Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome to Inside the Studio on iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: My name is Jordan runt Dog. But enough about me now.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be one of the most unique introductions
Speaker 1: to this show because this is one of the most
Speaker 1: unique guests we've had on this show. He's got brains
Speaker 1: and musical brilliance. He started making waves as an undergrad
Speaker 1: at Duke University before breaking out with hits like Cooler
Speaker 1: than Me, Please Don't Go, and I Took a Pill
Speaker 1: in Ibiza. He also made a name for himself as
Speaker 1: a songwriter for Hire Co, writing smashes for the likes
Speaker 1: of Justin Bieber and Maroon five. The back to back
Speaker 1: deaths of his father and his friend of Vici led
Speaker 1: him to take stock and reevaluate his life. He put
Speaker 1: his career on hold to walk across the country. The
Speaker 1: three thousand mile journey took a hundred and eighty six days,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't include the few weeks spent recovering from
Speaker 1: a rattlesnake bite that almost killed him. The literal journey
Speaker 1: had a marked effect on his musical one. In December,
Speaker 1: he dropped Operation Wake Up rap Up, or concept album
Speaker 1: about a superstar songwriter. In the midst of a nervous breakdown.
Speaker 1: But now he's back and he's all about the positive.
Speaker 1: His new single, Mama always told me as a joyful
Speaker 1: burst of energy in an uncertain time. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to welcome Mike Posner. Whatever, Mike, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time today. Your new song, Mama always
Speaker 1: told me. It's a blast of positivity and a really
Speaker 1: scary and uncertain time. And you said you wrote this
Speaker 1: track of ways back. What made you decide that the
Speaker 1: time was right right now for it? Oh? Man? I
Speaker 1: love albums, Jordan. You know I make albums like I don't.
Speaker 1: No one listens to him, and so I make a
Speaker 1: I'm a make an archaic art form. I'm in love
Speaker 1: with it. But you know, a part of making albums
Speaker 1: is real albums. For example, when I finished the songs,
Speaker 1: I have at least three months more work to figure
Speaker 1: out the order of the songs and the transitions between
Speaker 1: them all, etcetera. So a part of making real albums
Speaker 1: is sometimes you gotta make a real tough decision and go,
Speaker 1: this is a great song, but it doesn't belong on
Speaker 1: this album. It doesn't fit. And so I made a
Speaker 1: lot of those decisions over the last five ten years,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you've got some great songs that they'll fit
Speaker 1: on your album, and this this is one of those
Speaker 1: songs and just didn't fit on A real good Kid,
Speaker 1: didn't fit on Keep Going Our Operation Wake Up. But
Speaker 1: I always loved this song. It's made me want to dance,
Speaker 1: so here it is. I totally agree. It's so uplifting
Speaker 1: and fun. And when I first heard it, I thought
Speaker 1: I heard tinges of Maroon five and the lo and
Speaker 1: Behold Room five guitarist James Valentine's track, How did he
Speaker 1: get involved? You guys go way back to to you
Speaker 1: co writing Sugar? How did he get involved with the track?
Speaker 1: James has been a friend who introduced me to James.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I met James. I thank god
Speaker 1: I did. I really like him. He came over my
Speaker 1: house and he worked on my album at Night Alone,
Speaker 1: which the album that had I took a pill bees
Speaker 1: in on it, and James and I wrote a song
Speaker 1: together called one hell of a Song. That was the
Speaker 1: first thing we did together and just love each other.
Speaker 1: Man just became friends, and um, you know this song.
