Speaker 1: Growing up in the church. Did you ever see an exorcism? Like?
Speaker 1: Was it? Yeah? You did. Welcome to Kesha and the
Speaker 1: Creepies today. Is one of my best friends and a
Speaker 1: very special guest. Ben Abraham, singer, songwriter, artist extraordinaire. I'll
Speaker 1: take it whatever the script, as you've got one of
Speaker 1: my favorite singers and songwriters, one of my top top favorites.
Speaker 1: That's well, that's very cold. You have great taste. So
Speaker 1: I received that as high praise. I remember when you
Speaker 1: sent me a video not that long ago of you
Speaker 1: singing Praying and I was like, damn it, Ben, you
Speaker 1: can't sing my song that we wrote together better than me.
Speaker 1: I'm about like a four. Nobody sings it better than you.
Speaker 1: Just so we're clear, No, not true. It's on my
Speaker 1: Instagram if anybody wants to see it. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1: That's very that's very conn I mean that. What an
Speaker 1: amazing experience that was. I know. So we met. For
Speaker 1: those listening who don't know our backstory, we met because
Speaker 1: we wrote Praying together with Ryan Lewis, and that turned
Speaker 1: into like probably the most important song of my life
Speaker 1: and a very pivotal moment for me. And from what
Speaker 1: you've told me it was a cool moment for your
Speaker 1: life too. It's just like a yeah, I mean life changing,
Speaker 1: life changing, same super life changing for me. And then
Speaker 1: you performed at the Grammys with me, which was isn't
Speaker 1: that what three years ago? Like last week? Oh my god?
Speaker 1: That feels like I've done a lot of dumb, crazy, wild,
Speaker 1: insane ship That was definitely, I think the scariest thing
Speaker 1: I've ever done in my life. I get that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny that grab I I feel really lucky that
Speaker 1: I had that experience, um, because I guess as a musician,
Speaker 1: we all there's some part of our brains. Even if
Speaker 1: you're like who cares about awards and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: there's still some part of your brain that's like, that's
Speaker 1: a goal in your career. I feel really lucky that
Speaker 1: I was first exposed to it kind of in secret
Speaker 1: and in hiding through you, because it really dispelled it
Speaker 1: for me, Like it was walking in you have all
Speaker 1: these expectations, and I remember there being a moment before
Speaker 1: it even started where I was standing. I remember you
Speaker 1: were in that dressing room upstairs, and I'd come to
Speaker 1: say hi to you, and then I walked out into
Speaker 1: your balcony and looked over the the space and I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, it's like it's a show in a
Speaker 1: big arena and it's fun. And it's not that it's
Speaker 1: not everything. This is not like what all music is about.
Speaker 1: It was something kind of I feel lucky that I
Speaker 1: was exposed to it then, so that you know, if
Speaker 1: I'm ever lucky enough to go back there with my
Speaker 1: own work, I feel like I've already gone through the
Speaker 1: feeling of it once before. Yeah, like intense kind of
Speaker 1: build up. It's like a mythical thing. It's like seeing
Speaker 1: the Lockness monster or something. And then once you're like
Speaker 1: up there in it, you're like, oh, okay, well it's
Speaker 1: just like something like you see it's like it's not
Speaker 1: really a monster. It's just like two old dudes with
Speaker 1: like a stick in a broom and like, yes, but
Speaker 1: we've all agreed that, like it's really important and that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people love I believe people love ritual Like yeah, marriage
Speaker 1: or baptism or Christmas, whatever it is. We like reasons
Speaker 1: to celebrate. I have like this very weird thing where
Speaker 1: art isn't a competition, but then but then it is
Speaker 1: because there's number one, and then there's number two and
Speaker 1: you come at number two and you're bummed it's not
Speaker 1: number one instead of being like, holy ship, my song
Speaker 1: number two. So it's sod when it gets rank, like
Speaker 1: like it's it's the idea of it being a race. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like competition. You feel this, like how do you compare?
Speaker 1: Like some of my favorite musicians in Melbourne, where I'm
Speaker 1: from and where I am at the moment, are like
Speaker 1: weird ass noise artists who like can stand on a
Speaker 1: stage and create these really challenging, crazy noise scapes soundscapes
Speaker 1: and they're so inspiring. And then I can take that
Speaker 1: and as filter it through my lens and maybe incorporate
Speaker 1: some of that noise into a song that might become
Speaker 1: a big pop song. How do you say that one
Speaker 1: is more important than the other, especially if one kind
Speaker 1: of inspired the other thing. And it's crazy that we
Speaker 1: live in a world that makes forces us to compete
Speaker 1: with each other and like rank. So I'm like a
Speaker 1: big fan of not competing anymore. Like I've decided for
Speaker 1: better for worse, this could be the end of my career,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to compete with anybody anymore. I
Speaker 1: just it's so exhausting. It is so exhausting, so much
Speaker 1: energy put into something that isn't even like we created it.
Speaker 1: It's not really real. Like I had that same moment
Speaker 1: at the Grammy's when you were there, and I just
Speaker 1: couldn't stop crying hysterically because I was so nervous, and
Speaker 1: I would like look out and Elton John's like walking
Speaker 1: down the hallway and I was like, what is life?
Speaker 1: This is so weird. And then you just get out
Speaker 1: on the stage and you play a song just like
Speaker 1: you'd get out on stage and play a song at
Speaker 1: like a radio show or any other place like at
Speaker 1: the coffee shop, and you realize it's like, wow, it's
Speaker 1: like this whole big thing that we constructed to make
Speaker 1: a big ordeal about art, and you realize that you
Speaker 1: look back, I don't know who won Best. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know if I remember a lot of the awards.
