Speaker 1: Next Question with Katie Couric is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Katie Kuric Media. Hi everyone, I'm Katie
Speaker 1: Kuric and welcome to Next Question. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but it's sometimes hard to stay positive in the world
Speaker 1: we're living in right now. So much suffering, so much
Speaker 1: rancor so much hate. Then there's all that social media
Speaker 1: that gives you a serious case of fomo. As Teddy
Speaker 1: Roosevelt once said, comparison is the thief of joy. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry if I seem in patient. I'm not a fan
Speaker 1: of pleasantry. She occup bored with the weather and what's
Speaker 1: in the news. Studies show the average person has about
Speaker 1: twelve thousand to sixty thousand thoughts per day, and that
Speaker 1: of those thoughts are negative and end of the thoughts
Speaker 1: are repetitive. That adds up to a lot of ruminating
Speaker 1: about a lot of bad stuff. So next question, how
Speaker 1: do you stay positive in today's world? In my opinion,
Speaker 1: the happy guy or the happy girl is like way
Speaker 1: more three dimensional than just like happy. Like it's a fight,
Speaker 1: it's a war. There's a lot of things you can
Speaker 1: do to try and stay positive. You're about to meet
Speaker 1: a very happy guy with some uplifting and sightful advice,
Speaker 1: and you can even dance to it. Go al. Multi
Speaker 1: platinum pop singer and songwriter Andy Grammer's work reads like
Speaker 1: a playlist for positivity. His platinum singles include hits like
Speaker 1: keep your Head Up, which I love, thank You, Good
Speaker 1: to be Alive, and the ridiculously catchy song that became
Speaker 1: an anthem for monogamy, Honey I'm Good. He's also got
Speaker 1: a popular positive podcast called The Good Parts, and he
Speaker 1: also has a new album out called Naive and So Andy.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to see you because I could use
Speaker 1: a little positivity in my life. I love you, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me here, and your whole
Speaker 1: story is so interesting. But before we kind of dive
Speaker 1: into your life, you sometimes have to defend your positive attitude,
Speaker 1: don't you. I mean, you have to make sure people
Speaker 1: understand that it's cool to be happy. I feel like
Speaker 1: I smile quite a bit and I have just in
Speaker 1: the world that kind of came in always like looking
Speaker 1: for the good. My late husband used to say, I
Speaker 1: was hardwired for happiness, and it sounds like you and
Speaker 1: I are the same. Right. Every once in a while,
Speaker 1: what you will get back from the world. If you
Speaker 1: are this type of person, is that you don't know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, Like, can't you see how crappy
Speaker 1: the world is? Like why are you smiling so much?
Speaker 1: You must not know. So you kind of get put
Speaker 1: off into this corner of like, oh, you're like cute,
Speaker 1: you know, you're so sweet and he comes by like smiles.
Speaker 1: If you're happy, you must be stupid. It must be stupid, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you don't know what's going on. And so what
Speaker 1: do you say to people who have that attitude? It's
Speaker 1: almost like a rebellious way of being like, call me
Speaker 1: whatever you want. This is how I live, this is
Speaker 1: how I am, and I'm making it for people like me,
Speaker 1: And there's much more to me than a smile on
Speaker 1: my face. Because I guess a lot of people think
Speaker 1: you have to be dark and moody to be interesting. Totally, yes,
Speaker 1: and you want to prove otherwise. Yeah, hopefully there's there's
Speaker 1: people that can see that that's not always the case.
Speaker 1: And everybody has all these sides to them, right, Like
Speaker 1: I have dark and moody in my life, but usually
Speaker 1: that dark and moody is trying to get me to
Speaker 1: somewhere that is worthwhile, where I can grow, where the
Speaker 1: world is worth it, where I want to show up
Speaker 1: and be a part of this thing. Rather than just
Speaker 1: be dismal about it. Let's talk about sort of how
Speaker 1: you came into the world with a smile on your face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was born in Los Angeles, and then my dad
Speaker 1: as a children singer, so I got some of my
Speaker 1: good vibes from him and my mom. They both wrote
Speaker 1: these children's songs together, so they were following him around.
Speaker 1: So they moved to Nashville, and they moved to New York,
Speaker 1: and that's where I grew up. I grew up here
Speaker 1: in Upstate and state on an hour north of here,
Speaker 1: a place called Monroe Bary. And so you were surrounded
Speaker 1: by music all your life when you were a very
Speaker 1: little kid. And we have a clip of your dad's
Speaker 1: singing barnyard Boogie. He's a stinging and stinging and uster.
Speaker 1: He loves to im provide. He's the kind of clock
Speaker 1: Curo was born to harm and I and every day.
Speaker 1: And then my dad was so where did he sing that?
