Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Speaker 1: Studio on iHeart Radio. My name is Jordan runt Dog.
Speaker 1: But enough about me. I'm not even gonna try to
Speaker 1: play it cool. My guest today is one of my
Speaker 1: all time favorite artists. I first knew him as the
Speaker 1: piano pounding frontman of the nineties alternative trio Ben Folds Five,
Speaker 1: whereas flamboyant, almost punkish virtuosity and ingenuity on his instrument
Speaker 1: brought to mind Jimmy Hendrix. That is, if Hendricks traded
Speaker 1: his six strings stratocaster for a Baldwin Baby Grant. With
Speaker 1: the Five and a series of solo albums and EPs
Speaker 1: like Rocking the Suburbs, Songs for Silverman and Way to Normal,
Speaker 1: he solidified his reputation as one of the finest songwriters
Speaker 1: this side of Randy Newman and Harry Nielsen. He's a
Speaker 1: brilliant melodist and an immensely gifted lyricist, writing insightful character
Speaker 1: studies with a novelist sigh for detail. Music just seems
Speaker 1: to pour out of him, as he demonstrates during almost
Speaker 1: each of his concerts when he makes up a song
Speaker 1: on the spot. Now crafting a song with unlimited time
Speaker 1: and the privacy of your own home is one thing,
Speaker 1: but doing so before an audience of thousands is quite another.
Speaker 1: This spontaneous act of artistic bravery made a huge impression
Speaker 1: on me as a young music lover an amateur player.
Speaker 1: To me, it was like watching a magician pulling a
Speaker 1: rabbit out of his hat, only to realize there was
Speaker 1: no trick. It actually was magic. These impromptu songs were
Speaker 1: both a display of confident technical mastery and an exuberant
Speaker 1: expression of joy, all wrapped up with a subversive title,
Speaker 1: which was more often than not, Rock This Bitch. I
Speaker 1: spent a great deal of time as a young amateur
Speaker 1: musician watching in the crowd during his concerts, wondering how
Speaker 1: in the hell he was able to tap into this
Speaker 1: bottomless well of creativity with what appeared to be total fearlessness.
Speaker 1: As an older amateur musician and you know, full time
Speaker 1: human being, I'm still trying to figure it out now
Speaker 1: he's trying to help us along with this new podcast,
Speaker 1: Lightning Bugs conversations with Ben Folds Throughout the series, he
Speaker 1: demystifies the artistic process in a practical, scientific way by
Speaker 1: exploring creativity and its many forms. The series kicks off
Speaker 1: with an interview with anthropologist Augustine Fuentes, who argues that
Speaker 1: creativity was and is an evolutionary necessity. It's in all
Speaker 1: of us and has a practical place and everyone's everyday life,
Speaker 1: regardless of profession. Yeah, it's become a cliche to say
Speaker 1: that everyone is creative, but the Lightning Bugs podcast proves
Speaker 1: it with science and compelling discussions. I found the show
Speaker 1: to be inspiring an essential listening. I recommended it to
Speaker 1: so many of my friends. Even if you have no
Speaker 1: interest in music, it doesn't matter in the slightest. His
Speaker 1: guests are incredibly varied, ranging from comedian Bob Sagett to
Speaker 1: spiritual activist Mary Ann Williamson and business titan Jeff Lawson.
Speaker 1: There are music therapists, actors and TV show runners, and
Speaker 1: a choreographer end to further melt my brain. Each episode
Speaker 1: ends with an impromptu song. In case you didn't pick
Speaker 1: up on it, I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome Mr ben Folds.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy our discussion as much as I did. Then,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time this morning,
Speaker 1: your time, I really appreciate it. It's such as such
Speaker 1: an honor. Uh well, first off, even an amazing new
Speaker 1: podcast called Lightning Bugs Conversations with Ben Folds, which demystifies
Speaker 1: the creative process and takes the position that regardless of occupation,
Speaker 1: everyone is creative and to prove it, here's the science.
Speaker 1: What is the genesis of the show? How did it
Speaker 1: first come together? Well? I think it probably probably really
Speaker 1: the seeds probably were planted in the past decade or
Speaker 1: so as I've been going about for arts funding, because
Speaker 1: one of the one of the things when you trace
Speaker 1: it back and you see the lack of response and
Speaker 1: the lack of action and investing in essentially creativity, you
Speaker 1: begin to real is that we undervalue creativity and we
Speaker 1: misunderstand that it's something that's just for the arts sector,
Speaker 1: that is just for a little little artist making little
Speaker 1: trinkets on the side. And while that makes everyone happy,
Speaker 1: it doesn't put food on the table. But then when
Speaker 1: you start to kind of roll that back, what you realize,
Speaker 1: or you start to look underneath the hoods, what you
Speaker 1: realize is that the the the arts are a big,
Speaker 1: big economic driver. And furthermore, any business is successful is
Speaker 1: a creative business. And then you start to kind of
Speaker 1: go even further, and you're like, wait a minute, people
Speaker 1: wouldn't have survived as a species if it weren't for creativity.
Speaker 1: So it kind of gets bigger and bigger, and and
Speaker 1: the appreciation of it, even from my angle, has grown.
Speaker 1: And so what I've wanted to do is is really
Speaker 1: kind of reinstate people's self esteem about their own creativity
Speaker 1: because that is key to our survival and flourishing. So
Speaker 1: that's really that's a long way of saying it, but
Speaker 1: it did take a decade and a half to come
Speaker 1: to that. So so you know, taking seventy seconds to
Speaker 1: explain it, I guess makes sense. I mean, you're right there.
Speaker 1: There's a point. I feel like that every kid, at
Speaker 1: some point in their life gets told either through words
Speaker 1: or actions, that yeah, that you're you're you're good, but
Speaker 1: you're not good enough. That meaning like you're not good
Speaker 1: enough to actually make it pay, you know, And that's
Speaker 1: that's such a terrible thing to to do, because I
Speaker 1: think about it's a very Western way of looking at it.