Speaker 1: I mean I remember who beat us? Yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: do edge her in. No. It was weird and it
Speaker 1: was scary, and I can't really say it was fun
Speaker 1: because I felt like I was going to ship my
Speaker 1: pants and I was wearing a white suit and it
Speaker 1: was quite a time that we lived through together, and
Speaker 1: we did it and we lived it and and it
Speaker 1: was it's in immortal moment now. But I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that you were raised religious Pentecostal because I was raised
Speaker 1: like Catholic school and then like would just go to
Speaker 1: like the super churches and I was just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out which one fit and like none of the
Speaker 1: none of them fit just right. And I was so
Speaker 1: mad about it. But I didn't know you had a
Speaker 1: religious a bringing to And then now knowing that, when
Speaker 1: I listened to your music again, I'm like, oh I
Speaker 1: hear that. I hear like that like a little gospel
Speaker 1: element or just I hear the church in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that. I had no idea. I mean, faith
Speaker 1: is such a especially right now, it's such a hectic
Speaker 1: time to to be affiliated with any of that stuff
Speaker 1: and to and to even talk about it. There are
Speaker 1: so many people get so angry about this subject. And
Speaker 1: I feel like I was raised so like my parents
Speaker 1: are ministers, they still are ministers, and the Pentecostal yes,
Speaker 1: but that also means something so different in Australia to America,
Speaker 1: like the Pentecostal church in America as I'm sort of
Speaker 1: learning is like snake handlers and like, yeah, it includes
Speaker 1: this kind of storm the capitol, bring your guns fundamentalist part. Uh,
Speaker 1: that doesn't that doesn't happen in Australia as much. Um
Speaker 1: So it's I feel nervous even kind of saying that
Speaker 1: I kind of have grown up in that because my
Speaker 1: parents are also like really smart, thoughtful, beautiful people who
Speaker 1: weren't raised Christians. They both have like radical conversions, and
Speaker 1: um so I was, and they're both musicians, so I
Speaker 1: was raised in a sort of art infused spirituality. Certainly
Speaker 1: music infused spirituality more than the like let's we're at
Speaker 1: war with the world and we will conquer. Like it
Speaker 1: wasn't that at all. It was like God is real
Speaker 1: and big and how can we possibly understand what any
Speaker 1: of that means? And music is part of the search.
Speaker 1: I love that. And I think that religion is a
Speaker 1: scary topic, but Comma Slash and I think that it's
Speaker 1: fun to talk about because they It's kind of why
Speaker 1: I made the podcast is to just talk about like
Speaker 1: what supernatural things or paranormal or just what are the
Speaker 1: things that make that challenge your worldview? And for me,
Speaker 1: that's been a mostly spiritual thing. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a little sneaky way to get people to talk
Speaker 1: about like why they think we're here, what happens after,
Speaker 1: or like you know what I mean. So I think
Speaker 1: just having a nice conversation with somebody about the universe,
Speaker 1: Why should people get so angry about it? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I mean I often wonder if some
Speaker 1: of it is typically religious people have detached from the
Speaker 1: lived experience part of being a human and have just
Speaker 1: invested everything into the ideas of how the world should
Speaker 1: be rather than this. I think religion is most interesting
Speaker 1: when there's like the ideals of like this is what
Speaker 1: it could be, but then it collides with the reality
Speaker 1: of this is what it is, and there's this weird
Speaker 1: space between those. It's like a tug of war where
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, we're supposed to you know. If God
Speaker 1: tells me that I can be happy and I'm not happy,
Speaker 1: there's not something wrong with me. It's just I have
Speaker 1: to live in the middle of this tug of war
Speaker 1: between these ideas, and to me, that's interesting. And I
Speaker 1: think that what we're seeing at the moment is this
Speaker 1: like rabid fundamentalist, these people that refuse to acknowledge how
Speaker 1: life is and they're just like we all need to
Speaker 1: live according to the way that this could be and
Speaker 1: should be. But it's like the world is falling apart
Speaker 1: in front of me, and there's some things that are
Speaker 1: just unprecedented. I mean not in history, of course, there's
Speaker 1: been pandemics before, but in my lifetime, our lifetime, I've
Speaker 1: never seen anything like this. I never knew to expect
Speaker 1: it and never new to prepare for it. It It wasn't
Speaker 1: really on my radar. I was just trucking along doing
Speaker 1: my thing. So to have like a full stop and
Speaker 1: be able to take in everything that's going on, yeah,
Speaker 1: for me, has been like very life changing, really spiritual,
Speaker 1: and I'm seeing that the more open we are with
Speaker 1: our humanity and maybe like I know me for sure,
Speaker 1: Like TikTok came out when I was twenty one or
Speaker 1: twenty two, Like I've done some dumb ship and it's
Speaker 1: on camera, and I am aware that it was dumb.
Speaker 1: I am sorry, I am embarrassed. I wish it was
Speaker 1: not on camera. But that being said, you can also
Speaker 1: like I'm a human was a young little idiots. I
Speaker 1: think this is like this even ties in a bit
Speaker 1: with what we're saying, Like there's there's you're saying this
Speaker 1: now with this idea of like what life should be
Speaker 1: and reflecting on things that you've done that maybe we're
Speaker 1: not in line with what it could be, but that's
Speaker 1: part of the human experience, and I think it could
Speaker 1: be one of the things that we celebrate. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously I don't want to wait into this too far
Speaker 1: because this is a fraud conversation, but I think it's
Speaker 1: okay to look back and be like, I did some
Speaker 1: really dumb stuff and now I've changed and I've grown,
Speaker 1: and it's I'm kind of cool to have documented that.
