NOAH KAHAN: Imposter Syndrome, Anxiety & The Pressure of Success (What He’s Never Shared Before)

It's easy to look at somebody and be like, "Your life must be so sick." Man, you have no f*cking clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff. It used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be unhealthy physically

or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm good." Someone says that I suck. I'm like, "F*ck, I suck." Getting the talk about this is not common for me. I'm right now, I need it more than ever.

"Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you can to become the happier, healthier, and more healed." Today, on On Purpose, I'm joined by singer-songwriter Noah Khan. Noah's highly anticipated new album, The Great Divide, is our April 24th. Alongside his brand new Netflix documentary, Noah Khan, Out of Body. Out April 13th. Please welcome to On Purpose, Noah Khan.

Noah, it's great to finally meet you.

Thank you for having me. I'm a huge fan. This is awesome. So thank you. I have to say, I'm a huge fan. Thank you for sending your documentary and advance. I'm actually really looking forward to people seeing it because it was so raw. It was so vulnerable, super real. I felt like I got to know you before I got to know you today.

And then when we're sitting down before the interview today, I'm like, "Oh wait, this is, I feel like I've already got very familiar with you." It's so weird to know it's going to be out in the world. It was almost like I was able to compartmentalize the process of making it with not thinking about anyone seeing it so that I was able to kind of be more myself.

And then a lot of ways it was really therapeutic to film and to watch back. It's like a very heavy experience watching yourself and getting to see your family. But my family and I were talking, we're actually so lucky that we got to be a part of this.

“Because how rare is it to get to see how you all interact with each other in a natural way?”

And how you can kind of take into perspective, what it would look like from an outside angle. And watching it back, I think my whole family was like, "We are really good to each other." And we all are funny and love each other.

And so it was a really amazing ability, a chance to see who we are.

And through the eyes of someone else and through the artistic lens of a director and hopefully soon the audience, which is just a special thing. So I appreciate you watching it. It's like my first time talking about her right now. So I'm still like learning how to talk about it and learning how to like express my feelings on it. So I'm still kind of finding out what they are.

But ultimately, I just hope that people that watch it feel connected to their families, to their lives, to their own insecurities, through me talking about mine. And it was hard and was scary, but I think ultimately those are the things that move people. And can make people take stock of who they are. So making it, there was moments where I was like,

"Should I talk about this? Should I say this?" Like, "Should I really say what I'm feeling?" So I had this hyper-active ability to know how it's going to be perceived. And just trying to put away my concerns about how people would perceive me and just try to be myself

“was a fun challenge and I think helped me in my own life now.”

Yeah, well, I really hope this conversation is as much a discovery and exploration for you as it is for us. And so that I hope that it helps you in the journey of what you're trying to do in the mission and the purpose that's behind it. We see so much of your childhood in it, you talk about it. Like, what's a childhood memory that stands out to you that still defines who you are today?

My dad and I and the documentary play Father and Son at the end,

which is like the first song I learned to sing and one of the first songs I learned to play guitar on

with my dad. And so, I think playing that song at this senior citizen's home in Hanover was really defining. So it was like my first time performing and it was my first time realizing that I wasn't as good as I thought I was. I think I thought it was really good and then I went into that performance and like, oh, like, this is really hard. And also like the song itself is about like a lot of it's about like aging and kind of like the discrepancy between youth and

and people that are getting older and like they you feel like old people don't understand and we're literally doing it in an old folks. These people are probably like, yeah, the dad character is way more correct than the son character. But that was like a defining moment for me. And also the only time I dad and I have ever performed like for anyone besides our family until we did the documentary.

“So I always remember that like a really special moment of my childhood. That is special. That's”

it's special. What were you like as a kid? Like how would you describe yourself growing up? I was I was I'm on a four like kind of like middle child like it's my older brother, my older sister, the me, the my younger brother. So I was kind of like in my own world a little bit. I think very creative, very like aspirational to do something creative in my life. You can from a very young age. But also like very distracted distracting just kind of trying to be heard even just around the

dinner table or in school just like trying to make my voice still out as one to get like a chance to say what I had to say and what was your method just raising your voice? Just yelling and like yeah just being like an asshole basically. I think but just trying to be heard and trying to like get the

people can hear. I was not a great student. I love I think I was pretty smart but didn't really

care much for school because I always always always wanted to be musician and truly like every year

school for me felt like just one more year of me not getting to go be a singer. So I was just looking for it being done with school and going to bright songs and going to play music and going to do open mic. So very like I don't know kind of just like itching and a little anxious to get out as a kid from whatever situation wasn't like gonna achieve my dreams. What do you think your vision was for life if if this hadn't happened like this incredible success in journey that you're

on right now like what what did you envision? I literally never ever thought about it like I've never thought about anything else besides being a musician. Wow can six grade you wrote a letter to yourself like you would open when you graduate high school and like my letter was just that's it. You're great exascent. Yeah it's actually really cool and like kind of sets you up for like sadness a lot of what it's like on and I haven't done any of that shit but for me it was like I want to

have a record deal by the time I graduate high school and I want to make it it was basically like you better still be making music you better still be like writing and like thinking about music and when I graduate high school I had a record deal and I opened up the letter I'm like this is

“cool. I think I made my like child with itself pretty proud there and some of writing that and actually”

like throughout high school I was like thinking about like man I got to get that record dealer six

grade no was gonna beat me up but yeah it was always my life plan. I think if I people do ask

me all the time about what I would do if I wasn't and music but it's always with the context of already being in music I think music is so my job feels so me focused all the time and like so centered on who I am and marketing me and marketing my vulnerability and whatever and so I think just something that would be focused on other people and focused on like helping other people and extending myself to help others spotlight themselves just something that wasn't so no all the time.

Yeah for sure I mean you've talked about how like writing as a teenager was an outlet for feeling different and your anxiety like what was that feeling different then that music was an outlet for and what was the anxiety back then? Yeah it was interesting said I was always trying to fit in and always and like had lots of friends but I always kind of felt like I was hiding this part of myself that was like really vulnerable and sad and going through a lot of like mental health stuff

“even at a really early age and I think that created this like disconnect in my life for like I was”

going to school or hanging out with my friends and like really putting on to be who I thought would be like accepted and then going home and feeling like really just disconnected from like this presentation of myself all the time and so writing music was like my own special little thing and for a long time I really missed that too like when it was just my special my special little buddy you know it's going home and writing a song and and like having this other like

Hannah Montana thing that I did where like I would go home and like write music and go to school and just be like you know a class clown and being annoying at school and then go home and like

just kind of access to others other side of myself so writing music was always a way for me to

a to kind of have something that made me feel like I belonged and whoever like and whoever it was yeah you missed that because you don't feel you get to do that anymore in this kind of way like I just feel like everything I do even like internally on my own like I just always I'm thinking about it from like a how is it going to move my career forward how do we market this like I don't know when you like start to be sentient to like who you are and what your music can represent to

people it can affect like the intention and so sometimes I worry that I'm not being I'm not saying things that I feel I'm just saying things that sound like deep or sad or whatever and um I like to think that the music that I put out is all something I connect to but it's just in the writing process and like thinking about like how do we market your vulnerability in the next album how do we like show people this other sad thing and and when it's like I feel like there's all this shit

that's up for grabs and up for like everything that I have is going out and being taken in and being absorbed or being sold and I miss when it was just me and the guitar and like daily person the world I was gonna hear that song was maybe my mom and then my my notebook or whatever yeah so yeah I missed that and I miss having music be just this special thing that wasn't like adulterated by the other side of music which is not as much fun for me but what I'm hearing from you

“is that in your writing process you're almost using that awareness that you have to go oh no I”

want to write with intention and I want to write with my real feeling and it almost feels like you're using as a filter which I guess you're saying in the past that filter didn't exist you didn't to now you almost have to filter it through that yeah and in a lot of ways it's nice because seeing people respond and I'm not even talking about like marketing your charts or whatever like selling shows that it's just watching people like in the crowd hearing the music and like watching

a girl on her dad or frat guys or grown men like out there like feeling the music yes

between being vulnerable and trying to achieve what people think vulnerability looks like yeah and