Speaker 1: In the West, we we we take musicians, we other them,
Speaker 1: We put them up on a stage, put them up
Speaker 1: on on a literal pedestal. And sit back and kind
Speaker 1: of watch. And then you look at cultures where music
Speaker 1: is is a way of life and it's something that
Speaker 1: that is everybody is involved with every day. I mean,
Speaker 1: how do you combat that, how do you really sort
Speaker 1: of integrate it back into into everyday life. Well, I
Speaker 1: think you have to just I'd like to think what
Speaker 1: I'm doing with the podcast is slowly getting to that point,
Speaker 1: you know, just by showing one after another guests who
Speaker 1: are creative in different ways, and then uh, you know,
Speaker 1: having anthropologists on or musicologist or neurologist anyone to kind
Speaker 1: of then explain a little bit of of the importance
Speaker 1: of creativity and evolution, uh, in the way our brains
Speaker 1: work from day to day. If you just take music
Speaker 1: for instance, I mean, we are bombarded with music all
Speaker 1: day long, and so one could argue, well, music is
Speaker 1: a part of everyone's life, but we're passive in that.
Speaker 1: You know, like, like the way the human species evolved,
Speaker 1: it seems to be that we were active in it.
Speaker 1: You know, you sing about this, You sing about that,
Speaker 1: you sit around at the end of the day after
Speaker 1: you've done your whether it's hunting and gathering or whatever
Speaker 1: the human species was doing at any particular time in
Speaker 1: our evolution. And we are trading ideas through songs, we're
Speaker 1: actually healing, meaning that that everyone's always kind of understood.
Speaker 1: They could say a baby to sleep, or they could
Speaker 1: sing to someone to calm them down. Conflict resolution, empathy, celebration,
Speaker 1: all these things. People were doing those and in many, many,
Speaker 1: many cultures are still doing it. But we've yeah, you
Speaker 1: said westernized, we've commercialized music in a way. And when
Speaker 1: you say putting on a pestle, we've given license to
Speaker 1: a certain section of the population to be unnaturally popular
Speaker 1: at it while the rest of us sit around and
Speaker 1: and and watch it. And while I think that that's
Speaker 1: fun and that's that's that's that's a thing, you know,
Speaker 1: at the same time, it has sort of led to
Speaker 1: a framework. And the framework is that those people are
Speaker 1: creative and we are not. And those people are frivolous
Speaker 1: and we are practical. To be practical is to be creative,
Speaker 1: and to be creative is not frivolous at all. And
Speaker 1: it's completely unnatural what we're And although you know, maybe
Speaker 1: in ten thousand years of evolution will catch up to
Speaker 1: the rock concert, how goddamn weird that is I mean,
Speaker 1: you're right. Mean. One of my favorite guests that you
Speaker 1: had on the show was Augustin Flintes. It was an
Speaker 1: anthropologist who effectively said what you just said, that the
Speaker 1: creativity was an evolutionary necessity. And he was talking about
Speaker 1: how he was talking to somebody who came up to
Speaker 1: him after a seminar and said, yeah, I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just not creative. And he said, well, what is
Speaker 1: it that you do. I'm a scientist. Well you're a scientist.
Speaker 1: That's you would hope that that that people. I mean,
Speaker 1: science is all about creativity. Creativity, like you said, isn't
Speaker 1: you know, just just fingerpainting or banging a triangle in
Speaker 1: the back of a choir class or something. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is all around us. You know, there are practical benefits.
Speaker 1: It is. It is and and it's a matter when
Speaker 1: someone's not happy with what they're doing, Um, it's it's
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very possible that they just don't have
Speaker 1: I mean, I say they we I mean anytime I've
Speaker 1: been in in something that I didn't have some kind
Speaker 1: of creed of agency or some you know, some sort
Speaker 1: of collaborative creativity something inside it. God that makes you
Speaker 1: a lot happier about it. I remember working at a
Speaker 1: print shop when I was a teenager, and you know,
Speaker 1: my job is to go in six hours a day
Speaker 1: and just look at every single cigarette package. They were
Speaker 1: yet to be folded. You know, they're coming off of
Speaker 1: some kind of conveyor belt or something, and we're supposed
Speaker 1: to look at one after another for six hours to
Speaker 1: see if there were any smudges or anything on them,
Speaker 1: you know. And and that's about as uncreative as it
Speaker 1: gets to squint at thousands and thousands of cigarette rappers
Speaker 1: to see which has inconsistencies or smudges on it and
Speaker 1: put it aside. But I figured out this little way
Speaker 1: that me and my kind of partner, because they would
Speaker 1: pair us up, could do it really fast. And it
Speaker 1: was fun. Like suddenly it's like I'd come up with
Speaker 1: some thing, he'd come up with something. We figured it out.
Speaker 1: I do half of it, he'd do the other half.
Speaker 1: Flew through it in a day, and we got in
Speaker 1: trouble for breaking the curve because they had a certain
Speaker 1: productivity quotation that they needed to hit. And and furthermore,
Speaker 1: I was not to talk anymore because I was spreading
Speaker 1: bad ideas throughout the print shop that Luke or something.
Speaker 1: It was rough, but you know I thought about that.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I was happy for like
Speaker 1: two days doing this and I was giving them high productivity.
Speaker 1: But that's not the way we think, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't think that way. Like instead of instead of like
Speaker 1: the boss man going, wow, you know, this kid is happier,
Speaker 1: he's come up with something and we're more productive. He thought, shit,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lose my job because all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it's shown that we can do three times as much
Speaker 1: and I'll be expected to continue that rate. And I
Speaker 1: want this kid to shut up, and we're putting those
Speaker 1: rappers back in the bin. I mean that that is
Speaker 1: a a terrifying, very very cool hand luke like illustration
Speaker 1: of it is really well fine, but wow, I mean,
Speaker 1: but that's a great illustration of creativity has all sorts
Speaker 1: of practical benefits. I mean, well, let me ask you.
