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. My guest today is many things.
Speaker 1: A Grammy winning singer, an actor and Emmy Award winning
Speaker 1: TV personality, and perhaps most famously, a piano virtuoso, though
Speaker 1: if you call on that to his face, he'll charmingly
Speaker 1: try to deny it. For over thirty five years, his
Speaker 1: chart topping musical explorations of helped popularize jazz titans many
Speaker 1: from his beloved hometown of New Orleans, and introduced the
Speaker 1: Great American Songbook to a whole new generation. After decades
Speaker 1: of dazzling millions with his skills on the keys, he's
Speaker 1: here to let fans in on the fun of playing piano,
Speaker 1: play being the operative word. On March twenty nine, he's
Speaker 1: launching Piano Party, an online course designed to teach the
Speaker 1: basics of piano through lessons he's learned over the course
Speaker 1: of his legendary career. Consisting of nine on demand videos
Speaker 1: plus two interactive live session the Piano Party courses are
Speaker 1: meant for all ages and skill levels, so please don't
Speaker 1: be intimidated by all the Grammys, all are welcome. The
Speaker 1: only requirement is that you want to learn and you
Speaker 1: want to have a good time. So if you've been
Speaker 1: thinking about taking up the piano, now as your chance
Speaker 1: to learn from one of the best. It's never too late.
Speaker 1: Give it a shot. The Piano Party project is part
Speaker 1: of his new metaverse platform he calls the Neutral Ground.
Speaker 1: It's an online community designed to connect his fans and
Speaker 1: sharing his passion for music, food, and family. We talked
Speaker 1: about that, a little bit of New Orleans jazz, his
Speaker 1: songwriting techniques, and his latest album, Alone with My Faith,
Speaker 1: recorded completely solo during the Pandemic Lockdown. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to welcome Mr Harry Connick Jr. I hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: our conversation. When I was first getting into music, I
Speaker 1: really wanted to play jazz piano so badly. I mean
Speaker 1: the Coal Porters stuff, Rogerson Heart, the Gershwins, and I
Speaker 1: can play chords, mess around a little bit, but but
Speaker 1: nothing flashy. And I'm so happy to talk to you
Speaker 1: today because I feel like there's this conception out there,
Speaker 1: a misconception. I should say that if you don't start
Speaker 1: training for this when you're four or five years old,
Speaker 1: like you and Mozart, it's too late for you. You're
Speaker 1: never gonna wait a hold on a second, there's a
Speaker 1: profound flaw in your conversation with me that we need
Speaker 1: to address. You can't just lump me in with Mozart
Speaker 1: right off the bat. I mean seriously, man, it's like
Speaker 1: talk about high expectations. Well, you both started as what
Speaker 1: like age four age five only similarity. But I really
Speaker 1: appreciate that. Well, I mean it's something I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that they don't start really
Speaker 1: really early. It's too late for them. They're never gonna
Speaker 1: get it, so why bother. And that's what I think
Speaker 1: is so cool about this Piano Party project because it
Speaker 1: really it's so inclusive and it's so for everybody. So
Speaker 1: you're here to tell me that is a that misconception. Really, uh,
Speaker 1: we should all put that aside. Yeah, it's really true. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that we all have some type of an
Speaker 1: eight musical talent, and I think it's different for everyone.
Speaker 1: I mean, some people say I can never play because
Speaker 1: I'm toned up, or I can never play because I
Speaker 1: can't you know, make my hands work together at the
Speaker 1: same time, or whatever the reasons that they think they
Speaker 1: can't play. Yet at the same time, I think we're
Speaker 1: all moved to um to music in some way. It's
Speaker 1: almost like I would love to be a football player,
Speaker 1: and I don't have the natural ability to ever be
Speaker 1: a football player, and I'm too old to ever have
Speaker 1: those dreams come true. But I like throwing a ball
Speaker 1: around and that's really fun. So you know, the whole
Speaker 1: idea behind Piano Party was, let's just find some some
Speaker 1: easier ways to get this information to people that's not
Speaker 1: quite as um intimidating, and and maybe try to try
Speaker 1: to convey some things that like I never thought about this,
Speaker 1: like when I look when I look at a piano keyboard,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't see a D eight key. I
Speaker 1: see these twelve keys that repeat, and that's so basic
Speaker 1: and I don't think about it anymore. But a lot
Speaker 1: of people say, oh, there's so many keys. So the
Speaker 1: very first episode is there's really only twelve and they repeat,
Speaker 1: and if you can just kind of learn those twelve,
Speaker 1: which takes about thirty seconds, then you can, oh, that's
Speaker 1: how the piano works. And it just I think it
Speaker 1: makes it more accessible. Oh absolutely, I mean it's for
Speaker 1: for listeners it's a series of nine videos that bring
Speaker 1: the basics of piano to life. And I just think
Speaker 1: it's such a cool way to get back to fans
Speaker 1: and empower them because after years of listening to you
Speaker 1: and getting all this joy from you and your music,
Speaker 1: it's kind of returning the favor and saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: you can do this too. I think it's such a
Speaker 1: cool way to put the power and listen those hands.