Speaker 1: Was this just a children's record? Or was what I mean?
Speaker 1: He took it really seriously. He was incredible. He was
Speaker 1: my dad's Grammy nominated children singer, so this was like
Speaker 1: his job. You travel all around the country and around
Speaker 1: the world singing to kids, and your mom too was
Speaker 1: so this came to you naturally, kind of genetically predisposed
Speaker 1: to be a great musician. The older than I get,
Speaker 1: the more I realized, how lucky if you want to
Speaker 1: be a songwriter, to grow up in a house with
Speaker 1: two songwriters writing songs all the time, it's pretty lucky,
Speaker 1: I bet. And you started writing songs yourself when you
Speaker 1: were fifteen years old. Yeah, I started just taking stabs
Speaker 1: at It was never really pushed on me. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the first song you ever wrote. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's something called like Doorstep to a Girl about like
Speaker 1: I like you, but I'm probably gonna come past the doorstep,
Speaker 1: but I'll hang outside and flirt with you a little bit.
Speaker 1: You were busting and I've never even heard of that term.
Speaker 1: I guess it's more of a what is that a
Speaker 1: West Coast term? I don't know. I didn't really heard
Speaker 1: of it either. So you were a street performer in
Speaker 1: other words, so you were doing what a lot of
Speaker 1: people do here in Central Park or in the subway
Speaker 1: waiting area you were performing. So what kind of things
Speaker 1: were you doing and what did that experience teach you?
Speaker 1: A lot? I understand quite a bit because at it's
Speaker 1: very fundamental level, the idea of not waiting for anyone
Speaker 1: and just going and doing it is really important in
Speaker 1: any career, especially in arts. Do not wait for permission.
Speaker 1: It's like free him of speech. You literally can't stop me.
Speaker 1: I'm allowed to just start doing what I do. So
Speaker 1: that was really important for me. So I did that
Speaker 1: for four years, and I'm starting to learn what it
Speaker 1: is that I had to offer and what was working
Speaker 1: in what was not working? See what kind of songs
Speaker 1: would you sing? I would sing covers, I would sing
Speaker 1: my own originals and no one would stop, and you'd
Speaker 1: be like, all right, well, I gotta write some more
Speaker 1: um And I would, you know, cover Room five and
Speaker 1: I cover one Republic. And I try, like Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: and all these different things to see like what's working here,
Speaker 1: trying to find myself, find my sound. I imagine that
Speaker 1: you encountered all different kinds of people and a real
Speaker 1: slice of humanity. You really do, And what'school is kind
Speaker 1: of like being on tourist saying in one spot because
Speaker 1: Santa Monica's tons of tourists come from. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: is that where you were Santa Monica? Where on Third
Speaker 1: Street Promenade? And yeah, it was like this awesome wading
Speaker 1: into the water of what it means to be an
Speaker 1: artist and how honestly the whole ecosystem of what an
Speaker 1: artist is, which is you put yourself out there. Some
Speaker 1: people like it, most people don't. And if you can
Speaker 1: hang with longs of solitude waiting while everybody's just ignoring you,
Speaker 1: then there are these moments where something catches on and
Speaker 1: now there's three people, there's five people, now there's a
Speaker 1: hundred people, and you are the man for about twenty minutes. Crazy,
Speaker 1: everybody wants your autograph on the street. Yeah, they will
Speaker 1: buy your CD. You sign this for me. Holy crap,
Speaker 1: this is awesome. And then they all leave and you're
Speaker 1: back to like, Okay, I gotta figure out how to
Speaker 1: build this back up again. I could not care le
Speaker 1: us about today, job gossip, ordinary stress. So in the beginning,
Speaker 1: when you're bad and you play, you would be giving
Speaker 1: me attention, not me giving you a service, right like
Speaker 1: you're giving to me because I'm bad to actually make
Speaker 1: the switch to where like I'm doing something that is
Speaker 1: beautiful or touching your heart or making you think, or
Speaker 1: like actually giving to you. That actually switches it to
Speaker 1: where like I'm giving you the service. And I, for
Speaker 1: the first time with my music, started to do that
Speaker 1: as a street performer. And actually those four years were
Speaker 1: where it started switch. So by the time I left
Speaker 1: the street, it was like cool a little bit figured
Speaker 1: out how to write a song that gives rather than
Speaker 1: just like asked for attention, show me women, give me.
