This week our guest is guitarist Dylan Gorenberg, and boy do we get into it! Dylan was forthcoming about his struggles with food, his journey through academia and his struggles with remaining creative during challenging times. Our conversation was vulnerable and insightful, and I'm glad he was able to come and shed some insight on a subject we haven't had much chance to explore yet on the podcast! Plus the debut of the College Music Faculty Fantasy Draft.
Filmed and produced by Adrian VAO @STRIPEDBEATLE produced by Dr. Deen Anbar @anbarmusic produced by Valeria Munguia @Infinivee recorded at HoK studios in Los Angeles, CAspecial thanks to Dustin Knouse and Dylan Gorenberg
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
Welcome back to One Leg at a Time, the podcast about health,
Wellness, fun, recovery, and music.
I'm your host, Doctor Dean Anbar, and I'm interviewing
other musicians and creatives about their process, their
priorities and the things that they do to achieve their goals.
Dylan Gorenberg. Hey.
Welcome to the show. Thank you.
It's so good to see you. It's good to see you.
(00:38):
My brother. Yeah.
My brother in Judaism, My brother in academia.
Yeah, wait, I got. I'm not a doctor yet.
I don't get. That no, you're not.
Nope. Dylan and I met doing the same
doctorate program at USC. So that program was really,
(00:59):
really hard as a doctor program is going to be.
I feel you. I've been, I called it my
dissertation to anybody who asked me about it.
But you know, it's, it's not really the same thing as a
dissertation because it's not a singular large body of work that
you're preparing. It's a few different focuses
(01:20):
that you sort of choose in the academic field of music.
And that's, and that's what you're doing.
You're presenting, you know, you're sort of mastery of these
this group of, you know, you know, subjects that you chose to
study. So what did you decide again?
So, OK, this is where you're like, you're doing a doctor and
you didn't even put in like an ounce of thought into like what
(01:43):
they might look like. Yeah.
But so I picked theory and analysis.
I thought it was going to be like, oh, I'll get to write
songs, we'll do music theory. We'll now.
That's what you thought that wasgoing to be?
That name sounds so masochistic.And I've basically just taken
four classes for this academic field that I've been like, we're
(02:03):
going to talk about music that it uses pitch instruments.
So guitars, pianos, violins, whatever.
But you play them in a way whereyou don't make pitches.
So like I had to watch someone play a 20 minute piece of them
just like slapping a guitar, butnot in like the fun way, like
you see, like Andy McKee. Do you like in like the like and
(02:30):
I I just can't get with it so. By the way, we're going to
copyright what you just did. That's now property, one leg at
a time. Podcast, Yeah.
Is it going to go into my ASCAP account or my union?
We'll get in touch with your lawyers.
OK. OK.
Sounds good. Yeah.
Yeah, that sounds, that sounds engaging.
That's a really good way to put it.
(02:51):
Thanks. Yeah, very pragmatic of you.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it was really tough to,
because you brought up a good point.
It was really hard to see what the final vision of that
doctorate was going to be when you're selecting, you know,
these, these fields. I couldn't really see past the
fact that I had kind of like gotten into this program that I
(03:16):
wasn't really sure what I was even doing there in the 1st
place, you know? That's how most people I feel
like who have done our specific program.
Yeah. You go and you're like, why am I
here? Again.
Yeah. But you know, I have to say,
I've felt a bit of, I don't think imposter syndrome is the
right word for it, but I'm goingto use it right now.
(03:36):
Maybe you can help me clarify what I'm looking for.
Yeah, because I feel like in itsown the program is not hard, but
it is the fact that we are now adults having to juggle full
time jobs and you know and musicis I don't, I guess that's what
(03:58):
may I call a full time job, you know.
And then while going to school and as you and I both you were
and I am right now, like we wereassistant lecturers.
That's our new title now actually and.
Is that what they're calling it?Yeah, that's way better.
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, It looks nicer than
teaching assistant, but so we were juggling teaching all these
(04:20):
classes, which they paid us nothing for.
I mean, after they take out all the fees and I'm left with rent
and that is it. And I'm basically, you know,
giving them 30 hours a week in class study, working for them.
And now I have to continue my life on top of this.
(04:40):
That's what I think makes this program so hard.
You. Are going to be burning the
candle at both ends. There's really no other way to
go about doing it. It's a tall order.
It was interesting when I talkedto 'cause I spoke to Dylan
Kelly, Guri, a couple, I guess it was a couple months ago now.
And, you know, he kind of had the same thing to say.
(05:02):
And when I brought 'cause I was sort of in your seat saying this
to him and he was just like, yeah, that's, that's pretty much
what it is. And now I'm hearing you say that
and I'm going, yeah, that's pretty much what it is.
The the struggle of it is like, you can't know until you're in
it. And I did not do well, you know.
Oh. I mean, I part of the reason why
(05:26):
I think you want to talk to me is because I also am not with it
well. There's a lot of reasons I want
to talk to you. Go back to the imposter syndrome
thing. What?
Because you didn't really? Or I maybe I just didn't really
catch what you meant when you. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, one being in musicand positive syndrome like crazy
(05:46):
always, but I I've learned to cope with that one a little
better. I think what gets me is I'm
like, I don't think this programis hard.
I shouldn't be struggling this much, but it's about the
workload balance that I can't keep up.
And I don't think that's the right word either, but it's I'm
struggling to keep up with all of just I'm a very type A
(06:08):
personality person. I am like the guy who was on top
of emails and the last week for the first time I was saying I
was like, fuck, I know, I have to see there's another fuck.
I know I can count them. We should have a little A.
Little counter and I was like, Iknow I have to get back to
someone and I couldn't think whoit was yeah.
And that was like, that's the first time that's happened to
(06:30):
me. And that's one thing I I feel
very like. If that's the first time that
that's happened to you in your life, no, no, I wouldn't worry.
No, but it's just, you know, it's like I, I'm physically
drowning in just the amount of things I have to do, whether the
load is good or easy or not. You know, I understand what
(06:50):
you're saying and look to say that being in music is a full
time job. We're not clocking in and
clocking out at 40 hours a week.It's an 80 hour a week job.
It really never stopped, starts and stops and it's so irregular.
It's normal to feel the way thatyou're feeling because how could
(07:11):
you not? You know?
When I started the DMAI also wasteaching adjunct at this
Community College in Riverside. I'm adjunct in Huntington Beach
like. So, so, yeah.
So three days a week I was at USC from like 8:00 in the
morning until 6:00 PM, and then the other two days a week I was
driving two hours each way to Riverside County to teach you
(07:32):
the school and I at the time. And let's not take out the fact
that we also probably were doing.
I am right now. I know you probably were, too.
We're doing gigs on the weekend,wedding bands, churches.
I was gigging like 4 nights a week.
That's I'm doing, yeah. So.
You're preaching the choir. This is what I'm going to say.
(07:56):
I don't know if there's a healthy way to take on that
amount of work. This was my experience.
I was new to LA up until that year that I started.
I didn't have a lot going on. And I all, you know, right
around the same time that I auditioned to USC and they
offered me, you know, this offerI couldn't refuse, you know,
(08:18):
assistant lectureship and also got this job opportunity to
teach in Riverside and also had been hustling for these other
gigs, which, you know, actually yielded some, some great
results. I started playing at these bars
on weeknights and I started getting wedding gigs on
weekends. All of a sudden I went from
having way too much time and nothing to do to being like
(08:39):
plastered with work. Plastered is a good word to use
because you know, and also was starting to go through a breakup
and there was just this. My solution to this crisis was
I'll get through it with the help of my good friend, powders
and pills and chemicals, you know, and I was just like,
(09:02):
there's nothing I can't do. But my God, you know, it did
that that helped me. And I crashed and burned, you
know, the imposter syndrome for me, it rears its head like this,
going through this stuff. I'm, I'm, I'm thinking to
myself, there's nothing in theseclasses that anybody else
couldn't do. It's just the fact that I did it
(09:24):
right. So, So what does that do for me?
What, because I took a few classes, look at the condition
that I was in all the way through it.
What does that say about the quality of this work?
You know, but that's so unfair to the institution because it's
like, I mean, not because the flip side to that is not
everybody goes through that. Not everybody pushes themselves
(09:45):
through that. My life would have been a whole
lot easier had I not done that. I still would have had the
teaching gig. I still would have had the other
gigs. But I, you know, I chose to
stick it out. The impostor syndrome is more
just like, So what does that, what does it mean to be a doctor
of music? I, I'm still trying to figure it
out. My dad even called me out the
other day and we were talking onthe phone and he was just like,
(10:07):
why do you have such like a lackof self-confidence about
utilizing your credential and like just saying it?
Someone, oh, I got to stop you. Someone reached out to me
yesterday and about something that I didn't really want to do
and the fall, and I was like, OK, yeah, yeah.
And they said, do you have a degree?
(10:27):
I said I have a bachelor's in music.
Sure. Left at that.
You did? Yeah, 100%.
See, at that point I think I would have at least said, well,
I'm I'm this close to a doctorate.
OK, I knew if I told them that title, it would not just be that
one thing. They'd be like, oh, well, you
have to do all these other things too.
(10:49):
And I was just like, I I will dothis one thing.
Check. Done.
Nothing else. I'm going to leave it at that.
But yeah. See, I think that it's a it's a
false advertisement again, this is the this is the the imposter
syndrome speaking. But it's like if I say I'm a
doctor of music, it's like that sets up an expectation that is
(11:10):
like, well, what if I. Came.
You know and you know. What actually?
So I played with an artist who Ino longer play with and I got
someone new who fully tied head to toe which ends valid.
They fit the role better sounds.Like a cool guy.
Yeah, very cool guy. They still hire me to tab out
(11:32):
all the music for the guy thoughbecause he can't learn the songs
by ear. I've been in situations like
that. So the guy knew I was going for
my doctorate, and he didn't comefrom a good background or he
didn't grow up in a. How am I trying to phrase this?
Like, it was a hard upbringing. And he resented the fact that I
(11:54):
was in this doctorate program for music.
And it made actually performing with them harder because they
were having an expectation unattainable where they were.
Like, I remember, like, before ashow, they're like here, like,
we have to do like, three more songs.
Here they are. I was like, oh, I haven't heard
these songs before. And like, you'll figure it out
(12:15):
when we're on stage. And then they looked at me and
they said, you're starting the song.
It's like, oh, I don't know the song.
Like, right. Yeah, I don't even know the
chords. And there's like, you should
know better. You know you, you have a
doctorate. Well, that sounds like you're
getting kind of set up to fail there.
Well, exactly. But it's, you know, it's maybe
we're talking about two different things, but the false
advertising where it's like, just because I have this doesn't
(12:37):
mean I'm now, you know, Superman.
I don't know. It's, it's, it really doesn't
matter because ultimately, at the end of the day, I have it,
you're going to have it. I think that the way of the
future of being a professional in music, like the model keeps
changing. So whereas 10 years ago, you
know, maybe the the few who got ADMA were essentially like you
(12:59):
were going to be next in line toget the kind of teaching job
that was a full time job that you would settle into
potentially for the rest of yourlife.
Even that has changed a lot, youknow, in probably in the last 10
years where it's like when I think about if I wanted to do
full time academia, I don't think I could do it in LA.
It's too competitive. And it's like, if that's not
(13:20):
really what I'm into for how I want the rest of my life to go,
then I don't know if that's something worth pursuing.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that the credential itself
can't be used just just because it's like, look, the whole point
of this podcast is it's not so much that, oh, I'm so
(13:41):
knowledgeable about music. It's that I, I put in that work
and I've gone through this thingand I got through it on the
other end of it, having had the experience that I had, which
was, you know, also just a period of like incredible self
abuse and monumental substance, you know, intake and, and that
for me was a big part of it. Not to mention the food thing,
(14:01):
which I know that we had talked about talking about so we can
get into it. So I don't know, it's still a
big question mark, but I think I'm going to just kind of stick
to it to, to at least presentingthat, you know, Yeah.
In this context, like I am a doctor of music, you know,
there's nothing worth, it's not worth hiding.
You know, whatever it does, I don't know.
(14:24):
We'll see. And you'll have it too.
You know, Doc. We'll see.
Tell me about yourself. You're from LA, Yeah.
No, no. I'm not from LA.
That's why I always think that you're from LA, but you're not.
You're from the Bay Area. Yeah, I'm from the Bay Area.
Yeah. Yeah, I grip on the Bay like
most people I think my age. I did school rock, fell in love
(14:46):
with music, OK. And my dad was a huge concert
goer, huge concert promoter. My mom photographed for Rolling
Stone magazine and other really cool magazines for music
essentially. That's cool.
So I mean. So you had the image of
Rock'n'roll? Yeah. 100 There's a there's a
(15:10):
band called Fate's Warning. I don't know if you've ever
heard of them. Sounds familiar?
They're like a dream theorist band but my dad was like he
managed them for a hot minute. My uncle did the ingvate.
Artwork. Oh my God.
Where do you know the album trilogy with the dragon and the
guitar shooting fire? That's like the one.
Yeah, that's my uncle. Yeah, I think, I think that's
the one he did. Yeah, do.
(15:30):
You ever talk about Dream Theater?
You know, that was one of the first bands that I got into when
I was like, starting to get guitar.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, man, Dream Theater.
And I remember this because I recently kind of, well, I was
listening to the bands by Radiohead.