Speaker 1: Your your podcast is called lightning Bugs, and and lightning
Speaker 1: Bugs is an image that you used in the title
Speaker 1: of your your memoir a few years back. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you more about that. Why do you keep
Speaker 1: coming back to that metaphor why is it a Is
Speaker 1: it a touchstone for you? Well, I mean it's stuck
Speaker 1: because it was in a book and the book was
Speaker 1: published and in his Littering the Planet now, so uh,
Speaker 1: it gives it an attachment, as you'd understand, as you promote,
Speaker 1: you know, the things that you do, it attaches itself
Speaker 1: to something else and then further's the brand of that. Honestly,
Speaker 1: that's probably the main reason. But there is a good
Speaker 1: conceptual reason as well, which is that it is about creativity,
Speaker 1: and creativity as far as my metaphor for it comes
Speaker 1: from a dream when I was a kid that was
Speaker 1: about lightning bugs and catching them in a jar. And
Speaker 1: while that's cruel, the the idea that there's a flicker
Speaker 1: that you see and that you have to chase that flicker.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes even after it's not a flicker anymore.
Speaker 1: If you watch a firefly, it lights up and you
Speaker 1: see it then and then it sort of disappears for
Speaker 1: a while and you're not sure where he went, and
Speaker 1: then lights up again. And I think that's the way
Speaker 1: chasing creativity is. I think that metaphor works for continues
Speaker 1: to work for me for like loads of reasons that
Speaker 1: that I think of only after like later like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: you know, in the daylight you can't see the flickers
Speaker 1: at all. So I think of the daylight as being
Speaker 1: when you're overly aware of technique and process. So when
Speaker 1: you turn the lights on in your head and you
Speaker 1: really become a lucid thinker, suddenly all those creative ideas
Speaker 1: or are harder to chase because it's harder to see.
Speaker 1: It's harder to see the flicker. Reminds me of the
Speaker 1: discussion you're having with the with Sarah Barelli's where she
Speaker 1: was talking about how when she she first started writing
Speaker 1: songs that just sort of came from her, and then
Speaker 1: when she started learning theory and technique, it kind of
Speaker 1: spoiled the allore a little bit initially, and it kind
Speaker 1: of it was she felt almost stifled by it. And
Speaker 1: it's I know, that's got to be kind of a
Speaker 1: tricky thing too, because you you know, you have someone
Speaker 1: like Picasso who you think of as being this rule breaker,
Speaker 1: but then you look at his early work and it
Speaker 1: looks very classical. It looks like so I guess you
Speaker 1: kind of need to learn the rules in order to
Speaker 1: break them. But then's it's a fascinating dichotomy. No, but
Speaker 1: you're exactly like. What you're hitting on is it is
Speaker 1: the the great challenge of of art and creativity. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's if you're if you're diving into the unknown
Speaker 1: and into creative ideas, things that you haven't seen before.
Speaker 1: Just because of the way we're built, you're heading into
Speaker 1: a sea of contradictions. And the contradiction is, you know,
Speaker 1: you need to learn technique in order to make something,
Speaker 1: but learned the learning of the technique can be very distracting,
Speaker 1: can turn that light on and can make it difficult
Speaker 1: to see. So both those things exist that time. I
Speaker 1: think any of our artists worth their salt will at
Speaker 1: least admit that that technique is very important, and we'll
Speaker 1: also acknowledge that it can be extremely distracting and it
Speaker 1: can throw you completely off the horse. I would point
Speaker 1: out with someone like Sarah Barelli's that she has, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, impeccable singing technique, and she also has a
Speaker 1: no because we've worked together enough for me to know
Speaker 1: that she is. She's got one of the best ears.
Speaker 1: She's just absolutely insightful. Her talent and her technique is formidable.
Speaker 1: She just doesn't like the technique of placing the labels
Speaker 1: and the words and certain concepts to it. She would
Speaker 1: prefer someone else to it. And I would add to
Speaker 1: that that, as Augustine Flints pointed out Primatologist who was
Speaker 1: on My show, creativity has has evolved as a collaborate
Speaker 1: ative process. So you have one person who is able
Speaker 1: to pull off the technique, and you have another person
Speaker 1: you're collaborating with who might not have the technique but
Speaker 1: has a couple of ideas. That's a collaboration. You were
Speaker 1: saying earlier about how it was integrated into a community
Speaker 1: at one point, music in art in general. And uh,
Speaker 1: and as opposed to now when it's just the one
Speaker 1: person who gets exponentially more famous for you know, the
Speaker 1: one thing that they're able to do, Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: you know, that's part of the reason why with with
Speaker 1: with my recent records, people have considered those because I've
Speaker 1: given credit on the front of the record to my
Speaker 1: collaborators rather than just hiring them and putting them on
Speaker 1: the back of the record. Uh, it appears that I
Speaker 1: haven't made a solo record years. They're just as much
Speaker 1: solo as anything I ever did before. Just the way
Speaker 1: you put your name on it's kind of like Ben
Speaker 1: Folds five had my name on. It made it look
Speaker 1: more like like a solo thing, that it was a
Speaker 1: collaborative thing, but was actually the opposite. So I suppose
Speaker 1: I've felt like I needed to rectify that that over
Speaker 1: the years. The ethos of your show Everyone Is Creative
Speaker 1: is really potent for me, because you are a major
Speaker 1: reason I learned how to play piano, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to play your songs, and I love music and I
Speaker 1: love playing. I have never in my entire life I'm three,
Speaker 1: three years old, I have never been able to write
Speaker 1: a song. I can't do it. I desperately want to. Instead,
Speaker 1: I speak to people who can and hope that some
Speaker 1: of their magic rubs off on me, and of course
Speaker 1: it never does. What would you say to someone like
Speaker 1: me who really just struggles. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: self censorship. I don't know if it's fear of failure,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. What would you say
Speaker 1: to someone like me to try to help break through that? Well,
Speaker 1: my hard asked Russian teacher part which I don't know
Speaker 1: why that exists, but there is one voice like that
Speaker 1: in the back of my head. You know, the the
Speaker 1: violin teacher that wraps you on the knuckles with the
Speaker 1: ruler when you play a scale wrong, I would say,
Speaker 1: you're not trying hard enough. That's one. That would be
Speaker 1: one side, because there are two forces that play. There
Speaker 1: is how your willpower and then the uh you know,
Speaker 1: the inertia of ideas and the fear you have to
Speaker 1: break through and all the all the self censorship. You
Speaker 1: have to try harder than UH than your opponent. You
Speaker 1: have to get past that opponent and into the end zone.
