October 7, 2025 • 51 mins
If you're longing for a life of more freedom, more feeling and more fulfilment, the answer could sound like a very average rendition of your favourite song...
Astrid Jorgensen (OAM) is a conductor, composer and the founder and director of Pub Choir - a special kind of show that, under Astrid's guidance, sees thousands of strangers singing together in perfect harmony, all in under an hour.
In this conversation, Astrid and Osher cover:
- What we truly gain by relinquishing perfectionism
- The immense benefit of being connected to others
- Why artistic expression is for all of us
And much more.
Pub Choir shows are happening near you SOON! Check here for details
For more from Osher, including tickets to Story Club and for his new book 'So What, Now What?' head here
This conversation contains references to disordered eating - for information and support, visit butterfly.org.au
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It frees you to instead think about how something feels.
That's all that life is an experience. You don't even
know how much you've got, so you might as well
see if you can notice your life as it's happening
in the moment, and instead of pursuing something that is
essentially impossible, it frees you to ask yourself, why does
(00:24):
this matter to me? What does it make me feel?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Thanks for listening to the show. This is Better than Yesterday.
Useful tools and useful conversations to make your day to
day better than yesterday. Every episode since twenty thirteen. Thank
you so much for being here. My name Zolshi Ginsberg.
I'm glad you made it. I do have a question
for you, fairly simple question. Can you sing now? Maybe
because when I ask that question, you think, oh, look,
I can't hit the high bits in the Mariah Carey
(00:51):
song at Christmas. I don't sound, you know, like Bernard
Fanning does. I don't feel that. I don't hear that
pain in my voice when I talk about how these days,
I think like i'd planned. So when you ask me
can I think no, I can't sing. But hang on,
I did not ask you if you could sing well,
if you can speak, you can sing, and a story.
(01:13):
After all, talking is just very monotone. Singing Okay, this
is talking, Okay, this is now talking. Okay, this is singing.
It's the same muscles do all of it. If you
can talk, you can sing. We're like this with a
lot of things. We have a tendency just to think
because we can't do it perfectly, we can't do it
at all, so we don't even try. And that reveals
(01:35):
something about the way we think about ourselves, doesn't it. Well,
what could we go? And if we let go of
that just a little bit. I don't think there's any
person that is better to speak to about this concept
than my guest today. Astro Joginsen is known for leading
and pioneering something called pub choir. Basically, Astrod stands in
(01:56):
front of a group of people anywhere between seventeen and
several thousand people and uses some slides that she shows
a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of comedy, and in
less than one hour has that entire group of people
singing a song together at the top of their lungs
in harmony. This idea has taken her right around the world.
(02:16):
It's earned her the praise of stars like Kate bush Kiss,
the aforementioned of Boria Carey, and she's raised hundreds of
thousand dollars for charity. She's earned herself the Order of
Australian Medal. She did that in twenty twenty three. Not
long ago, Astrod was on America's Got Talent. That clip
has been viewed by squillions of people. She was feeding
on Australian Story and she now has a memoir called
(02:37):
Average at Best, and it's a really wonderful idea about
you know what this is. This is just fine as
it is, It's wonderful. She's a fabulous person. Today we're
going to speak about her journey, the way she looks
at life, the struggles she's had with perfectionism, the cost
of that, and all that we can gain by accepting
or even embracing our averageness. It's a brilliant chat. It's
(03:01):
going to make you want to sing, and I'm going
to get to it right after this break. Thank you
so much for listening to the show. This is better
than yesterday. We're about to get stuck into my chat
with Astrod Jorgensen. Just a heads up. Astrod's magnificent journey
(03:24):
does include a period of disordered eating, and we discussed
that today. We're going to talk about that about twenty
five minutes or so from now. So do you go
carefully around that if you need to, if there's a
need in you as well, to get some support or
some more information about that sort of thing for yourself,
for someone you care about. Get in touch with the
people at the Butterfly Foundation that do brilliant work Butterfly
dot org dot au or one eight hundred double three
(03:47):
four six seven three. Enjoy getting to know and I
can't wait to hear what you're seeing after you listen
to the wonderful Astrad Jorgensen. Thank you for joining us.
You've had it early morning.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I mean a pleasure. I love to talk about myself.
Really it's like my only expert topic.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So it's a delight to have you here. I love
I love the work that you do. I mean, I
grew up a musician. I've always I've always played voice song.