“sometimes realizing that sometimes some things don't fit into a box you don't fit into a three”

and a half minute song sometimes the conversation is much larger and being okay with not being able to say everything you want all the time and just yeah even like as I talk about the documentary just like I'm still figuring out how to talk about these feelings that I express like I don't have thousand foot view of like what I went through and so learning how to like express myself without feeling like I'm giving myself away is something that I've been grappling with a lot yeah yeah

there's this I mean just for whatever it's worth when I was watching the documentary my wife randomly was walking through the room and she stopped she didn't even know what I was watching like she just started with my laptop and I'm watching it and she walked in on the moment where you're singing

for the little wonderful girl who has cancer and my wife just stopped I was like she heard it

and she was so mesmerized she came over and she just swore the little girl and she was like that was just your music and that moment and she had no clue what I was going on yeah she didn't know

“and it had an impact in like this very passive way of even experiencing it and I think that says a”

lot about what you're channeling and putting through that's the most wonderful compliment that somebody that I'm sure your wife is a very different background than I do like or maybe she was from my hometown or nobody but just like somebody that's not in my world or in my body or in my experience like finding a connection with themselves they're like an interest in something I think that's like what mental health the conversation about mental health for me has been so cool was

like understanding that where I came from is my own and I grew up with privilege and with access and like that people that didn't have that are still connecting to the feelings there and it brings us together and it kind of helps equalize our differences into this like larger similarity of just going through something mentally yeah I listen to you and I'm like wait was I from Vermont yeah yeah you know why does this still myself like you know and I'm not just saying that

to fly you and like as if I'm like wait a minute why does this like why does this hit so deep you know it's a it and it's such a beautiful thing of like connecting to strangers or people from different walks of life and different backgrounds but I find it fascinating that you talk about you know almost missing this old experience but then in the documentary you kind of start it with like this line of I'm so afraid of losing this special thing and it might go away

yeah and so it's almost like there's there's something beautiful about what's happening now too yeah it's it's I think I'm just constantly in like a grass is greener mindset and constantly trying to go backwards I worked with this songwriter in Nashville and he's this older guy it started when he was in his 40s as name's Tom Douglas a great writer he said songwriting is all about trying

“to go back and and to somewhere simpler and somewhere easier and I think that's how I live”

a lot of my life and I'm very actively like hyper actively aware of moments as they're there and I'm not able to be inside of the moment because I'm so worried about when it's gone and I know and I'll be able to go back to it and so in the documentary you see a lot of me being like this imposter syndrome of like I might not get this ever again this might all go away and for having worked for so long for like nine eight or nine years before I had that kind of moment that allowed

me into those big venues and that like more kind of like global success I guess I'm so aware of how fleeting and how hard it can be to refine it and so I think I spent so much time worrying about not being able to get it again that a lot of those moments that wasn't able to fully live in so when there were moments like family park in the documentary as you as you see in the movie like then I'm able to fully be in those are so special to me and you you felt you were like that was

one of the one of the few times that I felt like I was just there and like looking out and I just felt like so with everybody else in that moment and not thinking about before after and you know that's why that show is so special to me like the fans all being there the venue amazing but like for me selfishly it was just like oh I'm here this is awesome I am right where you guys are right now and I felt like the same for a little while I mean I I feel like I love watching that genuine kind of

present yet I'm just feeling we all experienced I got short of you lying on the lawn at Fenway like lying on the ground and texting right at the beginning yeah yeah and and it's like you're like I can't believe I'm here it's surreal yeah but then you're like but I'm anxious and when I watch that I'm like but that's so real like that is the most present way in one sense to experience anything

it's like that's the human experience right it's like I always am so jealous of like and maybe

there's no one exists that can do this but someone that's just like fully living in the moment like fully like just accepting things that they come being right there experiencing everything and not thinking about the context or the future it's possible yeah yeah I'll be so sick if you have a guy in LA that you could help me up with like just implant something in my brain so I don't know the meditate way to that I don't know the technological way to that even meditation bro I'll be meditating

I was young to it it's hard meditation like it's so um yeah it's powerful but it's so difficult to

“like it's like go it's hard it is and you have to take so while like it's the consistency is it's key”

for meditation I think yeah I'd like to learn more about that from you someday of course right of course yeah I love how you talk about though this I I think what I what I'm getting at is there's I just feel like you're really honest about how we all feel I think it's very easy to honest to be like all right I had the success you know six season was insane like the next thing's

going to be as big or bigger and the reality is I think anyone who's out any success you're always

scared of your next thing oh yeah like that's just such a normal human emotion and so you talk about the study of being scared and sad for the next album how does that bleed into your creativity and how do you use it rather than be controlled by it that's a great question I'm still learning I mean when I was 16 years old no record deal nobody knew I was making music or anything I remember still feeling that way like I wrote a song called "Sync" when I was a kid and I like

love this song and then the next day I was crying because I'm like I'll never make anything it's good

“as that again so there is no stakes at all for me at that point in my life but that feeling is”

chasing me around throughout my entire career and was incredibly difficult um coming off of of stick season just because I kept on raising like the stakes emotionally for myself to

to have to follow it up and for the first like year after being on tour for three years of

stick season I was just kind of lost and how to fight that feeling I had a conversation with a few different artists I don't necessarily want to name them just because I don't want to put them on a spot but they had gone through this themselves like burnout and um major success and needing to fall things up and the advice was just like the best advice I got was like it's just not going to be the same process and you can't control you can't control it you can't like try to make it perfect and

it's just going to be what it is so I had this kind of a let go of this idea of like the follow-up and just making music for that same you know eight year old that picked up a guitar the first time and just making music because it's what I'm supposed to do yeah it's beautiful to hear that you had to reach out to other artists who've gone through similar things and have you ever felt that

“support in that community because I think they're on so many more artists now who are talking”

about their mental health and are talking about the creative process and everything else absolutely yeah absolutely yeah I feel like people really want to talk about the themselves I think and sometimes it's just getting that conversation started it's funny because like creativity and its intersection was self-worth is so difficult for people to navigate you know so well said explain that for me that's yeah just I think a lot of times as creative people as writers

actors whatever podcasts you feel like what you do is who you are and when you're talking one what your job is is expressing yourself you feel like when you can express yourself you're not good at your job and you're not good at satisfying this need to to let yourself out and so it becomes very lonely because you feel like admitting that to somebody is not just admitting that you're struggling in your job means you're struggling with yourself

and that can be really really difficult to say to somebody especially somebody that you look up to that you think has it all together so like talking to these people it was really hard like my voice shakes in the phone being like I just don't think I can write songs anymore and I don't think I can do this and like having to open yourself up to somebody like that and be like and be afraid that they're going to say well that sucks you know and and to hear if someone

say I get it and I went through that too or I have my own version of that in my life it just makes the world feel brighter it makes like the clouds over your head just for a second go away and you're like at least even if it's not fixed yet at least you've been here before and there's a path out so I'd like unbelievably grateful to those artists and my family to my wife to the people that like sat with me in those feelings and like observed how I was handling it

and recognized that I needed some help so I'm really grateful to the people that helped me and if you're listening to the podcast like thank you so much and I disout would not have happened without without them so everything you just said was so well articulated I hope you listen back to because it was just everything you just said about creativity and self-worth just resonated so strongly thank you yes it's hard to describe and it's hard to describe it really well

it's hard to describe it really just I was like you literally just summed up the essence of doubt when I was a kid I was like even when I was going through this stuff as a kid like writer's block and stuff like that I would just look up artists with writer's block and hope that I could see a quote from somebody that would just like unwalk everything and I found a few but like I tried to make a vow to myself to like talk about creative struggle

because it's really isolating and really lonely and it feels like you get stripped of who you are

and it just feels like you're drowning so I always wanted to hide my best to

share what I've gone through just so people can maybe hear it and it'd be understood for a second yeah absolutely I mean not not to compare but to reflect my own experience I spent the last from when I started the process I spent the last 12 months trying to figure out just what the

I wrote I've wrote every in two books this was my third book that I'm writing and I've wrote chapters