You remember the first song, Planet Telex, It has this riff
(15:50):
in there that kind of reminds meof the first riff from Scenes
from a Memory. It's like a power cord thing
that goes Anyway, I I just remembered that because when I
was a kid, you know, Radiohead and Dream Theater couldn't have
occupied like different spaces in the world of rock music.
And I remember hearing the similarity between those two
things and being like all music is connected, man.
(16:13):
Little hippie kid. But I was the Midwest version.
You were the authentic version. What can I say?
Yeah. But parents took me see Zappa
play Zappa, and it was the very first tour they did where he
Dwiesel brought out all of the. I remember that.
(16:33):
The big heavy hitters like TerryBozio and Steve Vai.
And that was the moment I was like, this is for me.
I love this So came down to USC for college.
A few months later my dad got his dream job and my parents
followed. So they live in Hollywood now
and I live in Sherman Oaks. And so we're very close, but.
(16:55):
Yeah. So maybe that's why I thought.
Yeah, a lot of people think I'm from because my family is here
too, yeah. Well, it's nice.
It's nice to have the support ofyour family nearby.
Yeah. You know, I think that that was
because my family is all split up in different places now and
that is one thing that I like. I kind of do Lamento a little
(17:16):
bit. It's like, man, you know, it's
always nice to to have people around, but cool.
So you started playing. You did School of Rock.
Did you ever have like a jazz period or was jazz something
that you kind of came into because it was just offered at
the academic level? No, I mean, it was even sillier
than I think it was. I, you know, I could either be
(17:38):
in jazz band for high school fora period, Yeah, or I'd have to
take math again. I don't know, whatever.
OK, So it was like I'll learn jazz so I could play.
Guitar in school. But you never really never
really resonated with you like that.
No, I mean, I love it just because I love music and I love
guitar and I I find something, but it's not, I don't, it's not,
(17:58):
you know, in here, if that makessense.
It does, yeah. I, I, I can see, you know, if a
couple of things had been just alittle bit different for me in
the way that I grew up, I could easily see that being the case.
It just so happened that when I was in that like, super
impressionable period and I was bit by this hippie bug.
So I remember seeing Phil Esch and friends and then John
(18:19):
Scofield comes out, blew my mind, like, who is this guy?
And then that just got me into his whole thing and beyond, like
the Uber jams and the Medeski Martin and Wood stuff.
I just was also listening to hislike hard bop stuff and got
really into it, you know, And that kind of was one of the
first things that that blew thatdoor open.
(18:42):
So yeah, yeah. And I would, you know, I would
assume that the fact that I actually, well, studying jazz in
school seemed less like a chore because it was something that I
really saw for myself. But there was a good couple of
years where I pictured myself asbeing a jazz guitar player in a
very orthodox way. Yeah, playing smalls every night
(19:03):
kind of vibe. If I, you know, were to have
been so lucky. Yeah, yeah.
How do you do with like cheese and dairy?
Like like 'cause are. You asking me as a Jew or as a
person who had a food problem? Oh.
Both. Both.
As a Jew, I have 20. Good stomach.
Really. Yeah.
Considering that I come from a group of people who have
(19:24):
historically suffered from dietary issues, I'm not really
one of them. I have one cheese stick
yesterday. Congratulations and I fully like
hot box my car and farts. OK maybe lactaid.
No, no, no, just I. What is the thing that people
take? I, I just, it's who I am.
(19:45):
I feel like just like embrace it, I mean.
For you, Yeah. I mean, yeah, The thing is the,
the way in which I've had to exercise restraint with food
isn't a direct result of like, oh, if I do this, I'm going to
be in the bathroom or like be suffering that kind of a way.
(20:05):
It's more just like from having been heavy.
And like, really, I, I, I mean, OK, I'll say this.
In times of crisis, food is as much a drug for me as.
Drugs. Yeah, it it is.
It's the, I mean, I don't, I don't smoke weed much anymore,
(20:28):
but I do every once in a while. And yeah, like it, it's the same
thing in a time of extreme stress for me.
Like they they give me the same.We'll see if you're somebody who
can smoke weed and actually likechill on it.
I mean good for you. I, I would just get so paranoid,
like, especially as I got older,trying to be a weed person is
like impossible, you know, and Ifound myself smoking a ton of
(20:51):
weed because I felt like I had to, because otherwise I don't
know, I just maybe it's, I, I don't know what it is, but
fundamentally it wasn't good forme, you know, and I kind of
forced it for a while, but yeah,I don't know, I, I almost.
Like heavy, I will say like I can't, I can't like function on
(21:12):
it. That's a weird way to phrase
that. But like, I'm not going to like,
smoke some weed then go to the grocery store.
It's like. I mean, people do that.
Yeah, yeah. But that's not me.
Like that's like it's only a night time.
Like I'm in my house like. I I wonder about people like
that because I wonder how much of it is like, is it really that
they are just like totally unaffected in that sense?
(21:35):
Is it that they are just not living to a potential that they
could be? Is it, you know, but also
there's no judgement on my end. It's more of it's more of just
kind of a curiosity, you know, but weed is weed.
And I also like, I don't like my, my thing isn't like, oh, you
shouldn't do anything. I think if something is working
(21:57):
for you, like you're good. You know, I will say, though,
that we've made it a lot harder to not overeat.
You know, like that's there's a connection there. 100%.
And I mean, and the the thing ofbeing like, too much, you know,
too much drugs, too much drinking, too much food.
(22:19):
Like, it's just so happened thatthey were all sort of
interconnected. You know, it made it a lot
easier to see how much of A foodproblem I had when I stopped
doing drugs, but was still just like, eating terribly, you know?
Listen, in my situation I'm in right now, when I get extremely
(22:43):
stressed and I'm 4 carats in andit's like I'm done.
It's just like I have to like just face myself in the mirror
with my like stress, anxiety, like fuck, how do I like handle
this now? Yeah.
Yeah. So what does that look like?
Tears. Yeah.
No, but you know what's funny isI don't even have an answer for
(23:06):
you. I'm just trying to be blunt with
you. I'm not going to try to lie or
sugarcoat it like I've I'm. That's not the.
Point. Yeah, you know.
I was in a This is really vulnerable, but there was a
point I I actually. I've been having a rough time at
school recently for a few reasons.
(23:26):
Not even the workload. I have a, you know, it's just I
have a professor who I kind of have beef with and he's really
picking the power dynamics a little too far with me.
I've been struggling a lot with him, especially just like in my
last semester, like, yeah, he's not making it easy.
But there was a, again, being very vulnerable.
(23:48):
There was a day where it was like, because of the medicine
I'm on, I can't go to my coping mechanisms.
And I I just kind of like, sat on my floor, on my carpet, no
sound, nothing. Just stared at a wall for what
felt like 30 minutes. It was probably 5 on paper.
(24:10):
You know what I mean? But I was just like, this feels
like my equivalent of like, I amat a low rate and this is hard.
Yeah. I can't.
Like, I don't know how to cope with this.
I can't. Like, I can't even go to my
coping mechanism even if I wanted to.
And. Yeah.
But that's wait, just to clarify, I mean, if you don't
want to say, you don't. No, no, we can talk about.
(24:30):
It What's the medicine you're on?
Yeah, so I have struggled with binge eating, overeating my
entire life. I've yo yoed in wait like crazy
my entire life. It's a very hard thing.
It, it does run in the family and I had gained a lot of weight
(24:53):
and it was mid doctorate probably two years in.
And it was kind of like I had just gone through a really rough
breakup with someone who I really thought I was going to be
with for a very long time. And I was, it felt like rock
bottom for me. Big picture.
It wasn't that bad, but it at the time it was very hard and I
just couldn't get this in control.
(25:14):
And I decided to take a leave ofabsence from school for a year
to get my life together. I did that too.
Yeah, yeah. And, and it was amazing.
It was really good. I had, I was going to therapy
sometimes twice a week. And, you know, I was exercising,
I was getting my life back on track.
And I thought, OK, time to finish this program out.
(25:35):
Yeah. And at the time I had probably.
I don't want to, I want to exaggerate, but I want to say I
dropped like 50 lbs. I, I feel like it was a good
number. It was a good number.
And I went back for the doctorate and I put on 35 lbs.
(25:57):
Yeah. Like, and what felt like
overnight, it's easy to do. And it felt like all my progress
went out the window. And the thing I noticed is when
that happens, it's so demoralizing to try to start
over. That is the hardest thing.
It's always the hardest. Thing because I'm like, I just,
I just failed at this like there's no point in starting
(26:20):
over. Like, and you know, the thoughts
that go through your head like they're hard, but it's like I'm
a failure. Like I, I fucked that up sure.
And so it got a little worse andyou know, I sat down and I had a
heart to heart and it was like, how do I, you know, we talked
about this on the phone a littlebit.
It's like, how do I, and we'll see, I'm very curious to see
(26:41):
what happens with myself when I'm done in what's now 4 weeks.
But it's like, how do I survive to get through this program?
And, you know, the, the conclusion I came to is like,
you know, let's try Ozembic because if I'm on this
medication, it'll be like a safety net, you know, where if I
fall off And, you know, I've hadsome, I've had some moments
(27:04):
actually in the past few weeks because it's been very hard
recently. And it was one of those things
where like, yeah, I'm not copingcorrectly, but it's like I
haven't, I haven't lost the crazy way like a lot of
celebrities maybe have when they're on this medicine.
But I'm staying, I'm staying neutral, which is really
(27:26):
important for me right now. And it also like I don't wake up
feeling that horrible groggy sensation.
And, and so it's truly like, I know there's a, a stigma behind
it, but it's really been a lifesaver, if you will.
I don't want to call it that, but it's been really special.
You can absolutely call it that.Listen, man, you're, you're not
(27:47):
alone in any of this. And I have like I'll, I have so
much that I relate to you on because I remember there was, I
don't remember how long ago it was, but I had taken about a
year off of that program also toget my life together.
And I remember you were, I think, toying with the idea of
doing the same thing. Now, in hindsight, I can say
(28:09):
this confidently. You don't toy with the idea of
taking a leave of absence from your program when things are
going great. You know, like I was in a crisis
coming out of 1. You were obviously going through
something deeply tough. When I had my slip up after my
because I went to rehab twice and the first time it was over a
(28:31):
summer period and I got clean for real for like the first time
in a long time. And it was really, really hard.
And I didn't give myself any grace period.
I just went into the USC program, you know, going, I'll
figure it out as I go. It'll be fine.
Some crazy shit happened and I slept and I fell hard. 100%.
(28:56):
I relate to you. The starting over, the feeling
of failure was probably in my mind mentally and emotionally
worse, man. The amount of beating myself up
I did when I had to go back, do a second round of detox in six
months. Like, I guess it was a little
bit longer than six months, but it's not even the point, you
(29:17):
know? It was like I really felt like a
failure, you know, and it was that that point was where I was
like, I need to heal. I need to take some time away
from this and, and work on my myself.
It's interesting to hear you saythat you don't have your coping
mechanisms because you were talking about your sort of
(29:41):
learned, Oh, if I eat this thingor this way, right?
Like this is my medicine. I mean, this is I, I think it's
kind of fucked up to, to have the stigma about Ozempic because
in such a real way, it's like, OK, I've gone through that too.
I had to take away, you know, like drugs were my, my muse, my
(30:01):
vice, my one true love, you know, like, as long as I had
what I needed, like nothing could really bother me because I
was sad. You take that away.
The core of who I was as a person was gone, you know, and
like, that was really, really hard.
And I had to go through that process a bunch of times, you
know, like that last time was the hardest that, you know, it
(30:23):
ever felt. So I feel you when you say that
because a food issue when I had to like.
You know, and you actually, I remember when we were talking on
the phone, what was it last Week, 2 weeks ago, maybe
something. Like that?
You, you said something to me. That was it.
It really like helped me that I never heard someone say before.
(30:47):
And I don't think you realized it, but you said it's really
hard because when you get off from what you told me, he said
when you got off drugs, it's easy to go.
Not easy, but it's easy to say Iam not doing this anymore is out
of my life. Yeah, I got to eat every day.
I got to eat to live. That's what I was just going to
say with the Ozempic. It gives you a chance to
rehabilitate yourself in a way that you can't really do if you
(31:10):
have a drinking or a drug problem, because you still have
to eat. You still have to figure that
out. You know, the whole thing about
like, oh, I wonder if I'll ever be able to drink in moderation
or do drugs in moderation, like you got to eat one way or
another. I still struggle with that after
my, you know, my thing with foodwas I, I use Noom, which is like
a calorie counter. And I did that when I started to
(31:34):
realize it dawned on me at aboutlike four months of sobriety
that I was eating myself into the same type of oblivion that I
got from doing drugs. You know, Domino's.
Pretty much everyday I would geta whole pizza and the cheese
bread and the lava cake. That was my order.
(31:54):
Sounds wonderful. And I would take it down, OK,
That, in addition to everything else that I was eating, like
that was just, you know, I was eating like 6000 calories a day.
I didn't even realize what a calorie was at that point.
I just was eating, you know, anything I wanted.
And I gave myself a pass becauseit was just like, whatever, it's
fine. I'm in pain, right?
(32:15):
And then I realized this is actually holding me back in a
big way from feeling good, you know?
And so I started to do a little bit of working out, but I
realized that that wasn't reallydoing anything.
Something wasn't doing anything.But that wasn't the core of the
issue. Like there wasn't a way that I
was going to elliptical my way out of this, you know, food.