Speaker 1: You wrote your first song really based on your experiences
Speaker 1: as a street performer, called Keep your Head Up, which
Speaker 1: is such a great, fun, upbeat, catchy song, but you
Speaker 1: were feeling kind of rejected when you wrote it. It
Speaker 1: was a day of no one putting anything in my case,
Speaker 1: which is usually I get there early, set up and
Speaker 1: wait for spots. You're like there for like almost eight
Speaker 1: to ten hours, so a full day of the world
Speaker 1: being like no you sick or we're not interested, and
Speaker 1: no enough of you. Um, So I packed up all
Speaker 1: my stuff and then I literally did this. I looked
Speaker 1: up at the sky and I said, I'm never leaving,
Speaker 1: So your move like I'll be back for the for
Speaker 1: the rest of ever, like until I go I'm here,
Speaker 1: I will be here and I'm not going to stop
Speaker 1: showing up, so you might as well just like make
Speaker 1: something happen for me. And then I went home and
Speaker 1: wrote a song. Up, keep your head up, your head up.
Speaker 1: You wrote a song, it became a huge hit. You
Speaker 1: put it out in the world. I mean, what was
Speaker 1: that like? Here you were busting and suddenly you become
Speaker 1: this well known singer songwriter. So what was that like? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you hear on the radio, and then you're going around
Speaker 1: different parts of the country, in the world, and people start,
Speaker 1: you know, see things on YouTube, everybody covering it, and
Speaker 1: then you go to play a show and they're all
Speaker 1: singing it. It was. It was pretty spectacular. Tell me
Speaker 1: the process for writing a song, because I've played the
Speaker 1: piano and I've always wanted to be a songwriter, you know,
Speaker 1: I just think it would be so fun, and I've
Speaker 1: tried a little bit. Of course we can make it.
Speaker 1: Tried to write a song called if I Only knew.
Speaker 1: My husband died of cancer, and I thought how different
Speaker 1: people would act. I actually just went to a funeral
Speaker 1: this morning of a dear friend who was killed in
Speaker 1: car accident, And would you do anything differently if you
Speaker 1: only knew that your time was limited? Would you be
Speaker 1: more generous and loving and caring? And would you not
Speaker 1: waste a moment being mad at someone or getting in
Speaker 1: silly fights? And I just think the idea of really
Speaker 1: taking advantage of every minute to be happy and loving
Speaker 1: is so a wonderful thought. So if you want to
Speaker 1: take that idea with it, you can. So this is
Speaker 1: what I say. What songwriting is to me at least
Speaker 1: is you have that thought, which is a great thought.
Speaker 1: And I also like, if I only knew as a lyric, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a great lyric. It's a great idea. And
Speaker 1: then for anyone who's listening with the songwriter, this is
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. You're going to write the song
Speaker 1: and it's going to be so sincere in you, it's
Speaker 1: like a perfect, pure little thing. And then in the
Speaker 1: process of taking it out of you and actually putting
Speaker 1: it out into the world, you will realize that it
Speaker 1: fell apart and crumbled into like a terrible little thing.
Speaker 1: And he'd be like, crap, it was so good in me.
Speaker 1: I know it, I really like connecting to it. I
Speaker 1: was getting so encouraged and to the said that, and
Speaker 1: then as you take it out, it falls apart. So
Speaker 1: the only way you can actually do it is to
Speaker 1: write it again. Then you write it again, and then
Speaker 1: you write it again, and then you write it again.
Speaker 1: And being a good songwriter is someone who gets better
Speaker 1: and better at the process of actually putting it into
Speaker 1: the world in the way that it actually feels inside you,
Speaker 1: because that is an unbelievable art. But I feel like
Speaker 1: I need someone to help me because maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: a lyricist and not necessarily a songwriter. That's very possible
Speaker 1: either should be a duet, and I think we got it, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, Well we'll talk about figure out podcast when
Speaker 1: we come back. We're going to talk about how to
Speaker 1: stay positive in this increasingly depressing world we're living in,
Speaker 1: because I think people are feeling anxious and unhappy and depressed.
Speaker 1: And we're going to get your prescription how to click
Speaker 1: that around fix everything. No problem, I got you when
Speaker 1: we come back, and he fixes the world. Music can
Speaker 1: really change your mute so dramatically. I think that as
Speaker 1: a songwriter, you're just trying to find what's true about
Speaker 1: being here. For some reason, I don't know why, it's
Speaker 1: harder to make the happy side of things sound cool,
Speaker 1: but if you catch it, the world really needs it
Speaker 1: and we all freak out. I've been waiting on the
Speaker 1: sunset build on, Mama said, not kidding, Hi, Hi, having
Speaker 1: my income, income's bread, Cromes, cobbin, trying to survive. We
Speaker 1: talked about being surrounded by music as a kid and
Speaker 1: by children's singers. Having parents who sing songs from the
Speaker 1: time you're hopping out of the womb must kind of
Speaker 1: make you a very happy person. But what else do
Speaker 1: you think shaped you and made you positive? Because I
Speaker 1: think we all have different thresholds of happiness and different
Speaker 1: happiness levels. I think one of the quickest ways to
Speaker 1: become happy be the only fail safe that I know,
Speaker 1: is to be of service to other people stranger, which
Speaker 1: sounds weird and ridiculous. It's kind of like when you
Speaker 1: are laying on your couch and you're lethargic. What's the
Speaker 1: best thing to make you feel better is to like
Speaker 1: go for a run, and then you what do you know?
