June 6, 2025 • 28 mins
Join @thebuzzknight with Adam Met, bassist of the chart-topping band AJR and a passionate advocate for sustainability and social change. In this episode, Adam shares stories from the road, insights into the creative process behind AJR’s biggest hits, and his journey from musician to global activist. He also discusses his brand new book, "Amplify: How to use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action and Build a Better World."Discover how Adam balances the world of music with his commitment to making a positive impact, and hear his thoughts on the future of both the industry and the planet. Whether you’re a fan of AJR, interested in advocacy, or just love a good conversation, this episode is sure to inspire and entertain. Lace up your shoes and join us for an unforgettable walk!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Your power at the local level is thousands of times
more than your power at the federal level. Not saying
don't vote in a federal election, but my call to
action for you would be go look up when your
next local election is and look at the people who
are running, because that is going to make some of
the biggest difference in your own life.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Welcome to another episode of Take in a Walk. This
is the podcast where we explore the stories, music and
passions that inspire us. I'm your host Buzznight and today
Adam met musician, activist, educator, and the AA in the
chart topping band Ajar. Adam's journey is anything but ordinary,
from busking on New York City streets with his brothers
(00:45):
to selling out arenas worldwide. He's help shape Ajr's signature sound,
one that's inventive and deeply personal. He's a climate advocate,
a PhD in Human rights law and sustainable de development,
and an adjunct professor at Columbia University. Now Adam is
adding author to his list of accomplishments. His debut book, Amplify,
(01:09):
How to Use the Power of Connection to engage, take action,
and build a better World, is out and amplify. Adam
draws on his experience building one of music's most devoted
fan bases and shows how the same strategies can be
used to spark real world change. Let's talk to Adam
(01:30):
Met from Ajar right now on taking a Walk. Well,
doctor Mett, I hope you can cure what ails me.
Welcome to taking a.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Walk only if you're on a plane and I ask
for a doctor's help.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Well, we have a signature question first of all, that
we want to ask at the start here. Since the
podcast is called taking a Walk, who would you like
to take a walk with?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Living or dead?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
It could be somebody in the music side of things,
but doesn't have to be.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
It's your imagination, it's your walk.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Do I have to talk to them while I'm walking
with them? Or could it just be a silent walk.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
It could be silent too, huh.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I feel like I would want to take a silent
walk with Paul Simon and just be in his presence.
I feel like he's my favorite artist of all time,
and I feel like if I humanized him in my mind,
I might like him less, and so I just want
to see what it's like to be in his presence
and take a walk with him.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I like that because sometimes, you know, the bubble gets
burst with folks like Paul Simon, who we who means
so much to us, right exactly, all right, that's a
good one. Now do you like to walk in New
York City? Do you have favorite places to walk there?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I walk everywhere, so I'm averaging now that it's nicer
out in New York, around twenty thousand steps a day.
So I walk while I'm doing conference calls, I walk
while I'm in meetings, when I'm on the phone with friends.
I walk everywhere, and my favorite places. I live right
near Central Park, so my go to is walk out
the door, go into Central Park around Belvedere Castle. The
(03:16):
theater where they have Shakespeare in the Park is under
construction now, so I can't really walk around there, but
I just go. It's one of my favorite things. Ever.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I love great walking cities. I live outside of Boston.
Boston's a great walking city. But yeah, I mean, it
makes so much sense in New York to start walking,
because the alternative is, Okay, hop in an uber or
whatever and then.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Sit there and don't move right exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, it's a little better now with congestion pricing. It's
a little better now, but still a lot of traffic.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We have tons to discuss. We want to talk about
the great new book Amplify. We want to talk about
your amazing commit speech at Columbia. We certainly want to
talk about Ajar. But I do want to ask you.
I know Washington Square in New York is of great
(04:14):
influence to you over your life and certainly your brother's
life musically as well. Do you remember the first time
you walked into Washington Square and saw whatever was going
on in that particular day.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's so many memories
that have combined in my mind because the first thing
that really comes to mind is all of the different
street performers in Washington Square Park. And mind you, this
was during the day, because at night the people who
were in Washington Square Park are a little bit different.
They're trying to sell you something different, but during the
day they're trying to sell you performance. So there were
(04:52):
people who would do kind of acrobatic tricks and would
flip over each other. There are people who set up
puppet shows. There were people who were playing all different
kinds of music, and everybody had their own space. It
almost felt like a variety show when I was a kid,
that I could walk through the park and get all
of this different entertainment. And so that really stuck out
(05:13):
to me as a child. And I mean, as you know,
we got our start street performing in Washington Square Park
as well, and the first couple of years that we
did it, it was strange because it was almost like
a business negotiation with the other street performers. We're going
to start our set now, then we'll pause while they
get to go. And it was a much more complex
system than you even think about street performing could be.
(05:34):
But I think that was probably my first impression of
the park that it was an overwhelming cacophony of the senses.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Did your parents give you and your brothers a long leash?
