January 29, 2025 • 31 mins
L.A.-based musician Andy Grammer joins Sage Bava and Steve Baltin to talk about being in service of and giving back in L.A. recently under the trauma of the fires and the importance of music. He also talks about songwriting and his upcoming tour.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Today we're joined by the amazing Andy Grammar, known for
his incredible songwriting and producing of positive music. It was
interesting to hear more on how this positivity is often
rooted in pain and how his journey shaped the songs
that uplift so many. We also touch on the devastating
la fires and the impact they've had on the community
(00:31):
in the music world. It's a conversation about resilience, health.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
And the power of music. Even if you are escape
the fires, as you know, you know, like everyone you
(00:56):
know is affected in some way, so it's just you know,
it's overwhelming, I mean for you, you know. We'll start with
this because it's interesting. Obviously, the podcast is focusing on
service and giving back, and one of the things that
first attracted me to the interview was I saw you
had on your Instagram something about in service of and
(01:17):
you give back quite a bit. And I think one
of the things that's really happened is people feel a helplessness.
I mean, because like, you know, I have friends who, like,
the flames came within one hundred and fifty yards of
their house, but everything was fine, and then somebody else
lost everything. It's so just so arbitrary.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, it's a very confusing feeling. I feel like there
should be some sort of word for this where everything
is actually okay, but it's not like we had, you know,
a fire came close enough to us where we packed
up all of our things, all of our uh, which
is a very strange thing to do anyway, to just
go like go through your house and through my studio
and take a couple of things you think would work.
(01:57):
And we were packed and ready to go, and we
didn't end up having to leave. But a lot of
people are on edge out here in California for sure,
in Los Angeles. So we're actually on Friday just having
a bunch of people over my house to sing, calling
it like heart aid and people that have either been
(02:18):
displaced or just super stressed out. A bunch of people
are coming that have actually lost their homes and we're
going to get together and sing about it, which I think.
You know, I've always like I can do a lot
of stuff, but since I was really young, you figure
out the stuff that works the best, and for me,
songs have always been the most helpful to anybody. So
(02:38):
picking just trying to like get everybody together and sing.
I think it'll be helpful.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, you know, it's interesting to wait because I also
was closed to as the fire that I did evacuate
one day, and it's really I I'm in West Hills
and it was the Kenneth Bier and it's a fascinating
thing to you have to go through and say, Okay, fuck,
what am I going to save? Now? So what did
you take?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
We really just took photos, like the car had packed photos,
a couple of pairs of clothes and a guitar and
then uh, that was pretty much it, to be honest,
because I don't know. It was a really weird middle
ground of like do you take everything? I'm not gonna
go get a U haul right now? Like I don't
know what's exactly going on, and it seems like it
moves pretty quick from you might have to go to
(03:22):
go right now. So yeah, I think there's this weird
balance out here in LA right now of like it's
just stuff. But I don't think you get to say
that unless you're someone that's that's lost all your stuff. Wow,
So everybody's holding the face for everybody in any way
they can.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, there's I mean, there's stuff that's irreplaceable. And that's
you know, yeah, that's I think what you grab. Yeah,
I like a handwritten, baky letter from Bruce Springsteen. Fuck it.
See that. You can guarantee I took that.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You took that.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah, yeah, it was in a bag with a bunch
of letters from and cards from people.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
After that, I'm like, who cares? Who cares? Everything that's
be replaced. I'm not getting another handwritten letter from Springsteen.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So now, yeah, you gotta take it. You gotta take it.
You can get. Now.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
That's funny though when you say and I'm gonna let'
say it takeover in one second because she's much smarter
than me. But when you talk about having everybody come
over to sing, like, the first thing that comes to
my mind is Joni jam because Cameron Crow is a
good friend and he's talked to us a lot about
the you know, Joni having everybody come over to sing,
and you know, there's always these amazing people so and
(04:37):
doing all these difference. So I'm curious when you have
part aid who what are the songs you'll be doing? Like,
what are the ones that you go to like your
feel good songs?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah? I mean really to create a space we're gonna
let like cause I've got a lot of musician friends
in Los Angeles, so I have it kind of pass
around the guitar sing together. I actually wrote a song
for someone that's coming that lost their house and I'm
working on it right now. And there's just something really
(05:10):
important about singing together. I remember when I was a
street performer, I read this essay about why you have
to be so good at your craft, and like it
goes down from if you're a lawyer, you gotta be
really good because someone's going to come into your office
and they need your help to get out of a
(05:31):
really sticky situation. If you're a doctor, someone's going to
come in with like a broken leg, and depending on
how good you are, they're going to leave fixed or
not fixed. And it goes through all these different professions
and it gets the musician and it says people are
going to come in with hearts that are weary. So
if you know how to do what you do, then
people should leave your jam, your concert, your event with
(05:55):
a heart that is not quite as weary. And right
now in Los Angeles, I think we need need that.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
What are the songs that make you feel less. You
make your heart feel less weary. Mm just a couple
of them.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, Well, there's a singer name Louis Prima who gets
me going pretty much every morning. I love him. It's
like hard to be down when someone's singing like every
time it rain, it rains. Panny's from Heaven Shooby Dooby,
Like I'm up immediately once I hear his voice. And
(06:33):
Louis Armstrong as well, those two.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I love that song so much. I have one of
my early memories. I got to sing that with Les
Paul and one of the best moments of my life.
But an awesome Yes, music is a form of service, definitely,
especially when you're starting positivity as you are, and it
feels I think you said like grounded positivity once and
(06:57):
I really love that because that's what your music.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Resides in. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Do you feel when times are tough, when you know
when your heart is weary, do you find it difficult
to connect to that positivity within music and start to
create from other sources. You know a lot of artists
can create from pain, create from sadness, and that definitely
resonates from their music. But I feel like you always
(07:25):
stay with the positive and that's really amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, I think that positivity and singing uplifting stuff is
usually grounded in pain, and I think that's what makes
it less cheesy. I would. I'm sure some people still
think I'm cheesy, but I'm cheesier when things are going
good and when things are really going hard in your
life and you're like, oh, don't give up on me.