Speaker 1: Why Now, that's the thing you have to be able
Speaker 1: to grow and learn from your experiences versus for me,
Speaker 1: I just see people getting canceled, and I'm like, but
Speaker 1: this is a great opportunity to like grow and change.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's more beneficial than having someone live in
Speaker 1: shame and guilt for the rest of their life. Like
Speaker 1: what about exactly you acknowledge, you understand, you learn, you apologize,
Speaker 1: you mean it, and you act different and I see
Speaker 1: you learning and growing and trying. That's why it's always
Speaker 1: so important for me. It's not like I ever think
Speaker 1: I'm going to change anybody else's mind, like even on
Speaker 1: this or through my songs. No, I'm not gonna change
Speaker 1: anybody's mind. But i'd like to, like, I like to
Speaker 1: try to have you see something from a different perspective.
Speaker 1: And this is my perspective. So try it on. If
Speaker 1: you don't like it, throw in the trash. But I
Speaker 1: don't even know what the point of all of this was,
Speaker 1: to be honest, I forget what the I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be interviewing you, and I don't remember what the question was.
Speaker 1: It was something about the Pentecostal Church. Oh, like, what
Speaker 1: does it mean? Because you were saying it's really different
Speaker 1: in Australia. So it's just like is here in the
Speaker 1: South it's like a little more extreme. So give me
Speaker 1: your VERNI okay, I'll give you the This is the
Speaker 1: theological um. This is very funny that I'm talking with
Speaker 1: Kesh about this. So I love this. We can you
Speaker 1: also don't have to you can also, I So just
Speaker 1: so you know, I have no problem talking about this
Speaker 1: stuff because I and we can get into this. I
Speaker 1: really am at a point in my life where I
Speaker 1: moved between being like, yeah, I think I believe this
Speaker 1: and then being like, actually, nothing is real. The universe
Speaker 1: is completely material. When we die, we die, and you know,
Speaker 1: so I sort of I'm comfortable moving between us. So basically,
Speaker 1: the difference between the Pentecostal Church and say, the more
Speaker 1: broad church, beside the kind of branding of Pentecostalism, is
Speaker 1: that the story goes that when Jesus came to Earth,
Speaker 1: he told all these great stories and kind of started
Speaker 1: a community of people that he was like, when I'm gone,
Speaker 1: you can keep going. And then he died and then
Speaker 1: went to Heaven, came back to life. When to Heaven,
Speaker 1: it's the story. And then rather than just going and
Speaker 1: starting the community straight away, a whole bunch of people
Speaker 1: waited and then like, this is so funny that I'm
Speaker 1: gett into this, but it will help you understand the
Speaker 1: kind of spirituality culture that I've grown up in. The
Speaker 1: concept of Pentecostalism is that they didn't just have the
Speaker 1: stories about Jesus to tell, but like, really the spirit
Speaker 1: of God came and it says that like there was
Speaker 1: like fire among above their heads, and they spoken tongues
Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff. So Pentecostalism is supposed
Speaker 1: to be this hyper spiritual version of Christianity, and then
Speaker 1: over the centuries it's kind of waxed and wined, and
Speaker 1: then you get some churches that have done away with
Speaker 1: that stuff altogether, and I're like, we don't believe in
Speaker 1: any kind of spiritual element. We just believe in the
Speaker 1: like teachings of Jesus, and it's a bit more chill
Speaker 1: and just like community focused. So in theory, the Pentecostals
Speaker 1: are the ones that are like clapping their hands and
Speaker 1: like cut like doing exorcisms and seeing the kind of
Speaker 1: crazy stuff. I'm like, really, here for the crazy stuff,
Speaker 1: here for all the crazy stuff, Like hey, okay, the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit that feeling as I love that terminology for
Speaker 1: it because I don't know about you, but if you've
Speaker 1: ever like when I hit that high note when I
Speaker 1: we were recording praying and I made everybody leave the room,
Speaker 1: I just opened my mouth and that fell out. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what she lived in there. I don't know
Speaker 1: she existed, And in that moment, I was like, oh, damn,
Speaker 1: that wasn't me. That was something or something else. I
Speaker 1: absolutely believe. So like again, I stopped me if I
Speaker 1: ever get to into this, but it's you know, I
Speaker 1: think that some people would say that the holy spirit,
Speaker 1: aspect of God is the creative energy, is the kind
Speaker 1: of creative part of um of life. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author who wrote Eat, Pray, Love,
Speaker 1: gave a Ted talk years ago. You've told me about this,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, and she talks about the idea
Speaker 1: of um of artists have we we impose the idea
Speaker 1: of genius on people, We say they are a genius,
Speaker 1: that person is a genius. She said that that's quite
Speaker 1: a contemporary idea that actually traditionally the concept was that
Speaker 1: a person had a genius, which I think she even
Speaker 1: described it. Some people wrote about it as if it
Speaker 1: was like almost like um, like a demon that lived
Speaker 1: in their house or something that fed them ideas, so
Speaker 1: that rather than like you being the source of your genius,
Speaker 1: some crazy mathematician just has these ideas implanted into their
Speaker 1: brain from an outside source. And she talked about how
Speaker 1: that is kind of liberating as artists because it takes
Speaker 1: away the responsibility we have to wrestle with ourselves and
Speaker 1: pull out ideas and actually instead of reaching in here,
Speaker 1: we kind of reach up there looking for the ideas
Speaker 1: to drop into us. And she talked about there's this poet.
Speaker 1: I mean, people should just go and watch the talk,
Speaker 1: but I loved um. When she talked to told the
Speaker 1: story of some poet who described the process of writing
Speaker 1: a poem. A poem where she was out in the
Speaker 1: fields in her house in the country wherever she was,
Speaker 1: and she could feel this poem like barreling toward her
Speaker 1: over the plane and ran into the house as she
Speaker 1: felt this wind of an idea passing through her, like
Speaker 1: reached her hand up and grabbed it and pulled it
Speaker 1: back to earth, writing the poem, pulled it backwards, grabbed
Speaker 1: the tail, pulled it backwards and wrote the poem in reverse.