(32:37):
Hole that I was. In and so it made me confront
this and what I realized at the core of it was that the way that
I treat food is the same way that I treat any other substance
in my life, which is that I I hide my emotions in it, you
know, so that was a big wake up call for me.
So I was pretty lucky in a sensethat I tackled that right around
(32:59):
in that same window of time thatI was also sort of getting over
the hump of the worst of or maybe the most challenging part
of my early sobriety, which was just like discovering who I was
as a new person in this new way of life, you know, and, and
really committed to that. So I want to ask you a question
(33:19):
that you avoided last time I asked you this, and now there's
no, there's no going back. Oh my.
God. But I asked you this thing, you
said I don't, I don't really know.
Have you noticed your work has changed as a musician from then
and now? And the reason I ask this is
because music is, you know, it'sa very visual thing.
(33:43):
A lot of times, you know, you look cool, you know it.
You don't always have to be the best player to maybe get the job
when it comes to music. Sure.
And I don't know if they correlate, but it's been heavy
on my mind and it makes me feel weird a lot of times because
when I think of the two times inmy life I have been the busiest,
(34:04):
basically both the times I've been down a shit ton of weight.
I, I don't know. Again, I don't know if they
correlate, but it really again, they could be super irrelevant
to each other. But it really fucked me up in my
head last year because I was notworking at all when I had put
all the weight back on. Yeah.
(34:24):
And I'm proud to like, and I'm so thankful for everyone who has
given me opportunities and sent me their way.
Recently I I've put off maybe like 2520 five 30 lbs.
I mean, you look great. Thank you.
You look the best I've ever seen.
You, but I'm I'm also now working more than I have.
(34:50):
I've probably done more work in the beginning of this year since
I did all last year. Well, that's work that you
deserve. And I appreciate, but I'm, you
know, I mean, it's in my head, I'm like, so I'm curious.
I have an answer to this question which is kind of a non
answer, but what I'm curious about is why?
Why are you? Why does it matter to you what
(35:14):
my answer would be? Because you went through
something similar, so I'm curious if you've had.
OK. Well, yeah, no, I mean that's.
That's because you know it. I guess with me there's another
level of guilt on top of that. What's that?
Well. Because it is.
I just binge ate. Not only am I messing with like
(35:37):
my, you know, my health, but I'malso ruining my career right
now. I'm like self sabotaging my
career. I think about that every time I
eat too much, you know, but I also have like, I still can fall
into like a body dysmorphic crapand, you know, really beat
myself up when I look in the mirror.
Do I find myself getting more calls since I've managed to drop
(36:00):
some weight? Maybe, maybe not.
I'm not really sure. It's, it's not an easy question
to answer because I, it's hard for me to really know or like
comprehensively be aware of how much I'm working, doing gigs
compared to how much I was. And also, I've been trying to be
a little bit more deliberate about what gigs I'm doing versus
(36:22):
what. I'm not taking.
Yeah. It is a whole other conversation
in. Its own, I'll say this and I'll
be vulnerable with you because you've done me the, the, you
know, honor of being vulnerable with me when I have noticed in
(36:43):
myself a tendency if I'm feelingoverconfident to maybe act like
an asshole. And like, if I'm doing a gig
where it's like a bigger band and the stage is like, you know,
for example, like a corporate gig or a wedding gig, like I'll
like demand that I not be behindthe horns.
(37:04):
You're like, no, you got to haveguitar in front of the horns,
right? Like, look at me, look at, look
at how good I look. You can't have me behind the
horn section. It's like, and then I'll, I'll
look back at how I act in the moment.
Even sometimes I'm just like, what am I doing?
Why am I acting like this? You know, like, and, and, and
sometimes I'd be able to catch myself and sometimes I'm not.
(37:24):
So then sometimes I'm like, maybe I'm not getting called
back for certain gigs because I'm like, you know, just a
little too overzealous with my attitude.
I don't know. I would like to also say I don't
think any of this is a self-conscious thing.
I don't think anyone has ever been like Dylan's losing some
(37:47):
weight. Now it's time to call.
I don't want to say that at all.Yeah, I don't think that most
people think that. No, not at all.
I think we as the people who areon the this side of the mirror
are the ones who, you know, put so much of our value on how
round or not round we look. I mean, I'm saying that for
myself. I can, I can say.
That I mean, but I've also had moments where I got asked how do
(38:12):
I phrase? I did an audition for something
and I got a message back from the MD that basically said we
would love to have you, you're the right person for the job,
but you don't look the part and.Well, what was the gig?
It was a tour through Australia with WHO?
Kanye because, you know, we, we.Did you see the?
(38:33):
Did you see the Oh my God, so you.
Say brother, no gig is worth that.
Yeah, no. And you know, but jokes aside,
like, you're probably right. It's probably the wrong, wrong
thing for me. But to get that it's not, it's
not good. That's going to be, that's going
to be a gut punch no matter whenit comes or who it comes from.
(38:55):
Yeah. And that sucks, man.
I mean, I, I'm sorry to hear that.
All I can say on this chair, right, looking at you is just
like, clearly wasn't the right gig for you.
Like, so, you know, you got to, you got to be OK with letting
those kinds of things go. Yeah.
But for that reason. It's got to be tough.
I want to say though, I, I, it's, it's still a, a prominent
(39:18):
thing I think in the industry, whether people want to admit it
or not. I think that's pretty.
I think people know it. I don't think people want to
admit it though. I've had people, I'm not going
to say who it was, but not that long ago I ran into somebody who
I knew from several years ago, and we ran into each other in a
very cool place, and he saw me. And he goes, oh, I didn't even
recognize you. I'm like, hey, yeah, well, here
(39:38):
I am. And he was just like, man, you
look so great. He goes, you know, it's so true.
Like you, you're, you're going to get gigs because you look
like this now. Like it doesn't even matter that
you can play like, you know, AndI was just like, first of all.
And thank God you look like thisnow, because I've heard you're
playing and you really need this.
I was just like, OK, like I don't think that I'm going to
get any gigs. I, I don't know, maybe I but
(40:04):
it's also, it's one of those things you're just like.
You're kind of saying the quiet part out loud right now, Like
just I don't know. So what I don't know, I was
going to do the only reason I did that stuff, the only reason
that I started working on myselfphysically was because it helped
me through again, a really roughperiod, right?
(40:26):
Which and it like was, yeah, it was breakup related.
It was sobriety related. And and I've really found myself
and like it. This is a real thing for me.
Again, the vulnerability of saying this, I don't know how
it's going to read. I've never really been good at
articulating this. For me, any action that I could
do for myself physically felt like a, like a, an act, a
(40:51):
gratitude action because it was just like, if I can, I will
because I was so sick for so long or so heavy for so long.
Like, oh, if I can push it another half a mile or if I can.
Oh my God I remember when I ran my first 5K feeling I know for
everyone else. It was.
Like I remember going home. I was like, I am the fucking
shit right now. What can't you do?
(41:13):
I know it. Like the guy I was like.
And you know what, Show up to gigs.
I was like, you know, it's like,yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that.
And then, you know, and before what I was saying.
Is I can swing that pendulum theother direction where all of a
sudden I'm acting like a brash asshole and maybe not getting
the call back. But, you know, maybe not maybe,
(41:34):
maybe not. Somebody else was saying
something really valuable about this too, which was that, you
know, in LA, like people call you only if they need you, not
if they want you. Like loyalty is sort of hard to
come by. Like you can never really trace
that in, in a real way. You may never get a straight
answer. And it's better not to overthink
that. Like, you know, you just sort of
(41:54):
like do what you do. And yeah, so I, so I, I just try
to do my best, honestly. Like I'm far from a perfect
person. And the, the hard thing about
doing this podcast or it's not hard, it's not hard about doing
the podcast, But the misconception I think would be
that I'm having these conversations coming from some
place of, oh, I've attained. The only thing I've attained is
(42:15):
having overcome the worst of thesymptoms of like drug addiction
and and food addiction. I'm not a perfect person.
I do my best and I at least havethe gift of being able to sort
of inventory my actions. But you know, that's, that's it.
(42:36):
OK, so being on. The.
What is it that you're on exactly?
Are you on Ozempic? It's like a offshoot, but.
Yeah, yeah. OK.
Yeah, yeah. What's that?
Like I mean now that you cause I've only heard stories but I'm
curious coming from someone who's done.
Basically forms of diets his entire life.
(42:58):
I think a lot of the adjusting wasn't that hard because I've
been used to all of a sudden putting all these restrictions
on myself. Yeah.
So what I mean by that is a big part of it.
As you probably can see, I drinka lot of water.
You have to drink a lot of waterand you have to have a lot of
protein intake, But those are just good things to do for your
(43:20):
diet. Period.
True. Yeah.
What happens if you don't do? Those.
Things whether you're on Ozempicthat would be different from if
you weren't on it. Good question.
The hard parts will. Be you can't tell.
Some in my. Experience, at least it's hard
to tell sometimes if I'm hungry or if I haven't had enough
(43:41):
protein, like I can't tell the difference between the two.
Interesting. So, and my experience sometimes
when it's I just haven't had enough protein, so I'll try to
eat some protein and then it it gets hard.
Then you start to, you know, thefeeling where you're like,
you've binge too much. Yeah, it's like that.
(44:04):
But I would say like tenfold sounds like an exaggeration, but
it's it's up there. No, but if it's enough that
you're actually thinking. About it, I mean, that's like
that's yeah, that's something so.
But it's just kind of, I mean, Iknow.
This is what they say in all like the ads, whatever, but it's
(44:24):
just like, you know, it's like you might eat half a Turkey
sandwich and you're good versus like I could eat 4 Turkey
sandwiches before. Yeah, it has helped me not think
about food a lot, which I think has been really important for
me. Yeah, food noise, right I.
Never heard that term before. I've never heard that either,
(44:46):
but I really like that food noise I.
Like it too? Yeah.
Because it's sort of. It seems to me like maybe the
equivalent of like when an addict experiences the
phenomenon of craving, which is like this voice that you can't
really turn off until you satisfy it.
Yeah, and the only way. So.
So this is the thing about craving that's really
interesting. It only really gets started when
(45:09):
you start it. I don't have craving right now.
I'm not thinking about anything like that.
If I were to go and pop something, it would be maybe,
maybe an hour, maybe a day. I would have awoken a beast
inside of me, right. I would assume that there's a
(45:32):
parallel. Yeah, there.
And you know what's funny is I only.
I'm going to use that word now. The food noise.
I only really get that in these moments of high, high stress.
I've been with school. Yeah.
Where it's like, Oh my God, I just finished teaching 8:00 PM,
Went to a gig. I just got home at midnight.
I have a paper due at 7:00 AM. Yeah, let's pop a Red Bull and
(45:55):
and go and go and now. 3:00 AM. Hits and the food noise kicks
in. Yeah, Outside of that, I mean,
it's not as apparent as it wouldbe in other times.
How do you prepare for those? Eventualities, you know, because
there has to be a certain amountof planning, right?
Or do you for like the school stuff well?
(46:17):
I'm sort of I what I'm. Asking is like, how do you?
How do you prepare for it? How do you prepare for a day
where you're going to be out? Do you meal prep?
Do you bring stuff with you? Because I would imagine in your
specific circumstances, I do this when I know I'm going to be
out on a day where I have multiple things to do or a long
gig. I'll bring a little bag with
like some fruit, a protein bar, a couple of bottles of water,
(46:38):
just stuff so that I'm not hitting that hanger point or
like where I just, I'm setting myself up to then binge eat and
then feel terrible about well, especially with the medicine now
like I have it. I keep a box of protein bars in
my trunk. I keep a box of protein shakes
in my car. Those have been my lifesavers.
That's huge. Every morning, the coffee, I
don't know the brand, Pro Power,whatever, it's protein shake,
(47:02):
cup of coffee and it's like 18 grams of protein.
Was it the fair life? No, I've I've never had it.
I just I always see it. It doesn't matter, but we don't
want any. Freeloading sponsors.
On that, yeah, exactly. You want us one leg at a time.
Can't be bought baby. That's not true, actually it.
Can be bought? Oh no, it can't be bought.
(47:22):
Did I say can? I meant.
I meant can. Yeah, go on.
I now pronounce this podcast forsale.
But. So in those ways I do prep.
Now the interesting thing is when it comes to the school
work, I will look at my calendarsometimes and I'm again, I'm
(47:44):
very thankful to have gone and be booked and as much as I am
recently and I'm like again, I wake up every day just like
thankful that I could do music for a living.
It's a blessing. It is, it is a true blessing.
Sometimes I will look at my calendar and go there.
Is no way I'm going to be able to start this?
Paper anyway, I swing like I am just basically walking into the
(48:09):
guillotine like there is there is no free day to do the paper.
And sometimes it's one of those moments too where I'm going to
say even if I'm I know I have a day here, it's like I just work
15 days straight. And when it comes to it's like
I've gotten better at just beinglike, I don't want to work a
16th day doing this paper. I'm going to sit in my bed and
(48:32):
watch 3 episodes of Abbott Elementary and just be happy
about it. And so to answer your question,
I am, I know this is an ideal. Sure you could talk to someone
and say you should find a way because life will whatever, I
don't care. But you know, yes.
But I'm truly just getting through the next 4 weeks.
It is going to be a rough 4 weeks and I'll get the finish
(48:53):
line and you will Take Me Out for a sandwich afterwards if
that's what you want. Yeah, yeah.
