Speaker 1: Pushkin. If you look at the history of country music,
Speaker 1: it is a genre based on songs that tell stories,
Speaker 1: and sometimes stories aren't always positive or mainstream. And I
Speaker 1: mean country music is supposed to be for people who
Speaker 1: are experiencing heartache, real life struggle, jobs, divorce, heartbreak, you know, death,
Speaker 1: like all this, and so in my mind, the most
Speaker 1: country thing you can do is to like just talk
Speaker 1: about it all that. Singer songwriter Kasey Musgraves, she says
Speaker 1: she's always had a strong sense of herself and her sound,
Speaker 1: even when it's cut against country music norms. In recent years,
Speaker 1: casies try to further unlock her full self through psychedelic trips.
Speaker 1: Research and neuroscience shows that people can leave their trips
Speaker 1: with profound shifts in perspective and in certain personality traits
Speaker 1: that otherwise rarely change after age thirty. A trait like openness,
Speaker 1: for example, which is highly associated with creativity, tends to
Speaker 1: decrease as we age, but scientific research coming out of
Speaker 1: Johns Hopkins University has shown that psychedelic experiences can actually
Speaker 1: increase people's openness, which includes everything from esthetic appreciation to
Speaker 1: empathy to imagination. Literally, the day after my experience I
Speaker 1: mean it was like the neurons were just firing off
Speaker 1: like insane imagery perspective. I mean, there was a massive
Speaker 1: explosion of creativity ideas the whole concept for my new
Speaker 1: album that I've been writing. One of my inspirations for
Speaker 1: creating this podcast has been to see how people change
Speaker 1: their perspectives of who they are and how they relate
Speaker 1: to the world in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: Research shows that psychedelics can offer up a turbocharge version
Speaker 1: of this kind of change, and as a cognitive scientist,
Speaker 1: I've long been fascinated by the powerful impact psychedelics can
Speaker 1: have on the human mind, but my interest lies exclusively
Speaker 1: in the scientific realm. It's worth noting that experimenting with
Speaker 1: these drugs without close medical guidance and a full evaluation
Speaker 1: of one's mental health history can carry considerable risk. For
Speaker 1: this episode of A Slight Change of Plans, I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to Casey Musgraves about the role psychedelics has
Speaker 1: played in her creative process, both for her Grammy Award
Speaker 1: winning album Golden Hour and for her upcoming album, which
Speaker 1: she says was inspired by a guided psychedelic trip. I'm
Speaker 1: Maya Shanker and this is a slight change of plants,
Speaker 1: a show that dives deep into the world of change
Speaker 1: and hopefully gets us to think differently at that change
Speaker 1: in our own lives. What's astonishing to me is that
Speaker 1: when researchers run studies, right controlled studies where they're looking
Speaker 1: at the impact of psychedelics on people, so many will say, Wow,
Speaker 1: that was one of the most profound experiences of my
Speaker 1: entire life. Yes, and yet they really really have a
Speaker 1: hard time putting into words why that was or even
Speaker 1: describing the experience. It's like the vocabulary that we have
Speaker 1: in our language is insufficient trying to describe. Yeah, do
Speaker 1: you feel like having music as another vehicle for communication
Speaker 1: allows you to share what it felt like in a
Speaker 1: different way or more effectively? I feel like music is
Speaker 1: totally another catalyst to feeling. And what's cool is if
Speaker 1: you really just break it down, I mean, it's sound
Speaker 1: waves where like these bags of water basically, and like
Speaker 1: when sound vibrates out and sound waves hit you. I
Speaker 1: mean it's cool that it can actually change your mood,
Speaker 1: change your mind. When you've tried psychedelics for the first time,
Speaker 1: had you hope that it might inspire music or were
Speaker 1: you just on a sort of personal journey. Well, I've
Speaker 1: done it recreationally, you know, I think it's different when
Speaker 1: you do it with intention. I mean what I was
Speaker 1: looking for most recently when I did a guided trip
Speaker 1: in January. You know, this past year I went through
Speaker 1: a divorce and it was not an easy time everything
Speaker 1: that came along with that. And so this experience, which
Speaker 1: was led by not only two of my friends, but
Speaker 1: one of them is a doctor practicing doctor and her husband,
Speaker 1: it was about transforming my trauma, my tragedy into something else,
Speaker 1: you know, and everyone has their own form of trauma.