You know, there's just something about that thing which happens
on stage that I chased forever and it ended me
up in my career because like, I just want to
(04:30):
chase this and reading your story, I was like, oh, yeah,
I get that.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
You know, then, the difference between the feeling that you
get when you listen to music and the feeling that
you get when you make music, they're so different, and
a lot of people don't know that. A lot of
people listen to music and it fills them up and
they form memories and friends, and that's all brilliant that
I also do that, but I'm trying to offer people
(04:57):
the different feeling, which is what would it feel like
if you were the singer. And it is such a
vast chasm between those two things, and I think it's
important that we try.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Much like painting or drawing, for example, when we're little,
we don't give two shits at all. Look spaceship and
you look at it and go.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yep, well I love it.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
It's terrible, but they go there. It is there is
my idea in graphic form, and they don't care, and
they fearlessly go to it. And somewhere along the way
either they look to the side and see someone else
and go, o, mind's not as good as that. So
they even tell themselves I can't do it, or someone
(05:51):
says that shit, but it's not as good, and then
they don't ever touch crayon again. And this in many
ways it's the same with singing. Like at daycare there's
no kid, he goes, I, no, I can't sing. I'm
not going to do this. No, hun shut them, don't
get a ship.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They're right yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And somewhere along the way is kids. We go, oh,
I can't do that. Yes, And it's a really heartbreaking moment.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Isn't it It is? And I am convinced that everyone's
had it at least once, Like I have always been
able to sing pretty well in tune. I've had singing lessons,
but I've sung it. It's impossible to sing in tune
all the time. And so when it happens and people
pointed out to you, it feels so big because you
always yeah, when you when you miss the note or
you have a little local crack or whatever it happens,
(06:42):
you were the one who made the noise. So it
actually feels so personal. Like I've also had piano lessons, say,
and when you play the wrong keys, I mean I'll
just look at the key and be like, oh I missed,
But when you sing the wrong thing, it was very
it was internal only you were in control of all
of the minuteness of that, and so it's so personal.
There's nothing else to blame except you. So I think
(07:04):
when people laugh at your singing voice, that's why it
settles so deeply in your soul, because you did the
wrong thing. But I'm trying to say, it's not illegal
to sing out of tune. It's okay if you enjoy singing.
I cannot really help anyone sing better. I don't think
no one who comes to my show leaves as a
(07:24):
better singer. I just want them to free themselves of
the heaviness of the shame of singing. It's allowed if
you have a nice time singing, that's a great reason
to start.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Just because I'm like goutgout doesn't mean, ohka, I'm never
ever going to try and run.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And because you have run in your life at some point,
you have context for admiring goutgout. You're like, I tried
running two hundred meters, and I mean it would take
me like over a minute or something. Would I would
glumph at It's such a long way. I don't even
know if I'd make it. But because I've tried it,
when I see someone excelling. I think, shit, that's incredible.
(08:02):
I had tennis lessons for like one term at school.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I just on your parents, piano, tennis, whatever you want
to explore.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, they're like wall, he's so bad at everything, let's
keep looking important that. Yeah. I mean like I would
hold the tennis racket and I'd be like it's so heavy,
even just a hole, Like how am I supposed to
hit the ball back? Because I've tried that. And I
played one competition and I didn't score a single point.
And I remember so clearly. I lost every single every
single thing. And the other girl and they had one arm.
Now that's not the butt of the joke, but it's
(08:30):
just like, this is this was my level that I
was at. I was like two handing everything, missing every
single ball. But now I love to watch tennis because
I have some context. Like I deeply hope that the
experience that I'm offering people, but at any choir or whatever,
any art making, it gives context to life. Like if
people come to the show, try a little singing, have
(08:52):
a nice time, it might help them appreciate the incredible
art that's around us, the richness of music that is
like woven in all of our lives. I think context
is everything.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
We deny ourselves permission to do this thing that we
are born with the ability to do, and this thing
which has been scientifically proven to give us so much.
We're shutting ourselves off from this thing, and I find
that just kind of sad.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
It's so sad because it's so easy to do, Like
it's hard to do well, but that's the same with
all things. It's like not a birthright to be brilliant
at something, but it's so so easy to start singing,
open your face, push out a noise, like you know,
it doesn't need to be complicated. And there has never
been a human culture ever observed historically, bones whatever, archaeologically
(09:40):
that hasn't had music like this is so primal for us.