Speaker 1: And it never ever was easy for anyone. I fucking
Speaker 1: hate it. I hate writing songs. I do. I've always
Speaker 1: hated writing songs. I think it's hard to do. Every
Speaker 1: time I do it. In the middle of it, I'm
Speaker 1: convinced it's not original, it's terrible, it's awful, it should
Speaker 1: be thrown away. I'm horrified if I've shown it to anyone.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be gone, and and it just kind
Speaker 1: of have to keep doing it now. That said, the
Speaker 1: other side is my kindness side, which is like, how
Speaker 1: can we soften that opponent up? How can you get
Speaker 1: past that opponent? If you're self centering, you have to
Speaker 1: find a way not to do that so much. And
Speaker 1: some of it is going to be confident someone telling you, like,
Speaker 1: you know, one of my guests, Caleb Tisher, is very young.
Speaker 1: He's a tap dancer. He said something really cool, which
Speaker 1: is he he shows some of his stuff that he's
Speaker 1: working on to his closest. Yes, people like the equivalent
Speaker 1: to like showing it to your mom and having to
Speaker 1: tell you it's great. He needs that. And you know what,
Speaker 1: that's not a bad idea as long as you don't
Speaker 1: take that completely at the heart. If you need some
Speaker 1: fuel to get through to be like, man, it's really good,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with that. At some point, your editor
Speaker 1: is going to come in. Your editor will come in
Speaker 1: and cut this ship the size you're gonna be, You're
Speaker 1: gonna be okay. So I think getting that self censoring
Speaker 1: out of the way is key for some people. That
Speaker 1: is a for some people that that could be alcohol
Speaker 1: or drugs, and I wouldn't recommend that, but you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't ignore that. That has been a big part
Speaker 1: of people creating and it's the easy way out. But
Speaker 1: but there are many other ways that are probably better
Speaker 1: because you can probably do a better job is something
Speaker 1: if you're not fucked up. I mean, I think, like,
Speaker 1: there's no reason why chilling out meditation in your life somehow,
Speaker 1: a little bit of work on yourself so that you
Speaker 1: don't have such low self esteem. To have people like
Speaker 1: myself who do make things telling you you can do
Speaker 1: it is not bad, you know, because that's what we
Speaker 1: should be doing. Like what else? I mean? Basically, you
Speaker 1: have to be able to spit out your ideas with
Speaker 1: no judgment. You have them there there, you just don't
Speaker 1: like them. You've got an idea right now, you could
Speaker 1: grab one of the guitars behind you and you could
Speaker 1: make something right now, or the piano next to you.
Speaker 1: You could do this immediately. You play the first chord
Speaker 1: you have under your hand or in your head. Just
Speaker 1: play it and then sit and wait. Well, what's the
Speaker 1: next thing? You might say? Nothing, awesome, that's arrest. What's
Speaker 1: the next thing? Oh God, I don't know. I guess
Speaker 1: I'll repeat the A minor. Hit the A minor again.
Speaker 1: What's next? Nothing? Space? Okay, we have a chord space
Speaker 1: chord space. Why did you do that? Well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: because he told me to. What's the name of your song?
Speaker 1: Because he told me too. There's always something there. You
Speaker 1: can follow what happens naturally through that process, and you
Speaker 1: you will make something. Now you're gonna tell me you
Speaker 1: don't like it, or it's not good enough, for it's
Speaker 1: not original. What's your problem? I mean, the truth is
Speaker 1: it is real and you've been making it up. I say,
Speaker 1: keep building on it. There's a really fascinating clip of
Speaker 1: Paul Simon on Dick Cavit in the mid seventies where
Speaker 1: he's midway. I think he's working on Still Crazy after
Speaker 1: all these years and he hasn't finished it, and and
Speaker 1: he goes through all the different harmonic possibilities that he
Speaker 1: could that are available to him, and it's it becomes
Speaker 1: like a puzzle. And I wanted to ask you, how
Speaker 1: much of songwriting is is problem solving? Oh beautiful question.
Speaker 1: Creativity is so much more fun when we're solving a problem.
Speaker 1: And problem solving is also a really good distraction. It's
Speaker 1: like math. It's like we're not we're not interested in
Speaker 1: math until we have to know how far away we
Speaker 1: should park our car from the corner, or we have
Speaker 1: to know how much money is left at the end
Speaker 1: of the month. You know, like suddenly math becomes interesting
Speaker 1: because you're using it to solve a problem. And creativity
Speaker 1: has that kind of relationship with problem solving too, where
Speaker 1: it's a little bit the other way around. When we're
Speaker 1: solving a problem, we've become more interested in what we're doing.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got a problem to solve and you
Speaker 1: have to come up with a creative way to do it.
Speaker 1: So creativity becomes necessity and it feels welcome. And so
Speaker 1: I think that that that problem solving and creativity of
Speaker 1: any kind just go hand in hand. And Paul Simon
Speaker 1: is a very lucid, obsessive songwriter, very thorough and also
Speaker 1: very poetic, so he's he's probably had a very hard road,
Speaker 1: like a lot of work has gone into his songs,
Speaker 1: the one you're talking about still Crazy after all these years,
Speaker 1: you know, it occurred to him that maybe what he
Speaker 1: needed to do for the bridge was leap to a
Speaker 1: harmonic environment which he hadn't explored yet, which was roughly
Speaker 1: in the key or enough related to the melody, because
Speaker 1: he wanted to interrupt just a new world suddenly. I
Speaker 1: don't think he would apply that rule to everything, but
Speaker 1: it occurred to him how how can I get somewhere?