(07:51):
Kind of hits a little different when I've just been
through a divorce, when I've been diagnosed with cancer, when
I have lost many things. So I think that life
is hard, and when you sing uplifting songs in moments
that are that are really hard, you can hit a
(08:13):
sweet spot where you can see what, hopefully what all
the hardness is about and why it's there. And I've
always like I pretty quickly learned that that's what I
was here to do, to write music like that, And
it's just it takes a lot of intention and failure
and trying to get the ones that don't wreak of
(08:37):
cheesiness for some reason, Like we all have things that
we go through and we want to sing together, but
there's like cynicism to just singing. I don't know, there's
a block somewhere that where we like don't believe it
or it's difficult, and I think sometimes I will push
really hard to get everyone into a space to like
(09:00):
just let the cynicism drop and feel and a lot
of times it takes a lot of fighting to get
to that place. But once we're all there, I think
everybody's pretty grateful.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I love that the emphasis on the process within that
as you've you know, made all of this music in
your life. Now your fifth studio.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Album, Congotulation, okay, you think.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
A literal monster of a work. Have you found that
that process for you has altered quite a lot or
it's really remained the same, both in your songwriting and
your production. Just how you approach the music, has it
evolved or is it a tried and true true I.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Think at the beginning there's just immense fear that you
won't be accepted. So not only are you having to
write the one hundred and one songs to get to
the good ones, but you're also battling internally, like even
if I do that, does any of this will it connect?
Will anybody care? Will it matter? And now I've been
(10:06):
all around the world and I have lots of messages
from different people, and we've done a lot of things
where we'll just like go surprise fans at their house
that are going through a tough time and sing to them.
And I've come to really trust the process that usually
there's like when I want to do something hard based,
(10:27):
initially there's a lot of mud to push through and
people are like, that's a lot, You're doing a lot.
I don't know. It's like there's a lot of emotion here.
Are you trying to be are you trying to benefit
off of it? Or like what's going on? And if
the intensions pure enough, you can get through the storm
and usually there's real healing at the end of it.
So now I've done that so many times that I
(10:51):
just kind of trust the process of making the album
and then going out and trying to bring it to people,
and it usually works out really well, you know, but
there are men many times we're like, I don't I
can't guarantee this is gonna work. Like even this little
heart ache thing I was trying to throw just like
a fun get together for friends, and some of them
are like, I lost my house, but I don't want
(11:13):
to be the center of attention. You know in this way,
I don't know that I want, you know, and I
fully understand all of it. And there's just like a
lot of good, deep work to get everybody together and sing.
There's like it's not just like I have this great idea,
let's do it, and then everybody does it. It's usually
like there's tension to get to that place.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Well, that's what makes a great idea, and that's what
makes great art. And you know it's funny, I mean,
because if everybody loves it. Look, as an artist, if
every I've talked to every artist who ever lived, from
James Brown to John Lee Hooker, and if everybody does
what you're doing, you're fucking up. Yeah. And it's interesting though,
because I want to go back to what you were
saying about the you know, like coming from the pain,
(11:57):
coming from bringing up the happy stuff. Yea, Because now,
as I said, Sage is much smarter than me. And
part of what makes being a good interviewer is knowing
that you get to talk to people who are way
smarter than you. So Nick Cave, who is a million
times smarter than me, once said that as an artist, you,
as a songwriter, you're writing what you're longing for. So,
(12:19):
when you're sad, you're writing happy stuff, and when you're happy,
you're writing sad stuff. Do you feel like that's the
case for you? And Sinead O'Connor I spoke to, who's
also brilliant before she pass was saying to me that
as a writer, words you know have power and that
you can make them prophetic and come true. So for you,
(12:40):
do you feel like you're able to turn the songs
into what it is you're longing for and make them
come true?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I think so. I think that you're just trying to
make as much sense and get as much meaning out
of this whole experience of life. That sounds crazy and
like a lot and dramatic, but I think you know,
I've said many times that great lyrics are like, uh,
like scientific proofs, and you know when you hit one.
(13:17):
So Isaac Newton, he was the first one to write
out what gravity was, and when he got it on
paper and then he showed it to everybody, everyone's like, totally, dude,
gravity every day. Oh my gosh, me as well, you
nailed it. And I think that that's what a great
lyric is is when you're able to write something out
that makes everybody go like, oh, that's what's going on.
And a lot of times the truth of it seems
(13:40):
to be uplifting. I think if you're just trying to
cheer someone up, that has value as well. But usually
unless there's truth in it, it doesn't like land in
my experience, and I'm always like trying to find truth
and I get really geeked out about trying to write
lyrics that are true.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
As a writer, I'm so fad stated with this. And look,
every artist is insecure, and as an artist, you cannot
do what you feel is your best work because if
you do, what's the one of going on? If you
hit perfection, there's no place let to go. But you
do hit upon those moments of truth, those things that
really stand out to you. So for you, what are
(14:20):
a couple of your favorite lyrics where you hit on them?
And you're like, I get it, because a lot of
times do a stage and I talk about with everybody,
good writing is subconscious, So it's not like you're bragging
about it. It's like it comes from God, it comes
from the spirit beyond.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Oh yeah, we don't have any idea how this works, totally.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Not subconscious whatever you want to call it, so you know,
you get hit with those like you just get touched
by genius.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I think that unless I feel some element of that,
then it doesn't make it onto a record for me.
So hopefully the bar is that all of them have
some of that in it, and then if I really
feel it, then in my experience, someone else probably will.
And I have no idea of like whether the group
of people that will feel it is. You know, I
(15:07):
have a song called wish you Pain, which is like
kind of aggressive, which is this idea that's like, oh
my god, we grow from really difficult things, So I
know I actually wish upon you really difficult things because
it will turn you into something really beautiful. And that
one is like not a hit by any stretch of
(15:27):
the imagination. But there is a group of people that
that is their song and they use it all the time.