It's so right that we should do this, And it's
so equalizing. You know, you simply cannot be an acquir
by yourself. You must collaborate with other people in order
to get that sound that only we can create, and
then we all get to share in the result at
(10:00):
the end. Like it's just so ubiquitous, it's so equalizing,
it's so everything. I don't know. I'm obsessed with quiet no.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I'm here with it. I'm here for you because I'm
also I also think a lot about how a community
is the only reason that we survived. So it makes
sense to me that this thing sounds so good and
feels so good when we do it together. And I'm
fascinated with the research around what happens to us when
we sing and when we move in Unison, these things
(10:30):
have been systemaized through religious practices and various cultural practices,
but we don't have to be in those places to
access that. And so I understand why when I was
a kid and I went to I know you have
a story to do with you know, a certain nazarreiin Feller,
you know, influencing your life. But when I was a kid,
(10:53):
I got to play in bands every week. It happened
to be Jesus songs. But I was like, fuck it,
all right, older this because I get to play bass,
This is cool, and I get to sing songs, and
he's going to have to do a guitar solo and
it's gonna be awesome. But I was never into really that.
It was more like, I just love the way it
felt when we were all playing together and everyone was
singing together.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yes, I mean I relate very deeply to.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yes, this is what I found upon your ball. You know,
when your kids are teenagers, they tell you some interesting
things like this is what you want to do when
you want to support them, You go, okay, if that's
what you want to do. Tell me about the I'm
moving to Africa to becoming nun. Well.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
The crazy thing is I didn't even tell my parents
I was going to do that. I just took it
upon myself. I said, how did you even find out
you couldn't?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Like, at what point did you go com that's it.
Don't want to be a supercar driver. I don't want
to go, you know, be a graphic designer. I'm going
to go to Africa.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, I mean, it was pretty wild of me. There
was some context that I have an auntie who lived
in Zambia for twenty years and who is a nun.
So there's a nun in the family, and she looks
almost identical to my mum, but she's like the happy
version because she didn't have all these five goblin children
to look after, so she was, you know, like she
(12:01):
smiled like a lot more than my mom. And I
was like, oh, my.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
God, she's had a sleep. Yeah, she's not being pested.
Can I want you use you on your phone? Like
that's why.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
It's so quiet in the convent. So she was Yeah,
she looked really stoked, and I was like, oh my god,
I want to I want whatever. I'll have what she's
having or not having, you know what I mean. But like.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
It reminds me of a very poor, very poor taste.
I don't know if I dare say it. I know
we're talking about your auntie here. What do you call
a nun who's had sex?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Holy?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Some?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I also thought holy was good, but sounds good. Sorry, Auntie,
she's not listening to Skye. She lives in a convent
in Africa.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You know what, she's Christian. She'll forgive me.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
It's all working out well. I mean, I would see
her and I would think, like, I want to do
whatever she's doing. And exactly as you just said, my
childhood was infused with music at church, and so once
a week I would get this incredible feeling of like
connectedness and spiritual revelation. And I attributed that to Jesus.
(13:13):
But it took me a really long time to extract
the two things and realize that I was obsessed with music,
Like music is my spiritual revelation into.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Those because when I did a show called Australian Idol,
which was a singing show, a lot of the people
from that ended up in the show. I mean, where
also you going to get the experience to sing in
front of five thousand people every weekend who scream and
shout and call your name accept at those giant megaplaces
out west.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Right, Well, you can go to pob Choir because well.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
But so I would go out to these, you know,
I would occaional. We were doing backstories and stuff, so
I'd go there, I'd stand there, but I remembers standing
there going well, fuck of course, with that core change
and that key change and with that harmony, how could
you not be elated right out? I've got goosebumps. But
I'll get goosebumps in a Celindion song. All right, So
you're hacking this thing that my body does in response
to metrical vibrations of air and telling me it's Jesus,
(14:03):
But it isn't. It's just a really fucking great cadence. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yeah, Like the music has always been so deep in
my soul that just hearing, especially when I went to
Zambia and I heard my first Zambian church service. It
was like the most incredible music I have. I'm getting
goosebumps now. It was it was like life shatteringly incredible.
Like I was like, I'm obsessed with this. I would
like to live in this place, in this convent and
(14:27):
see this every day. But I have eventually learned to
extract the two feelings. I worship communal music making, but
it's interesting to me A lot of people, not a lot,
but you know, fairly regularly people will ask if pub
choir is affiliated with the religion, because so many of
us just associate beautiful communal experiences. We've only seen that
in churches. But I am trying to make the case
(14:49):
that this is for everyone, Like we do not have
No one's got a monopoly on singing together and waving
your arms to the music, Like I want to clap
my hands and be wholesome and joyful because I like
the feeling of it, and it doesn't need to be
connected to another being. You can do whatever you want
in your own head about it. But I want to
free us from attributing music only to certain parts of
(15:12):
life only certain people can have this in certain situations.