Speaker 1: You feel better? So suddenly stranger in a world right
Speaker 1: now and where everybody's got their phone in front of
Speaker 1: their face and the cameras facing back at them all
Speaker 1: day long. We're like very self right now, and I
Speaker 1: think that makes you very unhappy. And the more that
Speaker 1: you can go outward and do something for other people,
Speaker 1: be of service to somebody else, figure out how what
Speaker 1: your daily life is is being of service, that will
Speaker 1: undeniably make you happier every time. I agree with you
Speaker 1: because I was thinking about that as I was sitting
Speaker 1: in this funeral service this morning, and I you know,
Speaker 1: when you go to funerals, you hear such incredible things
Speaker 1: about people, and you wonder, gosh, why didn't I know
Speaker 1: this person better? Or how can I have what David
Speaker 1: Brooks calls eulogy values? How can I be the kind
Speaker 1: of person that people would say those things about, you know,
Speaker 1: when they're no longer with us. And I started thinking
Speaker 1: about when you're external facing, instead of so focused on
Speaker 1: yourself and your own problems and your own complaints and
Speaker 1: you know, things that are usually exaggerated, and instead kind
Speaker 1: of look around and how can you help other people
Speaker 1: and make them feel better instead of being consumed by
Speaker 1: your own It is the quickest way to be happier now,
Speaker 1: let me ask you this. You were at a funeral.
Speaker 1: So I have a podcast about what I think are
Speaker 1: the most interesting questions the good parts of our story.
Speaker 1: What do you think happens when we die? Is one
Speaker 1: of the things that I like to ask. I think nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing lights out, game over. Yeah. What I love about
Speaker 1: this question is there's no right answer, it's all. It's
Speaker 1: all really fun. I was raised to Presbyterian. My mom
Speaker 1: was Jewish, but I do sort of. I think believe
Speaker 1: more in I agree more probably with the Jewish faith
Speaker 1: that your spirit lives on in the hearts and mind,
Speaker 1: that you you can shape other people who come after
Speaker 1: you by your presence in their lives. That's what I think.
Speaker 1: I wish I believed in heaven and you know that
Speaker 1: I was going to be on a cloud eating Philadelphia
Speaker 1: cream cheese. But I just don't think I do. How
Speaker 1: about you? So I'm behind. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I got from the behind faith was there's these writings
Speaker 1: about how we believe that it's like the womb to
Speaker 1: this place is a good analogy. So when you're in
Speaker 1: the womb, you're growing arms and legs that you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily know why you need them. It's actually making you
Speaker 1: more uncomfortable in there. And then when it's time you
Speaker 1: move into this new place where you get to use
Speaker 1: these things that you were growing. Oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is awesome. And it's a much vaster, crazier, cooler place
Speaker 1: than you could ever imagine, right, much bigger than So
Speaker 1: the idea is that this place here, living in life,
Speaker 1: in the world, you're supposed to grow spiritually, and then
Speaker 1: once you leave this place that then you use all
Speaker 1: that wherever you are next. So where is that where
Speaker 1: It's impossible to describe. I don't think that it's a
Speaker 1: cloud with cream cheese either. What do you think it is?
Speaker 1: Do you think it's sort of some kind of particles?
Speaker 1: Think my brain literally is incapable of understanding it. But
Speaker 1: I do think that it is worth growing. It's like
Speaker 1: we're here to grow for that place. So then when
Speaker 1: you're talking about your friend's funeral, I am sad, but
Speaker 1: I am also I do think that this this guy
Speaker 1: is in a really great place. You do, I really
Speaker 1: genuinely do, And I've had many wild experiences with my
Speaker 1: mom who's passed on that just like further that that's
Speaker 1: you can't prove that to anybody, but in my own
Speaker 1: personal beliefs, I think that he is in a wonderful place.
Speaker 1: Tell me about your mom. You mentioned her. She died
Speaker 1: a breast cancer when you were in your twenties, and
Speaker 1: I'm curious how that affected you and how you were
Speaker 1: able to maintain this sort of upbeat, positive attitude. I
Speaker 1: have the song on my new album called Wish You Pain,
Speaker 1: which kind of makes sense with this, which is like,
Speaker 1: you only grow from things usually that are really, really difficult.
