the same, you know?

[185] Mm -hmm.

[186] And my parents were so young that I really had to kind of adapt to whatever it was they were doing.

[187] Right.

[188] So my mom was much more, responsible, you know, Uh -huh.

[189] But, you know, My dad, though he loved me, you know, you kind of had to just go with whatever he was doing.

[190] And that could be playing basketball to chasing women, to fixing cars.

[191] It didn't matter.

[192] Yeah.

[193] Smoking weed, whatever was happening at that moment, you were just going to be a part of it.

[194] Yeah.

[195] And if you couldn't, you know, he would shove you in a room and close the door.

[196] And then, like, give you a whip and if you looked.

[197] Yeah, I think that's in a lot of parenting books.

[198] That technique.

[199] Doring.

[200] You said in an interview that he was a part -time painter and a pimp.

[201] Did you mean pimp like he just got a lot of ass or pimp like he actually had some gals on rotation?

[202] Well, the way I remember this moment.

[203] It was a critical moment in my career.

[204] I was the first publicity statement.

[205] And I had just written this story.

[206] They were like, just write down some things that, you know, about yourself.

[207] And one of the things I wrote, was my father making fun of him.

[208] I was he was a part -time painter and a part -time pimp.

[209] Okay, okay, okay.

[210] And it's stuck.

[211] Yeah, it didn't come out that way, you know, a part -time painter and a pimp.

[212] Full -time pimp, part -time painter, full -time pimp.

[213] So, but, you know, I used to have all these memories.

[214] Like I said, they, my parents split when I was two, and I just had all these memories of all of these girls in rooms.

[215] Uh -huh.

[216] And one day I just asked him, like, what was happening?

[217] Because I remember you and I remember all these girls.

[218] Yeah.

[219] There's only one situation where that really makes any sense.

[220] He is a dressmaker.

[221] Yeah.

[222] Did it turn out he was a dressmaker?

[223] And he was like, yeah, I dabbled in that.

[224] He's like, you know, I was just trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

[225] Right.

[226] And, you know, I had green eyes and I just tried it.

[227] Did he have green eyes?

[228] Yeah.

[229] Oh, wow.

[230] And you get pretty far on green eyes.

[231] nice, right?

[232] I suppose.

[233] Yeah.

[234] Yeah.

[235] In that community, in that world, I don't know.

[236] Yeah.

[237] And were your friends primarily in similar situations?

[238] I didn't have any friends that I recall, to be honest.

[239] Uh -huh.

[240] My parents' friends were my friends.

[241] If they had kids, I ran with them.

[242] Yeah.

[243] But it was very insular.

[244] Uh -huh.

[245] My experience.

[246] Right.

[247] I moved out of Ohio eventually and then you know, I became friends with like neighborhood.

[248] kids like a regular guy but other than that but like I said my parents was so young they couldn't afford to you know have babysitters right so other than my you know family like my grandmother's kids who are also young yeah yeah I didn't really have any friends but what little I read of your um takeaway from that childhood uh in interviews it seems positive yeah I thought so positive that I made me go like oh I need to because I have similar stories and I kind of I credit a lot of that some of that parenting to the eventual things I had to confront you know but it was fun at the dirty duck like I fucking I did like the dirty duck and also when we went to his house on the weekends he you know he felt guilty because he wasn't crushing as a dad so like we got to order pizza we got to rent movies so there was a ton of good stuff yeah and reading your kind of um take away from the whole thing I thought oh you know I I I need to be careful that I'm not like everything's bad or everything is, you know.

[249] I wouldn't have viewed much of it as bad.

[250] I mean, in a sense that, you know, I didn't have, it certainly weren't advantages where you might see someone else's life as more advantaged.

[251] Uh -huh.

[252] But I didn't recognize that.

[253] It was the only childhood you knew, right?

[254] Yeah.

[255] Yeah, it was normal.

[256] I didn't even care.

[257] It was just every day was a bit of an adventure for me. Uh -huh.

[258] And to, you know, run into a dope house and you're sitting there and, you know, your, your dad's playing whether there's cars or dominoes and, you know, your, your aunt is, you know, running back and forth through the rooms telling you say, hey, don't remember, don't you tell you Uncle Steve I was over here.

[259] Like, okay.

[260] The music running in the background.

[261] Uh -huh.

[262] That was what I remember and the smoke in the room, you know.

[263] Right.

[264] It was all very cinematic.

[265] Yes.

[266] And for, you know, any, all of this happened between, you know, three, four, and up until 14, 15.

[267] Uh -huh.

[268] And those are your most impressionable years for your brain.

[269] Are you seeing violence?

[270] No, there wasn't.

[271] Oh, really?

[272] Oh, that's good.

[273] I'm sure I've probably heard of violence.

[274] Uh -huh.

[275] I was, I never felt.

[276] But guys weren't getting, uh, the guys weren't hammered, getting bent out of shape about the card game and then throwing down or.

[277] Well, there were rumors of that.

[278] Oh, yeah.

[279] you know, somebody broke into so -and -so's game last night, you know, but not, not murders and right, and robberies, not from.

[280] So you weren't scared.

[281] No. Oh, that's good.

[282] And your mom, she was a single mom.

[283] Yeah.

[284] Did you have step -dads?

[285] I had step -dads, yeah.

[286] How'd that go?

[287] It was cool.

[288] I mean, my goodness.

[289] Why do you?

[290] I mean, and then you broke your neck.

[291] How was that?

[292] You know, that was, that was cool.

[293] That was really cool.

[294] That's a great way to look back.

[295] It is.

[296] I don't know if I buy it, but it's really good.

[297] You know, but there's crazy stories because I met with my mom.

[298] She came out here to visit me like two weekends ago.

[299] And I was like, Mom, did your uncle James really die after standing down the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi?

[300] She was like, yeah.

[301] She told me the whole story.

[302] Uh -huh.

[303] It's just little things you hear in the family.

[304] Yeah.

[305] And then I was like, well, like, did my stepbrother have like the biggest cocaine?

[306] Was he involved in the biggest cocaine bus like in day?

[307] in history.

[308] She was like, oh, yeah, that happened.

[309] It's in the newspaper.

[310] You know, it's just little things you hear about.

[311] You know, you don't really put it together until later.

[312] Yeah.

[313] But you were fine.

[314] Personally, I have a terrible authority complex.

[315] Oh, wow.

[316] Just don't.

[317] As soon as I recognize someone's in a position of authority, I'm, I just, it's terrible.

[318] You and Monica don't get along at all.

[319] Yeah, because she's in charge.

[320] Sometimes we don't get along for that reason.

[321] That's true.

[322] but I attribute a lot of it to our house would have this rhythm to it is my brother, my sister and I, life's pretty good, we knew how to, you know, thrive with my mom and then a new dude would enter the scenario and then it was generally going to be how that guy saw the world we were all going to adopt for a little while.

[323] I very much hated that, but you didn't mind that.

[324] Well, I can't say.

[325] Don't fucking bullshit me, man. I can't say that that ever was a problem for me. My mom would set the stage in a relationship early on, and she'd always say, you know, I taught him to speak his mind because it's the only way he's going to protect himself out here.

[326] And so I didn't know this.

[327] She told me this later on.

[328] So when I have run -ins with her boyfriends, they would generally back down.

[329] Oh, really?

[330] Yeah.

[331] Oh.

[332] And so if it was like, I hate the way you wash the car, do it again.

[333] And I was like, fuck you, I'm not doing that.

[334] Right.

[335] They would just go back in the house.

[336] Oh, okay.

[337] It was never like some big standout.

[338] So your mom was strong.

[339] She was very strong.

[340] Yeah, it is presumably still strong.

[341] She didn't lose it along the way.

[342] No. Are you only child?

[343] I was for 10 years.

[344] For 10 years.

[345] Now, did you get into this dynamic at all where your mom kind of makes you her husband while there's no one around?

[346] For sure.

[347] Yeah.

[348] She admits that.

[349] Mm -hmm.

[350] She would tell you in a minute.

[351] that I was essentially my little brother's dad.

[352] Yeah.

[353] And to me, I saw this.

[354] This was definitely harder on my brother than myself because he was older.

[355] But that too compounded the thing when the stepdad did enter the equation or the new boyfriend because it was like, okay, great.

[356] So thank you.

[357] You've been doing a great job being a dad to your brother and like being emotional bedrock for me. But now you're on the bench.

[358] Sure.

[359] Isn't that confusing?

[360] Well, first of all, I can easily adapt.

[361] even to assholes.

[362] I do it in the studio all the time when I'm producing projects because everybody thinks they're a genius.

[363] Yeah, yeah.

[364] So you have to allow them to be a genius in a temporal kind of setting in order to get something done.

[365] Right.

[366] You know that what you're going to do and what you're capable of and that doesn't change just because this guy is really an asshole but he's a genius right now.

[367] Uh -huh.

[368] And so you let that happen and then you swing back around both my parents being Pisces, I imagine helps.

[369] Uh -huh.

[370] I being a Pisces myself, I can remain pretty, pretty cool in those situations and allow them to kind of, uh, twirl themselves into whatever they're going to shape they're going to take.

[371] Yeah.

[372] And then I can do what I need to do.

[373] But that takes a ton of confidence and optimism.

[374] Because at times, I would imagine if you're producing an artist and you're not, you've almost zero control over what's happening, or at least it feels that way.

[375] Yeah.

[376] that would scare me well I don't try and control anything except that we keep all of the good stuff right know what I mean right so you're kind of more there to encourage them to get it all out and then you guys will edit basically later you'll take the the gems out of the mix absolutely no arguments I want all of that oh really yeah you know I feel like nothing's going to happen until somebody tell somebody the truth anyway, you know.

[377] But you've always been an easygoing kid.

[378] Yeah, in the sense that, I mean, I like the way you put it in the sense that confidence allows you to be easygoing.

[379] Like my boxing coach used to always say the least amount of fights are happening inside the gym because everybody knows how to fight.

[380] Oh, right, right, right, yeah, yeah.

[381] Everybody that's fighting moves on the outside and trying to prove something.

[382] Yes.

[383] Yeah.

[384] And what school did you go to?

[385] You went to a public high school in Dayton?

[386] And what was the kind of makeup of that high school?

[387] It was probably 65 % black.

[388] Oh, okay.

[389] Yeah, maybe even 70.

[390] And 35 % is...

[391] Well, I'll say 30 % was white.

[392] And then we had 5 % and...

[393] Probably Persian Jews.

[394] I know that seems strange in Dayton, but there was like an Armenian camp, Persian Jew camp.

[395] Just coming up, it's probably grown since that.

[396] Similarly, where I'm from, there was a gigantic popular, currently still is a huge population on Chaldeans, which almost nobody in the rest of the country knows what Chaldeans are, which are Christian Iraqis.

[397] Yeah.

[398] Kind of like Persian Jews.

[399] Yeah.

[400] I dig it, it goes against what you're expecting.

[401] Okay, so your dad somehow is friends with the drummer of the Ohio players or many of the Ohio players.

[402] No, particularly.

[403] If you don't remember the Ohio players, they're skin tight.

[404] There you do, do, ding, ding, ding, ding, d 'n, skin time.

[405] But they were huge, right?

[406] Yeah.

[407] I mean, I have to imagine they're a huge est in Dayton, Ohio or Ohio.

[408] Well, at the point they came along, yeah, they were the first big success.

[409] So, yeah.

[410] And are they from Dayton specifically?

[411] Yeah, definitely.

[412] Okay.

[413] And by the way, what are you, 50 miles from Cincinnati?

[414] Mm -hmm, 45 minutes.

[415] Okay.

[416] And are you going there at all as a kid?

[417] To Cincinnati?

[418] Yeah.

[419] Is that like we would drive into Detroit?

[420] That was our like, oh, let's go downtown.

[421] To be honest, I drove to Detroit more often.

[422] Oh, you did?

[423] And I did Cincinnati.

[424] Okay.

[425] Yeah.

[426] I feel like that's a real feather in our hat.

[427] So your dad is friends with the, do I have this right?

[428] Your dad's friends with one of the Ohio players.

[429] Yeah, Jimmy Diamond, specifically.

[430] Yes, Jimmy Diamond, which by the way, what a great nickname to have if you're a drummer, Jimmy Diamond.

[431] Yeah, they, their house is, uh, But at each other.

[432] Oh, really?

[433] Backyards.

[434] Yeah.

[435] As children.

[436] Oh, as children.

[437] Yeah.

[438] So they grew up together.

[439] And so you start playing the drums at seven years old?

[440] Somewhere in there.

[441] Mm -hmm.

[442] Yeah.

[443] Who knows what's lower and what's real.

[444] But it's suffice to say when you were young, you start playing the drums.

[445] That's the first instrument?

[446] Yep.

[447] And is that inspired by having met Jimmy Diamond?

[448] Well, it definitely was by my father's stories.

[449] You know, I mean, I'd meet these people, but it was nothing as exciting.

[450] I'd like listening to stories about these people.

[451] That was my big thing.

[452] It's like how it sets up cinematically.

[453] Yeah.

[454] I was really into that.

[455] Yeah.

[456] At a young age, you're romanticizing.

[457] Totally.

[458] Music, music and the whole scene.

[459] Yeah, everything for me was, you know, a kind of a synthesis.

[460] Like, I'd hear it and it just made sense all of a sudden.

[461] Like, if I could hear it in a setting, a story, the color of it, you know.

[462] And then I was inspired.

[463] Uh -huh.

[464] Like, just meeting people didn't, it didn't mean as much.

[465] Right.

[466] Like, if I walked away from here and now, like, I would remember Kirsten's L .A. Dodgers hat.

[467] Okay.

[468] How she got that, what that meant.

[469] Dax's blue shirt.

[470] Uh -huh.

[471] And I, I'd remember.

[472] You'd probably remember more about Kristen than me, if we're being honest.

[473] No. I'm imagining.

[474] I actually knew more about you than I did, Kirsten.

[475] Oh, really?

[476] My assumption was that you had never heard of me when we asked you to do this.

[477] No. I kind of operate with a. a nice point to self -esteem where I just assume there's no way you know who I know.

[478] No, I knew about you primarily because of the commercials, but they were so funny to me. I was like, who are these people?

[479] Right.

[480] I think a lot of people thought that.

[481] Who the fuck are these people?

[482] Get these people out of here.

[483] They're Christmas sweaters.

[484] And so I look back.

[485] And yeah, and if you don't know who we are, the commercial, like, we don't ever say Samsung.

[486] Yeah.

[487] So it would be confusing because.

[488] you'd be like, oh, they're not even talking about the product.

[489] We're just watching these two people live.

[490] They must be some people, right?

[491] Was that the thought process?

[492] That was totally, because I hadn't seen your movies.

[493] I hadn't seen anything.

[494] And then that made me look you up.

[495] Oh.

[496] Yeah, because my girl thought you were to say some other guy.