No music is just for everyone whenever you want, Like,
don't do it all the time. It'd probably be annoying,
but like you know, it doesn't belong to anyone to
keep it's ours.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
What was it like being in a community where singing
and to a large part dancing is just a part
of how you celebrate.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I had never experienced music making in this way until
I arrived when I was sixteen in Zambia. Because I
had lots of music lessons as a kid. I was
in lots of competitive arenas, I was in the Stedfords
and sitting for exams. Everything had a metric of measurement involved,
and so I didn't understand that you could make music
(15:56):
because it was an expression of something that words could
not say, or a feeling shared between people of joy
for someone else, you know, and so seeing I mean,
I was not only that, but I was so musically outclassed.
Like you can have all the music lessons in the world,
but you can you can never keep up with unless
you were raised in this culture of singing in this way.
(16:18):
Like I remember looking around the church, I couldn't even
find that Like time signature. I was like, what are
we in thirty one two? Like, I just somewhat what
time signature? Everyone is moving to a different song to
the one they're singing, Everyone's clapping on sevens, you know,
I'm like, what's going on with you? I just had
to receive. And I had never just sat back like
that and realized that music is an experience. Well it
(16:40):
can be an experience. And I really think it shifted
something in my brain because I just I think that's
what I had always been looking for but didn't know
how to articulate, or didn't even know to look for
until I saw it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
What did it feel like when you had made that
distinction within you? This thing which you had been shedding
with Jesus wasn't actually that? And how did that? You know,
that's a big spiritual thing to deal with at six stage,
seventeen years old.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, I was going through it. I mean, I met
a boy, to be fair, and I guess what changed
for me was I really had the hots for this
guy at Uni, and yet I still felt as passionate
about the music and the communal feeling. And I was like,
isn't that strange that it hasn't diminished at all this
feeling that I have even though I'm like foresure falling
(17:33):
in love with someone in the human realm when you're
supposed to be in love with Jesus. And I was like,
how could these things coexist? And then and it slowly began,
I realized I had correlated two things together, but they
were not actually causing each other. So, you know, I
pursued this relationship and I was like, the earthly form
is much more exciting to me, you know what I mean.
(17:55):
And then I was also still studying music, and that
love was still growing. And I also I did have
like quite a serious conversation with myself after I reached
out to the nuns of the same chapter from Zambia.
In Australia, they have some in Bendigo, and I reached
(18:16):
out to the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood FMDM
on the streets and I wrote an email saying, look,
I've just spent time for two months in this convent.
I really want to pursue this, and she that the
head none there was like, I really think that sixteen
is quite young and you should maybe live your life
just like a tiny bit just like come back, like
go to Uni or do something come back to me
(18:36):
in a few years, And that was very wise, thank goodness,
and so I did do that. And it was through living.
It was through the context of my own life that
I realized how things made sense.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Tell me about where you are now with your spirituality,
things like that.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I almost think that attributing the unfathomable miracle of our
existence to a preconceived notion or like higher being takes
away the majesty of our existence. I almost feel like
the chaos is the most mystical version of this. And
(19:15):
I feel like when you make music, that is the
truest expression of worshiping the magnificence of being alive. Because
I have really come to believe that making music helps
you shift from the person who admires art to becoming
the artist. You are the creator. And then I think
(19:38):
there might be a temptation to be like, well, something
so incredible and so mystical must be a creation. But
I'm like, well, then what if God or a being
put their hands in the pie and made this happen
so that you and I would harmonize something together? Why
is God such a bully? In other ways, I just
think the incredibleness is in the chaos, and I've written
(20:02):
a book about it. No, it's not that philosophical if
I'm being honest, because like, you know, shit myself in
the book or whatever. But like the idea that this
all counts now. Yeah, Like I'm really starting to dig
my fingers into the idea that this this is heaven
right now like on Earth, depending on what you're doing,
This is what we have, This is all we have.
(20:22):
We just have the experience of being alive this one time,
and it is an unfathomable miracle to be able to
sing about it, even shittaly.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Oh yeah, I could talk a lot. I'm real into
this kind of so good you have a podcast then, yeah,
because it helps me when i'm if I'm having a
tricky time, because music is a time machine. David Lee Roth,
who used to sing in Van Halen. Not everything he
says is amazing, but he says some pretty amazing things.
He had this idea that whatever, whenever you get in
(20:53):
your car, just have a song that plays every month
that you have your life. Just have one song you
listen to at one point in the day every day
and then move on and then move to the next song,
because what you're doing then is you're compartmentalizing, You're putting
a time machine, You're putting little chapters in your life,
and when you hear that song, bam, you get transported back.