So when I'm writing, I don't really know. I don't
have a good gauge of this is going to be
incredible for ten thousand very unique people, or this is
going to be a quadruple platinum thing that's going to
connect with like so many people. All I know is
if I write enough of them and they all have
(15:48):
some of that truth in them then like it usually
works out in the end somehow.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yes, I love that sentiment so much. We need to
talk about that more so, thanks for writing that song.
Going to be playing it over and over again. After this,
I want to talk a little bit about finding your voice,
because I think that can be so inspiring to people,
especially when you're coming into this really positive voice that
you found that's grounded in pain. I loved learning about
(16:16):
your father and how he was a songwriter in children's music,
and a little bit about your own musical voice, both
with his influence and your own discoveries. Was there a
year Was there a moment that this this thing landed
on you, that this kind of idea of positivity, this
channel for exactly what you do, that unique frequency of
(16:39):
what you do, really landed for you.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
And you followed that a couple different moments. I mean
it started when I was street performing and I would
go out there do that for about four years, where
I'd go to the street, set out my little jar
that said make change, I trust you, and I would
just play for like ten hours a day. And and
(17:03):
I think for a lot of artists coming in what
it can be really helpful to cover a lot of songs.
So I would cover songs all day to find my sound.
I didn't know if that's what I was doing. I
was just like literally trying to find something that would
be of service to other people as they were walking
by that would then inspire them to put a couple
bucks in my case. And so probably the first couple
of years were mostly covering songs because I realized this
(17:27):
as I went back to my original songs. Everybody would leave.
You can like see it right in front of you.
It's happening in real time. You play, You play one
song and everybody's like, oh, that's pretty good, and then
you play one of your own, they're like, see you later.
There's a long process of covering a ton of songs,
finding where my voice fit in different things, and then
adding in like, oh, my voice sits well on this,
(17:48):
but the concept is not working. So there's a lot
of trial and error to get to the place. And
then I wrote keep your head up on the street
in between playing sets, and that one was right around
my mom passed away. So again it was super grounded
in pain, and it was to pick me up to
myself and then you know, there's a lot of like
(18:09):
there's this idea of like how to judge art? Can
art be judged? Is this good art? Is this bad art?
And I don't even get into that conversation. All I
can say is do people stay when you play it?
Or do they leave? And when I played Keep Your
Head Up, everybody stayed and was like, whoa this is
I Like, I'm into this And so that was a
kind of a turning point for me. That was my
(18:29):
first one that then had the little virus in it
that just like every time people heard it they wanted
more of it, and that kind of got me going
on my journey.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I love that song. It's it's taken many many people
through a typical time, I know, And what a what
a gift for you to know that, Like, how does
that feel to know you've like given this this positivity
to all of these people around the world, you know,
going through those those hardships of losing parents, you know,
(18:59):
their own their own difficulties.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, I think it's more like kind of your original
question of like finding your what you're supposed to do
is the big relief. It doesn't mean that work ends.
It's still very hard. You still write like so many songs,
and most of what you do is fail on a
daily basis. But when you're on the right track and
you're in your purpose, that that is very very that
(19:22):
feels very good, and kind of to what he was
saying before about songwriting, like you don't it's hard to
take too much credit for it. It's more like your
job is to go find the thing that you're good at.
And I think that there's a lot of things to
be good at, especially just in music. There's like we
need like sexy songs, and we need songs that for
(19:42):
when you're depressed, and we need songs that like our
party songs, and we need all these different things. And
I think to any artists that are starting, you might
have a hunch of what you're supposed to do, but
very few of us will go and just write a
hundred like that. The barge, like the crop of people
(20:03):
that will actually just go do that cuts it way
down of who I think will make it not baked
is irrelevant, but be able to do it as like
a career if you go, Like I remember, I was
writing with someone who had like twenty number one hits,
and I was like what do you know, dude that
I don't know? How do you have this many hits?
Give me the secret? And he's like, usually for every hundred,
(20:25):
there's one that goes and you're like, oh okay. So
like a lot of this is just tenacity and the
ability to show up every day and just keep writing.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
You know, well, it makes you feel better. We've been
working on this project where we were talking to different writers.
I interviewed Mike Stoller, ninety years old. He wrote fucking
stand by Me and Jail Has Rock. He wrote probably
the greatest song of all time and stand by Me.
I asked him the secret. He's like, no one knows
where songs come from, and that dude's ninety, so never
(21:00):
gonna figure it out.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
We don't know. I do know that they come more
when you write more. There's as a humble servant of songwriting.
If I just keep showing up, songs have been really
good to me.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
It's amazing to hear when are some of our favorite
songs just kind of happened? They like wrote themselves. And
I'm curious for this last album, was there a song
that you could point us to that that you feel
really just kind of appeared.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah. One that wrote that I wrote really fast was
a song called save a Spot in the Back for Me,
and I was, yeah, it just flopped out. And then
there's a line in it that when I sing it
live is a little bit different than normal lines for
some reason, like when I sing that line than the
(21:52):
crowd cheers, and I don't have like a lot of those.
That's like a new thing for me. Usually if it's hooky,
then people will sing along with it. But the idea
of if nice guys finished last, then save a spot
in the back for me, it's almost like a i
don't know, like a rebellious take or something that really
was connecting. And that one came out pretty quick because
I was going through some difficult stuff and and just yeah,
(22:19):
I find that when when it's coming, you have to
kind of honor it and just drop everything and go
after it, which gets harder when you have children and
a family and a wife and everybody. We were just
with my wife's dad and Joshua treat and there's like
craziness going on, and then an idea started coming in
(22:40):
and there was breakfast being made and there was insanity.
And it's not an excuse to be like a bad father.
But I, me and my wife know that it's like
very important, and so I just went grabbed a guitar
and started writing something and singing into it to make
sure I got the basic the basics of it down
to come back to it in a little bit.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Oh, because we've heard from people that if you let
who was it who was saying that, they love the
way that like, I think it's Noel Gallagher put it. Well,
if I don't grab that idea, then Chris Martin's going
to get it.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Oh, someone else will get it. And there is when
you've been in the game long enough and you know
that you're pretty good at catching them. I will hear
one on the radio or out in the world and
I'll be like, I could have caught that, And it's
that's the best true songwriters know. The best compliment you
(23:35):
can get is when another person hears your song and
gets a little depressed. When I hear it, and I
go like, oh, that that line was laying out in
the open for all of us, and you got it,
and when it came by you you were able to
catch it and you reeled it in and and I'm
depressed and very happy for you.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah. Well, going back to Nick Kay for a second.