[497] Zach Raff from Scrubs.

[498] I bet she did.

[499] Some guy with a crooked nose.

[500] Like he doesn't look at.

[501] Oh, and Wilson.

[502] Yeah, yeah.

[503] Oh, that's very compliment.

[504] That is.

[505] I'll say that.

[506] He doesn't look anything like that.

[507] He's great.

[508] I've been accused of sounding like him sometimes in movies and I do an impersonation of him.

[509] I couldn't see that.

[510] Have you ever seen Bottle Rocket?

[511] No. Oh, God.

[512] It's Owen Wilson's first movie and it's the best by far and it's West Anderson's first movie.

[513] And Owen Wilson has a line there and he goes, I don't know how an asshole like mom getting such a great kitchen?

[514] It's good.

[515] It's pretty good, right?

[516] I meant to ask you about groundlings.

[517] Oh, right.

[518] Yeah, that's kind of how I started.

[519] I got here going, oh, I want to do comedy.

[520] I came to do stand -up, and then I was too afraid to do stand -up.

[521] And then I heard, oh, I could do sketch comedy.

[522] And then you're kind of with some people to share the responsibility.

[523] So I auditioned for that and I hadn't acted.

[524] And then I, yeah, I went through that program, which took four or five years.

[525] And then just fell in love with writing and acting and all those things.

[526] Yeah.

[527] Did you take a class at the grounds?

[528] No, it's just, I'm really into the comedy culture.

[529] Oh, you are?

[530] Obviously, you know, Lenny Brew's.

[531] Richard Pryor.

[532] Oh, Richard Pryor is the big fan.

[533] Sunrises and Sets.

[534] And I just love the idea of stand -up.

[535] I love the idea of comedy troops.

[536] You know, there's some weird overlap I've noticed.

[537] So, like, Kanye's obsessed with comedy.

[538] Like, Kanye's always at Largo.

[539] He's friends with the Zs.

[540] There is a weird intertwining or cross -pollination between comedians and people in R &B.

[541] Well, specifically, like, kind of R &B or.

[542] Or, yeah, I don't see like cold play guys at Largo.

[543] You know what I'm saying?

[544] Maybe.

[545] I don't know why that is.

[546] Richard Pryor and Sly were like tight.

[547] They were.

[548] There was a, well, there's a super outlaw nature to both.

[549] Far more in the black community.

[550] Like Richard Pryor is just, he is his punk rock as a man could possibly be.

[551] Yeah.

[552] Because I was obsessed with him.

[553] And I got some of his very early stand -up routines where he was like just at a tiny little club in somewhere in Manhattan.

[554] Yeah.

[555] And he's like, you ever suck a dick?

[556] I suck the dick.

[557] And I'm like, wow, this dude in 1970 is like, it was presumably straight.

[558] It's just starting and set with, I ever suck a dick?

[559] Absolutely.

[560] That's so awesome.

[561] The story about 20 minutes of a set, where he just says nigger, like over and over and over and over again.

[562] Yeah.

[563] He was like, I just wanted to desensitize the word.

[564] Yeah.

[565] And it did not work.

[566] Maybe it's because when stand -up or improv is done amazingly well, there is something musical about it.

[567] Like when there's callbacks and everything, there's something.

[568] Yeah, well, and then think of the tradition of improvisation in jazz, right?

[569] And then that is quite literally what you're doing on that stage too is like, oh, okay, you're going to take it now, now I'll take it.

[570] Yeah.

[571] There is a lot of communication happening.

[572] They're both so alive.

[573] Yeah, they are.

[574] And they weirdly both suffer from the same thing, which is, Monica and I have talked about this because Monica is a UCB person.

[575] They have at times tried to put comedic improv shows on TV and they're terrible.

[576] Because when you're there in person, the stakes of someone failing are so high that it heightens everything.

[577] So if they deliver anything, there's a huge relief and it's really funny.

[578] But something happens when you view it on TV where you go, oh, this was written.

[579] So now the bar is way higher for what a written sketch should be.

[580] And likewise, I think you can go see live jazz and you can, something can happen for 18 minutes.

[581] It just fucking blows your mind.

[582] But if you heard it on an album, it might be substandard.

[583] Yeah, I absolutely agree.

[584] Isn't that weird?

[585] Yeah.

[586] Yeah, like when you're in the room, you're kind of on your toes.

[587] You know, and when you're watching something through a screen, you don't have that.

[588] Yeah, there's no energy to it.

[589] Yeah, there's no fear of they're going to fail because you won't be sharing.

[590] in that with them.

[591] I've heard A &R guys, you know, complain about never being able to capture their favorite bands live on the recording.

[592] Uh -huh.

[593] I think that's the reason.

[594] Well, also recording has evolved quite a bit, right?

[595] Back from when Phil Spector was doing, he had four tracks at his disposal and he's ping ponging and trying to get up to 16, right?

[596] Yep.

[597] So everyone's just forced to play at the same time, right?

[598] Yep.

[599] Yeah.

[600] And now that kind of got really broken up, right?

[601] Yeah.

[602] Is that for better or worse?

[603] What school of thought are you from?

[604] Well, I don't think it matters.

[605] I think the content, unfortunately, has suffered just simply because you don't necessarily see the benefit for your career to work on the craft.

[606] That's why I'm so interested in groundlings as something that still exists as a school that someone can go through and graduate.

[607] Yeah.

[608] In 2018, it's kind of crazy.

[609] Yeah, you're right.

[610] There's nothing like that in music.

[611] Nashville might be the last place where you could actually go and get an education and be taught how to write a song.

[612] Yeah.

[613] Yeah, so you start playing the drums and then shortly thereafter you start playing the bass and keyboards.

[614] Am I correct in that order?

[615] Yeah, I think the saxophone.

[616] Oh, right, saxophone.

[617] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[618] Which, by the way, is one of my big political platform is based solely on that they need to bring sax solos back.

[619] Because there were, I challenged you to find a successful song in the 70s and 80s.

[620] I didn't have a sweet sax solo in them.

[621] And every now and then I'll fucking hear one.

[622] Like, I'll be listening to Steely Dan.

[623] And I almost got to pull over the car and take my pants off.

[624] It's so nasty and delicious.

[625] And then they're gone.

[626] Yeah.

[627] They somehow got cheesy and I'm very upset about that.

[628] Yeah.

[629] In 80s movies, there's no romantic movie where when it's time to get wild.

[630] Yeah.

[631] That fucking sax solo comes out.

[632] And just, that's the.

[633] Do you agree with that at all?

[634] As a previous saxophone player, you feel like it's just what the fuck happened to the saxophone?

[635] Well, someone that was inappropriate sex.

[636] Oh, of course.

[637] That's what's kind of the appeal.

[638] I think it was like fucking nasty.

[639] You need to take a shower after that sax solo.

[640] But I love the, you know, the Ray Charles sex guy.

[641] I think his name was King Louis or something.

[642] That's a good name, King Louis.

[643] You better be able to fucking blow that sacks If your name is King Louis Now everybody welcome to the stage King Louis Huh What the fuck Why are they calling King Louis And Ray played sex too Oh he did Yeah Well that almost makes you wonder If he's really blind Yeah That's too many I mean there are a lot of buttons On that sax's alone right A couple thousand Buttons on that thing We're exposing it here Well you know there is this weird conspiracy theory that Stevie Wonders, not blind.

[644] Have you seen any of this online?

[645] No. Who's saying that?

[646] Go to YouTube and watch in there that people have compiled a couple different moments in his life where he did some uncanny shit.

[647] One is like a, he's walking on a stage and then he somehow a guitar stand falls and he catches it.

[648] Mind you, I don't think he can see.

[649] I'm not at all perpetuating that that Stevie Wander can see, but there is a community of people who think he can see, which is hilarious.

[650] And they have found some clips where it appears he can see.

[651] I think there's evidence for the fact that he's really blind.

[652] Well, did you ever see that movie The Prestige about the magicians?

[653] Yes.

[654] You did, right?

[655] Oh, it's top 10 for me. I can watch that.

[656] Right now, if you go fuck this interview, let's watch Prestige.

[657] I would stand up and put it on.

[658] Yeah, so if you remember one of the magicians, they idolize him because he never broke character.

[659] He lived it on the walk to the theater.

[660] He lived it in his house, right?

[661] So Stevie Wonder would be the ultimate prestige.

[662] Yes.

[663] Even if he wasn't blind, you'd have to respect the commitment to.

[664] And anyway, we got way sidetracked.

[665] So you started playing the saxophone.

[666] And the fact that you said you don't, you didn't have a lot of friends as a kid.

[667] Yeah.

[668] I think that lends itself really nicely to probably sitting in your bedroom and learning something.

[669] Is that what happened?

[670] Absolutely.

[671] Learning instruments.

[672] at least growing up the friends I had who got really proficient at an instrument were folks who did like spending a lot of time in their room by themselves isolating because you you almost got to do that to get great at something don't you yeah I think so and I know you're saying your childhood was absolutely perfect but do you think at all those sessions of learning and practicing was an escape from anything yeah my mom would agree with you that she felt like there was I was escaping.

[673] Music itself wasn't just an escape from the environment that she had helped to create.

[674] I think she feels some guilt about that because you could classify me as probably a recluse.

[675] Okay.

[676] Point in my life.

[677] In general.

[678] Yeah.

[679] But I do think that you need some solitude within which to work and to particularly do the repetitive kind of work that it takes to become good at anything.

[680] Yeah.

[681] And you know what's funny is, I didn't have it with an instrument, but things would get hectic at home.

[682] And I did have this ritual where I would go and I'd get on a 10 speed bike and I'd go up to my elementary school and it was this very, very tight band of sidewalk that went around the entire length of it.

[683] And I would ride this BMX bike as fast as humanly possible in a circle and it took all my concentration not to like crash into the wall.

[684] And I would do that for a couple hours.

[685] And then now all my hobbies are I do motorsports.

[686] So to me, going to the racetrack on a motorcycle is that same exact thing where I have.

[687] have got to focus entirely on that moment or I'm going to crash and there's so much relief in that.

[688] Yeah.

[689] And being prepared for that moment.

[690] It's like improv.

[691] You know, you're constantly practicing to look like you're doing it on the fly.

[692] Yes.

[693] Right.

[694] Yeah.

[695] Yeah.

[696] So you're playing music and now this is just a guess for me because when I would try to encourage people to check you out back in 2004 or five.

[697] To me, I thought you were the closest thing to Prince that I had as a kid.

[698] Did you like Prince?

[699] Did you, did you worship him?

[700] Oh, I loved Prince.

[701] Yeah.

[702] Yeah, yeah.

[703] I mean, he's it, right?

[704] I think Prince is the best recording artist America has produced.

[705] Well, I like that statement.

[706] Overall.

[707] Yeah, that's great.

[708] For all that he's done.

[709] And now that you're old like me, isn't it even doubly mind boggling that he was making those albums as a kid?

[710] I mean, he was so young, right?

[711] Yeah, he was.

[712] I think he started 17.

[713] Yeah.

[714] Well, how old is he in Purple Rain?

[715] Like, he was older than me, so as a kid, I was like, oh, he's an adult.

[716] But now I realize, like, the star of Purple Rain is a child.

[717] Well, 84 was Purple Rain.

[718] So he was 25, 26.

[719] 25.

[720] Yeah.

[721] And he's already written Purple Rain.

[722] Yeah.

[723] It's nuts.

[724] It's intimidating, isn't it?

[725] Makes me feel terrible about myself.

[726] You think about a song like Darlinikia, that's a beautiful, beautifully a rain.

[727] song as nasty and Rachi as beautiful and he wrote that in 24 oh so were you immediate on the prince train did you were you like early in on it yeah that was probably one of my biggest inspirations other than the local groups my father really got me into prince early on uh -huh and uh I used to tell the story all the time about him waking me up in the middle of the night and just like look look look you can be like this you can be like this oh right The back of the album.

[728] So your dad felt like you had some kind of gift.

[729] Yeah, because I was constantly beating on shit.

[730] Uh -huh.

[731] Rhythmic.

[732] Were you singing?

[733] I wasn't singing.

[734] You weren't.

[735] That's scary, right?

[736] Yeah, it was my least favorite thing to do.

[737] Uh -huh.

[738] Even still?

[739] Well, I'm catching up now.

[740] I probably do that more than I do anything else now.

[741] Right.

[742] Yeah, but then I just didn't make sense to me. So the obvious parallels to me about you and Prince are you're both.

[743] whatever you'd call it, multi -musitional.

[744] You play a bunch of different instruments, right?

[745] Yeah.

[746] As did he.

[747] Yeah.

[748] And you guys have a similar singing style, I guess.

[749] But to me, the thing that you guys both have in spades is there's so much sexuality to both of your music.

[750] Would you agree with that?

[751] Yeah.

[752] I appreciate that.

[753] Yeah.

[754] Your shit is super sexy.

[755] It is.

[756] It is, right?

[757] Yeah, like you put it on you feel like you're fucking.

[758] And that's a weird, hard thing to capture.

[759] It's very rare.

[760] It's very visceral, yeah.

[761] It is very visceral.

[762] And I think that for, I feel like it comes from that transition from the sharecropper blues to like blues we all know, like Muddy Waters or Howland Wolf, those guys were trying to be overtly sexual in their music.

[763] And I do think that that was what Prince was about as well, or Al Green.

[764] Yeah.

[765] Where I think mine was more of an emergent kind of thing, you know, I was, it was still a blue -collar kid.

[766] Yeah, yeah.

[767] And, you know, in my, in my house, you know, like I said, everything was so insular and I was kind of isolated.

[768] So I was just trying not to make too much noise, you know what I'm playing.

[769] So everything is kind of not just not, not mellow but subtle, you know what I mean?

[770] And so it's intense in that way and that there's so much that I have to say, but I can't say it too loud.

[771] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[772] So it comes off as kind of the same, a similar thing.

[773] I'm not necessarily trying to be sexual anymore than like maybe Curtis Mayfield, maybe.

[774] He's also very fucking sexual.

[775] You know what I mean?

[776] But I think he was trying to make a point with his music, you know, a different kind of point.

[777] Yeah.

[778] Where Prince, you know, if he wanted to be sexual, that's what he was going to be.

[779] Yeah, but not unlike in real life.

[780] Yeah.

[781] And in the music, being very confident sexually is a pretty rare thing.

[782] Yeah.

[783] Right?

[784] Yeah.

[785] And so it takes a lot of confidence to go down that lane as a musician.

[786] Yeah.

[787] And were you conscious of it?

[788] You're like, I'm committing to this.

[789] Or you were just being you and it happened to be sexual.

[790] I just happened to be inspired by Prince.

[791] Oh, okay.

[792] And Jimmy Hendrix.

[793] And especially Muddy Waters and Sugarfoot from the Ohio players.

[794] And like, muddy waters and Sugarfoot weren't sexual to me. They were hard men.