Speaker 1: Mom always told me that that's out Now it's really
Speaker 1: a product of this house. This house that I used
Speaker 1: to rent in Venice is a kind of cookie house,
Speaker 1: is like a hundred years old, and it's in Venice,
Speaker 1: a bike ride away from the beach from the Pacific Ocean,
Speaker 1: and it became kind of a hangout house. One summer,
Speaker 1: James would come over. Adam Freeman lived down the street,
Speaker 1: come over all the times, one of my favorite producers,
Speaker 1: and Pete Kuzma, Jacob Sasny. We all just come over,
Speaker 1: hang out, We meditate, we we make music, we go
Speaker 1: we see the sunset. You know, it's a lot of
Speaker 1: times we take a dip in the ocean. And one
Speaker 1: day James was over and he just picked up the
Speaker 1: guitar started playing this riff. I just start hearing the melodies,
Speaker 1: and the naj came over and saying on it, did
Speaker 1: some lyrics on it. James went outside, took a break.
Speaker 1: He saw her, his friend Kate, who's apparently was my neighbor,
Speaker 1: and he said come over. Her and her friend came
Speaker 1: over to end up singing on the hook. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a group vocal take care of yo. So that's
Speaker 1: just how it happens, just a product of product of
Speaker 1: our friendships. You know, all these people that love each other.
Speaker 1: You know, we just made this one day and I
Speaker 1: love it. Man. I love this song. I love the chorus.
Speaker 1: I mean the positive message is just laid right out there.
Speaker 1: I mean, live your life, Shine your life. All those
Speaker 1: things that your mother would actually say to you tell
Speaker 1: me about her. Maybe not exactly in those words. She
Speaker 1: might not rhyme when she said, but yeah, basically, I
Speaker 1: think my mom is My mom is a Detroit hard
Speaker 1: rock you know, she's she's somebody like got it out
Speaker 1: of the mud, you know, to have a lot of opportunity,
Speaker 1: basically work at two three jobs during college, put herself
Speaker 1: through pharmacy, owned Turtle of Pharmacy in Detroit. I mean,
Speaker 1: my mom, she's amazing. Man, mom is amazing. I thought
Speaker 1: it was really cool because it highlights the struggles of
Speaker 1: people who are sort of dealing with with anxiety and
Speaker 1: depression and mental illness. And I think that's so important
Speaker 1: to talk about after the year that we've had. I mean,
Speaker 1: the pandemic has been deadly, not just because of the virus,
Speaker 1: but also with those struggling with with anxiety and depression
Speaker 1: and substance abuse issues. And I thought that was a
Speaker 1: really cool comment on that. How did that project come
Speaker 1: together for you? Operation Wake Up actually another old project.
Speaker 1: I made it right after I made at Night Alone.
Speaker 1: I made it my dad was six, so I was
Speaker 1: living back in Detroit. I made it in their basement,
Speaker 1: the basement I grew up in. Just in two weeks,
Speaker 1: I had this wild idea of making an album that
Speaker 1: was a fictional story through day of my life. All
Speaker 1: the songs connect. And it was a real challenge as
Speaker 1: a writer. You know, I'm a writer. I think that's
Speaker 1: the thing most people don't realized. Like I spent most
Speaker 1: of my time alone in rooms writing, you know, And
Speaker 1: so it was a real challenge for me as a writer.
Speaker 1: Can can I put off an album that's musical as
Speaker 1: choruses and and pre choruses all of these things and
Speaker 1: still it sounds good, but have it have a narrative
Speaker 1: arc from beginning middle end and in about forty minutes
Speaker 1: and it's just a wildly dark, ridiculous, weird, twisted project.
Speaker 1: It's all fiction, and which is made more disturbing that
Speaker 1: I was able to make make that stuff up. But
Speaker 1: jam I was really proud of the writing. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's just so dark. You know, we won't give away
Speaker 1: the ending, but it's just really dark project. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure I wanted to put it out, and I
Speaker 1: just realized, you know, my job is not to curate myself.
Speaker 1: I am who I am, and it's certainly a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot of darkness in me. In my life
Speaker 1: is also a lot of light too, you know, that's
Speaker 1: part of me. So I'm not supposed to write all
Speaker 1: these so long and then just only put out the
Speaker 1: happy one. I was supposed to put out both. When
Speaker 1: a Hertzog said the poet must not avert his eyes,
Speaker 1: what's that mean? That means that if you're a real poet,
Speaker 1: you look at what's beautiful, and you share what's beautiful.