Speaker 1: And if I was going to be someone who runs
Speaker 1: around the world and sings songs that were trying to
Speaker 1: uplift people, that would be pretty obnoxious if I didn't
Speaker 1: understand pain. I hope your dads come like monsters and
Speaker 1: terror raged dreams. I hope you feel the lonely hopelessness
Speaker 1: because no one else believes. I hope you question whether
Speaker 1: you ever really had a chance at all. Up until
Speaker 1: that point in my life, life was pretty easy for me.
Speaker 1: I like was good enough at sports. It was like
Speaker 1: homecoming king. It wasn't like trying. It was just like
Speaker 1: if I wasn't ever really happy, life is awesome. This
Speaker 1: is great. And then I lost my mom and my
Speaker 1: whole world got completely rocked, and I was for about
Speaker 1: a year and a half. I went from being the
Speaker 1: super gregarious guy to just like at the dinner table
Speaker 1: or the friend table, just completely quiet, silent, taking in like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is what so many people are feeling when it
Speaker 1: comes to like sadness and pain and difficulty. I really
Speaker 1: needed that to not be annoying, uh and not understand
Speaker 1: I have any compassion towards how hard it can actually be.
Speaker 1: So losing her was like very grounding. And I think
Speaker 1: a song like keep your Head Up is saying be
Speaker 1: happy amidst how difficult this is. Most happy songs are
Speaker 1: still grounded in pain. I know that it might sound strange,
Speaker 1: but whish you pain, whish you it was your mom
Speaker 1: sick for a long time. It happened really fast. They
Speaker 1: caught it late. She passed pretty soon after. We found
Speaker 1: out again, what's crazy is my relationship with death is different.
Speaker 1: She was behind too. I actually got to sit with
Speaker 1: her and we had a whole conversation about like it
Speaker 1: was almost like a train station for me where I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, I'm so sad. I don't
Speaker 1: want to lose you, But are you a little excited
Speaker 1: about where you're going, and we had this awe, some
Speaker 1: super intense conversation that was like, man, maybe I don't
Speaker 1: know what is it? Who you know? So that is
Speaker 1: either to anyone loosen that's either like a ridiculous, silly
Speaker 1: conversation between two people that are trying to make themselves
Speaker 1: feel better totally fair possible, or a really really sweet,
Speaker 1: spiritual conversation between a mother and his son. I love
Speaker 1: these conversations. These are my favorite. I hope it was
Speaker 1: the latter, honestly, despite the fact that I'm a Scotia cynical,
Speaker 1: but I know that you do something. You keep your
Speaker 1: mom's spirit alive with something called Cathy Graham's. That's what
Speaker 1: I did as a way to work through my grief.
Speaker 1: I don't do it as much anymore, but right when
Speaker 1: she passed away, I would at any of my shows
Speaker 1: be like, if you're going through something, if you are
Speaker 1: having struggles or troubles, as a way to get through this,
Speaker 1: I will write you a Cathy Graham which is like
Speaker 1: a short teeny little song, and I'll send it over
Speaker 1: YouTube to you. It was kind of wild because you know,
Speaker 1: you're just having a normal day and then you get
Speaker 1: this email that says, I'm going into back surgery for
Speaker 1: the fourth time and I'm really stressed out about I
Speaker 1: don't of any arms or legs and I'm going into
Speaker 1: back surgery. You said you'd write a song like oh
Speaker 1: my God, so that I like get out my guitar
Speaker 1: and like really fast, we got your back? Did you
Speaker 1: get your back back? Right? It's like, send it off.
Speaker 1: Any of those I probably did about ten or twenty
Speaker 1: of them in that period of my life. You're really upset,
Speaker 1: But then by doing things for others, it is amazing
Speaker 1: how quickly that makes you feel different. You know. Then
Speaker 1: you're getting these incredible, beautiful emails back from the family
Speaker 1: of the girl saying like, oh my god, she's been
Speaker 1: playing this over and over and over before she goes
Speaker 1: into surgery. There's a random stranger that now like, I'm
Speaker 1: like kind of family with you know. My whole musical
Speaker 1: career is basically trying to do that as much as
Speaker 1: I can on like a worldwide scale. Meanwhile, you went
Speaker 1: on Dancing with the Stars in honor of your mom.
Speaker 1: She loved to dance. Yeah she did. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I watched that show sometimes and I think, would you
Speaker 1: do it? You know. They've asked me to do it
Speaker 1: a couple of times. First of all, I don't think
Speaker 1: I could because it's very physically tasted the hardest thing
Speaker 1: I've ever done right. And I also think I would
Speaker 1: forget everything because I would panic and I would draw
Speaker 1: a blank once it was my time to dance. I
Speaker 1: would just be freaked out. I just don't think I
Speaker 1: could do it, but I admire people who do. Did
Speaker 1: you have fun doing it? Fun? Is trying? Not the word?