“through them away I wrote chapters that I thought were quite good and then I read them back and they”

weren't and I was overthinking ruminating and everything else and then 12 months later I was like I'm going to write a book about overthinking yeah that's sort of just done for 12 months totally that's my actual experience rather than you know writing from a place of knowing I'm going to write right from a place of what I'm struggling with and it just touches people yeah but it took me a year to like even come to that conclusion and then you feel like when you

kind of made that choice internally like did it feel easier and did it feel like the words flowed and like so much more yeah but it was because before I was trying to technically figure out like yeah I had this really good book and it really well it was good about it like how would I repeat that and what would it what would that chapter structure look like if it matches that structure and people said they love that chapter from that book so let me and it's like this mathematical

process which is not how I wrote that first book no it's never a second yeah and so then I'm like

“why am I trying to be a mathematician you can only go through what you're going through like you can't”

yes you can't like change the feelings you have even if they're feelings that you don't think are going to be marketable or as successful like and then you kind of realize like that's actually more compelling than listening to pretend to be going through something and pretend to have a perspective on something like people relate to that that's awesome dude I'm pumped that you went through that too like yeah no no no I'm not pumped that you got through it and that we're

able to talk about it with like the perspective no I'm pumped now I'm pumped I went through it too because for that year you just feel like you're pulling your hair out guy totally what are we doing here I wonder if the next time that you and I have to do something new like I was wonder are we

going to be able to like is this going to help us the next time I'm always like am I just going to be

back to zero do we just forget do we just get amnesia like start again or like I hope that this experience for me and that experience for you like let's you have a little bit of like confidence for the next time yes that's like what I'm trying to like I'm trying to tell myself like I just went through this hard thing creatively and I'm going to have to be more creative in my life like let's hope that these lessons actually help me instead of like just forgetting about them

and getting lost in the sauce yeah I feel like writing down these lessons protects them for me personally like I'm like I need to general about that I need to write about it I need to cement what you just said like this idea this moment where we're having this interaction will be like no I said to me I hope we don't forget these things I do the same thing I write whenever I like I used to write a good song or a song that I thought was good and then I would put in my notes out like everything I did

to get that good song and it's funny because when I'm going through something hard to look back and I'm like okay I'm trying it's not working so yeah it's complicated creativity is so annoying because it like it makes you start from scratch every time and it makes you it forces you to

“like use that muscle memory and it's you know it's just a fucking mind yeah I remember like”

Rick Ruben was here like maybe two years ago now and then you get Rick is sitting there just going like yeah don't make anything for anyone like just make it for yourself and I'm like yeah like I wish yeah but it's hard it's like you know everyone's journey so different like yeah everyone's like creative process it's so different that it could be so hard to like find the bridge between two people it's difficult I mean again like I'm jealous of people that just like

can write every day and love what they're making like not have to worry about how it's being perceived or I feel like writer's block it's so closely tied to like anxiety and like the self-fulfilling prophecy that you have like if you worry about something so much it's going to happen and then you worry about worrying and then you're worrying about worrying and then it's like it's here you know like there you did it dude you're like congrats like I hope that I learned

in the in the process before I get to that place like to recognize what is happening internally and like question it instead of just letting it flow and going to this shitty spot it's almost like we trust every thought totally and that's such an interesting idea it's like if you trusted everything you've read on social media and believed it to be true without checking it but we do that in our mind all day all the time and any thought doesn't get any evidence checked there's no proof needed

there's no true there's no verbal it's like a weird arrogance that everything you think has to be correct and then you're anxious about that you get anxious arrogance maybe is the way to think about it oh my god I know it's a little bit of like this ego thing where it's like oh I've been especially because we all are really doing this in one way or another from since we were children yeah thankfully expressing ourselves creatively so it's tied up in your inner self and this like

you don't want to betray this like process that you've cultivated but like I never question

that maybe that process actually wasn't very healthy and there's a real way that I can make good music without having to suffer all the time for it and we look at people like Van Gogh and these famous artists that like battered themselves to create and we think that's has to be how it is and I have subscribed to that theory for a long time and I'm just now like trying to

to create good music like there has to be a way to access it without living it all the time

“to call you almost in me let me ask you something honestly have you ever almost made a phone call”

and then decided not to maybe you picked up your phone and thought about calling someone it might have been someone you had not spoken to in a long time it might have been someone you wanted to thank or maybe it was someone you needed to apologize to but then you hesitated you might have told yourself that it was not the right time you might have thought they were probably busy or maybe you convinced yourself that sending a quick text would be easier so you put down the phone

most of us do this more often than we realize we underestimate the power of a simple phone call but when you really think about it some of the most memorable moments in our lives begin with

someone deciding to reach out they begin with someone deciding that the conversation was worth

having for more than 150 years phone calls of help people bridge distance and stay connected with the people who matter most in their lives however the real magic of a phone call

“has never been the technology itself the real magic lies in the intention behind it”

a call is a moment when someone chooses to say in the simplest way possible you matter enough for me to call think about the last time someone called you unexpectedly just to check in it probably meant more than you expected hearing someone's voice reminds us that we're not just another notification or message we're a person someone cares about so today I want to challenge you to do something simple think about the call you almost made recently instead of waiting

for the perfect moment create the moment call the person say the thing you've been meaning to say because sometimes the call you almost didn't make becomes the moment someone remembers forever this moment was sponsored by AT&T connecting changes everything did you believe that if you heal too much it would reduce your creativity a hundred percent yeah I used to believe that for sure like I was like I mean it came into the conversation

“when I started taking medication for my anxiety when I was in high school at OCD diagnosis more”

recently like these problems were really hard for me and we're disrupting my ability to wake up in the morning and to just be a human being but I was holding off on getting the help that I really needed for a long time because I was so afraid of it doing my creativity and then I would look at my creativity and be like well this is not pretty very good either like they're not making anything good right now I can barely put my pen to the paper I can barely even process

a single thought and I was like I don't want to get help because I'm worried that I'll be happy and I won't care about making something and I won't feel pain and it won't be painful enough for my audience and it won't be scary I go the feelings won't be real enough for my audience and it just took like kind of just saying well I don't want to live like this anymore and if it means that I write a happy song then like I need to get up in the morning

and and I found that I was still sad in a way that felt more manageable and I still had feelings and deep thoughts about things but I wasn't getting sidebarred by rabbit holes of obsession and rabbit holes of anxiety anymore and it really was a turning point for me making this record was just like taking the step off of the cliff so to speak into the unknown and not again it's a control thing like I can't control this and it sucked but when I let go is when I like found it again

yeah I'm a Rosen Joshua tree and I like I've never been a Joshua tree I'm not even particularly

huge like desert guy kind of scares me but I was like I'm struggling a lot my life I need to go to Joshua tree and like find myself and make music and I just got diagnosed with OCD and it's something I had suspected for a long time and there's so many varying kind of branches of this problem and so I never really knew where I fit into the conversation so I didn't want to like get the diagnosis and be like I have OCD now I was kind of scared but I just got diagnosed with

OCD and I was in Joshua tree and I was feeling so miserable when this beautiful Airbnb like I'm in the desert and like this isn't making me feel connected I'll shit now it's like so lost in that and so being somewhere beautiful and realizing that the problem was like beyond where I was or where I put myself or how nice to studio or the collaborators were like realizing that I just wasn't gonna be able to do it on my own was like that Joshua tree trip was

like horrible but also incredibly enlightening because it was like all right that was my last try it's like hoping life fixes just for me yeah yeah absolutely I mean like I imagine it's also one of the things you address in the documentary is that it's challenging because you don't want to like air your family's that you learned it you know it's like this a lot of what you write about is your family and is your upbringing and it talked to me about how hard it is when it's like

what you're writing from is your family and you love obviously it's obvious in your dog but you

it's complicated man I think actually like one of my biggest regrets is not knowing how to communicate how else feeling and choosing to do it through the songs that were then marketed to millions of people and her by millions of people without having that conversation first of saying hey mom and dad this is what I'm feeling about you know your guy's divorce or or whatever is going on our lives my dad's you know brain injury and in these things that

like I never really knew how to talk to them about I'm much better at saying it in songs it's