The only time I interviewed, and it was funny. I
it said there was a line I remember what it was.
I was like, oh, man, I wish I as a writer.
I was so jealous of that. And what I love is,
you know so many people will be humble. He just
looks at me, smirks and goes, as a writer. I
love to hear that.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Okay, there's one that I just saw. I go, I'm
gonna forget their name. They posted to Instagram and it
blew up and now it's on like the top singer
songwriter playlist on Spotify and it's called no Happy Ever
After You, And the line is like, cause I got
no happy ever af after you. The blend of those
(24:44):
two lines together made me pretty angry. That's really good.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yeah, all right, this is my last question. Now let's
say you finish it off. But I'm curious for you.
You know so often too, we talked about songwriting be
sub conscious and it's taking a while to figure it out.
Are the songs that you go back to now that
you're like, oh, I didn't even know what that was about.
That comes back now? And you know, you hit upon
this and you're like, yeah, now I get it. I
(25:11):
know exactly what that was. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I have a song called Saved my Life that I
knew it was just kind of a big idea and
meant a lot, the idea of someone who saved your life.
And then after I wrote it, I realized that I
was writing it about my godmother who showed up when
my mom died, and it took on like a whole
other beauty. Even after I had written it. I'm like, oh,
(25:36):
that's what I was singing it to her, And so
then it got much bigger and more beautiful even after
it was done.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, I imagine looking with the photos, you know, this time,
there's kind of a lot of nostalgia perhaps happening, you know,
thinking about your younger self, I wish I could have
told him this or that.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, the biggest thing that I would probably tell my
younger self is just there's a place for you. I
think that's what artists need to hear the most, is like,
there's a place for you. And the thing that's gonna
work the best for you is when you're being yourself.
That is infuriating to hear when you are twenty and
(26:20):
getting started. It is like, Okay, cool, thanks, how do
I do it? And the answer is write one hundred.
I promise you will find what works best for you
if you it's just a lot of hard work and
and and fun, the fun grind, I'll call it, because
if you get into it like you like it, but
there is it's undeniable, you're gonna hit walls and you're
(26:42):
gonna question yourself and you're gonna wonder whether the thing
that you have to offer has a place, And in
my experience it does.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
With a lot of work, I just got shells that
needs to be a song. There's a place for.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, because if you tell, if you told me before
I had keep your head up that you're supposed to
go like cheer cheer everybody on, I wouldn't. I would
be like, yeah, how I'm in how do we do that?
And unfortunately, there's just so many songs along the road
that are like, well, maybe I'm supposed to be like
(27:14):
a heart throb singing about like relationships. And so then
I wrote like, I mean, there's hundreds in my catalog
of me doing that that never come out because they're
not They just like don't land in the truth area.
And I have love, but it just doesn't like sit
right on my voice. I think a lot of times
you look at like it's similar to actors where they
(27:35):
they need or they need the right role, Like you'd
be a great actor, but you need to get the
right roll. And as songwriters, you're kind of doing both.
You're kind of creating the role that you're gonna play
and then you're singing it, and those those are two
different things. And I've always I've been really blessed to
be so into songwriting from the very beginning to try
(27:58):
to create my own my own and then as you
grow and have different your voice grows, it changes or
you have like different ideas. I've gotten a lot into
producing lately as well, to just try to create the
environment for what I'm trying to get across.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Meaning, is there anything that you want to add that
we did not ask you about?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
No? I mean, I think what was really fun about
this Monster record. Similar to songwriting, things come out and
things where I don't know where they come from. This one,
I went and bought a mandolin on a whim, and
the type of songs that came out when you add
mandolin to what I do is like a really kind
(28:39):
of to me fresh and interesting and that has been
that was really fun with this record. I don't think
I've had a record before where almost every song had
had a unique the same unique instrument across the whole thing,
and it kind of pulled out a different side of me.
There's again like things are grounded in pain to then
say to sing about them in an uplifting way. And
(29:00):
this is the first record that I dug in a
little bit with like I can get angry sometimes too,
but I don't know how to sing about that. And
the mandolin was a little bit of a key that
let me like get into some places that I haven't
been before. So that was really fun on this record
specifically nice.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Well, now I have to ask then before we let
you go, what what instrument do you think will be next?
Is there one that you're like, Okay, honestly, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I'm having a lot of fun. I'm like searching around.
I remember again, when you've had enough.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Pretty damn happy.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Hukle Ale's pretty happy too. It feels like in art
you're kind of and in songwriting and all these things
are just kind of like falling all the time and
hoping that something and then you like figure it out
on the way down. I remember, on a whim I
went and bought an electric guitar because I was mostly
only played acoustic, and I wrote a song called fresh
Eyes the first time I picked up the electric guitar,
which is one of like one of my biggest stream songs.
(29:55):
And then so you you kind of just live in
this space. You don't overthink. You're just kind of falling
and like staying interested in all things at all times.
So who knows. Maybe I'm like, maybe it's the digit
Redo album coming next. We'll see, Probably not, but who knows.
I'm open. You're catching me in the staying open zone,
like we're looking at what's coming next, and I'm this
(30:15):
stage is really fun because I'm like just taking in
inspiration from everywhere, reading a ton of books, listening to
a ton of music, and kind of like getting my
antenna cleaned off for what's supposed to come next.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Wait. I was an English major and Sage is an
avid reader. So what books have been inspiring you?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Mmmm? I love what am I reading right now? I'm
reading a book on this, a wild book on like
the population, which is interesting. This morning, I was in
the gym listening to Tony Robbins, which is like pretty
I bet I bet people would guess that about me.