Speaker 1: Who is your partner? Well? Fun, it's definitely fun, But
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Her name is Alison Hulker. She
Speaker 1: was awesome. It was the most stress that I think
Speaker 1: I've had in my whole career, Like, why would I
Speaker 1: invite that into my life? I was doing it. They
Speaker 1: want They asked me to go sing the national anthem
Speaker 1: at the game one of the World Series, which is
Speaker 1: supposed to be a stressful thing, and I was like, fine,
Speaker 1: that's great, be out of here, help me stop doing
Speaker 1: the chat shot. I would love to go do that.
Speaker 1: But it was really really good, and it was really
Speaker 1: sweet to do it for her because she loved to
Speaker 1: watch dance. He was like a big fan of dance.
Speaker 1: Don't get to every night, go just like get quiet
Speaker 1: before I went out and did something ridiculous like dance
Speaker 1: for her. And did you get very far in the process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I made eight shows. That's good. But no mirrorball for you.
Speaker 1: No mirrorball. I did not deserve the mirror ball. It's okay.
Speaker 1: Justice was served. Next, we're going to talk to Andy
Speaker 1: and hear an incredible story about how he keeps his
Speaker 1: mom's memory alive for his little girl. That's what she said.
Speaker 1: So you have a little girl named Louisiana who you
Speaker 1: called lou Yeah, Louie, Louis Louie. How old is she?
Speaker 1: And I know that you actually try to keep your
Speaker 1: mom and your little girl connected as well. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: she is going to be to this weekend. So as
Speaker 1: soon as I'm done with this big record, lease, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna fly home and we've booked a bubble guy for
Speaker 1: her second birthday party. It's gonna be freaking awesome. And
Speaker 1: uh yeah, she's she's my favorite. You know. One of
Speaker 1: the songs on this this new record, it comes with
Speaker 1: a pretty wacky story. So I'm just gonna share it,
Speaker 1: share it. So I get this call my wife goes, um,
Speaker 1: I got I got your phone call with this guy,
Speaker 1: m Danion Brinkley. I don't know if you've heard him
Speaker 1: struck by lightning, was dead for twenty eight minutes, and
Speaker 1: then wrote a book about his near death experience. So
Speaker 1: like what he said happened when he passed away, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what to do that information, but sure,
Speaker 1: my wife gets me a phone call and she says, like,
Speaker 1: you should call him, Like, all right, I'll call him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, fift that's ridiculous percent, like I lost my mom.
Speaker 1: If he says you can talk to people like maybe whatever.
Speaker 1: So I called the guy and I'm like kind of
Speaker 1: skeptically on the phone, and he goes like, all right,
Speaker 1: your mom's here. Her name is Kathy, right. I'm like yeah,
Speaker 1: still kind of like whatever, what are we doing here?
Speaker 1: What are we doing? Yeah? And he goes she she's
Speaker 1: saying very specifically that she wants you to write a
Speaker 1: song to your daughter about everything that she would say
Speaker 1: to your daughter because she can't be there to say it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, honestly, man, that's just a great idea.
Speaker 1: I don't even know. I don't know what's going on here,
Speaker 1: but I've written like way worse songs on way less
Speaker 1: good ideas, so I will definitely do that. So I
Speaker 1: write the song and it's called She'd Say. And my
Speaker 1: mom is a huge Paul Simon fan. She loved the
Speaker 1: Graceland record where um he went to South Africa and
Speaker 1: he's Ladysmith Black Mambazo and it's like dimes on the
Speaker 1: soles of her shoes. You can call me al. These
Speaker 1: are all like amazing songs, and this is one of
Speaker 1: her favorite albums. So I write the song. I get
Speaker 1: in the car. The next day after I've written the song,
Speaker 1: on the radio, it says Ladysmith Black Mambazo is gonna
Speaker 1: be in Los Angeles, And at that point, now I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is so weird. Now, I'm like, mentally internally just
Speaker 1: weirded out by this phone call, the fact that one
Speaker 1: of my mom's favorite groups is gonna be here. And
Speaker 1: so I chase him down and I'm like, I think
Speaker 1: I just gotta follow this all the way to the
Speaker 1: weird end that it is. And they agreed, and we
Speaker 1: have this insane song called Yeah. So it's this wild
Speaker 1: song called She'd Say, Uh, featuring Ladysmith black mambazo, and
Speaker 1: when you hear like the African singers, it gets so insane.
Speaker 1: And then it's me singing to my daughter all of
Speaker 1: the principles and truths that my mom would have sang
Speaker 1: to her. You never got to meet your grandma, did you?
