Speaker 1: Welcome to Inside the Studio presented by I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Joe Leaving. Okay, so, as you probably know,
Speaker 1: we started the home edition of the show to let
Speaker 1: you in on the ways that artists are coping with
Speaker 1: quarantine and how these times are impacting their lives and
Speaker 1: the way they make music. I think it's pretty safe
Speaker 1: to say that no one we've spoken with has given
Speaker 1: this quite as much thought, reflection and meditation as Jason Morass.
Speaker 1: When Jason said this has been the weirdest year of
Speaker 1: his life, I felt that big time. But then when
Speaker 1: he followed it up by by talking about feeling a
Speaker 1: bouncing positivity is people try to learn how to make
Speaker 1: you feel their smile behind their mask, I felt that too.
Speaker 1: Jason's got a lot of interesting things to say. And
Speaker 1: even if I'm not a hundred percent sure about disadvice
Speaker 1: to start every day by making your bed, I did
Speaker 1: try it this morning and it definitely didn't make things
Speaker 1: any worse anyway. If you enjoy this episode, be sure
Speaker 1: to listen to the I Heart Radio podcast hosted by
Speaker 1: our Quarantine correspondent Jordan run Talk. It's called Rivals, Music's
Speaker 1: Greatest Feuds and it's available wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: my name is Jordan run Talk, But enough about me.
Speaker 1: My guest today is a singer songwriter, and when he's
Speaker 1: not doing that, he's growing food on his ranch in
Speaker 1: southern California's uplifting summer jams like the Remedy and I'm
Speaker 1: Yours are just as sunny as his disposition. And now
Speaker 1: he's putting some badly needed positive vibes into the world
Speaker 1: with his latest release, Look for the Good. It's a
Speaker 1: collection of original reggae tracks and bued with messages of
Speaker 1: optimism and gratitude, as practiced by his hero Mr Rogers.
Speaker 1: He's also backing up his ideals with action by dating
Speaker 1: proceeds from the record to charities promoting Black Lives Matter causes.
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled the welcome, Mr Ada z Jason Mraz Jason,
Speaker 1: It's such an honor to speak to you. God knows
Speaker 1: I've spent so much of my my teenage years playing
Speaker 1: your songs two girls on guitar, trying to impress them.
Speaker 1: So I owe you a belated apology for for all
Speaker 1: of those times I've massacred your songs in the name
Speaker 1: of love. Oh, I don't mind. They're your songs. I mean,
Speaker 1: when we record them and put them out there for
Speaker 1: you to do what you wish for good or bad,
Speaker 1: for for awkward or for romantic heroism. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's all the above. In that one, i'd say, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Oh well, how does life in quarantine find you today?
Speaker 1: Totally weird, man. I've just this has been the weirdest
Speaker 1: year of my life and probably for everyone. Probably for everyone,
Speaker 1: just what was normal has been changed, and then we're
Speaker 1: now being normalized into some really radical, far out and
Speaker 1: painful things as well. During it all, we're just asked
Speaker 1: to kind of stay away from each other, stay home,
Speaker 1: keep your keep your mouth covered. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone all over the place, you know who it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not. But what's very What I find is interesting,
Speaker 1: and that's it adds to the weirdness, is that I've
Speaker 1: experienced an increased level of politeness and cooperation. Like even
Speaker 1: though we are being we are seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: negativity in the world, Like America is getting an education,
Speaker 1: But if you go to the grocery store and you're
Speaker 1: at the gas station, you're doing the things we have
Speaker 1: to do to interact in the public working environments all that.
Speaker 1: I've just found an overall sense of like, we're going
Speaker 1: to get through this, and hey, how are you? And
Speaker 1: I want to make sure you can feel my smile
Speaker 1: behind this mask. I really am getting that so and
Speaker 1: that's weird too, you know, it's like, Wow, everybody's being
Speaker 1: really nice. What's going on? It's definitely like I've noticed
Speaker 1: to trying to like smile with the eyes more, which
Speaker 1: is like, I guess, like what Tyra taught us. I
Speaker 1: suppose it's the smizing. It's like you want people to
Speaker 1: see it. I do that too. I agree. Wow. Thanks Tyra.
Speaker 1: You've said on many occasions you are such an EmPATH,
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of my friends and myself
Speaker 1: for it's so hard not to to get bogged down
Speaker 1: with the feeling of just just taking on everybody else's pain.