I don't want to say cowardly but it's just I'm afraid of that conflict sometimes and so I'm like I go back to this like okay well I'm gonna write it down like angsty team like I'm gonna go like write it down but like when you're writing things down on a journal versus when you're sending them to every streaming platform and every marketing thing in the world the effect that I feel like it could have on people is that they feel blindsided and my mom has always told me like

she was happy that I was getting those feelings out she's been so supportive of my dad as well but I still felt like this regret of being like I wish I had talked you guys about this first because it would have been so much healthier it would have been more fair to you it would have been probably more helpful for me and it's it's hard to like like you said air the dirty laundry in a way that's fair to everybody and I don't think I did that and my last album so it

been really trying to be intentional about making sure I communicate what I'm saying and why I'm saying it to my parents my family and this next album make it sure they have a fair shape to say hey maybe that makes me feel uncomfortable like please don't do that and the documentary is like another huge extension of that like allowing these people into my home to my parents homes into their marriage and to my dad's injury and to my issues with my body and things that will you know

will be seen in the documentary it's been really important to like be communicative with each other about what people are comfortable with why we're doing it why it's important to have hard moments in there and how it can be helpful for people like I had a conversation with my sister and I'm like

always checking in to make sure they're okay with us and like it's been this big anxiety thing for me

of like I'm so worried that you guys feel like I'm using you or like trying to exploit our pain or our experiences for my own gain my sister said it best she's just like is it painful to see

“dad from the outside angle like this yes but like she's like I really think someone who's going”

through this neuromaly with their parents or their friend or family or partner is going to be helped by it and so there's a good greater good to those like just uncomfortable vulnerable feelings and that made me feel better like hearing them be supportive of it and not be like mad at me or scared or it's helped me kind of grapple my own anxiety about about all of it and about it showing the world my family and my life yeah thanks for sharing that conversation in this history I didn't

know that when when was the first time you kind of talked to your parents about this and what was that interaction like it was hard because like when we started the documentary I don't think I was fully aware like where it was going to go and I think obviously that's kind of how all good documentaries are like it starts out with something that feels smaller control then it becomes something I don't know more universal and and deeper and so you know I'm just like yeah they're coming

to film some stuff and then suddenly you know my dad and I are like having this really intimate

“moment on the porch or the conversation in the yard and I think the best way that I've always”

done been able to be vulnerable is like conversations like this for you're not like here the things that you have to say like it just kind of happens naturally but I think we were kind of just like yeah they're just going to come film some stuff and I'll probably play the acoustic guitar I'll leave and then it kind of like developed into this more intimate like vulnerable peace so I think they learned with me as things were happening what it was going to be like and man like the first time

watching the documentary because you see it all get made around your kind of able to like pretend it's not happening and I think we all were kind of like oh let's think about that later but like when it finally was time to watch it was like one of the most stressful days of my entire life yeah yeah it was kind of I view what's with the whole family yeah so it was it was I got it first and I one of the most poorly timed edibles of my entire life I was literally I was like coming

up on this like weed edible and the documentary gets sent to my inbox and like they're going to I'm going to send it to my family but I really want to watch this first and so watching this does

two hour long hour and a half long movie about myself was like oh my god yeah and I'd never seen all the

pieces together and how like emotional it was and my family and I talked to each other like

“honestly and emotionally all the time but like we kind of are like I know what's have a drink and”

I'll see you tomorrow like you don't have to think about it again so like knowing that this was like there for everyone to watch that I'll have to send it to my mom and brother and sister who were really right down the road was really scary and so I sent it to them and like I think that their response like I guess I was hoping to be like this is amazing great send it off the holy wood I think for them it was an emotional experience as well and it was like challenging and a lot of

ways to watch I think beautiful at the same time but challenging them to see not just like seeing

and like kind of reminded us of this painful thing that we've had to go through as a family and so it was like a lot of conversations at first about how we felt about it if we wanted to do it or not I was ready and willing to be like this let's not do it then if you guys are feeling any type of way about it let's not do it it's fun you know when we all watched it together as a family we found ourselves laughing crying hugging and like being so excited because it brought us all

a lot closer and it helped us kind of like actually visualize what it's like from my dad what it's like from my mom what it's like for all of us in our own way and like I remember this feeling of just like this golden week afterwards we're like we all just felt super connected to each other and we felt just gratitude and it really has brought my dad and I a lot closer in a lot of ways there are things that I said in that documentary that I knew someday it was

gonna hear but I don't think I ever could have said myself because I wasn't brave enough or something or I was too scared and so like having to be equal to like tell my dad what I was feeling and tell him how sorry I was for like my impatience with him and how sad I felt about what

“he had gone through and it created this like connection that I think we never really got to have”

and it was really really special and powerful and like I said at the beginning like I wish

every single family could have a chance to watch the way they interact with each other and to have to get to see what it looks like to love each other and to be a son, a daughter, a father, a mother on screen because it really helped us. It's fascinating when that process becomes therapy and healing almost did it make your parents re-address any of the things you brought up like did it start new conversations that hadn't happened before when they said when you said this

or when you felt this like this is what was going through our life. Yeah it did it did and you know I'm like I still learning how to talk about it but I do feel like it helped us address why our reservations were there and a lot of times our reservations are like fears we're not even about like what's actually being shown it's about us grappling with it being out for sure. You know like I remember thinking about the sting of my dad or I'm like oh I don't want anybody

to like see my dad as vulnerable or like going through this hard thing and I think the truth was that I was grappling with my own like shame or whatever about it and my own like embarrassment for having my own vulnerabilities or and so it wasn't even about like what's on screen it was about

“my own internal dialogue about it and so I think that was really important and it opened up”

a lot of conversations about like my dad loves this movie he's seen it this isn't about him even in this moment this is about my own shit and so I need to work through this and stop being like projecting my own fears onto the other people in my life which was really important and a hard thing to accept but I think a lot of us had that realization and that was really healthy I

think to the kind of express that to each other and you know painful things like we don't always

want to talk about them all the time and with people living all of the country and people being in different walks of life and my family and my life like it was nice to have to kind of force ourselves to confront some of these feelings and it was really healthy. Yeah it's a I'm only sharing this because it's reminiscent of a conversation out of a couple of months ago with Chris Samduath who made a documentary about his father's Alzheimer's. Oh wow and so it's about his dad's journey

and he's forgetting details and and he felt the same way as you did where it was like I'm like putting my dad's story out there like this like yeah and then what he said was when he watched it it was really emotional for him and his dad to watch it but it was actually most amazing to watch his sons watch it because they watched and they were like we want to spend more time with Grandpa. That's amazing. He was like that was you know and it's that kind of thing where I'm

listening to you going like this is something that your family has come closer together over it yeah which is why you're saying like you wish every person could almost make a mini dog about

“their life and not even share it publicly like it sounds like a healing experience. Honestly it's”

be a cool like family therapy thing to do it's not a be very expensive but no totally and like so much of what we feel other people are going through is really just a projection of how we are experiencing our own pain. I think like my dad is the f**king man. He is happy doing his thing. He loves his life. There are struggles like in any person's life and he has you know he has set a struggle through this injury but a lot of it was just me worrying about him and like making

it seem like it was his for some reason his responsibility to feel that same worry that I had and it's not people experience the pain differently and I learned a really good lesson through

making this documentary that like my view of the world and view of people's trauma isn't always

accurate and it's not fair to like suggest that they're going through what I think they're going through all the time. I mean that's huge. If there's any lesson we could all learn totally. That's huge

I'm judging this thing doesn't I mean that's that's huge and totally what a great lesson to gain from.