Speaker 1: I mean, I I got to kissing an o pick
Speaker 1: because me up to two will never listen to sweet,
Speaker 1: sweet sound of a boy. I've had so many weird
Speaker 1: experiences like that that I just live in like a
Speaker 1: weird magical lane. And I don't know what to do
Speaker 1: about it. I don't necessarily it's like I don't say
Speaker 1: it's true or not true. I just like, this is
Speaker 1: my life. Did you tell the singers the group that
Speaker 1: you had had this a little a huge photo of
Speaker 1: my mother and we put it in the studio and
Speaker 1: they came in and I told them all this insane story,
Speaker 1: and they quickly started writing in Zulu the words what
Speaker 1: she'd say, and I love my mother and I missed
Speaker 1: my mother. So it's like they're singing, duh, It's like wild,
Speaker 1: It's one of the most incredible experiences. So my daughter
Speaker 1: is going to have this song that whatever maybe my
Speaker 1: mom wanted her to hear, which is really sweet. She beautiful.
Speaker 1: But don't you don't know what other weird experiences have
Speaker 1: you had if you just had to name one more,
Speaker 1: because I'm fascinated by this. I had this experience you
Speaker 1: got picked up on the news up in Boston where
Speaker 1: I'm playing a show in Boston and I'm sitting at
Speaker 1: early brunch by myself before you go play the show,
Speaker 1: and these six like elderly ladies come in and sit
Speaker 1: down in the corner and they were making me think
Speaker 1: of my mom. And I'm like, oh, man, I should
Speaker 1: pick up their lunch. But then sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: worry about doing that because then you look like you're
Speaker 1: trying to be a big shot or whatever. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: never mind, I just keep keep like eating my breakfast.
Speaker 1: And then I have this thing inside it's like you
Speaker 1: should probably go pick up their lunch, and I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm having this internal conversation with myself now, like now
Speaker 1: I'm feeling crazy because it's like so intensely saying like
Speaker 1: go pay for their lunch, like wom fine. So I
Speaker 1: get up, I go over to them and I go, hello, ladies,
Speaker 1: you all seem very very sweet. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be weird at all. I just like, I lost my mom.
Speaker 1: You're making me think of you all, and it would
Speaker 1: mean the world to me if I could just pick
Speaker 1: up your lunch. This lady starts crying and she stands
Speaker 1: up and she goes, I just lost my son. Who's
Speaker 1: your age? And like I'm like, now I'm hugging this lady.
Speaker 1: So stuff like this happens to me and I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with it. And we took this
Speaker 1: photo and I wrote it out and it became like
Speaker 1: a viral thing up in Boston, and then the news
Speaker 1: came and like took photos of us together like this
Speaker 1: sweet little moment that occurred. I just think there's like
Speaker 1: way more going on here than we all think there is.
Speaker 1: I don't try to say I know what it is,
Speaker 1: but there is like a sweet interplay of stuff occurring
Speaker 1: that I'm not necessarily scared of. But it's like it's insane.
Speaker 1: Do you think you're operating on a different spiritual register
Speaker 1: because of your faith and because of Behi? And what
Speaker 1: is Behigh? Exactly? So? The Behigh faith is a world
Speaker 1: religion very simply based on the unity of religions. The
Speaker 1: idea is that there's just one God and that God
Speaker 1: has come down in succession throughout all of time. So Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism,
Speaker 1: all these are like different accents of God. And so
Speaker 1: that's great because there's so much strife and conflict that
Speaker 1: comes from religion. It was a wonderful way to grow
Speaker 1: up because everywhere that you'd meet someone new, you'd be
Speaker 1: like same team. Right, But it's obviously been very important
Speaker 1: to you into your life. Yeah. I mean, so there's
Speaker 1: like a lot of principles that if you're raised this way,
Speaker 1: can't help but affect how you see the world. So
Speaker 1: this idea that pain or struggle is something that is
Speaker 1: for you to grow from that is a huge deal
Speaker 1: because when bad things happened to you, it's not just
Speaker 1: like oh me again, life sucks. It's like, oh, what
Speaker 1: am I supposed to be like learning from this? How
Speaker 1: am I going to grow from this? What am I
Speaker 1: gonna take from this experience? You did an incredible video
Speaker 1: about a woman who was dying a breast cancer with
Speaker 1: her little boy. That was with Justin Beldoni's show, Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has this show called My Last Days. Justin Beldoni.
Speaker 1: He's on Jane the Virgin. He's Raphael from Jane the Virgin.
Speaker 1: He's also maybe one of my best friends in the world.
Speaker 1: So he started doing this show called My Last Days,
Speaker 1: where when someone's terminally ill, a friend of theirs will
Speaker 1: nominate them to be on the show and Justin's crew
Speaker 1: goes in and then they interviewed them about what's important
Speaker 1: to them? What are you thinking before this thing happens?