Speaker 1: How do you try to keep your own head above
Speaker 1: water and look out for yourself first without taking everything
Speaker 1: else on? Well, they do tell you on the aircraft
Speaker 1: to secure your own mask first before you help the others, right,
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a metaphor for something, but definitely I've always
Speaker 1: found that world peace begins within So anything I do
Speaker 1: when I get up in the morning, make my bed,
Speaker 1: brush my teeth, do a little yoga stretch, that short
Speaker 1: little routine is sort of my mindfulness and my alignment
Speaker 1: in my balance. So when I step out into the
Speaker 1: kitchen where I have a shared space with roommates, or
Speaker 1: I flip on my phone and I see the entire
Speaker 1: world exploding, I can at least observe that from a
Speaker 1: balanced in a calm place. I can observe the world,
Speaker 1: the always changing world, the uncertain world. I can observe
Speaker 1: it with a with a grounded sense of like, I
Speaker 1: know who I am and I can handle this. I
Speaker 1: can make calm decisions out of love, not of fear.
Speaker 1: Whereas if I skip the bed making, if I skip
Speaker 1: my yoga practice, if I don't brush my teeth and
Speaker 1: I just run into the kitchen, I just look at
Speaker 1: my phone, I don't have any I don't have any
Speaker 1: place to stand on, and that whole world, uh can
Speaker 1: overwhelm me, and then it's harder to even get out
Speaker 1: of bed and get on with my day or be productive. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it's it's small practices of mindfulness that I truly
Speaker 1: do believe begins with making your bed when you wake up.
Speaker 1: There's something to that. Also, you're you're correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong on an avocado and coffee ranch. Right now,
Speaker 1: at the moment, I can't think of a place that's
Speaker 1: better than being a farm. Just being connected to the earth.
Speaker 1: Does that help keep you centered? Absolutely? Absolutely. Now, farm work,
Speaker 1: as much as of an ideal it is, it's still
Speaker 1: a very challenging thing to maintain and sustain, especially in California.
Speaker 1: Anything in agriculture in California is is not native. It
Speaker 1: was planted here because the weather is great, and we
Speaker 1: can be able to produce a lot of food and
Speaker 1: flowers and grains and all kinds of things that are
Speaker 1: made in California. But the irony is it requires irrigation
Speaker 1: and it requires a lot of farmer's footsteps. There's not
Speaker 1: a whole lot of just natural food forests happening it.
Speaker 1: It really is all designed I guess through generation generations
Speaker 1: of agriculture. Um. So that's the boring part of the answer. Um.
Speaker 1: But what it means is living out here is it's challenging.
Speaker 1: It's it requires us to do some work as what
Speaker 1: puts a lot of energy into it, and most the
Speaker 1: other farmers I've met do have second jobs, They have
Speaker 1: multiple loans and leans on their properties, they have mortgages
Speaker 1: because farming itself just doesn't make any money. So I
Speaker 1: always like to stress that when we're talking about this,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people want to go and live
Speaker 1: out on a farm and what not, just be mentally
Speaker 1: prepared that it is hard work to live the farm dream.
Speaker 1: I've been very blessed because I have music in my life,
Speaker 1: and I've been very successful with my first six albums
Speaker 1: too to be able to afford a beautiful ranch. And
Speaker 1: now we're trying to turn this little ranch into its
Speaker 1: own sustaining business. So let's say that should the music
Speaker 1: industry collapse and we we no longer are selling music
Speaker 1: because everything is free, right, or we no longer are
Speaker 1: doing concerts because there's a pandemic and we just can't breathe,
Speaker 1: hopefully my little fruit farm will figure out a way
Speaker 1: to sustain itself. And what I mean is will the
Speaker 1: fruit ever actually pay for the labor, or will my
Speaker 1: other jobs and my other loans have to pay for
Speaker 1: that labor too. So living on a farm is exciting,
Speaker 1: it's romantic, it's beautiful. Who everything you've just said right
Speaker 1: now is just so tinged with optimism. You know, it's
Speaker 1: I can't tour right now, and the music industry is
Speaker 1: really weird, but I'm gonna do this amazing beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, And that brings me to this album you've
Speaker 1: just made, which it's an album of hope, of optimism,
Speaker 1: and yet you've self identified correct me if I'm wrong
Speaker 1: as a pessimist, Like, how is that? I don't I
Speaker 1: don't believe you teach me your ways? How are you
Speaker 1: this this hopeful and optimistic? Ah? Yeah, So the album
Speaker 1: is called Look for the Good, and I sit down
Speaker 1: and I will write a song like that, And in fact,
Speaker 1: almost every song I've ever written is kind of through
Speaker 1: that filter of like look for the good? How can
Speaker 1: I look for the goodness? And it's usually because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in either insecurity or lack of confidence or
Speaker 1: sort of not really knowing what the future holds, And
Speaker 1: so with that you can kind of feel out of balance.
Speaker 1: And so I'll sit at an instrument piano or guitar,
Speaker 1: and I'll try to sing breathe life into a more
Speaker 1: stable future, or breathe life into love. Romance poetry breathe
Speaker 1: life into um just security, self confidence, things that I'm missing.