And if so, was that key to creative expression years
later that you still are so amazing at.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
They did give us a long creatively sh appsolutely. So,
our dad was a huge music fan growing up. He
had quite a sizeable vinyl collection, and so we started
listening to things like the Beach Boys and Peter Paul
and Mary and John Denver and people like that on vinyl.
But our parents were very supportive of any creative pursuit
(06:17):
that we had. So I did a lot of theater
when I was younger. I did some voiceover work, and
then we kind of fell into the music because of
being in the theater world. Something I don't talk about
often is that I was a professional dancer before I
got into the music world. I was a professional tap dancer,
and I ran a tap dance company and we toured
(06:39):
around the world. So creativity and expression through all of
these different modes out of art was something that we
were not only encouraged to do, but given the kind
of full space to do as we were growing up.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Was there a first live concert experience that really knocked
you out?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Absolutely, So I love that you asked me the first
question that you did, because seeing Paul Simon live at
BAM at Brooklyn Academy of Music with Josh Grobin as
his opener, and then Josh Grobin coming back on stage
and performing with him when I was a kid, that
was a transformative experience. Seeing the person sing the songs
(07:21):
that I grew up listening to on vinyl on my
dad's record player, and then seeing him live with my family.
I will absolutely never forget.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
That and that.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, I mean, the fact that this is locked in
your brain forever fuels your passion, fuels your curiosity further
around all other types of music.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Right absolutely. I mean you think about Paul Simon. He
has experimented with so many different kinds of music and
so many different kinds of instrumentation and production. But the
thing that stays consistent with him is the equal parts
of simplicity and complexity of the lyrics. He plays with
(08:07):
the listener just as much as he wants the listener
to take what he's saying very seriously. So he tells
very specific stories, but tells them in a way that
feels like popcorn to the ear, and also tells them
in a way that are repeatable and shareable. I mean,
think of something like Me and Julio. That song is
(08:27):
just so crispy in its lyrics, but the lyrics are
so impactful and true, and they're you know, kind of
about the neighborhood where where he grew up. So he
is he is very consistent in lyrics, but very he
takes a lot of creative liberty is in terms of
his experimentation with production and instrumentation. So you really know
(08:52):
when you're hearing a Paul Simon song, and that's because
of the vocal and the lyrics, but the fact that
he does get to have this playground of audience and
it's something that was really inspiring to me.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
I don't know about you. There's one of his songs.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
There's so many that ring true, but there's one for
the way the world is now and the way the
country is now that I think about all the time.
It's an American tune art and it's just so poignant.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
And beautiful, and.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I mean, I try to think though, when he wrote that,
what the world was like at that time that would
have influenced it, And if he wrote it now, how
much different the song may have been.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, I think that. I mean musicians, artists, sculptors, dancers, painters,
people who create theater. A lot of what they do
is reflect on the world around them and they hold
up a mirror to what society is going through. But
at the same time, there are all of these people
(10:02):
who project their own solutions or questions onto the world
using their art. And I think that a lot of
artists are very intentional about the way that they do that,
meaning they decide whether Okay, this piece of art that
I'm doing is going to be a mirror to society,
so society can see what they're going through and just
(10:23):
have a moment to reflect, and then they can also
be intentional about something like protest music. Right, we need
to stand up and fight, we need to band together.
There have been periods in time where protest music has
kind of rowed, this wave of popularity in the nineteen
seventies hugely popular. Twenty percent of the Billboard Hot one
(10:44):
hundred was protest music, and now we would say that
would never happen, right, But if you listen to the
Billboard Hot one hundred now, I argue that there's even
more protest music on it now. Even though those songs
in their entirety are not protest song, there are lines
here and there about that reflection of society. I think
(11:05):
artists can't help but write about the things that are
going on in their lives and in their world. And
we go through periods and music where they're kind of
big pop songs that are very general and so everyone
can relate to them. But we're in a moment now
where storytelling has become king right. People want to tell
(11:26):
their own stories in a way that other people can
see themselves in it. And so I think right now,
in terms of how we think about songs reflecting on
society and then reflecting society, I think more than ever,
we're seeing artists engage with what it means to be
making art. In twenty twenty five, I.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Love and amplify how you focus on authentic storytelling, and
in particular, you highlight a couple of people.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Certainly Bob Dylan is a part of that highlighting, but
you also highlight uh Phil Oaks as well. And you know,
Phil back then stood really in his own own, his
own camp when it came to how fiercely free he
(12:22):
felt about speaking about things you make mention of of
Here's to the State of Mississippi, and then here's Phil
using comedy and rewriting that song and creating Here's to
the State of Richard Nixon.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, and he but he he stood on on that
ledge often by himself.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I mean, even Bob Dylan was critical of him for
going too far. He called Bob Dylan called phildel Oaks
a singing journalist, right, and so what kind of thing
does that evoke? You know, if you're somebody who's an artist,
but you're also being called a journalist. You're making your
sharing facts, you're being very direct, and you're letting the
audience kind of pull their own conclusions out of what
(13:12):
you're saying. But you're being very honest. And I think
that that's something that we don't see so much anymore
and art that blatantness that Phil had. And so for
people who are listening who don't know Phil Oaks is
because I know that he is a less common name
than Bob Dylan. He is one of my favorite artists
(13:32):
of all time. All of his albums are great. But
there's a story. So my uncle and my dad saw
Phil Oakes downtown in New York City one of his
final performances, and he actually ended up committing suicide a
few weeks later after that performance that he saw them.