Speaker 1: It's really powerful. I'm sure it's incredibly powerful. Is it sad?
Speaker 1: Is that uplifting? And you've probably watched a lot of
Speaker 1: these Is there a common theme that people talk about,
Speaker 1: or feel or regret in their last days? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think that it just like really centers what's important while
Speaker 1: you're here? What are we doing here? These are my
Speaker 1: favorite questions to ask. And the show gets into way
Speaker 1: more about how you treat people, loved ones, being around
Speaker 1: your family again back to being of service. How are
Speaker 1: you actually being of service to other people? And so
Speaker 1: this show, it was a lady named Ellie who was
Speaker 1: passing away and her son was a big fan of mine,
Speaker 1: so I wrote him a song to sing to her
Speaker 1: when he missed her. When she Yeah, which is brutal talking.
Speaker 1: And Ellie passed away and then she passed away, but
Speaker 1: again all context of how you feel about that, right,
Speaker 1: So if you believe that they are going somewhere else
Speaker 1: and that one of the ways you can keep in
Speaker 1: touch with them is to do good deeds in their name,
Speaker 1: there can be a sweetness around it that I really
Speaker 1: I think there is. I know that you're a really
Speaker 1: good beat boxer. I mean in the land of beat boxers,
Speaker 1: I am not, but I know how to beatbox. You
Speaker 1: don you want to be all right, go ahead, you
Speaker 1: basically just man m ginty drum set, So give me
Speaker 1: the kick is going to be like a pff like sure,
Speaker 1: then uh high, that was no, I wanted to do
Speaker 1: that again. Do it again? What like give me a
Speaker 1: little more bottom like p f f f that's good,
Speaker 1: that's fine. Then the high hats like a T, I
Speaker 1: s like yep, and then like like a K A
Speaker 1: I'm doing great, Then like a K for this there,
Speaker 1: like yeah, give me like a you're a full on
Speaker 1: beat box right now, yeah, sounding absolutely fantastic. Yes, now
Speaker 1: you're off on running. Do it for me, do it fast?
Speaker 1: So I'm really here, I'm sitting you with Katie. We're
Speaker 1: having a good old time singing about positivity and I
Speaker 1: don't know how to I mean, I can't death and
Speaker 1: death stick around. I promise it's not as depressing as
Speaker 1: it sounds yet. All right, fantastic talented, all right? I
Speaker 1: love that. Do you ever feel like you just want
Speaker 1: to turn your whole image on its head and be
Speaker 1: like a jerk and dark and moody and like steal
Speaker 1: a kid's ice cream cone? Like everybody has evil thoughts,
Speaker 1: but not in general. I'm down to like let kids
Speaker 1: keep their ice cream cones coming. This conception about me
Speaker 1: is that like I'm like happy, and I'm like no, no,
Speaker 1: I love to go deep. This is my favorite. That
Speaker 1: someone passed away and I was like, oh man, I
Speaker 1: actually have a overly like I love to talk about death,
Speaker 1: partly because my mom passed away. It's so fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: And then I spent a lot of time thinking about
Speaker 1: so it was wonderful. It was really nice to a
Speaker 1: meet you and be talked to you past. Yes, and
Speaker 1: we're going to write the song. If I only knew,
Speaker 1: If I only knew, that's good. That's what you come
Speaker 1: out of this before we go, you want to give
Speaker 1: me a beatbox bed. Thanks for joining us. I'm Katie
Speaker 1: Curik and I'm looking forward to tackling your next question.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't already, subscribe on Apple Podcast, the
Speaker 1: I Heart app or wherever you listen. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if you're overwhelmed by the tsunami of information coming at
Speaker 1: you from your phone every single day, check out my
Speaker 1: morning newsletter wake Up Call. Go to Katie Kurk dot
Speaker 1: com to subscribe, and of course follow me on Instagram, Facebook,
Speaker 1: Twitter and YouTube. Next Question with Katie Curic is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media. The
Speaker 1: executive producers are Katie Kuric, Lauren Bright Pacheco, Julie Douglas,
Speaker 1: and Tyler Klang. Our show producers are Bethan Macaluso and
Speaker 1: Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagin. Associate producers
Speaker 1: are Emily Pinto and Derek Clemens. Editing is by Dylan
Speaker 1: Fag and Derrek Clements and Lowell Brillante. Our researcher is
Speaker 1: Barbara Keene. For more information on today's episode, go to
Speaker 1: Katie currect dot com and follow us on Twitter and
Speaker 1: Instagram at Katie correct. For more podcasts for My heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows sounding absolutely fantastic.