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Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed B.

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Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 3: They've sold millions of records globally, three paton selling records

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Speaker 3: in the US alone, with hits like Santa Monica, Everything's Wonderful,

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Speaker 3: Father of Mine, and Everything to Everyone. And they've been

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Speaker 3: a staple of rock radio and New Zealand since the nineties.

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Speaker 3: And now they're back in New Zealand for the summer

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Speaker 3: concert series with Ice House, the Mighty Cold Chisel and

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Speaker 3: our beloved Bitgodonga in Topol tomorrow and Fittyannger on Sunday.

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Speaker 3: And joining us now on ZB is singer, songwriter and

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Speaker 3: founding member of evericlear Art alec Arkas a good afternoon arts.

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Speaker 3: Super excited to be seeing you in Topau. Look, you've

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Speaker 3: written some massive tunes in your life. What's on the

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Speaker 3: setlist for tomorrow?

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Speaker 4: First of all, thank you for having me on. I

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Speaker 4: appreciate it. Man. We're going to play all the hits.

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Speaker 4: They're only giving us an hour and we're going on first,

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Speaker 4: so it's kind of bizarre for us to do that,

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Speaker 4: but it's also exciting because all the other bounds are

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Speaker 4: so great and we're just glad to be in I did,

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Speaker 4: and it's gonna be a lot of fun.

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Speaker 3: It's interesting actually because I was thinking about that with

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Speaker 3: you guys, because we have a saying in New Zealand

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Speaker 3: which is world famous in New Zealand, and that kind

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Speaker 3: of extends to Australia, world famous in Australia New Zealand,

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Speaker 3: and you're kind of playing with world famous in Australia

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Speaker 3: and New Zealand bands that you might not have known,

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Speaker 3: and you've probably sold a lot more records than than

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Speaker 3: they have.

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Speaker 4: But were aware of Ice House.

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Speaker 3: And Cold Chisel and but Grunga coming from the States.

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Speaker 4: Well, I had heard the name called Chisel, but I

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Speaker 4: didn't really know the band. But I know Jimmy, he's

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Speaker 4: come to shows before. He's a fan and I'm a fan,

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Speaker 4: and I mean I think he's just you know, he's

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Speaker 4: a legend. The Ice House guys. Yeah, I knew a

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Speaker 4: couple of times we got played in the States. I've

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Speaker 4: been doing a deep diet. They're really great. I mean,

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Speaker 4: I'm not telling you anything you know or know you know,

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Speaker 4: I was listening different types of music when they were

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Speaker 4: you know, making their bones back in the day. Now

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Speaker 4: going back on it, I'm just it's really great. And

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Speaker 4: Becky is just I met her the other day. She's phenomenal.

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Speaker 3: Well yeah, she certainly. Ha's the New Zealand tool going

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Speaker 3: of you guys.

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Speaker 4: We played one show of this tour and that was

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Speaker 4: in Queenstown. It was really hot that day and I

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Speaker 4: don't know if you know it, but I was diagnosed

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Speaker 4: about eight years ago with multiple sclerosis. Yeah, so heat

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Speaker 4: is not good for me right stage, wasn't wasn't too.

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Speaker 4: I just need to get out of this on that day.

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Speaker 4: But I think Topo is going to be a different

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Speaker 4: type of venue. So I'm really looking forward to seeing

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Speaker 4: old bench.

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Speaker 3: You know, I hit about you diagnosis, but you're still

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Speaker 3: cracking out, craking out the gigs.

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Speaker 4: So is is your health generally okay? Generally? I just

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Speaker 4: got to do the work. I do the physical therapy.

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Speaker 4: I get a swim every day. My pool was in

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Speaker 4: my backyard and a lot of my property was destroyed

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Speaker 4: in the past. It have fired, of course, we were

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Speaker 4: about two hundred feet from ground zero. Luckily it didn't

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Speaker 4: burn the house. We still have to get it deep

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Speaker 4: cleaned and just smoke, damage and stuff. But other than that,

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Speaker 4: we're blessed. My wife's and my daughter and my dogs

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Speaker 4: are still living in a hotel. They'll probably be there for,

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Speaker 4: you know, another two three weeks at least for the

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Speaker 4: powers on so long, long, winding explanation why I'm not

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Speaker 4: taking as good a care as myself as they should have.

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Speaker 3: It's interesting talking to you because when those fires were

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Speaker 3: hitting in Santa Monica, I was thinking about you, and

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Speaker 3: I was thinking about the line, of course, which has

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Speaker 3: a different meaning in the song in Santa Monica, leave

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Speaker 3: the fly behind, swim out past the breakers, watch them

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Speaker 3: will die.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know me too. A lot of places that

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Speaker 4: I grew up with back in the day on the

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Speaker 4: west side of La We're gone. It's just gone crazy.