Speaker 1: You help others to see what's beautiful about life and reality,
Speaker 1: but you also very honest about was ghastly and disgusting
Speaker 1: and horrible about life, because both those things are are real.
Speaker 1: How How has the last year changed you? It's been
Speaker 1: so transformative for all of us for so many different reasons.
Speaker 1: How is it? How is one touched you? Probably in
Speaker 1: in really subtle ways. I can't maybe even I don't
Speaker 1: really recognize, you know, all the normal things, like you know,
Speaker 1: you don't hug or touch as much. I think that
Speaker 1: affects all of us. How it was a big hugger
Speaker 1: all these things, you know, like I hug my friends
Speaker 1: and my my family and whatnot. But so it's just
Speaker 1: in those obvious ways. But you know, I think I've
Speaker 1: been really bled. That's that I kind of stopped touring
Speaker 1: a few years ago. You know, I walked across America
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen. I live in the mountains now, I'm
Speaker 1: climbing a lot of mountains. So and in many ways,
Speaker 1: you know, the pandemic hasn't affected my lifestyle that much.
Speaker 1: In addition, as I touched on before, I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time alone in my life, so it's not
Speaker 1: that sort of been in training for this in some respects.
Speaker 1: So I'm pretty lucky, pretty blessed. I get to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time outside doing stuff. I'm definitely not
Speaker 1: locked up inside the room. Um like some of my
Speaker 1: friends are in l a and men I got, I
Speaker 1: got no complaints. I'm just trying to, you know, keep
Speaker 1: moving my life forward, become somebody I'm proud of. That's it,
Speaker 1: you know. So what is the pandemic going on or not,
Speaker 1: that doesn't change. I'm still every day working towards my goals.
Speaker 1: And well a lot of people are making sour dough
Speaker 1: bread and uh and banana bread. You you climbed No no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no no, no no no. I just went
Speaker 1: to base went to base camp. Excuse me with the
Speaker 1: base camp a K too, which is still incredibly impressive
Speaker 1: and cool. Though, what tell me, tell me more about
Speaker 1: that experience, for it is very cool experience. For me,
Speaker 1: I probably will never climb K two is much too dangerous.
Speaker 1: I think, you know where my personal risk assessment is
Speaker 1: for myself, too risky for me, especially where my skill
Speaker 1: set is now. But it was cool. I was around,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody had climbed K two in the winter before.
Speaker 1: I was around some of the best climbers in the
Speaker 1: world and the most beautiful mountains in the world. I
Speaker 1: was there three days. It was also like really really horrible,
Speaker 1: really tragical. You know, five of the people that I
Speaker 1: met was there with they die. So it's just really
Speaker 1: messed up. You know, obviously you're doing something really dangerous,
Speaker 1: but it's still like really sad. No matter what. Wait, wait,
Speaker 1: you couldn't, so my love, my heart just go up
Speaker 1: to the US and stuff. Something that you do that's
Speaker 1: just I think it's just so inspiring is that you
Speaker 1: are always challenging yourself and pushing yourself. And I mean
Speaker 1: your walk across the country is just so incredibly inspiring.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're sick of talking about it, but it's
Speaker 1: so touching us, so many, myself included. And I think
Speaker 1: it's it's so important to say that. You know, it's
Speaker 1: easy for a lot of people to think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, he he's in shape. It must he makes
Speaker 1: it look so easy. It must be easy for him.
Speaker 1: He must wake up at four in the morning and
Speaker 1: feel rare and ready to go. And I think it's
Speaker 1: important to say, I imagine it wasn't easy for you.
Speaker 1: It must have been hard every single day. And I
Speaker 1: think that's important for people to know that that, you know,
Speaker 1: if you can do it, they can do it too.