Speaker 1: This was mine. But experiences like this they bring people
Speaker 1: to a place where they meet like or inner self healer,
Speaker 1: they're inner child. And I mean, you know more about
Speaker 1: this than I do. But I just think it's interesting
Speaker 1: that you know, as you live your life, you wear
Speaker 1: down these pathways in your brain, almost like little trails
Speaker 1: you know, in the woods or something. Whatever is in
Speaker 1: these psychedelics, this medicine, these plants, they can change these
Speaker 1: pathways and allow you to think differently, access different emotions,
Speaker 1: different memories, and change your life, change your habits. It
Speaker 1: literally the day after my experience I mean it was
Speaker 1: like the neurons were just firing off like insane imagery perspective.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a massive explosion of creativity ideas
Speaker 1: the whole concept for my new album that I've been writing.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like these trips inspire lyrics or do
Speaker 1: they inspire melodies or do they inspire both? It's different
Speaker 1: every time, I think, And you can't really go in
Speaker 1: with like a preconceived selfish want. You know, you're going
Speaker 1: to get what you get. And like the day after
Speaker 1: my guided Trip, I was laying here on the bed,
Speaker 1: and so what's cool is you you trip to this
Speaker 1: to this playlist that's been curated by these scientists, and
Speaker 1: these these songs, and there are songs from all over
Speaker 1: the world. There's classical music, there's Bach motz Art, you know,
Speaker 1: but then there's like shamonic you know, chants and drumming
Speaker 1: from Peru or Mexico, and there's also like the Beatles
Speaker 1: and dr and it's very vast, you know. So you
Speaker 1: listen to this playlist, it guides you through these emotions
Speaker 1: and feelings purposefully, and some of us pretty intense. And
Speaker 1: then you as you kind of are coming out of
Speaker 1: your experience. You are resonating with these like massive feelings
Speaker 1: of gratitude and warmth, and the music that I heard,
Speaker 1: I've never heard music like that in my life. Like
Speaker 1: you could just feel it in your bones, like your cells.
Speaker 1: You're just like it's running through you in a way
Speaker 1: that I've never never experienced before. And what's cool is
Speaker 1: you can go back to that playlist anytime and tap
Speaker 1: into those same feelings and you journal about it, and
Speaker 1: you're able to go right back to kind of where
Speaker 1: you were and be able to somewhat verbalize, you know,
Speaker 1: what you experienced. So the next day after the thing,
Speaker 1: I was laying on my bed and re listening to
Speaker 1: this playlist and Boch came on and it was this
Speaker 1: sorrowful tragic number and the word tragedy popped in my head.
Speaker 1: It was like boom, tragedy. And then I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what if the new album is formulated like a modern tragedy.
Speaker 1: It's a modern tragedy. I've been through a tragedy and
Speaker 1: so as America, you know. And from there it was
Speaker 1: just like like just off the rills, like boom boom boom, songs,
Speaker 1: album title, concept visuals, like all of it it was crazy.
Speaker 1: I thought about Romeo and Juliet, and I thought about Starcross.
Speaker 1: The word Starcross that popped in my head, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I need to write a song called Starcross. And I
Speaker 1: love the definition of Starcross because it's two people who
Speaker 1: love each other so much, but they just cannot make
Speaker 1: it work because even the universe is against them, the
Speaker 1: stars are against them, they're ill faded, they were doomed
Speaker 1: from the beginning, but there's love there. And I resonate
Speaker 1: a lot with that, with my personal story and what
Speaker 1: I've been through, and so I was like, Okay, Starcross,
Speaker 1: I have to write that. So the next day I
Speaker 1: went in the studio we wrote Starcross. It was our
Speaker 1: fortieth song that we had written. What was the hardest
Speaker 1: song that you felt you wrote for this album? Just
Speaker 1: from an emotional perspective, M let me look at little
Speaker 1: song list. There's fifteen. There's five songs in each act.
Speaker 1: In most tragedies, like an artistic sense, there's three acts.
Speaker 1: There's the exposition setting up a scene. Act two the
Speaker 1: rise of the conflict and the downfall of the characters,
Speaker 1: the heartbreak, and then Act three is like the resolution
Speaker 1: the acceptance, you know, the reflection and the hope toward
Speaker 1: the future or whatever. So there's five songs in each act.