I'm listening to this incredible David Sedaris book. He does
(30:56):
like these essays that are really really funny and does
incredible wordplay. It's kind of like a wide gamut of
things now And thank you guys for having me appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Thanks so much, awesome, great to meet you.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Book,
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Today we're joined by the amazing Andy Grammar, known for
his incredible songwriting and producing of positive music. It was
interesting to hear more on how this positivity is often
rooted in pain and how his journey shaped the songs
that uplift so many. We also touch on the devastating
la fires and the impact they've had on the community
(00:31):
in the music world. It's a conversation about resilience, health.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
And the power of music. Even if you are escape
the fires, as you know, you know, like everyone you
(00:56):
know is affected in some way, so it's just you know,
it's overwhelming, I mean for you, you know. We'll start with
this because it's interesting. Obviously, the podcast is focusing on
service and giving back, and one of the things that
first attracted me to the interview was I saw you
had on your Instagram something about in service of and
(01:17):
you give back quite a bit. And I think one
of the things that's really happened is people feel a helplessness.
I mean, because like, you know, I have friends who, like,
the flames came within one hundred and fifty yards of
their house, but everything was fine, and then somebody else
lost everything. It's so just so arbitrary.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, it's a very confusing feeling. I feel like there
should be some sort of word for this where everything
is actually okay, but it's not like we had, you know,
a fire came close enough to us where we packed
up all of our things, all of our uh, which
is a very strange thing to do anyway, to just
go like go through your house and through my studio
and take a couple of things you think would work.
(01:57):
And we were packed and ready to go, and we
didn't end up having to leave. But a lot of
people are on edge out here in California for sure,
in Los Angeles. So we're actually on Friday just having
a bunch of people over my house to sing, calling
it like heart aid and people that have either been
(02:18):
displaced or just super stressed out. A bunch of people
are coming that have actually lost their homes and we're
going to get together and sing about it, which I think.
You know, I've always like I can do a lot
of stuff, but since I was really young, you figure
out the stuff that works the best, and for me,
songs have always been the most helpful to anybody. So
(02:38):
picking just trying to like get everybody together and sing.
I think it'll be helpful.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, you know, it's interesting to wait because I also
was closed to as the fire that I did evacuate
one day, and it's really I I'm in West Hills
and it was the Kenneth Bier and it's a fascinating
thing to you have to go through and say, Okay, fuck,
what am I going to save? Now? So what did
you take?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
We really just took photos, like the car had packed photos,
a couple of pairs of clothes and a guitar and
then uh, that was pretty much it, to be honest,
because I don't know. It was a really weird middle
ground of like do you take everything? I'm not gonna
go get a U haul right now? Like I don't
know what's exactly going on, and it seems like it
moves pretty quick from you might have to go to
(03:22):
go right now. So yeah, I think there's this weird
balance out here in LA right now of like it's
just stuff. But I don't think you get to say
that unless you're someone that's that's lost all your stuff. Wow,
So everybody's holding the face for everybody in any way
they can.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, there's I mean, there's stuff that's irreplaceable. And that's
you know, yeah, that's I think what you grab. Yeah,
I like a handwritten, baky letter from Bruce Springsteen. Fuck it.
See that. You can guarantee I took that.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You took that.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah, yeah, it was in a bag with a bunch
of letters from and cards from people.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
After that, I'm like, who cares? Who cares? Everything that's
be replaced. I'm not getting another handwritten letter from Springsteen.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So now, yeah, you gotta take it. You gotta take it.
You can get. Now.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
That's funny though when you say and I'm gonna let'
say it takeover in one second because she's much smarter
than me. But when you talk about having everybody come
over to sing, like, the first thing that comes to
my mind is Joni jam because Cameron Crow is a
good friend and he's talked to us a lot about
the you know, Joni having everybody come over to sing,
and you know, there's always these amazing people so and
(04:37):
doing all these difference. So I'm curious when you have
part aid who what are the songs you'll be doing? Like,
what are the ones that you go to like your
feel good songs?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah? I mean really to create a space we're gonna
let like cause I've got a lot of musician friends
in Los Angeles, so I have it kind of pass
around the guitar sing together. I actually wrote a song
for someone that's coming that lost their house and I'm
working on it right now. And there's just something really
(05:10):
important about singing together. I remember when I was a
street performer, I read this essay about why you have
to be so good at your craft, and like it
goes down from if you're a lawyer, you gotta be
really good because someone's going to come into your office
and they need your help to get out of a
(05:31):
really sticky situation. If you're a doctor, someone's going to
come in with like a broken leg, and depending on
how good you are, they're going to leave fixed or
not fixed. And it goes through all these different professions
and it gets the musician and it says people are
going to come in with hearts that are weary. So
if you know how to do what you do, then
people should leave your jam, your concert, your event with
(05:55):
a heart that is not quite as weary. And right
now in Los Angeles, I think we need need that.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
What are the songs that make you feel less. You
make your heart feel less weary. Mm just a couple
of them.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, Well, there's a singer name Louis Prima who gets
me going pretty much every morning. I love him. It's
like hard to be down when someone's singing like every
time it rain, it rains. Panny's from Heaven Shooby Dooby,
Like I'm up immediately once I hear his voice. And
(06:33):
Louis Armstrong as well, those two.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I love that song so much. I have one of
my early memories. I got to sing that with Les
Paul and one of the best moments of my life.
But an awesome Yes, music is a form of service, definitely,
especially when you're starting positivity as you are, and it
feels I think you said like grounded positivity once and
(06:57):
I really love that because that's what your music.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Resides in. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Do you feel when times are tough, when you know
when your heart is weary, do you find it difficult
to connect to that positivity within music and start to
create from other sources. You know a lot of artists
can create from pain, create from sadness, and that definitely
resonates from their music. But I feel like you always
(07:25):
stay with the positive and that's really amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, I think that positivity and singing uplifting stuff is
usually grounded in pain, and I think that's what makes
it less cheesy. I would. I'm sure some people still
think I'm cheesy, but I'm cheesier when things are going
good and when things are really going hard in your
life and you're like, oh, don't give up on me.