Speaker 1: It's horror. It was horrible, you know. And people love
Speaker 1: to give themselves excuse the way out, so they put
Speaker 1: labels on other people, say he's different. You know. The
Speaker 1: biggest one out here is oh, you you're rich. It
Speaker 1: must be nice for you to walk across America. I
Speaker 1: want to do something, but you're rich. I never do that.
Speaker 1: I was just like, it made me laugh so hard,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's a real small community people that
Speaker 1: walk or run across America. They estimated about ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen people do it every year, and it's a small amount.
Speaker 1: It's a small group, so you you find out about
Speaker 1: each other, you know. So I was in contact with
Speaker 1: seven eight people that were running or walking the same
Speaker 1: time as me. We all try to kind of support
Speaker 1: each other, send each other positive messages, etcetera. None of
Speaker 1: those people were rich. Man, those people have no money.
Speaker 1: They're taking money to walk across America. It's very easy
Speaker 1: for us to make excuses for ourselves and not saying
Speaker 1: your goal should be to walk across America, because it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be unless that's your goal. But the thought pattern
Speaker 1: of it must be easy for him or must be
Speaker 1: easy for him or her, that's poison. You should never
Speaker 1: think that. You should never think that, because what you
Speaker 1: should think is exactly what you said. Oh they did that,
Speaker 1: that's possible. I could do it too. They're a man
Speaker 1: or a woman or whatever the pronoun is, just like me,
Speaker 1: you know, they got blood just like me as human,
Speaker 1: and so if they could do what I can't do,
Speaker 1: that's a healthier way of thinking. You take a take
Speaker 1: a hard look at your reasons, man, take a hard
Speaker 1: look at your reasons, because because nine times out of
Speaker 1: ten our reasons are are excuses wearing pretty clothes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's your mantra keep going that applies
Speaker 1: to anyone no matter what you're doing, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 1: I mean, I imagine you can't be the same having
Speaker 1: done something so just so transformative of walking across the
Speaker 1: entire continent. How how has that changed your perspective on
Speaker 1: everyday life now that you've that, now that you've had
Speaker 1: what about a year and a half to get reacclimated, Like,
Speaker 1: how did that experience change your your outlook to it
Speaker 1: just sort of your normal everyday life. I never reacclimated.
Speaker 1: I had no interest in going back like it wasn't
Speaker 1: I didn't go on vacation and I'm going back like
Speaker 1: I didn't have a house. You know, I wasn't going
Speaker 1: back to anything. I was moving forward and I'm still
Speaker 1: moving forward in a lot of ways. I'm still on
Speaker 1: the walk. I never went I never went to a
Speaker 1: house and unpacked my stuff. I started climbing mountains two
Speaker 1: weeks later. When I'm working on now and I just go,
Speaker 1: I just keep going forward. In fact, you know, the
Speaker 1: most the most important day, I think, after you, the
Speaker 1: most important day during the goal of the project. I
Speaker 1: think it's the day after the day after we're gonna
Speaker 1: do the day after you're gonna you're gonna go party
Speaker 1: with your friends. You're gonna get messed up. I wanted
Speaker 1: my body, in my mind, my spirit to know when
Speaker 1: I was walking across America that I was not done.
Speaker 1: So I jumped in the Atlantic Ocean. My my walk
Speaker 1: was over, but I was not over. I was not done.
Speaker 1: So you know, as you imagine, my body was pretty
Speaker 1: messed up at the time. My feet really really hurt.
Speaker 1: I stand up like I'm eight years old, like it.
Speaker 1: It hurt, and you us two thousand, eight hundred fifty
Speaker 1: one miles the same motion. It hurt. But what I
Speaker 1: did was I have is a little boxing gym, a
Speaker 1: little hardcore boxing gym called CMC Boxing in Venice. It's
Speaker 1: not like soccer, mom, Jim. It's like a gym. They
Speaker 1: played Black Sabath. You walking you're gonna get work. And
Speaker 1: I called Mark coach Marcello. I said, look, I know
Speaker 1: this might sound crazy. Can you meet me there at
Speaker 1: four thirty am tomorrow? He said, yes, Boxer, I can.