Speaker 1: So I use music too basically fill those I guess
Speaker 1: voids in my life. And if it works, if I
Speaker 1: really feel the uplift and the song itself just by
Speaker 1: the use of language, shifts my perspective into one that's
Speaker 1: more confident, more optimistic than I know. I've done my
Speaker 1: job on the piano, or at least the music has
Speaker 1: done its potent alchemy on me, which is what I
Speaker 1: believe it can really do for all of us. In
Speaker 1: that saying, if I believe it can do it for
Speaker 1: all of us, that's when I'll take that song and
Speaker 1: I'll put it on a record, I'll put it on
Speaker 1: stage because I feel like there there might be some
Speaker 1: medicine in this music, because it worked for me. And
Speaker 1: I don't know why it is. I have a lack
Speaker 1: of self confidence and insecurities. It's whether it's being rejected
Speaker 1: in I would is uh not the best soccer player
Speaker 1: in fourth grade and I remember kind of being heartbroken
Speaker 1: on the side of the field, and like those little
Speaker 1: moments when you're seven, eight, nine years old, they have
Speaker 1: such a huge impact on you and they start to
Speaker 1: shape what you believe about yourself, and then however your
Speaker 1: parents may have treated you, or your siblings may have
Speaker 1: treated you, or people at school or teachers, etcetera piles on.
Speaker 1: And then as an adult, I'm still having to basically
Speaker 1: try to prove myself on the soccer field. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense? Oh? Absolutely. I mean there's a reason I'm
Speaker 1: wearing a pink shirt right now. I'm wearing it in
Speaker 1: your honor. Thank you? Think um if reminds me of
Speaker 1: the album's closing track, Gratitude, which you express gratitude for
Speaker 1: for so many things, including you know, like bullies when
Speaker 1: you were seventeen, which is just looking for things from
Speaker 1: such a positive place. Can you tell me about that song?
Speaker 1: I know what kind of had a long gestation period. Yeah,
Speaker 1: um again, look for the how can I look for
Speaker 1: the good in everything? And when I was a senior
Speaker 1: in high school, it's especially my senior year. I remember
Speaker 1: even starting the year going wow, I didn't get beat
Speaker 1: up because my first year of ninth grade, driving to
Speaker 1: school with my friend Brad, he said, hey, man, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get your ass beat every once in a while.
Speaker 1: It's just part of high school. And so I was.
Speaker 1: I was terrified of high school. And then in my
Speaker 1: and then in my senior year, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: a pretty cool guy. I've done all the plays and
Speaker 1: and proved myself to be you know, have friends at
Speaker 1: all the different cafeteria tables, you know. And I was
Speaker 1: kind of gloating, like, wow, I never got my ass kicked.
Speaker 1: I did pretty good in high school. And then like
Speaker 1: a week later, Uh, I got a series of beat
Speaker 1: downs and slams up against the locker. One was off
Speaker 1: site at school, offside of school grounds. That was pretty bad.
Speaker 1: And all of it was just jealous guys because I
Speaker 1: was doing well and I all my friends were their girlfriends,
Speaker 1: and they just wanted to put me in their place.
Speaker 1: And so, as as I continue to write songs in
Speaker 1: my adult life, how can I look back at those
Speaker 1: moments and see them as beneficial to who I am today?
Speaker 1: So I have to say thank you for those experiences.
Speaker 1: I mean, here we are still taking time on this
Speaker 1: podcast to talk about those little moments. So those moments
Speaker 1: are still contributing to my life today. And the song
Speaker 1: Gratitude UH actually began out of that um that instant,
Speaker 1: those instances in high school and when I have a
Speaker 1: little seed like that, then I can't wait to turn
Speaker 1: something into a song. Um. So I also thought about
Speaker 1: the rejection and the song also used to have other
Speaker 1: verses in it. And that's the typical of songwriting, is
Speaker 1: I'll overwrite a song or I'll do multiple rites and
Speaker 1: things just kind of end up on the cutting room
Speaker 1: floor eventually. But this, this song actually began even probably
Speaker 1: when I was first starting to write songs for love
Speaker 1: as a four letter word, and unfortunately just it wasn't
Speaker 1: fully realized ten years ago. And when I was in
Speaker 1: the studio last year working on this new reggae album
Speaker 1: with Michael Goldwasser and Raining Jane and some amazing musicians,
Speaker 1: I still have this gratitude song idea. Um. Another great songwriter,
Speaker 1: Matt Morris, and I had gotten together maybe in twenty
Speaker 1: fIF and spun an idea around the gratitude song, but
Speaker 1: again it never never saw the light. So it had
Speaker 1: just been kind of hanging around one of the many
Speaker 1: posted notes on the wall about potential song ideas someday.