Speaker 1: And his you know, his intuitive mind told him, you
Speaker 1: need to go somewhere a new space, like I need
Speaker 1: to walk into a new space. And so he looked
Speaker 1: at his choices as he's problem solving and it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: inspiration is stricken, I hear far in the morning. It's
Speaker 1: not the way it happened for him. It was actually
Speaker 1: fairly intellectual as he realized he needed to go somewhere new.
Speaker 1: This is what happens when you're writing a song, is
Speaker 1: that a lot of stuff becomes suddenly intellectual, and then
Speaker 1: the intellectual pops it over to your inspirational and you
Speaker 1: chuck it back and forth. And what do you do
Speaker 1: when you're you're kind of up against it and trying
Speaker 1: to push through it. I think I saw something on
Speaker 1: Instagram or you were saying you were going out for
Speaker 1: a lyric walk too. Is that something that's helpful for
Speaker 1: you to kind of step away from it literally and
Speaker 1: metaphorically and and kind of clear your head? Or yeah,
Speaker 1: I do, And that's like, you know, that's that's me
Speaker 1: at the point where, um, you know, you've probably found
Speaker 1: yourself walking up to a massive skyscraper of resistance as
Speaker 1: you decide you might want to write something. And that's
Speaker 1: me looking at the skyscraper and going, okay, well, which
Speaker 1: door can I walk in? I don't think I can
Speaker 1: climb the steps. I don't know, but I'm gonna walk
Speaker 1: in the door. So like kind of moving, you know,
Speaker 1: entering another place, just doing something to move forward. As
Speaker 1: someone recently told me that his father said to him,
Speaker 1: enough shavings makes a pile, and I like at So
Speaker 1: it's like if I will, if I take a walk
Speaker 1: and I end up with just one tiny concept or
Speaker 1: three syllables, or even something that I've cut from a song,
Speaker 1: I've made progress. I'm closer to finishing the song. He's
Speaker 1: writing something that you do every day, like some people do,
Speaker 1: like a yoga practice or jogging, or is it something
Speaker 1: that you have something that you want to say you
Speaker 1: sit down and begin begin working on it. No, the
Speaker 1: crafting of writing is something I don't do that often. More.
Speaker 1: What I do is go off in my brain playing
Speaker 1: with a song that I haven't heard before, or maybe
Speaker 1: even something that I have. I mean, there's no rules
Speaker 1: to it. Maybe I can change around something someone else
Speaker 1: wrote for a second, or imagine a piano solo, or
Speaker 1: just kind of almost compulsively run four bars of strings
Speaker 1: around in my head. I'm not gonna do anything with
Speaker 1: that stuff. That's what I do most of the time.
Speaker 1: It just it just runs in my head in some
Speaker 1: sort of way. It doesn't seem like anything. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like messing with it. My willpower, uh to make something.
Speaker 1: It's not great enough because no one's given me a deadline.
Speaker 1: It's gonna asking me, do you get more inspiration looking
Speaker 1: outward or looking inward? That's a good question. I think
Speaker 1: when you look outward, you're still looking inward because you're
Speaker 1: gonna look at the landscape and see the shapes that
Speaker 1: look most like you or what you're interested in. You know.
Speaker 1: So if I'm writing about somebody, you know, later on
Speaker 1: I'll look back on and go, oh, I was writing
Speaker 1: about them because something about them was either reminding me
Speaker 1: of me, something I wanted to be, something that I
Speaker 1: was horrified if I was something I was interested in
Speaker 1: about that character of that person. And it's easy to
Speaker 1: write in characters. I don't know if it's easy, but
Speaker 1: it's I I like to write in characters sometimes because
Speaker 1: you know, it allows you that freedom to like asking
Speaker 1: for a friend kind of stuff. I mean, I've always
Speaker 1: been so fascinated by your characters because I mean they're
Speaker 1: so varied. I mean, there's there's a Japanese businessman in
Speaker 1: the midst of the midlife crisis. There's there's an archie
Speaker 1: bunker ish Uncle Walter, there's an Alecturius mall Cop, there's
Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali. I mean, and you always portray them, even
Speaker 1: when you're critical of them, if you portray them with
Speaker 1: with empathy and respect. And it's so fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: What draws you to a certain character? I mean, does
Speaker 1: it allow you, like you said, to express a certain
Speaker 1: side of yourself or is it just a character that
Speaker 1: interests you and you kind of want to get inside
Speaker 1: their head just just per fun Well. I think that's
Speaker 1: where it goes back to my metaphor about the lightning bugs.
Speaker 1: It's like something illuminates, like some something something flickers, and
Speaker 1: it could be like you know, like I think one
Speaker 1: great example of a song like that is John McCrae
Speaker 1: of Cake his song opera Singer you know that song
Speaker 1: I Am an opera singer. It's awesome because he's sort
Speaker 1: of like something like what does John know about about
Speaker 1: opera singers? You know, but he saw something or I've
Speaker 1: never asked him, like, but something was luminous about that character.
Speaker 1: And then John is in it too, you know, when
Speaker 1: there's he sings about meeting heads of state and he
Speaker 1: stands on painted tape. He's told where to go and
Speaker 1: where to sing. And this shows how wrote singing someone
Speaker 1: else's songs could be and how he doesn't understand why
Speaker 1: people want to shake his hand all the time and
Speaker 1: tell him he's great. But he loves it. And it's,
Speaker 1: you know, like something lit up in the sky. And
Speaker 1: I think that's where the mystery is. It's like why,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Let's not ask why right now, let's
Speaker 1: just do it. I mean I remember one day going, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to write Charlie she and the Musical, Like
Speaker 1: just one day I was like, man, this would be
Speaker 1: great because think about how many people hate him and
Speaker 1: what he stands for and also are jealous that he
Speaker 1: can say anything he wants to. And probably a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of slightly more darker closeted people about things
Speaker 1: wish that they were able to do all those things
Speaker 1: and live that lifestyle. And they're even more judgmental of him,
Speaker 1: and I thought, wouldn't that'd be a great song by
Speaker 1: the end of the day, or our musical or song.