But he was completely out of his mind during that performance.
(13:57):
Apparently again I'm hearing this secondhand, but he was so drunk,
couldn't remember any of the lyrics. Everything he did up
until that point was with so much intentionality, engaging around
the Democratic National Convention, really participating in everything that he
felt could be better in America. He saw what was
(14:19):
going on and reflected on it through his art. So
please go listen to Fillows.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I couldn't wait to share this with you and the audience.
I believe.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
One of the first mass organized, ticketed event protest concerts
was organized by Phil and some others at Madison Square Garden.
It was called an Evening with Salvador Allende right after
the Chilean overthrow, and all sorts of people played at that,
(14:55):
from Dylan to Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie and but
it was a Phil moment because Phil was one of
the instigators that brought that whole crew together and it
was quite a night. I was a nerdy fan who
came from Stanford, Connecticut, took the train down and went
(15:17):
by myself actually and saw the show at Madison Square Garden,
and it was pretty pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I have to say, I'm so jealous. I am so jealous.
That sounds incredible.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
So the focus, among other things in the book Amplify
is certainly community building and really showcasing specific ways.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
To be able to do that.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
From your experiences and certainly the band's experience experience is
still Do you think community building has sort of become
a little bit of buzzword bingo if you will, because
I know with you one thing that irritates you is
(16:16):
meetings that ultimately have no action that initiates from that meeting.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Are you taking that from the commencement speech that I
offer Columbia very possibly? Yeah? Yeah, community building. So when
I say community building, I don't mean it for the
sake of building a community. And I know that sounds strange,
But community building happens through action, and happens through reaction,
(16:50):
and happens because of the things that people actually do.
I think there's a difference in saying, let's, you know,
do some thing for the sake of doing something, as
opposed to let's do something on our way to trying
to get something done. And that was pretty big. So
I'll give you an example. Let's use the idea of music.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
There are fan clubs in music, and people say I
want to create a group of fans and we're gonna
get together and talk about the music and discuss what
we like about it. Things like that. Great, that's building
a community, right, There's nothing kind of further to it.
But if you're doing something like that, creating a mini
fan club for a band that's up and coming like
(17:33):
we were a handful of years ago, one of the
amazing things that can effectively build a community is to
take a group of people who are like minded and
have them work towards something bigger. For example, when we
went to Boston. The first time we went to Boston,
we played a place called the Red Room, and it
was a really tiny music venue and we sold like
(17:55):
a dozen tickets. The second time we came back, we
couldn't play any vide ers played the Red Room again.
But some of these fan groups had started to form
and they took it on as their responsibility to spread
the word about us. They shared with their friends and
their family, They put up posters around the city, they
went to the colleges and the high schools. That show
completely sold out over two hundred people, and so that
(18:20):
built even more of a tight knit community among those
fans because they took ownership over that process and they
were actually able to achieve something together. So does that
make sense the difference if we can actually use the
community for something as opposed to just building it for
the sake makes total sense.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
The application that you know your band applied certainly was
the creation of you know, one of the cover art pieces,
and yess you basically gave that ownership, you know, brilliantly
to the to the fans. How much science are you
using when you're applying some of this And I'll give
(19:01):
you a specific example referencing that question. I know around
COVID the band ended up finding a way to pay
for medical treatment for people who were in particular need.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Were this is the data nerd in me.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Now asking were you able to go into a database
of sorts that you guys had created and go right
down to zip codes where you knew fans were.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, So that's one of the amazing things about building
a fan base. The way we have is that we
know exactly how many tickets we can sell in each city.