Speaker 1: So there's a song on here called camera roll, and man,
Speaker 1: it sucks me up bad, like it still does. I,
Speaker 1: you know, after the divorce and everything. You know, you
Speaker 1: have all these photos of your life, your old life,
Speaker 1: in your phone, and you don't know what to do
Speaker 1: with them. You're like, do I delete this? This person
Speaker 1: didn't die and these are still my memories, but like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to see him every day. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: you get to scrolling on your phone, like one late
Speaker 1: night and you just wander down this dark alley that
Speaker 1: was all these wonderful memories at one point, and then
Speaker 1: you're just fucking stabbed in the heart. And and I
Speaker 1: was walking past I did that, And I was walking
Speaker 1: past the piano that I have in my house. And
Speaker 1: I'm not a piano player really, but these keys, these
Speaker 1: certain keys like stuck out to me, and this melody
Speaker 1: kind of came out. I don't know how really, the
Speaker 1: beginning lyrics, they just came out too. And it's don't
Speaker 1: go through your camera roll so much. You don't know
Speaker 1: that you forgot what a trip the way you can
Speaker 1: flip through all the good parts of it. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have done it chronological order and nothing the torch or
Speaker 1: scroll too far back, that's what you get. I don't
Speaker 1: want to see him that I can't delete. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't feel right yet, not yet, And like I just
Speaker 1: like could barely get through. I was like the ugly
Speaker 1: kind of like a little kid cry. It's like, just
Speaker 1: like snot run it on my face. So yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: that one was really hard. There's a bunch on there.
Speaker 1: I mean they're pretty raw. Like I'm sharing a lot
Speaker 1: about my inner feelings and that's like it's not always
Speaker 1: easy for me. How do you feel that it changed
Speaker 1: your perspective of yourself. One thing that happened during my
Speaker 1: trip was I came face to face with myself as
Speaker 1: a nine year old girl, and it was exactly me.
Speaker 1: I saw her, and I immediately felt this like intense
Speaker 1: compassion for her, this empathy. I started performing publicly around
Speaker 1: age nine, and so being on a stage learning how
Speaker 1: to please all these other people that you don't know
Speaker 1: before you even really know how to delegate your own
Speaker 1: emotions within yourself. That's when my life kind of started
Speaker 1: to change from like normal childhood to like something else,
Speaker 1: you know, And I thankful for all of it because
Speaker 1: it made me who I am. But it's also, you know,
Speaker 1: it's weird. It's a weird thing. So I came face
Speaker 1: to face with her at one point and I said,
Speaker 1: I love you, I love you, I love you, and
Speaker 1: I gave her hugs, I gave her kisses, and I've
Speaker 1: felt for her because I can be very hard on myself.
Speaker 1: I can be like my worst critic, you know, and
Speaker 1: so I'm the first to beat myself up over a
Speaker 1: flawless performance. That I'll find something that like no one
Speaker 1: would have noticed, and I'll just shred myself for it.
Speaker 1: And so like it taught me. It showed me to
Speaker 1: ease up on myself that I am, like, I am
Speaker 1: good at loving, I am good at being a friend.
Speaker 1: I am I've been through a lot, and I deserve love.
Speaker 1: And it really gave me compassion for myself, which I
Speaker 1: think is really a beautiful thing. You know. I had
Speaker 1: all these childhood memories pop up that I hadn't remembered.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're and they played out in my mind
Speaker 1: like I was watching a home video. But it was me,
Speaker 1: and it was actually things that actually happened. Like there
Speaker 1: was a time in my life where and I haven't
Speaker 1: talked about this really, but where I had us a
Speaker 1: little bit of an eating disorder for like a little
Speaker 1: period of time in my early teens. And now looking back,
Speaker 1: I got it all like it all downloaded in this moment.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, yeah, I was wanting to relieve pressure
Speaker 1: of some kind, relief pressure, find some control, you know,
Speaker 1: And it gave me compassion for the choices I made,
Speaker 1: Like it kind of just allowed me to take a
Speaker 1: step back and see, you know, we all we're all
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out. You mentioned, wow, I actually
Speaker 1: had needing disorder. Yeah, and I guess you just buried
Speaker 1: that away in your mind. I think I wrote it
Speaker 1: off being like, no, I wasn't an eating disorder. No,
Speaker 1: it was. It was it was a very it was
Speaker 1: it was about with bulimia. I mean I didn't and
Speaker 1: I didn't talk to anyone about it. I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to because I didn't didn't really know that it
Speaker 1: was like bad. I mean I just instinctively, some for
Speaker 1: some reason, felt that I needed to do that. Do
Speaker 1: you think part of that psychology you're just feeling so
Speaker 1: much pressure has persisted, which is why it reoccurred to
Speaker 1: you during this more recent trip. Maybe. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it, I guess just showed me that, like everyone
Speaker 1: has their way of dealing with pressure and need you know,
Speaker 1: you want to control more. I've learned a lot about control.