Speaker 1: And by the end of the day, I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'll mess with that. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean what your opper singer. I mean, it makes
Speaker 1: me think of your song on being Frank. You know
Speaker 1: I said I had it all? Or should I said
Speaker 1: I saw it all? I mean, being this adjacent figured
Speaker 1: to Frank Sinatra, it said, it's another Yeah, just it
Speaker 1: reminds me of looking at the world through somebody else's eyes.
Speaker 1: I suppose I ended up meeting the the X tour
Speaker 1: manager of Frank Sinatra, just by chance, and I played
Speaker 1: him the song on my phone in his ear at
Speaker 1: a dinner because he was interested. And he goes, um, no,
Speaker 1: that doesn't selling me. Nah. Now, I've been looking after
Speaker 1: Don Ripples now for years, not you know, my my
Speaker 1: my friends started a restaurant, and I've been interested in that,
Speaker 1: and I'm on it like not wasn't him at all?
Speaker 1: But the point wasn't that it was about him. The
Speaker 1: point was I think I was interested in a character
Speaker 1: such as that because I was interested in anyone, which
Speaker 1: is almost anyone who has been in a relay and
Speaker 1: ship for so long that they forget who. There was
Speaker 1: an episode of you. I think it was the episode
Speaker 1: with Bob Sagett when you were talking with him about
Speaker 1: how hard it was to get back to the raw
Speaker 1: joy of writing music when you were thirteen, like it
Speaker 1: had become to a certain degree work. How do you,
Speaker 1: and really just anyone stave that off and preserve as
Speaker 1: much joy in the creative process as they can. Well,
Speaker 1: I think there's a certain kind of artist that high
Speaker 1: fives himself in the studio up and down and and
Speaker 1: just like that is the ship to listen to that,
Speaker 1: that's that's me, Scrow. That's the best thing I've ever
Speaker 1: heard in my life. And I really, uh kind of
Speaker 1: admire and I'm jealous of that. I think the problem
Speaker 1: is with many of us is that we get to
Speaker 1: critical and jaded really early. And I say, I think
Speaker 1: I was probably guilty that I don't know how you
Speaker 1: stave that off. I mean, I'm not that damn impressed
Speaker 1: with what I do, and I think that that is
Speaker 1: you know, I think that that makes it harder. Maybe
Speaker 1: it makes my quality control a little more rigorous, you know, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone needs another one in my fucking
Speaker 1: songs or or or hear my voice coming out of
Speaker 1: a speaker. That's really how I feel in the depths
Speaker 1: of my soul. But then, you know, like I'm here
Speaker 1: on earth, I don't think anyone needs me to drink
Speaker 1: the water or to be a hole in the air,
Speaker 1: to to to to you know, stuff a shirt like I,
Speaker 1: I don't know why we're here, so I just am
Speaker 1: compelled to do it, you know, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's a little bleaker than maybe some
Speaker 1: artists who were inspired by what they do. At the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I like I I come out
Speaker 1: of the funk and I think, hey, that's okay, that
Speaker 1: song is okay. And I'll talk to someone like you
Speaker 1: and you like you know the names of the songs
Speaker 1: and have heard them and makes you happy, and I'm
Speaker 1: like good they were used to incredibly useful. That was
Speaker 1: such a great episode with with Bob's hacket because it
Speaker 1: was funny because you both almost started out in each
Speaker 1: other's places. Bob was talking about writing serious songs as
Speaker 1: a teen and and and filing up with the library
Speaker 1: of Congress or something, and then you were talking about
Speaker 1: how some of your early songs were these beautiful melodies
Speaker 1: with really raunchy lyrics played at you know, a J. C.
Speaker 1: Penny's or department store, and it got me thinking about
Speaker 1: the funny similarities in a way between comedy and music.
Speaker 1: How they I heard somebody say once that all comedians
Speaker 1: want to be musicians, and all musicians want to be comedians,
Speaker 1: and I was wondering. I mean, I think of people
Speaker 1: like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, who it's like jazz,
Speaker 1: I mean the rhythm of the words, and and then
Speaker 1: people like the Beatles, following in with the Monty Python
Speaker 1: crowd and early SML performers, with a lot of blues
Speaker 1: musicians stuff. What is the relationship, if any, between between
Speaker 1: music and comedy. Well, I think there are a lot
Speaker 1: of songwriters or musicians who see the world for its absurdity.
Speaker 1: I think the best comedians do. I think the best
Speaker 1: songwriters are painfully honest. Now that doesn't mean that they're
Speaker 1: that that it's a reflect action, specifically honestly of their lives. So,
Speaker 1: like you know, Bruce Springsteen says he went to the
Speaker 1: Badlands that maybe he's never been there. We don't have to,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I don't mean literal I mean emotional honesty,
Speaker 1: that that's in common. But I don't think all comedians
Speaker 1: at all musicians necessarily have that have that that that
Speaker 1: that tie. Yeah, I mean, for me, it's just it's
Speaker 1: just the absurdity. I've I've always been blown away that
Speaker 1: how little tolerance people have in songs for some humor,
Speaker 1: because I've always felt like, uh, like humor isn't humor,
Speaker 1: isn't um just purely funny. Humor is sad and angry
Speaker 1: and you know, confused. And that's what a good song
Speaker 1: should be. Bob and I have, uh, I mean, we
Speaker 1: we've we've got a load in common. We we were
Speaker 1: we were great budds from the moment we met back
Speaker 1: in and I don't know if we go a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks without communicating, no matter where where we are,
Speaker 1: we we see things very very similarly. And like you say,
Speaker 1: it's funny because I started off writing like all these
Speaker 1: dick sucking songs and and and now that that's Bob's
Speaker 1: that's Bob's thing, and he started off writing serious songs,
Speaker 1: and now that's my thing. I think, I think, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess I got the better end of that deal.
Speaker 1: The humor, I mean, it's it's to laugh to keep
Speaker 1: from crying. I mean, I think of your your song
Speaker 1: from last year twenty just I mean it was a
Speaker 1: funny song in a lot of ways about just this
Speaker 1: absolutely horrific time in our world and our on our planet.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that was in some way. Was that
Speaker 1: cathartic for you to write something like that? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, like like waltz has great for spective. A
Speaker 1: waltz is something that you you know, you eve were waltz,
Speaker 1: and waltz is like this old person who has kind
Speaker 1: of put it in perspective like Vienna the Billy Joel's song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just old. That's totally a waltz. Yeah, there's something
Speaker 1: slightly distancing about a waltz. I mean, the waltz doesn't
Speaker 1: sit down and just cry on your sofa. You can't
Speaker 1: think of a waltz it does that. It has a
Speaker 1: voice of of a solid this is bad inging thing thing,
Speaker 1: but it will pass ding thinking. And so I kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to, like, you know, uh, diminish it a
Speaker 1: little bit and then the absurdity of how many years
Speaker 1: it felt like we were living. I Mean, the funny
Speaker 1: thing is it's like, you know, last year really was
Speaker 1: and we may not now remember that. It may it
Speaker 1: may take a while before this is kind of sinks
Speaker 1: in again. But at the time you really didn't know
Speaker 1: what year it was. From day to day, it's like,
Speaker 1: is this nine this is okay? These these protests okay?
Speaker 1: Now is this nineteen thirty eight? Are we Is this
Speaker 1: Nazi time? Is that what this is? Oh? No, guess
Speaker 1: what is the Civil War? Just just saw that on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Civil War? Definitely, definitely definitely eighteen sixties. So that was
Speaker 1: so scary not knowing what year we were going to relive.
Speaker 1: That was the worst year in in uh in history.
Speaker 1: Um And now it's like we're just stuck and in
Speaker 1: the slowest year ever. Rather than reliving them all over
Speaker 1: and over again, we are now just in one long
Speaker 1: year sow one, maybe even two will feel like one year.
Speaker 1: Kind of the way we look back at Pontiacts and
Speaker 1: it's like, you can't tell the difference between three years
Speaker 1: of pontiac They all had the same headlights on you.
Speaker 1: Unlike many musicians, I've talked to recently have actually started
Speaker 1: playing shows again in in Australia. How's how's that been
Speaker 1: like for you? You know? I did, Yeah, I finished
Speaker 1: off tour. It was good. It It was a different
Speaker 1: sort of reality than the one that I think will
Speaker 1: ever be in the US, because they were they had
Speaker 1: to adopt zero kind of a zero zero talance policy
Speaker 1: on the virus in order to survive. So um, right
Speaker 1: now there are I think ten, maybe ten new cases
Speaker 1: of COVID in the entire country and and we are
Speaker 1: flipping out because ten is ten too many, and so
Speaker 1: they're shutting down a second week of lockdown in uh Melbourne,
Speaker 1: which is gonna cost Untold millions and millions and hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars for their economy to keep the
Speaker 1: rest of the country safe. And so with that kind
Speaker 1: of pedantic care, touring was really kind of tough. I mean,
Speaker 1: I felt like I didn't go five seconds without getting
Speaker 1: jabbed up the nose and sent back into quarantine and
Speaker 1: wondering if the show was going to go on that night,
Speaker 1: you know, And sometimes the rules would be different. If
Speaker 1: I'm walking through an orchestra for rehearsal, it's like a
Speaker 1: couple of masks on me to get to the seat.
Speaker 1: Then I got the seat. No one's within two ms
Speaker 1: to me, I can look both ways, take the mask off,
Speaker 1: you know, little things like that. I mean, you've been
Speaker 1: living with it in the in America, but it hasn't
Speaker 1: been like one person is going to tip the country
Speaker 1: into into into COVID, you know. So so there was
Speaker 1: a different vibe. Now it's pretty relaxed most places, and
Speaker 1: I feel like when I get to the States, it's
Speaker 1: probably a little more relaxed. But every country, you know,
Speaker 1: the world is is raging with this virus much more
Speaker 1: than it was, and in America seems like things are
Speaker 1: getting better. So I find, you know, living outside of
Speaker 1: America just highlights to me all the more how different
Speaker 1: of an experience it is everywhere in the world. Um,
Speaker 1: it's very different everywhere else. I should have asked this
Speaker 1: compassionate question earlier. How have you been? Have you been
Speaker 1: dealing with all of this? Have you been? Have you
Speaker 1: been okay? Oh? Thanks man, Well I should it asked
Speaker 1: the same of you. You look, I mean, you look
Speaker 1: like you're doing well. I probably sound just fine. I
Speaker 1: think we're doing good. Man. Thank you for asking you know,
Speaker 1: it's been you know, it's just everyone's been improvising through it.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we end up it ends up being a good
Speaker 1: thing for everyone, you know, because I remember that, Uh,
Speaker 1: I mta say a good thing for everyone? I mean
Speaker 1: that's so, that's such a mine field of people have
Speaker 1: lost their jobs, their family, uh, their their their lives,
Speaker 1: their help. I mean, look, you can't take you can't
Speaker 1: flippantly talk through that, can you. But on the broader
Speaker 1: scale of humanity, hopefully we can find the silver lining.
Speaker 1: I I remember reading an economist over a year ago
Speaker 1: as we were slipping into the pandemic, saying, I believe
Speaker 1: that this may put the economy in the twenty one
Speaker 1: century uh and and was outlining some things that maybe
Speaker 1: it was time that these things happened for the betterment
Speaker 1: of people's lives in general. Who knows. I feel like
Speaker 1: I've been trying to do that for me, Like what
Speaker 1: matters most? Has there been a silver lining for you
Speaker 1: this last year? Stopping having to stop touring? That that's
Speaker 1: been one. And while that's a huge financial issue and
Speaker 1: a scary career thing, it's also from just a mental
Speaker 1: health point of view, it's amazing not to be living
Speaker 1: in different time zones every day, and not living in
Speaker 1: hotels and buses, and actually having some time when I
Speaker 1: wasn't meeting seventy five new people a day. I saw
Speaker 1: on on Instagram, probably around last summer, you said something
Speaker 1: about how the new album is coming together in this apartment.
Speaker 1: Is that something that that you're working on or is
Speaker 1: that just a tease? My new album is like your
Speaker 1: new song. It is. It's just it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It doesn't exist until I do it. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like I can say it all I want to put
Speaker 1: it out there to the world, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's working on an album, where is it? I? You know,
Speaker 1: I I it's some of that puts pressure on me.
Speaker 1: Like if I make an announcement and than uh, than,
Speaker 1: then it increases the pressure to do it. You should
Speaker 1: announce on this show that your new song is coming
Speaker 1: next week. I'll do it. If I can announce that
Speaker 1: your new album's coming at the end of the year. Wow,
Speaker 1: you drive a hard brinkmanship. I've got a lot of it,
Speaker 1: I do. And I bet you've got a lot more
Speaker 1: of a batch of songs than than you think. I
Speaker 1: think you probably to uh. You know, being intelligent, thoughtful,
Speaker 1: and compassionate is really another one of those contradictions to creativity.
Speaker 1: It's difficult because you think of all the reasons why
Speaker 1: what you what you might want to do is not necessary,
Speaker 1: not good enough, all these things. But you know, I
Speaker 1: go with the old Nike just do it things and
Speaker 1: see what happen. Well, I'm none of those things. So
Speaker 1: I still don't know what my excuse is. But thank you.
Speaker 1: You just proved that you are everyone that's not. It
Speaker 1: has been such a pleasure talking. Might my last question
Speaker 1: before I let you go on Lightning Bugs, there's a
Speaker 1: really great segment called New Week Resolution, where your guests
Speaker 1: share a kind of awareness exercise that would help listeners creatively.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you the same question. Do you
Speaker 1: have a New Week resolution for us this week? Not
Speaker 1: to put you totally on the spot. Oh that is
Speaker 1: the whole wow. I always give my you know, we
Speaker 1: always give the guest to heads up on that, But
Speaker 1: I guess I've had mine, haven't I do? The show?
Speaker 1: Isn't that funny that I haven't even thought about it
Speaker 1: for myself. I've just been listening to everyone else's. Well,
Speaker 1: let me think really quickly off the bat, what would
Speaker 1: I say, the most useful thing that I can think
Speaker 1: of for someone to do well, This would be specifically
Speaker 1: for for you as a songwriter. Then let's let's go
Speaker 1: with the morning thing. I mean, I don't think it
Speaker 1: needs to be morning, but let's just go with the
Speaker 1: morning thing. And um, you just need to um, basically
Speaker 1: shift out the first couple of chords, any configuration of notes,
Speaker 1: any words that come to mind faster than they I mean,
Speaker 1: if you judge them in halls and don't write them down,
Speaker 1: then you get electric shock. You can't do that, So
Speaker 1: we have to hook you up to a wall socket
Speaker 1: and just give yourself fifteen mins a day. And these
Speaker 1: are the shavings of your pile for the end of
Speaker 1: the week. And at the end of the week you
Speaker 1: have an unedited bunch of stuff. And that is just
Speaker 1: step one. And uh, but but it is a step.
Speaker 1: And if you don't make that step, you won't get
Speaker 1: to the next one. And I think you probably need
Speaker 1: to have a promise that you're going to do that
Speaker 1: again the next week. And I think that's a kind
Speaker 1: way of doing it, because the other way is you
Speaker 1: have to create something and finish at this moment. And
Speaker 1: that's the more Russian violinist teacher way of doing it,
Speaker 1: and it's probably pretty effective. But I think for you
Speaker 1: and those like you, let's let's see what kind of
Speaker 1: pile of shavings you can have at the week, and
Speaker 1: don't judge the pile at the end of the week.
Speaker 1: Even if their cords that aren't related to each other.
Speaker 1: There there aren't notes that are related to each other,
Speaker 1: words that are really aided. They are. They came out
Speaker 1: of this time period, and when you look at them
Speaker 1: in two or three years, you'll know that you won't
Speaker 1: come up with those that year. You came up with
Speaker 1: them now the way things feel now. So just appreciate
Speaker 1: them for what they are, consider them a first step,
Speaker 1: you know, and then continue to go. I think that
Speaker 1: that kind of forward motion. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: a proper exercise, but um, but I think, uh uh,
Speaker 1: you know, making a pile of shavings for the end
Speaker 1: of the week two and you're gonna look at them
Speaker 1: at the end of the week, take a drink, look
Speaker 1: at them, appreciate them, think that they're kind of funny,
Speaker 1: don't judge them at all. It's not tough. That's that's
Speaker 1: not a good that's not a good New Week's resolution.
Speaker 1: I wasn't organized, but uh, there's something to it. Ben Foles,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your music and your time
Speaker 1: today and all of your your your expertise and words
Speaker 1: of wisdom. And it has been such a pleasure talking you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Oh thanks man. Really good to meet you,
Speaker 1: good to talk to you. Absolutely like, no, I I
Speaker 1: have seen you. I'm about to turn into Chris Farley
Speaker 1: talking to Paul McCartney for a minute, So I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I have seen you probably Jesus fifteen times. I was
Speaker 1: showing Mike and I was too nervous to show you,
Speaker 1: but he told me I should above my piano. Is
Speaker 1: this this is your piano key from the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.
Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome. No, thank you, that's that's great. I
Speaker 1: mean we that that all went to some good stuff,
Speaker 1: that bought some kids, some some uh some musical instruments.
Speaker 1: And now yeah, I mean I I thought it was
Speaker 1: such an amazing thing you did. And now it has
Speaker 1: proud of place my inspiration above my piano when I'm
Speaker 1: trying and failing to play philosophy or something I keeps
Speaker 1: me going. So no, thank you so much for all
Speaker 1: the joy you've you've given me over the years. It's
Speaker 1: it's so wonderful talking to you. Thank you, oh man, Thanks,
Speaker 1: thanks very much, it's pleasure. We hope you enjoyed this
Speaker 1: episode of Inside the Studio, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows,
Speaker 1: check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.