[795] Like, they drank whiskey, you know.

[796] And they just made music in these dark kinds of, of almost dungeony slave sex places.

[797] Yeah, yeah.

[798] So it got kind of, you know, just confused.

[799] And it's going to you have a very romantic view of it all like I kind of do.

[800] So yeah, they become archetypes, right?

[801] They're like, they're kind of gangster.

[802] They're kind of gnarly.

[803] They're all these things.

[804] It's funny too how much we incorporate that what we, those details and why we like a musician or not like a musician, right?

[805] Yeah.

[806] Because I have liked in the past people who are probably not that great, but they have something.

[807] They have this like, yeah, they fill some romantic notion I have of a certain type of person.

[808] Yeah.

[809] Yeah.

[810] Absolutely, man. And I was into punk for the same reason and just like particular kinds of punk music music.

[811] I love the stooges and I love bad brains and it sounded hard.

[812] Did you like fishbone?

[813] Well, I got into fishbone late.

[814] Oh, okay.

[815] We actually became pretty cool too.

[816] Oh, really?

[817] Because we were kind of the same age and they were always giving me. lovely compliments and they were one that probably the best live group i've ever seen yes i've seen them live a couple times and it's incredible yeah oh i love them so i'm going to kind of fast forward so you you're playing music in high school are you are you popular or are you doing your own thing and you're a musician well it was both um i was told i was popular okay and so you're cute so that had to help i tried to i tried to take advantage of that as much as i could sure but i still I loved being alone.

[818] Yeah.

[819] I loved walking alone, you know.

[820] Did you, in high school, were you drinking or smoking pot or doing any of that?

[821] Really?

[822] No. Not at all.

[823] I tried weed when I was 15 and then my mom was like, you have to promise me that you're not going to do that.

[824] And I was like, okay.

[825] So I didn't.

[826] Yeah.

[827] And I tried it again when I was 27.

[828] That sucked.

[829] Oh, wow.

[830] Because I was working on this incredible song.

[831] I smoked.

[832] I went upstairs.

[833] I came back to listen.

[834] And I swear the song sounded like fucking Magnum.

[835] PI.

[836] That's not what you want to hear.

[837] It was terrible.

[838] I was like, I don't know.

[839] Turned it all.

[840] By the way, I bet a lot of songs could easily sound like Magnum Pia.

[841] We rang him down.

[842] And you didn't, you weren't in drinking.

[843] Well, I am now.

[844] Oh, okay.

[845] I wasn't then.

[846] I just didn't.

[847] Interesting.

[848] I would have.

[849] Uh -huh.

[850] It just wasn't passed given to me. I had a similar thing.

[851] So I knew my dad was an alcoholic.

[852] So I purpose.

[853] was not drinking all my friends were drinking and then finally in 11th grade I'm like I'm doing this and I had to sit down with my mom because I had that kind of relationship with my mom as well where it was like I was dead on us with her all the time and I go look I know you don't want me to do this but I need to find out myself yeah within very short time the police were at my house one morning and um it forced me to lie uh about the night before so I could basically we we had um we had driven through this dude's gate in a truck oh and gave him a long job and blah, blah, blah.

[854] What we had decided there was three of us that it would be least hard to prove if one of us didn't have a story.

[855] So the story was I was blacked out in the backseat and missed the whole thing, which wasn't true.

[856] But we're like, oh, now the cops can only talk to two people.

[857] This proved fruitful.

[858] We never got tried with anything.

[859] But I had to perpetuate this lie to my mom, which was like, Mom, I don't remember what happened.

[860] I was in the backseat, passed out cold of my car.

[861] And then apparently we were in a truck, blah, blah, blah.

[862] So she rightly was very concerned.

[863] She's like, you cannot, you can't drink now.

[864] You just can't until you graduate.

[865] And I said, okay.

[866] And then I didn't.

[867] Like you, I just listened to my mom.

[868] Yeah.

[869] And then I graduated and then promptly became an alcoholic, but that's neither here nor there.

[870] Okay, so you didn't party.

[871] So you graduate high school and then you moved to Texas?

[872] Yeah, we moved to Texas.

[873] The whole family did.

[874] You and your mom.

[875] Well, my mom and her new husband and the stepbrother, I told you about who got into the big, you know, slang and white powder, snort, flake, yeah, okay.

[876] I would have loved to have met him in the 90s.

[877] Oh, man. What town in Texas do you move to?

[878] Oh, Arlington.

[879] Which now they have all these big arenas there.

[880] Right.

[881] But then there was nothing.

[882] It's not the place to move.

[883] No. Right.

[884] Us and them like bugs.

[885] Did you get a chance to go over to Austin at all while you live there?

[886] No. You've since, I assume Ben.

[887] I have, you know, obviously to play.

[888] To me, if I had to say a city vibe -wise was your alter ego, I would say Austin if I had to pick a city.

[889] Yeah, I keep hearing that, man. That feels to me like very similar to your just general artistic vibe.

[890] I keep hearing that, man. You know the saying there is Keep Austin Weird, right?

[891] That's on all the bumper stickers.

[892] That's their like city motto is Keep Austin Weird.

[893] And I would say Keep Van Weird.

[894] If I had to give you a bumper sticker, it would be stay weird and sexual.

[895] Weird and sexual.

[896] Keep and sexual.

[897] I'll keep and sexual, yeah.

[898] That's about where it is.

[899] So you left Texas at what age to go to Atlanta?

[900] Then I left there at 17.

[901] Okay.

[902] Because my mom wanted.

[903] Monica's from Atlanta, by the way.

[904] So if you guys need to start speaking Atlanta, Atlanta ease behind my back, feel free to.

[905] I'll try to just do not be too derogatory.

[906] Oh, you can say whatever you need to say about it.

[907] That's really okay.

[908] Well, mom was, she had this whole idea of fantasy me going to Morehouse.

[909] Right.

[910] And so I went there for a year.

[911] Uh -huh.

[912] And what were you going to study?

[913] Or what were you?

[914] I wanted to study economics only because I knew they didn't have an economics department.

[915] So I figured that would get me, you know, set up some kind of frustration and tension.

[916] Okay.

[917] So I could get out of there.

[918] And so I wanted to major in naval warfare.

[919] They did not have.

[920] I had to leave because they didn't have it.

[921] They had neither boats nor access to water.

[922] So that was a short -lived thing and good or bad experience in your year in college.

[923] I discovered black elitism, which I had never seen, to be honest, in the Midwest.

[924] And I discovered homosexuality, which I hadn't experienced.

[925] I'm not homosexual, but yet, you know.

[926] Wait to the end of this interview.

[927] Right.

[928] He's going to work really hard.

[929] To me, homosexuality at that point was like Liberace and Rock Hudson.

[930] Right.

[931] That was as crazy archetype.

[932] Exaggerated.

[933] So to, you know, be approached in that way.

[934] Yeah.

[935] It was an education in itself.

[936] So that was good.

[937] And I think this is relevant because there's a lot of variation regionally of the black experience, at least from my outside perspective.

[938] So I'm from Detroit.

[939] Yeah.

[940] It was the whole time I lived there, the blackest city and the kind of, country.

[941] It's 92 % black of super segregated.

[942] Not a great place to be black.

[943] If I'm just objectively, I think it was very hard to be black there.

[944] We would occasionally go to Atlanta and I would go, oh my God, I love this place.

[945] There's so many middle class black folks.

[946] Again, this is all from, I could be completely wrong.

[947] But this is what it appeared to me, the difference between Detroit and Atlanta was there's just this thriving black middle class in Atlanta where you'd see them at all the same Chili's change.

[948] chain restaurants and they got a new car and I just found that so encouraging when I was younger and I would go to Atlanta.

[949] So does that feed into the elitism?

[950] Well, when you're talking about the King family and their ties into the black college setting there, you know, they're elite, their royalty.

[951] And then it just meaning the descendants of Martin Luther King?

[952] Yeah, okay, okay.

[953] And then it just extends down from there and whoever they hand that to is in that moment now the new king They're the Dalai Lama Yeah It's just annoying You know Coming from a place Where We literally would borrow Shit from all of our neighbors Anything It could be I'm having a barbecue And I need furniture Yeah Yeah yeah Yeah I need the barbecue Yeah You need the barbecue So It was It was much more of a village Uh huh Even as much As I didn't necessarily have friends In the neighborhood but we all took care of each other in Dayton.

[954] And that was very obvious to me even as a child.

[955] Yeah.

[956] All of that changed.

[957] And I only, of course, when I went to Texas, which then I was introduced to racism.

[958] I feel like Dayton's a nice middle ground between kind of what, or at least what I saw in Atlanta versus what I saw in Detroit.

[959] Would you say that's true?

[960] I think Dayton was much more like Detroit, just in terms of it.

[961] It was rough and definitely gritty.

[962] But in your particular setting, like your neighbors took care of you in that setting.

[963] And I appreciated that.

[964] Yeah.

[965] You know, being able to feel like I could get off the bus or walk on from school safely.

[966] Yeah.

[967] You know, and I think that was important.

[968] Even sitting here talking to you, I just, do you know who Joy Bryan is?

[969] No. She's an actress.

[970] She's black.

[971] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[972] She and I were married on a TV show for like six years together.

[973] And I interviewed her recently.

[974] And we were talking about.

[975] white privilege and how that is a hard concept if you're white to swallow because no one's life feels privilege right like everyone's life feels like a struggle yeah but i can tell you objectively of course i have so much privilege it's it's really true there's so much white privilege and even hearing you say that that just clicked from me where it's like i've never thought wow if i moved to another part of this country i'm going to be treated completely different That's something that would not cross my mind.

[976] Like, so yeah, when you moved to Texas, all of a sudden, you're getting treated different, right?

[977] Yeah.

[978] From day one.

[979] Uh -huh.

[980] Where a guy was like, hey, you're black.

[981] I was like, man, who told you?

[982] So this was not Stevie Wonder.

[983] This is what we could see you.

[984] Like, we landed right on.

[985] Uh -huh.

[986] It was on, like fights every day.

[987] And, you know, they had never seen us.

[988] Right.

[989] You know, and that's how you.

[990] That's a very generous way to say.

[991] That's how you respond to something that, you know, you feel like it's threatening.

[992] Yes.

[993] But it was battles, you know.

[994] So the school that you went to in Arlington, what was the percentage there that was black?

[995] Yeah, they actually bust in black kids from what was an area called Grand Prairie.

[996] Okay.

[997] Where if you're a hip -hop, yeah, DJ Premier came from.

[998] DJ Premier.

[999] My only Texas hip -hop I loved was the ghetto boys.

[1000] Oh, what, shit.

[1001] They're from Fifth Ward.

[1002] Yeah, Houston.

[1003] Houston, yeah.

[1004] That's awesome.

[1005] Oh, I love gangster boogie.

[1006] I could say I can sing every single lyric on every one of those out.

[1007] My son loves ghetto.

[1008] The original stuff is insane.

[1009] Like, if that stuff came out now, songs about like serial killer.

[1010] Yeah, exactly.

[1011] December 1st, 1966, the damn fool was born with the mind of a luletic.

[1012] I showed up and killed, but sister fucked around and let me live.

[1013] Like, who's writing a rap song about being a twisted serial killer?

[1014] Bushwick Bill Oh Bushwick Bill Well another man's getting on his knees to fuck Brother like me still standing up He shot someone No his I think his girls shot him In Detroit weirdly You know Bushwick got shot by his girlfriend I didn't And I think it was in Detroit Monaco found out exactly where this shooting happened Anyways So you moved to Atlanta And now yet a third version How does it differ from both Dayton and in Arlington.

[1015] Oh, man. Like, you're not feeling, it doesn't sound like you're feeling the thing I thought I was observing like, oh, wow, this is a place where black folks are thriving.

[1016] Well, I think that most people, even black people felt that way about Atlanta.

[1017] Uh -huh.

[1018] There are, you know, records, you found P -Funk records that, you know, laud the, uh, that.

[1019] Oh, really?

[1020] Yeah, the come up.

[1021] So it went that far back.

[1022] Yeah.

[1023] Yeah.

[1024] But, I mean, it was the original home of Freaknik, no?

[1025] Am I right about that?

[1026] Yeah.

[1027] I was so mad they shut that down before I could attend.

[1028] I just thought that would be a really good time.

[1029] Freakening.

[1030] I went to one.

[1031] Oh, you did?

[1032] Did you perform at one?

[1033] I didn't perform, but...

[1034] You're too sexual for that freaknik crowd.

[1035] It would have exploded like a hydrogen bomb.

[1036] You sprinkling a little Van Hanna on top of an already turbocharged scenario.

[1037] Shit could get nasty.

[1038] I remember when we were listening to NWA at like one of those freaknakes.

[1039] And it was like the one with the Bootsie sample.

[1040] Oh, uh -huh.

[1041] So, yeah.

[1042] Freaknik was nice.

[1043] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1044] I've been calling on Twitter for them to bring it back.

[1045] Freak -neck?

[1046] Yeah.

[1047] I'm surprised they wouldn't.

[1048] That seems like an easy one.

[1049] Yeah, yeah.

[1050] Yeah, they tried to do a weirder, higher -in version of it right on an island recently.

[1051] It all went sideways.

[1052] You know what I'm talking?

[1053] Oh, crazy.

[1054] Everybody got sued.

[1055] Yeah.

[1056] Everyone got sued.

[1057] Everybody had to go home.

[1058] And it was like advertises like luxury tents or whatever.

[1059] And then you saw it and it was like FEMA tents.

[1060] They were all sleeping in and there was like, did you try to go that?

[1061] No. I'm not cool enough for that.

[1062] I am not cool enough.

[1063] That would have been one of the biggest shockers ever.

[1064] Like I said, hey, so I'm not going to be around next week.

[1065] I'm going to this luxury tent compound in the Caribbean.

[1066] Yeah.

[1067] I feel bad.

[1068] I feel like at first I enjoyed like watching the disaster of it all.

[1069] And then I felt really bad because it seemed pretty well intentioned.

[1070] I don't know if it was.

[1071] It was always a money making endeavor.

[1072] I think it was, I'll find out.

[1073] Yeah.

[1074] And we should avoid getting sued.

[1075] But in any, it's maybe best that we don't specifically name which group that was.

[1076] I'm going to.

[1077] Which is kind of cooler, actually.

[1078] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1079] Let them find out.

[1080] Okay, so I got derailed.

[1081] So you're in Atlanta and then you, you're playing a lot.

[1082] But when I was reading about you last night, I hit the fucking ceiling when I found out you wrote Hopeless.

[1083] I mean, I literally with no way.

[1084] I can compare it.

[1085] The best thing I can compare it to, so did you like the Sopranos?

[1086] Yeah, definitely.

[1087] Love the Sopranos.

[1088] I had only loved one TV show prior to the Sopranos, and that was Northern Exposure, right?

[1089] Okay, yeah.