We know exactly where our fans are from the data
that we gather from places like Spotify and other music
streaming services or places like Instagram and TikTok. We really
(19:55):
know the amounts that fans are engaging and exactly where
they are. So in this project that we did during COVID,
we did a big fundraiser specifically for people in the
zip codes where we knew that we had the largest
concentration of fans, and these people were impacted by crippling
medical debt related to COVID. So we ended up partnering
(20:17):
with this organization called Rip Medical Debt, which multiplies the
donations that you get by buying up medical debt for
one penny on the dollar. So for the amount of
money that we raised, we ended up alleviating over seven
and a half million dollars worth of medical debt in
the community is where we have the most fans. So
(20:38):
it was all very intentional. We wanted to make sure
that our community that had supported us for so long,
we were going back and supporting that.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
There's so much in the book that I think it's
great for you know, musicians that are trying to build
their their brand, podcasters trying to build their brand. I
come out of radio, so you know radio stations or
personalities trying to you know, grow their brand.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
And you talk also about something.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Really important and maybe you could expand on it, the
importance of super fans and what they kind of mean
to all this.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, there is nothing like a super fan. So we
have a lot of super fans, but one in particular
that I write about a lot in the book is
this young woman named mel and she essentially took our
fan base and grew it to the point that fans
were engaging in a much deeper level, more than we
(21:42):
ever could have engaged with the fans. She built all
of these activities with them, She built incentive programs, she
built ways for them to bring other people into the
fan base. And this model that she developed kind of unknowingly. Traditionally,
when you're an activist more advocacy, or you're in music,
(22:02):
you're trying to move people up this ladder of engagement.
You know, they take one step, they hear a song,
and then if they go home and they buy a
concert ticket, they move up another rung. If they follow
you on Instagram, they move up another rung on that ladder.
This is not the model that works anymore in music
or in advocacy. The model that we found that works
really well looks more like a hurricane than a ladder.
(22:26):
And a hurricane because when people first start engaging with
an artist or with a cause, you want to bring
them in really close, give them all of the tools
to then have them go back out in the world
and be evangelizers for the movement, and movement could be
for music or advocacy. It really is building a movement
for both of them. And when you give them the tools,
(22:49):
they feel ownership over it in a way that they
become evangelizers. They want to share their little secret with
the world that is so much more powerful than any
amount of ads that you can run on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
So I know, as this book tour for Amplify will
be rolling out, you've made it public to your fan
base and Ajr's fan base that you're going to be
not at all the shows. Yes, when AJR is out
on the on the road, I hear a big collective
(23:23):
sigh from the audiences as I'm delivering that in case
they didn't know. But you've been very transparent and the
band's been very transparent about that. What's been the reaction
to you sitting some shows out?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
So it's really been bittersweet. Obviously, fans are disappointed that
I'm not going to be at some of the shows.
But one of the things that's been really important to
me over the last bunch of years is bringing fans
along with me on my journey as I've been working
on my master's and my PhD, as I started teaching,
as I've been working with governments around the world on
(24:02):
their climate policies, and so they know every step of
the way everything that I've been doing and how I've
been growing my work outside of the band. So just
as much as I see the disappointment that I'm not
going to be there, they've also been so supportive. I mean,
if you look at the post that we did when
I announced that I wasn't going to be doing all
(24:22):
of the shows, there were thousands of comments across social media,
just so supportive that I'm going to do this work,
and a lot of them want to join me. The
number of people who have written me emails or dms
saying that they started studying environmental science because I was
the one who introduced the field to them. Even if
they're just a handful of those people, and I've done
(24:45):
my work right, it's I am proud and I am
satisfied that that's the work that's been done. But at
the same time, there is this whole additional journey in
the climate space that I'm taking with this book and
this chore and all the other work that I'm doing,
and they've been right there with me, and it takes
(25:07):
a while.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Line.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
It's very weird, right for an artist to say, Okay,
you know, we have tons of fans. We've sold out
Madison Square Garden multiple times, We've sold out TD Garden
multiple times, and now I'm going to go work in
climate policy. That's a weird thing for fans to see.
But the fact that they've been there and so supportive,
I can't thank them enough.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So I want to close on the commencement speech. Look,
we're at a really difficult time. There's many folks who
have lost sense of optimism about you know, where things
are heading. And one of my takeaways from your great
speech was I think you have a different outlook in
(25:52):
terms of where there is some optimism, how folks can
be activated, how important it is, whether it be in
the largest election or the smallest election, to.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Show up and be involved. Can you talk a little
bit about that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Sure, I spend a lot of time traveling around the
country and the world, and the number one question that
I get from fans and from people it protests, events,
community meetings is what can I do? I want to participate?
What can I do it doesn't feel accessible to them.
Climate change is not accessible to them. It's big, it's existential.
(26:31):
What does one point five degrees celsius even mean?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
The people who make the decisions about the future of
your community, of your city, of your state happen at
the most local of levels. Yes, of course, every four
years we both vote for a president. Of course, every
two years we have a midterm election. But between that
there are hundreds and hundreds of elections around the country
(26:58):
that are voting people into office that are at the
state level, so state Senate and state Assembly, and even
more at the local level community boards. These boards make
such impactful decisions on your day to day lives. They
make decisions about zoning, they make decisions about where you're
going to put this petrochemical plant, they make decisions about
(27:20):
local transportation. Some of these people, when they're running in
these elections, win by ten or twelve votes. And this
is one of the things that I mentioned in the
commencement speech. Your power at the local level is thousands
of times more than your power at the federal level.