Speaker 1: Because this passed through her, and to me, like, that's
Speaker 1: the if there is a holy spirit, that's the function
Speaker 1: of that, and that is why every it doesn't happen
Speaker 1: all the time. But you would have experienced this, and
Speaker 1: you've just said that you have. Sometimes you're performing or
Speaker 1: creating or writing and there's such a flow and such
Speaker 1: a thing that comes on you that you're like, that
Speaker 1: wasn't me, Like it was me, but something like a
Speaker 1: wind came through me and it was like a possession.
Speaker 1: I feel like when you just told that story, I
Speaker 1: have to tell you, I had chills from like the
Speaker 1: top of my head, down my neck and down my
Speaker 1: legs and arms. And that's I've never said this out
Speaker 1: loud to anybody, so let me just tell it to
Speaker 1: the whole world. Um, that's my secret for me and
Speaker 1: my higher consciousness or whatever you wanna call it. That's
Speaker 1: my secret. Tell I'm like, okay, when something is like
Speaker 1: really just true, just give me full body chills and
Speaker 1: then I'll know it's like for real true. So when
Speaker 1: you were saying that I got my I got my
Speaker 1: little I grew up being taught. This is why, like
Speaker 1: artists are so sensitive as people, because we're vessels were
Speaker 1: supposed to be filled with something for it to pour
Speaker 1: out of us. That's why we're so susceptible to substance
Speaker 1: abuse and different addictions because we have the capacity to
Speaker 1: hold so much of that creative energy. I just feel
Speaker 1: everything all the time, and I feel like, I mean,
Speaker 1: you tell me, but I just feel like I notice
Speaker 1: every little tiny thing to the point where it's like
Speaker 1: I'm so annoyed with my like it's like, just stop
Speaker 1: noticing everything. But I think that's almost like because I
Speaker 1: sometimes think I'm being psychic, but I think I'm just
Speaker 1: like uber perceptive everything. But I mean that's isn't that
Speaker 1: part of That's part of it as well? Like as
Speaker 1: as creatives we are, I feel like it's the I
Speaker 1: don't know if this has been your experience I find
Speaker 1: as an artist, I'm forced into this weird outsider's perspective
Speaker 1: on every moment of my life. I think of it like, um,
Speaker 1: like if you have a photo, if you take a
Speaker 1: like a photo of a party, there's the people in
Speaker 1: the photo enjoying the party, but the person that took
Speaker 1: the photo had to be outside the moment to capture that.
Speaker 1: And I feel like as artists sometimes were kind of
Speaker 1: forced to both be at the party and having a
Speaker 1: great time, but there's this other part of our brain
Speaker 1: that's constantly observing everything. It's like you're saying, it's heightened
Speaker 1: awareness all the time. But I think that's the stuff
Speaker 1: that's what qualifies us for those moments, For that we
Speaker 1: have this space in our brains that when we need
Speaker 1: it and when we're called upon to become the vessel.
Speaker 1: We just it gets filled with that stuff. And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I chase those moments in my life, like
Speaker 1: you were saying high notes where you're just you get
Speaker 1: to the end and it's the best. It's like a
Speaker 1: high because you're like, I don't know how that happened.
Speaker 1: I don't know what just came over, but that's where
Speaker 1: my self confidence comes from. I'm like that one time
Speaker 1: six years ago, I opened my mouth and saying that
Speaker 1: one note. But like they're just like little tiny moments
Speaker 1: like that that happened like not very often for me.
Speaker 1: It feels like you're being struck by lightning. I feel
Speaker 1: like your genius probably is more active. Mine has been
Speaker 1: dormant and depressed lately, but I'm trying to trying to
Speaker 1: give her some Remember when you hit the high note, Okay,
Speaker 1: we got this, But like it's moments like that that
Speaker 1: are like they made me proud to be myself, just
Speaker 1: when you impress yourself. And I don't know, it's just
Speaker 1: really weird. Like this past year, I just have been
Speaker 1: like feeling that like Holy Spirit. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: was a Pentecostal thing, but I've been feeling that spirit
Speaker 1: come and go more often, but you can't ever, you
Speaker 1: can't summon it. It comes to you. It's like a cat.
Speaker 1: But like when we're writing, Okay, we are writing in
Speaker 1: my backyard, writing, you know, writing songs, and I was
Speaker 1: trying to lay the sex. I don't know, what do
Speaker 1: you think I've got to say? No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: Is it just when you're standing on the side of
Speaker 1: the pool going like this with your eyes closing into
Speaker 1: the trees. It was my favorite thing. That was nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was nothing religious going on there. I
Speaker 1: just every now, it doesn't happen every time. That was
Speaker 1: so we were writing this song and I was so
Speaker 1: feeling it and so like I was really connecting with
Speaker 1: because I sort of sometimes my approach. Not all songs
Speaker 1: are like this, but some songs I feel like we're
Speaker 1: finding them. I feel like I'm like so literally this
Speaker 1: is what I do. Like I almost feel like the
Speaker 1: song exists, and my job is to kind of close
Speaker 1: my eyes and eliminate other sources of information and like
Speaker 1: feel the song. Right. It's like the it's like the
Speaker 1: elephant in the room and or the six blind guys
Speaker 1: feeling the elephant and they're kind of trying to get
Speaker 1: the shape of it. I sometimes songs come to me
Speaker 1: like that, and I was in those moments. I so
Speaker 1: we were writing and I was pacing across your backyard,
Speaker 1: and I felt I felt like the song was there,
Speaker 1: and I remember like singing it and just kind of
Speaker 1: feeling it out, finding like is it here, and kind
Speaker 1: of know it's not there. There's something. So I was
Speaker 1: just lost in this moment. And then I remember kind
Speaker 1: of like looking at and you and Drew were like
Speaker 1: it was beautiful. As someone that fully knows this, feeling
Speaker 1: like it was beautiful because it's something you can't really
Speaker 1: explain or touch. It's just all it's eliminating. It's not
Speaker 1: the head. You're not sitting there doing the math on
Speaker 1: Oh we've said this bit, and we've said this bit,
Speaker 1: and if we've gone to this note, we should get like,
Speaker 1: even though those things are so helpful, sometimes just in
Speaker 1: the moment, you can just you can just close your
Speaker 1: eyes and it's like you're you're looking for a current
Speaker 1: in a river and you're like, there it is, and
Speaker 1: it starts to pull you along. Bit yes, or get
Speaker 1: really excited that I can't keep up with my own brain,
Speaker 1: Like you said something earlier. I have to really listen
Speaker 1: to this and I like, oh, that's a good song title.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call you after we're done with this
Speaker 1: and make you write the song with me. But I
Speaker 1: do think that the songs that we've written, ironically, it
Speaker 1: just happened to always have this very spiritual nature to
Speaker 1: them because they're about like fundamental sides of our humanity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: except for the one where you go that's one of
Speaker 1: the best things. Sometime the world will hear that song
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's it's a great it's a great song.