Speaker 1: And this album Look for the Good was just the
Speaker 1: perfect final like package that Gratitude finally fit in and
Speaker 1: it finally found its home, you know, I was thinking.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of the title, and I knew it
Speaker 1: sounded familiar, and then it finally clicked. It reminded me
Speaker 1: of Mr Rogers, sort of looked for the Helpers. And
Speaker 1: you've actually seen that Mr Rogers was a big influence
Speaker 1: on you morally and spiritually, at least as you made
Speaker 1: this album right. Absolutely, And you know, I always knew
Speaker 1: the guy was onto something, but the lad a couple
Speaker 1: of years, there's been some great documentaries about the man
Speaker 1: and books and articles, and I kind of got reacquainted
Speaker 1: with him over the last five years and was very
Speaker 1: inspired by how he chose to use the power of television,
Speaker 1: how he chose to use that to get to people's feelings.
Speaker 1: And about five years ago, I was visiting a middle
Speaker 1: school and I met the counselor and I said, Hey,
Speaker 1: what do you need. What's a common request that you
Speaker 1: would have to make your life better or make the
Speaker 1: students lives better? And she goes, you know what, we
Speaker 1: don't have Mr Rogers anymore. And by the time a
Speaker 1: student gets even to elementary school, if they have emotional problems,
Speaker 1: it's almost too late to start to address them. In
Speaker 1: the old days, Mr Rogers would address those from a
Speaker 1: very young age and basically give kids counseling before they
Speaker 1: ever showed up in school. And she was right. So anyway,
Speaker 1: very inspired by him of the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: I really do believe it has affected my work from
Speaker 1: the No album with the Habit All track and what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do on that album to look for
Speaker 1: the Good and the messages we're trying to do here,
Speaker 1: and you're right, look for the Helpers is exactly what
Speaker 1: what inspired this song. Um Nelson Mandela's famous quote it
Speaker 1: always seems impossible until it's done inspired this song. Uh.
Speaker 1: Michael Goldwasser sent me the song title look for the
Speaker 1: Good after he'd heard it sermonized at his synagogue by
Speaker 1: his rabbi, who said, look for the good and you
Speaker 1: will find the good. Look for the bad and you
Speaker 1: will find the bad. So how do you want to
Speaker 1: spend your time? You know? And Uh, that to me
Speaker 1: is like that's songwriting. That's what we do in the
Speaker 1: song is we want to highlight those little moments in
Speaker 1: life so that we can cherish those moments forever and
Speaker 1: really make them feel big. Using the song for good,
Speaker 1: I mean use it for the theme for the Food
Speaker 1: for Heroes program in New York City, which provides food
Speaker 1: for essentral healthcare workers and an essential personnel. How did
Speaker 1: have that come to be? And what's been that that's
Speaker 1: experience been? Like? That was that came right out of
Speaker 1: the gates, because apparently someone in the Mayor's office of
Speaker 1: New York is a big fan. So the minute we
Speaker 1: put the song out there, like, oh my gosh, this
Speaker 1: is so in alignment with what we're doing right now.
Speaker 1: Can we use this song? I said absolutely, So we
Speaker 1: all signed off. Just play the song, do what you
Speaker 1: need to do. Let's raise some awareness and money for
Speaker 1: your your essential workers. They're feeding feeding healthcare workers, which
Speaker 1: was pretty awesome. You released the album on June this year,
Speaker 1: obviously a very important charge day. Tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit that decision. Yeah, man, so you know, I had
Speaker 1: honestly never even heard of Juneteenth. That was not something
Speaker 1: that was taught to me in my high school government
Speaker 1: or Civics or history classes about I don't know. Six
Speaker 1: months ago we decided, yeah, we'll put the album out
Speaker 1: in the summer June Nineteenth looks great. We'll do Today's
Speaker 1: show on June one. Like when you're putting music out,
Speaker 1: you lay out a whole schedule of promotional events. Well,
Speaker 1: the world's had its eyes opened, America started getting education,
Speaker 1: including myself, and we realized, oh my gosh, our album
Speaker 1: is scheduled on this very historic day. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't I don't want to not
Speaker 1: put my album out because I feel like the lyrics
Speaker 1: and the songs of this sing about the kind of
Speaker 1: world we're working towards, a more equal and just and
Speaker 1: fair world. And I can't just have an album about
Speaker 1: these lyrics and these ideas without doing something. So I
Speaker 1: reallocated my royalties that had already earned through the advance
Speaker 1: that I got um with BMG, and uh, six different
Speaker 1: organizations received the total sum of two or fifty dollars already,
Speaker 1: which makes me feel great because I feel like this
Speaker 1: album now also serves that purpose of advancing a quality.