I'm not saying don't vote in a federal election, but
(27:41):
my call to action for you would be go look
up when your next local election is and look at
the people who are running, because that is going to
make some of the biggest difference in your own life.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Adam Met, congratulations on Amplify and thanks for that work,
but also all your other work and this little band
called Ajar as well.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Thank you for that, and thanks for being on Taking
a Walk. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Thank you so much for having me. This was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Your power at the local level is thousands of times
more than your power at the federal level. Not saying
don't vote in a federal election, but my call to
action for you would be go look up when your
next local election is and look at the people who
are running, because that is going to make some of
the biggest difference in your own life.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Welcome to another episode of Take in a Walk. This
is the podcast where we explore the stories, music and
passions that inspire us. I'm your host Buzznight and today
Adam met musician, activist, educator, and the AA in the
chart topping band Ajar. Adam's journey is anything but ordinary,
from busking on New York City streets with his brothers
(00:45):
to selling out arenas worldwide. He's help shape Ajr's signature sound,
one that's inventive and deeply personal. He's a climate advocate,
a PhD in Human rights law and sustainable de development,
and an adjunct professor at Columbia University. Now Adam is
adding author to his list of accomplishments. His debut book, Amplify,
(01:09):
How to Use the Power of Connection to engage, take action,
and build a better World, is out and amplify. Adam
draws on his experience building one of music's most devoted
fan bases and shows how the same strategies can be
used to spark real world change. Let's talk to Adam
(01:30):
Met from Ajar right now on taking a Walk. Well,
doctor Mett, I hope you can cure what ails me.
Welcome to taking a.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Walk only if you're on a plane and I ask
for a doctor's help.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Well, we have a signature question first of all, that
we want to ask at the start here. Since the
podcast is called taking a Walk, who would you like
to take a walk with?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Living or dead?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
It could be somebody in the music side of things,
but doesn't have to be.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
It's your imagination, it's your walk.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Do I have to talk to them while I'm walking
with them? Or could it just be a silent walk.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
It could be silent too, huh.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I feel like I would want to take a silent
walk with Paul Simon and just be in his presence.
I feel like he's my favorite artist of all time,
and I feel like if I humanized him in my mind,
I might like him less, and so I just want
to see what it's like to be in his presence
and take a walk with him.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I like that because sometimes, you know, the bubble gets
burst with folks like Paul Simon, who we who means
so much to us, right exactly, all right, that's a
good one. Now do you like to walk in New
York City? Do you have favorite places to walk there?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I walk everywhere, so I'm averaging now that it's nicer
out in New York, around twenty thousand steps a day.
So I walk while I'm doing conference calls, I walk
while I'm in meetings, when I'm on the phone with friends.
I walk everywhere, and my favorite places. I live right
near Central Park, so my go to is walk out
the door, go into Central Park around Belvedere Castle. The
(03:16):
theater where they have Shakespeare in the Park is under
construction now, so I can't really walk around there, but
I just go. It's one of my favorite things. Ever.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I love great walking cities. I live outside of Boston.
Boston's a great walking city. But yeah, I mean, it
makes so much sense in New York to start walking,
because the alternative is, Okay, hop in an uber or
whatever and then.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Sit there and don't move right exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, it's a little better now with congestion pricing. It's
a little better now, but still a lot of traffic.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We have tons to discuss. We want to talk about
the great new book Amplify. We want to talk about
your amazing commit speech at Columbia. We certainly want to
talk about Ajar. But I do want to ask you.
I know Washington Square in New York is of great
(04:14):
influence to you over your life and certainly your brother's
life musically as well. Do you remember the first time
you walked into Washington Square and saw whatever was going
on in that particular day.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's so many memories
that have combined in my mind because the first thing
that really comes to mind is all of the different
street performers in Washington Square Park. And mind you, this
was during the day, because at night the people who
were in Washington Square Park are a little bit different.
They're trying to sell you something different, but during the
day they're trying to sell you performance. So there were
(04:52):
people who would do kind of acrobatic tricks and would
flip over each other. There are people who set up
puppet shows. There were people who were playing all different
kinds of music, and everybody had their own space. It
almost felt like a variety show when I was a kid,
that I could walk through the park and get all
of this different entertainment. And so that really stuck out
(05:13):
to me as a child. And I mean, as you know,
we got our start street performing in Washington Square Park
as well, and the first couple of years that we
did it, it was strange because it was almost like
a business negotiation with the other street performers. We're going
to start our set now, then we'll pause while they
get to go. And it was a much more complex
system than you even think about street performing could be.
(05:34):
But I think that was probably my first impression of
the park that it was an overwhelming cacophony of the senses.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Did your parents give you and your brothers a long leash?
And if so, was that key to creative expression years
later that you still are so amazing at.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
They did give us a long creatively sh appsolutely. So,
our dad was a huge music fan growing up. He
had quite a sizeable vinyl collection, and so we started
listening to things like the Beach Boys and Peter Paul
and Mary and John Denver and people like that on vinyl.