Speaker 1: So the next day I was at that gym for
Speaker 1: thirty I just needed needed to let myself know you're
Speaker 1: not done. You're not done like Rocket, and so I
Speaker 1: just moving forward. But to answer your question and like,
Speaker 1: what what did it change for me? Because that's really
Speaker 1: the essence to your question. I kind of made a
Speaker 1: separate point. I apologize for that. But the thing I
Speaker 1: take with me is is I did something hard. I
Speaker 1: did something hard. You get you get good at doing
Speaker 1: hard things, and you have a courage to do more
Speaker 1: hard things by doing hard period. So I did other
Speaker 1: hard things before that. Incrementally they'll tell you harder. So
Speaker 1: if I have a big goal now or something crazy
Speaker 1: not crazy with some I want to do that. Maybe
Speaker 1: other people think it's crazy. I know I could do it.
Speaker 1: I know it's not gonna be easy, but but I
Speaker 1: know it's gonna be hard. But that's what I do.
Speaker 1: I do hard things. So that's that's that's the gift
Speaker 1: I get from it. No one understand that it's not
Speaker 1: an outside trophy, that's an inside trophy, internal trophy. Well,
Speaker 1: you're you're pushing yourself physically walking across the country and
Speaker 1: climbing mountains. You're pushing yourself musically with writing big, longer
Speaker 1: narrative pieces like Operation Wake Up. How are you pushing yourself? Now?
Speaker 1: What's what's next for you? I haven't announced my next
Speaker 1: for like big it's big to me. I'm also big
Speaker 1: to you. Big athletic project I'm working on and I
Speaker 1: started working on training for it about a year ago,
Speaker 1: like I said, two weeks after my walk, So I'll
Speaker 1: be announcing that soon. I'm really excited to kind of
Speaker 1: like tell everyone what I've been working on. And then
Speaker 1: as far as music, that's constant, that's constant, just digging
Speaker 1: deeper and deeper as a human, increasing your my skills,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm somebody I have a have a
Speaker 1: hip hop background. I started rapping when I was writing
Speaker 1: my own songs and start making beats when I was
Speaker 1: I think twelve or thirteen. I didn't start singing till
Speaker 1: I was twenty. I didn't start playing guitar until twenty
Speaker 1: four and start playing piano really tells twenty four. I'm
Speaker 1: just increasing my skills, learning about music, theories, just just
Speaker 1: all these kind of things you practice and they add
Speaker 1: more colors to your palette. So when I sit down
Speaker 1: to paint metaphorically speaking, and I sit down to paint,
Speaker 1: I can do more things now, so many more things
Speaker 1: than I could when I was, you know, fifteen. This
Speaker 1: is how deep can you go? How how how beautiful
Speaker 1: a piece of art can you make? You know, just
Speaker 1: trying to make make beautiful things really musically. But it's
Speaker 1: all tied. It's all. It's all one thing. You know,
Speaker 1: whether I go to the top of the mountain, I
Speaker 1: walk across America and I'm listening to the birds in
Speaker 1: Illinois and recording MyPhone or you know, all these things.
Speaker 1: It changed who you are, changed the place where you
Speaker 1: that you right from, and change the artists you are.
Speaker 1: So they all mixed together. Yeah, you know, the sort
Speaker 1: of projects outside the studio and inside. Was there a
Speaker 1: moment when you knew that that music would be such
Speaker 1: a huge part of your life and would be such
Speaker 1: a huge part of your gift to to the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a moment. I think we were in seventh
Speaker 1: or eighth grade and I was with my my homies
Speaker 1: Aaron Webster and Ronnie Posey recipes, and we used to start,
Speaker 1: we say, we're gonna freestyle tonight, you know, because we
Speaker 1: heard about wrapping, free styling and stuff like I don't
Speaker 1: know where for a TV whatnot, and so we what
Speaker 1: we all we all found like little albums and stuff
Speaker 1: that had instrumental sections to them that we could wrap
Speaker 1: to put them on and start rap, trying to make
Speaker 1: up the things as we go freestyling. And I remember
Speaker 1: they started we did it, and they sort of felt
Speaker 1: like that was fun, that was cool. And I remember
Speaker 1: this feeling like I'm going to get great at that.