Speaker 1: You know, you've been hearing about reparations, You've been hearing
Speaker 1: about redistribution of wealth, You've been hearing about socialism. I'm
Speaker 1: a Bernie Sanders supporter, and who am I if I'm
Speaker 1: not actually donating and volunteering and doing that work to
Speaker 1: help society breathe easier. I'm beautiful thing that I want
Speaker 1: to read the names of the organizations you donate to
Speaker 1: correct me if if I if I miss any, just
Speaker 1: in case anyone listening also wants to contribute. San Diego
Speaker 1: Young Artist Music Academy, Rise, San Diego Grassroots Law Project,
Speaker 1: Center on Policy and Initiatives, and Equal Justice Initiative, and
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter. I leave those are the six that's right.
Speaker 1: Doing so much. I feel sort of almost bad asking
Speaker 1: you this question, Uh, what else are you doing? Let
Speaker 1: me let me rephrase that. What are you working on that? Musically?
Speaker 1: I read that you have a second reggae project in
Speaker 1: the works. Yeah. So when we made this new album,
Speaker 1: we assembled a phenomenal band, some guys that had toured
Speaker 1: with me, some guys that have been working with Michael
Speaker 1: Goldwasser in the past, and I just I want to
Speaker 1: play more music with these guys. We're gonna tour next
Speaker 1: year on this album, and we thought, heck, let's do
Speaker 1: another session before we hit the road, just so we
Speaker 1: can continue to build our catalog of some great songs,
Speaker 1: old and new using these these new reggae arrangements. So
Speaker 1: definitely working on that. I've been working on some some
Speaker 1: holiday musical comedies for a holiday coming soon. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then recently, this bizarre gig I got during quarantine came
Speaker 1: from PBS and the creators of The Masked Singer. Uh.
Speaker 1: This weird reality show which I do not like the
Speaker 1: show title at all, but it's called Celebrity Show Off
Speaker 1: and it's about different households competing for the best television
Speaker 1: show that you can produce in a week. And we
Speaker 1: you know, we compete and if you know, if your
Speaker 1: show is not great, you get kicked off the air.
Speaker 1: Uh I. I I kind of rejected it at first, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll do one or two episodes, And now I'm shoot,
Speaker 1: I'm six episodes deep into a full season almost, and uh,
Speaker 1: but it's cool. I've learned a lot about film production
Speaker 1: and how to make movies on an iPhone and uh.
Speaker 1: And in that I get to write short, little musical
Speaker 1: comedies as well and try to be a goofy Mr
Speaker 1: Rogers character, which you know we were just talking about.
Speaker 1: You've said that this Quarantine has been a gift in
Speaker 1: some ways. Why is that? What's been the silver lining
Speaker 1: of this for you? Oh man, I've never been home
Speaker 1: this much, and that is a gift because I just
Speaker 1: I'm such a transient. I've been living out of a
Speaker 1: suitcase since I was by eight years old. That this year,
Speaker 1: I mean ship man, I'll probably home for most of
Speaker 1: the year. I've been here since March and doesn't look
Speaker 1: like I'm going anywhere anytime soon. I've learned how to
Speaker 1: play the piano this year, which feels great. I mean,
Speaker 1: I could cheat it a little bit, but I'm I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm finally in confident um and that's been
Speaker 1: a gift because I've been stuck at home and at
Speaker 1: piece of advice. Right at the beginning of all this
Speaker 1: is someone said, hey, man, just master whatever's in front
Speaker 1: of you, and if you're impatient, master your patience. All right,
Speaker 1: For me, I was afraid or or I couldn't imagine
Speaker 1: myself just sitting at a piano bench and practicing scales
Speaker 1: and things that to me was always boring ever since
Speaker 1: I was five years old. I didn't want to do that,
Speaker 1: and here I am almost forty five, and I still
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. So this year I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna master that. I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: learn something. And that's how I have to look at
Speaker 1: it as a gift, you know. I I like to
Speaker 1: also hope that the piano is getting a little bit
Speaker 1: of mitigation and remediation through our being at home and
Speaker 1: are traveling less and are consuming less. But I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's really true. You know. I think we're
Speaker 1: also still drilling in the Arctic, and the Arctic is
Speaker 1: on fire, and we're all still ordering from Amazon. Uh So,
Speaker 1: I don't think the world's any better that we're at home.
Speaker 1: But I can skitterly do you a piano song before
Speaker 1: before we explode. Uh So, I guess that's a gift.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say. I noticed a lot of like
Speaker 1: Fender Rhodes runs and stuff on this new album. Is
Speaker 1: that you playing that? I feel felt more keyboard having.
Speaker 1: Who I gotta tell you, it's not It's not me. Um.