[1090] Did you ever see that show?

[1091] I saw it a few times.

[1092] Okay.

[1093] So I love Northern Exposure, and I fucking worship Sopranos.

[1094] And I thought, these two things have nothing in common.

[1095] Why are these the two shows I like?

[1096] So I one time watched Sopranos with the commentary from the creator, David Chase.

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] And during that, he just happens to mention like, well, that was, I got the idea for Sopranos, Back when I was a headwriter on Northern Exposure, and I went, no way!

[1099] That's why I love those two things.

[1100] I love David Chase.

[1101] So when I, I loved Hopeless.

[1102] Oh, my God, did I love that song?

[1103] Oh, man. Yeah, I appreciate it.

[1104] The Love Jones soundtrack.

[1105] My good friend Ken Kennedy was the first to buy that CD Love Jones.

[1106] And I had a whole summer of Love Jones.

[1107] Ken Kennedy.

[1108] The best name.

[1109] Arguably the best name in the biz.

[1110] So, but because this dovetails nice.

[1111] into that.

[1112] That's the first song you write.

[1113] Is it the first song you write in Sal?

[1114] It's the first song that's published.

[1115] Oh, that's published.

[1116] Yeah, yeah.

[1117] And how do you go from you're at this college you don't want to be yet to actually getting into it professionally?

[1118] Oh, God.

[1119] So, um, like my last year in Arlington, very nice kid invites me into his family and into a studio, nice dad, who happened to be racist, but he liked me. Yeah.

[1120] That can happen, right?

[1121] Yeah.

[1122] I think that's happened to me a lot as well.

[1123] Yeah.

[1124] It's why it doesn't hold water when guys go like, well, I'm not racist.

[1125] My girlfriend's black.

[1126] It's like, no, you can be racist.

[1127] You can have a black girlfriend.

[1128] Yeah, totally.

[1129] And so, but he took a liking to me, you know, and so he let me hang with his son, play on their instruments, and they had a whole band thing going.

[1130] And so he, the kid flew out to Los Angeles.

[1131] And he came back and he was like, man, these guys I met with, they hated everything except the songs you played.

[1132] and so but he said he wasn't going to do anything with him but that let me know that I had a shot maybe yeah doing this shit so and my mom was like you're going to go to Atlanta I was like okay I'm going to study economics knowing that that was going to like blow up and so I didn't know what was in Atlanta I said well shit got to be more than it was in Arlington yeah so I go there and I spend a year in school and then I'm looking around the scene and I get a job with this This janitorial service.

[1133] Uh -huh.

[1134] But the lead, the president of the little janitorial service runs a record company.

[1135] Oh, no kidding.

[1136] Yeah.

[1137] Uh -huh.

[1138] So he hires me and he's.

[1139] It sounds like shit you see in Nashville.

[1140] That's how Atlanta is too.

[1141] Everyone somehow.

[1142] And he's paying me like $100 a week.

[1143] Uh -huh.

[1144] And he's like taking like office buildings.

[1145] Yeah.

[1146] And he's taking $25 out of my cash.

[1147] And he'll tell you like, well, don't you want to pay your taxes?

[1148] You need to pay your taxes.

[1149] I'm just hold on to this for you Those kind of conversations Sure, sure But he's paying you under the table, I assume And there ain't ever going to be any taxes But you know, yeah So I'm responsible Anyway Leave school And he introduces me to a bunch of guys In the little local hip hop scene That was just really burgeoning at that point And you get out with people easy No, but you know The music speaks for itself Yeah, and I feel confident in the music and presenting the music.

[1150] And so as long as we're in the room and we're making music, I'm fine.

[1151] Yeah, yeah.

[1152] So I got on with a couple guys and one of them winds up in prison for another cocaine thing.

[1153] And when he left, he was supposed to go and meet another connection who was going to hook us up with our own studio.

[1154] Uh -huh.

[1155] So I call him, because we're going to ride over there together, the police answer the phone.

[1156] great and they're like no Keith is busy he's in the middle and they're like who is this I was just going to call him back I know where he's going where we were supposed to go so I catch the bus and go over to this studio and I meet with the guy that was a very nice guy named Victor Reed and he essentially brings me into his home his family and lets me run his studio really where I really learned how to record wow and so I man I did so many rap demos with like the Jermaine Dupreys the Dallas Austens uh -huh the TLCs the escapes and which TLC stuff oh it was if you tell me you worked on waterfall I'm gonna fucking I'm gonna oh no no no collapse on the I see I wasn't working on their material every time I'm just I just wanted to say waterfall but it's cool when um you know Dallas and and Jermaine Dupreepre I don't know much about him, but he's hyper talented.

[1157] Yeah, yeah, yeah, super successful.

[1158] Yeah, yeah.

[1159] Chris Cross and all that.

[1160] But, you know, they were using me to like, hey, can you put our show tape together, you know what I mean?

[1161] Or little things like that, which was a really proving ground for me. And Bobby Brown was coming through the studio.

[1162] And, you know, and the way the studio was set up, it was way in the back of a rehearsal studio.

[1163] Uh -huh.

[1164] So they would all come and rehearse and then come and chill back there.

[1165] Rehears to go on tour?

[1166] Yeah.

[1167] Okay.

[1168] and then come and chill back there in the studio.

[1169] Yeah.

[1170] And so I would hear all these stories and sometimes they, you know, you know, hey, can you do a beat with my nephew?

[1171] You know, stuff like that.

[1172] And so that's how you're getting the scraps.

[1173] Exactly.

[1174] Yeah.

[1175] And that's such an important thing for people to hear.

[1176] Like, you just got to, like, if you, you have a desire to be involved in any one of these industries that's almost impenetrable.

[1177] Yeah.

[1178] You just got to take what you can fucking get and get around it, right?

[1179] Yeah.

[1180] Like, I think people think they got to be a star.

[1181] They got to be this or that.

[1182] It's like, no, you just got to be around it.

[1183] Yeah, absolutely.

[1184] Especially if you're confident.

[1185] Yeah.

[1186] You know, you feel like your stuff is quality and can compete.

[1187] Why not?

[1188] And do you have a four track at home?

[1189] Are you putting your own music together?

[1190] No, at this point, the only time I'm working on recording equipment is inside the studio.

[1191] But I'm essentially living at the studio.

[1192] Okay.

[1193] Yeah.

[1194] Yeah.

[1195] And so he had a little eight track, real to real.

[1196] And he also had a four track.

[1197] Okay.

[1198] Which Dallas's engineer took a liking to me. A lot of people like you.

[1199] I'm very amvious of this.

[1200] Almost all your stories about someone making you a family member within 10 minutes of meeting you.

[1201] That's another thing for people to take into consideration.

[1202] That's true.

[1203] Don't be a fucking asshole.

[1204] Yeah.

[1205] Yeah.

[1206] I was so busy trying to impress everyone I met at that age that I don't think anyone ever took me under their wing.

[1207] I'm like, all right.

[1208] No, you got it all figured out hot shot.

[1209] Why don't you go fucking do it?

[1210] Don't bang your head against the wall.

[1211] Well, I think I was quiet too.

[1212] Yes.

[1213] I wasn't threatening in that way and they figured you know he does good work and he keeps his mouth shut yeah so those are people underestimate those qualities they really do underestimate non -threatening yes that's a very yeah big skill yeah yeah so how do you end up writing hopeless right so like I said they say I'm hopeless hopeless oh bless oh talk about content I'm the worst singer but I will sing his song in front of I love that.

[1214] That's one of the best things about the Detroit shows that so many people thought they were singing.

[1215] Yeah, that sounds right.

[1216] I love that.

[1217] I go out into the audience and they're just singing away.

[1218] Well, we drink a lot in Detroit too.

[1219] It kind of makes you a little confident.

[1220] There's a lot in Detroit.

[1221] Sure, sure.

[1222] Do you get asked or do you put on your selling shoes?

[1223] Like, how do you end up in that scenario to write hopeless?

[1224] Okay, so Dallas's engineer shows me. me how the engineer does a lot of stuff for me and introduces me to Dion and her Deion Ferris who sang the song.

[1225] And who was from Arrested Development.

[1226] Exactly.

[1227] Which by the way, I didn't even know that until last time I was reigned.

[1228] I loved arrested development.

[1229] Dallas's engineer had had engineered their first hit Tennessee.

[1230] Oh yes.

[1231] So he turned me on to them.

[1232] Yeah.

[1233] And they came and saw my band rehearse at that same rehearsal studio.

[1234] Okay.

[1235] And she was like, I hate your band, but I like you.

[1236] Oh.

[1237] And then I'm being the loyal guy I go to the engineer I'm like you know she doesn't want my band She wants me what do you think Yeah What the fuck do you think man You gotta roll with what's rolling Ah Your band ain't rolling Wow so that is the cliche story Of every musician right Is at a certain point They kind of try to peel you off Yeah And you got to roll What'd say it again What do you say?

[1238] You gotta roll with what's rolling Okay I like that Okay so And does she at that moment when she's saying she likes you, is she thinking specifically, I want you to write something for me?

[1239] Or is she thinking she wants to collaborate with you?

[1240] Yeah, she just wanted me in her bed.

[1241] Okay.

[1242] Yeah.

[1243] She had just finished her record.

[1244] Is she maybe also want to have dinner with you or no?

[1245] No. No. Okay.

[1246] Really?

[1247] That's a bummer.

[1248] I guess.

[1249] I don't really even know what she looks like, but.

[1250] She was cute.

[1251] Oh, then it's a bummer.

[1252] Yeah.

[1253] She married or something?

[1254] What's wrong with this woman?

[1255] So you don't want to go to dinner with you?

[1256] Yeah.

[1257] So she was really nice, though.

[1258] Yeah.

[1259] And a couple of years older to me, which, you know, at 22, it's like, might as well be in a lifetime.

[1260] Yeah.

[1261] And you, do you guys write, do you write Hopeless knowing it's already going to be on that soundtrack?

[1262] Or do you write it and then it somehow ends up on that soundtrack?

[1263] Oh, okay.

[1264] So I go with her and her A &R guy who was Randy Jackson.

[1265] Right.

[1266] This time.

[1267] Something else I learned last time.

[1268] Yeah.

[1269] And he's just a guy at that point with a very big voice.

[1270] Yeah.

[1271] And he's like, hey, I like some of your stuff.

[1272] I'm constantly running around playing songs people here and there I like your stuff maybe you should give a D -on and just see if she'll demo some of your stuff so I gave her a bunch of songs she just happened to pick that one Oh wow So you had written that for yourself I'd written it for actually somebody who kind of sounded like Donnie Hathaway because the song always sounded like Donnie Hathaway to me with the roads and you know so I was like anybody who sounds like at this point I still hate singing Okay.

[1273] So anybody who sounds like Donnie Hathaway, I'm going to get this song to.

[1274] Right.

[1275] But Randy, who's an excellent A &R, he's way better at A &R than he's ever done anything else, but nobody knows that.

[1276] He is.

[1277] Yeah.

[1278] Okay, because I got to say, my introduction to Randy Jackson was through American Idol.

[1279] Yeah.

[1280] And I was always going, are they telling us this guy is super talented?

[1281] Because his notes to me didn't seem terribly helpful.

[1282] You know what I'm saying?

[1283] Like, when Harry Connick Jr. came on.

[1284] I was like, oh, that guy's clearly a musical genius.

[1285] Like the way he would break shit down.

[1286] And in fact, my wife, who also is a musical genius, she would hear the thing and she'd go, oh, he's flat on this.

[1287] And then he's sharp here and he blah, blah, blah.

[1288] And I'm like, you're full of yourself.

[1289] And then Harry Connick would say the exact same thing.

[1290] And she would like do a backflip.

[1291] She'd be so excited.

[1292] But anyways, I'm glad to hear you say Randy Jackson was legitimately awesome at his job.

[1293] Because I just didn't know if I was being told.

[1294] Well, I would.

[1295] Jimmy Yivine, too.

[1296] I didn't really know who Jimmy Iveen was when he joined American Idol.

[1297] But then I saw the defiant ones.

[1298] Now I think he's a genius.

[1299] Yeah.

[1300] And I think that you would need to spend time with Randy for him to show you his real.

[1301] His secret sauce.

[1302] Uh -huh.

[1303] Yeah.

[1304] But a gregarious likable guy, right?

[1305] You must have been so attracted to what he's a, he's a bigger in life figure even then, I would imagine.

[1306] Yeah.

[1307] But what I recognized early on was that all of that is a kind of presentation that he gives to people because he's a shy person.

[1308] Oh, he is?

[1309] Yeah.

[1310] Oh, interesting.

[1311] His way of disabling, you know, the confrontation with people is to be aggressive.

[1312] Uh -huh.

[1313] So I learned that from him.

[1314] Yeah.

[1315] And I started doing that for myself, and it helps.

[1316] You know, so when I meet people, I'm like, hey, how are you doing?

[1317] Yeah, yeah, you come at him.

[1318] Yeah.

[1319] And it kind of allows you to arrest the situation.

[1320] Yes.

[1321] And until you can get comfortable with him.

[1322] So that's what he does.

[1323] Right.

[1324] And, but if you, you know, actually hang with him for a minute, you know, an hour in, he starts dropping gyms, you know, well, you know, maybe you ought to do this.

[1325] And then he gets real with you really, really fast.

[1326] And he just has incredible instincts.

[1327] Would you say that's his gift?

[1328] Oh, man, the greatest I've been around.

[1329] Right.

[1330] Yeah.

[1331] Yeah.

[1332] That's cool.

[1333] And he eventually becomes your manager, right?

[1334] Yeah.

[1335] Yeah.

[1336] So you guys are tight.

[1337] Definitely.

[1338] Okay.

[1339] So hopeless happens.

[1340] It is large, it's hugely successful.

[1341] Yeah.

[1342] Right.

[1343] And now you're, I'm assuming, let me ask you, are you going, oh, fuck, man, I'm going to be able to make a living writing music.

[1344] Is that where you're at the, at that moment?

[1345] Is that what you're thinking?

[1346] Are you thinking, oh, shit, I'm going to be able to be.

[1347] What, what's your ego doing right now?

[1348] You being a Midwestern blue collar guy, like, your first check, what did you think?

[1349] I thought it'd be my last.

[1350] Right.

[1351] Yeah, yeah.

[1352] I still think that.

[1353] Right.

[1354] Today, sitting here.

[1355] I'm like, they're going to come any minute and go like, like.

[1356] Who are you kidding?

[1357] You live on a dirt road, motherfucker.

[1358] Get your ass up.

[1359] Yeah, yeah.

[1360] We caught you, okay?

[1361] I don't know how you slipped through the cracks, but time to go home.

[1362] So you had that too.

[1363] Okay.

[1364] But weirdly, as much as I have that, I also have fits of megalomania.

[1365] Yeah.

[1366] Okay, so, and I really was thinking this between you and I, the parallels.