But our parents were very supportive of any creative pursuit
(06:17):
that we had. So I did a lot of theater
when I was younger. I did some voiceover work, and
then we kind of fell into the music because of
being in the theater world. Something I don't talk about
often is that I was a professional dancer before I
got into the music world. I was a professional tap dancer,
and I ran a tap dance company and we toured
(06:39):
around the world. So creativity and expression through all of
these different modes out of art was something that we
were not only encouraged to do, but given the kind
of full space to do as we were growing up.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Was there a first live concert experience that really knocked
you out?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Absolutely, So I love that you asked me the first
question that you did, because seeing Paul Simon live at
BAM at Brooklyn Academy of Music with Josh Grobin as
his opener, and then Josh Grobin coming back on stage
and performing with him when I was a kid, that
was a transformative experience. Seeing the person sing the songs
(07:21):
that I grew up listening to on vinyl on my
dad's record player, and then seeing him live with my family.
I will absolutely never forget.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
That and that.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, I mean, the fact that this is locked in
your brain forever fuels your passion, fuels your curiosity further
around all other types of music.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Right absolutely. I mean you think about Paul Simon. He
has experimented with so many different kinds of music and
so many different kinds of instrumentation and production. But the
thing that stays consistent with him is the equal parts
of simplicity and complexity of the lyrics. He plays with
(08:07):
the listener just as much as he wants the listener
to take what he's saying very seriously. So he tells
very specific stories, but tells them in a way that
feels like popcorn to the ear, and also tells them
in a way that are repeatable and shareable. I mean,
think of something like Me and Julio. That song is
(08:27):
just so crispy in its lyrics, but the lyrics are
so impactful and true, and they're you know, kind of
about the neighborhood where where he grew up. So he
is he is very consistent in lyrics, but very he
takes a lot of creative liberty is in terms of
his experimentation with production and instrumentation. So you really know
(08:52):
when you're hearing a Paul Simon song, and that's because
of the vocal and the lyrics, but the fact that
he does get to have this playground of audience and
it's something that was really inspiring to me.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
I don't know about you. There's one of his songs.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
There's so many that ring true, but there's one for
the way the world is now and the way the
country is now that I think about all the time.
It's an American tune art and it's just so poignant.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
And beautiful, and.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I mean, I try to think though, when he wrote that,
what the world was like at that time that would
have influenced it, And if he wrote it now, how
much different the song may have been.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, I think that. I mean musicians, artists, sculptors, dancers, painters,
people who create theater. A lot of what they do
is reflect on the world around them and they hold
up a mirror to what society is going through. But
at the same time, there are all of these people
(10:02):
who project their own solutions or questions onto the world
using their art. And I think that a lot of
artists are very intentional about the way that they do that,
meaning they decide whether Okay, this piece of art that
I'm doing is going to be a mirror to society,
so society can see what they're going through and just
(10:23):
have a moment to reflect, and then they can also
be intentional about something like protest music. Right, we need
to stand up and fight, we need to band together.
There have been periods in time where protest music has
kind of rowed, this wave of popularity in the nineteen
seventies hugely popular. Twenty percent of the Billboard Hot one
(10:44):
hundred was protest music, and now we would say that
would never happen, right, But if you listen to the
Billboard Hot one hundred now, I argue that there's even
more protest music on it now. Even though those songs
in their entirety are not protest song, there are lines
here and there about that reflection of society. I think
(11:05):
artists can't help but write about the things that are
going on in their lives and in their world. And
we go through periods and music where they're kind of
big pop songs that are very general and so everyone
can relate to them. But we're in a moment now
where storytelling has become king right. People want to tell
(11:26):
their own stories in a way that other people can
see themselves in it. And so I think right now,
in terms of how we think about songs reflecting on
society and then reflecting society, I think more than ever,
we're seeing artists engage with what it means to be
making art. In twenty twenty five, I.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Love and amplify how you focus on authentic storytelling, and
in particular, you highlight a couple of people.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Certainly Bob Dylan is a part of that highlighting, but
you also highlight uh Phil Oaks as well. And you know,
Phil back then stood really in his own own, his
own camp when it came to how fiercely free he
(12:22):
felt about speaking about things you make mention of of
Here's to the State of Mississippi, and then here's Phil
using comedy and rewriting that song and creating Here's to
the State of Richard Nixon.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, and he but he he stood on on that
ledge often by himself.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I mean, even Bob Dylan was critical of him for
going too far. He called Bob Dylan called phildel Oaks
a singing journalist, right, and so what kind of thing
does that evoke? You know, if you're somebody who's an artist,
but you're also being called a journalist. You're making your
sharing facts, you're being very direct, and you're letting the
audience kind of pull their own conclusions out of what
(13:12):
you're saying. But you're being very honest. And I think
that that's something that we don't see so much anymore
and art that blatantness that Phil had. And so for
people who are listening who don't know Phil Oaks is
because I know that he is a less common name
than Bob Dylan. He is one of my favorite artists
(13:32):
of all time. All of his albums are great. But
there's a story. So my uncle and my dad saw
Phil Oakes downtown in New York City one of his
final performances, and he actually ended up committing suicide a
few weeks later after that performance that he saw them.