It's helped me like the use of the word selfish my therapist like it's self focused you know but like a lot of times we think we're helping people or we think we're speaking some truth into the air and it's like that's not at all what's going on with this person and so getting to see that up close and getting to you know my family is like we're my family and I'm like oh my god we have to send this to dad like he has to watch this like we're all so nerf that I was going to feel

I send to my dad he's like I love it very simply like it's great buddy love it like wow that was like not what I expected you to say like it takes just huge weight off my shoulders and like makes me happy that he's like no I know I know what's going on like you know it wasn't like this like kids gloves to hit the head and you just say you look he was like oh hell yeah

I look cool yeah that was amazing yeah and you haven't even had the premiere yet so I

can't imagine how proud he's good I mean that moment on the porch I mean seeing him choke up I kind of like all right we just gotta you know yeah I mean that's he's so proud like man that's one of the most like I mean I remember it tell me by that moment yeah I mean I

“remember it's hard for my I think for me and my dad sometimes it's like a dress these things”

and so it's hard to get emotional about it not so much of me like once to have that conversation and like a hear him say that he gets it and I just felt like that was a closest we got and the fact that it was able to happen for the documentary is amazing but just for me that moment was really important just like seeing him kind of be like I know it's complicated

and it's hard and just to feel the sea is pride and me and to see his love for me in that moment

even after I'm sitting there like critiquing his ability to play this song which I can regret though I just feel like such a dick but I was like it's like you know you're dad you do you become a little kid again just play the right thing but just seeing him like get emotional but just I could see in his eyes like this this conversation that we haven't really had but I could see like it happened like between us in that moment like telepathically almost and that

was like just really really really really special for me yeah yeah that was something that I really

“really really will never forget and I'm really grateful to people that helped me just documentary”

for like pushing in a way like us to these moments into these interactions because it's so easy to drift away and drift through life and just like go home for Thanksgiving or go home and go out the dinner and a season's already had a great bit about like going to see your parents and like how it's the same thing every time and you'll leave and you're like you're happy to leave be feel guilty and I felt that a lot of just like I feel like I came here and we didn't

solve or work through anything we just like were together and that can be beautiful but sometimes you want more and like that those moments with my family like allowed us to confront a lot of things and allowed us to have like moments that we'll remember forever it's beautiful man thank you and can tell it is emotional yeah it makes me emotional man yeah I just could love my family so much to it and like getting to be close to them in this way and this journey has been incredibly

complicated for everybody like you know having my family be early exposed to the world even just without this documentary just through my album and through promotion of it and through people coming into connection with where we're from and who we are has been really challenging and this just felt like a platform for us to kind of like grapple with that together and even after and like the editing and the conversation we wanted to be in the movie

“it just allowed us to like heal a little bit I think and like just allowed me to”

find like peace with a lot of it and yeah it's it's crazy man you've talked so much about today like kind of we've been weaving this idea of mental health and just how important is to you the documentary you speak about it quite openly has success made mental health harder in some ways or as it made it better in some ways it's hard to say like my mental health challenges weren't going anywhere whether I became a musician like a touring like professional

musician or whatever I am they weren't going anywhere I would have been interested to see how they manifested I think it's introduced this lifestyle and this like level of like like I said this like self-focused kind of business lifestyle has created a lot of mental health challenges for me but also has kind of allowed me to confront them in a way that may be like a if I went to college and went and got a job in an office or somewhere I could probably more

easily not ever deal with it interesting yeah so in a lot of ways I think it's helped me but it's also introduced a lot of different challenges into my life that you see in the documentary but also just wouldn't be there without music and touring and creative struggle and just all the things that go along with being in this like weird can industry yeah what's your most daily or regular experience from a mental health point of view that you that you that you go through

like mental image like I worry that I've just wasted so much time like hating who I am and just like being aware of this thing that's happening to me that like is like feels like it's grinding me down sometimes and like and knowing that I have this thing and that knowing that it could be better but it's not right now like that's by my most like I wake up and I'm like why do I feel like shit I got pissed it's a beautiful morning the birds are f***ing chirping it's

beautiful outside I've you know career success aside I have like I have this like lovely little life and I wish I could wake up and not be like miserable for no reason it feels like sometimes and being aware of like those moments that I just can't feel connected it's really lonely and I think that's probably my like daily that's like that's my daily driver that feeling I think I kind of that feeling escalates and escalates and it comes like these bigger more intense

“like episodes for me of mental health but that's what is kind of the backdrop to my days like”

darn I feel a shit this sucks and I have to just like wade through it every day and it gets easier and there's days that are better and worse but like generally I just kind of am feeling like I wish I didn't feel depressed you know yeah I thought it was really brave for you to address the body this more of your image approach I wasn't expecting that and I think you kind of really went there it felt so courageous in one sense to do that and of course honest yeah I feel like I

don't know that I say it in the documentary just like I don't know where I fit into like the world

of this thing I'm going through I'm never really confronted in a way that's like and this is how I

feel about my body it's like it's just this thing that lives in the back of my brain that is like more prominent than other times and it really came out that documentary and I'm watching that back is like even I mean man even my mom was just like I had no idea like I think she knew I had something like that but she didn't know like how much it was affecting me and even to seeing myself I'm like I don't feel like that right now but like I do feel like that a lot and it's like

it's horrible and the thing that you really compartmentalize and you block away like is now there and so it's scary for me even to talk to you about it because I don't want to say the wrong thing and I don't want to I know how much of an issue this is for people and how it can ruin lives

and and how hard it is for people's mental health that I'm always so afraid that I'm like

I don't want to represent an issue because I'm afraid of like saying the wrong thing or giving advice or like I don't know of like making it feel like I know what I'm talking about because I have no idea it's just this thing that is there within me and yeah really really difficult concept because it's so tied up and who you are and this feelings of absence you were a kid that like it's hard to describe like the body just more via problems succinctly and I even as you can

“hear right now struggling I struggle to do it but it's complicated man and it was easy I think”

it's easy to say like I want to talk about that but when it comes down to talk about it like I don't feel all acquainted all I don't feel articulate I feel like it's just like dream like stance that I that I have to fall into it's weird yeah I think it's a strange challenge that we put on ourselves and other people to properly articulate these extremely nuanced daily regular

feelings that are that don't always make sense like in one sense we're trying to finally package up

some perfect words around something that changes how we feel about a daily yeah and it's almost it's almost an impossible task totally because you're absolutely right that you can feel something one day people feel it differently I just felt like you don't see a lot of men especially being able to say that publicly and so I think it's gonna help a lot of men and just even coming to terms with it yeah I remember like I have the song call the shape my shadow which

was really one of those like our moments where I felt really aware and understanding of my struggle with it and like it goes away but in that moment I wrote the song and played it live on role mental health day and four to a few years ago and was like hearing it being heard for the first time and then walking off stage and like having people in my crew and people my life come up to me like dude man especially be like I I go through that too like that was

“looking cool that you did that bro I feel that one and like people that I wouldn't expect I think”

you think like body dysmorphia and like you're looking like you're like physically looking at somebody and like how do you look like is this person look overweight then they'll probably connect whether it's this person look real estate they'll probably it's not how it is man like it's almost not even about your body at all yeah it's for me it's not even it's I don't think it's even about like what I actually appear to be is how we think of ourselves so these people

coming up and saying that to me was like this is like important like this this is something really really difficult to articulate and to talk about and like the fact that I said three people that probably wouldn't have said anything to me if I never played that song you often say like hey dude like thank you or like I get that and that's huge it was really special

fucking know what someone's going through man like yeah yeah you don't and it's easy to like look at somebody and be like your life must be so sick and then be like man you have no can clue yeah yeah and and you assume that right if someone's like put together or looks a certain way or maybe they're making a decent living or whatever maybe it's like we just go okay well you don't have any real problems you know yeah it's such a good point then

I always whenever I come to LA and do like anything like this I'm always like oh yeah like

I got driven here in the black SUV and I'm not coming here to complain about my shit like people in the world right now going through so much and it does feel like there's a push and pull of like how do I talk about what I'm going through without like being insensitive to like people who are struggling in much more significant I are just different but significant ways well also not discrediting what I've gone through at the same time it's been a real challenge for

me to talk about I hope that in the documentary people can see that through line through everybody's life that regardless of sex, creed, class, gender identity, race that people can find things that connect us like these feelings that are painful I like to think everybody's experiencing something similar in some way and maybe that's not true but that's like my hope is that there's like world peace but like we all can have a conversation no matter what we're

from about our mental health and how it's affecting us and like we can hear similarities and

“some things and that's what I hope is true because with everything you know that that's going on”

in the world right now like how you know divided the world is and how awful people are being treated right now that we can find ways to be brought together through vulnerability and through being honest to each other but how we feel so is that how you think about making an impact on the world with everything you see is that yeah are you focused I think just trying to be like completely honest but how I feel like whenever I can't because then it doesn't feel like you have to perform

and I was talking to somebody last night at this weird party thing and I was just like do it if you start making music like trying to sound like somebody then when the time comes to like you want to be yourself you if it's going to feel like you're lying so like if you can just be as honest you can and like accept whatever that does for you socially career wise emotionally like live and

die by that because then you never have to change and you never have to adjust your presentation

all you have to do is reach with the end which you've been doing forever anyway so yeah that's