Speaker 1: You want to control when you don't feel safe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's I mean, I can really relate to that.
Speaker 1: Whatever is in your outside environment that is making you
Speaker 1: feel out of control, it just makes you grab on
Speaker 1: even harder, you know, So knowing that you're doing that
Speaker 1: and why you're doing that can at least maybe help
Speaker 1: you like stop. Yeah, I can completely relate to that.
Speaker 1: So I've never tried psychedelics, but as a neuroscientist, I'm
Speaker 1: obviously fascinated biotopic and neuroscientists have said that from a
Speaker 1: neurological point of view, psychedelics do put the brain into
Speaker 1: this childlike state of awe and wonder. And one of
Speaker 1: my favorite psychologists, her name is Alison gott Nick, she
Speaker 1: studies child development, has said that basically babies and children
Speaker 1: are tripping all the time, just such a fun and
Speaker 1: like colorful way of kind of understanding what it's like.
Speaker 1: Did you feel that that kind of childlike alle and
Speaker 1: what kinds of things did you find yourself marveling at.
Speaker 1: I mean, you are just like astounded kind of at
Speaker 1: the beauty and the intricacy of the of life and nature.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh my god. Any you think about, you
Speaker 1: have compassion for the earth as a living thing. You know.
Speaker 1: I just think that ultimately, psychedelics, one thing that I
Speaker 1: love about them is that it's they cause death to
Speaker 1: the human ego, and the human ego has caused so
Speaker 1: many problems over you know, over time. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like it puts things into perspective. And I was talking
Speaker 1: to my friend who is the doctor that I did
Speaker 1: the trip with, and one thing that I loved how
Speaker 1: she phrased this, and it's so true, is she said,
Speaker 1: in regards to psychedelics, you know, it's as if you're
Speaker 1: standing on a stage looking out to an audience, but
Speaker 1: the curtains are only open about a foot normally. This
Speaker 1: is she's talking about like in your normal, everyday human existence.
Speaker 1: But she's like, these plants, they take that curtain and
Speaker 1: they open it all the way around three sixty degrees,
Speaker 1: so that you can look around and go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: there's so much more. There's so much more going on
Speaker 1: that I get to see an experience on the emotional spectrum,
Speaker 1: the creative spectrum. That's one thing is like after the trip,
Speaker 1: you know, here I am with all these new songs
Speaker 1: that I'm getting ready to put out into the world,
Speaker 1: some of which are super sarcastic or angry, sad, lonely.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's like a huge range of emotion through
Speaker 1: what I like the past year that I've been there.
Speaker 1: Definitely after the trip, I was like, hold on, do
Speaker 1: I need to delete some of these songs? Like they
Speaker 1: they're definitely not coming from a super enlightened like person's perspective.
Speaker 1: But I mean I think that that's okay. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like I would be doing myself a full service
Speaker 1: as a creator and as someone who went through something
Speaker 1: to deny myself the expression of some of these emotions
Speaker 1: that are pretty fucking negative. We'll be back in a
Speaker 1: moment with a slight change of plans. Casey's Psychedelic Trip
Speaker 1: helped her access the full range of emotion she experienced
Speaker 1: this past year, and she's poured it all into her
Speaker 1: new album the Casey's commitment to being honest about who
Speaker 1: she is in her music is nothing new, and that
Speaker 1: presented some difficulties, especially early on in her career. Casey
Speaker 1: got her started Nashville at age nineteen when she was
Speaker 1: right songs for other country music stars to sing. You're
Speaker 1: primarily writing for other people at this point, and then
Speaker 1: at a certain point you realize, hey, wait a second,
Speaker 1: I don't want to give these songs away. I want
Speaker 1: to keep them for myself, right. What was that like? Well,
Speaker 1: that's so I did notice a shift start happening where
Speaker 1: you know, I would love to pitch songs to artists
Speaker 1: and get cuts and make a living that way. But
Speaker 1: then I started stumbling upon these songs that, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: just didn't feel like they would really apply to anyone
Speaker 1: else but me, and I thought, well, maybe if I
Speaker 1: did get the chance, like I would, I would put
Speaker 1: these out. Was there a particular lyric or a particular
Speaker 1: song where you thought that for the first time? Can
Speaker 1: you share what that was? Well, it's some of the
Speaker 1: songs that were on my first album, Sam Trailer, Different Park.