But he was completely out of his mind during that performance.
(13:57):
Apparently again I'm hearing this secondhand, but he was so drunk,
couldn't remember any of the lyrics. Everything he did up
until that point was with so much intentionality, engaging around
the Democratic National Convention, really participating in everything that he
felt could be better in America. He saw what was
(14:19):
going on and reflected on it through his art. So
please go listen to Fillows.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I couldn't wait to share this with you and the audience.
I believe.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
One of the first mass organized, ticketed event protest concerts
was organized by Phil and some others at Madison Square Garden.
It was called an Evening with Salvador Allende right after
the Chilean overthrow, and all sorts of people played at that,
(14:55):
from Dylan to Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie and but
it was a Phil moment because Phil was one of
the instigators that brought that whole crew together and it
was quite a night. I was a nerdy fan who
came from Stanford, Connecticut, took the train down and went
(15:17):
by myself actually and saw the show at Madison Square Garden,
and it was pretty pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
I have to say, I'm so jealous. I am so jealous.
That sounds incredible.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
So the focus, among other things in the book Amplify
is certainly community building and really showcasing specific ways.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
To be able to do that.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
From your experiences and certainly the band's experience experience is
still Do you think community building has sort of become
a little bit of buzzword bingo if you will, because
I know with you one thing that irritates you is
(16:16):
meetings that ultimately have no action that initiates from that meeting.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Are you taking that from the commencement speech that I
offer Columbia very possibly? Yeah? Yeah, community building. So when
I say community building, I don't mean it for the
sake of building a community. And I know that sounds strange,
But community building happens through action, and happens through reaction,
(16:50):
and happens because of the things that people actually do.
I think there's a difference in saying, let's, you know,
do some thing for the sake of doing something, as
opposed to let's do something on our way to trying
to get something done. And that was pretty big. So
I'll give you an example. Let's use the idea of music.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
There are fan clubs in music, and people say I
want to create a group of fans and we're gonna
get together and talk about the music and discuss what
we like about it. Things like that. Great, that's building
a community, right, There's nothing kind of further to it.
But if you're doing something like that, creating a mini
fan club for a band that's up and coming like
(17:33):
we were a handful of years ago, one of the
amazing things that can effectively build a community is to
take a group of people who are like minded and
have them work towards something bigger. For example, when we
went to Boston. The first time we went to Boston,
we played a place called the Red Room, and it
was a really tiny music venue and we sold like
(17:55):
a dozen tickets. The second time we came back, we
couldn't play any vide ers played the Red Room again.
But some of these fan groups had started to form
and they took it on as their responsibility to spread
the word about us. They shared with their friends and
their family, They put up posters around the city, they
went to the colleges and the high schools. That show
completely sold out over two hundred people, and so that
(18:20):
built even more of a tight knit community among those
fans because they took ownership over that process and they
were actually able to achieve something together. So does that
make sense the difference if we can actually use the
community for something as opposed to just building it for
the sake makes total sense.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
The application that you know your band applied certainly was
the creation of you know, one of the cover art pieces,
and yess you basically gave that ownership, you know, brilliantly
to the to the fans. How much science are you
using when you're applying some of this And I'll give
(19:01):
you a specific example referencing that question. I know around
COVID the band ended up finding a way to pay
for medical treatment for people who were in particular need.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Were this is the data nerd in me.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Now asking were you able to go into a database
of sorts that you guys had created and go right
down to zip codes where you knew fans were.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, So that's one of the amazing things about building
a fan base. The way we have is that we
know exactly how many tickets we can sell in each city.
We know exactly where our fans are from the data
that we gather from places like Spotify and other music
streaming services or places like Instagram and TikTok. We really
(19:55):
know the amounts that fans are engaging and exactly where
they are. So in this project that we did during COVID,
we did a big fundraiser specifically for people in the
zip codes where we knew that we had the largest
concentration of fans, and these people were impacted by crippling
medical debt related to COVID. So we ended up partnering
(20:17):
with this organization called Rip Medical Debt, which multiplies the
donations that you get by buying up medical debt for
one penny on the dollar. So for the amount of
money that we raised, we ended up alleviating over seven
and a half million dollars worth of medical debt in
the community is where we have the most fans. So
(20:38):
it was all very intentional. We wanted to make sure
that our community that had supported us for so long,
we were going back and supporting that.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
There's so much in the book that I think it's
great for you know, musicians that are trying to build
their their brand, podcasters trying to build their brand. I
come out of radio, so you know radio stations or
personalities trying to you know, grow their brand.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
And you talk also about something.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Really important and maybe you could expand on it, the
importance of super fans and what they kind of mean
to all this.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, there is nothing like a super fan. So we
have a lot of super fans, but one in particular
that I write about a lot in the book is
this young woman named mel and she essentially took our
fan base and grew it to the point that fans
were engaging in a much deeper level, more than we
(21:42):
ever could have engaged with the fans. She built all
of these activities with them, She built incentive programs, she
built ways for them to bring other people into the
fan base. And this model that she developed kind of unknowingly. Traditionally,
when you're an activist more advocacy, or you're in music,
(22:02):
you're trying to move people up this ladder of engagement.