“well yeah yeah and that's I think that's the difference also between actors and musicians”

like you know an actor does have to pretend to be someone and yeah that does affect their personality and it does affect their self image and it it can deeply affect everything from the way they speak to the way they look or have you done acting I have not in a any yeah not in any image always wonder how you bring I wonder if the best actors bring in like they bring in more themselves in a way to the different characters so that it like creates something relatable

yes yeah so I think there's I forget what the technique's called from some study that I've done in the space with some clients that I have youth who are actors and they talk about that where it's like if you you can't pretend to have an emotion you gotta find the emotional the experience within yourself to to bring it out but at the same time I think a lot of people if you especially if you're doing a biopic right yeah you you can find the emotion within

yourself but ultimately you're still becoming someone else to some degree is there a part of you who that feels that way and like how do you get comfortable approaching that and almost reminds me like of the music and the documentary it's like how do you go back into this space over and over again

“like it's painful dude it's got to be painful because we all have like smaller I think some people”

have bigger parts of that that kind of character than than others do but like we all I think we all have like cynical parts of us and like in like angry parts of us but like some people just don't have as much access or don't have as big of a angry bone inside of them but like it's gotta be hard to have to like live in that moment I think that's actually where real compassion comes from like when you can look at your heart and notice that it has all of these

abilities and has aspects of all of these things that you may not live on a daily basis but you start seeing it and you go oh I see how that comes out for someone else because I've seen

that in me I know even if it's tiny if that makes it totally man it's always been like

the goal isn't to be like a perfect person at all like the goal is to understand the parts of you that make you happy and like try to access those but it's also important to dip into the stuff that like you don't like into questioning it and to approach it and look at it and the documentary I say like I'm finally looking at this thing like it used to be I think you know talking about body is more of your just mental mental illness stuff like it used to be this thing that I was

like ashamed of in such a big way that I wouldn't even want to look at it like I would just like sprint past the door where the thing was inside and now I'm like finally like just like brushing it with my hand you know being like all right like this thing is in there I'm getting better

it yeah it's that journey has been has been helpful for me yeah it's almost like the monster under the bed like if you pretend that it's not there you know you're scared it doesn't get bigger yeah it just gets bigger and you've got to go and check and notice that okay brush to part you know it's

“so important and I think for so long like of course we want to be in the light we want to do”

good work but you kind of void the darkness and those elements that exist as you said our shame and guilt yeah you can like it does find other ways to manifest and I think it's much healthier to like

am I opinion like sitting down with a therapist is like the most important thing you can do with

these feelings is like expressing them in a safe, unbiased place where like you could say whatever you want and not feel like you're gonna be judged for it because if you don't I do feel like we have to find a way to cope we have to find a way to keep not feeling it and like addiction no for me eating, binge eating not eating is how I deal with a lot of stuff and I'm realizing that it's because I don't talk about it enough and so I keep wanting to go away and go away and go away

but then I find myself engages in these behaviors that really make me unhappy and make me feel even worse and it's just horrible cycle of just like the thing you think you're doing to help is actually making it harder and then it just kind of repeats itself and repeat itself and and you do it for so long that the grooves in your brain is a little trained going through

head that only knows one path and like it gets deeper and deeper and deeper and it never

has a way to go anywhere else because you just have a live this one routine for so long and so you know going to therapy which I've been doing my whole life but I feel like I wasn't really doing in a real way until like five or six, seven years ago where I started to really like go into it.

“What was the difference between going to therapy and then doing there?”

Yeah, so like I said I like my mom and my dad were always so supportive of me like and my siblings going to get help and going to talk about her feelings we've all kind of gone through a lot of similar mental health struggles. Thanks mom and dad. Now and they've been so supportive and like always in a set therapist but I think like for a while I was just immature and like didn't want to talk to somebody and also it's hard when you're a kid and like totally

to be like oh this 48 year old dude is like here to ask you about all this stuff and like obviously you're like I don't want to talk about it and you can kind of live your life for a long time like saying the right things but not actually like really letting anyone hear anything yeah and saying things that sound like you're being emotionally vulnerable or picking and choosing different things that you'll talk about and certain things that you won't talk about

and it's all connected so when you start doing that you're actually not really touching the whole thing which is it's all connected to like one grit larger mental health thing then sound very eloquent but I guess what I'm trying to say is like yeah is I didn't really commit myself to getting better because I wanted to selfishly self-centeredly do it on my own and only like express certain fears and emotions to people because I was still afraid of talking

“about them and I think when I started seeing this new therapist and so much of it is about”

the person you see so I had bad experiences with therapist and like once you open out the somebody and they like they don't respect that and it comes in really hard to go talk to somebody else like it's like you open up to a friend and like you get a break up yeah and then someone like uses that against you or they laugh at you or they like make you feel crazy it's not like

okay I'll try it in the next person it's like no I'm never touching that again

yeah you're covering that it's like a break up like you hurt me and like I'm not opening that stuff up again sorry said so it was kind of being willing to open up again finding the right person and then like feeling safe and then slowly I just like realizing how much more there was than the kind of headlines of what I thought my feelings and issues were and like being asked questions that maybe dig a little deeper and like being willing to cry and say I don't want

to talk about this and what was really complicated for me what's still complicated is like and I do say this in the documentaries is being a mental health advocate you know like having this mental health charity which like we're also proud of you and presenting myself as someone that like has an answer or has like a focus and like is going to be really open and emotionally vulnerable all the time and then not feeling like I was really practicing that my personal life

it makes it hard and therapy to like accept that I don't have all the answers and it kind of creates just feeling like you're not being honest about who you are and that was really difficult what's the what's the best question you therapist ever asked you I think it's like do you want this to be what's happening to you you know in some ways like is it so much easier for you to cause yourself pain and to hurt yourself and is that actually something that you're is bringing

you comfort like is this like in pain that you're inflicting yourself emotionally occasionally physically

friend of yours that you don't want to leave because you feel like you're betraying something and like betraying this childhood pain or whatever it is that was a great question and maybe think about it

because I think I've always been like I hate this thing like I want to get rid of this but like

no it sometimes like no I don't yeah like and she's like I don't know if you I don't know if you do like do you because feels like interesting you want the comfort of this thing you've had for a long time and it's become such a big part of your life that you don't know who you are without it and it's scarier to be someone that's happy but not not familiar with something then to be unhappy but feel like you're in the safety of your own unhappiness oh that was said it's not a great

“ah but that was like the most important thing uh I think she's asked me and she's asked me”

she's just so wonderful I don't I hope my therapist isn't watching this but thank you so much but that question really helped me understand the context of what I was what I was really feeling yeah thank you for sharing that I think a lot of people get a lot from asking that question to themselves or hopefully going through that with that therapist I think you said after in the 20 24 grammi pie you were like talking about pie is earlier you were saying you felt like the least cool

guy there and it was like that was the feeling you were having at that time and that goes back to that image and grappling with that emotion and is there a bit more peace now because that was your first time being there right it was like you're yeah you're nominated like do you think that is natural when you're doing something new and first time and then it goes away like totally yeah yeah absolutely I think like I think I really like wanted the experience to be

what I always dreamed of because I always dreamed of that experience and so like I got in there

and the vision of like what I thought I was going to feel when I thought it was going to look like like just wasn't what it was and I just kind of felt like outside of all of it and it wasn't anyone's fault it was really just me not having the confidence to like engage with this new experience and wanted to be comfortable and so I felt really isolated and then my mom is like talking everybody and she have one loves her and like I'm like damn my mom's so cool and I'm just

sitting here I'm on the brandy car while I was talking and like my mom loves brandy and and like I just kind of felt like the kid in the cafeteria that like didn't have anyone to sit with and just knowing that like the end of the night the only like measure of success I was I was putting into the night was if I won this gram you're not because I had built this thing up so I'm being a boredom to me and so it kind of made me feel like I had no purpose in the room