[1367] There's no obvious parallels between you and you.

[1368] and I. Your Van Hunt, I'm Dak Shepard.

[1369] Those just on the surface seem very opposite.

[1370] But two -year -old divorce, three -year -old divorce, single mother, all these different things, Midwest.

[1371] Yeah.

[1372] I had experiences early in my career where I thought, oh, wow.

[1373] Okay, so this is really going to happen.

[1374] I'm going to be Adam fucking Sandler.

[1375] Because the first movie I was in cost 19 million and made 60.

[1376] It was seen as a very big success.

[1377] In fact, Adam Sandler said, oh, do you want to write something for our company.

[1378] And that all happened.

[1379] So my, but so my, my, my ego did go fucking bonkers.

[1380] And I was like, oh, so I'm about four more steps away from being Adam Sandler.

[1381] Yeah.

[1382] Of course, I was not four steps away from being Adam Sandler.

[1383] And I feel like any, any of these endeavors and be it music or, or, or whatever it is, is you're, you're constantly, uh, evaluating, where am I?

[1384] Where am I going?

[1385] What, what is it, you know, so did you have that?

[1386] Because you, you're, you're, you had lots of moments in your life where you must have thought oh god damn i'm going to be prince well it's complex because at no point i try to explain this to my girlfriend thinks i'm crazy but at no point uh do i ever lose the confidence that i'm on the level with prince right and even more so somebody like the lonelious monk which to me is yeah yeah yeah yeah so at no point do i lose confidence that i'm mingis do you like minga on that level yes love his book too yeah but you ever see that documentary about him like moving out of his he's got this huge loft and he's got to move out but he just is physically incapable of moving out.

[1387] Do you ever see that back matter?

[1388] Is this with Johnny Mitchell?

[1389] I know.

[1390] I can't remember who else is in it but we used to watch it a ton when I lived in in Detroit and he's so scatterbrained.

[1391] He's such a genius, Charlie Mingus and he's being evicted from this huge space he has and he's there to get all of his shit out but he can't help himself from going through the history of it all and then he'll get really derailed and then he'll just walk over to the base and just play it for 35 minutes.

[1392] Then he walks back.

[1393] He never accomplished it.

[1394] They end up like the police just throw his shit on the sidewalk.

[1395] That's like the end of the thing.

[1396] He's just staying there with everything he owns.

[1397] It's wild.

[1398] But to watch his brain work and watch how he's moving through the world, you know, he was probably artistic to the point where he couldn't function so well.

[1399] Okay, so you always have the confidence that you are ultimately talented.

[1400] Yeah.

[1401] And you have a voice.

[1402] Yeah.

[1403] Which is to me, crystal clear.

[1404] You have like a point.

[1405] of view.

[1406] Yes.

[1407] However, the idea that I can articulate that to an audience, I don't have that confidence.

[1408] Oh, okay.

[1409] And I don't have the confidence that once I've articulated the point, even if I can, that they're going to receive the point and then receive it and do process it in a way in which it returns as some kind of revenue stream for me. Right.

[1410] So, Yeah, monetizing this thing is hard.

[1411] Yeah.

[1412] I've never had confidence that I am capable of doing that.

[1413] So if it wasn't going to be somebody else doing it, that wasn't going to happen for me. Right.

[1414] So, i .e. Randy Jackson in a way, yeah?

[1415] Yeah.

[1416] Or even to a larger extent, the musical industrial complex.

[1417] Yes.

[1418] Because from my point of view, when you had dust in seconds of pleasure that were getting radio play, right?

[1419] you're nominated for a Grammy off of Dust, right?

[1420] Your first album.

[1421] Yeah.

[1422] To me at that moment, it seems you and John Legend are on the exact same path.

[1423] Do you think of him as a peer?

[1424] Do you think about him at all?

[1425] Well, John is from the Dayton metropolitan areas.

[1426] Oh, he is?

[1427] Springfield.

[1428] Oh.

[1429] Was one of the first people, along with Kanye and Questlove from the Roots to reach out and say, hey, I like what you're doing.

[1430] Oh, how cool.

[1431] Keep doing it.

[1432] You know what I mean?

[1433] And you need to hear that as a young person coming up.

[1434] And they were all really, really good with that.

[1435] I appreciated that.

[1436] And so John actually had me come over and help him produce a song here and there.

[1437] And so.

[1438] Well, eventually you teamed up with him and Joss.

[1439] Yes.

[1440] And did Family Affair later, right?

[1441] And we hooked up before and after that.

[1442] I did think that we were on the same trajectory.

[1443] But John, much like DeAngelo, is more integrated with the culture at the time.

[1444] With the zeitgeist and pop.

[1445] Yeah.

[1446] And John on the pop side and DeAngel on the hip hop side than I was.

[1447] I'm a guy.

[1448] I'm somewhere between Prince and the students.

[1449] Well, you're not, yeah, you're not fitting nicely into one of the categories.

[1450] We're not sure what station we should play you on, right?

[1451] Yeah.

[1452] And I got that.

[1453] Yeah, and you were comfortable with that?

[1454] It wasn't like it was a badge for me. It's just that, that's just where I was.

[1455] But secretly you must wish, okay, I'm going to be true to this angle.

[1456] I have this point of view I have.

[1457] It'd certainly be nice if it did break through and became.

[1458] And Randy was - Well, Prince, because what the fuck were people thinking with Prince?

[1459] But he just forced everyone to go, oh, no, you know, he created a genre, I guess.

[1460] Well, it was both Prince and Randy who explained to me that, you know, he had to do disco.

[1461] That's what broke for him.

[1462] Uh -huh.

[1463] Was that he did his first record and they were like, this is great.

[1464] But now what are we going to do to get?

[1465] Erotic cities on the first?

[1466] No, it was Bambi.

[1467] I don't know if you.

[1468] No, not Bambi.

[1469] Well, I'm trying to think of a song.

[1470] Soft and Wet was on his first album.

[1471] There weren't any big hits.

[1472] Right, right, right.

[1473] And it was really dirty.

[1474] It was actually really musical.

[1475] Oh, okay.

[1476] But he had a song like Jack Me Off or something.

[1477] No, that was on the Dirty Mind album.

[1478] Oh, okay, okay.

[1479] Not far from him.

[1480] My mom, who was the least censoring human beings, you could possibly have as a parent.

[1481] I was allowed to look at Playboy when I was like nine at the kitchen table.

[1482] She didn't care.

[1483] She's like, nudity's fine.

[1484] Weirdly, I got Prince, I think Little Red Corvette.

[1485] My uncle gave me the album.

[1486] And then I went to the tape store and I'm like, I'm going to get everything this guy has ever made.

[1487] And then I got dirty mine.

[1488] And my brother told on me, he went to my mom and said, you got to look at the names of these songs on the back of this cassette tape.

[1489] And she read it And one was like Jack me off or whatever And she's like I don't think you need this tape I actually had to return that tape Oh man Anyways that's why I thought it was super sexual Oh Well the second album though He's sitting on the horse naked Yeah which is a great look Yeah In general And so that's when he's got Bambi And he had his first hit Which is escaping me right now But it was a kind It was playing off of disco Which was hot at the time Okay He evidently hated disco but he knew that was what he had to do to get the song on the radio yeah and that worked for him yeah well by the time i come along it's either integrate with uh something very very more syrupy uh -huh uh i don't know brittney spears right whatever's happening at the in sync sure you know which john could do more easily than i could and on the hip -hop side de angela could do more easily than i could yes there wasn't really a place for me to tie into yes and uh randy was very articulate about that and explained it to me. It's like, you know, at this point, you can try and tie into this and really, really change your sound or you can just kind of hold on to what you're doing.

[1490] Yeah.

[1491] Continue to do it until maybe we, you know, get you in here maybe later.

[1492] And you might just become a niche artist, but you may not make as much money as some of these other guys, but I don't know.

[1493] It depends on how important the music is to you.

[1494] Yeah.

[1495] And so you feel like you made a decision, like an exact decision?

[1496] I do because he put it to me that way, which I always appreciate it.

[1497] And you go, I'm just going to do me basically, right?

[1498] Yeah.

[1499] Do you regret that at all?

[1500] No. You don't.

[1501] Okay, good.

[1502] No, but, you know.

[1503] Are you obsessed with money at all?

[1504] I'm not obsessed.

[1505] I am.

[1506] I'm terribly obsessed with it.

[1507] Yeah.

[1508] It occupies way too much brain space for me. Like you worry about not having it?

[1509] Yeah.

[1510] Oh, I say, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1511] Yeah, well, that makes it.

[1512] Yeah.

[1513] And whatever amount I think I could get that will make me feel safe.

[1514] Every time I've gotten that amount, I don't feel safe.

[1515] There's a new amount I'm convinced if I had.

[1516] Like when people go, why do these billionaires keep working?

[1517] They already have a billion.

[1518] I relate.

[1519] I'm like, I bet if I had a billion, I'd feel broke.

[1520] Are you the person that overbys?

[1521] No, no. No, I'm very frugal.

[1522] But do you have like a lot of bars of soap in your house?

[1523] Yes.

[1524] I love, love, love stockpile.

[1525] What a great thing to ask me. It really is.

[1526] In fact, they make fun of me at the house non -step because if we get below like 12 rolls of paper towel, I'm panicked.

[1527] I am panicked.

[1528] So my lady is very similar.

[1529] She came from a household where the scarcity was real.

[1530] Yes.

[1531] Yes.

[1532] So that's what that translates into that.

[1533] In my dream world, there would be a warehouse on this piece of property.

[1534] That would just be Costco.

[1535] Yeah.

[1536] There's no place I feel more comfortable than walking into Costco.

[1537] I go, ooh, there's a lifetime of soap.

[1538] here.

[1539] And it's not like scarcity wasn't the same in my household.

[1540] My mother again, Pisces, my father of Pisces, they dealt with these things very, very differently.

[1541] Okay.

[1542] It's like, oh son, you can take a shower over at your grandmother.

[1543] Uh -huh.

[1544] Uh -huh.

[1545] Okay.

[1546] You take you over to Isaacs later you like him, you like his dog.

[1547] You like your shower, right?

[1548] You don't be very, very much more relaxed.

[1549] Yeah, okay.

[1550] It's like, oh yeah, but that makes sense, well, well, that's good.

[1551] There's always going to be an Isaac.

[1552] You can go shower at.

[1553] So you weren't motivated by money per se?

[1554] No. Or at least not in an unhealthy fashion.

[1555] I like the way Sloss says it.

[1556] I just, I never wanted to have to need it.

[1557] Yeah.

[1558] You know what I mean?

[1559] Uh -huh.

[1560] And did you keep your life small?

[1561] Definitely.

[1562] Yeah.

[1563] And to this day, you still are that way.

[1564] I do.

[1565] Yeah.

[1566] That's the key.

[1567] For sure.

[1568] I think.

[1569] Yeah.

[1570] It's tempting.

[1571] Do you have any indulgences?

[1572] Is there anything you bought?

[1573] You're like, what was I thinking?

[1574] Clothes.

[1575] Close.

[1576] You love clothes.

[1577] But I don't have a bunch of them.

[1578] I just have things that I just have.

[1579] really, really like.

[1580] And they're generally expensive, unfortunately.

[1581] It's the kind of world we live in.

[1582] Yeah.

[1583] You came right out of the gates with a very funky style, which I appreciate it.

[1584] Oh, thank you.

[1585] Well, like on the cover of Van Hunt, you're wearing a crazy hat.

[1586] If I recall, you're wearing a purple jacket.

[1587] Am I picturing it correctly?

[1588] Yeah, yeah.

[1589] It's a great look, but it is unique at that time.

[1590] And I didn't actually understand until I came to Los Angeles to actually do those records, and they were hiring stylists.

[1591] So I'm thinking, I'm just going to tell the styles what to get me, and it's going to be easy to find.

[1592] You're like, actually, you know, I don't know if you knew about David Boy or you know about this artist, but, you know, that's where your style is, and that's very expensive and it's very exclusive.

[1593] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1594] So, yeah.

[1595] That's when I really began to understand what it was I liked and why I liked it.

[1596] Uh -huh.

[1597] And I don't know.

[1598] Again, I was just filling in the blanks.

[1599] when I got that album Van Hunt and I looked at it.

[1600] To me, I looked at this guy and I was like, this guy's got to be from New Orleans.

[1601] I felt like you had a weird, like, French quarter vibe to you.

[1602] I don't know why that is.

[1603] It's funny.

[1604] My girlfriend was there.

[1605] She'd laugh because she always calls me the Frenchman.

[1606] Oh, uh -huh.

[1607] But I realized I had some crazy connection to France.

[1608] Oh, really?

[1609] Yeah.

[1610] You do like a 23 and me thing?

[1611] How do you know you've got a crazy connection?

[1612] What is that?

[1613] Well, you're saying you're like you spit in a cop and then they tell you, like you're 70 % Ukrainian or something.

[1614] Oh, I haven't done that.

[1615] Yeah, I haven't either.

[1616] I thought you were going to tell me you found out you're like 80 % French or something.

[1617] No, I just love everything.

[1618] Right.

[1619] From Serge Ginsburg to their food.

[1620] Okay.

[1621] And you've gone to Paris?

[1622] Yeah.

[1623] Have you ever fantasized about moving there?

[1624] No. No. You don't like it that much.

[1625] It's got really cold.

[1626] It's cold and you got to learn another language.

[1627] Well, I took French.

[1628] Oh, you did?

[1629] Yeah.

[1630] I mean, I could get by.

[1631] Okay.

[1632] I could say help.

[1633] Okay.

[1634] You could say help.

[1635] That's a great word to know.

[1636] That's not the only one you need to know.

[1637] Okay.

[1638] So you do dust.

[1639] There's a cliche in music, right, that I've heard, which is your first album, you spend your whole life writing.

[1640] Yeah.

[1641] And then in success, you're expected to write a second album like in a year.

[1642] Yeah.

[1643] Was that hard for you?

[1644] Did you have that experience or was it that wasn't an issue?

[1645] I don't think all of that is true.

[1646] Okay.

[1647] But it wasn't hard for me. And again, I credit my blue collar work ethic.

[1648] Not to say that other callers don't have work ethics.

[1649] It's just that I knew going in that that was true.

[1650] I probably had all my whole life to write this first record, but that my second record was lyrically at least going to be better.

[1651] And I still believe that.

[1652] Well, being a girl is, again, it's a tongue twister.

[1653] You must have thought, or did you think, You had a pretty good amount of success right out of the gates.

[1654] And did you think that that was just going to continue and grow?

[1655] Or did you never think that?

[1656] Or did you don't think about the future?

[1657] Yeah.

[1658] I still, even because I was in on those meetings in the record company.

[1659] And the reason why you heard dust in seconds of pleasure was because there was literally a table in Capitol Records.

[1660] Black people on one side, white people on the other side.