Speaker 1: I I can I can slowly fake you a solo
Speaker 1: on the roads. But my friend Daniel Mandelman played the
Speaker 1: Rhods on this record, and he just crushed crushes anything
Speaker 1: he plays. He's a one tape guy too, man. He'll
Speaker 1: he'll whip you up a solo or a second or
Speaker 1: do it, do what you take for you and we'll say, hey, man,
Speaker 1: do you want to give us another one? He's like, nah,
Speaker 1: that's that one's pretty good, and well listen to it,
Speaker 1: like yeah, that's pretty amazing. Where I think we're done.
Speaker 1: It's so it's so wonderful. So I aspire to be
Speaker 1: like Daniel. Thanks Daniel. It's gonna say. It sounds like
Speaker 1: you're getting there. Oh that's so you got piano. That's
Speaker 1: that's a wonderful thing. What are some of your other
Speaker 1: favorite distractions during this time, the things that you know,
Speaker 1: kind of get you out of yourself for a minute.
Speaker 1: Weed good answer. Thank you California for legalizing recreational cannabis,
Speaker 1: because um, that's they dispensaries were one of the um
Speaker 1: businesses on the essential list right away. They never closed
Speaker 1: and in the strip malls where we have dispensaries, they
Speaker 1: are slammed. I mean business in and out all day long,
Speaker 1: I guarantee it. And it's so sad because you know,
Speaker 1: the little sandwich shop next door or the nail salon
Speaker 1: next door, etcetera just shut down and the weed businesses
Speaker 1: are just cranking. Just goes goes to show you how
Speaker 1: many people are self medicating and or having a pretty
Speaker 1: good time, Uh, during quarantine. Uh, you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: always been my my, my wine. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's just twist up a little dupe and
Speaker 1: then um, if I'm not careful, a musical comedy will
Speaker 1: break out. So I try not to overdo it because
Speaker 1: I can only write to so many musical comedies per day.
Speaker 1: Is that something you would ever get into in an
Speaker 1: agricultural sense, like on on your farm. Uh No, not
Speaker 1: just yet, because it's not federally regulated still, like, which
Speaker 1: is so crazy. At any time, unmarked federal agents could
Speaker 1: appear in your city. That would never happen, um, and
Speaker 1: they could destroy your plants, you know, or they could
Speaker 1: seize your property or something. So it's to me, it's
Speaker 1: it's not really a safe agricultural bet just yet, even
Speaker 1: though plenty of huge corporations are making billions of dollars
Speaker 1: off cannabis, while many small time cannabis offenders still sit
Speaker 1: in jail, which is uh, which is totally bizarre. And
Speaker 1: if I were to have a crop, let's say, I
Speaker 1: would also need to promote that crop, right like Willie
Speaker 1: Nelson has a has a weed strain right or a
Speaker 1: weed variety? Um, I still want to stay in that Mr.
Speaker 1: Rogers Lane. I still would love to be on Sesame
Speaker 1: Street again. So with that, I'm not going to put
Speaker 1: my name on like a strain of Jason Miraza's purple
Speaker 1: icky sticky uh titty twister thirty three percent th h C.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just I can't see my name and
Speaker 1: face on a on a sticky butt just yet because
Speaker 1: I'd rather be hanging out with Oscar the Grouch And
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, And I don't think I
Speaker 1: don't think you can do both just yet, even though
Speaker 1: Oscar the Grouch does look just like a nug of weed.
Speaker 1: Come on, there's our ad break right now. Is it
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory that we just unveiled Oscar the Grouch?
Speaker 1: Is he really just a weed dealer? Can we get
Speaker 1: that trending? Please? All right? I definitely just got kicked
Speaker 1: off a Sesame Street forever. Thank you hashtag Oscar the
Speaker 1: nug Oh man, Oh you know what, we could have
Speaker 1: an indocou stran called Oscar the Couch. Are you sure
Speaker 1: you're not want to go into this business because this
Speaker 1: is not good? Yeah? Man, I might have to. Hey,
Speaker 1: if looks like this year then yeah, forget about I'm
Speaker 1: definitely gonna just go into the weed business. I get
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you, and I'm sure you get this
Speaker 1: a lot. I spent a number of years as a
Speaker 1: wedding deed jay in college and I can't tell you
Speaker 1: the number of times that people ask me to play
Speaker 1: yours is the their first dance. How does that feel
Speaker 1: to have something so personal like a song? And I
Speaker 1: can't write songs. I don't know what that feels like,
Speaker 1: so I know it's gonna be I imagine it has
Speaker 1: to be pretty personal to be embraced by so many
Speaker 1: millions and have it be such a huge part of
Speaker 1: their lives. I mean, you know, first dance. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: crazy because most people don't realize that song is about
Speaker 1: a breakup and it's about devil worship. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: It's not about either of those things. It's about finding love,
Speaker 1: everlasting love. Um, it's a high honor. Man. You'd ever
Speaker 1: know where a song is going to end up. I
Speaker 1: mean I didn't even know the song would end up
Speaker 1: on an album when I wrote it, But over time,
Speaker 1: audiences loved it and it always felt good to sing,
Speaker 1: so it ended up on an album, and it just
Speaker 1: kept getting played and played, and um, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't really come up with the words I'm yours. It's
Speaker 1: written on a Valentine's heart. You can eat them. They're
Speaker 1: crappy little candies that you eat every every Valentine. But
Speaker 1: it was written in such an honest moment, trying to
Speaker 1: um reconnect with the thing I love the most, which
Speaker 1: is losing myself in a song, like giving myself away
Speaker 1: to something so hard that I don't even experience myself anymore.