I felt like my purpose was was no longer needed and that was no one's fault and it was on me for putting all the stock into this award but I didn't feel cool and then I lost and along with

many others so I'm always curious to see how they would deal with it because I was so sad and I was

like obviously happy for the person that won truly and like grateful that I was even nominated and like just like walking to a room full of people who like I was so worried we're going to be like disappointed like not me but like almost like their experience was that they wanted me to wait I got like I was projecting how I thought everyone wanted this night to go and so like walking into the room we're like my family and my friends my wife like all these people my team

would work so hard and like just see feeling at this appointment like just really maybe feel like I was on an island and that I like had let everybody down in my life and I felt like I feel like I let my fans down and I was like I wanted this so bad like sorry guys who wanted it

“V2 yeah yeah they I think they did man I know that's not the case but this time it's like”

I think I've gone through so much since then and like reevaluating what I care about and like realizing that what I care most about is the story that I can tell with my music and the music that I can make and that no one can take it away from me no one can vote on it and no one else can have it and like nurturing this thing and so coming back you know having a new album feeling like I'm really excited about it really proud of it prior to the journey that

I went on to get to make this album which was really difficult and like that's where my confidence is coming from right now not from whether I have good songs or not but just knowing that I went through something and I'm on the other side now when I was at the 24 Grammys I was like grappling with all this creative and security and this security but where my career was going to go and I thought that a Grammy was going to like like it's like that like and thing on images on like

like a meme or whatever like the guy puts like one piece of duct tape on the giant exploding water tank like that was what I was hoping the Grammy would be for me that's good that's really good um and like it was never going to be that anyways and so like knowing that now makes me more like at peace with just like being able to be in this conversation being able to be

“amongst this peers that I have that are incredible musicians and um yeah I think I feel I don't feel”

cooler but I feel more comfortable in like my own skin and my own presence yeah I really appreciate the way you process that for us because I think 99% of us are always dealing with situations where you we felt like we lost or failed or but it's it seems like you've addressed a really powerful

father you're like wait what's his experience of it and even now when you turn what being at the Grammys you're like what's everyone else's expectations of it and it seems like you've really addressed

like a really powerful pattern of something that seems to come up for you which is always projecting

what you think the people's experiences on that's really powerful that you can see that as being a sign of whatever you're doing something big or incredible bro it's projection is like so difficult because it's it forces you to question like everything you've thought about other people's perception of you and also like as my career is like grown like there's I mean you saw today I almost love looking people around me in the world and I wonder if we're amazing if I love

you to every single person that I get to work with like is awesome and that's very rare you know especially in the music industry where you get people that are like there for the wrong reasons whatever but like whenever you go you have style and hair and PR and management and label and whatever agent and all these people around you like you kind of feel like they're like they need it to go well like that's a projection and so you start like being like you guys having fun like

are you guys doing this all you guys enjoying this like that I do good enough for you guys to add energy into the same time so it'll do I think like it all ties back to like that thing around the dinner table and like wanting to be heard and wanting to be accepted and wanting people to think that you have value and when you can't find that in here and your heart or in your brain

“like you need to be provided about other people and I'm struggling with that right now like”

just with my album coming out and just like how I'm going to like take in responses to it good and and bad I think like every good comment and every bad comment like have a similar I have a similar reaction from me actually like they move me so much you know like if I said someone says that I did a good job and like yeah I'm good someone says that I suck I'm like guys suck like I want to find somewhere in the middle where like I can still have my own belief

on myself equal liberty I'm so great way to put it I would love to find more of that in my life yeah and it's such a hard place to live because we also used to being really pumped up with the

highs and I always feel like the more pumped up you get with the highs the more pull down you get

the lows and and that's the experience we all have and all I can say is honestly I don't know even if I'm allowed to say this with your team listening but I listen to what you did send us with the team with my team because everyone's a fan and I don't love it and I just like this is like you know just yeah exactly and it was genuinely that experience where we were listening to it and because as we were I was thinking about the interview and I was thinking about like

“I don't know what's really thinking about this I mean for whatever it's worth and and I think”

that equilibrium is what we all need to rise for something I pursued deeply and and focus on and I found it was only when I could detach equally from the good and the bad and it was like if I kept letting the good pump me up the bad was always gonna hit me and so I had to find and it wasn't rejecting the good because that also didn't work because for a while I tried to like reject good like you know how do you do it yeah if someone was like well I'm still working on it too I haven't

fully figured out but I feel like I'm getting close to all the time so in the beginning I was like

same as what you're saying someone says something good amazing if someone says I'm bad at full

side then I did the opposite rise rejecting both so if someone said something good I'd be like all right whatever like I don't need to know and if someone says something bad I don't need to know that's where that's the part I'm at yeah and I was like that doesn't work either because now and then then what I started to realize was I allowed the good to go in deeper and I allowed the bad to almost be filtered more clearer and what I mean by that is instead of the good going to my head

and my ego and my that that kind of like arrogance it was going to my heart as fuel like this is why I do what I do so if someone says to me like hey your work you know which you would you would like your work help me to save my marriage or not commit suicide or whatever it is like I was like oh let me really access that like don't just take it as like this yeah but yeah it's like take it take it where it lands and then when you get back when you get feedback or you get the bad it's like

oh let me not take that to my heart and let me actually allow that to be like oh let me get the clarity of what could I improve or what could I work so complicated man but so smart it's true it's

“very subtle but it's helping at least I'm not saying it's the end I I think there's multiple layers to it”

can I talk more about that of course it's starting to drop to you like letting the good in and I totally feel that because like I think I started to do that as well it's like this isn't just like a dopamine hit like I'm not putting this in in my mouth right now this is like there's something there that's important that like I have to internalize to help me do it again and do more of it and like to kind of like hone in on that specific thing but how and someone says something

hurtful to you or like I guess it's like hate versus criticism or two different conversations but like when someone said something hurtful to you like how are you taking that and how do you let that exit just like it can like sits in my stomach and like makes me feel like shit oh yeah I can really I think what I've tried to do is to try and separate if possible and not everything is right it's

mud so that I can give drinking water to myself and the people I love and so my job is to be a silver or a filter to be able to go or let me take the mud out which is the sting the the pain the hurt the egoed arrogance and see if there's any water left for me to hold right and if there is then that water will actually rest quite beautifully and perfectly and now I don't have to take it in it's something I just have to hold and make space for but I'm not gonna hold on to the mud

in the sting and the arrow because that's the part that pierces through us and breaks us down that's really really beautiful yeah and it takes practice like I'm not saying I do it all the

“time and I'm not saying I don't fail at this all the time but it's like I think that”

practice has been really helpful because accepting both in work, rejecting both in work and the

Buddha always talked about the middle part and it's always like if you're gonna hold something

don't hold it too tight but then you can't hold it too loosely so it's like how do you hold something just beautifully yeah it's almost like how you'd hold your wife's hand I don't want to go for the Buddha to golf but golf it's like the so you want to have like a burning your hand that you're not gonna crush me won't let get away that's a Buddha and that's that's it that's I don't know if you hold your wife's hand yeah you're not gonna squishy where it's like she

never want like you're like oh you're never gonna leave but you're never gonna hold it softly where you don't have any affection it's like how do I feel like holding my wife's hand is like a good that's a really good analogy I mean that's a really brilliant way to do it I have like really struggled to accept criticism and like and I mean any like hate or anything like that

“dude me too and I think there is a difference there's a difference I think you have to there's some”

shit that's like oh yeah yeah yeah I don't even criticism can be hard like for sure

they get so hard and like and I think it's hard because we don't deeply receive in the heart the good yeah it's kind of because it's just the dopamine yeah so it's like we deeply received the bad that's so true I don't actually feel right I think that's why we like sometimes I watch like these horror movies and I'm like oh man I hate the part where they're all like happy in the beginning I'm like get into the part where they're all getting chopped up you know

that's like what that's just in thing inside of us that like dopamine that feels more like for some people or for me it feels more like that's something that reaches you more because it's painful and scary I'm not a psycho but dude that's really really eye-opening for me like and I want so bad to work on that and work on accepting the good too and I'm like I'm a rejecter of the good a lot of times because it's like this superstition of like if I let any good in then

like then it'll all go away because like I need to be like I said like I need to be in pain but there's gotta be a way like you said to like to to take it without it killing me but with also like in a way that I can take the lesson away from it. I love that man.