Or. Listen, I could take a back rub,
but OK, All right, we'll cross that bridge.
Actually, I don't think I want that from you.
I don't think it would be no take backs.
Fuck what? All right, OK.
(49:13):
I'm going to have. You spin the wheel while the
wheel is spinning. This is what?
This is what? I.
Would say to you to try your best to focus on yeah, don't
focus on the big picture. The nice thing about school is
the big pictures taken care of. You don't have to worry about.
All you have to do is do this thing that they're asking to do
you in order to get through thisfour weeks without wanting to
(49:36):
blow your head off all the time is not worry about the the
totality of the four weeks. 4 weeks will come and go.
You know you exactly like you were saying, you wake up in the
morning, you just do what you got to do that day.
Like some days are going to be really tough because you have
more work to do than other days.It just is what it is.
But like there's a really, it's a, it's a total cliche.
(49:58):
It's like the number one cliche that everybody knows from every
12 step eating the one day at a time thing.
If you're worried about the whole 4 weeks at a time, it
feels like too much. Nobody can take this on.
You don't you don't you can, youcan get through.
Don't even worry about tomorrow.You know, you're here right now
in this beautiful studio. That's so true.
(50:19):
You ready to hear your? Question, Dylan, This is the
one. This is I'm so.
Happy you got this. What do you believe holds you
back from being where you want to be?
Oh my God, I don't like that. I do.
Can you ask that one more? Time.
What do? You believe holds you back.
From being where you want to be.I know there's a word for this
(50:42):
and I can't think of it. I guess it's like fear failure.
And the reason I say is because the hardest thing for me is to
start something, the hardest thing truly and I have
procrastinate with actually going back to we talked about
earlier binge eating. By doing this, if I can open a
Logic session, I will record you40 tracks.
(51:05):
Right now, to open that Logic session is the hardest thing
ever. Yeah.
Because getting to that point, I'll be like, it's not going to
be good. Yeah.
You know, Or the worst one that I need to get over is like, this
already exists. Like, I've been getting really
into writing music for film trailers recently and it's been
a lot of fun. And I've been writing a lot of
(51:26):
tracks and awesome, by the way, knowing, knowing you and.
The music that you like, I feel like you'd be very good at that.
Thanks. Yeah.
And it's one of those. Things where when it before I
go, I'll try to open Logic. I I'm talking like clicking that
little icon, Yeah. And I'll be like, there's so
many tracks and libraries that already exist, why should I
bother? I should go somewhere else.
Yeah. And then I don't do it.
(51:48):
And then, you know, and I'll sitthere for, you know, it's
embarrassing to say. But it's true.
Like I'll sit there. For an hour, like finding ways
like I got to like respond to this person or I, I really
should do my laundry right now. And it's really, it's
procrastination to just not get started.
And once I get started, flow state kicks in.
(52:09):
Life is good. And I'll put something that I'm
really happy with in the second-half of that question.
Is where do you want to be? So I guess what do you, what do
you see for yourself? Which is a good thing to
articulate as a freelance musician, because a lot of times
we can get really just kind of stuck in the day-to-day of.
We go from gig to gig to gig andall of a sudden it's like, well,
(52:30):
what's the bigger picture? What am I really after?
Yeah, you know. It's it's interesting to bring
that up. One of my favorite guitar
players is a guy named Tosun Abbasi.
And he's a man called Animals AsLeaders.
They're this like, I guess progressive metal band.
And I remember they asked him the same question in the
interview. It was maybe phrase a little
different, but it was like, whatwere moments in your career that
(52:51):
you were like, oh, things are changing, if you will.
I don't think that's the right to phrase that.
But like things are, you know, improving.
And he said it's hard to say, you know, there wasn't any one
moment that changed my life. And it's cumulative, huh.
Yeah, It's a very. Cumulative thing that and.
(53:13):
That question really freaks me out because it's like the how to
answer that question. It's like, well, maybe I'm not
aiming high enough, but I think I would just like to be doing
more of what I do now, maybe at a higher level.
You know, I'm. I'm teaching out of college
right now. That makes me really happy.
I would. Yeah.
(53:33):
You know, we've talked about this a lot, but full time.
Hi. How are you?
Like, would love that, Right. But so maybe something like
that. But, yeah, be more confident on
my instrument. That's where I'd like to be.
Be happier as a musician, happier with the music I write
because I write music. I would want to be writing music
(53:54):
more later on. So you're right there.
It's cumulative and it's hard toquantify.
Like I would like to work for this company or I'd like to do
this because I don't think I have that.
What would your answer be? You know, there's so many ways
to. Answer this question, and the
way that I would answer the question is largely based on
what might be going on in any given time.
You hit on a really important deficiency of mine, which is the
(54:19):
inability to start things. I'll just say this because I
also have an an inability to finish things, but I'll focus on
the inability to start things. And it's largely mentally the
same things that you're talking about that prevent you from
doing it. It's the internal chatter of
like, well, why me? Why is the thing that I'm doing
(54:40):
that already is it exists like, you know, there there's no
reason for me to have to do it like this sucks or or, you know,
any number of things and then. The focusing on.
Other things, even though I knowthat that I kind of want to do
this, a kind of I want this, I want to start this thing, but
there's a lot. Of it's.
A fear of the unknown and and. But to what you're saying?
(55:06):
90% of the. Time once you start it.
You're start, you started it, you know, and you're going and,
and then and then there's the other thing of like finishing it
and sort of like doing the work to kind of get it fleshed out
for public consumption. Why is?
That you. Know this is I'll I'll say this
(55:27):
in the early days of this podcast, which we're in.
Why start a podcast? Why?
There's a billion of them. Gavin Newsom has a podcast now,
Does he? Yeah.
Oh, nice. I mean.
It's just never. Ending the amount of content
that's being put under the worldby people who are way better
(55:49):
known than me, you know, so why am I doing this?
And I think about it and I'm like, I'm doing it because I
think that this is stuff that's worth talking about, you know,
And I get a lot out of it and I want to put it out a new world.
So then so, so here's the thing.So I'm kind of resolute in this
attitude where I'm like, no, I like the idea.
(56:12):
This is not my bread and butter.I'm a musician.
But like, I have this concept and I want to see it through.
Now, if I want to see it through, what is it about this
that's going to be different, you know?
Do you find this easier than a? Music project because yourself
worth isn't tied to it in the same way because for me, for
example, when in the past like if I've gotten asked to play
(56:36):
like piano on something yeah andthey like they know I'm not a
piano player but they're like yeah just like play it for us
yeah it's so easy and. It's fun because.
Myself worth isn't and it's something I'm trying to
disconnect, but it's not. Who's asking you to play piano
on stuff? No.
One's asking me to play piano onstuff.
Yeah. OK, so I I.
I. Don't know.
No, but like or like, but I see.Where you're going with this?
(57:00):
It's different, It's different. It's challenging in a different
way. The act of doing it is
challenging in a different way. It's a very, I'll say this, you
know, are you're familiar with the Dunning Kruger curve?
I am not the Dunning Kruger curve.
Is like. Oh.
You know, like so when you start.
(57:21):
Something. I know nothing.
Yeah, I know nothing. Exactly right.
I'm. On the I know nothing of I just
started it and it I when I I'm like, I have no idea what I'm
doing, you know? But I've also put in a lot of
time working on another craft, and I'm confident that it
(57:43):
doesn't have to reveal itself right now if I.
Just keep doing. It something is going to happen,
you know, I'm not so arrogant asto think that right now these
are like I'm at my best doing this, but I also am not.
(58:05):
I'm not going to let the lack ofself worth or I don't know if
that's the right thing to say, but like I'm not going to let my
noob status stand in the way of just continuing to put the
effort in, you know, and we'll see, we'll see where it goes.
But it's it's valuable to me. I don't know.
And I'm sort of at a point now where it's just like where I'm,
(58:27):
I think age has something to do with it too, because now I feel
like if I don't do this now, I mean, I might die today.
I don't know. No I it just seems like.
This is the time to do it because if I don't do it, it's
never going to happen. You know, I started writing new
(58:49):
music a couple of months ago now, but like I've been working
on this music, it doesn't changemy internal monologue.
I still think I suck a lot of the times, but I'm trying a lot
more to like recognize that voice and just push it away.
And just focus on the act. Of doing the thing and then
(59:09):
like, you know, because again, if not now, then when you know,
do you want to play a game? Yeah, OK.
Introducing your college. No, I'm with that.
I'm with it. College music.
(59:31):
Faculty fantasy draft. I'm so sorry Steve, for bother
you're getting kicked. To the curve.
OK, here's here are the. Here's the rules.
There are no rules. No, there are rules.
The let's pick, I was thinking 5initially.
Let's say Will will each pick five people to be on our dream
college music faculty, alive or dead.
(59:54):
OK, you go first. What you.
Want me? To go first, I can go first.
Are we alternating? Yeah, we're drafting.
Oh, oh, oh, OK. OK.
You get 5 people all right, you're.
First, who's your first draft? Robert Fripp.
Robert Fripp? OK, I'm, I'm choosing.
Do I have to pick the departmenttoo?
No, not. Necessarily.
(01:00:16):
I mean, it's pretty obvious. With Robert Fripp, the
Department of Guitar. Cool.
Just. He department chair of music
school. OK department chair.
Your chair is Robert. Fripp I'm picking Johnny
Greenwood just because I think he looks really cool when he
hangs his head down and his hairgoes over.
Have you heard an arrangement ofelectric counterpoint?
I don't have to hear it. No, I'm just kidding.
I bet that that sounds sick. It's so cool.
(01:00:37):
I've been on a little bit of a Radiohead.
Kick today. Oh, I know, OK.
Yeah, and you haven't? Heard electric No, I'm.
Just OK, I was listening to the bands. #2.
Would have to be Frank Zappa. He's like my guy.
I feel like he'd be a great composition teacher.
I'd probably have to spend a little more money on HR, but I
think he would. Really.
(01:00:58):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
OK, How about? This I'm choosing Frank Sinatra,
yeah, for the in the. Department of keeping it cool I.
Can't wait to see your faculty recital.
Yeah. Oh.
Alan Holsworth. Holdsworth, right, OK.
You got some real heavy hitters.You got some real guitar guys on
(01:01:19):
your podcast. What is what?
Are we doing again Hogwarts? It's been.
A long day you got? Yeah.
Hogwarts is. Is shred University.
Yeah. OK.
Who do I want? I want you know what I'm taking.
John Mayer. Good for numbers.
(01:01:39):
Yeah, smart move. Thanks.
Songwriting. I really you.
Know what? I'm going to say this and I
don't even know his real name soit feels fake, but I really want
Bonnevere. Oh yeah.
Great. Yeah, well, no.
One's going to know his real name anyway, so if you want
those numbers up, it's better tolist him by his stage name.
That's true. Yeah.
Bonnevere is awesome. Yeah.
(01:02:00):
All right. I like that.
Oh, you know who I want? I want the.
I want the LCD sound system guy.James Murphy.
Yeah. He just seems like a cool guy to
hang with. And I could, I could see a room
of Johnny Greenwood, Frank Sinatra, James Murphy and yeah,
yeah, John Mayer. Well, that's that.
(01:02:20):
He could be your. Final pick he's.
Not my final pick, no, no, this is it.
It all comes down to this one. Oh, and then?
Afterwards, our producers can decide which of our schools they
would want to go to. Oh, interesting.
Yeah. OK, Yeah.
OK, you don't have any drummers?I don't have any drummers.
Drum machine. You know what?
(01:02:42):
I can't think of anyone. Pat Metheny.
Pat's great. Yeah, yeah.
Big weirdo 2 Megatron plays. Numbers are going down.
OK, you want to know who I want for my fifth?
Yeah. Animal from The Muppets.
Wait a minute. Oh.
Hold up. Wait a minute.
Oh, that changes everything. I mean Pat Metheny, sirs.
(01:03:06):
Who's? Who's going?
Going out the door for me. Goodbye.
Actually, you gave him a contract.
He's got 10 years adjunct. I'm firing him at any.
Time Whose school do you want togo to?
Hogwarts OR. Derbstrang, we got animal. 1.
For Hogwarts since. There's no.
(01:03:28):
Women. Oh, we neither.
All right, that's. So valid.
I forgot you know who I really. Want on faculty?
Actually, I really want Sabrina Carpenter.
I love her album. Really.
Yeah, I would take her over Pat.Metheny I.
Could honestly, you could probably needle drop that album
for me. I could probably Interesting.
(01:03:49):
Yeah, I got to be real. With you, it didn't captivate
me, but there are other very strong female figures in music.
That's not why I picked her. I just like her music.
I'm saying. This because this podcast is
inclusive. Oh, wait, wait, hold on, hold
on. I'm so.
(01:04:09):
Mad. Actually.
Hold on. Rewind.
Rewind. Yeah, I want as my fifth person
break insurance. He is a hyper pop artist on my
Spotify rapped. My top five songs were all from
the same album from him. I'm obsessed with him and I'm so
mad I didn't think of him. OK, I don't know who that is.
You'll have to send it to me afterwards.
All right, there's one more. There's one more thing you have
(01:04:30):
to do. This episode is unhinged.
You have to look into the camera, Dylan, and say I put my
pants on one leg at a time. Hi.
Wait, do I say my name, too? Hi.
I'm Dylan. Gormberg and I put my pants if
you want. How do you do it?
You just look at the carrier andsay I put my pants on.