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Speaker 4: Everything's wine but houses I used to go to a

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Speaker 4: friends of mine gone. I live in Pasadena. I'm out

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Speaker 4: in the drive so across the street is out the

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Speaker 4: dina either way, and the fire started, and they came

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Speaker 4: and pulled us out of our house and told us

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Speaker 4: to get in our car and leave.

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Speaker 3: They must be an interesting, you know, deciding what's important,

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Speaker 3: What is the important things to take?

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Speaker 4: It's weird, right, you think you're gonna be like, Okay,

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Speaker 4: I'm gonna be I'm gonna get all our important papers,

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Speaker 4: I'm gonna get all the pictures. I'll do all that. No, man,

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Speaker 4: you're like, should I go through the fridge and sit there?

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Speaker 4: I couldn't think straight because there's noise going on, there's heat,

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Speaker 4: there's huge cinders flying past the windows, there's smoke everywhere.

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Speaker 4: Finally they yelled at me to get out of there

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Speaker 4: in the fire department, and all those guys are heroes.

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Speaker 4: Those people were just amazing.

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Speaker 3: We have Alexakis from Everclear on the line going back

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Speaker 3: to before you were saying that when you were growing up,

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Speaker 3: you were listening to different types of music than say

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Speaker 3: Ice House, and you're obviously an incredible songwriter. It's obviously

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Speaker 3: got rock and punk in there. Like I might sound

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Speaker 3: like an idiot here, but growing up listening to you

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Speaker 3: always thought there was a little bit of my parents,

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Speaker 3: like John Denver Records in the air, as well as

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Speaker 3: I don't know, Glenn Campbell or maybe even Barry manilone.

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Speaker 4: Easy Now, Easy Now. The first two guys, I'm like, okay,

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Speaker 4: I see what he's doing that for Berry Man alone. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: we're gonna have problems with that, all right, the songs

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Speaker 4: that make the whole word saying you didn't even write

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Speaker 4: that song.

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Speaker 3: They didn't.

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Speaker 4: No, look at the credits. He didn't write those song. Ah, okay,

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Speaker 4: I go back to John.

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Speaker 3: You'll accept John Denver.

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Speaker 4: The well, I'll accept John Denver. There's Hillbilly in there,

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Speaker 4: for sure. There's an R and B. There's soldiers plunk,

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Speaker 4: there's there's beach boys in there. There's beetles in there. Yes,

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Speaker 4: there's Black Sabbath in there. There's Arrowsmith in there. There's

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Speaker 4: a sex pistols, there's as there's no classic punk rock.

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Speaker 3: You have a no Barry Man, Oh Maddie.

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Speaker 4: With you game, and you were let an interview and

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Speaker 4: I didn't liking it at all. Oh Mandy, I just kidding.

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Speaker 4: There's a question, Well, you just that one thing.

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Speaker 3: You've definitely got the pips this that's gonna be another

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Speaker 3: weird question for you. Then that's something I've been thinking about,

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Speaker 3: Like I've got so many of your lyrics flooding around

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Speaker 3: like it is millions of people do around the world.

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Speaker 3: And like as I was saying before, swarming out past

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Speaker 3: the Breakers, watched the world die was in a lot

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Speaker 3: of people's minds, and I often ironically think saying everything

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Speaker 3: is wonderful.

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Speaker 4: Now, yeah, I mean when the fire happened, uh, me

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Speaker 4: and my wife were talking about it, and it's just

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Speaker 4: like you know that it was never meant to be

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Speaker 4: a literal thing. Was the declaration of blood? Is like,

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Speaker 4: you know, we can we can live beside the ocean,

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Speaker 4: swim out past the breakers, watch the world bick because

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Speaker 4: as long as we have each other holding hands in

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Speaker 4: the cold water, we're gonna be okay. Right, Yeah, I

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Speaker 4: mean that's that's that's coming from beautiful. So yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 4: you know it's it's it's violent, but there's beauty to it. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and think it's that and that's the way it was

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Speaker 4: always matted. And two that you know, it's about the fires,

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Speaker 4: and there's nothing cathartic about those fires. There's nothing but heartbreak. Literally, Maddie,

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Speaker 4: I got like seven people who are close to me.