(07:51):
Kind of hits a little different when I've just been
through a divorce, when I've been diagnosed with cancer, when
I have lost many things. So I think that life
is hard, and when you sing uplifting songs in moments
that are that are really hard, you can hit a
(08:13):
sweet spot where you can see what, hopefully what all
the hardness is about and why it's there. And I've
always like I pretty quickly learned that that's what I
was here to do, to write music like that, And
it's just it takes a lot of intention and failure
and trying to get the ones that don't wreak of
(08:37):
cheesiness for some reason, Like we all have things that
we go through and we want to sing together, but
there's like cynicism to just singing. I don't know, there's
a block somewhere that where we like don't believe it
or it's difficult, and I think sometimes I will push
really hard to get everyone into a space to like
(09:00):
just let the cynicism drop and feel and a lot
of times it takes a lot of fighting to get
to that place. But once we're all there, I think
everybody's pretty grateful.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I love that the emphasis on the process within that
as you've you know, made all of this music in
your life. Now your fifth studio.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Album, Congotulation, okay, you think.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
A literal monster of a work. Have you found that
that process for you has altered quite a lot or
it's really remained the same, both in your songwriting and
your production. Just how you approach the music, has it
evolved or is it a tried and true true I.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Think at the beginning there's just immense fear that you
won't be accepted. So not only are you having to
write the one hundred and one songs to get to
the good ones, but you're also battling internally, like even
if I do that, does any of this will it connect?
Will anybody care? Will it matter? And now I've been
(10:06):
all around the world and I have lots of messages
from different people, and we've done a lot of things
where we'll just like go surprise fans at their house
that are going through a tough time and sing to them.
And I've come to really trust the process that usually
there's like when I want to do something hard based,
(10:27):
initially there's a lot of mud to push through and
people are like, that's a lot, You're doing a lot.
I don't know. It's like there's a lot of emotion here.
Are you trying to be are you trying to benefit
off of it? Or like what's going on? And if
the intensions pure enough, you can get through the storm
and usually there's real healing at the end of it.
So now I've done that so many times that I
(10:51):
just kind of trust the process of making the album
and then going out and trying to bring it to people,
and it usually works out really well, you know, but
there are men many times we're like, I don't I
can't guarantee this is gonna work. Like even this little
heart ache thing I was trying to throw just like
a fun get together for friends, and some of them
are like, I lost my house, but I don't want
(11:13):
to be the center of attention. You know in this way,
I don't know that I want, you know, and I
fully understand all of it. And there's just like a
lot of good, deep work to get everybody together and sing.
There's like it's not just like I have this great idea,
let's do it, and then everybody does it. It's usually
like there's tension to get to that place.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Well, that's what makes a great idea, and that's what
makes great art. And you know it's funny, I mean,
because if everybody loves it. Look, as an artist, if
every I've talked to every artist who ever lived, from
James Brown to John Lee Hooker, and if everybody does
what you're doing, you're fucking up. Yeah. And it's interesting though,
because I want to go back to what you were
saying about the you know, like coming from the pain,
(11:57):
coming from bringing up the happy stuff. Yea, Because now,
as I said, Sage is much smarter than me. And
part of what makes being a good interviewer is knowing
that you get to talk to people who are way
smarter than you. So Nick Cave, who is a million
times smarter than me, once said that as an artist, you,
as a songwriter, you're writing what you're longing for. So,
(12:19):
when you're sad, you're writing happy stuff, and when you're happy,
you're writing sad stuff. Do you feel like that's the
case for you? And Sinead O'Connor I spoke to, who's
also brilliant before she pass was saying to me that
as a writer, words you know have power and that
you can make them prophetic and come true. So for you,
(12:40):
do you feel like you're able to turn the songs
into what it is you're longing for and make them
come true?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I think so. I think that you're just trying to
make as much sense and get as much meaning out
of this whole experience of life. That sounds crazy and
like a lot and dramatic, but I think you know,
I've said many times that great lyrics are like, uh,
like scientific proofs, and you know when you hit one.
(13:17):
So Isaac Newton, he was the first one to write
out what gravity was, and when he got it on
paper and then he showed it to everybody, everyone's like, totally, dude,
gravity every day. Oh my gosh, me as well, you
nailed it. And I think that that's what a great
lyric is is when you're able to write something out
that makes everybody go like, oh, that's what's going on.
And a lot of times the truth of it seems
(13:40):
to be uplifting. I think if you're just trying to
cheer someone up, that has value as well. But usually
unless there's truth in it, it doesn't like land in
my experience, and I'm always like trying to find truth
and I get really geeked out about trying to write
lyrics that are true.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
As a writer, I'm so fad stated with this. And look,
every artist is insecure, and as an artist, you cannot
do what you feel is your best work because if
you do, what's the one of going on? If you
hit perfection, there's no place let to go. But you
do hit upon those moments of truth, those things that
really stand out to you. So for you, what are
(14:20):
a couple of your favorite lyrics where you hit on them?
And you're like, I get it, because a lot of
times do a stage and I talk about with everybody,
good writing is subconscious, So it's not like you're bragging
about it. It's like it comes from God, it comes
from the spirit beyond.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Oh yeah, we don't have any idea how this works, totally.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Not subconscious whatever you want to call it, so you know,
you get hit with those like you just get touched
by genius.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I think that unless I feel some element of that,
then it doesn't make it onto a record for me.
So hopefully the bar is that all of them have
some of that in it, and then if I really
feel it, then in my experience, someone else probably will.
And I have no idea of like whether the group
of people that will feel it is. You know, I
(15:07):
have a song called wish you Pain, which is like
kind of aggressive, which is this idea that's like, oh
my god, we grow from really difficult things, So I
know I actually wish upon you really difficult things because
it will turn you into something really beautiful. And that
one is like not a hit by any stretch of
(15:27):
the imagination. But there is a group of people that
that is their song and they use it all the time.
So when I'm writing, I don't really know. I don't
have a good gauge of this is going to be
incredible for ten thousand very unique people, or this is
going to be a quadruple platinum thing that's going to
connect with like so many people. All I know is
if I write enough of them and they all have
(15:48):
some of that truth in them then like it usually
works out in the end somehow.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yes, I love that sentiment so much. We need to
talk about that more so, thanks for writing that song.