One leg at a time. OK.
OK. Hi, I'm Dylan.
(01:04:50):
Gormberg and I put my. Pants on one leg at a time.
You heard it here first, folks. Thanks for tuning.
In We'll See You Next Time 1. Lane. 1 time, one lane, one
(01:05:14):
time, one lane time. You put your pants on one leg.
Welcome back to One Leg at a Time, the podcast about health,
Wellness, fun, recovery, and music.
I'm your host, Doctor Dean Anbar, and I'm interviewing
other musicians and creatives about their process, their
priorities and the things that they do to achieve their goals.
Dylan Gorenberg. Hey.
Welcome to the show. Thank you.
It's so good to see you. It's good to see you.
(00:38):
My brother. Yeah.
My brother in Judaism, My brother in academia.
Yeah, wait, I got. I'm not a doctor yet.
I don't get. That no, you're not.
Nope. Dylan and I met doing the same
doctorate program at USC. So that program was really,
(00:59):
really hard as a doctor program is going to be.
I feel you. I've been, I called it my
dissertation to anybody who asked me about it.
But you know, it's, it's not really the same thing as a
dissertation because it's not a singular large body of work that
you're preparing. It's a few different focuses
(01:20):
that you sort of choose in the academic field of music.
And that's, and that's what you're doing.
You're presenting, you know, you're sort of mastery of these
this group of, you know, you know, subjects that you chose to
study. So what did you decide again?
So, OK, this is where you're like, you're doing a doctor and
you didn't even put in like an ounce of thought into like what
(01:43):
they might look like. Yeah.
But so I picked theory and analysis.
I thought it was going to be like, oh, I'll get to write
songs, we'll do music theory. We'll now.
That's what you thought that wasgoing to be?
That name sounds so masochistic.And I've basically just taken
four classes for this academic field that I've been like, we're
(02:03):
going to talk about music that it uses pitch instruments.
So guitars, pianos, violins, whatever.
But you play them in a way whereyou don't make pitches.
So like I had to watch someone play a 20 minute piece of them
just like slapping a guitar, butnot in like the fun way, like
you see, like Andy McKee. Do you like in like the like and
(02:30):
I I just can't get with it so. By the way, we're going to
copyright what you just did. That's now property, one leg at
a time. Podcast, Yeah.
Is it going to go into my ASCAP account or my union?
We'll get in touch with your lawyers.
OK. OK.
Sounds good. Yeah.
Yeah, that sounds, that sounds engaging.
That's a really good way to put it.
(02:51):
Thanks. Yeah, very pragmatic of you.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it was really tough to,
because you brought up a good point.
It was really hard to see what the final vision of that
doctorate was going to be when you're selecting, you know,
these, these fields. I couldn't really see past the
fact that I had kind of like gotten into this program that I
(03:16):
wasn't really sure what I was even doing there in the 1st
place, you know? That's how most people I feel
like who have done our specific program.
Yeah. You go and you're like, why am I
here? Again.
Yeah. But you know, I have to say,
I've felt a bit of, I don't think imposter syndrome is the
right word for it, but I'm goingto use it right now.
(03:36):
Maybe you can help me clarify what I'm looking for.
Yeah, because I feel like in itsown the program is not hard, but
it is the fact that we are now adults having to juggle full
time jobs and you know and musicis I don't, I guess that's what
(03:58):
may I call a full time job, you know.
And then while going to school and as you and I both you were
and I am right now, like we wereassistant lecturers.
That's our new title now actually and.
Is that what they're calling it?Yeah, that's way better.
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, It looks nicer than
teaching assistant, but so we were juggling teaching all these
(04:20):
classes, which they paid us nothing for.
I mean, after they take out all the fees and I'm left with rent
and that is it. And I'm basically, you know,
giving them 30 hours a week in class study, working for them.
And now I have to continue my life on top of this.
(04:40):
That's what I think makes this program so hard.
You. Are going to be burning the
candle at both ends. There's really no other way to
go about doing it. It's a tall order.
It was interesting when I talkedto 'cause I spoke to Dylan
Kelly, Guri, a couple, I guess it was a couple months ago now.
And, you know, he kind of had the same thing to say.
(05:02):
And when I brought 'cause I was sort of in your seat saying this
to him and he was just like, yeah, that's, that's pretty much
what it is. And now I'm hearing you say that
and I'm going, yeah, that's pretty much what it is.
The the struggle of it is like, you can't know until you're in
it. And I did not do well, you know.
Oh. I mean, I part of the reason why
(05:26):
I think you want to talk to me is because I also am not with it
well. There's a lot of reasons I want
to talk to you. Go back to the imposter syndrome
thing. What?
Because you didn't really? Or I maybe I just didn't really
catch what you meant when you. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, one being in musicand positive syndrome like crazy
(05:46):
always, but I I've learned to cope with that one a little
better. I think what gets me is I'm
like, I don't think this programis hard.
I shouldn't be struggling this much, but it's about the
workload balance that I can't keep up.
And I don't think that's the right word either, but it's I'm
struggling to keep up with all of just I'm a very type A
(06:08):
personality person. I am like the guy who was on top
of emails and the last week for the first time I was saying I
was like, fuck, I know, I have to see there's another fuck.
I know I can count them. We should have a little A.
Little counter and I was like, Iknow I have to get back to
someone and I couldn't think whoit was yeah.
And that was like, that's the first time that's happened to
(06:30):
me. And that's one thing I I feel
very like. If that's the first time that
that's happened to you in your life, no, no, I wouldn't worry.
No, but it's just, you know, it's like I, I'm physically
drowning in just the amount of things I have to do, whether the
load is good or easy or not. You know, I understand what
(06:50):
you're saying and look to say that being in music is a full
time job. We're not clocking in and
clocking out at 40 hours a week.It's an 80 hour a week job.
It really never stopped, starts and stops and it's so irregular.
It's normal to feel the way thatyou're feeling because how could
(07:11):
you not? You know?
When I started the DMAI also wasteaching adjunct at this
Community College in Riverside. I'm adjunct in Huntington Beach
like. So, so, yeah.
So three days a week I was at USC from like 8:00 in the
morning until 6:00 PM, and then the other two days a week I was
driving two hours each way to Riverside County to teach you
(07:32):
the school and I at the time. And let's not take out the fact
that we also probably were doing.
I am right now. I know you probably were, too.
We're doing gigs on the weekend,wedding bands, churches.
I was gigging like 4 nights a week.
That's I'm doing, yeah. So.
You're preaching the choir. This is what I'm going to say.
(07:56):
I don't know if there's a healthy way to take on that
amount of work. This was my experience.
I was new to LA up until that year that I started.
I didn't have a lot going on. And I all, you know, right
around the same time that I auditioned to USC and they
offered me, you know, this offerI couldn't refuse, you know,
(08:18):
assistant lectureship and also got this job opportunity to
teach in Riverside and also had been hustling for these other
gigs, which, you know, actually yielded some, some great
results. I started playing at these bars
on weeknights and I started getting wedding gigs on
weekends. All of a sudden I went from
having way too much time and nothing to do to being like
(08:39):
plastered with work. Plastered is a good word to use
because you know, and also was starting to go through a breakup
and there was just this. My solution to this crisis was
I'll get through it with the help of my good friend, powders
and pills and chemicals, you know, and I was just like,
(09:02):
there's nothing I can't do. But my God, you know, it did
that that helped me. And I crashed and burned, you
know, the imposter syndrome for me, it rears its head like this,
going through this stuff. I'm, I'm, I'm thinking to
myself, there's nothing in theseclasses that anybody else
couldn't do. It's just the fact that I did it
(09:24):
right. So, So what does that do for me?
What, because I took a few classes, look at the condition
that I was in all the way through it.
What does that say about the quality of this work?
You know, but that's so unfair to the institution because it's
like, I mean, not because the flip side to that is not
everybody goes through that. Not everybody pushes themselves
(09:45):
through that. My life would have been a whole
lot easier had I not done that. I still would have had the
teaching gig. I still would have had the other
gigs. But I, you know, I chose to
stick it out. The impostor syndrome is more
just like, So what does that, what does it mean to be a doctor
of music? I, I'm still trying to figure it
out. My dad even called me out the
other day and we were talking onthe phone and he was just like,
(10:07):
why do you have such like a lackof self-confidence about
utilizing your credential and like just saying it?
Someone, oh, I got to stop you. Someone reached out to me
yesterday and about something that I didn't really want to do
and the fall, and I was like, OK, yeah, yeah.
And they said, do you have a degree?
(10:27):
I said I have a bachelor's in music.
Sure. Left at that.
You did? Yeah, 100%.
See, at that point I think I would have at least said, well,
I'm I'm this close to a doctorate.
OK, I knew if I told them that title, it would not just be that
one thing. They'd be like, oh, well, you
have to do all these other things too.
(10:49):
And I was just like, I I will dothis one thing.
Check. Done.
Nothing else. I'm going to leave it at that.
But yeah. See, I think that it's a it's a
false advertisement again, this is the this is the the imposter
syndrome speaking. But it's like if I say I'm a
doctor of music, it's like that sets up an expectation that is
(11:10):
like, well, what if I. Came.
You know and you know. What actually?
So I played with an artist who Ino longer play with and I got
someone new who fully tied head to toe which ends valid.
They fit the role better sounds.Like a cool guy.
Yeah, very cool guy. They still hire me to tab out
(11:32):
all the music for the guy thoughbecause he can't learn the songs
by ear. I've been in situations like
that. So the guy knew I was going for
my doctorate, and he didn't comefrom a good background or he
didn't grow up in a. How am I trying to phrase this?
Like, it was a hard upbringing. And he resented the fact that I
(11:54):
was in this doctorate program for music.
And it made actually performing with them harder because they
were having an expectation unattainable where they were.
Like, I remember, like, before ashow, they're like here, like,
we have to do like, three more songs.
Here they are. I was like, oh, I haven't heard
these songs before. And like, you'll figure it out
(12:15):
when we're on stage. And then they looked at me and
they said, you're starting the song.
It's like, oh, I don't know the song.
Like, right. Yeah, I don't even know the
chords. And there's like, you should
know better. You know you, you have a
doctorate. Well, that sounds like you're
getting kind of set up to fail there.
Well, exactly. But it's, you know, it's maybe
we're talking about two different things, but the false
advertising where it's like, just because I have this doesn't
(12:37):
mean I'm now, you know, Superman.
I don't know. It's, it's, it really doesn't
matter because ultimately, at the end of the day, I have it,
you're going to have it. I think that the way of the
future of being a professional in music, like the model keeps
changing. So whereas 10 years ago, you
know, maybe the the few who got ADMA were essentially like you
(12:59):
were going to be next in line toget the kind of teaching job
that was a full time job that you would settle into
potentially for the rest of yourlife.
Even that has changed a lot, youknow, in probably in the last 10
years where it's like when I think about if I wanted to do
full time academia, I don't think I could do it in LA.
It's too competitive. And it's like, if that's not
(13:20):
really what I'm into for how I want the rest of my life to go,
then I don't know if that's something worth pursuing.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that the credential itself
can't be used just just because it's like, look, the whole point
of this podcast is it's not so much that, oh, I'm so
(13:41):
knowledgeable about music. It's that I, I put in that work
and I've gone through this thingand I got through it on the
other end of it, having had the experience that I had, which
was, you know, also just a period of like incredible self
abuse and monumental substance, you know, intake and, and that
for me was a big part of it. Not to mention the food thing,
(14:01):
which I know that we had talked about talking about so we can
get into it. So I don't know, it's still a
big question mark, but I think I'm going to just kind of stick
to it to, to at least presentingthat, you know, Yeah.
In this context, like I am a doctor of music, you know,
there's nothing worth, it's not worth hiding.
You know, whatever it does, I don't know.
(14:24):
We'll see. And you'll have it too.
You know, Doc. We'll see.
Tell me about yourself. You're from LA, Yeah.
No, no. I'm not from LA.
That's why I always think that you're from LA, but you're not.
You're from the Bay Area. Yeah, I'm from the Bay Area.
Yeah. Yeah, I grip on the Bay like
most people I think my age. I did school rock, fell in love
(14:46):
with music, OK. And my dad was a huge concert
goer, huge concert promoter. My mom photographed for Rolling
Stone magazine and other really cool magazines for music
essentially. That's cool.
So I mean. So you had the image of
Rock'n'roll? Yeah. 100 There's a there's a
(15:10):
band called Fate's Warning. I don't know if you've ever
heard of them. Sounds familiar?
They're like a dream theorist band but my dad was like he
managed them for a hot minute. My uncle did the ingvate.
Artwork. Oh my God.
Where do you know the album trilogy with the dragon and the
guitar shooting fire? That's like the one.
Yeah, that's my uncle. Yeah, I think, I think that's
the one he did. Yeah, do.
(15:30):
You ever talk about Dream Theater?
You know, that was one of the first bands that I got into when
I was like, starting to get guitar.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, man, Dream Theater.
And I remember this because I recently kind of, well, I was
listening to the bands by Radiohead.
You remember the first song, Planet Telex, It has this riff
(15:50):
in there that kind of reminds meof the first riff from Scenes
from a Memory. It's like a power cord thing
that goes Anyway, I I just remembered that because when I
was a kid, you know, Radiohead and Dream Theater couldn't have
occupied like different spaces in the world of rock music.
And I remember hearing the similarity between those two
things and being like all music is connected, man.
