March 3, 2026 • 54 mins
Songwriter Ruston Kelly joins Ben Higgins for a raw, honest conversation on “If You Can Hear Me.” Ruston shares his creative process, spiritual journey, and how making sense of pain fuels his music. The episode explores his struggles with addiction, faith, and the transformative power of gratitude, culminating in his experience with the divine and the impact of love in his life. Discover how Ruston’s latest album, “Pale Through the Window,” became a testament to healing and connection. If you’ve ever felt alone, this episode offers comfort, insight, and a powerful reminder that fulfillment comes not from chasing success, but from community and authenticity.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Mission Behind Ruston’s Music
00:00 Spiritual Paralysis and Finding God
00:48 Ben Higgins Welcomes Ruston Kelly
01:18 Music’s Impact on the Soul
02:27 What Connection Really Means
03:54 Aloneness, Community, and Healing
05:55 Addiction, Suffering, and Fulfillment
07:17 Career Versus Meaning
08:20 Temptation to Shift for Success
09:58 Balancing Art and Commerce
12:05 Competing and Comparing in Industry
14:44 Longing, Despair, and Worship
16:34 Idols and False Selves
18:20 Encounter With the Divine
22:09 Gratitude and Spiritual Awakening
28:07 Doubt After Spiritual Experience
30:42 Trials and Building Back
36:03 Creating “Pale Through the Window”
38:43 Trusting the Creative Process
45:19 Joy, Simplicity, and Vulnerability
47:18 Meeting Tia and True Love
51:21 God’s Timing in Relationships
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If they can get some type of relief or connect
some thread to fulfillment, then I've done a good job.
It was like, you're really talented, but if you were
to maybe shift slightly, you could be the cool guy
in this.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Group of people.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Spiritually, I felt a null I guess I felt like
I had a spiritual paralysis.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I did everything except.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
For go to what could be potentially the truest source possible.
I just had this theory that if God is God,
then I can bring anything to him.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It happened.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
It was an out of body experience. I saw a
figure approach me, and it was a kind of a
celestial glowing.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Welcome to if you can hear me, a space where
culture meets the soul.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
I'm Ben Higgins.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
You may know me from The Bachelor, and you may
know some of my guests from culture and headlines, but
this podcast is about going beyond the surface into something deeper.
Today's guest is Rustin Kelly, a songwriter known for his
raw honesty and for openly sharing his journey through pain, recovery,
and self discovery. I invite you to lean in and
(01:15):
enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
I have listened to you for years well, Rustin Kelly
is somebody that's sitting beside me, but also your music,
and I don't I'm not just going to say this
to say it speaks to me in a different way.
I wanted to start to have by telling you a
little story about myself, because this is all about me.
(01:39):
I do this thing at night. My wife had to
get used to it when we got married. And this
could sound weird. I turn off the lights and I
light a candle and I play music that like kind
of it's like tears up my soul. And I have
the playlist on my phone, and when I heard that,
I was going to be able to talk to you.
(01:59):
I want to tell you that you like it's probably
forty five songs. You have five songs in that playlist,
which is a big percentage of those songs sick. I
want to start it that way because I mean, I
want to kind of off the bad Just ask you
when you hear that, then somebody listens to your music,
it tears at their soul that they turn off the lights,
light a candle and just like kind of like contemplate
(02:20):
and pray through this music and hmm, what is how
does that feel to you?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
That feels like.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Mission accomplished and in the most collective way.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I mean, it can be really easy to.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Be you know, you take a thing that means so
much to you as far as just like my personal
reason for carving out a sensibility, whether it's like from
the spirit, whether it's from what's going on up here,
writing songs as a way too out of that observance
(03:02):
understand the world better. And it's a very bizarre thing
to put that into like the context of a packaged
thing to then sell. And you know, also like being
hungry and driven you have you know, you want to
take control of your your business and grow it. And
(03:23):
it's this industry isn't really made to foster the spirit
articulating itself. It's meant to foster you growing your business.
So when I hear that, I'm like, it's the same
thing that I feel when I see like the kid
in the front row that came to meet me before
the show whose brother died of an overdose that gets
(03:46):
a similar relief. I'm like, that's really that is the point,
that's the point of why I do it. So thank
you for saying that.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Well, and well, thank you for putting your soul into
this mute. But and I want you to correct me,
because I'm going to say a lot here. Because I
am familiar with you as in your work, I'm not
as familiar with you as a person. That's why I'm
so excited to talk to you. But part of this
show and the work that I do outside of the
(04:16):
show is all focused on helping people feel less alone
because I've spent so much of my life feeling like
the outsider looking in and so for me, and I
don't and I could just be, you know, putting my
own insecurities onto your music. But for me, when I
I do that at night, turn off lights, light the
candle music, to like recenter and feel less alone in
(04:39):
this world, to listen to the things that help me
go Okay, somebody else out there struggling, somebody else out
there is processing these questions, these thoughts. Whatever, is that
what you wanted out of this or when you hear
that or you like that's just an outcome that you're feeling,
then as as an.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Individual, that that is what I what I want. I mean,
I think like as an artist, and I mean that
kind of in the purest sense of the word, like
someone that not even professionally, but someone that typifies themselves
by describing their experiences in a self expressive way, like
(05:15):
an artist's job, then, in my opinion, is to realize
that you have a gift to do that and to
steward that gift. But the first the first part of
that is to understand what that gift does for yourself.
And for the same reasons that you listen to that
(05:36):
playlist and have that kind of ritual to make sense
of your inner world as you're going out in the world,
like it doesn't really matter if you're loved deeply and
like and for some people they could have like a
incredible depth of love from the creator, but that doesn't
always mean that, like you aren't going to feel alone,
(05:58):
you aren't going to strike, you aren't going.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
To get addicted like you.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Trouble is part and parcel to the human experience. Suffering
is a route to understand why we're loved, to understand
why we need to feel community, whether that's just between
you and the divine or even like you and like
your real self, because like thoughts are thoughts, experiences or experiences,
(06:28):
and I think that that is essentially why I want
to do it. It is a communion to people that
I don't even know that if they can get some
type of relief or connect some thread to loneliness and
then to fulfillment, then I've I've done a good job.
(06:50):
That's my that's my bar.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
You you mentioned that you're the industry, though, isn't necessarily
set up.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
For this now it's not?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
And uh, and so there has to.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Be a bigger reason why you're doing it right, It's
not just when you're an incredible artist. You could do
the things that would get you all the plays and everything,
but you're doing things that have a bigger meeting meaning why.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Because my primary drive is not to grow my career.
My primary drive is to be the best possible steward
of a gift that has just, in my quiet moments
of darkness, been able to understand that a bit better
(07:37):
and not feel so alone.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
It's like a trick that I've always.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Had when I was younger, and I would, you know,
sit down and like I didn't know what I was doing,
but it was honestly like a free form of therapy.
I could make sense of the feelings that I was
having that were tangled and confusing, and that has and
always will be my primary purpose. I had opportunities early
(08:02):
on to not do that. It was like, you know,
I'd go into like the boardroom of like the dude
that signed this person this person, and he's like, might
as well be like smoking a cigar, you know, that
kind of like trope, and it was like, you're really talented,
but if you were to maybe shift slightly, you could
(08:24):
be the cool guy in this group of people and
be very successful at doing that. But you'd essentially have
to say less and not go as far into that expression.
And I don't know, I just that was never going
to be my path. And if that meant a slower
(08:45):
climb to where, you know, my my goals were, then
so be it. If that meant that it wasn't in
the cards for me to be a professional artist, then
so be it. Like I would write the same songs
working on a horse farm, you know that I do
right now doing it for a living.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
So you, I mean, I'm assuming you feel.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Things deeply unfortunately.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Yes, yeah, And so I mean you just recently were
on the Kelly Clarks in the show. Yeah, this is
a little different. We get to talk for as long
as we want to talk about whatever you want to
talk about. Yeah, and some things that are interesting to
me too. But when you sit down in those boarding rooms,
or you sit down with Kelly Clarkson and you have
like a five minute segment and she's you know, asking
(09:29):
you questions that are like more hits to just you know,
get the viewership up, get your listeners up or whatever,
how do you like navigate those because you've just said, like,
that's not who you are. You have a lot to say,
you have a lot to feel, you have a story
to tell.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
So how how do you balance just saying the things
you need to say, but then also knowing like that
there's so much more that you want.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
To say, Well, I think it. It can be tricky,
you know, when you make a body of work, like,
for example, this album, there's so much to say about
it for myself, like I could, you know, write a
novella about what it took to make the record, just
(10:15):
like life experiences and then crafting that and having it
be like Okay, I can step back and look at
this you know painting and say like that is exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
What was going on.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It's tricky because when you do get into the kind
of commerce aspect of it. Commerce isn't really interested either
in lengthy discussions most of the time, especially in those environments.
But I think you just get better at it. I
think it depends on, like what your purpose for doing
it as a business is, because if it was not
(10:51):
about like going and selling tickets and growing a career
and fan base, then I would be doing something else.
I feel driven, maybe not equally, but I feel and
have felt a very strong drive to grow because I
love playing for people. I love the excitement of being
(11:12):
on stage. I love amphitheaters like I grew up going
to see Dave Matthews band, the freedom of that of
people just like doing what they mean in their music.