Going to be playing it over and over again. After this,
I want to talk a little bit about finding your voice,
because I think that can be so inspiring to people,
especially when you're coming into this really positive voice that
you found that's grounded in pain. I loved learning about
(16:16):
your father and how he was a songwriter in children's music,
and a little bit about your own musical voice, both
with his influence and your own discoveries. Was there a
year Was there a moment that this this thing landed
on you, that this kind of idea of positivity, this
channel for exactly what you do, that unique frequency of
(16:39):
what you do, really landed for you.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
And you followed that a couple different moments. I mean
it started when I was street performing and I would
go out there do that for about four years, where
I'd go to the street, set out my little jar
that said make change, I trust you, and I would
just play for like ten hours a day. And and
(17:03):
I think for a lot of artists coming in what
it can be really helpful to cover a lot of songs.
So I would cover songs all day to find my sound.
I didn't know if that's what I was doing. I
was just like literally trying to find something that would
be of service to other people as they were walking
by that would then inspire them to put a couple
bucks in my case. And so probably the first couple
of years were mostly covering songs because I realized this
(17:27):
as I went back to my original songs. Everybody would leave.
You can like see it right in front of you.
It's happening in real time. You play, You play one
song and everybody's like, oh, that's pretty good, and then
you play one of your own, they're like, see you later.
There's a long process of covering a ton of songs,
finding where my voice fit in different things, and then
adding in like, oh, my voice sits well on this,
(17:48):
but the concept is not working. So there's a lot
of trial and error to get to the place. And
then I wrote keep your head up on the street
in between playing sets, and that one was right around
my mom passed away. So again it was super grounded
in pain, and it was to pick me up to
myself and then you know, there's a lot of like
(18:09):
there's this idea of like how to judge art? Can
art be judged? Is this good art? Is this bad art?
And I don't even get into that conversation. All I
can say is do people stay when you play it?
Or do they leave? And when I played Keep Your
Head Up, everybody stayed and was like, whoa this is
I Like, I'm into this And so that was a
kind of a turning point for me. That was my
(18:29):
first one that then had the little virus in it
that just like every time people heard it they wanted
more of it, and that kind of got me going
on my journey.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I love that song. It's it's taken many many people
through a typical time, I know, And what a what
a gift for you to know that, Like, how does
that feel to know you've like given this this positivity
to all of these people around the world, you know,
going through those those hardships of losing parents, you know,
(18:59):
their own their own difficulties.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, I think it's more like kind of your original
question of like finding your what you're supposed to do
is the big relief. It doesn't mean that work ends.
It's still very hard. You still write like so many songs,
and most of what you do is fail on a
daily basis. But when you're on the right track and
you're in your purpose, that that is very very that
(19:22):
feels very good, and kind of to what he was
saying before about songwriting, like you don't it's hard to
take too much credit for it. It's more like your
job is to go find the thing that you're good at.
And I think that there's a lot of things to
be good at, especially just in music. There's like we
need like sexy songs, and we need songs that for
(19:42):
when you're depressed, and we need songs that like our
party songs, and we need all these different things. And
I think to any artists that are starting, you might
have a hunch of what you're supposed to do, but
very few of us will go and just write a
hundred like that. The barge, like the crop of people
(20:03):
that will actually just go do that cuts it way
down of who I think will make it not baked
is irrelevant, but be able to do it as like
a career if you go, Like I remember, I was
writing with someone who had like twenty number one hits,
and I was like what do you know, dude that
I don't know? How do you have this many hits?
Give me the secret? And he's like, usually for every hundred,
(20:25):
there's one that goes and you're like, oh okay. So
like a lot of this is just tenacity and the
ability to show up every day and just keep writing.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
You know, well, it makes you feel better. We've been
working on this project where we were talking to different writers.
I interviewed Mike Stoller, ninety years old. He wrote fucking
stand by Me and Jail Has Rock. He wrote probably
the greatest song of all time and stand by Me.
I asked him the secret. He's like, no one knows
where songs come from, and that dude's ninety, so never
(21:00):
gonna figure it out.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
We don't know. I do know that they come more
when you write more. There's as a humble servant of songwriting.
If I just keep showing up, songs have been really
good to me.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
It's amazing to hear when are some of our favorite
songs just kind of happened? They like wrote themselves. And
I'm curious for this last album, was there a song
that you could point us to that that you feel
really just kind of appeared.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah. One that wrote that I wrote really fast was
a song called save a Spot in the Back for Me,
and I was, yeah, it just flopped out. And then
there's a line in it that when I sing it
live is a little bit different than normal lines for
some reason, like when I sing that line than the
(21:52):
crowd cheers, and I don't have like a lot of those.
That's like a new thing for me. Usually if it's hooky,
then people will sing along with it. But the idea
of if nice guys finished last, then save a spot
in the back for me, it's almost like a i
don't know, like a rebellious take or something that really
was connecting. And that one came out pretty quick because
I was going through some difficult stuff and and just yeah,
(22:19):
I find that when when it's coming, you have to
kind of honor it and just drop everything and go
after it, which gets harder when you have children and
a family and a wife and everybody. We were just
with my wife's dad and Joshua treat and there's like
craziness going on, and then an idea started coming in
(22:40):
and there was breakfast being made and there was insanity.
And it's not an excuse to be like a bad father.
But I, me and my wife know that it's like
very important, and so I just went grabbed a guitar
and started writing something and singing into it to make
sure I got the basic the basics of it down
to come back to it in a little bit.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Oh, because we've heard from people that if you let
who was it who was saying that, they love the
way that like, I think it's Noel Gallagher put it. Well,
if I don't grab that idea, then Chris Martin's going
to get it.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Oh, someone else will get it. And there is when
you've been in the game long enough and you know
that you're pretty good at catching them. I will hear
one on the radio or out in the world and
I'll be like, I could have caught that, And it's
that's the best true songwriters know. The best compliment you
(23:35):
can get is when another person hears your song and
gets a little depressed. When I hear it, and I
go like, oh, that that line was laying out in
the open for all of us, and you got it,
and when it came by you you were able to
catch it and you reeled it in and and I'm
depressed and very happy for you.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah. Well, going back to Nick Kay for a second.