(16:13):
Little hippie kid. But I was the Midwest version.
You were the authentic version. What can I say?
Yeah. But parents took me see Zappa
play Zappa, and it was the very first tour they did where he
Dwiesel brought out all of the. I remember that.
(16:33):
The big heavy hitters like TerryBozio and Steve Vai.
And that was the moment I was like, this is for me.
I love this So came down to USC for college.
A few months later my dad got his dream job and my parents
followed. So they live in Hollywood now
and I live in Sherman Oaks. And so we're very close, but.
(16:55):
Yeah. So maybe that's why I thought.
Yeah, a lot of people think I'm from because my family is here
too, yeah. Well, it's nice.
It's nice to have the support ofyour family nearby.
Yeah. You know, I think that that was
because my family is all split up in different places now and
that is one thing that I like. I kind of do Lamento a little
(17:16):
bit. It's like, man, you know, it's
always nice to to have people around, but cool.
So you started playing. You did School of Rock.
Did you ever have like a jazz period or was jazz something
that you kind of came into because it was just offered at
the academic level? No, I mean, it was even sillier
than I think it was. I, you know, I could either be
(17:38):
in jazz band for high school fora period, Yeah, or I'd have to
take math again. I don't know, whatever.
OK, So it was like I'll learn jazz so I could play.
Guitar in school. But you never really never
really resonated with you like that.
No, I mean, I love it just because I love music and I love
guitar and I I find something, but it's not, I don't, it's not,
(17:58):
you know, in here, if that makessense.
It does, yeah. I, I, I can see, you know, if a
couple of things had been just alittle bit different for me in
the way that I grew up, I could easily see that being the case.
It just so happened that when I was in that like, super
impressionable period and I was bit by this hippie bug.
So I remember seeing Phil Esch and friends and then John
(18:19):
Scofield comes out, blew my mind, like, who is this guy?
And then that just got me into his whole thing and beyond, like
the Uber jams and the Medeski Martin and Wood stuff.
I just was also listening to hislike hard bop stuff and got
really into it, you know, And that kind of was one of the
first things that that blew thatdoor open.
(18:42):
So yeah, yeah. And I would, you know, I would
assume that the fact that I actually, well, studying jazz in
school seemed less like a chore because it was something that I
really saw for myself. But there was a good couple of
years where I pictured myself asbeing a jazz guitar player in a
very orthodox way. Yeah, playing smalls every night
(19:03):
kind of vibe. If I, you know, were to have
been so lucky. Yeah, yeah.
How do you do with like cheese and dairy?
Like like 'cause are. You asking me as a Jew or as a
person who had a food problem? Oh.
Both. Both.
As a Jew, I have 20. Good stomach.
Really. Yeah.
Considering that I come from a group of people who have
(19:24):
historically suffered from dietary issues, I'm not really
one of them. I have one cheese stick
yesterday. Congratulations and I fully like
hot box my car and farts. OK maybe lactaid.
No, no, no, just I. What is the thing that people
take? I, I just, it's who I am.
(19:45):
I feel like just like embrace it, I mean.
For you, Yeah. I mean, yeah, The thing is the,
the way in which I've had to exercise restraint with food
isn't a direct result of like, oh, if I do this, I'm going to
be in the bathroom or like be suffering that kind of a way.
(20:05):
It's more just like from having been heavy.
And like, really, I, I, I mean, OK, I'll say this.
In times of crisis, food is as much a drug for me as.
Drugs. Yeah, it it is.
It's the, I mean, I don't, I don't smoke weed much anymore,
(20:28):
but I do every once in a while. And yeah, like it, it's the same
thing in a time of extreme stress for me.
Like they they give me the same.We'll see if you're somebody who
can smoke weed and actually likechill on it.
I mean good for you. I, I would just get so paranoid,
like, especially as I got older,trying to be a weed person is
like impossible, you know, and Ifound myself smoking a ton of
(20:51):
weed because I felt like I had to, because otherwise I don't
know, I just maybe it's, I, I don't know what it is, but
fundamentally it wasn't good forme, you know, and I kind of
forced it for a while, but yeah,I don't know, I, I almost.
Like heavy, I will say like I can't, I can't like function on
(21:12):
it. That's a weird way to phrase
that. But like, I'm not going to like,
smoke some weed then go to the grocery store.
It's like. I mean, people do that.
Yeah, yeah. But that's not me.
Like that's like it's only a night time.
Like I'm in my house like. I I wonder about people like
that because I wonder how much of it is like, is it really that
they are just like totally unaffected in that sense?
(21:35):
Is it that they are just not living to a potential that they
could be? Is it, you know, but also
there's no judgement on my end. It's more of it's more of just
kind of a curiosity, you know, but weed is weed.
And I also like, I don't like my, my thing isn't like, oh, you
shouldn't do anything. I think if something is working
(21:57):
for you, like you're good. You know, I will say, though,
that we've made it a lot harder to not overeat.
You know, like that's there's a connection there. 100%.
And I mean, and the the thing ofbeing like, too much, you know,
too much drugs, too much drinking, too much food.
(22:19):
Like, it's just so happened thatthey were all sort of
interconnected. You know, it made it a lot
easier to see how much of A foodproblem I had when I stopped
doing drugs, but was still just like, eating terribly, you know?
Listen, in my situation I'm in right now, when I get extremely
(22:43):
stressed and I'm 4 carats in andit's like I'm done.
It's just like I have to like just face myself in the mirror
with my like stress, anxiety, like fuck, how do I like handle
this now? Yeah.
Yeah. So what does that look like?
Tears. Yeah.
No, but you know what's funny isI don't even have an answer for
(23:06):
you. I'm just trying to be blunt with
you. I'm not going to try to lie or
sugarcoat it like I've I'm. That's not the.
Point. Yeah, you know.
I was in a This is really vulnerable, but there was a
point I I actually. I've been having a rough time at
school recently for a few reasons.
(23:26):
Not even the workload. I have a, you know, it's just I
have a professor who I kind of have beef with and he's really
picking the power dynamics a little too far with me.
I've been struggling a lot with him, especially just like in my
last semester, like, yeah, he's not making it easy.
But there was a, again, being very vulnerable.
(23:48):
There was a day where it was like, because of the medicine
I'm on, I can't go to my coping mechanisms.
And I I just kind of like, sat on my floor, on my carpet, no
sound, nothing. Just stared at a wall for what
felt like 30 minutes. It was probably 5 on paper.
(24:10):
You know what I mean? But I was just like, this feels
like my equivalent of like, I amat a low rate and this is hard.
Yeah. I can't.
Like, I don't know how to cope with this.
I can't. Like, I can't even go to my
coping mechanism even if I wanted to.
And. Yeah.
But that's wait, just to clarify, I mean, if you don't
want to say, you don't. No, no, we can talk about.
(24:30):
It What's the medicine you're on?
Yeah, so I have struggled with binge eating, overeating my
entire life. I've yo yoed in wait like crazy
my entire life. It's a very hard thing.
It, it does run in the family and I had gained a lot of weight
(24:53):
and it was mid doctorate probably two years in.
And it was kind of like I had just gone through a really rough
breakup with someone who I really thought I was going to be
with for a very long time. And I was, it felt like rock
bottom for me. Big picture.
It wasn't that bad, but it at the time it was very hard and I
just couldn't get this in control.
(25:14):
And I decided to take a leave ofabsence from school for a year
to get my life together. I did that too.
Yeah, yeah. And, and it was amazing.
It was really good. I had, I was going to therapy
sometimes twice a week. And, you know, I was exercising,
I was getting my life back on track.
And I thought, OK, time to finish this program out.
(25:35):
Yeah. And at the time I had probably.
I don't want to, I want to exaggerate, but I want to say I
dropped like 50 lbs. I, I feel like it was a good
number. It was a good number.
And I went back for the doctorate and I put on 35 lbs.
(25:57):
Yeah. Like, and what felt like
overnight, it's easy to do. And it felt like all my progress
went out the window. And the thing I noticed is when
that happens, it's so demoralizing to try to start
over. That is the hardest thing.
It's always the hardest. Thing because I'm like, I just,
I just failed at this like there's no point in starting
(26:20):
over. Like, and you know, the thoughts
that go through your head like they're hard, but it's like I'm
a failure. Like I, I fucked that up sure.
And so it got a little worse andyou know, I sat down and I had a
heart to heart and it was like, how do I, you know, we talked
about this on the phone a littlebit.
It's like, how do I, and we'll see, I'm very curious to see
(26:41):
what happens with myself when I'm done in what's now 4 weeks.
But it's like, how do I survive to get through this program?
And, you know, the, the conclusion I came to is like,
you know, let's try Ozembic because if I'm on this
medication, it'll be like a safety net, you know, where if I
fall off And, you know, I've hadsome, I've had some moments
(27:04):
actually in the past few weeks because it's been very hard
recently. And it was one of those things
where like, yeah, I'm not copingcorrectly, but it's like I
haven't, I haven't lost the crazy way like a lot of
celebrities maybe have when they're on this medicine.
But I'm staying, I'm staying neutral, which is really
(27:26):
important for me right now. And it also like I don't wake up
feeling that horrible groggy sensation.
And, and so it's truly like, I know there's a, a stigma behind
it, but it's really been a lifesaver, if you will.
I don't want to call it that, but it's been really special.
You can absolutely call it that.Listen, man, you're, you're not
(27:47):
alone in any of this. And I have like I'll, I have so
much that I relate to you on because I remember there was, I
don't remember how long ago it was, but I had taken about a
year off of that program also toget my life together.
And I remember you were, I think, toying with the idea of
doing the same thing. Now, in hindsight, I can say
(28:09):
this confidently. You don't toy with the idea of
taking a leave of absence from your program when things are
going great. You know, like I was in a crisis
coming out of 1. You were obviously going through
something deeply tough. When I had my slip up after my
because I went to rehab twice and the first time it was over a
(28:31):
summer period and I got clean for real for like the first time
in a long time. And it was really, really hard.
And I didn't give myself any grace period.
I just went into the USC program, you know, going, I'll
figure it out as I go. It'll be fine.
Some crazy shit happened and I slept and I fell hard. 100%.
(28:56):
I relate to you. The starting over, the feeling
of failure was probably in my mind mentally and emotionally
worse, man. The amount of beating myself up
I did when I had to go back, do a second round of detox in six
months. Like, I guess it was a little
bit longer than six months, but it's not even the point, you
(29:17):
know? It was like I really felt like a
failure, you know, and it was that that point was where I was
like, I need to heal. I need to take some time away
from this and, and work on my myself.
It's interesting to hear you saythat you don't have your coping
mechanisms because you were talking about your sort of
(29:41):
learned, Oh, if I eat this thingor this way, right?
Like this is my medicine. I mean, this is I, I think it's
kind of fucked up to, to have the stigma about Ozempic because
in such a real way, it's like, OK, I've gone through that too.
I had to take away, you know, like drugs were my, my muse, my
(30:01):
vice, my one true love, you know, like, as long as I had
what I needed, like nothing could really bother me because I
was sad. You take that away.
The core of who I was as a person was gone, you know, and
like, that was really, really hard.
And I had to go through that process a bunch of times, you
know, like that last time was the hardest that, you know, it
(30:23):
ever felt. So I feel you when you say that
because a food issue when I had to like.
You know, and you actually, I remember when we were talking on
the phone, what was it last Week, 2 weeks ago, maybe
something. Like that?
You, you said something to me. That was it.
It really like helped me that I never heard someone say before.
(30:47):
And I don't think you realized it, but you said it's really
hard because when you get off from what you told me, he said
when you got off drugs, it's easy to go.
Not easy, but it's easy to say Iam not doing this anymore is out
of my life. Yeah, I got to eat every day.
I got to eat to live. That's what I was just going to
say with the Ozempic. It gives you a chance to
rehabilitate yourself in a way that you can't really do if you
(31:10):
have a drinking or a drug problem, because you still have
to eat. You still have to figure that
out. You know, the whole thing about
like, oh, I wonder if I'll ever be able to drink in moderation
or do drugs in moderation, like you got to eat one way or
another. I still struggle with that after
my, you know, my thing with foodwas I, I use Noom, which is like
a calorie counter. And I did that when I started to
(31:34):
realize it dawned on me at aboutlike four months of sobriety
that I was eating myself into the same type of oblivion that I
got from doing drugs. You know, Domino's.
Pretty much everyday I would geta whole pizza and the cheese
bread and the lava cake. That was my order.
(31:54):
Sounds wonderful. And I would take it down, OK,
That, in addition to everything else that I was eating, like
that was just, you know, I was eating like 6000 calories a day.
I didn't even realize what a calorie was at that point.
I just was eating, you know, anything I wanted.
And I gave myself a pass becauseit was just like, whatever, it's
fine. I'm in pain, right?
(32:15):
And then I realized this is actually holding me back in a
big way from feeling good, you know?
And so I started to do a little bit of working out, but I
realized that that wasn't reallydoing anything.
Something wasn't doing anything.But that wasn't the core of the
issue. Like there wasn't a way that I
was going to elliptical my way out of this, you know, food.
(32:37):
Hole that I was. In and so it made me confront
this and what I realized at the core of it was that the way that
I treat food is the same way that I treat any other substance
in my life, which is that I I hide my emotions in it, you
know, so that was a big wake up call for me.