And then I think, like what keeps me going, what
keeps the flamelet is believing that even though it may
not be tomorrow, that this thing that I have created
(11:36):
for myself and others, in its honesty and as being
authentic as possible, will carry me there.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
It will take me to the right place.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And if that's longer, that's fine, and even if it
doesn't that's fine too. But I think like it's a
testament of my I'm always competing against myself, like social
media can make it where you're competing everybody all the time,
and everybody is always doing better than you. You know,
they're always happier than you, they're always hotter than you.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
You know, they have more metals than you.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And I actually welcome that difficulty because it's only going
to sharpen like the truer tool of making something that
is a business but that it actually means something very
much so to me and to the people that commune
with it.
Speaker 6 (12:29):
Are you ever.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Upset with yourself though?
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Yeah, all the time that this is like the mindset
and the path. How do you mean, I mean it's frustrating, right,
I mean, I see here and I'm feeling very similar.
The reason we're sitting here today is because I said, hey,
I want to talk about people about like the things
that are important in life that I know are important, right, Yeah,
the struggles, the pains, the difficulties, community connection, fate, all
(12:56):
these things that I think make the world go and
that make the human exce experience exciting but also really hard.
It would be a lot easier for me to just
talk about pop culture and reality television, which is my
background that I don't really have any influence in or
excitement about Yeah, but it would take off right, Yeah,
(13:16):
maybe maybe apfully, But there's moments where I'm sitting there
and I'm comparing myself on the social media's and going, goodness,
I just wish I had it right. I wish I
was more that way. I wish I could just sit
down and talk to somebody for an hour and a
half about stuff I don't really care about because I
know it's.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
Going to get the listens.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
And then.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
There's many more moments where I sit here in this
seat and say, no, I just want to get to
know you. And this is actually what fires me up
and what fuels me. So that's where my question is
coming from. Do you ever like compare and then get
regretful or by yourself?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Of course, that is unfortunately like part of not just
the human experience in twenty twenty five, but to be
in a career that is public facing, I mean, and
also to be in a career where like growth is
tantamount to you know, how much you're posting and how
(14:15):
much people like you, you know how much they engage
with you, and you're getting thrown metrics all the time
by four different team members saying hey, people liked you
this much this week, they liked you this much this month,
but like on the third week, they kind of didn't
like you very much. So like, let's look at the
things that make them like you, and let's lean into that.
(14:38):
And I mean, I think for anyone, even whether it's
speaking or singing, like creative types, people that are willing
to kind of express themselves in any form thin or deep,
we're sensitive. And I think that you hit it on
the head though. I think every human being longs for
(15:02):
something that they don't have. I honestly think for me,
that is where you discover what the purpose of a
relationship with God is. C. S. Lewis says that Christianity
in particular is not a religion of checking the boxes
(15:23):
and making good marks on your test. It's the religion
of despair that when you've created this narrative about yourself,
which we all do, it's longing.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It's desire. I want this thing I don't have. We
are built to worship.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Whether or not you worship God doesn't really matter. Human
beings will worship, And even a great atheist, David Foster Wallace,
was like, since we will worship if you worship anything
of this world, you will die a thousand deaths. But
(16:02):
if you worship something infinite, it will booy you the
rest of your existence. And I think that's the crux
with what it means to be a follower of Jesus
is that you come in thinking you've got it all
figured out, and that that religion can be compartmentalized into
(16:23):
an aspect of your life.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Your walk with.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
God can be, Oh, that's what I do on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
It recharges the batteries. I feel good. That's fine.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
That's kind of a byproduct, a very small byproduct of it,
but in it being the religion of despair, it's when
you realize that not only have you been longing for
something so deeply that you end up worshiping it. A
great songwriter, Tom Douglas told me one time, idols they'll
(16:53):
satisfy in the short term, but they'll destroy you in
the end. And that's what we're talking about. Your false self,
when you bring it to the creator, will completely shatter
against your true self. And not everyone's willing to do that.
And it's really difficult when we work in a business
where everything is so shiny and dangling in front of us,
(17:13):
and it's like maybe if I just long harder, I'll
get the thing that will make me feel the thing
that I think will make me feel okay. And I
mean the point is to circumvent that completely, and that's
what I'm I mean, I'm trying to do that.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
Why, Like I said, I think you're not only doing
a great job for the list, you know, for your fans,
but you're speaking through your music in a way that
I'm not going to say very few do. But when
you find it, you know there's something special, there's something unique.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Do you feel joy?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (17:51):
Yeah, because recently you just mentioned that you're in a
season of joy. And you also have this quote that
I found about an interaction with the divine with God
that I think is just incredible and I want you
just to elaborate on it if you don't mind. You said,
(18:12):
the context is this, one night, sitting at the piano,
you found God. It was like a mushroom trip without
the mushrooms.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Facts in a moment of.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
Deep gratitude for just simply being able to play and
seeing it happened, I wanted to know if God was
like a real thing for such a long time, And
let me tell you I found out that night.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
Can you elaborate on that?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah. I mean this is a perfect segue. When I
released my.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
First album and started seeing you know, tickets being sold
and growing, and uh, we went really hard for and
that's what I wanted. I wanted to live on a
tour bus. I wanted to live in front of people.
I was like, I want to die on stage. And
when I came to Nashville, I used to walk around
(19:06):
Music Row and look at like Warner and Sony and
the ASCAP whatever, Like I looked at all of the
big labels and companies and I was like, I'm going
to do that. And then I was walking and I
walked past the Rhyman and there was someone performing at
the Rhyme and that said two nights only. And I
was like, I'm going to do that. That is what
(19:28):
I'm going to do. And I went back home and
I wrote on a piece of paper, I'm going to
sell out the Rhyman two nights in a row. And
I looked at it pretty much every day, and I
thought maybe it would happen in you know, a year
or whatever. I was young and emboldened and confident in
(19:48):
that way, and you know, it didn't happen right away,
but like as my first album started to like gain
some traction, we started to see more tickets and more tickets,
and then we got to a place where we put
the rhymen on sale and it sold out in five minutes,
and so we put another one up and it sold
(20:09):
out in like a few hours. And because we had
been going so hard and I was wanting and wanting
and wanting, it didn't even register to me that that
was something that I had written down and that was
like the reason that kind of like quiet goal.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So all that to say, I.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Had achieved a lot of what I wanted to achieve.
And by twenty twenty four, I was out on the
road and I came back home and I just felt spiritually,
I felt a null. I guess I felt like I
had a spiritual paralysis. And the reason I even typified
(20:54):
it as spiritual was because I knew that when I
created that I was communing with something divine. I knew
that this wasn't like I didn't create the ability to
make sense of my experiences. I did always feel like
it was a gift, but I had abused it. I
think for a while I think when you don't know
(21:15):
yourself well enough, you tend to abuse yourself. And I
did that through drugs, through pills. It was like accidental.
Really it was to keep me going on the road.
You know, everyone was doing it, but like I was
like doing it, doing it to keep going, to never stop,
to reach that goal, to keep going, keep writing, write enough.
(21:39):
You just made an album, make another album, Just go go, go,
go go.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
And again we bring.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
We come to the point of where if you're living
in a narrative that isn't in harmony with who you
really are, and you offer that up like I mean,
it will break. And that's exactly what happened. I'd gotten
to a point where I just I felt like, if
this was a spiritual issue of some sort, then there's
(22:05):
like a source error. So why don't I just go
to the source. And for a long time I had
read about pretty much every religious system. I was discovering
meaning and Greek ethics and philosophy and poetry and art,
and I mean I even went into like what a
crystal is going to do for me? I did everything
except for go to what could be potentially the truest
(22:28):
source possible, the og and I just had this theory
that if God is God, then I can bring anything
to him, not religiously bring something to him, but me
as a child of him. That if you are God,
then you have a name. And I have survived a
(22:50):
lot in my life and gotten better and broken again
and gotten better and still maintained this gift and ability.
And I was like, well, if you're God, and like,
tell me your name so that I can like actually
honor the path of being alive now in spite of everything.
(23:11):
And that was like the prayer. It was just like
tell me your name. If you're a God, then like
I want to know, just me, my soul needs to know.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And I got like no answer for a while.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And I'd been out on the road and I came
back and I almost gave up. I was like, maybe
all of the reasons that I numbed myself with drugs
and whatnot, maybe there was more merit to it than
I realized, and maybe that's better. Maybe oblivion is better,
because it's definitely seems better than this. And I stayed
(23:48):
in that for a bit and then one night I
was sitting at my piano and I was just singing,
like I do that every night before I go to bed,
I was just playing, and more than ever there was,
my attention was brought to how grateful I was to
do it, to just sing that I would do this
(24:08):
in any circumstance, and almost like in an eighties montage,
like my entire life and difficulties flashed in front of me,
and I was like, wow, like I'm still here and
I can still do this. So I just like I
bowed my head and I just said thank you, like
(24:29):
kind of like from the raw's depth, and I started
to kind of get a little emotional and I said
thank you again, and then it happened. It was an
out of body experience. I saw a figure approach me,
and it was a kind of a celestial glowing figure.
(24:53):
As it got closer, it was kind of the archetypal
picture of Jesus, but it wasn't a the image it
was about. Upon arrival, there was an absolutes. I wouldn't
even say joy, I wouldn't say bliss, I would say equanimity.
(25:13):
That in that moment, that out of body nearly psychedelic experience,
there was an okayness that was indescribable, and it was
related to me that everything, no matter what was going
to be okay, and just calm to me and stay here,
(25:38):
exist here, like we don't need to worry about if
you're Presbyterian at this point, you know, like just stay here.
And I came to and I like, I was like,
what's going on? This was this was definitely like I
have done many psychedelics and this did not come close
(25:58):
at all. And and my first thought was very cerebral,
which was do I have to wear a suit to church?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Like what does this mean?
Speaker 1 (26:07):
And the voice just kept carrying into me saying just
just give yourself to me. We're going to figure out
the details. And about two weeks later I met my
fiance and she was a person of faith, and she
was like, I grew up religious, but I've been on
a journey of wanting to deepen my relationship with God.
(26:32):
I wanted to be less surface and more of a walk.
I didn't tell her about the experience at all, and
then after our second date, she was like, hey, I
just wanted to I just felt like led to send
this to you. And I was a little devotional and
I was like, that's sweet. And I opened it and
the first sentence was come to me with an overflowing cup,
(26:57):
because gratitude allows you to receive me most clearly.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
And I knew then.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I knew that this wasn't some subconscious juggling that occurred.
This was a real experience with the creator of the universe.
And from then on I devoted my life to being
better at that.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Did you need this, Like when you're sitting at your
piano and you felt like everything was gonna be okay?
Was that a message you needed at the time?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, deeper than I thought, because I didn't. I thought
that I thought everything was okay. But like I just
built layer and layer and layer and layer and layer
upon a fundamental not okayness and that just was pierced
straight through. And in that same moment of feeling okay,
(27:59):
I was aware of how not okay I had been
for a long time.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So how do you start building back slowly?
Speaker 5 (28:07):
You know, we at some point during this show, I'll
get into mind story. But it's not dissimilar to what
you were speaking of, you know, maybe different experiences of
the words of comfort and what it meant to abide
in that moment. Yeah, I struggled with doubting.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
It was real.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Pretty quickly after and that's just kind of who hey, same, yeah, just.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
Kind of brush it off. But there's no way what
that was was real.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
That has to be a.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
Play with my mind, or that has to be the
ascid I took twenty years ago, just snapping back in
for a few minutes. But goodness, it's the realest thing
that's ever happened to me, now, yea, And I could
say that confidently.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
And so did you doubt that it was real?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yes, uh, like literally the moment after, you know, I
think that's so. Whether you want to call it, you know,
the great adversary, the enemy, many names for it. Every
religion has a name for it. Its only job is
to pull you away from that communion. And I that's
(29:15):
why I like the my fiance sending me that I
had been for the next couple of weeks like really
wrestling with if that was real or not.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
It's like, did I have like a psychotic break?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Like do I like low keyne to like go talk
to somebody, you know, like what's maybe I'm like there's
something wrong with me? But I just felt like a
I just kept praying. And when she sent me that
message without knowing that gratitude was the route and which
I experienced it. I just like I physically fell on
(29:53):
my knees and I knew it like knew it, not
like knew it it.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
But yeah, doubt was definitely. I think like the enemy
was like, we're gonna have to do something about this,
like asap. Yeah yeah, So.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
How do you start building back? Like you now have
had an interaction with the divine, there's a relationship building.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
Your fiance, who we're going to talk about, is involved
in this experience with you. She's now becoming more familiar
with your story. How do you start to heal and
build back what you didn't notice was broken before.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
In it being a religion of despair.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Right after that, I was like, well.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I'm invincible, you know, like I like I believe in
God like so like I'm good.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
You know, that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
In fact, like I some of the most difficult seasons
in my life have occurred since then.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Ironically, Like what I uh, I was.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Right after that happened, I got a back injury, and
I you know, I was going to the gym. I
was like trying to trying to do that, you know.
I was like I found the woman like, let's let's
be a man type thing, you know. I like, overdid
it for sure, and I got an injury and it
like it was a physical pain I'd never really experienced before.
(31:41):
She had to take me to the er, like at
three in the morning, Like it was the type of
pain where you're like disassociating.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
And it was so painful.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
They gave me a shot of morphine and it didn't
do anything, and I was like, yo, you're gonna have
to come up with something better than that, and they
gave me another shot on morphine, and then I started
to feel like pretty good, you know, I started to
feel like really good, and the er doctor gave me
a two week prescription of morphine tablets. When I took
(32:14):
it to the pharmacy, they were like, they won't really
like prescribe this anymore. I was like, whatever, I need it,
you know, like I'm in pain, and I was in pain,
and that triggered quite a bit opiates for never my thing,
So I just didn't think it was a big deal.
But I a weekend, I was like, I'm liking this,
(32:36):
like way more than I should be liking this, and
got rid of it and then had to confront physical pain.
The doctors didn't really know it turns out it was
a blood clot, but they didn't figure that out till
months later. Pain physically occurred. And then, as it would be,
(33:01):
I started the journey of this album, and at the
same time, the label wanted to do another album at
the exact same time, and there were shows associated with
that album while I was also trying to build this album,
and it was I had never been as like creatively busy.
(33:23):
My bandwidth was like so taxed, and I was just
like drive through it, drive through it, drive through it,
hit the road, come back, hit the road, like do it,
do it, do it.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And something kind of like triggered a.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Crack in the system of like attempting to do all
of this by myself. And then I picked up the
pieces and I continue.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
To try to do it all by myself.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
I was calling it, I'm having faith in God, but
I'm you know, waking up and doing ice baths and
hitting it really hard at the gym and like writing
a novel before I even go into a writing like
overdoing it, just overdoing it, overdoing it, go and be successful,
like yeah, God's got you, but like you got to go.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
And be successful and do this and make this shit work.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And I just like absolutely cracked again against it. What
that looked like this time, though, was it just uncovered.
I think a deeper issue that goes back to childhood,
which was at some point along the way I associated
(34:34):
being valued as being successful and that manifests in a
lot of different ways, and temptation to numb that became
almost unbearable, unbearable, and I then realized too that it
was this was exactly by design that God has intent
(35:00):
on you being completely dependent on him. You're gonna you
can keep trying, but you will keep cracking and cracking,
cracking until the false self is obliterated. And that's kind
of like I did that a few times, you know,
in the past year with the patience of my fiance
and she had some health stuff. We were tested a lot,
(35:26):
but we leaned into our relationship. I'd never prayed with
anybody before. I kind of thought that was cheesy, you know,
but like man, that praying with someone that you deeply
love and you respect their heart and.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
You bring that problem to the creator.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
It doesn't get solved immediately, but you know that you
have what it takes to solve it, and so I
just like I'm grateful for those trials. Trials will continue,
but they're only shaping it to be the version of
us that he wants.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Us to be.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
The album that you you're mentioning is called Pale through
the Window Yes on the way here today, I quite
I had quite the drive in here and I was
listening back to it and I had some lyrics. I
thought it'd be fun if I pulled them out and
talked about it. But actually, I'm going to just encourage
anybody that's listening to this and I I think they
(36:22):
should and they will, to go and listen to the
album themselves, because again, I don't want to influence what
lyrics stood out to me personally. But as I mentioned
at the beginning, this album speaks to the soul. It
also speaks to a lot of the things I feel
like you're talking about right now, like in my how
(36:43):
I heard it, it feels like for me personally, it's
like a love letter to my soul.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
I like that.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
But I want to know, as you wrote this album,
what do you hope people get from it and listen,
you know, and hear and experience when they when they
hear this album that was written and tell me if
I'm wrong. It was written in a time where all
this is happening, right, Yeah, not only the the interaction
with the divine a life change, but then also the
(37:13):
pains and the struggles.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Am I correct? Also insane that you like started to
get very serious with your fiance during this as well.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah yeah, yeah definitely.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
So like walk us through the process of writing this then,
and how do you put all this onto?
Speaker 6 (37:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Dude, I literally like I had no idea. All these
amazing things happened, and I was like cool, like I'm
it's time to write, you know, like let's do this thing.
And I sat down at the desk and I was
like and nothing, literally nothing came out. Everything that I
was like writing about it was.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
Just like horrible. It was bad.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
It was just like so like mid like it just
was not creative, it was not interesting. I was like, dude,
am I like I'm like a boring artist now, like
I'm going to be writing about like God is great
and I love my wife to be like that's it interesting?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
No?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
And then like I think, you know, mus being kind
of like an angel.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Of God, the Muse doesn't.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
The Muse can't be taken by any tricks, in my opinion,
and I was attempting to take it by a trick
by saying, Oh, I've got all this stuff served me
on a silver platter.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Well, I didn't really know what it was.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
So just as I listened to the creator, like listen
to the Muse, it was like, what you really need
to do is know what this is, like, really know
what this is, live in it, experience it, be present
with it.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
And so I was like, all right, here we go.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Here's another form of trust. I closed my notebook and
I went and lived my life. For that whole summer.
We had the best time in the world. Love was kindling,
It was amazing. My relationship with my family, like I
was discovering faith, and there were difficult issues in this
and learning about childhood drama and like all this stuff,
(39:11):
but just never picking up a pen, just like living
in it. And then it kind of got to like
we're in September now, and the label had greenlit a
budget in June from songs that like, I mean, they
know this now, but I just sent them a bunch
of old songs because I just was gonna trust and
I knew it would come out, but like, I wasn't
going to record those, but I needed them to green
(39:32):
light the budget. So they did and I was like, well,
we've got pre production in two weeks. And I was like, shit, dude,
I don't have anything.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
And then my.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
She was my girlfriend at the time, and we had
some plans with friends and it fell through.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
It was like raining, and she was all dressed up.
I was dressed up.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I was like, well, it's just me and you go
to dinner. She was like all right, well let me
touch up real quick. And so I was just sitting
in her kitchen and her roommate's a songwriter and had
a guitar on the wall. I was like, I'll just
noodle while she, you know, noodle all the time. And
then I don't know, something like happened and I just
started singing and like the thing the wheel started spinning,
(40:24):
and I like wrote a song right there at the
kitchen counter on the spot.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
She came down.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
I was like, what is that. I was like, I
don't know, I just wrote it, and she was like
I love that. And I was like, cool, okay, validation,
I love that all right. So and then I went
home the next day and just like it all poured
out in like a two week period. I was like
a kid.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I was. So I got up.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Early and wrote for three hours, and then went to
Sony and wrote for other artists and then came back
home and wrote into like ten pm for like two
weeks straight. And you know that was the payoff of trusting.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
It just happened.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
Yeah, And this is the first album since twenty twenty three, right, yeah,
the weakness was that album also written during.
Speaker 6 (41:12):
A difficult time. I'm assuming, right, yes.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
And so how I think it's like just interesting. I'm
not an artist, so I don't know how this works.
You're writing these things like when you are at your weak.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Guest or it feels like.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
You're saying, yeah, let's put an album out and like
be vulnerable, vulnerable and throw everything to the wind, like yeah,
I mean this.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Why.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Like why do that?
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Yeah? Like why how has this worked out that way?
Speaker 5 (41:49):
I guess maybe is the better question, the more interesting question,
how has the timing aligned that you're coming out with
albums on the back of these monumental moments in.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Your life, because they're capstones in a.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Start to finish narrative.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
And I really think that making albums for me is
I want someone to push play track one and they
go to track whatever, and it's a story that's been told.
Monumental situations in your life definitely lend themselves to a
richer narrative.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
That's for sure. It's easier. It's easier to write.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
You know, especially if you're always trying to write an
opus opus type. Shit keeps happening and you know it.
I don't know, I think it makes the art worthy
to write about the mountains we're always climbing, you know.
Speaker 5 (42:47):
I mean, And it's probably It's interesting though, how your
monumental moments when somebody like me listens to them even
though I haven't lived those with you beside you, or
it's in the same way that they can speak to me.
Also kind of kind of going back to your faith,
(43:08):
your belief, your relationship with God. When you wrote at
least the most recent album, did you feel like God
was sitting beside you and all that too?
Speaker 6 (43:23):
And was the creative process different post you know?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, I mean I like to think that maybe God was,
you know, God and the angels revibing. They're like appreciating
that we're singing about something that isn't necessarily like so dark.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
But yeah, the process this.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Time was different because I think I'd built a fan
base on like a lot of my fans are fans
of my work, are interested in the song crafting, like
or choice, et cetera, and which was something that kind
of kept me away from the mainstream, which was using
(44:08):
more abstraction and metaphors and using very colorful language to
kind of tell something simple but it doesn't really sound
that simple. And this album, I just it didn't need
any of that.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
It needed This was an album that I wanted to
tell a very simple story.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I found God and I truly fell in love spiritually,
like all around. That's all I really wanted to say.
And if you know, there were fans that were more
interested in hearing the dark twists and turns like Okay,
that's fine, you can listen to those, But I knew
(44:50):
I needed to make this record be as simple as possible.
This wasn't about like how good am I at my craft?
This was about how good am I at expressing something
very simple and joyful, which I'd never approached before. I'm
always trying to like up myself and writing simpler was
more difficult for me, but was very rewarding. I told
(45:12):
the story I wanted to tell, and you know, my
wife to be loves it. That kind of is all
that I care about, you know.
Speaker 6 (45:19):
The uh, I don't know if this is heretical or
what there is.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
When I was driving up here today and listening to
the music, I thought these. When I listened to it there,
I've never felt like it was like dark. Maybe there
is moments of darkness. Maybe I relate so much that
I've just ignored the darkness because I'm like, I feel
that too.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
This album sounds like a lot of like the songs like.
Speaker 5 (45:43):
There's like like their cries from the heart, and that's
what I said earlier, their cries from the soul, which
are beautiful and joyful but also vulnerable and realistic. Yeah,
to the human experience, which is what I get out
of the psalms, which is what I was getting.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Out of your album.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (46:00):
It does.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
It's it's Ah.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
That was how a good buddy of mine, Judah from
Judah and the Lion, he said that exact same thing
to me, really, because it reminds me of David. Yeah,
and he's like and to be honest, like God leaning music,
especially in the commercial world, needs more of that.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
It needs more, It needs more that. I mean.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
The hope here as we sit down together, as I
said earlier, not only gets to know you somebody that
I'm a fan of, but it's also for any listener
or viewer to feel less alone by watching it, because
I do think I agree with Judah there. There's so
much cultivated and created out there to just fit whatever
joyful narrative that's clean, yes, simplistic, and that people go, yes,
(46:49):
I love God too. We're on this together. What I
hope to do here with you, with anybody else that
sits down that seat, is to break the walls down
and say, yeah, but life has stuff and you aren't
alone in that stuff, and that.
Speaker 6 (47:03):
God is still there.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
But I want mostly I want you to know that
God loves you in it, through it, with it.
Speaker 6 (47:11):
And speaking of love.
Speaker 5 (47:12):
As we kind of close up here a little bit,
I want to talk about Tiah.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
It feels like.
Speaker 6 (47:21):
I just got married a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Whoa, congrats, thank you.
Speaker 6 (47:24):
I just had my first little girl.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
She's whoa rock and roll WHOA dude?
Speaker 6 (47:30):
That's huge, big, and it's funny.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
Since I, you know, met my wife, I feel like
I have this intuition when I see somebody that's like
real in love and it's awesome to see now that
I like I've experienced it. Tell me about Tia, so
I guess I don't have many questions, but I know
about it.
Speaker 4 (47:52):
Just tell me about who she is and why she's
captivated your life.
Speaker 7 (47:58):
She her, the spirit about her is so quiet, but
it carries a power to it.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
When I met her, I immediately knew that this was
a heart to do nothing with but respect at base minimum.
She just commands that. She can appear to maybe be shy,
but she's not.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
She's one of the.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Funniest people in the world. She's brilliant, brilliantly creative, but
will never tell you that. Her patience with things that
can that would throw many people off.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Is it astounds me. The largeness of her.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Heart is something I'm so inspired by every day. Her
heart for God, her heart for building a partnership that
will last, To get into the weeds, to get into
the things that may be snagged either of us, that
are difficult to talk about, and to wrestle with and
(49:17):
to know just at the end of the day that
this person loves the entirety of me.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
I mean, straight up.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
I've never had that, you know, and I mean the entirety,
like warts and all, and that it's not a well,
this is kind of difficult, we're gonna have to see
it's no, We're going to get through this.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And it's because I love you.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
I mean, that's the greatest experience I think a human
can have with another person.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
And that's just who she is. I want to be.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
I'm inspired to be more like her all the time
and hope that I I am an example of being
an inspiring aspect in her life for things that she
wants to be. And we continue kind of to do
this together. She showed me a diagram one time and
it was a triangle. You've probably seen this before, but
(50:15):
it's like a diagram for a successful relationship, and it
was like one person over here, one person over here
on the side of the.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Triangle, and God is at the top.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
The closer that the individual gets to God, the closer
that they are together, and the further way they get
from God, the further they are from each other.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
She lives her life that.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Way, and in spite of all of my you know,
many shortcomings and entangled stuff. You know, she just by
listening and giving her heart has completely changed the way
that I look at myself and that I look at
(50:57):
the purpose of love with another person.
Speaker 5 (51:01):
I think I'm getting the timeline here, right. But it
sounds like God came to you early on in your.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Relationship with you, right, Yeah, like day one?
Speaker 4 (51:14):
Could you be the man you are today to her
without that interaction?
Speaker 2 (51:17):
No, not even remotely close.
Speaker 5 (51:21):
So as we come here and we close up and
we started talking about gratefulness, I would imagine that there's
a gratitude out that flows out of you now as
you have this a lot, as you're building this life
with her, with the timing of it all. In fact,
from a bystander, I sit here and go, it make
(51:43):
sense on why you searched and you prayed and you
cried out and nothing showed up? Yeah, you said God,
what's your name? And it was silent because the timing
wasn't right, It wasn't God's time.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
There you go.
Speaker 5 (51:56):
Yeah, And it sounds like to me as I hear this,
I'm like, how wonderful that it happened?
Speaker 4 (52:00):
When it did, and that it allowed you to have
these conversations.
Speaker 5 (52:03):
Oh man, at the time, speak to that a little
bit because I'm just hearing it and trying to like
regurgitate it two.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Years Yeah, you just said it so well. It is.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
God's timing, It's not our timing.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
How many times.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Have like you sculpted out how this is going to
go down in your life and it just like doesn't.
We were talking about this last night.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
We have been.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Picking apart things with one another in a good way
to kind of prepare the route towards what marriage really
is going to be for us. And you know, there's
been some twists and turns like for both of us
since we like met that have been so difficult, but
(52:55):
it has created such a depth of love with one
another that the timing is it's just unbelievable. God's timing
is always going to be better than ours, like it
just is.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
The album is called Pale through the Window Rustin. Thanks
for the work that you do.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Hey, thank you man, Thanks for talking with us today.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (53:20):
Goodness I know to be true, but I'll say God
will continue to bless you in this new chapter of
your life.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
And thanks man.