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna I'm not gonna stop doing I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get really good at that. And that's I never stopped.
Speaker 1: Still doing it. That was probably eighteen years ago, still
Speaker 1: doing it. I'm always curious with people who are are
Speaker 1: able and sort of blessed with the ability to to
Speaker 1: write music. What do you do when you're sitting down
Speaker 1: to write and it's just not happening, like you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're on your metaphorical walk and you're you take
Speaker 1: a stumble and you just how do you do you
Speaker 1: just try to press forward through pure force of creative
Speaker 1: will do you take a step back and go meditate
Speaker 1: or go do something else and hope that that kind
Speaker 1: of primes your imagination, your creative pump. Like, what do
Speaker 1: you do when you're having trouble finishing something? Well, that's
Speaker 1: two different things, finishing or starting. So but but if
Speaker 1: it's starting, I can always come up with something. But
Speaker 1: most days it's not something I actually like. That's another
Speaker 1: people realize it's like I've made eleven albums, but that's
Speaker 1: only ten percent of the music I may. That's like
Speaker 1: the timbers of music I made actually like the rest
Speaker 1: of it, I don't like that much. And so there's
Speaker 1: so much failure involved, man, so much failure, Like when
Speaker 1: you're trying to do something great by your own standards great,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not interested in anything good. I don't care
Speaker 1: about anything good. But most of the time, when I
Speaker 1: sit down to ray, it's just good. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just good. I don't care, and I fail. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's that's not your question. Question is what I do
Speaker 1: when I when you kind of feel blocked or you're
Speaker 1: just only coming up with good stuff and you don't
Speaker 1: really care. Or maybe in the fields is like derivative
Speaker 1: of stuff you've already done that happens a lot to you,
Speaker 1: Like I already wrote this song like this is that
Speaker 1: this is part of version. This is like a worst
Speaker 1: version of something I've already done. So one thing I
Speaker 1: do is I change while I'm working with If I'm
Speaker 1: working alone, which I do you a lot, I might
Speaker 1: go right with my friend Adam, or I might go
Speaker 1: right with James Valentine. You know I switched that up.
Speaker 1: That's one that's like, that's easy. I think way bring
Speaker 1: someone another humans energy into it. Or if it's the opposite,
Speaker 1: I'm working with somebody else and you feel stuck, I
Speaker 1: might go work alone, might go work alone. The thing
Speaker 1: is me, I don't. I don't really, I don't you
Speaker 1: ask me when I sit down to write. I don't
Speaker 1: really sit down to write that much anymore. Maybe I
Speaker 1: should a little bit more, but I mostly wait till
Speaker 1: the thing just pop starts talking to me and I
Speaker 1: just repeat, repeat what it says. You know. That being said,
Speaker 1: there are many years where I wrote some right rose
Speaker 1: song every single day, you know, so you couldn't get
Speaker 1: those ten thousand hours but um, I don't know that
Speaker 1: it's funny. I mean you were saying, how you know
Speaker 1: you sometimes you sit down and you think only writing
Speaker 1: something that's good, and I feel like that's what separates
Speaker 1: you for most people. Most people will be thrilled to
Speaker 1: sit down and write something that's just good, but you're
Speaker 1: you're aiming for something better, for something more. No, I promise,
Speaker 1: it's just Look, it's not that part. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's that special about me. It's just I've been doing
Speaker 1: this a long time, been I started. I started writing.
Speaker 1: I was eight and thirty three, so what that's twenty
Speaker 1: five years crazy, you know. And most of the people
Speaker 1: I work with, they don't write. They not gonna sound right,
Speaker 1: something that hurts your ear, you know. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a coffin. Like we all like this is what we
Speaker 1: do for our job professional. So it's it's always good.