Speaker 1: It's very different than praying. I have to say that
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. That's the sort of the downside
Speaker 1: to the intensity that I think, at least maybe that's
Speaker 1: just the last few years of my life. I've been
Speaker 1: so interested in that search. Um, I definitely could have
Speaker 1: a little bit more fun in my in my music
Speaker 1: and create do whatever feel, do whatever the wind throws
Speaker 1: at you. Yeah, I can't do anything else. I've tried.
Speaker 1: I tried the l A. You know, when I first
Speaker 1: moved to l A, I was writing songs with all
Speaker 1: these different people. I tried to like put the coat
Speaker 1: on that was like hey by on the club for you,
Speaker 1: like for your own music. I can't even imagine this
Speaker 1: just to be just to give people what I was like,
Speaker 1: this is obviously what you want. And then I realized
Speaker 1: I was like, that's not I'm not anywhere near as
Speaker 1: good as the guys that do that. So I'm just
Speaker 1: going to be there. No, Ben, I think you're just
Speaker 1: two honest and like spiritually on a specific quest to
Speaker 1: like be talking about popping it at the club unless
Speaker 1: you're popping it at the club. I just personally, I
Speaker 1: personally experienced you usually were like crying together. We did
Speaker 1: poppet at the club once there was okay, we did okay, well,
Speaker 1: and so we'll have one puppet at the I love it.
Speaker 1: Was the first time I heard your song brother Tongue.
Speaker 1: So it's called and it's so beautiful and that have
Speaker 1: like speaking in tongues in it. What can you tell
Speaker 1: everybody about it? Yeah, it's I mean, it's the songs
Speaker 1: about the songs about the space that exists between us.
Speaker 1: Like I think of all of life is kind of
Speaker 1: filled with longing. And there's two types of longing. There's
Speaker 1: like the longing that's like directed up to something beyond us.
Speaker 1: And then the longing that's directed horizontally to the like
Speaker 1: people around us, and the songs inspired by this idea
Speaker 1: that like, you can be so close, you can get
Speaker 1: as close as you can to other human beings, and
Speaker 1: there's still this space and which to me is a
Speaker 1: real spiritual but also very like human reality. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I wanted, I mean, the big theme of the record,
Speaker 1: of the whole album is is this quest in spirituality,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to incorporate stuff that I grew up
Speaker 1: understanding as as God and as spirituality, and so praying
Speaker 1: in tongues was part of that. Ah. And yeah, So
Speaker 1: there's just a moment in that and I don't think
Speaker 1: I've ever heard anyone praying tongues on a record before,
Speaker 1: but there's this moment where it's like I love it,
Speaker 1: people like I love that bit of the mouth percussion
Speaker 1: in it, and I'm like, great, Like if it sounds
Speaker 1: like beatboxing, then great. And I mean, in this in
Speaker 1: a sense it is. But it's also like what I
Speaker 1: love about the concept of praying in tongues. And I'll
Speaker 1: bring this up purely because I think it has creative implications.
Speaker 1: The whole idea of it was that was like one
Speaker 1: of the things that arrived at Pentecost, when the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit came upon people. The first thing I did was
Speaker 1: praying tongues. And there's all this mythology around whether it's
Speaker 1: like good or evil or whatever. What I love about
Speaker 1: it is if you want to express yourself using your voice,
Speaker 1: we are forced typically to use words which are instantly reductive.
Speaker 1: If you say if I feel something for you, and
Speaker 1: then I say love, that instantly eliminates all the other
Speaker 1: options and brands that feeling. It kind of squeezes that
Speaker 1: feeling into a word, which can be very powerful. But
Speaker 1: sometimes your heart or your soul wants to like express more,
Speaker 1: especially through like the concept of prayer. What I think
Speaker 1: is really interesting is like if you want to ask
Speaker 1: for something, sometimes it's like I don't even know what
Speaker 1: I want to ask for. I don't know what I'm feeling,
Speaker 1: that anxiety I'm feeling, And if I say I'm scared,
Speaker 1: it's so much more than scared. If I say I'm unhappy,
Speaker 1: it's that reduces it to language. So the concept of
Speaker 1: praying in tongues like it eliminates the need a meaning,
Speaker 1: but it's still produces the reaching out it's still your
Speaker 1: voice being engaged trying to grab something. Does that make sense? Yes, no, completely.
Speaker 1: I just want to likeational. It's like it's like so
Speaker 1: in a music. So there is also then singing in tongues,
Speaker 1: which I put on another song, which is it eliminates
Speaker 1: the need to pin down lyrics. It's just and it's
Speaker 1: different even to improvisation because you're not just like jazz
Speaker 1: scatting according to rules. It's you're switching off the brain.
Speaker 1: You're walking through the back of your heard just doing
Speaker 1: this like reaching for something but still reaching. Does that
Speaker 1: It makes perfect sense because I I feel like the
Speaker 1: English language that's the one that's the only one I know.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately you know a little bit of Spanish, but not
Speaker 1: very much. So English can be so anticlimactic, Like when
Speaker 1: I tell someone I love them, it's like I want
Speaker 1: to squeeze their faces and jump on them and shoot
Speaker 1: fucking glitter out of my eyeball holes, and like I
Speaker 1: want to cover them in like this golden rainbow light
Speaker 1: of goodness and be like, no, no no, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: I don't just love you like I want to make
Speaker 1: you feel this fucking way that I feel, because it's
Speaker 1: so intense, and yeah, it can be reductive exactly, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, you learn, we always learn all the time
Speaker 1: that there's these German words that are like schadenfreud or
Speaker 1: like one of my favorites was, what's the word um?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I can't remember it now, but it literally
Speaker 1: means the sadness that exists between wishing the world, wishing
Speaker 1: a dreaming of the world as it could be, and
Speaker 1: living in the world as it is. Like it's like sadness,
Speaker 1: you know, So like there's our language. What's the word
Speaker 1: for that? I'm so annoyed that I can't remember this,
Speaker 1: but you can. We can just put it up here
Speaker 1: on a video. We'll just there. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: like I think, yeah, by nature, language and even to
Speaker 1: an extent, music is um. I heard a composer describe this.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit axiomatic in that once you draw
Speaker 1: the black note on the music line or you say
Speaker 1: the word, it eliminates the possibility of all the others.
Speaker 1: And I think, and that can be really powerful, but
Speaker 1: sometimes as human beings, that's what I love about the
Speaker 1: concept of speaking in tongues. Wouldn't why wouldn't we want
Speaker 1: to language that's just the sound of language and the
Speaker 1: feeling of language, but it's the brain. The brain is
Speaker 1: switched off. So it's just so you know, not that
Speaker 1: you're going to speak gebers to somebody you love, but
Speaker 1: certainly musically. I think that if we can engage with
Speaker 1: these sides of our as a human being, these like
Speaker 1: tools that we have, it just opens our minds up
Speaker 1: to so much creative potential because we're not bound by
Speaker 1: the confines of the rules of that we've constructed. You're
Speaker 1: so smart and just fun and I love you so
Speaker 1: I can jump across the screen and just call you
Speaker 1: right now. Oh my gosh. No, it's so smart. And
Speaker 1: I loved the music that the world hasn't heard yet,
Speaker 1: but they will in May April whenever, whenever you say whenever,
Speaker 1: whenever they get the pleasure of hearing is coming into
Speaker 1: this year, they're going to get to hear your like.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a masterpiece. It's like as so
Speaker 1: exciting working on it for so long, and it's a
Speaker 1: just to listen to. You can just feel how much
Speaker 1: you care about it and all of the emotion coming through.
Speaker 1: It's just I can't use words. You have to listen
Speaker 1: to it. Thank you. I'm so excited. It's so weird.
Speaker 1: It's weird because we finished the album like over a
Speaker 1: year ago, and it's weird sitting with it and you
Speaker 1: can't help but go through these cycles of like it's
Speaker 1: the best thing I've ever done, and then like this
Speaker 1: is so unimportant in the scheme of where the world is,
Speaker 1: that everything's unimportant everything. That's what I've realized is just
Speaker 1: like everything is the most important. And then like also
Speaker 1: nothing matters and nobody cares. So you just find what
Speaker 1: brings you that like filled with whatever it is that
Speaker 1: we're all craving and I and I feel like sharing
Speaker 1: that's also a scary process, Like making it is terrifying
Speaker 1: and then sharing it so scary. But then it's like
Speaker 1: then you birth it into its existence for public consumption. UM,
Speaker 1: I would highly recommend not ever looking at one comment,
Speaker 1: but you do what you want because at that point
Speaker 1: it's like if you have it's like if you birth
Speaker 1: a baby and it's ugly, you're not gonna You're like, no,
Speaker 1: that's a beautiful fucking baby. That's a beautiful baby in
Speaker 1: the world, and some jackass who has no good taste
Speaker 1: could be like your baby's ugly, and you'd be like, uh,
Speaker 1: you don't get it, but now I feel bad about myself.
Speaker 1: But your baby is like really dope and spiritual and gorgeous,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to worry. But thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: So growing up in the church, did you ever see
Speaker 1: an exorcism? Like was it? Yeah, you did, but it's
Speaker 1: very I mean it's not like the movies, right, Like,
Speaker 1: so this is just how I grew up. They're not
Speaker 1: They're not like the movies in the sense that there's
Speaker 1: no like I don't know if things don't shake in
Speaker 1: the road at least as I've experienced, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen people like I've seen like teenagers, like teenage
Speaker 1: girls get like crazy man voices and be like yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is where that part of my brain is.
Speaker 1: Like whether it's a spiritual thing or just some kind
Speaker 1: of like psycho somatic human science thing, it happens, so
Speaker 1: like you can grapple with kind of what the meaning
Speaker 1: of it all is. But I've absolutely seen Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: seen people's like eyes roll back and like roll around
Speaker 1: the floor and like scream and like I've seen we
Speaker 1: used to um because my dad is Indonesian, and like
Speaker 1: he grew up spiritual. My dad's not. He doesn't feel
Speaker 1: things very spiritually as opposed to like my mom who's
Speaker 1: very like very spiritual. But his dad was like a
Speaker 1: witch doctor, and he grew up surrounded by this stuff
Speaker 1: like Indonesia is such a your dad's dad was a
Speaker 1: witch doctor. Yeah, he died. You can't just like you
Speaker 1: can't just throw that out there, Well, he died. He
Speaker 1: died when my dad was very young, so I didn't
Speaker 1: grow up knowing him at all. But I guess I
Speaker 1: say that to like for people that grow like for
Speaker 1: people like my dad from Asia and from like that
Speaker 1: part of the world, spirituality is just a given. There's
Speaker 1: not really even a debate around like what is and isn't,
Speaker 1: you know, which is an interesting thing when you live
Speaker 1: in the West. And I guess that's part of maybe
Speaker 1: why I've grown up so spiritual. But yeah, Like so
Speaker 1: my dad had all that stuff when he was a
Speaker 1: kid um and we used to when we would go
Speaker 1: over and visit like my uncle's church in Indonesia, we
Speaker 1: would see stuff like that, just like these sweet old
Speaker 1: women like come forward and be like I need you
Speaker 1: to pray for me, and then as they get prayed
Speaker 1: for all of a sudden, they're like, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's just it's so I can tell you what the
Speaker 1: idea of it as as we were taught is, and
Speaker 1: then you can grab it with what it really is.
Speaker 1: I think of like going to a Slayer show, but
Speaker 1: for a grandma. I mean, I guess it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's the idea is that there's something tormenting them,
Speaker 1: if it's like a demon possession thing. It's so funny.
Speaker 1: I remember, I just I loved listening to the Alice
Speaker 1: Cooper talk to some of the stuff he was saying.
Speaker 1: It was so I just know how he's being like
Speaker 1: as a Christian, like how he's being taught. It's just
Speaker 1: I was just like just even the way he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't even go near Wuiji boards and like it's
Speaker 1: just so funny. It's the stuff that I up kind
Speaker 1: of being told. Um. But the idea is that these
Speaker 1: people are like tormented by like a spirit that just
Speaker 1: wants to kind of mess with their head and what
Speaker 1: and just torment them. And so when you pray, you're
Speaker 1: trying to be like get away from this person. You
Speaker 1: have no you know, and then in that process of
Speaker 1: trying to extract these evil forces, there's like a manifestation
Speaker 1: of stuff. And I've I mean, it's funny manifestation. What
Speaker 1: do you mean by a manifest like a physical manifestation, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's their body responding to something spiritual. So I've
Speaker 1: seen like a friend of mine who um, who was
Speaker 1: just we're just having a very simple like I wasn't
Speaker 1: even part of it, but I remember kind of stopping in.
Speaker 1: He was just being prayed for because he was, I guess,
Speaker 1: dealing with some stuff and these ministers. He was sitting
Speaker 1: in the chair really normal and just like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: just need some prayer, and that the process of them
Speaker 1: praying for him, his whole body like tensed, and then
Speaker 1: he just sort of gets really agitated and like you know,
Speaker 1: the breeding sort of and then you know that's when
Speaker 1: they're like, who am I talking to right now? And
Speaker 1: it'll be like nobody, like if if I was going
Speaker 1: to act it out, that's literally what happens. And you
Speaker 1: can feel like, wait, you were there for this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wasn't in this is so I feel so vulnerable
Speaker 1: as I tell me, you don't have to tell me anything.
Speaker 1: You don't want to do anything you want exactly. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I'm just more like I can just I
Speaker 1: feel like you're like Francis is going to be in
Speaker 1: the corner thing, Like she's in the corner. I always
Speaker 1: doing that thing. She's a mask and so you really
Speaker 1: can't tell at all. She's very expressive eyes. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been in the room. I've been in the room for
Speaker 1: these things, and I've um, I mean, this is the
Speaker 1: stuff that so when as you get older, between this
Speaker 1: stuff and then even the like the amazing spiritual experience
Speaker 1: I've had through music and things where even if I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't believe if you were to
Speaker 1: have that moment as you get older with faith, were
Speaker 1: like I think I don't believe in a lot of this.
Speaker 1: There are these certain experiences that I look back and
Speaker 1: I'm like, even if I don't believe it, I can't
Speaker 1: deny that that happened. I can't say that that didn't.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean some some of the crazy things
Speaker 1: that we would just see, Yeah, it's you know what else,
Speaker 1: You're you're free to tell me all of the things.
Speaker 1: Let me think of other I mean, and exorcism is
Speaker 1: kind of that's that's crazy, that's sounds that sounds like
Speaker 1: it could be a crazy experience. I personally had one
Speaker 1: done to myself, and it was not that I did
Speaker 1: because okay, so I by, oh my god. Okay. So
Speaker 1: this lady had a cat that was really cute, and
Speaker 1: that's why I now have the stupid cats I have
Speaker 1: that p on my bed. It started with Mary Alice,
Speaker 1: Mary Alice from Nashville. I was like, you have a
Speaker 1: demon in me? And I was like, oh no, but
Speaker 1: I did used to go like like it's like what
Speaker 1: do I do about it? And She's like and so
Speaker 1: she like swung a crystal over my stomach and said
Speaker 1: a bunch of things and and her cat was there.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, okay, my am I good.
Speaker 1: And She's like, now I have to do like an
Speaker 1: exorcism of like your body in your bed andrew hole house.
Speaker 1: So she came and put salt in every doorway, opened
Speaker 1: up all the doors, she like lit SAMs sort of
Speaker 1: urban went around the whole house, and like I was
Speaker 1: fully prepared to be like, okay, I'm going to turn
Speaker 1: into like the girl from the movie The extorcystem like
Speaker 1: some crazy sh it's about to happen, But really, I
Speaker 1: think I fell asleep. My exorcism was really mellow, but
Speaker 1: I liked it. To me, it was kind of just
Speaker 1: like therapeutic to have some lady like pray over you.
Speaker 1: I do think praying for someone is such and this
Speaker 1: is like non specific to any religion, just praying for
Speaker 1: someone or like sending them positive energy. I think it's
Speaker 1: the kindest thing anyone could ever do, to take their
Speaker 1: time and their energy to like try to make sure
Speaker 1: like you're doing okay. I think it's just so sweet.
Speaker 1: It's really kind so for her to just like do that.
Speaker 1: Granted I was probably paying her five, but anyways, it
Speaker 1: was just like a nice little therapy session, is what
Speaker 1: I looked at it. I mean, there's there's a video
Speaker 1: that you should go and look up. It's called Firstly.
Speaker 1: You can just google exorcisms and you'll see a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff. There are some pretty wacky people out there,
Speaker 1: but there's one video that I think is worth looking at.
Speaker 1: Um there's an auzzy journalist called John Saffran s A
Speaker 1: F R A N. And he did this series. He's
Speaker 1: kind of like a Louis Theroux type journalist, was very
Speaker 1: like he's a Jewish guy. He's super lovely and like
Speaker 1: really amiable as a person. And um, he did a
Speaker 1: series where he visited all these different religions and like
Speaker 1: participated in there. It's called John Saffran Versus God. And
Speaker 1: I think maybe he's agnostic or atheistic. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but he visited all these different faith traditions, like he
Speaker 1: he was crucified in some town and like the Philippines
Speaker 1: where they literally like nailed through his hands and stuff.
Speaker 1: Super interesting guy. His whole thing was like I'm just
Speaker 1: going to go and experience everything. Um. And then the
Speaker 1: last one he did was this Christian exorcist in America.
Speaker 1: So he then gets an exorcism, ah, and he's he's
Speaker 1: a very he's a comedian. So he's very like cynical
Speaker 1: and sarcastic and very funny. And the video of his exorcism,
Speaker 1: even to this day, apparently he reflects on it like
Speaker 1: I don't know what that was because you watch he's
Speaker 1: this really he can't talk through the bit of a list,
Speaker 1: but you know, I went and visited a Muslim cleric
Speaker 1: and like he's that's his whole tone of his experience,
Speaker 1: and then you watch him five guys have to hold
Speaker 1: him down as he's like like it's wild, and they
Speaker 1: cut to they show like his camera crew and stuff,
Speaker 1: just being like we don't know what's going like they
Speaker 1: kind of break the fourth wall and they're like, we've
Speaker 1: never seen John like this. We don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Hold on, what's that called? So everybody, including myself, can
Speaker 1: write this down. John saffran versus God, that's the whole
Speaker 1: John Saffran versus God. Oh my god, I'm so oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm so exciting. Oh my god. I think
Speaker 1: God is one of those words that has so much
Speaker 1: baggage and like ship on top of it that it's
Speaker 1: like I don't even know about that word. Like it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful word, but at the same time, it's like
Speaker 1: I want to make up a different like like how
Speaker 1: prince became a symbol. I wish there's just like a
Speaker 1: symbol trying to figure out what it would be that
Speaker 1: hasn't already been used if you think of anything, but
Speaker 1: that's insane And I'm going to watch that and your
Speaker 1: because we're like almost out of time. Okay. Rapid Fire
Speaker 1: stupid question. Here we go. What is invisible that you
Speaker 1: wish people could see? Well, maybe I haven't thought this through,
Speaker 1: but something that's invisible that I wish I could see
Speaker 1: that bad smells because I have no I have no
Speaker 1: sense of smell, so I wish I could. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. I didn't know that. It doesn't often come up. Hey, Kesha,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? What if the verse goes by
Speaker 1: the way, I can't smell anything. You can't smell anything.
Speaker 1: I can. I wonder if what I have with smell
Speaker 1: is how people describe like legal blindness. I think I
Speaker 1: can kind of make out shapes and forms. I can
Speaker 1: often tell that there is a smell happening. But I remember,
Speaker 1: like this is when I knew I had a real problem,
Speaker 1: when I was having like digestion health stuff. And this
Speaker 1: is a great podcast story. Had I had to give
Speaker 1: a had to give a stool sample, which um, they
Speaker 1: give you like a little thing that you like, you
Speaker 1: screw in and you're supposed to scoop out a bit
Speaker 1: of pool. And what they told me to do is
Speaker 1: poop into an ice cream bucket, get the lid of
Speaker 1: the things, scoop it. So I did that, Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: I have so many questions, but go on. And then
Speaker 1: so I'm sitting on the toilet. I've got my sample,
Speaker 1: I put it to the side, and then I'm holding
Speaker 1: this little ice cream container of my poop, and I thought,
Speaker 1: this is my one chance to find out if I
Speaker 1: can actually smell. There was my life. If it was
Speaker 1: like cameras, literally, there would have been a shot of me.
Speaker 1: Like to this day, I don't know what a poop
Speaker 1: smells like. Oh my God, you're the perfect boyfriend. But
Speaker 1: I washed my clothes like after two wears because then
Speaker 1: I'm paranoid that you know, I've been told that I
Speaker 1: don't smell. But that's something it's happened. It's happened before
Speaker 1: someone's after me. Book, you evoked the Holy spirit O God.
Speaker 1: This episode is going to be Ben Abraham and I
Speaker 1: talked about poop. Oh Jesus. Okay, well, I think that's
Speaker 1: a great place to add. So check out Ben Abraham's
Speaker 1: music at I just find my instagram Ben Ben Abraham.
Speaker 1: Let's just do that. Ben Ben Abraham is good. Hopefully
Speaker 1: you'll just hear it. It's really really good. I can't
Speaker 1: wait for the world to hear it. Three,