Speaker 1: It's such a great I think it's neat man, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. And you know that I've spent time
Speaker 1: talking to people, like, for example, when I talked to
Speaker 1: my kids and I explained to them just the most
Speaker 1: basic stuff. It changes the way they listen to music
Speaker 1: and it opens up a whole different world. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, scientifically, we know that you know music and
Speaker 1: exposure to music and understanding music can it's good for you.
Speaker 1: It's just good for your brains. So you know, if
Speaker 1: I can help um, you know, expose people to that
Speaker 1: that that's really what this is all about. It's not
Speaker 1: about you know, people need to know. This isn't me
Speaker 1: like playing some real complicated New Orleans piano and showing
Speaker 1: you how to do it maybe at some point this
Speaker 1: is about you know, what are these black and white keys?
Speaker 1: And how did they function? And it's a it's a
Speaker 1: very basic course that also includes stuff about my personal history,
Speaker 1: and I show off a bunch of my keyboards that
Speaker 1: I have. So it's it's really fun. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's I feel like fun is the operative word here.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's sharing the joy of music. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's such a prevalent thought of weal
Speaker 1: if you can't, you know, get paid to go do
Speaker 1: it up on stage, and why bother? And well, it's fun,
Speaker 1: it's fun. It's it's it is and you know what
Speaker 1: else Jordan's is um this this is the first thing
Speaker 1: I've ever seen that really exists in the metaverse. And
Speaker 1: a lot of people get peaked out by the term
Speaker 1: metaverse because they're thinking univirtual reality goggles or augmented reality,
Speaker 1: but really the metaverse is just about being immersive on
Speaker 1: a different level. So every tenth episode of Piano Party
Speaker 1: is people who buy the premium package can get together
Speaker 1: and we hang out and and it's like it's like
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of students and we're all getting
Speaker 1: together and talking about what we learned, and it's it's
Speaker 1: it's just a way of connecting in a different way
Speaker 1: that I haven't seen before. Oh, I was gonna say
Speaker 1: that is one of the coolest parts to me because
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, you can sit in your
Speaker 1: room and you can learn the notes and you can
Speaker 1: you can get the song down, but actually playing with
Speaker 1: other people is a whole other ball game. And you know,
Speaker 1: I played in bands and things. I practice alone in
Speaker 1: my room and then as soon as you get into
Speaker 1: a room with the other people, it can be tough
Speaker 1: to jel And I feel like in in lessons and tutorials,
Speaker 1: that's a part that's really absent in the teaching process
Speaker 1: of learning how to listen to other people and engage
Speaker 1: with the musically. So I love that there's this engaging
Speaker 1: part of it right there too. I'm glad I'm because
Speaker 1: that's that's really fun for me. And again, it's you know,
Speaker 1: this isn't some uh, you know, really high level you know,
Speaker 1: competitive pianistic uh series. It's it's it's really about having
Speaker 1: a good time. And you know, just a I had
Speaker 1: to think, like, like if I want to study painting,
Speaker 1: like I don't even know, like the bit like what
Speaker 1: what way? What do you mean there's a difference between
Speaker 1: acrylics and or like you know, like I mean, I
Speaker 1: go way back to the beginning. And it's actually good
Speaker 1: for me too, because I'm talking about things I haven't
Speaker 1: thought about in a while, and I just want to help,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe bring people together through music, which is
Speaker 1: I think ultimately going to be a good thing. Oh. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think it's an incredible project now. I it made
Speaker 1: me think about my early days learning music too, and
Speaker 1: I just think everybody when they're starting out on an instrument,
Speaker 1: has that first song that they learned where they impressed
Speaker 1: themselves in a way. It goes from doing scales and
Speaker 1: exercises to oh my god, this is fun. I can
Speaker 1: express myself. Do you remember that moment? Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first piece of music that you learned that you
Speaker 1: were really proud of that got you going When the
Speaker 1: Saints go marching in That was a big one for me.
Speaker 1: I was a kid. But you said something that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: When people learn how to play their first song. Everybody
Speaker 1: learns how to play a song. And what I want
Speaker 1: to try to do is if you understand a few
Speaker 1: of the basic fundamentals, you'll be able to play whatever
Speaker 1: you want. Going back to the painting analogy, if somebody
Speaker 1: teaches you how to draw a face, you'll draw that
Speaker 1: face a hundred times. You just keep drawing faces. But
Speaker 1: if somebody teaches you how to draw, you can draw
Speaker 1: whatever you want. And I want to teach people the
Speaker 1: basic fundamentals of music so they can pick songs out
Speaker 1: on their own. And because not everybody wants to play
Speaker 1: the same thing. I mean, you might want to play
Speaker 1: an Adele song, somebody might want to play a Cold
Speaker 1: Porter song, whatever it is. If you learn just some
Speaker 1: really basic fundamentals, literally, anyone can in time start to
Speaker 1: figure out things on their own. And that's that's what
Speaker 1: I think is good for your brain, is you know,
Speaker 1: the eye hand coordination, the stimulation from these sounds, and
Speaker 1: learning how to play chords. So yeah, I'll show you
Speaker 1: how to play some songs, but it's it's a lot
Speaker 1: more than that. And you're you're passing on all this
Speaker 1: knowledge to all these people who were some of your teachers.
Speaker 1: You've had some incredible names, I mean James Booker among them,
Speaker 1: I mean just so many. Who are some of the
Speaker 1: people that either personally or either just even just listening
Speaker 1: to their music made you want to pursue music. Well,
Speaker 1: a guy like James Booker, I mean he was a
Speaker 1: teacher in a in an extremely unorthodox way. I mean,
Speaker 1: he wasn't James Booker for your for your listeners and
Speaker 1: viewers who may not know, was probably the greatest piano
Speaker 1: player to ever come out of New Orleans. But he
Speaker 1: he was a unique player, like nobody ever played like him.
Speaker 1: So if you wanted to play like him, you had
Speaker 1: to ask him. And I don't know how many people
Speaker 1: asked him. I you know, maybe I don't know anyone
Speaker 1: who asked him, but I did when I was younger,
Speaker 1: and he showed me how to play some things. But
Speaker 1: he wasn't a teacher in the way that say Ellis
Speaker 1: marsa Alice was, who was another teacher of mine, who was,
Speaker 1: you know, a real intellectual or real academic and and
Speaker 1: was great at sort of breaking things down. But these
Speaker 1: are like super high level teachers. So the things that
Speaker 1: I'm doing in Piano Party are not those things yet
Speaker 1: they're they're they're very very basic things. But like if
Speaker 1: you listen to Errol Garner play the piano, if you
Speaker 1: don't want to go sit at the piano and you know,
Speaker 1: or tap your feet after hearing that. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just incredible. But then I listened to Freddie Mercury played
Speaker 1: the Introduction to Death on two Legs, and I just
Speaker 1: I love I love that. You know, it's not that's
Speaker 1: not hard. You listen to Billy Joel or Elton John
Speaker 1: and those people, or or Stevie or Ray Charles, and
Speaker 1: it's just these are all people that you know, make
Speaker 1: me smile when I hear different ways of playing the piano,
Speaker 1: different keyboards, your career from New Orleans. There are so
Speaker 1: many incredible people when you mentioned them, and you've got
Speaker 1: Jelly Roal Martin, Professor long Hair, I mean, such an
Speaker 1: incredible convergence of influences. I'm always fascinated by what makes
Speaker 1: someone go from being a performer who plays other people's
Speaker 1: music to making the jump into being a writer. I
Speaker 1: mean me as an example, but I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people that are gonna be learning on your on
Speaker 1: your piano party courses. Um, they'll learn the basics and
Speaker 1: at some point some of them will want to make
Speaker 1: the jump into writing their own music. Um, I've never
Speaker 1: done that yet I've never felt able to use music
Speaker 1: to communicate. But I want to ask you how did
Speaker 1: you make the jump from performer to writer? But that's you. Listen,
Speaker 1: by the time we finished talking, you're gonna be inspired
Speaker 1: to go start writing, because it's man, I've tried, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: dig this. A lot of people think of writing as
Speaker 1: I want to go write a song, or I want
Speaker 1: to write a novel, or I want to go, you know,
Speaker 1: write a screenplay, And I always tell them, don't, don't
Speaker 1: think about any of that. Just start putting ideas down
Speaker 1: and eventually the form of whatever you're trying to write
Speaker 1: is gonna sort of start to assemble itself. You have
Speaker 1: to give yourself something to edit. But a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of people get sort of daunted by the notion
Speaker 1: of writing a song because when you think of a song,
Speaker 1: whatever that song form is. If you're if you're co porter,
Speaker 1: you're probably writing a A B A song. If you're
Speaker 1: a pop writer, you might write in you know, verse, verse,
Speaker 1: pre chorus, chorus or whatever the that that can that
Speaker 1: can really turn people off. But if if you and
Speaker 1: I are talking and you think I want to write
Speaker 1: a song about conversation, okay, conversation, hanging out talking. You know,
Speaker 1: before you know it, something will start to emerge to
Speaker 1: which you can then edit. So I don't know specifically
Speaker 1: when that process happened for me. I guess I was
Speaker 1: pretty young, like nine or two when I did kind
Speaker 1: of putting ideas down. But whether it's lyrics or melodies
Speaker 1: or a painting, just start, just start. Good buddy of
Speaker 1: mine for fifteen years that I want to write a
Speaker 1: mystery novel, and he's never done it because he's trying
Speaker 1: to write a novel as opposed to express himself, you know,
Speaker 1: with a sentence here or a word there, an idea there.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you, if you're passionate enough to want
Speaker 1: to do it, it's just a matter of giving yourself
Speaker 1: something to edit. That is a great message. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was I mean a lot of people are intimidated
Speaker 1: to start the piano. As you mentioned earlier, eight keys.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of keys. But you're approaching it in
Speaker 1: this really accessible, logical way to break it down and
Speaker 1: demystify it and make it something it's more accessible. And
Speaker 1: then the next step from learning to play is learning
Speaker 1: to express yourself with your own ideas. And I think
Speaker 1: that's such a cool And and also if yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: and I'm going on Instagram and and search for piano.
Speaker 1: The level of virtuosity that exists up there right now,
Speaker 1: you talk about intimidating to somebody who's just starting out.
Speaker 1: There's there's kids, like literally children that are playing so much,
Speaker 1: so fast. You know, there are one video I saw this,
Speaker 1: this young woman sitting in the closet playing John Coltrane
Speaker 1: solos and octaves like upside down like insane amounts of virtuosity.
Speaker 1: That's not what this is. This, This isn't a competition,
Speaker 1: This isn't about you know, I look how much I
Speaker 1: know this is. Hey, hold my hand. Let's start at
Speaker 1: step one and let's look at what's going on in
Speaker 1: the world right now. This is a crazy, very sad
Speaker 1: and turbulent, confusing time. This is designed to give us
Speaker 1: some peace, to bring us together. Um, when we have
Speaker 1: some control over that. We we don't have control over everything,
Speaker 1: but we do have control over how we're gonna spend
Speaker 1: our time. And you know, ten fifteen minutes, you know,
Speaker 1: watching this, learning a little bit, sharing story, reason and
Speaker 1: then at the end, seeing a bunch of people I
Speaker 1: did a on this platform, I have neutral ground on
Speaker 1: which the Piano Party exists. We did our first UM
Speaker 1: discord meeting and the person that was running it did
Speaker 1: a a zoom link and all of a sudden, I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you know, fifty people and it just you know,
Speaker 1: it brings us together. And I think that's what we
Speaker 1: need right now. Oh absolutely could say that again. I
Speaker 1: mean I noticed that that play seems to be the
Speaker 1: operative word. I know your your most recent tour was
Speaker 1: Time to Play, and this is Piano Party. It's it
Speaker 1: seems to be focusing on. You know, what we need
Speaker 1: right now is something joyful. I mean, it's it's to me,
Speaker 1: it's that basic. I mean again, it is such a
Speaker 1: confusing time and we're going to our third year of COVID.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think everybody could agree we're you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully nearing the end and it's definitely not as as
Speaker 1: acute as it was. But you know, it seems like
Speaker 1: just as we're going through that, we're hearing all of
Speaker 1: this nightmares news come out of Ukraine, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a sad time, you know, And and I
Speaker 1: would like to try to create something where we could
Speaker 1: get a respite from that we could we can enjoy
Speaker 1: one another, learn from one another. UM, celebrate our common humanity,
Speaker 1: but UM also celebrate our diversity at the same time, UM,
Speaker 1: and realize that we're human beings. We all love each other,
Speaker 1: and you know, let's let's try to you know, get
Speaker 1: get through this crazy life together. And as well said I,
Speaker 1: the last two years has been transformative for all of
Speaker 1: us for in so many ways. Uh, maybe some good,
Speaker 1: mostly bad. But UM, has it changed your relationship to
Speaker 1: music in any way? It has? Um? In uh in
Speaker 1: the sense that like the way I record has changed
Speaker 1: because you know, especially right at the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, you know, you couldn't go out of your
Speaker 1: house at least, you know, I was one of the
Speaker 1: fortunate ones who was able to stay at home. When
Speaker 1: I think about all of the men and women who
Speaker 1: were out there on the front lines, you know, providing
Speaker 1: as much semblance of normalcy for the rest of us
Speaker 1: as they could, I feel very fortunate to have been
Speaker 1: one of the ones who was able to kind of
Speaker 1: stay home. UM. And you know I was, there was
Speaker 1: nobody here. You know, it's not you have a recording
Speaker 1: engineer or another musician. So you know, I started doing
Speaker 1: a lot more recording by myself, which I've always done,
Speaker 1: but this was like a lot and you know it's
Speaker 1: and like you were saying before, like you know, playing
Speaker 1: by yourself is a lot differ than playing with other people.
Speaker 1: And when you're when you're by yourself, you you you
Speaker 1: have no distractions, so it sort of forces you too
Speaker 1: if you feel like it, you know, work on the
Speaker 1: things that you need to work on. So yeah, if
Speaker 1: it affected me musically, I think, I mean the songs
Speaker 1: and the sessions you're talking about along with my faith
Speaker 1: or into a Grammy nomination our Best Roots Gospel Album. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you quite literally played everything on your own engineer
Speaker 1: to yourself, producing yourself. Were you did you intentionally set
Speaker 1: out to make a record when you were doing that
Speaker 1: or was that purely he like healing for you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was healing for me because this this may be
Speaker 1: hard to understand, but music, I just it's just what
Speaker 1: I do. It's all, it's all I do. It's like breathing,
Speaker 1: So I never really think about it. Like if I
Speaker 1: go fishing, I go fishing because it's fun to relax.
Speaker 1: Like I never like really sit around at home and
Speaker 1: like play for my own enjoyment. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: so much a part of me that I don't ever
Speaker 1: think of it like that. But I found myself thinking
Speaker 1: about my faith a lot, and to be quite honest,
Speaker 1: sometimes my faith was really, really, really strong during especially
Speaker 1: the first few months of the pandemic, and sometimes I
Speaker 1: questioned things, and I found myself thinking about gospel mut music,
Speaker 1: and you know, I would sit down and play Amazing
Speaker 1: Grace because it made me feel good. I've never done
Speaker 1: that before. I would play Amazing Grace to make other
Speaker 1: people feel good, and I felt good as a result
Speaker 1: of it. But I was actually functionally playing this music
Speaker 1: to help me cope with things over which I had
Speaker 1: no control. And then I would play another song. Before
Speaker 1: I knew it, I'm like, well, let me write a
Speaker 1: song about how I'm feeling. And then I had I'm like,
Speaker 1: let me just press record, and you know, I recorded
Speaker 1: the whole album. I played, you know, all these keyboards
Speaker 1: and trumpets and trombones and basses and everything else, and
Speaker 1: it took about eight months, but it was highly therapeutic.
Speaker 1: It was really a fun process. I don't know the
Speaker 1: answer to this question, but I. I am so fascinated
Speaker 1: by by the healing properties of music. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: something that's able to bring comfort and solace to so many,
Speaker 1: including ourselves when we make it, and I can't for
Speaker 1: the life and they figure out why, what is it
Speaker 1: about music that makes it such an effective conduit of
Speaker 1: of emotion and healing. I'd love to hear your thoughts
Speaker 1: and insights on what is it about music that that
Speaker 1: makes it just makes it filled with such a motion
Speaker 1: that can really just touch us in so many deep ways. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it really is incredible. And and my sister
Speaker 1: is a psychiatrist, and I asked her once, I said,
Speaker 1: do you find yourself like in social contexts, like analyzing
Speaker 1: people without even realizing? And she goes, no, not, not really,
Speaker 1: And she goes, do you find yourself analyzing music, you know,
Speaker 1: and at a restaurant? And and I don't. And and
Speaker 1: for somebody like me, you know, who's so deeply immersed
Speaker 1: in the technical part of music, it's equally as thereft
Speaker 1: of technique and complete emotion as it is super technical.
Speaker 1: So I can start crying when I hear a piece
Speaker 1: of music. Doesn't matter if it's good or bad, whatever
Speaker 1: it's like. And your question is why, why, why does
Speaker 1: that affect you? And I don't know, man, It's just
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, art takes over where any kind
Speaker 1: of rational articulation stops, and I think it's a gift
Speaker 1: from God. And um, I don't know. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a guy named Dr David Eagleman who has this series
Speaker 1: called Brain. I think it's it's like a six part
Speaker 1: documentary on Apple TV or something, and I watched that
Speaker 1: and he and he deals with that a little bit
Speaker 1: about you know, what is it like, what is actually
Speaker 1: happening in our brains? And in a way I want
Speaker 1: to know, In a way I kind of don't want
Speaker 1: to know, because you know, it's like I talked about
Speaker 1: that piano introduction to Death on Two Legs when Freddie
Speaker 1: Mercury starts playing and it just overwhelms me. It just
Speaker 1: gives me a certain kind of feeling. And I wish
Speaker 1: I knew why. I just I feel so lucky to
Speaker 1: be able to be a person who can potentially make
Speaker 1: someone feels something with music. That that is like something
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for. I mean, it's like seeing an
Speaker 1: amazing magic trick you almost don't want to hear how
Speaker 1: the trick is done. You don't want to learn how
Speaker 1: that parts played, because you just wanted to exist as
Speaker 1: this thing that it's It's amazing you said that because, um,
Speaker 1: I had a daytime talk show for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and every once in a while we would have like
Speaker 1: a mentalist or a magician come on, and they always
Speaker 1: they meaning to producers wanted me to know, you know,
Speaker 1: what was happening. So I said, I don't want to
Speaker 1: know that. I believe in that stuff like the time
Speaker 1: leor Suchard the incredible mentalist guess my pin number on
Speaker 1: a mat on the James Gordon Show and I had
Speaker 1: to change my bad Like, I don't know how the
Speaker 1: hell he did that, and I don't want to know. Um,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I love magic. I love mystery
Speaker 1: and wonder and you know why do we feel this way?
Speaker 1: You know, it's just that's what makes life, you know,
Speaker 1: more exciting. I think there's a fundamental mystery and music.
Speaker 1: I mean, we we find in traces of ancient civilizations,
Speaker 1: when when human beings were just struggling to eat and survive,
Speaker 1: we found traces of primitive instruments so clearly this was
Speaker 1: a priority from the earliest days when we were just
Speaker 1: trying to live. And it's amazing cool, it's so important,
Speaker 1: it's so so important. So that's that's why this whole
Speaker 1: piano party things important to me, you know, just because
Speaker 1: it's it's just hanging out in a different way. It's
Speaker 1: it's using music too, just to bring us together. That's
Speaker 1: all it is. Right on. I the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, in times of stress, I've
Speaker 1: been I've been listening to music that I haven't listened
Speaker 1: to in decades. I call it musical comfort food. Have
Speaker 1: you been doing that too, stuff that just like returns
Speaker 1: me to a different time, different place in my life.
Speaker 1: Have you been doing that? You know? Yes? And no.
Speaker 1: I've been working so hard on my own music that
Speaker 1: you know, it's rare that I actually sit down and
Speaker 1: listen to stuff. But but sometimes I'll go down that
Speaker 1: rabbit hole and yeah, man, like you just started listening
Speaker 1: to stuff. I was talking to my sister about a
Speaker 1: song that um Gordon Lifefoot song if you could read
Speaker 1: my mind, and you know, I hadn't heard that like
Speaker 1: the last time I heard it was out of a
Speaker 1: car stereo in the nine on an eight track. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, you put headphones on and you look,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh my god. First of all, you hear
Speaker 1: things you didn't know we're there because the quality is
Speaker 1: better now at least you know, yeah, with headphones and stuff.
Speaker 1: But it's like whoa, Like immediately it's like a time capsule.
Speaker 1: You know, you go down that that rabbit hole and
Speaker 1: start listening to stuff. It's just amazing. Oh man, that
Speaker 1: is a that is a great track. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: I hope that's something that comes with some of your
Speaker 1: your hangout sessions on the Piano Party two. I mean
Speaker 1: just swapping you know, music to check out and stuff,
Speaker 1: like a lot of people probably don't don't know that song. Well.
Speaker 1: The cool thing about the metaverse because this notion of
Speaker 1: decentralization and everybody kind of being a part of it,
Speaker 1: This is going to evolve. This is this series over
Speaker 1: time is going the breadth of it is going to increase.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be all different kinds of offshoots that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't even be able to predict because a lot of
Speaker 1: it's going to be driven by the members of the community.
Speaker 1: So although I'm starting in a very basic way at
Speaker 1: some point. I mean, I have specific ideas about where
Speaker 1: it's gonna go, but there's you know, this community will
Speaker 1: organically grow and and provide um, you know, whatever the
Speaker 1: community itself wants. So that's what I'm excited about to see,
Speaker 1: like in the first what I call land yapp session,
Speaker 1: which land yap means bonus in where I come from
Speaker 1: in the world, and to see what folks are saying,
Speaker 1: like we really like this, but would you show us
Speaker 1: this or there's no way to know that because if
Speaker 1: if I'm a teacher and I'm teaching one person, immediately
Speaker 1: I can see with the relations and ship is. But
Speaker 1: on piano party, I don't know who's gonna be watching.
Speaker 1: You could be five years old, you could be ninety
Speaker 1: five years old. You could play a little bit, you
Speaker 1: could have never played. So I have to learn you
Speaker 1: know who this is for. So I'm excited to see
Speaker 1: it involved. I meant to mention this earlier. The name
Speaker 1: neutral ground, um, I mean, has a wonderful double meaning,
Speaker 1: but it means something personal to you and where you're from.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little about how you landed
Speaker 1: on that title? Yeah? Sure, so I was trying to
Speaker 1: come up with some type of platform where a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of people could just get together and love each
Speaker 1: other and celebrate all the things that we love. Some
Speaker 1: of the things I love are music and food, like
Speaker 1: I love to smoke barbecue, Um, I love traveling, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, you know, recipes or family or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. And so I created the Neutral Ground, which
Speaker 1: is this online free, you know, brand new immersive social experience.
Speaker 1: And on the Neutral Ground will be lots of different things.
Speaker 1: Among those things will be piano party and things that
Speaker 1: I can't talk about yet, but a lot of different content,
Speaker 1: shows and music and hangouts and all this. So I
Speaker 1: was trying to think of a name for it, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to name it something that meant something to me.
Speaker 1: In New Orleans, a median, that grassy strip between two
Speaker 1: streets is called a neutral ground, and that comes from
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds. UM. One of the earliest meanings of
Speaker 1: that was Canal Street, where on one side of Canal
Speaker 1: Street you had one type of people, as they were
Speaker 1: referred to in that they and on the other side
Speaker 1: of Canal Street you had another type of people. There
Speaker 1: were the French creoles on one side and the Anglo
Speaker 1: Americans on the other side, and they had this area
Speaker 1: where once in a while they would come together in trade,
Speaker 1: and that was called a neutral ground because they didn't
Speaker 1: particularly get along well. That stuck in any grassy media
Speaker 1: in New Orleans is called a neutral ground. And my
Speaker 1: wife always thought she could never understand it because I
Speaker 1: say neutral ground, so she thought it was like neutra
Speaker 1: like almost like a neutrient rat And a lot of
Speaker 1: people say neutral ground. They put the emphasis on ground.
Speaker 1: But if you go to New Orleans and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'll meet you on the neutral ground, that's where you
Speaker 1: watch a martycra parade, or that's you know where pignicke
Speaker 1: or whatever. Depending on the neutral ground, you can do
Speaker 1: lots of different things. But essentially it's a median. But
Speaker 1: I thought, well, that name means something to me, and
Speaker 1: it's also a place where we are all the same.
Speaker 1: This this zoom call I had the other day with
Speaker 1: all of these members of this discord community on neutral ground.
Speaker 1: One woman was driving to her daughter's fourth surgery. That
Speaker 1: was a tiny little girl, like two years old. You'd
Speaker 1: see this woman walking on the street, you know, nice lady,
Speaker 1: wouldn't think anything. Little would you know that she's got
Speaker 1: this child that's suffering so immensely, and consequently she's suffering,
Speaker 1: and the little girl's brothers suffering, and like she came
Speaker 1: on a neutral ground too, to just be together, you know.
Speaker 1: And that really knocked me back, because all of us
Speaker 1: have stuff, and on the neutral ground, anything that's waiting
Speaker 1: you down doesn't. It's a place to love, to come
Speaker 1: and be loved, you know what I'm saying. I mean,
Speaker 1: things that might be burdening you in one part of
Speaker 1: your life. We want to celebrate you and that and
Speaker 1: that's what I want. And I'm neutral with everybody else.
Speaker 1: I got my own problems. We all have our own problems.
Speaker 1: But the neutral grounds to come to the place you
Speaker 1: come to forget all of that in order to share
Speaker 1: it and and be loved for it. And the stories
Speaker 1: I've been reading on discorded by people and the personal
Speaker 1: struggles are going through, it's like, come come with us,
Speaker 1: Come come be with us. We're gonna love. We're gonna
Speaker 1: love you. We're not gonna accept you, We're gonna love you.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. It's not like, Okay, we
Speaker 1: understand the things about you are different than me, So
Speaker 1: we're gonna accept no, no, no, we love you wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1: Come be with us. Let's talk about the things that
Speaker 1: we love and the things that bring us together. So
Speaker 1: that's that's what the Neutral Ground is all about. That
Speaker 1: is absolutely beautiful. That is an incredible project. I am
Speaker 1: so glad you're putting this out into this world. I
Speaker 1: think that is an absolutely amazing thing because the one
Speaker 1: thing I'll say, we live in a very divisive time.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody really wants to talk about politics anymore
Speaker 1: because you know it's there's gonna invariably be some kind
Speaker 1: of argument or whatever. I mean, that's great that we
Speaker 1: think different things, but in our totality, we're so much
Speaker 1: more than that. And and for something like that too
Speaker 1: keep us from loving each other, talking to each other.
Speaker 1: I don't ever remember a time in my life where
Speaker 1: things were so on edge, like you know, you know,
Speaker 1: every everybody kind of wants to shy away from from
Speaker 1: dialogue about this stuff. That Neutral Ground is not a
Speaker 1: place for that. There are places for that, and there
Speaker 1: should be places for that, But this is not a
Speaker 1: place where you come to argue politics or religion. This
Speaker 1: is a place you come with your set of beliefs
Speaker 1: and they are to be respected. And and it's amazing
Speaker 1: what happens when you actually listen, really listen to someone.
Speaker 1: You might actually learn a little something. You may not
Speaker 1: agree with it, but you might say, oh, okay, I
Speaker 1: never really understood it like that, and that's what makes
Speaker 1: it great. It's not like in New Orleans. We weren't
Speaker 1: raised to be color blind. We were raised to see
Speaker 1: the beauty and our differences. We're not all the same.
Speaker 1: We're we're a melting pot. This country is a melting pot.
Speaker 1: New Orleans is a melting pot. So there's different cultures
Speaker 1: that come together and we celebrate that. That's that's what
Speaker 1: the neutral ground is. Well said, I don't want to
Speaker 1: take up too much more of your time. My last question, uh,
Speaker 1: touch on us a little bit earlier. That's been and
Speaker 1: incredibly challenging last two years, incredibly difficult. Has it taught
Speaker 1: you anything new about yourself? Have you learned anything new
Speaker 1: about yourself in the last two years? Um that I
Speaker 1: need to work harder to be a better person. Um
Speaker 1: that I'm driven to be a better husband, a better dad.
Speaker 1: Um if I want to live on the highest level
Speaker 1: of existence. That I can live. I need to love more.
Speaker 1: I need to have more humility in my life. Um.
Speaker 1: I need to listen more. Um, because everything's quiet, you know,
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, you know, it's it's craziness in the world.
Speaker 1: But when you're alone by yourself, you know, you really
Speaker 1: have a chance to think. You know, how how can
Speaker 1: I use this opportunity, opportunity to make myself better? You know,
Speaker 1: there's no distractions, you know, at least there weren't for
Speaker 1: for a long time. How can I become a better musician?
Speaker 1: You know? How can I What can I do? And
Speaker 1: and uh along the way, you know, I learned that
Speaker 1: I can. I can definitely work on all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad I had a chance to reflect and
Speaker 1: think about it. We're all works in progress. You got that, right, Oh, Harry.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today, and most
Speaker 1: importantly your music is such an honor to speak to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so very much. Thank you, Jordan, And you
Speaker 1: need to write that song. Man, Let's go, I'll try
Speaker 1: all right, here we go. 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 forever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite podcast.