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Speaker 4: Their houses are gone, everything, pictures of their kids, just

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Speaker 4: every memory and people I know, people talk about it like, yes, absolutely,

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Speaker 4: if you had to choose between losing your kid or

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Speaker 4: your your spouse or someone dying even your pet over things,

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Speaker 4: of course, that's a no brainer. But let's not forget

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Speaker 4: that these things have so many memories and life and

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Speaker 4: experiences attached to them, and we can't demean or diminish

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Speaker 4: how important those things are. It's part of the human experience,

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Speaker 4: as part of our experience. I'm pretty are broken, you know,

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Speaker 4: as a lot of people are. You know, that's like, dude, Yeah,

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Speaker 4: sometimes we feel fully when sometimes you gets broken.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm talking to the great at alex Akis from Ikla.

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Speaker 3: There's another line that always stuck with me as a

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Speaker 3: line from learning to Small life just keeps on getting

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Speaker 3: smaller and we never ask why that. I think about

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Speaker 3: that line quite a bit because I say, friends that

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Speaker 3: are going down terrible power. That's a really great line

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Speaker 3: that describes the situation of a lot of ethics of none.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's definitely thank you for picking up that line,

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Speaker 4: because that's always been one of my favorites. And people

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Speaker 4: don't bring that up from that song. They'll bring up

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Speaker 4: you know, learn how to Smiles Grit song, you know.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I mean, there's some great lines and I

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Speaker 4: think it's one of my best songs. Yeah, lyrically and

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Speaker 4: musically melodically, that line particularly, is anyone who's dealt with

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Speaker 4: addicts or alcoholics or people who just cannot understand that

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Speaker 4: they're come to the grips that they're powerless over this disease,

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Speaker 4: over some disease that is just destroying them, and that

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Speaker 4: they're destroying themselves. It's one thing to go through it.

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Speaker 4: I've been there. It's another thing to watch it and

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Speaker 4: knowing you can't do it. You can't throw them a

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Speaker 4: light preserver. They're going to throw it back at you.

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Speaker 4: You know it's it. And that line right there, like you,

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Speaker 4: life keeps getting smaller, and when you're in the middle

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Speaker 4: of it, you just don't understand it until you actually

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Speaker 4: get to a place like I did. And it took

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Speaker 4: me many years to just realize that I was powerless

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Speaker 4: and I surrendered. And before you do that, when you're

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Speaker 4: an addict or an alcoholic, you think that that's giving

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Speaker 4: up until you learn that to accept reality the way

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Speaker 4: it is, accept the thing the way it is is

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Speaker 4: actually not giving up. It's getting over that so that

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Speaker 4: you can be successful and win and understand. And that's

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Speaker 4: what happened to me almost thirty six years ago.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm so glad it did, and so well well

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Speaker 3: put there.

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Speaker 4: That is all so true.

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Speaker 3: And hey, look, thank you so much for keeping on

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Speaker 3: rocking and coming back to New Zealand. And I'm driving

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Speaker 3: down straight after work tonight to see you tomorrow lunchtime

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Speaker 3: and topoor bloody excited. Me and my partner will be

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Speaker 3: up front well as close as GA tickets get us.

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Speaker 3: So thanks so much for thanks so much for talking

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Speaker 3: to us. And you know I'm a big fan and

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Speaker 3: and this means a lot to me.

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Speaker 4: Okay, thanks many. I appreciate your car was greater and

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Speaker 4: interview'd be well, you should really meet people in bands

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Speaker 4: so they can get you a better chick.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm happy, I'm happy in the g A.

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Speaker 4: I'll be fine. Awesome the man of the people, Man

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Speaker 4: of the people. Yeah, there you go, all right, thanks, cheers,

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Speaker 4: take care.

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Speaker 2: What a awesome dude. Are you really happy in g

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Speaker 2: A though?

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Speaker 3: Man, look, I am happy in g A. But look

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Speaker 3: if this look of some if id up in the

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Speaker 3: VIP seats, then.

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Speaker 4: You wouldn't say that.

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Speaker 3: You know, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Will

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Speaker 3: see how it goes. Maybe I should Maybe I'll ring

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Speaker 3: art back.

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Speaker 2: Still on the line. Just a reminder you can see

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Speaker 2: ever clear with Icehouse, Cold Chisel and Bikrunga tomorrow in

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Speaker 2: Topa and Sunday and Fidianga, all part of the Summer

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Speaker 2: Concert Tour twenty twenty five. It's going to be great.

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Speaker 2: Matt will be there. Say gooday if you see him.

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Speaker 2: It's going to be fantastic.

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Speaker 1: For more from News Talk set B listen live on

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Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever

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Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio