Speaker 1: My Heart Radio presents Inside the Studio. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Joe Levy. So this week's guest on the home edition
Speaker 1: of the show is singer songwriter JP Sachs. You know,
Speaker 1: we put together the home edition of Inside the Studio
Speaker 1: to let you know how artists are coping with lockdown
Speaker 1: and how it's impact in the way they make music.
Speaker 1: And Jp Sachs's song if the World Was Ending has
Speaker 1: become one of those covid anthems that seems to sum
Speaker 1: up the moment. Maybe you know the original version from
Speaker 1: last year, which is a duet with one of the
Speaker 1: greatest songwriters in pop music today and JP's girlfriend, Julia Michaels.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you know the new version from this April,
Speaker 1: where twenty six other artists jumped on the track, Sam Smith,
Speaker 1: Kesha and Nil Horan h E. R Key Turban Florida,
Speaker 1: Georgia line. It's a long list and the track benefited
Speaker 1: Doctors Without Borders. Our quarantine correspondent Jordan Runtalg caught up
Speaker 1: with Jp to talk about that song and much much more.
Speaker 1: And after you finished checking out this episode, be sure
Speaker 1: to give a listen to the I Heart Radio podcast
Speaker 1: that Jordan's hosts rivals Music's Greatest Feuds, which, as the
Speaker 1: saying goes, is available wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: my name is Jordan Runtag, but enough about me. I'm
Speaker 1: joined by a Toronto born singer, songwriter, and self described
Speaker 1: over sharer. You may know him for his collaboration with
Speaker 1: Julia Michaels entitled If the World Was Ending, a song
Speaker 1: about connection during times of crisis. Although it was written
Speaker 1: last summer, it's become the theme song for an untold
Speaker 1: number of couples sheltering in place during the Corona pandemic.
Speaker 1: It can be found on his new EP, Hold It Together,
Speaker 1: which is brimming with soulful vocal work and confessional lyrics
Speaker 1: that may make you laugh, cry and occasionally both at once.
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled the welcome JP sex JP, how are you
Speaker 1: think so much? Loves that intro? Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I did my best laugh price mild think is it's
Speaker 1: the emotional spectrum. I want it once. There you go. Yo,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you got that in spades, my friend.
Speaker 1: I've got so many things to ask you, But first off,
Speaker 1: congratulations on successive If the World Was Ending, I just
Speaker 1: the story behind the song. It's like it's like a
Speaker 1: Hollywood movie. I mean, I can tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit of how the song came together. First of all,
Speaker 1: how did you and Julia first link? It's a pretty
Speaker 1: crazy story. I'm just now realizing that drinking soda water
Speaker 1: drain interview is such a horrible idea. I will be
Speaker 1: like meaningful thought, burp, genuine idea of burp. You're doing
Speaker 1: it too, I'm doing I'm doing it too. I know
Speaker 1: so much. You thought I was a professional. You thought wrong. Well,
Speaker 1: look I got Selzer right with the soda water during
Speaker 1: the I'm gonna keep drinking it. We can burp mid
Speaker 1: thought together. Um, so perfect segue to the story of
Speaker 1: this song. So I would say, I would say the
Speaker 1: first thing that kicked everything off was Julia sharing a
Speaker 1: song of mine called in Barcelona on her Instagram story. Um.
Speaker 1: When she shared that story, I got a notific agency.
Speaker 1: Julie Michael was a tagulum story. I was mid conversation
Speaker 1: on a road trip about how Julia was the most
Speaker 1: influential songwriter of our generation. It was a strange, serendipitous moment.
Speaker 1: So her and I get talking. She suggests we right,
Speaker 1: not long after that, we're in the studio and we
Speaker 1: wrote if the World was ending on the day we met.
Speaker 1: That is insane. I mean, I've read that you wrote
Speaker 1: the chorus first, if the world was ending, You'd come
Speaker 1: over right, which is just such an amazing line. It
Speaker 1: really just strips away all the like trivial day to
Speaker 1: day stuff that gets in the way of of love.
Speaker 1: Where did that line come from just popping your subconscious
Speaker 1: one day? Or it was actually an attempt at writing
Speaker 1: a chorus for another song. So usually the way my
Speaker 1: my creative process will work is I'll have a verse
Speaker 1: or pre course or course that I love, and then
Speaker 1: I'll try I'm right around it right. So so for
Speaker 1: that song, a song called four thirty in Toronto, which
Speaker 1: will probably be on my album, I had a verse
Speaker 1: that I was subsessed with, and I've been trying to
Speaker 1: get the chorus to this verse forever. And if the
Speaker 1: world was ending, you come over right was an attempt
Speaker 1: at a course for that verse. It didn't work, but
Speaker 1: I knew I liked if the world was ending, You'd
Speaker 1: come over right as another line, So it kind of
Speaker 1: just like was in my journal living there so often.
Speaker 1: My next song will come out of a failed attempt
Speaker 1: at my previous song. Um, so it was there. I
Speaker 1: kind of forgot about it. And then when the earthquakes
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles happened around the fourth of July, I
Speaker 1: remember that failed attempt at a chorus if the world
Speaker 1: was ending to come over, right, And then brought into
Speaker 1: the session with Julia, and the song came together really fast, right,
Speaker 1: I mean in the same day. Yeah, we wrote the
Speaker 1: song in a couple of hours, and all the all
Speaker 1: the original vocals and original piano from the day we
Speaker 1: wrote it are what's on the record now. Was initially
Speaker 1: intended as a duet? Or was that? Sort of like
Speaker 1: a happy happy accident? It's funny, so you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: sessions like that, you don't really know what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do. You're just getting together to be creative. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure Julia had it in her mind as a duet,
Speaker 1: but I knew that. I knew it was going to
Speaker 1: be a duet. So when I was cutting the second verse,
Speaker 1: so she sitting the second verse on the record, But
Speaker 1: originally I was I was trying to sing the second
Speaker 1: verse and I couldn't get it right, and it was
Speaker 1: like the most blessed failure I've ever made was not
Speaker 1: being able to sing that second verse because Juliet got
Speaker 1: so frustrated with me not being able to go how
Speaker 1: to think about you with that? It ripened my heart out.
Speaker 1: She got so frustrated my inability to sing in that
Speaker 1: rhythm that she was like, functuous, let me do it.
Speaker 1: So she comes into the studio to show me how
Speaker 1: to do it. But as soon as she started singing
Speaker 1: on the record, I'm like, I'm not coming back like
Speaker 1: you were singing that part. That's how this is gonna go. Now,
Speaker 1: I got a question about one of your lyrics. Feel
Speaker 1: free to plead the fifth on this Uh that night
Speaker 1: we went drinking, stumbled in the house and didn't make
Speaker 1: it past the kitchen. Can relaborate on that. Were you
Speaker 1: admiring a new coffee maker, really clean linoleum? I think
Speaker 1: I think it's about the potential of a kitchen island. Now,
Speaker 1: was there a moment when you knew that this song
Speaker 1: was was really something special? Yeah? Honestly, like I had
Speaker 1: a I had recorded a voice note of Ben Rice,
Speaker 1: who engineered all the vocals and piano. On the first session,
Speaker 1: I had a voice note of the playback at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, so before he mixed anything, And
Speaker 1: I must have listened to that voice note, which is
Speaker 1: that's like an incognito thing, like I'm not sure they
Speaker 1: knew I did it. I did that. I must have
Speaker 1: listened to it like a hundred times. Now at the time,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if I was just excited because Julia
Speaker 1: was on it, or it was this new song, or
Speaker 1: hearing our voices together felt really exciting and special. But
Speaker 1: I knew I loved it from the jump. I think
Speaker 1: it took Julie a little bit longer. I think at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, like that's all we can
Speaker 1: never really do as an artists. Just make yourself love
Speaker 1: a song and that enough people are share your taste
Speaker 1: that they're gonna love it too. The sort of state
Speaker 1: the obvious here, you released a song with the chorus
Speaker 1: if the world was ending, you'd come over right on
Speaker 1: the eve of a global pandemic lockdown. I mean the
Speaker 1: timing is you know, I mean you get people saying like,
Speaker 1: are you part of the psychic Friends network? I mean
Speaker 1: the timing is nuts. How do you feel knowing that
Speaker 1: a lot of couples are using this as sort of
Speaker 1: their their quarantine theme right now. Yeah, we get accused
Speaker 1: of insider information on Twitter a lot um and I've
Speaker 1: I've clarified many times that we had no idea when
Speaker 1: we wrote the song. July came out of October we
Speaker 1: had we had not heard of anything related to coronavirus
Speaker 1: at that time. How does it feeling? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think at the end of the day, the song is
Speaker 1: kind of at it's or about putting love before everything else.
Speaker 1: And if there was ever a time in history that's uh,
Speaker 1: it felt relevant to put love before everything else, This
Speaker 1: is certainly one of them. You can say that again.
Speaker 1: And in your case, you did come over your quarantining
Speaker 1: together with with Julia right now, but say you are
Speaker 1: you are together. I did come over. I'm at her.
Speaker 1: I'm at in her guest room as we speak. Was
Speaker 1: there a moment when you thought that your your relationship
Speaker 1: might be more than professional? Yes? Was our specific moment? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think I knew within thirty seconds. Wow.
Speaker 1: She text her manager of the day the day of
Speaker 1: our session saying she thought she was in love. Wow.
Speaker 1: So lightning struck both of you. I saw the the
Speaker 1: music video for the the demo version of the song
Speaker 1: that you put out and for people who haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: it is so great. It is JP and Julia recounting
Speaker 1: their relationship via text on both sides of the screen.
Speaker 1: It's it's really great. I ighly recommend watching it. Wow.
Speaker 1: So it was it was immediate for you too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We we went on our first date the next day.
Speaker 1: We wrote the song on a Saturday. We went on
Speaker 1: a Sunday. We were officially a couple eight days later.
Speaker 1: What was the date? What was it? What did you do?
Speaker 1: We went to the park and then we went to
Speaker 1: a Peruvian restaurant and then we was on a movie.
Speaker 1: That's a very good first day. The park was the
Speaker 1: main part. We were at the park for like three hours.
Speaker 1: That was like it was supposed to be a date date,
Speaker 1: so it was kind of like three dates in one
Speaker 1: and now you're together. You're sharing a home too. Incredible songwriters,
Speaker 1: do you feel really productive in lockdown or is it
Speaker 1: hard to get creative right now? How you feeling? I mean,
Speaker 1: I got lucky. I'm locked in with the best songwriter
Speaker 1: the world. So you know, I hear my friends complaining
Speaker 1: about zoom sessions, which Honestly, I have also complained about them.
Speaker 1: But if the only person I get to write with
Speaker 1: in person is is Julia, then I leved out uh
Speaker 1: and we've been Honestly, the first month and a half
Speaker 1: we weren't too productive, and then we caught of wave.
Speaker 1: I thought, I think over the last like four weeks,
Speaker 1: we've written a lot, a lot of songs for her,
Speaker 1: a lot of songs for me, songs for others. We
Speaker 1: just kind of caught a wave. What is she taught you?
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you're an incredibly compress songwriter yourself, but
Speaker 1: what is she taught you about songwriting? Good question? So
Speaker 1: I think usually my instincts melodically are to just follow
Speaker 1: the follow the cadence of a lyric, like it's more,
Speaker 1: it's more in my wheel house to be like if
Speaker 1: the world does any you come over right, like nothing too,
Speaker 1: there's nothing too distracting from the lyric itself going on melodically,
Speaker 1: I'll do a lot of like I'll stumble into interesting
Speaker 1: rhythms melodically because I'll follow the like rhythm of the words.
Speaker 1: It isn't too often will consciously go like, how can
Speaker 1: I make that melody around that line? Jump around more?
Speaker 1: How can it be more exciting? And Julia is able
Speaker 1: to both be sincere and the way she presents lyrics,
Speaker 1: but also really stretch what the melodic possibilities are. And
Speaker 1: I think from writing with her, like I've really started
Speaker 1: to expand the way I think about that. And I
Speaker 1: want to ask you that about that because so many
Speaker 1: songwriter as will say, you know, my songs are really
Speaker 1: journal entries, but in your case that's literally the case,
Speaker 1: right as so many of your lyrics begin as as
Speaker 1: diary entries. For you, you know, I was so I'm
Speaker 1: called Barcelona the whole first, versus a journal You know,
Speaker 1: I thought you would have called yesterday. I said, I
Speaker 1: didn't want you to, but I still thought you would.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I expected you to say. But
Speaker 1: I turned twenty five and pidding my mind, you'd be
Speaker 1: a part of that in some way like that. That
Speaker 1: is the journal entry into what I was saying before,
Speaker 1: like that melody on that versus I thought you would
Speaker 1: have called with the us today. I said I didn't
Speaker 1: want you to, but I still thought you would. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I expected you to say, which is
Speaker 1: very much the same cadence as I would have just
Speaker 1: spoken it exactly ago, um, whereas Julia will like she'll
Speaker 1: she'll stretch the possibilities of what that cadence can be,
Speaker 1: what that melody could be. And that's been fun for
Speaker 1: me to explore with her aim now like on my
Speaker 1: own in my writing a little bit more, um, I
Speaker 1: guess in Barcelona, I do a little because the course
Speaker 1: jumps you know well or so these people, which is
Speaker 1: funny that that would have been the song that she
Speaker 1: responded to the first time, because it's a little bit
Speaker 1: more like and move out of that. But it's like
Speaker 1: a little bit more the approach she would take to
Speaker 1: a course and the one that I take. Traditionally, Now,
Speaker 1: when you sit down the start of song, do you
Speaker 1: hear a fragment of a piece of music in your
Speaker 1: mind and then you go to your diary and look
Speaker 1: for a passage that you feel would fit with that
Speaker 1: piece of music, Or do you take words in your
Speaker 1: diary that really mean a lot to you and try
Speaker 1: to write music to fit that. Usually it's like it's
Speaker 1: a line or two that will be like that feels
Speaker 1: like a song. Yeah, I would say more often than not,
Speaker 1: it's the beginning. I'll have like the first line of
Speaker 1: a song, like I have a song called Explain You
Speaker 1: or I go. My therapist called you a learning experience
Speaker 1: one eighty an hour. That's all you mentions. Missing you
Speaker 1: is getting expensive. And that was the beginning of that song.
Speaker 1: It took me forever to write the second verse of
Speaker 1: that song because I like the first verse so much.
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't know what I wanted the second
Speaker 1: verse to be. And usually I try, like I try
Speaker 1: not to have favorite parts of my songs because I
Speaker 1: find if I have a favorite party usually means the
Speaker 1: other parts aren't as good. Um, So it's like the
Speaker 1: challenge of like, how does and that doesn't mean every
Speaker 1: part needs to be the moment you know it all
Speaker 1: kind of works together in itself. But you can always
Speaker 1: tell us a writer when you're like, there's the part
Speaker 1: of your song that you're always really excited for to
Speaker 1: hear yourself, are excited to get to when you're playing
Speaker 1: it for someone else, and you want your whole song
Speaker 1: to feel like that? Is it hard for you to
Speaker 1: ever choose the moments of yourself that you kind of
Speaker 1: want to keep back and keep private versus the ones
Speaker 1: you want to put in your song for fans. No, uh,
Speaker 1: the simple answer, no, I don't know. I think like
Speaker 1: every job comes with its occupational hazards. And if if
Speaker 1: the occupational hazard of being an artist and getting to
Speaker 1: sing my songs around the world for people that I'm
Speaker 1: so excited to meet, the countries that I have have always
Speaker 1: wanted to go to is uh, is sharing a little
Speaker 1: bit more than it's comfortable sometimes that I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: I also think there's something very empowering about taking the
Speaker 1: most of all the rule part to your life and
Speaker 1: making them the thing that you get applauded for, making
Speaker 1: them the thing that people sing along too. It's uh.
Speaker 1: It's a reminder for me that it's it's in my
Speaker 1: humanity that my my power exists. And I hope that
Speaker 1: it can also exist as a reminder for people listening
Speaker 1: to it that sometimes the parts of your life that
Speaker 1: you find shame, or the parts of your life and
Speaker 1: you're the most human, that's the part where we find
Speaker 1: each other. That's a beautiful way to put it. I
Speaker 1: wonder as a writer, do you ever find it difficult
Speaker 1: to be present in a moment, either a good moment
Speaker 1: or a bad moment, because there's a little part of
Speaker 1: you in the back of your mind that's writing this
Speaker 1: down and thinking, oh my god, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a great song. This is gonna be a great lyric.
Speaker 1: That's definitely a thing, but I try not to do it.
Speaker 1: I've yelled at Julia for for in the middle of
Speaker 1: a very sincere conversation, like you know, I'll say something
Speaker 1: like heartfelt and candid, and She'll be like, maybe you
Speaker 1: should put that in a song. Would go away? Talk
Speaker 1: to me? Not right now? A session? Yeah, the hazards
Speaker 1: of two songwriters dating. Yes, Now, what is it a
Speaker 1: day like for you on a songwriting session? Like, how
Speaker 1: do you start? What's your first of all, what's your setup?
Speaker 1: Where do you like to work? Anywhere with a piano?
Speaker 1: A real piano is a really important part of the
Speaker 1: songwriting session for me, and you'd be surprised how many
Speaker 1: studios don't have real pianos in them. I like bouncing
Speaker 1: back and forth instrument instrument like writing, but sitting at
Speaker 1: the piano writing, but sitting you know, with the guitar
Speaker 1: writing a bit, listening to a track, because sometimes there's
Speaker 1: like there's different ideas that common different setups, you know,
Speaker 1: if the World was Ending was written just at the piano,
Speaker 1: but Explain You was written on guitar, on piano, on
Speaker 1: listening to track, on going for walks, on being in
Speaker 1: the shower. You know some sometimes like that environmental shift
Speaker 1: is really useful. So I like being in studios with
Speaker 1: there's lots of options. I was gonna say, what do
Speaker 1: you do when you're totally stuck on a song? What?
Speaker 1: How do you completely just flush your mind watching a
Speaker 1: SMR video, go for a while. Walks are super helpful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I try and like stay off my phone. I
Speaker 1: allow myself to be bored because boredom is a really
Speaker 1: productive space. And if you're like, well funk, I didn't
Speaker 1: get the song, Like I'm gonna scroll through Instagram or
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch a YouTube video, you're you're just you're
Speaker 1: occupying your mind in a way that doesn't let it
Speaker 1: marinate on the idea where it's like if you just
Speaker 1: like have a conversation or go for a walk, or
Speaker 1: just like sit with your thoughts or like have a shower,
Speaker 1: like that empty space is super productive. That ship scientific
Speaker 1: to this book called the End of Absence, which talks
Speaker 1: about like the impact on creativity from eliminating boredom and
Speaker 1: how boredom is the most fruitful space for a creative Wow,
Speaker 1: I gotta check that out. And being at home all
Speaker 1: the time, it's that's gotta be really hard to be
Speaker 1: bored because it's filled with distractions. Like what are some
Speaker 1: of your biggest distractions from from being at home? Biggest distractions?
Speaker 1: I mean, I really love Jeopardy, A lot of Jeopardy,
Speaker 1: a lot of banana grams, anything dorky, I'm usually about it. Um,
Speaker 1: those are the main ones. Board games and game shows.
Speaker 1: I'm big Jeopardy fan myself, big any kind of like
Speaker 1: trivia stuff I am absolutely all about. I honestly think
Speaker 1: that if I could make it onto celebrity Jefeopardy, that
Speaker 1: would be my that would be my my like point
Speaker 1: of success. That would be the that would be the
Speaker 1: max for me. Yes, I'm writing that down. We're gonna,
Speaker 1: We're gonna make that happen. What is making music taught
Speaker 1: you about yourself? Mostly everything, Um, at least my emotional self.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how I would figure out anything if
Speaker 1: I didn't have songs. It's kind of the first place
Speaker 1: I met myself as like a fifteen year old was
Speaker 1: sitting at the piano trying to figure out my feelings
Speaker 1: and songs. But I mean, I think for everyone there
Speaker 1: has to be that space where you listen to yourself
Speaker 1: as a practice. You know, for me, songwriting is very meditative. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm really grateful to work in a career where listening
Speaker 1: to myself is required for my success. But I think
Speaker 1: regardless of that, we figure out who we are listening
Speaker 1: to ourselves and and figuring and listening to others and
Speaker 1: recognizing what it means to be yourself differently in different
Speaker 1: situations and with different people. And there's got to be
Speaker 1: that point of reflection where like all of that kind
Speaker 1: of pieces itself together. And for me that's always been
Speaker 1: song writing. I'm sure people have said this way better
Speaker 1: and I'm about too, but a song is gonna be
Speaker 1: a hell of a mirror to literally hear yourself singing
Speaker 1: back to whatever those thoughts are. And you know, they
Speaker 1: always say that every character and a dream is you,
Speaker 1: every line and a song is is you, And there's
Speaker 1: probably a lot to unravel from that. I never thought
Speaker 1: of that. I mean, that's that's the challenge with making
Speaker 1: sure it's always sincere because if I'm not being honest
Speaker 1: in these songs, you ask if it's hard to be candid,
Speaker 1: if it's if it's hard to share part to yourself
Speaker 1: with a song. To me, like, in the long term,
Speaker 1: being dishonest is more of a risk because it is
Speaker 1: a mirror. It is where I'm captured pieces of myself.
Speaker 1: So I'm lying in those songs. Then five years later,
Speaker 1: I look back on these parts of myself that we're
Speaker 1: dishonest and like that sounds like what fun with my
Speaker 1: sense of self? Absolutely? What is next for you? Like,
Speaker 1: where do you want to take your music from? From
Speaker 1: this point? I'm excited to explore different kinds of feelings. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's easy as a songwriter to get caught
Speaker 1: up in the uh, the really alluring mystique of sadness,
Speaker 1: and I do think it's an important challenge for every
Speaker 1: songwriter to figure out who you are and more than
Speaker 1: one feeling. So you know, if the World was Ending
Speaker 1: is a longing, nostalgic, loving song. Um, And it's It's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I'm proud of the selection on
Speaker 1: the EP is like there are different versions of what
Speaker 1: it feels like to be me on that EP, so
Speaker 1: I would say, what's what's next is I'm working towards
Speaker 1: an album will come at the end of this year,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna try and fill that album with songs
Speaker 1: that represent as many versions of what it feels like
Speaker 1: to be me is possible. What it feels like to
Speaker 1: be me, be a silly, a silly loving dork on
Speaker 1: a Saturday afternoon, you know, going for a drive with
Speaker 1: my girlfriend. You know, what it's like to be me
Speaker 1: at three in the morning alone at my piano. What
Speaker 1: it's like to be me like you know, it's it
Speaker 1: has I wanted to feel. I wanted to feel holistic
Speaker 1: like that, not just like one version of a feeling.
Speaker 1: So that that's that's what's exciting me about this album
Speaker 1: because I think there's it's already starting to happen in
Speaker 1: the next song I'm gonna put out our definitely different
Speaker 1: feelings already. I can't wait to hear it. I know
Speaker 1: one of your dream collaborators is Paul McCartney, who's one
Speaker 1: of my all time favorite humans. Sorry to my future
Speaker 1: children who might be listening to this, but he will
Speaker 1: always be. What is it about Paul McCartney that you love.
Speaker 1: Uh well, he he was the first songwriter I really
Speaker 1: fell in love with. You know, I taught myself how
Speaker 1: to play both the piano and guitar by learning every
Speaker 1: song in the Beatles song book. Wow. Unfortunately George Harrison
Speaker 1: and John Letton off the table. So Paul McCartney is
Speaker 1: my dream collaborator. Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder and Alessia
Speaker 1: Car ideally together, that'd be cool. Well, you kind of
Speaker 1: almost got there with the with the the live stream
Speaker 1: that you did to raise money for Doctors Without Borders.