[1661] Black people slang.

[1662] No Jewish folks?

[1663] They're at the head of the table.

[1664] Yeah, they're at the head of the table.

[1665] And the black people were like, we're going to take seconds of pleasure over here at R &B radio.

[1666] And the white people are like, we're going to take dust over to college radio.

[1667] Oh, uh -huh.

[1668] And they shot them both out at the same time.

[1669] Yeah.

[1670] And right then I knew I was in trouble.

[1671] Uh -huh.

[1672] Because you kind of needed both sides to work together on a song.

[1673] Yeah, you're kind of opening up a two -front war by doing that.

[1674] Yeah.

[1675] And there's competition now.

[1676] Who's going to be the first to get their song?

[1677] off and yet you're both pulling resources from each other.

[1678] So both for Andy and I were like, I don't know about this fit.

[1679] So, you know, I kind of knew I was doomed at that point.

[1680] Okay.

[1681] Forever continue to ride the same schism that Prince endured as well.

[1682] But because he's coming off of the crazy international disco era, where it wasn't that odd to think of things blitzel.

[1683] Yeah, right.

[1684] Well, there's a ton of fusion happening at that time, right?

[1685] Yeah.

[1686] And it's very different now after we've gone through crack in the epidemic and Clinton and NAFRA.

[1687] Now things are much more segregated and obliterated in certain areas.

[1688] Uh -huh.

[1689] It was just.

[1690] And does that slow down how prolific you are?

[1691] No. It doesn't.

[1692] No. So do you write as much now as you wrote back then?

[1693] It's harder when you get to.

[1694] older right you're not as hungry yeah i don't commit to things okay but yeah i could literally i can write whenever i feel like writing and is writing easy for you yeah it is yeah and do things come to you like will you get a whole song downloaded in the shower you know or it's usually in my sleep yeah in your sleep yeah how about driving that's what definitely driving and you'll hear what parts will you hear so usually if i'm i'm driving and i can't have the radio on right No one can be with me. This happens on the airplane, too.

[1695] Well, we'll see.

[1696] I'm going to join you on a couple of car rights.

[1697] Yeah, man. I'll sit in the back seat and I'll be very quiet.

[1698] You won't even know.

[1699] I'll lay down.

[1700] See, that would be weird.

[1701] You'd have to sit up front with me. And like, tell jokes.

[1702] Right.

[1703] They would come.

[1704] We'll write a weird Al Yankovic song together.

[1705] No. Weird out and what's my man, corny sax man?

[1706] Kenny G. Oh, yeah, Kenny G. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1707] Kenneth G. Accordian and French horn or clarinet.

[1708] What does he play?

[1709] Yeah.

[1710] So you'll be driving and you hear, what generally do you hear first?

[1711] Like the keyboard?

[1712] No, it's not specific like that.

[1713] Well, fucking make it specific for me, man. You've got to explain it to my simpleton.

[1714] If you can imagine what a cloud sounds like.

[1715] Uh -huh.

[1716] And like a metallic kind of spaceship pole.

[1717] through the cloud.

[1718] I don't know if you can imagine what that might sound like.

[1719] Okay.

[1720] But it actually does have a sound.

[1721] Uh -huh.

[1722] And that's just kind of undulating rhythm.

[1723] Yeah.

[1724] That's always there.

[1725] Okay.

[1726] Again, rhythmically is where it all starts for me. Right.

[1727] So I'll always hear this kind of thing just going on.

[1728] And then I can just do whatever I want to do on that rhythm.

[1729] Right.

[1730] So it could be...

[1731] Mm -mm -mm -hmm.

[1732] and then that just it's kind of what they call ostinado and classical music is just this motif that's cycling okay and then i just right now that's just happening in the back of your brain right like you have that what's that thing you call where you can do like a loop right yes your brain has that yes so you put that on loop and that just and now where do you go and so from there we go into these kind of modalities you know i could i can go with something that's hard off of that And so you did it, it's, uh -huh.

[1733] You start fucking it up a little bit.

[1734] I could go to something soft and it's all there for me. And when do lyrics enter the picture?

[1735] Right when I want to articulate the melody.

[1736] So you let the melody inform the lyrics.

[1737] Well, not necessarily.

[1738] I let the, the feeling of the music inform the lyric.

[1739] But sometimes the melody.

[1740] Is that, is that order ever reversed?

[1741] Do you ever have like, you think of a, great sentence or you think of it you jot something down uh in writing you go oh i got to now find a melody that says what this every now of that but mostly it's music first lyric second mostly it's just this kind of undulating conceptual cinematic feel for what what i'm trying to say like i don't know if you remember a song called uh heard december from the first uh -huh record yeah and that was one that I just happened to remember how it came about.

[1742] And I just felt, I felt Christmas and I felt December and I felt like Christmas has always been this kind of pretty but dark space for me. Okay.

[1743] Because it only really comes alive at night, which is creepy.

[1744] Uh -huh.

[1745] It's in the lights shine and Santa's weird to me. What do you mean?

[1746] A heavyset guy with combat boots coming down your chimney?

[1747] What's weird about that?

[1748] It's super fucking creepy to me. A white guy with a huge beard.

[1749] You're worried about him being in the house at midnight?

[1750] Why?

[1751] Right.

[1752] Oh, ho.

[1753] So, you know, people like the, um, uh, it was the cat in the hat and they liked wizard about that shit scared.

[1754] Yeah, that stuff is pretty weird.

[1755] So, um, those things come alive for me and I started writing off of that.

[1756] Right.

[1757] Turns into kind of a concept.

[1758] Mm -hmm.

[1759] Yeah.

[1760] And, um, and, and, in, in the frequency of that has, is what compare it now like you're how old are you 48 47 47 yeah I'm 43 yeah I'm gaining on you last week I turned 43 uh man I do find that I was certainly a lot hungrier to write yeah I work probably more as a writer than an actor and and that used to be so easy for me and I'm finding I don't know through having kids whatever it is or just not as hungry it's harder for me to write now yeah like sitting in that room by myself is a little more challenging Well, have you ever felt comfortable writing by yourself?

[1761] Oh, I fucking hate writing.

[1762] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1763] That's what I would imagine.

[1764] Do you know who Lawrence Kazan is?

[1765] Lawrence Kazan is a very famous writer.

[1766] He wrote like Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of the biggest ever.

[1767] Yeah.

[1768] And his statement on writing is, writers are people who have agreed to do homework for the rest of their life.

[1769] And that's exactly how I feel about writing.

[1770] But yet I have to do it.

[1771] I've been doing it since I was a kid.

[1772] I started writing in seventh grade, short stories.

[1773] And you've written short stories as well, right?

[1774] Yeah.

[1775] So I have to do it.

[1776] And weirdly, I find a spot in the middle of it that I do love.

[1777] But, man, it's the starting net, really.

[1778] That's, I find to be challenging.

[1779] Yeah.

[1780] Well, like I told you, what if you strike me as the idea person, the person you're sitting around with and they're constantly just taking you off in different places.

[1781] And you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, Max, I wasn't even there yet.

[1782] Wait, wait, wait, okay.

[1783] What about this?

[1784] Okay.

[1785] And it quickly turns into a kind of a nest of ideas.

[1786] That's true.

[1787] So you're dead right.

[1788] and Kristen is regularly annoyed by almost every time I leave the bathroom brushing my teeth I have a new idea for a show and I have to walk her through it or a new idea for a movie that part's really fun I like it it is the technical aspect of writing and I know it exists in music as well which is great idea I love it ideas are worth nothing it's all about execution so now I got to crack these third acts and I got to really build this emotional and all that that's math I love writing dialogue if I got to sit down and just write fun dialogue I would love writing but the art architecture of it and increasing tension and all these things you have to do that part is math and that is frustrating and that must exist in songs as well yeah i think they they would call that the music theory and production um that to be honest because i know it it happened so quickly i don't even you just do it kind of instinctually yeah it's my least favorite part as well uh -huh um certainly harvesting the ideas yeah beginning of ideas is intoxicated that's fun I love finding artists who have stories to tell.

[1789] And I love encouraging that out of them.

[1790] You know, like, I don't know if you have already, but you need to tell the story of the Midwest.

[1791] Uh -huh.

[1792] Because you seem to have, you know, the smell of it and the taste of it.

[1793] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1794] You know what I mean?

[1795] I would go with that, yeah.

[1796] Yeah.

[1797] So I'd love to see that happen.

[1798] Yeah.

[1799] Okay.

[1800] All right.

[1801] I'll do it.

[1802] Noted.

[1803] I kind of did a Midwest story, even though it was set in California, but the kitten runs a very Midwest movie.

[1804] I implore you to watch that.

[1805] Car chase love story.

[1806] Okay.

[1807] Made for a million dollars.

[1808] Real labor of love with my wife.

[1809] Nice.

[1810] So are you open to playing a song today?

[1811] Oh, sure, man. You would.

[1812] That would be a great, great honor for me. Yeah.

[1813] So watch you three feet in front of me. That's all you can do is try.

[1814] So what are you going to play for us, ma 'am?

[1815] I'm going to play being a girl.

[1816] Oh.

[1817] And then and then Sings a pleasure and then dust But I'm absolutely going to Murder all three Because I just I haven't had time to practice All right So I'm like a retiree It's like rehearsal Every once in a while You meet a child that drives you Where What a must Take a bowl downtown's down A winter coat and sexy toaks on camel smokes Don't prepare you for a laugh that explodes A princess and a mistress dressed in Sunday To impress a fresh love in dress To set the stage, receive a praise and leave a sour taste That only gets sweeter as it fades She just can't help being a girl She just can't help being a girl She just can't help herself Full of spectacle and charmed like nothing else Being a girl At the initial glance She's making plans to build her a man Like a T -4 or a narrow plane The girl wants a model romance Fell in love with taming her new adventurer Because every rebel needs a woman's touch But the fact is she's an actress Using the bedroom for practice Making them think his kiss is all she ever imagines With a pocket full of rocket fuel Dragging strings that pull On a heart that's uncertain but beautiful She just can't help being a girl She just can't help being a girl She just can't help herself Full of spectacle and charm Like nothing else Oh no, the girl can't help herself She is more than wonderful, wonderful Oh no, the girl can't help herself she is more than wonderful being a girl I made it God damn!

[1818] I'm on the verge of crying Oh my God I just want to take a moment to express extreme gratitude that how lucky my life is that I for like I said years drove around just hearing that song in my car and then I'm staring at you in real life hearing you I'm so grateful right now thank you Man, I appreciate the opportunity.

[1819] Oh, so good.

[1820] Does your lady make you sing for her?

[1821] No. She doesn't.

[1822] Me singing and what I do is just, it doesn't really come up that often.

[1823] Uh -huh.

[1824] You know, but I often catch her pulling up to the house and she's playing my stuff in the car.

[1825] Oh, I like that.

[1826] That's got to make you feel good.

[1827] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1828] Yeah, I try to urge my wife to sing and she will very rarely do it for me as well.

[1829] Yeah.

[1830] And then on occasion, she performs publicly.

[1831] And when I go see her, the same thing I just had just now where it's like, I'm on the verge of crying the whole time.

[1832] Because I'm just so proud of her that she can do that thing.

[1833] And something that I could, if I dedicated the rest of my life to, it's just going to do.

[1834] It's so impressive.

[1835] Have you found that it's been challenging for you to do your music live?

[1836] Because it's very kind of complicated on the album.

[1837] And it's often the instrumentation is such that it's probably, you're not going to do that live, right?

[1838] Or even sitting here, like your music has so much going on in it from the instruments standpoint.

[1839] To break it down to an acoustic that holds up so well is really impressive.

[1840] But is that challenging?

[1841] Well, definitely for me because I tend to pay attention to everything that's going on.

[1842] I don't know if you do this when you're making your movies, particularly as the writer and the director and the producer.

[1843] I'm paying attention to everything on stage.

[1844] Right.

[1845] So I often forget lyrics like every night.

[1846] I'm forgetting lyrics and I hate slow songs.

[1847] Okay.

[1848] I often will fall asleep.

[1849] On stage, I will doze off.

[1850] I can't imagine that's what the folks want to see.

[1851] I know.

[1852] While I'm doing slow songs, I have.

[1853] This Saturday night, Van Hunt takes a nap in front of you live.

[1854] It kills me. We'll sell you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge.

[1855] He will sleep for nine minutes before realizing he's gone out.

[1856] So it's kind of like the Trump.

[1857] briefings.

[1858] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1859] If they're not saying Van Hunt over and over again, you're out cold.

[1860] So we have to do these breaks and the songs.

[1861] That's probably what you hear when I'm performing them.

[1862] Uh -huh.

[1863] I will literally just break off into another song.

[1864] I'll also sing differently.

[1865] And the guys playing with you just have to keep up.

[1866] Absolutely.

[1867] Right.

[1868] Yeah.

[1869] Weirdly, I find that all those things you just mentioned, the distraction of that in my head while I'm acting in something that I'm also directing and that I've written is helpful.

[1870] Because I'm actually, I'm so much more worried about this whole day, the whole scene that I'm not concentrating on my acting, which weirdly liberates me to sometimes be better.

[1871] Because I'm not self -conscious about it.

[1872] I'm not even thinking about it.

[1873] It's just happening.

[1874] Oh, that's good.

[1875] Completely unrelated, but do you like to live Quilly?

[1876] Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[1877] Okay.

[1878] Who wouldn't?

[1879] He's my other great obsession.

[1880] Dude, I'm kind of obsessed with him.

[1881] He's so committed.

[1882] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1883] Do you, have you had him here?

[1884] Not yet, but I will the next time he's in town for sure because I do, I'm friendly with and I go see him whenever he's here.

[1885] And I just think, lyrically, he's so mind -blowing.

[1886] And he's one of the coolest people.

[1887] And once you start talking, like, you wouldn't even need to ask questions.

[1888] No, no, I could leave the room probably for 40 minutes and it would take care of itself.

[1889] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1890] I absolutely love him.

[1891] And then I watch him on Twitter.

[1892] And so much of his day is dedicated to fighting strangers.

[1893] And I can relate because I have the same hand.

[1894] I will fight with people I've never met in my life.

[1895] As I say, they could be the crazy person at 7 -11 with a pair.

[1896] on their shoulder but I'm going to take time now to argue with this person that I don't even know if they're sane and he has that times 11 but anyways he's so special yeah yeah all right so the last song is dust yeah yeah this this was definitely my introduction to van hunt oh cool man I think it's the first song I heard it's just another day another episode I'm I'm hiding under It's just another ray of merciful hope I don't expect me anymore I'm already insane If this time you don't rescue I'm all Asian That I've gone crazy again My good Another hard one on the guitar Yeah I actually had worked out a completely different ending last night But I You scrapped it midway Yeah You had to make a game day call.

[1897] It was midway too.

[1898] It was it.

[1899] Yeah.

[1900] You go, you know what?