No you've been amazing today like truly I've I feel like you're the easiest guy to talk to

you're like so much fun to hang with like I'm like I hope we get to do this online better. We end every episode with a couple of segments that I want to take you through these of fun because you're such a fun loving guy so now before you go I want to say thank you man because like getting the talk about this kind of stuff in this way like it's not common for me and so it really means a lot like and listen and do care about the questions you're asking

and the responses just for me has been like really cool and you know I've listened to your show and everyone says like this dude is demand and like you are awesome and like if you're in tension like into the world from what you're doing is really really special and right now I need it more than ever so thank you dude like for real you're the shit like I would say as off-camera I'll say it on camera like you are awesome bro thank you man that really touched my heart thank you

yeah I mean I did I'm prox I'm practicing what I said earlier which is really I love it and also it's something shitty to you uh yeah no I'm gonna try to figure that apart

“not man thank you bro I think it's been so I honestly that means the word for me coming from you”

and and this is like this hasn't even felt like an interview I feel like no just like honestly like those are my favorite conversations right yeah we've just been talking and I could talk different other few hours I was like I know I thought it's over wrong yeah you know I didn't come on I could keep going I just want to be mindful of you about that this is some fun segments because you're such a fun loving guy to end with and I was like yeah this guy's music so deep

but he's just such a good time so all right these these are two little games that we got and then we have a final five that we do with every guest if you've listened you know this is called would you rather all right way back at someone who wasn't waving at you or tell you a server and a restaurant you too after they tell you enjoy your meal do there's nothing the world worse than waving at someone that doesn't wave back here bro it's gotta be the server one because

they walk right away the wave one they're like they're gonna see that for a few seconds as they pass you oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah okay trip and fall on stage at one of your concepts

so many times tripped and fallen so many times the people are like almost expecting it so I'd say tripping and falling forgetting words that you just pop around back up you just got to get back up and go dude that's amazing be extremely self aware or completely oblivious me you're just talking about this oh I want to say be completely oblivious but like it would kind of like spit in the face

the conversation we just say be completely self aware because there's always room to you can make

“yourself a little bit more oblivious if you want to yeah uh send the text by accident or the”

person you're talking about or accidentally like a really old photo was the stalking of one Instagram oh it's so tough because the text one could be terrible depending on what you're saying but like in the old photo is like crazy like I've said that happened to me obviously and like people that would do what you're doing the amount of times you must have scrolled they get to that photo I think sending a text by accident but those are both bad things about that yeah uh your

dog can talk and there's a very strong personality that clashes with yours oh or your dog can't talk but they don't really like you well that's what I already have dude I've driven shepherds you look me there just like yeah you're gonna play video games like another spliff great like I think probably dogs don't like me because I can convince myself that they're just like look mean I love it uh play around with tiger woods but you accidentally hit him with the

ball on the very first hole oh or play the best game of your life at a fancy country club

but you're alone and can never tell us all how good your game was oh dude these are really hard

“uh they're very hard I think I would probably curl up a new ball and I have a hit tiger woods”

look off off I think I'd have to just play by myself and play well which doesn't happen in any way so perfect so it's not really a choice yeah all right so this game's called gut reaction uh Noah just complete the sentence my favorite compliment to receive is I love your shoes I love getting a compliment of my shoes I was asked to ask you where your shoes are from when you walked in today and I waited because I was like I need a parent it's happening it's happening

I was genuinely gonna have to I mean I've been working for shoes with those laces for a while yeah they tell us they're nice yeah yeah I won't yeah all right we'll talk about shoes later my guilty pleasure artist or song is oh semi of my way rusted root okay all right uh the most unhinged store I've had this week was oh dude I was driving and I was had as untrusive thought where I was like that's probably like the most ED shit but I was like I could just like just

swerve into that lane and it's like everything up bro like I had that thought before isn't it crazy crazy I mean you're like wait man why do my brain go like oh Jesus Christ then I'm like I'm like then I'm like rearranging my hands to make sure I'm like very much staying on my own lane but that's probably my craziest one the hill I will die on for no reason is mac and cheese is just like not very good I think it's like a pretty creatively boring dish like the latest wheat and cheese

melted like I feel like a caveman probably was the first person they back at you so I think people go a little too crazy for it people get too excited they make it in such large quantities as well you and my wife would have a big debate over that I know people really don't like I say yeah you and my wife would uh the weirdest place ever in a song is I wrote a song in the bathroom of JFK one time was crazy yeah like it's like I think I was hung over and I just it just

came to me and I was like this would be a fun story to tell if I finished a song and I wrote a whole song on my phone it hasn't come out but if it ever does that'll be a fun one to tell okay

“so it's not out yeah yeah all right so we're like taking a shit brother that's what's got”

supposed to be called one thing my wife makes fun of me for is I like to just sit there and we get these big bags of a tootsie roll in many tootsie roll pops and I'll sit there and one bite just crunch the entire thing I'll do like 50 in a row she calls it crunch time and uh it's just hilarious because you just hear my teeth like shattering against the live pops and cheese like I think she does I think she just hates it I don't think she makes fun of it as much but

that's a weird thing that I do around my wife. Do you do on purpose now? I just love it dude I can't I don't know the patience like lick it or whatever I'm just like like in my teeth my incisors

do they just destroy that thing. That's amazing all right uh which fellow music star would you call

to help you bury a dead buddy? I'm calling my buddy Nile Horn I think you I think you would do with me. Nice yeah. Got it that's a good that's that was quick you're like I know now I'll do it and the last one of these forgot reaction first artist you'd want next to you on a long bus tour ride. Oh my god my buddy Cory Harper. Awesome second songwriter one of my best friends know we're all in this like the funniest man alive. Yeah. Amazing. Got reaction you were good that's great.

Yeah that's awesome you were really impressive all right final five we asked is to every guest who's ever been on the show these have to be answered in one word to one sentence. Okay usually one sentence. First question. What is the best advice you've ever heard or received? Be your your feet are. Great. Second question. What is the worst advice you've ever heard or received? Played safe. Yeah. Question number three what something you used to value that you don't

anymore? I don't value like my physical appearance as much as I used to.

No no no I want you to like I took me a long time to be comfortable the way I look like my face

the way I look and well I want to be healthy and I want to have better body image. I don't like need people to think I'm attractive and that's been a cool thing just kind of bigger to be myself. That sounds really free. Yeah it's dope. Yeah that's awesome man. Love hearing that.

“A question number four what's something that you didn't value that you value now?”

My time. I think I was I value my time more than I I value my time more than I ever have. I was one of the grind so hard and like be the dog that just like works as hard or harder than anybody else. And now I'm like so much like this is my time. I'm going to do what makes me feel good in this

moment instead of like feeling like I need to be doing a million things. I love that. And

fifth and final question we asked this to every guest on the show. If you could create one law

“that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? That's a great question. I was going”

to say using your blinker when you turn but that's actually already a lot and people to stop and follow it. It's a great answer. I could create one law. You are not legally allowed to post videos of fireworks. Like I'm so tired of seeing people post videos of like for the July I'm like dude, that looks horrible. No one sees what you're trying to look at. You're laughing your hands

are shaking like just enjoy the fireworks. Good. That's it. We've never had that in the history of

“the show. That is a great. That's like I might actually like that I might need to like start petitioning”

for that to become a real law. I love it. No, I hope you I hope you genuinely felt seen in her today on the show. I hope you felt you got to share in a safe space where you're going through and really didn't. And along my discontinue, I hope you'll come back. I hope we'll do a lot more of this. Dude, totally. And yeah, let's go play Pickleball or something this time. I'll take out the outside of it and I appreciate being on the show. It's really cool experience and

very helpful and hopefully people here listen. Yeah, like we both want, feel heard. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, man. Thank you. If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more. I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin. Follow your own inner guide. It directs us. It might not make sense to us. Might not make sense to us. Might not make sense to anyone else. Certainly won't make sense to anyone else. And that's okay. It's fine.

This isn't I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.