Speaker 1: It was more of a vibe. It was more of like, oh,
Speaker 1: this feels like me you know, and then once I
Speaker 1: kind of set those aside and then started thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: like I could I could do this. I think when
Speaker 1: songs like Merry Go Round and Follow Your Arrow and
Speaker 1: things like that started coming out, So there was a
Speaker 1: moment where you really wanted Marry Go Around to be
Speaker 1: the first single, and you do get pushed back from
Speaker 1: music execs. Can you describe how that conversation went so
Speaker 1: Merry Go Round? First off, let me just say in
Speaker 1: country music there is quite a formula. There's a formula
Speaker 1: when it comes down to deciding which songs are going
Speaker 1: to be popular, which songs are going to be pushed,
Speaker 1: which songs are going to get like radio play, And
Speaker 1: that formula has worked for a while, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And so when it comes to labels deciding
Speaker 1: what they're gonna put their money towards, they're looking at
Speaker 1: what is going to be the least risky for them,
Speaker 1: you know, as a business. So that's why there's a
Speaker 1: huge rub when it comes to like art and commerce.
Speaker 1: There just always has there always will be. Merry Go
Speaker 1: Round doesn't fit into those parameters down Trod. It's sarcastic,
Speaker 1: it's depressing, it's real it's truthful, it's biting. Tempo wise,
Speaker 1: it's not it doesn't sound like a lot of things
Speaker 1: that were being popular at that time, like on the radio.
Speaker 1: So I can see why as business people they'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh no, this is like a no for listeners who
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with Mary ground. Do you mind just sharing
Speaker 1: some of the lyrics from the chorus. Sure. So it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a trope on like the classic,
Speaker 1: like a classic nursery rhyme. You know, it's like Mama's
Speaker 1: hooked on Mary, Kay brother is hooked on Mary, Jane,
Speaker 1: Daddy's hooked on Mary. Tutors down Marry and Mary. Quite contrary,
Speaker 1: we get boards, we get married, and just like dust,
Speaker 1: we settle in this town on this broke and Mary
Speaker 1: go around, realm, realm. We go where it stops, nobody knows,
Speaker 1: but it ain't slowing down this Marry go around. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not like a happy go lucky
Speaker 1: leg bob. It's but it's real and it's um it's
Speaker 1: pointing the mirror inward. And I don't think that. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't want to hear songs like that.
Speaker 1: They don't want to hear songs that make them think,
Speaker 1: you know, if they're like if they're bopping around and
Speaker 1: they're in the minivan, like taking kids to school, maybe
Speaker 1: they don't want to go that deep. Maybe they just
Speaker 1: want to stay up here. And that's fine. But for
Speaker 1: my first song that I wanted to put out there,
Speaker 1: I said, this is what I want to say, and
Speaker 1: if it's the only song I get to put out,
Speaker 1: I'm fine with that. Let's see what happens. And it
Speaker 1: did go um I can't even really remember, but it
Speaker 1: did get some good radio play, it got some some
Speaker 1: good traction. I think it made it to the top
Speaker 1: ten or very near it, and in one Country Song
Speaker 1: of the Year, it want a Grammy for Song of
Speaker 1: the Year. So I was like, take that, y'all. It's
Speaker 1: just like, it's like, why don't you just trust trust me?