[1901] Yeah.

[1902] That was so fantastic.

[1903] Van Hunt, people should go to your website.

[1904] VanHunt .com.

[1905] VanHunt .com.

[1906] V -A -N -H -U -N -T .com.

[1907] Also, you released a new album in October of 17, which was but three short months ago, which is called The Fun Rises, the Fun Sets.

[1908] well no it's an interesting story yes it's interesting i did not do that that is no that is the name of the album and it was a kind of recycling of the release because it came out in may of 2015 oh okay but i'll tell you why because in august of this year blue note released a 10 year old record oh they did because i was going to ask you about that and i forgot to but you when you left capital you went to Blue Note and you recorded a whole album and they decided not to release it and then they would not give it back to you either.

[1909] Is that the most heartbreaking thing that can happen to you?

[1910] It is, you know, but again, you know, we're tough guys.

[1911] We move on.

[1912] Oh, bullshit.

[1913] And that's my idea.

[1914] If I wrote and directed a movie and I knew that I couldn't even share it with people, fuck whether or not it's going to be huge or not, but that it wouldn't even get a chance.

[1915] That would be heartbreaking.

[1916] To be honest, I didn't recognize the impact of it until.

[1917] later when actually there were some fans of mine who were like, you know, if people had not had been able to witness that part of your canon, then what you did later on would have made more sense to them.

[1918] It was part of the evolution.

[1919] Yeah.

[1920] And I hadn't actually ever thought about that.

[1921] And I thought that was a good point.

[1922] And then I kind of felt pissed off.

[1923] But yeah, but now it is available.

[1924] Now it's available.

[1925] How did that happen?

[1926] Well, I went back to Blue Note A few of their artists were like, you know, you made an album that, for me, was a transition between what I do as a jazz artist and what I thought everybody else was doing as R &B, hip hop, pop.

[1927] That was a big transition record for me. Yeah.

[1928] And I was like, wow.

[1929] So I went back and I told them that.

[1930] And I said, wouldn't it be nice for you guys to put out this record?

[1931] You sat on and shelved on an artist that's still a living.

[1932] Yes.

[1933] And they were like, well, man. And also in their defense, probably, the business models have changed.

[1934] And it used to be that they were going to have to sell those CDs to a tower records.

[1935] Yeah, exactly.

[1936] And they were going to put money behind it and print posters, right?

[1937] And now you can just release on the Internet.

[1938] Exactly.

[1939] And it's virtually free for them to do that.

[1940] Exactly.

[1941] Okay, great.

[1942] So what's the name of that album?

[1943] That's popular.

[1944] That's popular.

[1945] Yeah.

[1946] And how do we get that?

[1947] Yeah, exactly.

[1948] Okay.

[1949] Spotify, whatever.

[1950] Spotify.

[1951] Okay.

[1952] Okay, you're offering the free route.

[1953] That's nice of you.

[1954] But they're released.

[1955] I'm telling you go to iTunes and buy it, cheap motherfuckers.

[1956] But we can spend $10 at Starbucks today.

[1957] We get Spotify checks.

[1958] We split the.

[1959] Oh, you do?

[1960] The record companies, yeah.

[1961] Are they substantial?

[1962] No. They're not.

[1963] Okay, okay.

[1964] They're better than free, though.

[1965] Right.

[1966] How did they compare to what radio play royalties used to do?

[1967] Radio play royalties are still the largest.

[1968] They are.

[1969] Of the royalties, yeah.

[1970] Okay.

[1971] For music.

[1972] Okay.

[1973] Yeah.

[1974] And just, last question I have for you.

[1975] Other than sales.

[1976] Right.

[1977] But those two have diminished.

[1978] Yeah, totally.

[1979] My last question for you is, are you still working with other people?

[1980] Do you at all aspire to write with other people or create for other people or just collaborate?

[1981] Are you just you?

[1982] My favorite thing to do is to do things like I was just trying to get you to do.

[1983] It's just like nerds you to make this movie.

[1984] That I know would be so personal and different.

[1985] to make, but so much fun for everybody to watch.

[1986] Uh -huh.

[1987] Because you're a funny guy, naturally funny guy, but to see you make something that was so close to you.

[1988] Yeah.

[1989] And, you know, those are, that's where the, uh, explosions happen.

[1990] Yeah.

[1991] You know what I mean?

[1992] So, that's my favorite thing to do with other artists.

[1993] Uh -huh.

[1994] And, uh, I do that.

[1995] I just bounce around the country whenever I'm, wherever I'm needed and try.

[1996] And you've assembled a group of friends that are largely creative.

[1997] No. You're still a lone wolf.

[1998] Yeah.

[1999] I'm still a lone wolf.

[2000] And I just get a call every now and then, usually in the middle of the night.

[2001] So -and -so needs kind of an artist whisperer.

[2002] Yeah.

[2003] And so I show up and, you know, we hang out.

[2004] And if I need to produce something, that's what I do.

[2005] Okay.

[2006] If I need to write something, I'll do it.

[2007] If I need to play, I'll do it.

[2008] Or if I just literally need to hang out and be this person's friend, realtor, car salesman.

[2009] Sure, sure.

[2010] That's generous.

[2011] But that's just for the sake of the good art. Where do you keep your Grammy?

[2012] It's in my closet.

[2013] It's in your closet.

[2014] Okay.

[2015] Do you ever pull it out when things are rough with your lady?

[2016] Just be like, I've been officially deemed a genius.

[2017] I know we don't agree on that restaurant, but look at this statue.

[2018] Don't you think I must have a point of view?

[2019] No, to your point, though, she pulls it out.

[2020] Oh, okay.

[2021] That's nice.

[2022] I like that.

[2023] Sounds like she likes you.

[2024] Yeah.

[2025] I think she does.

[2026] I'm happy that you have a gal that listens to your music.

[2027] yeah that's nice I never catch my wife watching a movie I've made it's never happened yeah yeah yeah she's doing a great job well Van thank you so much for coming and talking with me it's such a such a pleasure and a treat and I'm super grateful that this could happen yeah I really appreciate Vanhunt .com buy shit support our man peace stay tuned if you'd like to hear my good friend and producer Monica Padman point out the many errors in the podcast you just heard.

[2028] What's up guys?

[2029] It's your girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season and let me tell you it's too good and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[2030] Every episode I bring on a friend and have a real conversation and I don't mean just friends.

[2031] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[2032] So follow, watch and listen to Baby.

[2033] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[2034] Hello, we will now dissect Van Huttony's conversation.

[2035] And Monica will point out all the many ways I was inaccurate or irresponsible in my speech.

[2036] Monica, how to go?

[2037] Good.

[2038] There's a medium amount of facts.

[2039] Medium amount.

[2040] But they were all really interesting.

[2041] This was my, this today was my most fun fact check.

[2042] For me, for me personally.

[2043] Do you feel like you've returned to college by doing these?

[2044] Yes, I definitely feel like I'm doing homework, but in a good way.

[2045] Yeah.

[2046] You and I both liked college a lot.

[2047] Yeah, I liked school all across the board.

[2048] Elementary junior high high school?

[2049] Yeah, I love school.

[2050] Yeah.

[2051] College, though, you really, you thrived in college.

[2052] You were a social butterfly.

[2053] You had a large group of friends.

[2054] Sure.

[2055] You're still friends with them.

[2056] Yep.

[2057] And you just recently watched them get very close to winning the college national championship Of course, we're talking about the Georgia.

[2058] Of course.

[2059] Poopoos.

[2060] The Georgia Poopo Panthers.

[2061] What are they?

[2062] How dare you?

[2063] The Georgia Bulldogs.

[2064] Oh, that's great.

[2065] That's a good name.

[2066] There's a lot of bad names in college sports.

[2067] And I'm not even talking about the racist ones or anything.

[2068] I'm just talking about like, you know, the pigeons, the nappers, the quitters.

[2069] The lazy bums.

[2070] The Tallahassee quitters.

[2071] The Sooners.

[2072] One of them is the fucking Sooners.

[2073] That's who they were playing in the Rose Bowl, right?

[2074] Georgia was playing the Sooners, the Oklahoma Sooners.

[2075] So we had to look that up.

[2076] We're like, what a stupid name this is for a team.

[2077] And it relates to when homesteading was happening.

[2078] Apparently you had to line up at a certain time and then they shot a gun and then you'd go out and stake your claim.

[2079] And there were people who would go out before the gun was shot.

[2080] And those were the Sooners because it's also, it's also, so not only is it a bad name.

[2081] It's also kind of about cheaters.

[2082] Yeah.

[2083] Yeah, that's not good.

[2084] But what was your college mascot?

[2085] Oh, that's a great question.

[2086] I went to UCLA.

[2087] We were at the Bruins.

[2088] Bruins.

[2089] Yeah.

[2090] And that's a bear.

[2091] That's a bear.

[2092] I don't know what it is.

[2093] Yeah.

[2094] There were a bunch of things that didn't make sense to me until way after I graduated.

[2095] One of them was like you had to go on to Ursula something to sign up for your classes.

[2096] That was like their network was Ursula or something.

[2097] What are they trying to sound futuristic or something?

[2098] By the way, this was early into the internet.

[2099] So I thought they're pushing too hard.

[2100] Sure.

[2101] Well, Ursula is like the scientific name for bear.

[2102] It's like the family names, Ursula, you know, whatever.

[2103] Yeah, May, Major.

[2104] I think that's a constellation or something.

[2105] The Black Bear's Ursula Minor and Brown Bear's Ursula Major.

[2106] What about high school?

[2107] What is, what was your mascot in high school?

[2108] We were the Wald Lake Central Vikings, maybe, the Vikings.

[2109] You can't even remember.

[2110] Not really.

[2111] My junior high, my first junior high, Highland Junior High.

[2112] it was the Scots.

[2113] Oh, like the Scottish people?

[2114] That's right.

[2115] And the Vikings obviously is about Scandinavians.

[2116] And so it is interesting to me. Let's just do, let's have this conversation.

[2117] Yeah, this is always right for you and I'd argue.

[2118] Uh -oh.

[2119] It is totally fine to have a team referencing a European country or a European population of people.

[2120] But it wouldn't be cool, right, to do the Milwaukee, Pakistanis.

[2121] That would feel race.

[2122] And why would it feel racist?

[2123] Because those are minority groups as opposed to the Scottish, a very massive majority white.

[2124] Yeah.

[2125] But if we just start with the notion that the team name is supposed to elicit fear in its rivals because they are powerful and mighty, right?

[2126] So why not just include all the mighty, powerful, historic military operations from the past from all over the world?

[2127] Let's have the Persian Empire, it was gigantic.

[2128] They took over a big chunk of the world.

[2129] Let's have the Toledo Persians.

[2130] No. Why not?

[2131] Because it would, first of all, it's...

[2132] First of all, Toledo doesn't have any sports.

[2133] No, they have the mudhens.

[2134] Take away the racism element.

[2135] It would just be confusing, okay?

[2136] Because we refer to minority groups as their ethnicity.

[2137] In this country, we do.

[2138] If you said the, you know, whatever you called them, The Toledo Persians.

[2139] I can hardly get it out in my mouth.

[2140] You know what?

[2141] See, I think this is a weird attempt against racism that weirdly now is racist.

[2142] Like you're now saying that the word Persian, you don't even want to say it as if it's a pejorative.

[2143] I don't want to say it as an object.

[2144] I don't want to objectify a group of people and make them a symbol of a team of white guys running around on a field.

[2145] But it's clearly a celebration.

[2146] But if you said the Persians were coming to town, then everyone's going to train extra hard.

[2147] They don't, they never thought a bunch of Scottish people were coming when we were the Scots.

[2148] Okay, well, I don't, no one thought the Vikings were going to mourn their ship.

[2149] Okay, in this country, we don't differentiate the general white people by their ancestry.

[2150] We just called them white people.

[2151] Well, recently, yes.

[2152] Okay, we're talking about now.

[2153] In the 50s in New York, you are still very segregated.

[2154] into Italian, Irish, Jewish, all these distinctions were.

[2155] I mean, I think it was even a huge deal that John F. Kennedy was going to be president because he was going to be the first Catholic president.

[2156] That was a big deal.

[2157] So just five minutes ago, the white people were very identified by their country of origin.

[2158] Okay, well, we're talking about current mascots.

[2159] Yeah.

[2160] Mascots now.

[2161] We do not differentiate white people by being Irish or Scottish or whatever they are.

[2162] We don't do that.

[2163] Okay.

[2164] We do do that for minority groups.

[2165] So then there's more confusion.

[2166] When you call, if you call a team, the Persians, people think of Persians.

[2167] They think of actual Persians now.

[2168] When you call some of the Scots or the Vikings, no one's thinking about current Vikings and getting.

[2169] Well, I do think, yes, I do think Vikings are largely non -existent.

[2170] Correct.

[2171] Yeah.

[2172] Yeah.

[2173] But Scots, we could say.

[2174] still.

[2175] And nobody's thinking that.

[2176] So there are bad ones, clearly.

[2177] There are the redskins, right?

[2178] And they, that is a pejorative.

[2179] That's not, that's not a celebration.

[2180] So are we saying that because we have a bad track record of generally making a meal out of the stereotypes that are negative about different groups of people, because we have that history that precludes us from at least doing the opposite thing, which is celebrating a culture or history.

[2181] The Aztecs, what an empire.

[2182] That's something that could be celebrated.

[2183] There's all these ways to shit on it in film and television, sports teams, whatnot.

[2184] But if we have an opportunity to celebrate it, I don't see why that's negative.

[2185] I just don't think it translates in the same way when it's a minority group because minority groups already get stereotyped all the time.

[2186] They already get objectified and they're already facing an uphill battle.

[2187] So when you call them out as an object to represent.

[2188] to falsely represent a group of people that it...

[2189] Well, hold on, no, falsely.

[2190] It's not a Persian school.

[2191] But none of these schools are.

[2192] My junior high was not Scottish.

[2193] The Michigan State folks are not Spartans.

[2194] I know, but they're still are, it's still a majority group.

[2195] It's still white people.

[2196] The UCLA Bruins are not bears.

[2197] These are just symbols that represent virility, strength.

[2198] prowess and physical aptitude.

[2199] It's a compliment.

[2200] Unless you're using one of these very bad words, then it's clearly not.

[2201] People are racist all the time without using bad words.

[2202] Give me an example.

[2203] Like when people say to black folks, they're so well spoken, that's a way to.

[2204] Yeah.

[2205] Yeah, that's very racist.

[2206] Yeah, that's something racist.

[2207] Whatever.

[2208] Any stereotype is often just a negative thought about someone.

[2209] Doesn't I mean, you don't know how you can think something negative about someone and not say, you know, a slur.

[2210] Yeah, I think that we should embrace celebrating folks.

[2211] And I don't think because they're, you know, not the hegemonic group in the country, it should mean that celebrating them is negative.