Speaker 6 (53:30):
New album.
Speaker 5 (53:32):
It's an incredible story and I have deep gratitude for
people like you who are willing to share the dirt,
the grime, the joys, the healing.
Speaker 4 (53:44):
Share it all with all of us because it helps
me feel less alone.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
Thank you for doing this Man the Special.
Speaker 6 (53:52):
Hey friends, thanks for listening or watching. Would you take
a second, follow.
Speaker 4 (53:56):
Subscribe, and drop a comment.
Speaker 6 (53:59):
It really helps
If they can get some type of relief or connect
some thread to fulfillment, then I've done a good job.
It was like, you're really talented, but if you were
to maybe shift slightly, you could be the cool guy
in this.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Group of people.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Spiritually, I felt a null I guess I felt like
I had a spiritual paralysis.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I did everything except.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
For go to what could be potentially the truest source possible.
I just had this theory that if God is God,
then I can bring anything to him.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It happened.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
It was an out of body experience. I saw a
figure approach me, and it was a kind of a
celestial glowing.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Welcome to if you can hear me, a space where
culture meets the soul.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
I'm Ben Higgins.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
You may know me from The Bachelor, and you may
know some of my guests from culture and headlines, but
this podcast is about going beyond the surface into something deeper.
Today's guest is Rustin Kelly, a songwriter known for his
raw honesty and for openly sharing his journey through pain, recovery,
and self discovery. I invite you to lean in and
(01:15):
enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
I have listened to you for years well, Rustin Kelly
is somebody that's sitting beside me, but also your music,
and I don't I'm not just going to say this
to say it speaks to me in a different way.
I wanted to start to have by telling you a
little story about myself, because this is all about me.
(01:39):
I do this thing at night. My wife had to
get used to it when we got married. And this
could sound weird. I turn off the lights and I
light a candle and I play music that like kind
of it's like tears up my soul. And I have
the playlist on my phone, and when I heard that,
I was going to be able to talk to you.
(01:59):
I want to tell you that you like it's probably
forty five songs. You have five songs in that playlist,
which is a big percentage of those songs sick. I
want to start it that way because I mean, I
want to kind of off the bad Just ask you
when you hear that, then somebody listens to your music,
it tears at their soul that they turn off the lights,
light a candle and just like kind of like contemplate
(02:20):
and pray through this music and hmm, what is how
does that feel to you?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
That feels like.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Mission accomplished and in the most collective way.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I mean, it can be really easy to.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Be you know, you take a thing that means so
much to you as far as just like my personal
reason for carving out a sensibility, whether it's like from
the spirit, whether it's from what's going on up here,
writing songs as a way too out of that observance
(03:02):
understand the world better. And it's a very bizarre thing
to put that into like the context of a packaged
thing to then sell. And you know, also like being
hungry and driven you have you know, you want to
take control of your your business and grow it. And
(03:23):
it's this industry isn't really made to foster the spirit
articulating itself. It's meant to foster you growing your business.
So when I hear that, I'm like, it's the same
thing that I feel when I see like the kid
in the front row that came to meet me before
the show whose brother died of an overdose that gets
(03:46):
a similar relief. I'm like, that's really that is the point,
that's the point of why I do it. So thank
you for saying that.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Well, and well, thank you for putting your soul into
this mute. But and I want you to correct me,
because I'm going to say a lot here. Because I
am familiar with you as in your work, I'm not
as familiar with you as a person. That's why I'm
so excited to talk to you. But part of this
show and the work that I do outside of the
(04:16):
show is all focused on helping people feel less alone
because I've spent so much of my life feeling like
the outsider looking in and so for me, and I
don't and I could just be, you know, putting my
own insecurities onto your music. But for me, when I
I do that at night, turn off lights, light the
candle music, to like recenter and feel less alone in
(04:39):
this world, to listen to the things that help me
go Okay, somebody else out there struggling, somebody else out
there is processing these questions, these thoughts. Whatever, is that
what you wanted out of this or when you hear
that or you like that's just an outcome that you're feeling,
then as as an.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Individual, that that is what I what I want. I mean,
I think like as an artist, and I mean that
kind of in the purest sense of the word, like
someone that not even professionally, but someone that typifies themselves
by describing their experiences in a self expressive way, like
(05:15):
an artist's job, then, in my opinion, is to realize
that you have a gift to do that and to
steward that gift. But the first the first part of
that is to understand what that gift does for yourself.
And for the same reasons that you listen to that
(05:36):
playlist and have that kind of ritual to make sense
of your inner world as you're going out in the world,
like it doesn't really matter if you're loved deeply and
like and for some people they could have like a
incredible depth of love from the creator, but that doesn't
always mean that, like you aren't going to feel alone,
(05:58):
you aren't going to strike, you aren't going.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
To get addicted like you.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Trouble is part and parcel to the human experience. Suffering
is a route to understand why we're loved, to understand
why we need to feel community, whether that's just between
you and the divine or even like you and like
your real self, because like thoughts are thoughts, experiences or experiences,
(06:28):
and I think that that is essentially why I want
to do it. It is a communion to people that
I don't even know that if they can get some
type of relief or connect some thread to loneliness and
then to fulfillment, then I've I've done a good job.
(06:50):
That's my that's my bar.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
You you mentioned that you're the industry, though, isn't necessarily
set up.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
For this now it's not?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
And uh, and so there has to.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Be a bigger reason why you're doing it right, It's
not just when you're an incredible artist. You could do
the things that would get you all the plays and everything,
but you're doing things that have a bigger meeting meaning why.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Because my primary drive is not to grow my career.
My primary drive is to be the best possible steward
of a gift that has just, in my quiet moments
of darkness, been able to understand that a bit better
(07:37):
and not feel so alone.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
It's like a trick that I've always.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Had when I was younger, and I would, you know,
sit down and like I didn't know what I was doing,
but it was honestly like a free form of therapy.
I could make sense of the feelings that I was
having that were tangled and confusing, and that has and
always will be my primary purpose. I had opportunities early
(08:02):
on to not do that. It was like, you know,
I'd go into like the boardroom of like the dude
that signed this person this person, and he's like, might
as well be like smoking a cigar, you know, that
kind of like trope, and it was like, you're really talented,
but if you were to maybe shift slightly, you could
(08:24):
be the cool guy in this group of people and
be very successful at doing that. But you'd essentially have
to say less and not go as far into that expression.
And I don't know, I just that was never going
to be my path. And if that meant a slower
(08:45):
climb to where, you know, my my goals were, then
so be it. If that meant that it wasn't in
the cards for me to be a professional artist, then
so be it. Like I would write the same songs
working on a horse farm, you know that I do
right now doing it for a living.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
So you, I mean, I'm assuming you feel.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Things deeply unfortunately.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Yes, yeah, And so I mean you just recently were
on the Kelly Clarks in the show. Yeah, this is
a little different. We get to talk for as long
as we want to talk about whatever you want to
talk about. Yeah, and some things that are interesting to
me too. But when you sit down in those boarding rooms,
or you sit down with Kelly Clarkson and you have
like a five minute segment and she's you know, asking
(09:29):
you questions that are like more hits to just you know,
get the viewership up, get your listeners up or whatever,
how do you like navigate those because you've just said, like,
that's not who you are. You have a lot to say,
you have a lot to feel, you have a story
to tell.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
So how how do you balance just saying the things
you need to say, but then also knowing like that
there's so much more that you want.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
To say, Well, I think it. It can be tricky,
you know, when you make a body of work, like,
for example, this album, there's so much to say about
it for myself, like I could, you know, write a
novella about what it took to make the record, just
(10:15):
like life experiences and then crafting that and having it
be like Okay, I can step back and look at
this you know painting and say like that is exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
What was going on.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It's tricky because when you do get into the kind
of commerce aspect of it. Commerce isn't really interested either
in lengthy discussions most of the time, especially in those environments.
But I think you just get better at it. I
think it depends on, like what your purpose for doing
it as a business is, because if it was not
(10:51):
about like going and selling tickets and growing a career
and fan base, then I would be doing something else.
I feel driven, maybe not equally, but I feel and
have felt a very strong drive to grow because I
love playing for people. I love the excitement of being
(11:12):
on stage. I love amphitheaters like I grew up going
to see Dave Matthews band, the freedom of that of
people just like doing what they mean in their music.
And then I think, like what keeps me going, what
keeps the flamelet is believing that even though it may
not be tomorrow, that this thing that I have created
(11:36):
for myself and others, in its honesty and as being
authentic as possible, will carry me there.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
It will take me to the right place.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And if that's longer, that's fine, and even if it
doesn't that's fine too. But I think like it's a
testament of my I'm always competing against myself, like social
media can make it where you're competing everybody all the time,
and everybody is always doing better than you. You know,
they're always happier than you, they're always hotter than you.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
You know, they have more metals than you.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And I actually welcome that difficulty because it's only going
to sharpen like the truer tool of making something that
is a business but that it actually means something very
much so to me and to the people that commune
with it.
Speaker 6 (12:29):
Are you ever.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Upset with yourself though?
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Yeah, all the time that this is like the mindset
and the path. How do you mean, I mean it's frustrating, right,
I mean, I see here and I'm feeling very similar.
The reason we're sitting here today is because I said, hey,
I want to talk about people about like the things
that are important in life that I know are important, right, Yeah,
the struggles, the pains, the difficulties, community connection, fate, all
(12:56):
these things that I think make the world go and
that make the human exce experience exciting but also really hard.
It would be a lot easier for me to just
talk about pop culture and reality television, which is my
background that I don't really have any influence in or
excitement about Yeah, but it would take off right, Yeah,
(13:16):
maybe maybe apfully, But there's moments where I'm sitting there
and I'm comparing myself on the social media's and going, goodness,
I just wish I had it right. I wish I
was more that way. I wish I could just sit
down and talk to somebody for an hour and a
half about stuff I don't really care about because I
know it's.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
Going to get the listens.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
And then.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
There's many more moments where I sit here in this
seat and say, no, I just want to get to
know you. And this is actually what fires me up
and what fuels me. So that's where my question is
coming from. Do you ever like compare and then get
regretful or by yourself?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Of course, that is unfortunately like part of not just
the human experience in twenty twenty five, but to be
in a career that is public facing, I mean, and
also to be in a career where like growth is
tantamount to you know, how much you're posting and how
(14:15):
much people like you, you know how much they engage
with you, and you're getting thrown metrics all the time
by four different team members saying hey, people liked you
this much this week, they liked you this much this month,
but like on the third week, they kind of didn't
like you very much. So like, let's look at the
things that make them like you, and let's lean into that.
(14:38):
And I mean, I think for anyone, even whether it's
speaking or singing, like creative types, people that are willing
to kind of express themselves in any form thin or deep,
we're sensitive. And I think that you hit it on
the head though. I think every human being longs for
(15:02):
something that they don't have. I honestly think for me,
that is where you discover what the purpose of a
relationship with God is. C. S. Lewis says that Christianity
in particular is not a religion of checking the boxes
(15:23):
and making good marks on your test. It's the religion
of despair that when you've created this narrative about yourself,
which we all do, it's longing.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
It's desire. I want this thing I don't have. We
are built to worship.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Whether or not you worship God doesn't really matter. Human
beings will worship, And even a great atheist, David Foster Wallace,
was like, since we will worship if you worship anything
of this world, you will die a thousand deaths. But
(16:02):
if you worship something infinite, it will booy you the
rest of your existence. And I think that's the crux
with what it means to be a follower of Jesus
is that you come in thinking you've got it all
figured out, and that that religion can be compartmentalized into
(16:23):
an aspect of your life.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Your walk with.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
God can be, Oh, that's what I do on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
It recharges the batteries. I feel good. That's fine.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
That's kind of a byproduct, a very small byproduct of it,
but in it being the religion of despair, it's when
you realize that not only have you been longing for
something so deeply that you end up worshiping it. A
great songwriter, Tom Douglas told me one time, idols they'll
(16:53):
satisfy in the short term, but they'll destroy you in
the end. And that's what we're talking about. Your false self,
when you bring it to the creator, will completely shatter
against your true self. And not everyone's willing to do that.
And it's really difficult when we work in a business
where everything is so shiny and dangling in front of us,
(17:13):
and it's like maybe if I just long harder, I'll
get the thing that will make me feel the thing
that I think will make me feel okay. And I
mean the point is to circumvent that completely, and that's
what I'm I mean, I'm trying to do that.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
Why, Like I said, I think you're not only doing
a great job for the list, you know, for your fans,
but you're speaking through your music in a way that
I'm not going to say very few do. But when
you find it, you know there's something special, there's something unique.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Do you feel joy?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (17:51):
Yeah, because recently you just mentioned that you're in a
season of joy. And you also have this quote that
I found about an interaction with the divine with God
that I think is just incredible and I want you
just to elaborate on it if you don't mind. You said,
(18:12):
the context is this, one night, sitting at the piano,
you found God. It was like a mushroom trip without
the mushrooms.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Facts in a moment of.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
Deep gratitude for just simply being able to play and
seeing it happened, I wanted to know if God was
like a real thing for such a long time, And
let me tell you I found out that night.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
Can you elaborate on that?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah. I mean this is a perfect segue. When I
released my.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
First album and started seeing you know, tickets being sold
and growing, and uh, we went really hard for and
that's what I wanted. I wanted to live on a
tour bus. I wanted to live in front of people.
I was like, I want to die on stage. And
when I came to Nashville, I used to walk around
(19:06):
Music Row and look at like Warner and Sony and
the ASCAP whatever, Like I looked at all of the
big labels and companies and I was like, I'm going
to do that. And then I was walking and I
walked past the Rhyman and there was someone performing at
the Rhyme and that said two nights only. And I
was like, I'm going to do that. That is what
(19:28):
I'm going to do. And I went back home and
I wrote on a piece of paper, I'm going to
sell out the Rhyman two nights in a row. And
I looked at it pretty much every day, and I
thought maybe it would happen in you know, a year
or whatever. I was young and emboldened and confident in
(19:48):
that way, and you know, it didn't happen right away,
but like as my first album started to like gain
some traction, we started to see more tickets and more tickets,
and then we got to a place where we put
the rhymen on sale and it sold out in five minutes,
and so we put another one up and it sold
(20:09):
out in like a few hours. And because we had
been going so hard and I was wanting and wanting
and wanting, it didn't even register to me that that
was something that I had written down and that was
like the reason that kind of like quiet goal.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So all that to say, I.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Had achieved a lot of what I wanted to achieve.
And by twenty twenty four, I was out on the
road and I came back home and I just felt spiritually,
I felt a null. I guess I felt like I
had a spiritual paralysis. And the reason I even typified
(20:54):
it as spiritual was because I knew that when I
created that I was communing with something divine. I knew
that this wasn't like I didn't create the ability to
make sense of my experiences. I did always feel like
it was a gift, but I had abused it. I
think for a while I think when you don't know
(21:15):
yourself well enough, you tend to abuse yourself. And I
did that through drugs, through pills. It was like accidental.
Really it was to keep me going on the road.
You know, everyone was doing it, but like I was
like doing it, doing it to keep going, to never stop,
to reach that goal, to keep going, keep writing, write enough.
(21:39):
You just made an album, make another album, Just go go, go,
go go.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
And again we bring.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
We come to the point of where if you're living
in a narrative that isn't in harmony with who you
really are, and you offer that up like I mean,
it will break. And that's exactly what happened. I'd gotten
to a point where I just I felt like, if
this was a spiritual issue of some sort, then there's
(22:05):
like a source error. So why don't I just go
to the source. And for a long time I had
read about pretty much every religious system. I was discovering
meaning and Greek ethics and philosophy and poetry and art,
and I mean I even went into like what a
crystal is going to do for me? I did everything
except for go to what could be potentially the truest
(22:28):
source possible, the og and I just had this theory
that if God is God, then I can bring anything
to him, not religiously bring something to him, but me
as a child of him. That if you are God,
then you have a name. And I have survived a
(22:50):
lot in my life and gotten better and broken again
and gotten better and still maintained this gift and ability.
And I was like, well, if you're God, and like,
tell me your name so that I can like actually
honor the path of being alive now in spite of everything.
(23:11):
And that was like the prayer. It was just like
tell me your name. If you're a God, then like
I want to know, just me, my soul needs to know.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
And I got like no answer for a while.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And I'd been out on the road and I came
back and I almost gave up. I was like, maybe
all of the reasons that I numbed myself with drugs
and whatnot, maybe there was more merit to it than
I realized, and maybe that's better. Maybe oblivion is better,
because it's definitely seems better than this. And I stayed
(23:48):
in that for a bit and then one night I
was sitting at my piano and I was just singing,
like I do that every night before I go to bed,
I was just playing, and more than ever there was,
my attention was brought to how grateful I was to
do it, to just sing that I would do this
(24:08):
in any circumstance, and almost like in an eighties montage,
like my entire life and difficulties flashed in front of me,
and I was like, wow, like I'm still here and
I can still do this. So I just like I
bowed my head and I just said thank you, like
(24:29):
kind of like from the raw's depth, and I started
to kind of get a little emotional and I said
thank you again, and then it happened. It was an
out of body experience. I saw a figure approach me,
and it was a kind of a celestial glowing figure.
(24:53):
As it got closer, it was kind of the archetypal
picture of Jesus, but it wasn't a the image it
was about. Upon arrival, there was an absolutes. I wouldn't
even say joy, I wouldn't say bliss, I would say equanimity.
(25:13):
That in that moment, that out of body nearly psychedelic experience,
there was an okayness that was indescribable, and it was
related to me that everything, no matter what was going
to be okay, and just calm to me and stay here,
(25:38):
exist here, like we don't need to worry about if
you're Presbyterian at this point, you know, like just stay here.
And I came to and I like, I was like,
what's going on? This was this was definitely like I
have done many psychedelics and this did not come close
(25:58):
at all. And and my first thought was very cerebral,
which was do I have to wear a suit to church?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Like what does this mean?
Speaker 1 (26:07):
And the voice just kept carrying into me saying just
just give yourself to me. We're going to figure out
the details. And about two weeks later I met my
fiance and she was a person of faith, and she
was like, I grew up religious, but I've been on
a journey of wanting to deepen my relationship with God.
(26:32):
I wanted to be less surface and more of a walk.
I didn't tell her about the experience at all, and
then after our second date, she was like, hey, I
just wanted to I just felt like led to send
this to you. And I was a little devotional and
I was like, that's sweet. And I opened it and
the first sentence was come to me with an overflowing cup,
(26:57):
because gratitude allows you to receive me most clearly.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
And I knew then.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I knew that this wasn't some subconscious juggling that occurred.
This was a real experience with the creator of the universe.
And from then on I devoted my life to being
better at that.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Did you need this, Like when you're sitting at your
piano and you felt like everything was gonna be okay?
Was that a message you needed at the time?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, deeper than I thought, because I didn't. I thought
that I thought everything was okay. But like I just
built layer and layer and layer and layer and layer
upon a fundamental not okayness and that just was pierced
straight through. And in that same moment of feeling okay,
(27:59):
I was aware of how not okay I had been
for a long time.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So how do you start building back slowly?
Speaker 5 (28:07):
You know, we at some point during this show, I'll
get into mind story. But it's not dissimilar to what
you were speaking of, you know, maybe different experiences of
the words of comfort and what it meant to abide
in that moment. Yeah, I struggled with doubting.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
It was real.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Pretty quickly after and that's just kind of who hey, same, yeah, just.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
Kind of brush it off. But there's no way what
that was was real.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
That has to be a.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
Play with my mind, or that has to be the
ascid I took twenty years ago, just snapping back in
for a few minutes. But goodness, it's the realest thing
that's ever happened to me, now, yea, And I could
say that confidently.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
And so did you doubt that it was real?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yes, uh, like literally the moment after, you know, I
think that's so. Whether you want to call it, you know,
the great adversary, the enemy, many names for it. Every
religion has a name for it. Its only job is
to pull you away from that communion. And I that's
(29:15):
why I like the my fiance sending me that I
had been for the next couple of weeks like really
wrestling with if that was real or not.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
It's like, did I have like a psychotic break?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Like do I like low keyne to like go talk
to somebody, you know, like what's maybe I'm like there's
something wrong with me? But I just felt like a
I just kept praying. And when she sent me that
message without knowing that gratitude was the route and which
I experienced it. I just like I physically fell on
(29:53):
my knees and I knew it like knew it, not
like knew it it.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
But yeah, doubt was definitely. I think like the enemy
was like, we're gonna have to do something about this,
like asap. Yeah yeah, So.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
How do you start building back? Like you now have
had an interaction with the divine, there's a relationship building.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:19):
Your fiance, who we're going to talk about, is involved
in this experience with you. She's now becoming more familiar
with your story. How do you start to heal and
build back what you didn't notice was broken before.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
In it being a religion of despair.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Right after that, I was like, well.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I'm invincible, you know, like I like I believe in
God like so like I'm good.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
You know, that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
In fact, like I some of the most difficult seasons
in my life have occurred since then.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Ironically, Like what I uh, I was.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Right after that happened, I got a back injury, and
I you know, I was going to the gym. I
was like trying to trying to do that, you know.
I was like I found the woman like, let's let's
be a man type thing, you know. I like, overdid
it for sure, and I got an injury and it
like it was a physical pain I'd never really experienced before.
(31:41):
She had to take me to the er, like at
three in the morning, Like it was the type of
pain where you're like disassociating.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
And it was so painful.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
They gave me a shot of morphine and it didn't
do anything, and I was like, yo, you're gonna have
to come up with something better than that, and they
gave me another shot on morphine, and then I started
to feel like pretty good, you know, I started to
feel like really good, and the er doctor gave me
a two week prescription of morphine tablets. When I took
(32:14):
it to the pharmacy, they were like, they won't really
like prescribe this anymore. I was like, whatever, I need it,
you know, like I'm in pain, and I was in pain,
and that triggered quite a bit opiates for never my thing,
So I just didn't think it was a big deal.
But I a weekend, I was like, I'm liking this,
(32:36):
like way more than I should be liking this, and
got rid of it and then had to confront physical pain.
The doctors didn't really know it turns out it was
a blood clot, but they didn't figure that out till
months later. Pain physically occurred. And then, as it would be,
(33:01):
I started the journey of this album, and at the
same time, the label wanted to do another album at
the exact same time, and there were shows associated with
that album while I was also trying to build this album,
and it was I had never been as like creatively busy.
(33:23):
My bandwidth was like so taxed, and I was just
like drive through it, drive through it, drive through it,
hit the road, come back, hit the road, like do it,
do it, do it.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And something kind of like triggered a.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Crack in the system of like attempting to do all
of this by myself. And then I picked up the
pieces and I continue.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
To try to do it all by myself.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
I was calling it, I'm having faith in God, but
I'm you know, waking up and doing ice baths and
hitting it really hard at the gym and like writing
a novel before I even go into a writing like
overdoing it, just overdoing it, overdoing it, go and be successful,
like yeah, God's got you, but like you got to go.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
And be successful and do this and make this shit work.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And I just like absolutely cracked again against it. What
that looked like this time, though, was it just uncovered.
I think a deeper issue that goes back to childhood,
which was at some point along the way I associated
(34:34):
being valued as being successful and that manifests in a
lot of different ways, and temptation to numb that became
almost unbearable, unbearable, and I then realized too that it
was this was exactly by design that God has intent
(35:00):
on you being completely dependent on him. You're gonna you
can keep trying, but you will keep cracking and cracking,
cracking until the false self is obliterated. And that's kind
of like I did that a few times, you know,
in the past year with the patience of my fiance
and she had some health stuff. We were tested a lot,
(35:26):
but we leaned into our relationship. I'd never prayed with
anybody before. I kind of thought that was cheesy, you know,
but like man, that praying with someone that you deeply
love and you respect their heart and.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
You bring that problem to the creator.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
It doesn't get solved immediately, but you know that you
have what it takes to solve it, and so I
just like I'm grateful for those trials. Trials will continue,
but they're only shaping it to be the version of
us that he wants.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Us to be.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
The album that you you're mentioning is called Pale through
the Window Yes on the way here today, I quite
I had quite the drive in here and I was
listening back to it and I had some lyrics. I
thought it'd be fun if I pulled them out and
talked about it. But actually, I'm going to just encourage
anybody that's listening to this and I I think they
(36:22):
should and they will, to go and listen to the
album themselves, because again, I don't want to influence what
lyrics stood out to me personally. But as I mentioned
at the beginning, this album speaks to the soul. It
also speaks to a lot of the things I feel
like you're talking about right now, like in my how
(36:43):
I heard it, it feels like for me personally, it's
like a love letter to my soul.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
I like that.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
But I want to know, as you wrote this album,
what do you hope people get from it and listen,
you know, and hear and experience when they when they
hear this album that was written and tell me if
I'm wrong. It was written in a time where all
this is happening, right, Yeah, not only the the interaction
with the divine a life change, but then also the
(37:13):
pains and the struggles.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Am I correct? Also insane that you like started to
get very serious with your fiance during this as well.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah yeah, yeah definitely.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
So like walk us through the process of writing this then,
and how do you put all this onto?
Speaker 6 (37:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Dude, I literally like I had no idea. All these
amazing things happened, and I was like cool, like I'm
it's time to write, you know, like let's do this thing.
And I sat down at the desk and I was
like and nothing, literally nothing came out. Everything that I
was like writing about it was.
Speaker 6 (37:49):
Just like horrible. It was bad.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
It was just like so like mid like it just
was not creative, it was not interesting. I was like, dude,
am I like I'm like a boring artist now, like
I'm going to be writing about like God is great
and I love my wife to be like that's it interesting?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
No?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
And then like I think, you know, mus being kind
of like an angel.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Of God, the Muse doesn't.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
The Muse can't be taken by any tricks, in my opinion,
and I was attempting to take it by a trick
by saying, Oh, I've got all this stuff served me
on a silver platter.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Well, I didn't really know what it was.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
So just as I listened to the creator, like listen
to the Muse, it was like, what you really need
to do is know what this is, like, really know
what this is, live in it, experience it, be present
with it.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
And so I was like, all right, here we go.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Here's another form of trust. I closed my notebook and
I went and lived my life. For that whole summer.
We had the best time in the world. Love was kindling,
It was amazing. My relationship with my family, like I
was discovering faith, and there were difficult issues in this
and learning about childhood drama and like all this stuff,
(39:11):
but just never picking up a pen, just like living
in it. And then it kind of got to like
we're in September now, and the label had greenlit a
budget in June from songs that like, I mean, they
know this now, but I just sent them a bunch
of old songs because I just was gonna trust and
I knew it would come out, but like, I wasn't
going to record those, but I needed them to green
(39:32):
light the budget. So they did and I was like, well,
we've got pre production in two weeks. And I was like, shit, dude,
I don't have anything.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
And then my.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
She was my girlfriend at the time, and we had
some plans with friends and it fell through.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
It was like raining, and she was all dressed up.
I was dressed up.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I was like, well, it's just me and you go
to dinner. She was like all right, well let me
touch up real quick. And so I was just sitting
in her kitchen and her roommate's a songwriter and had
a guitar on the wall. I was like, I'll just
noodle while she, you know, noodle all the time. And
then I don't know, something like happened and I just
started singing and like the thing the wheel started spinning,
(40:24):
and I like wrote a song right there at the
kitchen counter on the spot.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
She came down.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
I was like, what is that. I was like, I
don't know, I just wrote it, and she was like
I love that. And I was like, cool, okay, validation,
I love that all right. So and then I went
home the next day and just like it all poured
out in like a two week period. I was like
a kid.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I was. So I got up.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Early and wrote for three hours, and then went to
Sony and wrote for other artists and then came back
home and wrote into like ten pm for like two
weeks straight. And you know that was the payoff of trusting.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
It just happened.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
Yeah, And this is the first album since twenty twenty three, right, yeah,
the weakness was that album also written during.