Speaker 1: Trust me. I'm going to know myself way better than
Speaker 1: you know, and I know what's going to be best
Speaker 1: for me, and that may not always be like a
Speaker 1: freaking home run, but like it was though when you
Speaker 1: knew it, I love it. I think what's so striking
Speaker 1: to me about your story? And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of listeners will be so curious to know this. It
Speaker 1: is so hard to break into the music industry, and
Speaker 1: so you can easily imagine convincing yourself in the moment, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to cave a little bit, okay, just
Speaker 1: to break in, just to get a career going, and
Speaker 1: then at that point I will stand my grand and
Speaker 1: then I'll do And yet you were, you were absolutely
Speaker 1: resolute from the outset. Well, it's it's a backwards way
Speaker 1: of thinking the other way because so then what you've
Speaker 1: broken in and you've now convinced everyone that you're this
Speaker 1: one thing, and then you do a one eighty on
Speaker 1: them and they're confused and they don't know what the
Speaker 1: hell you are. That sounds like hell to me, Like
Speaker 1: I would never do that, Like I would rather put
Speaker 1: my head down and work like exponentially harder at what
Speaker 1: I really am and what I'm passionate about and end
Speaker 1: up with less fans or less success than to have
Speaker 1: this like mansion on a hill filled with all these awards,
Speaker 1: you know, for things that I am not super proud of.
Speaker 1: Like that just seems like a really like sad. It
Speaker 1: just seems sad, And I mean, art is just this
Speaker 1: like it's not supposed to be digestible for everyone. You
Speaker 1: talked about things that are pretty unconventional to talk about
Speaker 1: in country music right certainly at the time, like homosexuality,
Speaker 1: recreational drug youth, not going to church. How did you
Speaker 1: respond to that pushback. It's interesting because if you look
Speaker 1: at the history of country music, it is a genre
Speaker 1: based on songs that tell stories, and sometimes stories aren't
Speaker 1: always positive or mainstream. And I mean, country music is
Speaker 1: supposed to be for people who are experiencing heartache, real
Speaker 1: life struggle, jobs, divorced, heartbreak, you know, death like all this,
Speaker 1: and so in my mind, you know, the most country
Speaker 1: thing you can do is to like just talk about
Speaker 1: it all, you know. So I don't feel like I'm
Speaker 1: doing anything or that I've been doing anything revolutionary. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm just doing my job as a
Speaker 1: songwriter to just take these lenses that I've been given
Speaker 1: and just absorb all this stuff and it comes out
Speaker 1: most of the time and kind of a country way.
Speaker 1: I just can't help that, you know. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I found it very powerful that so many people want
Speaker 1: to put the rebellious rebel label on you and you
Speaker 1: consistently reject it. Like you said, I mean, is it
Speaker 1: rebellious just to share your life story? Right? Right? Is
Speaker 1: it rebellious? Right? Is it? What's so rebellious about championing
Speaker 1: all different kinds of people? If that's rebellious? And I guess,
Speaker 1: hell yeah, okay, I'm a rebel. Count me in for
Speaker 1: that matter. Was this a trait you had to cult
Speaker 1: of date or does it just come naturally to you
Speaker 1: to stand your ground in this way? I really think
Speaker 1: it comes naturally, Like I don't ever really remember it
Speaker 1: not being there. I mean, even my dad, so the
Speaker 1: other day on the family thread, we were talking about
Speaker 1: I was born early. I was like, I was a
Speaker 1: PREMI so I was a month early. And he was like,
Speaker 1: you were gonna do it on your terms from day one,
Speaker 1: Like you you came early. You said this is what
Speaker 1: we're doing and this is how I'm doing it. And
Speaker 1: it's always been like that. I guess, Well, it does
Speaker 1: seem like you've You've also made a lot of intentional
Speaker 1: choices within your life to stay independent and autonomous, right,
Speaker 1: Like you don't have the entourage that you see a
Speaker 1: lot of people carry around at them at your level.
Speaker 1: I loved the story of how when you were traveling
Speaker 1: with your band, you opted not to sleep in the
Speaker 1: bedroom for the star but instead you grabbed a bunk
Speaker 1: bed along with the rest of your band and your career. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be with everybody for some reason. I'm
Speaker 1: just like because, like I said, I realized early on,
Speaker 1: like wow, Okay, being an artist is very self self involved.
Speaker 1: And I've seen examples in you know, in the industry
Speaker 1: of people that like lost touch with reality a little bit,
Speaker 1: and that's so sad to me. There's like nothing scarier.
Speaker 1: So I just want to stay that way. I want
Speaker 1: to stay attached to real people, real emotion. Like I've
Speaker 1: tried really hard to stay tuned into that, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, or I try. I think anyway, do
Speaker 1: you feel in any way that this, you know, resolute
Speaker 1: commitment to authenticity and being yourself has any downsides either
Speaker 1: in your professional or personal life. Well, I mean you
Speaker 1: can get You've got to check yourself because you can
Speaker 1: get so used to having it your way and like,
Speaker 1: you know, and speaking your mind about that that you
Speaker 1: kind of can forget that there are other good ways too.