Speaker 1: It's just saying I'm yours, like I don't I don't
Speaker 1: even exist anymore because I am now eternally connected to source,
Speaker 1: to something greater. And so of course that's what you'd
Speaker 1: want on your wedding day, is to look into your
Speaker 1: partner's eyes and say, I am giving myself to you
Speaker 1: and now we are just going to be one entity
Speaker 1: and and you are going to source me, et cetera,
Speaker 1: which is heavy on our wedding day. Also beautiful, but
Speaker 1: also beautiful. Yeah, man, So I'm thrilled about that. And
Speaker 1: I've been to some weddings and heard my music come on.
Speaker 1: I usually step out. I usually go out to the
Speaker 1: bathroom or I go get a re phil. It's hard
Speaker 1: to just kind of sit and listen to something or
Speaker 1: or even like be on the dance floor and rock
Speaker 1: out to myself. I don't know why that is. Like
Speaker 1: I could be on stage and rock it out for you,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to. It's so weird, right although,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I'll admit it right now. I
Speaker 1: could do it with the new album, with the reggae album.
Speaker 1: If someone put it on, I'd walk into and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: turn it up. I just love the sound of this record.
Speaker 1: Michael Goldwasser knocked it out of the park sonically, and
Speaker 1: Jeff Berkeley, who recorded it here in our studio, I
Speaker 1: want to give him a shout out. Is it true
Speaker 1: that that your Your Home studio was based loosely on
Speaker 1: on Bob Marley's Home? Is that it is? Yeah? In
Speaker 1: two thousand three, I was touring a lot on my
Speaker 1: first album, and things were going well, and I was
Speaker 1: still living in an apartment in Los Angeles, and I'd
Speaker 1: come home for these little short weekends or two week
Speaker 1: breaks from tour in my little apartment in l A.
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, it's time, like I'm i gotta find
Speaker 1: like a little space, a little house somewhere, just I
Speaker 1: can't have neighbors right behind mine on the other side
Speaker 1: of the wall. And I went to Jamaica to do
Speaker 1: a track with Sly and Robbie, and while I was there,
Speaker 1: I took a tour of Bob Marley's house on Hope Road,
Speaker 1: which is now in a museum. And a fun story
Speaker 1: about this story is I was working with Grace Vanderwald once,
Speaker 1: who was an amazing young ukulele player, and I was
Speaker 1: telling her about the time I visited Bob Marley's house,
Speaker 1: which is a museum now, and she was waiting Bob
Speaker 1: Marley's house is a museum. I was like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: when he passed away his estate his family decided they
Speaker 1: would turn it into She was wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: Bob Marley is dead. And I thought, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you guys, I'm the person responsible for
Speaker 1: telling Grace Vanderwald Bob Marley is out of town forever. Um.
Speaker 1: That wasn't a great moment. Man. Back to the real story.
Speaker 1: I visited Bob's home and for a young kid in
Speaker 1: his mid twenties who was trying to imagine what a
Speaker 1: house or a home could feel like seeing this house
Speaker 1: that Bob that they said all of the whalers would
Speaker 1: move in and they'd be able to live and rehearse
Speaker 1: together and eat together and be totally immersed in the music.
Speaker 1: That little studio in the backyard. They had fruit trees
Speaker 1: and herb garden. It was a compound. It was a
Speaker 1: community center. And I thought, that is cool. That sounds
Speaker 1: very Zoolander. Yeah, And I came home from that trip
Speaker 1: and I just started looking around, and I looked on
Speaker 1: the fringe of San Diego, where in San Diego was
Speaker 1: kind of the town where I started my career, and
Speaker 1: I still had coffee shops there that I frequent and
Speaker 1: lots of friends and songwriters in the area. Still close
Speaker 1: enough to l A. But I didn't have to do
Speaker 1: l A or be in that world. So I found
Speaker 1: a little fringe farm on the outskirts of San Diego,
Speaker 1: just a small little property that had some fruit trees,
Speaker 1: and and uh, I've been here ever since, sixteen years
Speaker 1: and a few years into living out here. At first
Speaker 1: we had the studio in the house and the whole
Speaker 1: band moved in and we made Mr. A to Z
Speaker 1: that my second album, kind of mostly in the house,
Speaker 1: and then built a studio in my backyard and did
Speaker 1: a lot of the work, shopping and demos for we seeing,
Speaker 1: we dance, We steal things, And then same every album.