You know, they take one step, they hear a song,
and then if they go home and they buy a
concert ticket, they move up another rung. If they follow
you on Instagram, they move up another rung on that ladder.
This is not the model that works anymore in music
or in advocacy. The model that we found that works
really well looks more like a hurricane than a ladder.
(22:26):
And a hurricane because when people first start engaging with
an artist or with a cause, you want to bring
them in really close, give them all of the tools
to then have them go back out in the world
and be evangelizers for the movement, and movement could be
for music or advocacy. It really is building a movement
for both of them. And when you give them the tools,
(22:49):
they feel ownership over it in a way that they
become evangelizers. They want to share their little secret with
the world that is so much more powerful than any
amount of ads that you can run on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
So I know, as this book tour for Amplify will
be rolling out, you've made it public to your fan
base and Ajr's fan base that you're going to be
not at all the shows. Yes, when AJR is out
on the on the road, I hear a big collective
(23:23):
sigh from the audiences as I'm delivering that in case
they didn't know. But you've been very transparent and the
band's been very transparent about that. What's been the reaction
to you sitting some shows out?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
So it's really been bittersweet. Obviously, fans are disappointed that
I'm not going to be at some of the shows.
But one of the things that's been really important to
me over the last bunch of years is bringing fans
along with me on my journey as I've been working
on my master's and my PhD, as I started teaching,
as I've been working with governments around the world on
(24:02):
their climate policies, and so they know every step of
the way everything that I've been doing and how I've
been growing my work outside of the band. So just
as much as I see the disappointment that I'm not
going to be there, they've also been so supportive. I mean,
if you look at the post that we did when
I announced that I wasn't going to be doing all
(24:22):
of the shows, there were thousands of comments across social media,
just so supportive that I'm going to do this work,
and a lot of them want to join me. The
number of people who have written me emails or dms
saying that they started studying environmental science because I was
the one who introduced the field to them. Even if
they're just a handful of those people, and I've done
(24:45):
my work right, it's I am proud and I am
satisfied that that's the work that's been done. But at
the same time, there is this whole additional journey in
the climate space that I'm taking with this book and
this chore and all the other work that I'm doing,
and they've been right there with me, and it takes
(25:07):
a while.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Line.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
It's very weird, right for an artist to say, Okay,
you know, we have tons of fans. We've sold out
Madison Square Garden multiple times, We've sold out TD Garden
multiple times, and now I'm going to go work in
climate policy. That's a weird thing for fans to see.
But the fact that they've been there and so supportive,
I can't thank them enough.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So I want to close on the commencement speech. Look,
we're at a really difficult time. There's many folks who
have lost sense of optimism about you know, where things
are heading. And one of my takeaways from your great
speech was I think you have a different outlook in
(25:52):
terms of where there is some optimism, how folks can
be activated, how important it is, whether it be in
the largest election or the smallest election, to.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Show up and be involved. Can you talk a little
bit about that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Sure, I spend a lot of time traveling around the
country and the world, and the number one question that
I get from fans and from people it protests, events,
community meetings is what can I do? I want to participate?
What can I do it doesn't feel accessible to them.
Climate change is not accessible to them. It's big, it's existential.
(26:31):
What does one point five degrees celsius even mean?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
The people who make the decisions about the future of
your community, of your city, of your state happen at
the most local of levels. Yes, of course, every four
years we both vote for a president. Of course, every
two years we have a midterm election. But between that
there are hundreds and hundreds of elections around the country
(26:58):
that are voting people into office that are at the
state level, so state Senate and state Assembly, and even
more at the local level community boards. These boards make
such impactful decisions on your day to day lives. They
make decisions about zoning, they make decisions about where you're
going to put this petrochemical plant, they make decisions about
(27:20):
local transportation. Some of these people, when they're running in
these elections, win by ten or twelve votes. And this
is one of the things that I mentioned in the
commencement speech. Your power at the local level is thousands
of times more than your power at the federal level.
I'm not saying don't vote in a federal election, but
(27:41):
my call to action for you would be go look
up when your next local election is and look at
the people who are running, because that is going to
make some of the biggest difference in your own life.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Adam Met, congratulations on Amplify and thanks for that work,
but also all your other work and this little band
called Ajar as well.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
Thank you for that, and thanks for being on Taking
a Walk. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Thank you so much for having me. This was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Lynn Hoffman
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