[2212] You're right.

[2213] It shouldn't mean that.

[2214] If you're looking at this logically, you are right.

[2215] Okay.

[2216] But if you...

[2217] Emotionally?

[2218] And realistically, the way people are treated is not based on logic.

[2219] It's based on emotion and it's based on neemness.

[2220] Okay.

[2221] But do you, I just want to be clear for our purposes here.

[2222] You know I'm not proposing a cartoon drawing of a Persian.

[2223] I'm proposing, you call it the Persians, and there's like a cool sword.

[2224] Yeah.

[2225] Or the Hans and you show the stir up in the horse, which was their mounted troops were the breakthrough of the Huns.

[2226] That's why they were so successful.

[2227] So that was their big technological breakthrough.

[2228] You celebrate the, that part of the horse.

[2229] Yeah, but doesn't it also feel like white people adopting this thing that isn't.

[2230] there's, like there's something that feels a little bit like appropriation in a way as well.

[2231] I think what you and I are really, really debating is that you don't believe there could be a celebration of that culture.

[2232] You just don't trust, given our history, you don't really believe it would be a celebration of the Persians.

[2233] I think that's where the rubber meets the road on this one.

[2234] I think it's a lack of trust, which is very fair.

[2235] Yeah, maybe.

[2236] I mean, I think that's diluting it a lot, but yeah, I don't know.

[2237] I just...

[2238] But you are saying if a white person were to pick the Huns, that's a no -go.

[2239] Yeah.

[2240] Yeah, okay.

[2241] I appreciate your perspective.

[2242] And I love you.

[2243] I love you.

[2244] And it's very okay that we differ on this.

[2245] Yeah.

[2246] I don't even think in a court a lot.

[2247] I think this would be a mistrial.

[2248] I don't think they would find in your favor or mine.

[2249] The people will tell us, I'm sure.

[2250] Yeah.

[2251] All right.

[2252] Let's get into the fact checking.

[2253] Okay.

[2254] And talking about where Van came from, you referenced a Malcolm Gladwell book that discussed culture of pride, also known as culture of honor, I think more commonly, this culture of honor.

[2255] Okay.

[2256] And that book is from outliers.

[2257] Ah.

[2258] And it's also referenced, I know, from Hillbilly Ellogy.

[2259] They talk about that book.

[2260] Yes.

[2261] The Malcolm Gladwell books, I can't recommend them enough.

[2262] They are like reading great magazine articles, one chapter after another.

[2263] And you don't even have to agree, or personally, I don't know that I agree with his, is overarching conclusion, but getting the case material is so fascinating, getting the data or the studies or the history of these family feuds and stuff.

[2264] It's so fascinating whether or not you agree with his ultimate conclusion.

[2265] They're so fun.

[2266] Okay, and then Van had mentioned Ray Charles' saxophone guy.

[2267] Okay.

[2268] And he said he thought his name was King Louis.

[2269] But based on the information I found, it was David Fathead Newman.

[2270] Ooh.

[2271] Those are both great names.

[2272] King Lily or Fat Head Newman.

[2273] How about a sports team named the Fat Head Newman's?

[2274] Sure.

[2275] Okay.

[2276] You mentioned a van that he plays a lot of instruments like Prince does and you called that multi -musitional.

[2277] That's not a word, right?

[2278] It's not.

[2279] It's called multi -instrumentalist.

[2280] Oh, that's a lot more specific, temporally specific.

[2281] Okay.

[2282] And then you said that Detroit was the blackest city and, like, the country when you lived there.

[2283] And I said 92 % black?

[2284] Yep, you said 92 % black.

[2285] And it is 79 .2 % today.

[2286] Today.

[2287] Some stats say 83%.

[2288] That's a big gap.

[2289] It shouldn't because there's a census.

[2290] So I don't know why.

[2291] But anyway, and it is still currently the city with the highest population of African -Americans in the U .S. Per capita.

[2292] Followed by.

[2293] Can I guess?

[2294] Yeah.

[2295] I'd like to go through these.

[2296] Sure.

[2297] There's two.

[2298] Jacksonville.

[2299] No. Damn it.

[2300] Houston?

[2301] Nope.

[2302] Nope.

[2303] All right.

[2304] You were kind of closed with Jacksonville, only in sound.

[2305] Jackson, Mississippi.

[2306] Oh, okay.

[2307] And then Miami Gardens, Florida.

[2308] Hmm.

[2309] Not a place.

[2310] Made up place.

[2311] Nice try.

[2312] Okay.

[2313] This was really interesting, this next little fact for me. Yeah, because you had said in your estimation when you were younger, you would go to Atlanta, it seemed like it was a much better place for black people to live than Detroit.

[2314] Yeah.

[2315] And I'm from Atlanta.

[2316] So I kind of felt like maybe you were wrong and you were just, you know, sort of blinded by your specific circumstance and who you were around.

[2317] But you are right.

[2318] Oh, good.

[2319] The median household income for African Americans in Atlanta is $41 ,300.

[2320] And the median household income in Detroit is 25 ,980.

[2321] That's a staggering gap.

[2322] Yes, very, very, very large gap.

[2323] And Forbes evaluated, this was a 2018 article, Forbes evaluated America's 53 largest metropolitan statistical areas based on three factors that we believe are indicators of middle class in this country.

[2324] So the homeownership rate, entrepreneurship, and median household income.

[2325] And Atlanta and Washington were tied for first place for best.

[2326] Wow.

[2327] Sounds like I really had it right.

[2328] You did.

[2329] Yeah.

[2330] Yeah, you did.

[2331] I thought it was fair to call that out.

[2332] Yeah.

[2333] So I had been to Atlanta a lot.

[2334] You had not been to Detroit a lot as a kid.

[2335] You would have been pretty shocked with how bleak the life for your average black person wasn't in Detroit.

[2336] It was pretty depressing.

[2337] Yeah.

[2338] And when I would go down to.

[2339] Atlanta, I'd see like black families at restaurants that were like total middle class Chili's types restaurants with the whole family there.

[2340] You just would not see that in Detroit very often.

[2341] Yeah.

[2342] And they had, they own nice new cars.

[2343] They had nice new clothes that, you know, it was very visible in Detroit, the income inequality.

[2344] You know, now it's on a big, big rebound, but I lived downtown Detroit in a condemned building and it was 3 ,000 square feet and it was $400 a month.

[2345] That same building now is getting like $3 ,800 a month for rent.

[2346] It was as close to a post -apocalyptic city as you could really find, I think.

[2347] Although I haven't spent a lot of time in Pittsburgh, but I think Pittsburgh went to a similar, really, really rough downturn in the industry.

[2348] Yeah.

[2349] Yeah.

[2350] And then you also mentioned that you assume Dayton would be sort of a middle ground in between Detroit and Atlanta, and Dayton's median income for African Americans is 27 ,000.

[2351] Worse?

[2352] No, a little bit better, but like very little.

[2353] I have to imagine the, well, I don't really know if that's true.

[2354] I was going to say maybe the cost of living is cheaper in Dayton, so relative it would be higher, but I guess not.

[2355] Okay, so you brought up Bushwick Bill, and you mentioned his girlfriend shot him.

[2356] Yeah.

[2357] Okay.

[2358] So there's some conflicting information on.

[2359] this because most articles say his girlfriend shot him like you did during an argument um and i couldn't find where even though that was what you told me to find but i couldn't find it um but then bushwick bill went on the show party legends on vice land okay and he said oh boy that it was his mom oh who shot him uh that he wanted to commit suicide but knew that if you committed suicides can't get life insurance and he wanted his mom to get the life insurance so he got really high and then he concocted this plan where he would where he like would give his mom the gun and then provoke her and so they he did this sounds like such a bonding experience between mother and child sure I know it's what we all dream about I mean I can't even grasp handing my mother a revolver but he I guess put his face in front of the gun and then she she kind of turned and closed her eyes and then she shot his eye out.

[2360] What a story is.

[2361] So she shot his eye out and didn't kill him.

[2362] Okay, but literally every other article I found said that it was his girlfriend.

[2363] Yeah.

[2364] And can I float a theory?

[2365] Sure.

[2366] I want to float a theory that, you know, he, during the time of that, that interview, he was trying to patch things up with the ex and he thought he should stop telling everyone she shot up.

[2367] No, this is recently.

[2368] Yeah, maybe he's trying to put things back together.

[2369] That was a really long time ago.

[2370] So maybe.

[2371] But in the face, right?

[2372] He did get shot in the face.

[2373] Yeah, his eye.

[2374] His eye, he doesn't not have an eye.

[2375] Okay, so you guys started talking about Freak Nick.

[2376] Mm -hmm.

[2377] And then a festival came up, a recent festival came up that sort of went crazy.

[2378] Uh -huh.

[2379] So I got a little more information on that.

[2380] I couldn't really remember.

[2381] It was called the Fry Festival.

[2382] Uh -huh.

[2383] And, and, yeah.

[2384] Not put together by Glenn Fry of the Eagles.

[2385] I'm so sorry.

[2386] It's called the Fire Festival.

[2387] Oh, Jesus Christ, Monica.

[2388] But look, it's spelled F -Y -R -E.

[2389] Of course it is.

[2390] Well, yeah, I know.

[2391] But it's easy for me to read that.

[2392] Sure, sure.

[2393] Yeah, yeah.

[2394] Fire Festival.

[2395] With a Y. With a Y. And so it was started by Billy McFarland, who's a 25 -year -old Manhattan entrepreneur.

[2396] And this was sort of sold.

[2397] to these elite millennials and influencers and stuff.

[2398] There were some musicians attached to the promotion, right?

[2399] Jaurul.

[2400] Jarl rule.

[2401] Yeah, who I love.

[2402] And it was sold as an ultra luxurious, quote, Coachella in the Bahamas.

[2403] Mm -hmm.

[2404] Yeah, you got me. I'm on the hook.

[2405] And then tickets cost up to $12 ,000 a piece.

[2406] Oh, my God.

[2407] Yep.

[2408] Okay, so there's.

[2409] For a FEMA tent.

[2410] There's an article in Vanity Fair about this.

[2411] I just want to read a little excerpt from that.

[2412] This is a girl who went.

[2413] So McFarlane suggested that everyone who had booked one of the private villas follow him, but there were no private villas.

[2414] There were no buildings to stay in period.

[2415] Instead, there was a cluster of carpeted tents.

[2416] Suddenly, Kumar, a girl who attended the festival, says, there was this mass rush of people running to the tents.

[2417] It was just chaos.

[2418] What should we do?

[2419] We ended up grabbing two tents.

[2420] The beds were day.

[2421] But the carpet was completely soaked.

[2422] It was like Survivor, the amazing race gone really bad.

[2423] People were stealing, bedding, people were getting more and more drunk.

[2424] We couldn't leave our things.

[2425] So we just stayed in the tents.

[2426] It was just epic chaos.

[2427] Their plan was to get everyone really drunk and they'll forget how shitty this really is.

[2428] Yikes.

[2429] Which is normally a bulletproof business model.

[2430] Just get everyone hammered and let the chips fall where they may. $12 ,000 a piece.

[2431] Oh, yeah, yie.

[2432] Yeah.

[2433] It's hard.

[2434] There are certain events where it's kind of hard to feel bad for the victim.

[2435] And in this case, I'm just a little less sympathetic to someone who believes that the 25 -year -old entrepreneur and Jha Rule have put together a great island retreat for $12 ,000.

[2436] You have to be a tiny bit skeptical, don't you?

[2437] FOMO, I guess we've put an actual price on FOMO.

[2438] They're like, this thing could go south.

[2439] But then again, we could be missing the greatest party of all time.

[2440] Yeah, I mean, I think people, people's egos got really boosted because I think, you know, it was exclusive, yeah, elite to all of these fancy words that people get off on.

[2441] Okay.

[2442] You said the first movie you did, without a paddle, cost $19 million and made $60, but it made $70.

[2443] Oh, did?

[2444] Oh, that's worldwide.

[2445] You're doing it, you're being very kind by doing worldwide numbers, which I like.

[2446] Well, you aren't, you aren't specifically saying domestic when you speak.

[2447] You're right.

[2448] I'm not.

[2449] You're right.

[2450] Vand mentioned Thelonious Monk, and then that made you, you brought up Charles Mingus.

[2451] Yeah.

[2452] And he said he liked his book.

[2453] And I just want to say his book is called Beneath the Underdog.

[2454] And then you mentioned a documentary about him.

[2455] That's called Mingus Charles Mingus, 1968.

[2456] Ooh, God, I want to watch that again.

[2457] Yeah.

[2458] And that, yeah, talks about basically him getting evicted and stuff, right?

[2459] Yeah.

[2460] And he seems a little.

[2461] A little unstable by my definition of stability.

[2462] I don't know if he's just an extreme artist and he's just not super anchored into reality, but he definitely has a very peculiar personality in that documentary.

[2463] It sounds sad because he has like his five -year -old, right?

[2464] Yeah.

[2465] It is sad, but then he grabs a base and you go, fuck, this guy's got a superpower.

[2466] I don't feel that bad now.

[2467] Really?

[2468] I feel worse.

[2469] Because then he, because he shouldn't be in that.

[2470] Well, yes, he should.

[2471] There's, yes, so one way to look at it is, is, is, is, is, that's worse.

[2472] But then another part of me goes, fuck, I would rather have that skill and that genius than any apartment or car or clothes or anything.

[2473] Really?

[2474] Yeah.

[2475] You would rather have that skill.

[2476] Well, now I have two little kids.

[2477] Yeah, he had a kid.

[2478] Like, if I could sing like Adele, but I had to move to a one bedroom apartment, I think I would take that trade.

[2479] If I could sing like Adele, yeah.

[2480] But I could not keep an apartment.

[2481] I was getting evicted.

[2482] Well, just for the record, he had a huge space.

[2483] He just probably needed a downgrade.

[2484] He had a gigantic warehouse full of shit.

[2485] So it's not like he went to a shelter or a porta potty.

[2486] So let's just say he has to go to a two -bedroom.

[2487] Well, if I couldn't pay the rent and I had a five -year -old, I wouldn't.

[2488] But you could probably land a suitor with some dough if you could sing like Adele.

[2489] Yeah, I definitely could.

[2490] If only.

[2491] Okay, so you guys were talking about Princess.

[2492] albums and how his first album didn't have any hits.

[2493] And his debut album is called For You.

[2494] And it was released in 1978 and Prince was 20.

[2495] Oh, God damn.

[2496] Yeah.

[2497] Special.

[2498] And that's all.

[2499] That's all.

[2500] That is all.

[2501] That was fun.

[2502] Yeah.

[2503] Especially the part about fire.

[2504] Especially the part about mascots.

[2505] Well, thank you so much, Monica.

[2506] And good night to you.

[2507] on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[2510] We've all been there.

[2511] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers and strange rashes.

[2512] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[2513] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[2514] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

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