The only time I interviewed, and it was funny. I
it said there was a line I remember what it was.
I was like, oh, man, I wish I as a writer.
I was so jealous of that. And what I love is,
you know so many people will be humble. He just
looks at me, smirks and goes, as a writer. I
love to hear that.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Okay, there's one that I just saw. I go, I'm
gonna forget their name. They posted to Instagram and it
blew up and now it's on like the top singer
songwriter playlist on Spotify and it's called no Happy Ever
After You, And the line is like, cause I got
no happy ever af after you. The blend of those
(24:44):
two lines together made me pretty angry. That's really good.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yeah, all right, this is my last question. Now let's
say you finish it off. But I'm curious for you.
You know so often too, we talked about songwriting be
sub conscious and it's taking a while to figure it out.
Are the songs that you go back to now that
you're like, oh, I didn't even know what that was about.
That comes back now? And you know, you hit upon
this and you're like, yeah, now I get it. I
(25:11):
know exactly what that was. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I have a song called Saved my Life that I
knew it was just kind of a big idea and
meant a lot, the idea of someone who saved your life.
And then after I wrote it, I realized that I
was writing it about my godmother who showed up when
my mom died, and it took on like a whole
other beauty. Even after I had written it. I'm like, oh,
(25:36):
that's what I was singing it to her, And so
then it got much bigger and more beautiful even after
it was done.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, I imagine looking with the photos, you know, this time,
there's kind of a lot of nostalgia perhaps happening, you know,
thinking about your younger self, I wish I could have
told him this or that.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, the biggest thing that I would probably tell my
younger self is just there's a place for you. I
think that's what artists need to hear the most, is like,
there's a place for you. And the thing that's gonna
work the best for you is when you're being yourself.
That is infuriating to hear when you are twenty and
(26:20):
getting started. It is like, Okay, cool, thanks, how do
I do it? And the answer is write one hundred.
I promise you will find what works best for you
if you it's just a lot of hard work and
and and fun, the fun grind, I'll call it, because
if you get into it like you like it, but
there is it's undeniable, you're gonna hit walls and you're
(26:42):
gonna question yourself and you're gonna wonder whether the thing
that you have to offer has a place, And in
my experience it does.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
With a lot of work, I just got shells that
needs to be a song. There's a place for.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, because if you tell, if you told me before
I had keep your head up that you're supposed to
go like cheer cheer everybody on, I wouldn't. I would
be like, yeah, how I'm in how do we do that?
And unfortunately, there's just so many songs along the road
that are like, well, maybe I'm supposed to be like
(27:14):
a heart throb singing about like relationships. And so then
I wrote like, I mean, there's hundreds in my catalog
of me doing that that never come out because they're
not They just like don't land in the truth area.
And I have love, but it just doesn't like sit
right on my voice. I think a lot of times
you look at like it's similar to actors where they
(27:35):
they need or they need the right role, Like you'd
be a great actor, but you need to get the
right roll. And as songwriters, you're kind of doing both.
You're kind of creating the role that you're gonna play
and then you're singing it, and those those are two
different things. And I've always I've been really blessed to
be so into songwriting from the very beginning to try
(27:58):
to create my own my own and then as you
grow and have different your voice grows, it changes or
you have like different ideas. I've gotten a lot into
producing lately as well, to just try to create the
environment for what I'm trying to get across.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Meaning, is there anything that you want to add that
we did not ask you about?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
No? I mean, I think what was really fun about
this Monster record. Similar to songwriting, things come out and
things where I don't know where they come from. This one,
I went and bought a mandolin on a whim, and
the type of songs that came out when you add
mandolin to what I do is like a really kind
(28:39):
of to me fresh and interesting and that has been
that was really fun with this record. I don't think
I've had a record before where almost every song had
had a unique the same unique instrument across the whole thing,
and it kind of pulled out a different side of me.
There's again like things are grounded in pain to then
say to sing about them in an uplifting way. And
(29:00):
this is the first record that I dug in a
little bit with like I can get angry sometimes too,
but I don't know how to sing about that. And
the mandolin was a little bit of a key that
let me like get into some places that I haven't
been before. So that was really fun on this record
specifically nice.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Well, now I have to ask then before we let
you go, what what instrument do you think will be next?
Is there one that you're like, Okay, honestly, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I'm having a lot of fun. I'm like searching around.
I remember again, when you've had enough.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Pretty damn happy.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Hukle Ale's pretty happy too. It feels like in art
you're kind of and in songwriting and all these things
are just kind of like falling all the time and
hoping that something and then you like figure it out
on the way down. I remember, on a whim I
went and bought an electric guitar because I was mostly
only played acoustic, and I wrote a song called fresh
Eyes the first time I picked up the electric guitar,
which is one of like one of my biggest stream songs.
(29:55):
And then so you you kind of just live in
this space. You don't overthink. You're just kind of falling
and like staying interested in all things at all times.
So who knows. Maybe I'm like, maybe it's the digit
Redo album coming next. We'll see, Probably not, but who knows.
I'm open. You're catching me in the staying open zone,
like we're looking at what's coming next, and I'm this
(30:15):
stage is really fun because I'm like just taking in
inspiration from everywhere, reading a ton of books, listening to
a ton of music, and kind of like getting my
antenna cleaned off for what's supposed to come next.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Wait. I was an English major and Sage is an
avid reader. So what books have been inspiring you?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Mmmm? I love what am I reading right now? I'm
reading a book on this, a wild book on like
the population, which is interesting. This morning, I was in
the gym listening to Tony Robbins, which is like pretty
I bet I bet people would guess that about me.
I'm listening to this incredible David Sedaris book. He does
(30:56):
like these essays that are really really funny and does
incredible wordplay. It's kind of like a wide gamut of
things now And thank you guys for having me appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Thanks so much, awesome, great to meet you.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Book,
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