Speaker 1: We're not writing like horrible stuff, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: that's all it is. So it's always listenable, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's not great most of the day's you know,
Speaker 1: and great is by definition rare. So that's what that's
Speaker 1: what we're interested in every day, and most days we fail.
Speaker 1: It's gonna keep keep showing up. You never know what's
Speaker 1: day you're write something great. Man. Another thing is, I'd
Speaker 1: rather have one great song than ten thousand good songs.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you gotta write ten thousand good songs to get
Speaker 1: one great one. Thow. That's the rub you said when
Speaker 1: when we first started talking that year. You're an album's guy,
Speaker 1: you're working in albums. Did you have any on the
Speaker 1: horizon fans can look forward to in the uh nuts
Speaker 1: to distant future. I think I actually gonna drop a
Speaker 1: little EP first. And the reason is that's like sometimes yeah,
Speaker 1: like sometimes you gotta take songs off. So you've got
Speaker 1: some songs that just never fit on an album. But
Speaker 1: the great freaking great songs, you know, it's like you
Speaker 1: gotta share this stuff means you can't just leave it
Speaker 1: on your laptop. Uh. But I am working. I'm always
Speaker 1: working on the next thing. I'm always working the next thing.
Speaker 1: I'm old fashioned though. Man. I'll sit there right. I
Speaker 1: like to write a lot of songs first. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: for a year too, Maybe for a year or two, right, right,
Speaker 1: fifty seventy five songs and sit down, sit down and
Speaker 1: pick the best fifteen finished those and produced those and
Speaker 1: then pick the best ten out of those, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I'm still writing. I'm still writing for the
Speaker 1: next thing, but I got I've written maybe I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I haven't counted songs, and probably like twenty closer twenty
Speaker 1: songs for the next actual album, and I like like
Speaker 1: six of them, like six of one, and I think
Speaker 1: you're cool. So we'll see, we'll see. But you're just
Speaker 1: gonna try to beat those, you know. This is the
Speaker 1: harvesting process. This is the culling process that everything it's
Speaker 1: growing now and then well the harvest soon. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. My my last question, and my I've been
Speaker 1: asking everybody's been talking to this, and it's been so
Speaker 1: interesting to hear everybody's different takes on this. If you
Speaker 1: could snap your fingers and have everything go back to normal,
Speaker 1: normal and quotes whatever your definition of normal is pre pandemic,
Speaker 1: all that's out the window, What would be the first
Speaker 1: thing that you would do? Trips, you would take people,
Speaker 1: you'd hug, restaurants you'd go to or something like that.
Speaker 1: Right to note, one thing, man, I like to take uh,
Speaker 1: I like to go to moto yoga on Labreya in
Speaker 1: l a I'll miss that place, but I don't even
Speaker 1: live in that CD, so I'm not sure I would
Speaker 1: be there anyways. But I guess that's the number one thing,
Speaker 1: or that hot yoga class. I think that's the first
Speaker 1: time we've heard a hot yoga. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: Are you get a lot of song ideas in shivasana?
Speaker 1: And there? Man, I'll tell you what we'll get you.
Speaker 1: We'll get you back there soon, hopefully. Fingers crossed. Oh Man, Mike,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time today. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Oh Man, you got it. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me your answers. Thank you for being so just
Speaker 1: open and kind and generous with not only your music
Speaker 1: but your spirit today. It was just so great talking
Speaker 1: to you. It really was a pleasure. Thank you. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you. Jordan's I could tell it. I could tell
Speaker 1: you take your job seriously, and I felt like you've
Speaker 1: really seen like who I am. You under took time
Speaker 1: to understand that. It was a blessing to me. So
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Buddy. Thank you right back. Hatcher Man,
Speaker 1: Well you stay safe and um and you have a
Speaker 1: wonderful rest of your day. Keep good right right back,
Speaker 1: good peace. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Inside
Speaker 1: the Studio, a production of I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows, check
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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite podcasts.