Speaker 1: That was incredible. A lot of my dream collaborators are
Speaker 1: in there, like basically everyone in that video or someone
Speaker 1: I want to collaborate with, but like Sam Smith, Alessia
Speaker 1: Car at the top of that list. For those of
Speaker 1: you even seen it, I I strongly recommend it. An
Speaker 1: incredible list of people her Keith Urban, Sam Smith, Please
Speaker 1: go check it out. JP. My my last question, what
Speaker 1: is the first thing you want to do when this
Speaker 1: pandemic is over? With trips? You want to take people
Speaker 1: you want to hug hugs or hugs or are huge
Speaker 1: A huge thing that I'm looking forward to, just like
Speaker 1: social distance, responsibly long hugs with my friends will be nice.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's an incredibly cliche answer, but I'm
Speaker 1: missed touring a whole lot. I do these every Thursday
Speaker 1: live streams on my Instagram and they're fun and they're
Speaker 1: a little bit of a band aid solution for my
Speaker 1: love of touring and performing. But it's just singing to
Speaker 1: an audience trapped in your cell phone. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how long that's gonna last for me. It's just it's
Speaker 1: not the same, and you know, it's I'm I'm very
Speaker 1: lucky that my audience has grown over the last three months,
Speaker 1: so by the time I finally do get to tour,
Speaker 1: it might even be a bigger tour than it would
Speaker 1: have been originally, which is exciting. Um. But like I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to go to the Philippines, and I want
Speaker 1: to go play in you know, Taiwan. I want to
Speaker 1: do shows and and the Netherlands and and you know, Turkey.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to I just want to want
Speaker 1: to travel the world. I want to play shown Lima, Peru,
Speaker 1: whatever reason. The largest audience I have in anyone city
Speaker 1: is in Lima, and I want to go play a
Speaker 1: show in Lima. Well, when you do, I want to
Speaker 1: go it too before we go. I absolutely love your
Speaker 1: song twenty five in Barcelona. You've introduced to me the
Speaker 1: topic of a breakup vacation. I did a breakup semester abroad,
Speaker 1: so it makes me feel definitely a lot healthier than
Speaker 1: my version. So there's a video on YouTube. I think
Speaker 1: it's still there that we did around the release of
Speaker 1: Barcelona because after that song game and I heard so
Speaker 1: many stories from people being like, I wanted to break
Speaker 1: up trip. Yeah, oh I saw the video. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: recreated the music video with other people's breakup trip footage.
Speaker 1: Super fun. I felt way less alone, So thank you
Speaker 1: for that. It was such an encouragement for me on
Speaker 1: why under that idea that I've heard so much in
Speaker 1: so many different so many different kinds of arts and
Speaker 1: different mediums, and people say the more personal, the more universal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, songwriters, some songwriters straight away from that,
Speaker 1: You're like, I wanted to be relatable, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: so they go general. My favorite movies are about lives
Speaker 1: that are nothing like mine, and yet I'm moved by
Speaker 1: the humanity in them. So why can't I talk about
Speaker 1: my twenty fifth birthday? In Barcelona and exactly when I
Speaker 1: was feeling and have that still be relatable And the
Speaker 1: amount of stories I heard from people being like me
Speaker 1: too was so encouraging for you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: art that I want to continue to make. And it
Speaker 1: was in Barcelona too, by the way, where I went
Speaker 1: youre semester brought in Barcelona amazing? Did it help? No?
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm still here. The truth is, the truth is,
Speaker 1: might the song didn't really help either? It's gonna be tough,
Speaker 1: like playing a song about somebody that your heartbroken by
Speaker 1: every night at you know, a different club. That probably
Speaker 1: might make it worse. I guess perpetuates the nostalgia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I realized the same. When you first write the song.
Speaker 1: It's cathartic, right because this emotion that's so heavy on
Speaker 1: your heart is now in something other than you, and
Speaker 1: that helps. But then fast forward six months and the
Speaker 1: feeling isn't really in you as much, and now you're
Speaker 1: so performing the song. So the same thing you put
Speaker 1: the feeling into was now putting it back into you. Oh,
Speaker 1: I never thought of that. That's the that's the double
Speaker 1: sword of writing songs while moving through a heartbreak. But
Speaker 1: it got so much easier. You always have a good
Speaker 1: sense of humor about it too. I always appreciate in
Speaker 1: your music. I mean from you know, same Room, and
Speaker 1: so many in your songs sad corny. I won't say
Speaker 1: the last word because it's the family show, but so
Speaker 1: many of your songs, so I've crossed so much. I'm
Speaker 1: so so come on, I'm kidding j P. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today. Been a
Speaker 1: true pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for caring.
Speaker 1: I appreciate. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Inside
Speaker 1: the Studio home edition of production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more episodes of Inside the Studio and other shows
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.