So I was pretty lucky in a sensethat I tackled that right around
(32:59):
in that same window of time thatI was also sort of getting over
the hump of the worst of or maybe the most challenging part
of my early sobriety, which was just like discovering who I was
as a new person in this new way of life, you know, and, and
really committed to that. So I want to ask you a question
(33:19):
that you avoided last time I asked you this, and now there's
no, there's no going back. Oh my.
God. But I asked you this thing, you
said I don't, I don't really know.
Have you noticed your work has changed as a musician from then
and now? And the reason I ask this is
because music is, you know, it'sa very visual thing.
(33:43):
A lot of times, you know, you look cool, you know it.
You don't always have to be the best player to maybe get the job
when it comes to music. Sure.
And I don't know if they correlate, but it's been heavy
on my mind and it makes me feel weird a lot of times because
when I think of the two times inmy life I have been the busiest,
(34:04):
basically both the times I've been down a shit ton of weight.
I, I don't know. Again, I don't know if they
correlate, but it really again, they could be super irrelevant
to each other. But it really fucked me up in my
head last year because I was notworking at all when I had put
all the weight back on. Yeah.
(34:24):
And I'm proud to like, and I'm so thankful for everyone who has
given me opportunities and sent me their way.
Recently I I've put off maybe like 2520 five 30 lbs.
I mean, you look great. Thank you.
You look the best I've ever seen.
You, but I'm I'm also now working more than I have.
(34:50):
I've probably done more work in the beginning of this year since
I did all last year. Well, that's work that you
deserve. And I appreciate, but I'm, you
know, I mean, it's in my head, I'm like, so I'm curious.
I have an answer to this question which is kind of a non
answer, but what I'm curious about is why?
Why are you? Why does it matter to you what
(35:14):
my answer would be? Because you went through
something similar, so I'm curious if you've had.
OK. Well, yeah, no, I mean that's.
That's because you know it. I guess with me there's another
level of guilt on top of that. What's that?
Well. Because it is.
I just binge ate. Not only am I messing with like
(35:37):
my, you know, my health, but I'malso ruining my career right
now. I'm like self sabotaging my
career. I think about that every time I
eat too much, you know, but I also have like, I still can fall
into like a body dysmorphic crapand, you know, really beat
myself up when I look in the mirror.
Do I find myself getting more calls since I've managed to drop
(36:00):
some weight? Maybe, maybe not.
I'm not really sure. It's, it's not an easy question
to answer because I, it's hard for me to really know or like
comprehensively be aware of how much I'm working, doing gigs
compared to how much I was. And also, I've been trying to be
a little bit more deliberate about what gigs I'm doing versus
(36:22):
what. I'm not taking.
Yeah. It is a whole other conversation
in. Its own, I'll say this and I'll
be vulnerable with you because you've done me the, the, you
know, honor of being vulnerable with me when I have noticed in
(36:43):
myself a tendency if I'm feelingoverconfident to maybe act like
an asshole. And like, if I'm doing a gig
where it's like a bigger band and the stage is like, you know,
for example, like a corporate gig or a wedding gig, like I'll
like demand that I not be behindthe horns.
(37:04):
You're like, no, you got to haveguitar in front of the horns,
right? Like, look at me, look at, look
at how good I look. You can't have me behind the
horn section. It's like, and then I'll, I'll
look back at how I act in the moment.
Even sometimes I'm just like, what am I doing?
Why am I acting like this? You know, like, and, and, and
sometimes I'd be able to catch myself and sometimes I'm not.
(37:24):
So then sometimes I'm like, maybe I'm not getting called
back for certain gigs because I'm like, you know, just a
little too overzealous with my attitude.
I don't know. I would like to also say I don't
think any of this is a self-conscious thing.
I don't think anyone has ever been like Dylan's losing some
(37:47):
weight. Now it's time to call.
I don't want to say that at all.Yeah, I don't think that most
people think that. No, not at all.
I think we as the people who areon the this side of the mirror
are the ones who, you know, put so much of our value on how
round or not round we look. I mean, I'm saying that for
myself. I can, I can say.
That I mean, but I've also had moments where I got asked how do
(38:12):
I phrase? I did an audition for something
and I got a message back from the MD that basically said we
would love to have you, you're the right person for the job,
but you don't look the part and.Well, what was the gig?
It was a tour through Australia with WHO?
Kanye because, you know, we, we.Did you see the?
(38:33):
Did you see the Oh my God, so you.
Say brother, no gig is worth that.
Yeah, no. And you know, but jokes aside,
like, you're probably right. It's probably the wrong, wrong
thing for me. But to get that it's not, it's
not good. That's going to be, that's going
to be a gut punch no matter whenit comes or who it comes from.
(38:55):
Yeah. And that sucks, man.
I mean, I, I'm sorry to hear that.
All I can say on this chair, right, looking at you is just
like, clearly wasn't the right gig for you.
Like, so, you know, you got to, you got to be OK with letting
those kinds of things go. Yeah.
But for that reason. It's got to be tough.
I want to say though, I, I, it's, it's still a, a prominent
(39:18):
thing I think in the industry, whether people want to admit it
or not. I think that's pretty.
I think people know it. I don't think people want to
admit it though. I've had people, I'm not going
to say who it was, but not that long ago I ran into somebody who
I knew from several years ago, and we ran into each other in a
very cool place, and he saw me. And he goes, oh, I didn't even
recognize you. I'm like, hey, yeah, well, here
(39:38):
I am. And he was just like, man, you
look so great. He goes, you know, it's so true.
Like you, you're, you're going to get gigs because you look
like this now. Like it doesn't even matter that
you can play like, you know, AndI was just like, first of all.
And thank God you look like thisnow, because I've heard you're
playing and you really need this.
I was just like, OK, like I don't think that I'm going to
get any gigs. I, I don't know, maybe I but
(40:04):
it's also, it's one of those things you're just like.
You're kind of saying the quiet part out loud right now, Like
just I don't know. So what I don't know, I was
going to do the only reason I did that stuff, the only reason
that I started working on myselfphysically was because it helped
me through again, a really roughperiod, right?
(40:26):
Which and it like was, yeah, it was breakup related.
It was sobriety related. And and I've really found myself
and like it. This is a real thing for me.
Again, the vulnerability of saying this, I don't know how
it's going to read. I've never really been good at
articulating this. For me, any action that I could
do for myself physically felt like a, like a, an act, a
(40:51):
gratitude action because it was just like, if I can, I will
because I was so sick for so long or so heavy for so long.
Like, oh, if I can push it another half a mile or if I can.
Oh my God I remember when I ran my first 5K feeling I know for
everyone else. It was.
Like I remember going home. I was like, I am the fucking
shit right now. What can't you do?
(41:13):
I know it. Like the guy I was like.
And you know what, Show up to gigs.
I was like, you know, it's like,yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that.
And then, you know, and before what I was saying.
Is I can swing that pendulum theother direction where all of a
sudden I'm acting like a brash asshole and maybe not getting
the call back. But, you know, maybe not maybe,
(41:34):
maybe not. Somebody else was saying
something really valuable about this too, which was that, you
know, in LA, like people call you only if they need you, not
if they want you. Like loyalty is sort of hard to
come by. Like you can never really trace
that in, in a real way. You may never get a straight
answer. And it's better not to overthink
that. Like, you know, you just sort of
(41:54):
like do what you do. And yeah, so I, so I, I just try
to do my best, honestly. Like I'm far from a perfect
person. And the, the hard thing about
doing this podcast or it's not hard, it's not hard about doing
the podcast, But the misconception I think would be
that I'm having these conversations coming from some
place of, oh, I've attained. The only thing I've attained is
(42:15):
having overcome the worst of thesymptoms of like drug addiction
and and food addiction. I'm not a perfect person.
I do my best and I at least havethe gift of being able to sort
of inventory my actions. But you know, that's, that's it.
(42:36):
OK, so being on. The.
What is it that you're on exactly?
Are you on Ozempic? It's like a offshoot, but.
Yeah, yeah. OK.
Yeah, yeah. What's that?
Like I mean now that you cause I've only heard stories but I'm
curious coming from someone who's done.
Basically forms of diets his entire life.
(42:58):
I think a lot of the adjusting wasn't that hard because I've
been used to all of a sudden putting all these restrictions
on myself. Yeah.
So what I mean by that is a big part of it.
As you probably can see, I drinka lot of water.
You have to drink a lot of waterand you have to have a lot of
protein intake, But those are just good things to do for your
(43:20):
diet. Period.
True. Yeah.
What happens if you don't do? Those.
Things whether you're on Ozempicthat would be different from if
you weren't on it. Good question.
The hard parts will. Be you can't tell.
Some in my. Experience, at least it's hard
to tell sometimes if I'm hungry or if I haven't had enough
(43:41):
protein, like I can't tell the difference between the two.
Interesting. So, and my experience sometimes
when it's I just haven't had enough protein, so I'll try to
eat some protein and then it it gets hard.
Then you start to, you know, thefeeling where you're like,
you've binge too much. Yeah, it's like that.
(44:04):
But I would say like tenfold sounds like an exaggeration, but
it's it's up there. No, but if it's enough that
you're actually thinking. About it, I mean, that's like
that's yeah, that's something so.
But it's just kind of, I mean, Iknow.
This is what they say in all like the ads, whatever, but it's
(44:24):
just like, you know, it's like you might eat half a Turkey
sandwich and you're good versus like I could eat 4 Turkey
sandwiches before. Yeah, it has helped me not think
about food a lot, which I think has been really important for
me. Yeah, food noise, right I.
Never heard that term before. I've never heard that either,
(44:46):
but I really like that food noise I.
Like it too? Yeah.
Because it's sort of. It seems to me like maybe the
equivalent of like when an addict experiences the
phenomenon of craving, which is like this voice that you can't
really turn off until you satisfy it.
Yeah, and the only way. So.
So this is the thing about craving that's really
interesting. It only really gets started when
(45:09):
you start it. I don't have craving right now.
I'm not thinking about anything like that.
If I were to go and pop something, it would be maybe,
maybe an hour, maybe a day. I would have awoken a beast
inside of me, right. I would assume that there's a
(45:32):
parallel. Yeah, there.
And you know what's funny is I only.
I'm going to use that word now. The food noise.
I only really get that in these moments of high, high stress.
I've been with school. Yeah.
Where it's like, Oh my God, I just finished teaching 8:00 PM,
Went to a gig. I just got home at midnight.
I have a paper due at 7:00 AM. Yeah, let's pop a Red Bull and
(45:55):
and go and go and now. 3:00 AM. Hits and the food noise kicks
in. Yeah, Outside of that, I mean,
it's not as apparent as it wouldbe in other times.
How do you prepare for those? Eventualities, you know, because
there has to be a certain amountof planning, right?
Or do you for like the school stuff well?
(46:17):
I'm sort of I what I'm. Asking is like, how do you?
How do you prepare for it? How do you prepare for a day
where you're going to be out? Do you meal prep?
Do you bring stuff with you? Because I would imagine in your
specific circumstances, I do this when I know I'm going to be
out on a day where I have multiple things to do or a long
gig. I'll bring a little bag with
like some fruit, a protein bar, a couple of bottles of water,
(46:38):
just stuff so that I'm not hitting that hanger point or
like where I just, I'm setting myself up to then binge eat and
then feel terrible about well, especially with the medicine now
like I have it. I keep a box of protein bars in
my trunk. I keep a box of protein shakes
in my car. Those have been my lifesavers.
That's huge. Every morning, the coffee, I
don't know the brand, Pro Power,whatever, it's protein shake,
(47:02):
cup of coffee and it's like 18 grams of protein.
Was it the fair life? No, I've I've never had it.
I just I always see it. It doesn't matter, but we don't
want any. Freeloading sponsors.
On that, yeah, exactly. You want us one leg at a time.
Can't be bought baby. That's not true, actually it.
Can be bought? Oh no, it can't be bought.
(47:22):
Did I say can? I meant.
I meant can. Yeah, go on.
I now pronounce this podcast forsale.
But. So in those ways I do prep.
Now the interesting thing is when it comes to the school
work, I will look at my calendarsometimes and I'm again, I'm
(47:44):
very thankful to have gone and be booked and as much as I am
recently and I'm like again, I wake up every day just like
thankful that I could do music for a living.
It's a blessing. It is, it is a true blessing.
Sometimes I will look at my calendar and go there.
Is no way I'm going to be able to start this?
Paper anyway, I swing like I am just basically walking into the
(48:09):
guillotine like there is there is no free day to do the paper.
And sometimes it's one of those moments too where I'm going to
say even if I'm I know I have a day here, it's like I just work
15 days straight. And when it comes to it's like
I've gotten better at just beinglike, I don't want to work a
16th day doing this paper. I'm going to sit in my bed and
(48:32):
watch 3 episodes of Abbott Elementary and just be happy
about it. And so to answer your question,
I am, I know this is an ideal. Sure you could talk to someone
and say you should find a way because life will whatever, I
don't care. But you know, yes.
But I'm truly just getting through the next 4 weeks.
It is going to be a rough 4 weeks and I'll get the finish
(48:53):
line and you will Take Me Out for a sandwich afterwards if
that's what you want. Yeah, yeah.
Or. Listen, I could take a back rub,
but OK, All right, we'll cross that bridge.
Actually, I don't think I want that from you.
I don't think it would be no take backs.
Fuck what? All right, OK.
(49:13):
I'm going to have. You spin the wheel while the
wheel is spinning. This is what?
This is what? I.