Speaker 6 (41:12):
A difficult time. I'm assuming, right, yes.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
And so how I think it's like just interesting. I'm
not an artist, so I don't know how this works.
You're writing these things like when you are at your weak.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Guest or it feels like.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
You're saying, yeah, let's put an album out and like
be vulnerable, vulnerable and throw everything to the wind, like yeah,
I mean this.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Why.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Like why do that?
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Yeah? Like why how has this worked out that way?
Speaker 5 (41:49):
I guess maybe is the better question, the more interesting question,
how has the timing aligned that you're coming out with
albums on the back of these monumental moments in.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Your life, because they're capstones in a.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Start to finish narrative.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
And I really think that making albums for me is
I want someone to push play track one and they
go to track whatever, and it's a story that's been told.
Monumental situations in your life definitely lend themselves to a
richer narrative.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
That's for sure. It's easier. It's easier to write.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
You know, especially if you're always trying to write an
opus opus type. Shit keeps happening and you know it.
I don't know, I think it makes the art worthy
to write about the mountains we're always climbing, you know.
Speaker 5 (42:47):
I mean, And it's probably It's interesting though, how your
monumental moments when somebody like me listens to them even
though I haven't lived those with you beside you, or
it's in the same way that they can speak to me.
Also kind of kind of going back to your faith,
(43:08):
your belief, your relationship with God. When you wrote at
least the most recent album, did you feel like God
was sitting beside you and all that too?
Speaker 6 (43:23):
And was the creative process different post you know?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, I mean I like to think that maybe God was,
you know, God and the angels revibing. They're like appreciating
that we're singing about something that isn't necessarily like so dark.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
But yeah, the process this.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Time was different because I think I'd built a fan
base on like a lot of my fans are fans
of my work, are interested in the song crafting, like
or choice, et cetera, and which was something that kind
of kept me away from the mainstream, which was using
(44:08):
more abstraction and metaphors and using very colorful language to
kind of tell something simple but it doesn't really sound
that simple. And this album, I just it didn't need
any of that.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
It needed This was an album that I wanted to
tell a very simple story.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I found God and I truly fell in love spiritually,
like all around. That's all I really wanted to say.
And if you know, there were fans that were more
interested in hearing the dark twists and turns like Okay,
that's fine, you can listen to those, But I knew
(44:50):
I needed to make this record be as simple as possible.
This wasn't about like how good am I at my craft?
This was about how good am I at expressing something
very simple and joyful, which I'd never approached before. I'm
always trying to like up myself and writing simpler was
more difficult for me, but was very rewarding. I told
(45:12):
the story I wanted to tell, and you know, my
wife to be loves it. That kind of is all
that I care about, you know.
Speaker 6 (45:19):
The uh, I don't know if this is heretical or
what there is.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
When I was driving up here today and listening to
the music, I thought these. When I listened to it there,
I've never felt like it was like dark. Maybe there
is moments of darkness. Maybe I relate so much that
I've just ignored the darkness because I'm like, I feel
that too.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
This album sounds like a lot of like the songs like.
Speaker 5 (45:43):
There's like like their cries from the heart, and that's
what I said earlier, their cries from the soul, which
are beautiful and joyful but also vulnerable and realistic. Yeah,
to the human experience, which is what I get out
of the psalms, which is what I was getting.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Out of your album.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (46:00):
It does.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
It's it's Ah.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
That was how a good buddy of mine, Judah from
Judah and the Lion, he said that exact same thing
to me, really, because it reminds me of David. Yeah,
and he's like and to be honest, like God leaning music,
especially in the commercial world, needs more of that.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
It needs more, It needs more that. I mean.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
The hope here as we sit down together, as I
said earlier, not only gets to know you somebody that
I'm a fan of, but it's also for any listener
or viewer to feel less alone by watching it, because
I do think I agree with Judah there. There's so
much cultivated and created out there to just fit whatever
joyful narrative that's clean, yes, simplistic, and that people go, yes,
(46:49):
I love God too. We're on this together. What I
hope to do here with you, with anybody else that
sits down that seat, is to break the walls down
and say, yeah, but life has stuff and you aren't
alone in that stuff, and that.
Speaker 6 (47:03):
God is still there.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
But I want mostly I want you to know that
God loves you in it, through it, with it.
Speaker 6 (47:11):
And speaking of love.
Speaker 5 (47:12):
As we kind of close up here a little bit,
I want to talk about Tiah.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
It feels like.
Speaker 6 (47:21):
I just got married a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Whoa, congrats, thank you.
Speaker 6 (47:24):
I just had my first little girl.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
She's whoa rock and roll WHOA dude?
Speaker 6 (47:30):
That's huge, big, and it's funny.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
Since I, you know, met my wife, I feel like
I have this intuition when I see somebody that's like
real in love and it's awesome to see now that
I like I've experienced it. Tell me about Tia, so
I guess I don't have many questions, but I know
about it.
Speaker 4 (47:52):
Just tell me about who she is and why she's
captivated your life.
Speaker 7 (47:58):
She her, the spirit about her is so quiet, but
it carries a power to it.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
When I met her, I immediately knew that this was
a heart to do nothing with but respect at base minimum.
She just commands that. She can appear to maybe be shy,
but she's not.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
She's one of the.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Funniest people in the world. She's brilliant, brilliantly creative, but
will never tell you that. Her patience with things that
can that would throw many people off.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Is it astounds me. The largeness of her.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Heart is something I'm so inspired by every day. Her
heart for God, her heart for building a partnership that
will last, To get into the weeds, to get into
the things that may be snagged either of us, that
are difficult to talk about, and to wrestle with and
(49:17):
to know just at the end of the day that
this person loves the entirety of me.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
I mean, straight up.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
I've never had that, you know, and I mean the entirety,
like warts and all, and that it's not a well,
this is kind of difficult, we're gonna have to see
it's no, We're going to get through this.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And it's because I love you.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
I mean, that's the greatest experience I think a human
can have with another person.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
And that's just who she is. I want to be.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
I'm inspired to be more like her all the time
and hope that I I am an example of being
an inspiring aspect in her life for things that she
wants to be. And we continue kind of to do
this together. She showed me a diagram one time and
it was a triangle. You've probably seen this before, but
(50:15):
it's like a diagram for a successful relationship, and it
was like one person over here, one person over here
on the side of the.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Triangle, and God is at the top.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
The closer that the individual gets to God, the closer
that they are together, and the further way they get
from God, the further they are from each other.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
She lives her life that.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Way, and in spite of all of my you know,
many shortcomings and entangled stuff. You know, she just by
listening and giving her heart has completely changed the way
that I look at myself and that I look at
(50:57):
the purpose of love with another person.
Speaker 5 (51:01):
I think I'm getting the timeline here, right. But it
sounds like God came to you early on in your.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Relationship with you, right, Yeah, like day one?
Speaker 4 (51:14):
Could you be the man you are today to her
without that interaction?
Speaker 2 (51:17):
No, not even remotely close.
Speaker 5 (51:21):
So as we come here and we close up and
we started talking about gratefulness, I would imagine that there's
a gratitude out that flows out of you now as
you have this a lot, as you're building this life
with her, with the timing of it all. In fact,
from a bystander, I sit here and go, it make
(51:43):
sense on why you searched and you prayed and you
cried out and nothing showed up? Yeah, you said God,
what's your name? And it was silent because the timing
wasn't right, It wasn't God's time.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
There you go.
Speaker 5 (51:56):
Yeah, And it sounds like to me as I hear this,
I'm like, how wonderful that it happened?
Speaker 4 (52:00):
When it did, and that it allowed you to have
these conversations.
Speaker 5 (52:03):
Oh man, at the time, speak to that a little
bit because I'm just hearing it and trying to like
regurgitate it two.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Years Yeah, you just said it so well. It is.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
God's timing, It's not our timing.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
How many times.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Have like you sculpted out how this is going to
go down in your life and it just like doesn't.
We were talking about this last night.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
We have been.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Picking apart things with one another in a good way
to kind of prepare the route towards what marriage really
is going to be for us. And you know, there's
been some twists and turns like for both of us
since we like met that have been so difficult, but
(52:55):
it has created such a depth of love with one
another that the timing is it's just unbelievable. God's timing
is always going to be better than ours, like it
just is.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
The album is called Pale through the Window Rustin. Thanks
for the work that you do.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Hey, thank you man, Thanks for talking with us today.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (53:20):
Goodness I know to be true, but I'll say God
will continue to bless you in this new chapter of
your life.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
And thanks man.
Speaker 6 (53:30):
New album.
Speaker 5 (53:32):
It's an incredible story and I have deep gratitude for
people like you who are willing to share the dirt,
the grime, the joys, the healing.
Speaker 4 (53:44):
Share it all with all of us because it helps
me feel less alone.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
Thank you for doing this Man the Special.
Speaker 6 (53:52):
Hey friends, thanks for listening or watching. Would you take
a second, follow.
Speaker 4 (53:56):
Subscribe, and drop a comment.
Speaker 6 (53:59):
It really helps
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com