Speaker 1: That just isn't It's not always your way, isn't always
Speaker 1: the best, or just because an idea was yours doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's the best. So I think like reminding yourself
Speaker 1: that to trust other people's viewpoints, trust other people's collaboration
Speaker 1: and their advice, like is always good For somebody like
Speaker 1: me that's very headstrong, it has learned to be very
Speaker 1: self reliant. I can just simmered back a little bit
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, it's like, come on, shut up. But ultimately, though,
Speaker 1: if like at the end of the day, if it's interesting,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have this like really like lightning fast
Speaker 1: assessment just to know whether something is like right for
Speaker 1: me or not. And I don't like to waste time
Speaker 1: like entertaining something you're going down a road. If I
Speaker 1: just know that it's just not at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's just not me. I just don't really
Speaker 1: even mess with it, you know. I think what's interesting
Speaker 1: is that Golden Hour was such a deeply personal album,
Speaker 1: but it also coincided with this incredibly warm, rich love story.
Speaker 1: And I think it's one thing to be vulnerable and
Speaker 1: open when you're in a really good place. It's like
Speaker 1: next level to be open and vulnerable when you're not
Speaker 1: in a good place. Oh yeah, man, I think my
Speaker 1: whole life, I've I'm the older sister, you know, I've
Speaker 1: been the performer, and I think like being that strong,
Speaker 1: kind of like unfazed person was just kind of a
Speaker 1: go to for me. And I realized now as a
Speaker 1: older that that's the least strong thing that you can do.
Speaker 1: Is like, to break open in front of someone and
Speaker 1: really be vulnerable is one of the strongest things that
Speaker 1: you can do. And so this there was a period
Speaker 1: where I was like, I'm crumbling inside, I am not
Speaker 1: worthy of love. I suck at it. I'll never I
Speaker 1: don't want to get attached anybody ever again, felt really
Speaker 1: burned by it, you know what I mean, And so
Speaker 1: I have to remind myself that those feelings are even
Speaker 1: more relatable to people than like this, you know, fuzzy
Speaker 1: like blissed out like Dopamine Love album. I mean that
Speaker 1: that's more of a rarity to feel sadly than the other,
Speaker 1: you know, So I think that it'll be even more
Speaker 1: relatable to people, you know. I went into this feeling like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, like I'm probably I'm gonna be crying
Speaker 1: in front of these people that I don't know super well,
Speaker 1: like whatever, but eventually at that at some point that
Speaker 1: just goes out the window. And I mean I was
Speaker 1: just broken open and sobbing and heaving and just letting
Speaker 1: go of all this stagnant energy that you know, you
Speaker 1: like I was holding onto, and that alone is like therapeutic.
Speaker 1: You know. One thing that's interesting to me is what
Speaker 1: comes after golden hour nighttime and so like I'm in
Speaker 1: a nighttime period and what's cool about that is that
Speaker 1: there will be light again. At the end of our conversation,
Speaker 1: I asked Casey if there were any songs about change
Speaker 1: on her upcoming album. There's a song on there called
Speaker 1: If I Was an Angel, and it's like it's basically saying,
Speaker 1: if I was an angel, I wouldn't have to change
Speaker 1: my ways. You wouldn't have to change your ways if
Speaker 1: I was an angel. I mean, everything would be just
Speaker 1: fine if I was an angel. If I was an angel,
Speaker 1: I'd never have to change. I'd never have to change.
Speaker 1: But something's got to change. A slight change of plans
Speaker 1: is created an executive produced by me Maya Shunker. Big
Speaker 1: thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer Lola Board,
Speaker 1: associate producers David Jaw and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia
Speaker 1: Lavelle and Justine Lange, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound
Speaker 1: design and mix engineers Ben Holliday and Jason Gambrell. Thanks
Speaker 1: also to Louise Gara who wrote our theme song, and
Speaker 1: Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from
Speaker 1: Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jimmy Lee. You can follow a slight change of plans
Speaker 1: on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: and your perspective. I love when an interview goes far
Speaker 1: beyond an interview and it turns into a real conversation,
Speaker 1: and like, I crave that a lot, and I like
Speaker 1: told you guys shit that I haven't literally haven't told
Speaker 1: anyone else, so