Would say to you to try your best to focus on yeah, don't
focus on the big picture. The nice thing about school is
the big pictures taken care of. You don't have to worry about.
All you have to do is do this thing that they're asking to do
you in order to get through thisfour weeks without wanting to
(49:36):
blow your head off all the time is not worry about the the
totality of the four weeks. 4 weeks will come and go.
You know you exactly like you were saying, you wake up in the
morning, you just do what you got to do that day.
Like some days are going to be really tough because you have
more work to do than other days.It just is what it is.
But like there's a really, it's a, it's a total cliche.
(49:58):
It's like the number one cliche that everybody knows from every
12 step eating the one day at a time thing.
If you're worried about the whole 4 weeks at a time, it
feels like too much. Nobody can take this on.
You don't you don't you can, youcan get through.
Don't even worry about tomorrow.You know, you're here right now
in this beautiful studio. That's so true.
(50:19):
You ready to hear your? Question, Dylan, This is the
one. This is I'm so.
Happy you got this. What do you believe holds you
back from being where you want to be?
Oh my God, I don't like that. I do.
Can you ask that one more? Time.
What do? You believe holds you back.
From being where you want to be.I know there's a word for this
(50:42):
and I can't think of it. I guess it's like fear failure.
And the reason I say is because the hardest thing for me is to
start something, the hardest thing truly and I have
procrastinate with actually going back to we talked about
earlier binge eating. By doing this, if I can open a
Logic session, I will record you40 tracks.
(51:05):
Right now, to open that Logic session is the hardest thing
ever. Yeah.
Because getting to that point, I'll be like, it's not going to
be good. Yeah.
You know, Or the worst one that I need to get over is like, this
already exists. Like, I've been getting really
into writing music for film trailers recently and it's been
a lot of fun. And I've been writing a lot of
(51:26):
tracks and awesome, by the way, knowing, knowing you and.
The music that you like, I feel like you'd be very good at that.
Thanks. Yeah.
And it's one of those. Things where when it before I
go, I'll try to open Logic. I I'm talking like clicking that
little icon, Yeah. And I'll be like, there's so
many tracks and libraries that already exist, why should I
bother? I should go somewhere else.
Yeah. And then I don't do it.
(51:48):
And then, you know, and I'll sitthere for, you know, it's
embarrassing to say. But it's true.
Like I'll sit there. For an hour, like finding ways
like I got to like respond to this person or I, I really
should do my laundry right now. And it's really, it's
procrastination to just not get started.
And once I get started, flow state kicks in.
(52:09):
Life is good. And I'll put something that I'm
really happy with in the second-half of that question.
Is where do you want to be? So I guess what do you, what do
you see for yourself? Which is a good thing to
articulate as a freelance musician, because a lot of times
we can get really just kind of stuck in the day-to-day of.
We go from gig to gig to gig andall of a sudden it's like, well,
(52:30):
what's the bigger picture? What am I really after?
Yeah, you know. It's it's interesting to bring
that up. One of my favorite guitar
players is a guy named Tosun Abbasi.
And he's a man called Animals AsLeaders.
They're this like, I guess progressive metal band.
And I remember they asked him the same question in the
interview. It was maybe phrase a little
different, but it was like, whatwere moments in your career that
(52:51):
you were like, oh, things are changing, if you will.
I don't think that's the right to phrase that.
But like things are, you know, improving.
And he said it's hard to say, you know, there wasn't any one
moment that changed my life. And it's cumulative, huh.
Yeah, It's a very. Cumulative thing that and.
(53:13):
That question really freaks me out because it's like the how to
answer that question. It's like, well, maybe I'm not
aiming high enough, but I think I would just like to be doing
more of what I do now, maybe at a higher level.
You know, I'm. I'm teaching out of college
right now. That makes me really happy.
I would. Yeah.
(53:33):
You know, we've talked about this a lot, but full time.
Hi. How are you?
Like, would love that, Right. But so maybe something like
that. But, yeah, be more confident on
my instrument. That's where I'd like to be.
Be happier as a musician, happier with the music I write
because I write music. I would want to be writing music
(53:54):
more later on. So you're right there.
It's cumulative and it's hard toquantify.
Like I would like to work for this company or I'd like to do
this because I don't think I have that.
What would your answer be? You know, there's so many ways
to. Answer this question, and the
way that I would answer the question is largely based on
what might be going on in any given time.
You hit on a really important deficiency of mine, which is the
(54:19):
inability to start things. I'll just say this because I
also have an an inability to finish things, but I'll focus on
the inability to start things. And it's largely mentally the
same things that you're talking about that prevent you from
doing it. It's the internal chatter of
like, well, why me? Why is the thing that I'm doing
(54:40):
that already is it exists like, you know, there there's no
reason for me to have to do it like this sucks or or, you know,
any number of things and then. The focusing on.
Other things, even though I knowthat that I kind of want to do
this, a kind of I want this, I want to start this thing, but
there's a lot. Of it's.
A fear of the unknown and and. But to what you're saying?
(55:06):
90% of the. Time once you start it.
You're start, you started it, you know, and you're going and,
and then and then there's the other thing of like finishing it
and sort of like doing the work to kind of get it fleshed out
for public consumption. Why is?
That you. Know this is I'll I'll say this
(55:27):
in the early days of this podcast, which we're in.
Why start a podcast? Why?
There's a billion of them. Gavin Newsom has a podcast now,
Does he? Yeah.
Oh, nice. I mean.
It's just never. Ending the amount of content
that's being put under the worldby people who are way better
(55:49):
known than me, you know, so why am I doing this?
And I think about it and I'm like, I'm doing it because I
think that this is stuff that's worth talking about, you know,
And I get a lot out of it and I want to put it out a new world.
So then so, so here's the thing.So I'm kind of resolute in this
attitude where I'm like, no, I like the idea.
(56:12):
This is not my bread and butter.I'm a musician.
But like, I have this concept and I want to see it through.
Now, if I want to see it through, what is it about this
that's going to be different, you know?
Do you find this easier than a? Music project because yourself
worth isn't tied to it in the same way because for me, for
example, when in the past like if I've gotten asked to play
(56:36):
like piano on something yeah andthey like they know I'm not a
piano player but they're like yeah just like play it for us
yeah it's so easy and. It's fun because.
Myself worth isn't and it's something I'm trying to
disconnect, but it's not. Who's asking you to play piano
on stuff? No.
One's asking me to play piano onstuff.
Yeah. OK, so I I.
I. Don't know.
No, but like or like, but I see.Where you're going with this?
(57:00):
It's different, It's different. It's challenging in a different
way. The act of doing it is
challenging in a different way. It's a very, I'll say this, you
know, are you're familiar with the Dunning Kruger curve?
I am not the Dunning Kruger curve.
Is like. Oh.
You know, like so when you start.
(57:21):
Something. I know nothing.
Yeah, I know nothing. Exactly right.
I'm. On the I know nothing of I just
started it and it I when I I'm like, I have no idea what I'm
doing, you know? But I've also put in a lot of
time working on another craft, and I'm confident that it
(57:43):
doesn't have to reveal itself right now if I.
Just keep doing. It something is going to happen,
you know, I'm not so arrogant asto think that right now these
are like I'm at my best doing this, but I also am not.
(58:05):
I'm not going to let the lack ofself worth or I don't know if
that's the right thing to say, but like I'm not going to let my
noob status stand in the way of just continuing to put the
effort in, you know, and we'll see, we'll see where it goes.
But it's it's valuable to me. I don't know.
And I'm sort of at a point now where it's just like where I'm,
(58:27):
I think age has something to do with it too, because now I feel
like if I don't do this now, I mean, I might die today.
I don't know. No I it just seems like.
This is the time to do it because if I don't do it, it's
never going to happen. You know, I started writing new
(58:49):
music a couple of months ago now, but like I've been working
on this music, it doesn't changemy internal monologue.
I still think I suck a lot of the times, but I'm trying a lot
more to like recognize that voice and just push it away.
And just focus on the act. Of doing the thing and then
(59:09):
like, you know, because again, if not now, then when you know,
do you want to play a game? Yeah, OK.
Introducing your college. No, I'm with that.
I'm with it. College music.
(59:31):
Faculty fantasy draft. I'm so sorry Steve, for bother
you're getting kicked. To the curve.
OK, here's here are the. Here's the rules.
There are no rules. No, there are rules.
The let's pick, I was thinking 5initially.
Let's say Will will each pick five people to be on our dream
college music faculty, alive or dead.
(59:54):
OK, you go first. What you.
Want me? To go first, I can go first.
Are we alternating? Yeah, we're drafting.
Oh, oh, oh, OK. OK.
You get 5 people all right, you're.
First, who's your first draft? Robert Fripp.
Robert Fripp? OK, I'm, I'm choosing.
Do I have to pick the departmenttoo?
No, not. Necessarily.
(01:00:16):
I mean, it's pretty obvious. With Robert Fripp, the
Department of Guitar. Cool.
Just. He department chair of music
school. OK department chair.
Your chair is Robert. Fripp I'm picking Johnny
Greenwood just because I think he looks really cool when he
hangs his head down and his hairgoes over.
Have you heard an arrangement ofelectric counterpoint?
I don't have to hear it. No, I'm just kidding.
I bet that that sounds sick. It's so cool.
(01:00:37):
I've been on a little bit of a Radiohead.
Kick today. Oh, I know, OK.
Yeah, and you haven't? Heard electric No, I'm.
Just OK, I was listening to the bands. #2.
Would have to be Frank Zappa. He's like my guy.
I feel like he'd be a great composition teacher.
I'd probably have to spend a little more money on HR, but I
think he would. Really.
(01:00:58):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
OK, How about? This I'm choosing Frank Sinatra,
yeah, for the in the. Department of keeping it cool I.
Can't wait to see your faculty recital.
Yeah. Oh.
Alan Holsworth. Holdsworth, right, OK.
You got some real heavy hitters.You got some real guitar guys on
(01:01:19):
your podcast. What is what?
Are we doing again Hogwarts? It's been.
A long day you got? Yeah.
Hogwarts is. Is shred University.
Yeah. OK.
Who do I want? I want you know what I'm taking.
John Mayer. Good for numbers.
(01:01:39):
Yeah, smart move. Thanks.
Songwriting. I really you.
Know what? I'm going to say this and I
don't even know his real name soit feels fake, but I really want
Bonnevere. Oh yeah.
Great. Yeah, well, no.
One's going to know his real name anyway, so if you want
those numbers up, it's better tolist him by his stage name.
That's true. Yeah.
Bonnevere is awesome. Yeah.
(01:02:00):
All right. I like that.
Oh, you know who I want? I want the.
I want the LCD sound system guy.James Murphy.
Yeah. He just seems like a cool guy to
hang with. And I could, I could see a room
of Johnny Greenwood, Frank Sinatra, James Murphy and yeah,
yeah, John Mayer. Well, that's that.
(01:02:20):
He could be your. Final pick he's.
Not my final pick, no, no, this is it.
It all comes down to this one. Oh, and then?
Afterwards, our producers can decide which of our schools they
would want to go to. Oh, interesting.
Yeah. OK, Yeah.
OK, you don't have any drummers?I don't have any drummers.
Drum machine. You know what?
(01:02:42):
I can't think of anyone. Pat Metheny.
Pat's great. Yeah, yeah.
Big weirdo 2 Megatron plays. Numbers are going down.
OK, you want to know who I want for my fifth?
Yeah. Animal from The Muppets.
Wait a minute. Oh.
Hold up. Wait a minute.
Oh, that changes everything. I mean Pat Metheny, sirs.
(01:03:06):
Who's? Who's going?
Going out the door for me. Goodbye.
Actually, you gave him a contract.
He's got 10 years adjunct. I'm firing him at any.
Time Whose school do you want togo to?
Hogwarts OR. Derbstrang, we got animal. 1.
For Hogwarts since. There's no.
(01:03:28):
Women. Oh, we neither.
All right, that's. So valid.
I forgot you know who I really. Want on faculty?
Actually, I really want Sabrina Carpenter.
I love her album. Really.
Yeah, I would take her over Pat.Metheny I.
Could honestly, you could probably needle drop that album
for me. I could probably Interesting.
(01:03:49):
Yeah, I got to be real. With you, it didn't captivate
me, but there are other very strong female figures in music.
That's not why I picked her. I just like her music.
I'm saying. This because this podcast is
inclusive. Oh, wait, wait, hold on, hold
on. I'm so.
(01:04:09):
Mad. Actually.
Hold on. Rewind.
Rewind. Yeah, I want as my fifth person
break insurance. He is a hyper pop artist on my
Spotify rapped. My top five songs were all from
the same album from him. I'm obsessed with him and I'm so
mad I didn't think of him. OK, I don't know who that is.
You'll have to send it to me afterwards.
All right, there's one more. There's one more thing you have
(01:04:30):
to do. This episode is unhinged.
You have to look into the camera, Dylan, and say I put my
pants on one leg at a time. Hi.
Wait, do I say my name, too? Hi.
I'm Dylan. Gormberg and I put my pants if
you want. How do you do it?
You just look at the carrier andsay I put my pants on.
One leg at a time. OK.
OK. Hi, I'm Dylan.
(01:04:50):
Gormberg and I put my. Pants on one leg at a time.
You heard it here first, folks. Thanks for tuning.
In We'll See You Next Time 1. Lane. 1 time, one lane, one
(01:05:14):
time, one lane time. You put your pants on one leg.
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