Speaker 1: I would just continue to chip away at the studio
Speaker 1: and use it as a workspace and kind of a
Speaker 1: workshop where I would build bird houses essentially. But my
Speaker 1: bird houses are these little songs, and I could come
Speaker 1: in at all hours and just chip away at at
Speaker 1: a variety of things. And but this album was the
Speaker 1: first time I ever did all the tracks here, um,
Speaker 1: which was very, very exciting. You know. It took fifteen
Speaker 1: years to finally get to a place where the studio
Speaker 1: was in a shape where I could support the band
Speaker 1: feel good about the quality of the recordings. Um, and uh,
Speaker 1: yeah we did it. Thanks Bob, Thanks for Bob and
Speaker 1: the Whalers and Bunny Whaler and and uh the Tough
Speaker 1: Cong crew for making Bob's home a museum to inspire
Speaker 1: a young person like me to try to grow up
Speaker 1: and continue the positive vibes that Bob and his music
Speaker 1: was making as well. So I see it. I see
Speaker 1: our effort as a as a tribute to what they
Speaker 1: were up to. You made your dream. That's incredible. Yeah, man, thanks,
Speaker 1: it's and I'm trying to make it a dream for
Speaker 1: others too. There's a lot of people that get to
Speaker 1: live and work here that are all doing their version
Speaker 1: of that dream, whether you're an engineer or a drummer
Speaker 1: or um into agricultures. A lot of young people that
Speaker 1: work in agriculture here. So it feels good. And I
Speaker 1: know this place is gonna outlive me. You know, when
Speaker 1: you plant a tree, it's going to outlive you. That's
Speaker 1: just the nature of trees. When you write a song,
Speaker 1: it's going to outlive you. All of our favorite song
Speaker 1: or most of our favorite songs might be by artists
Speaker 1: who are no longer on the planet anymore. But thank
Speaker 1: goodness for recorded music. It gets to continue to inspire us.
Speaker 1: And thank goodness for mother nature who continues to grow
Speaker 1: these avocados trees outside our studio. They were planted in
Speaker 1: the early seventies before I was even born, so I
Speaker 1: can't really take credit for the fruit that's growing. I
Speaker 1: just I'm just lucky enough to live here. Jason, Thank
Speaker 1: you for your time, your music, your avocados. My last
Speaker 1: question when this pandemic is over you can snap your
Speaker 1: fingers and have everything go right back to normal. Whatever
Speaker 1: normally is. What's the first thing you would do? Trips,
Speaker 1: you would take people, you'd hug meals, you'd go out
Speaker 1: and eat. What's what's the first thing you want to do?
Speaker 1: The first thing is organized a big tour. Um he
Speaker 1: that's what I would do. Call every musician, Call the crew,
Speaker 1: call my dad, called the bus drivers. Um, Charlie quick,
Speaker 1: I hope you do it well. I heard you in
Speaker 1: a car accident. I hope your shoulders doing better. Buddy,
Speaker 1: Charlie has been my driver for fifteen years on on
Speaker 1: tour buses. It's just amazing. Guy. Um, I would call
Speaker 1: everybody man because that's what we really do. I feel,
Speaker 1: um as that's our jobs. We we are a traveling circus,
Speaker 1: were showmen, were entertainers, and when we go to small
Speaker 1: towns and all over the country, I feel like we
Speaker 1: um we stir up hopefully positive vibes and maybe even
Speaker 1: add some some juice to the local economies when we tour.
Speaker 1: I asked Willie Nelson once, why do you still tour
Speaker 1: after all these years? He said, you know, it gives
Speaker 1: people jobs. It's it It matters to people. So and
Speaker 1: plus the joy that you get for those two hours
Speaker 1: when you just crank up the apps and the sound
Speaker 1: system and you rock the house and you surf those
Speaker 1: giant waves of music. There's nothing like it. There's no
Speaker 1: other job quite like it. So that's the first thing
Speaker 1: I do. The minute they say we can go back
Speaker 1: to life is normal. Uh, I'm gonna hit the road.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go on a long, juicy tour. Jason can't
Speaker 1: wait to get you back out there. Thanks Buddy, We
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio Home Edition,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more episodes of
Speaker 1: Inside the Studio and other shows from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: check out the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.