And that's what music does to us. We can hear
(21:15):
a song again and I'm fucking nerd man, and I
will listen to a song I haven't heard in forever,
and I will know every note of the guitar solo
and I haven't heard it in thirty one years. Music
can do that for us, and it is a beautiful
freaking thing. So I use I use music a lot
to help me get in and out of If I'm
having a funk, bad funky time, not a good funky time,
(21:36):
I will put on something that I've listened to at
a time, which is great, and it will help me
get there. And that's a really important thing for us
to have.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Well that's exactly I mean, I agree, because I even
I put in my book that people ask me a
lot what my favorite song is, and I'm like, it's
an impossible question, because no song is the right song
all the time. You go into your pharmacy of songs
and you select the song need for your ailment. That's
exactly what you're saying. It's like, I'm tired. I need
this song that I know will lift me up, because
(22:06):
that's what it's always done for me. Like, whatever you need,
there is a song that can provide. It's always changing.
I mean, it's like it's hard to think of any
other thing that gets us together so quickly and to
agree on something like you know, the sound of any choir,
but a pub choir. The show, it's the sound of
people agreeing on a shared goal.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, it's the sound of people collaborating for a three
minute idea.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Just a quick break from Astrid to say that's so
what now? What? The new book, my second book is
out right now. You can get the link in the
show notes and as well as that, we have a
live show this weekend in Sydney. We're doing a live show.
Story Club is Back, featuring the wonderful Jenfricker, Lucy Bloom
cam Walker who co wrote my book with me Emman
Naciti and Zoe Norton Lodge. A theme is the big reveal,
(22:57):
and I think my story is going to be somewhat
about the rocky or a picture show. But you'll have
to come along to find out, because this might be
another one that never makes the show, never makes the publisher.
I may never put this one on YouTube. There's a
couple that I don't, and that's there's something that you
just have to be in the room for. Tickets are
in the show outs for that as well. Back with
more from Astro at a moment for someone who's experienced
(23:26):
the pursuit of perfection in the competition space. As you mentioned,
whether it be was it was it like I don't know,
ameb or whatever. Piano.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, I did piano and violin exams like all Asian children,
and I actually the whole time wanted singing lessons, but
that didn't seem intellectual enough because too mystical you can't
see the instrument. So I ended up paying for those
as an adult. But I had violin and piano lessons
sponsored by my grandmother in Singapore. Yeah, and I also
(23:57):
did speech and drama instead, which is basically competitive reading
out loud.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I've done that, Oh yeah, well, and truly that's prettical.
And so you've been in this competitive environment. Perfection is
really a thing that we want that you're being told,
is that's what you're looking for?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, I mean, it always feels better to win than
to lose, right, Yeah, it feels good to get it.
Once you get an A plus, you're like, oh my god,
that feels so much better than an as That was
the very Asian of me. I feel like, once you
taste a little bit of success, of course you want that.
It's a better outcome than losing, being a loser of something. However,
best in itself suggests that it's rare. How can best
(24:40):
exist without everything else not being the best? And so
it becomes this impossible task because we are upset with
ourselves all the time for not being the best. But
I mean, let's be honest, there's like billions of people
in the world. Is if you're going to be the
best in anything? I mean, and even if you are, like,
what about everything else? I'm such an idiot in so
many ways. I think that I have become the best
at one thing, sliver flver of my life, but everything
(25:04):
else is so deeply average mediocre. I just the pursuit
of best is impossible. I want to be done with it.
I'm not it's so hard to shake in your mind,
but I know everyone, we're all like disappointed in ourselves,
not being the best all the time. You just can't
unless we let it go, we will only set ourselves
up for misery.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
When did you come to accept average into your life?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
It's so it's so strange. I think it was pub Choir.
It's weird because I am the only person who can't
go to the show because I'm doing it, And so
I watch pub choir the experience. I facilitate it for others,
and I watch thousands of people at a time have
this huge, like conversion moment where they had transformed from
(25:50):
the audience to the performers. They feel so incredible. And
the whole time I was at work and I was teaching,
and so I watched that happen, and I think, oh,
looks good, and I've heard good things. I wish I
could go. I can't. But in a strange way, the
message that I say at the show has kind of
started to become important for me. I've started to believe
my own shtick, which is, like I say to the audience,
(26:12):
it doesn't matter if you miss the note. Someone near
you was clever. They've got it. We'll figure it out together.
Saying these things to me on stage. It's like my
own therapy for two hours at a time at every show.
It's almost like I'm not sure if I fully believed
it at the beginning, but every time I do the show,
it's like collecting little confidence in my backpack and I
(26:34):
bring that on stage with me, and I kind of
think like this has always worked. I think that we
can achieve this together. And it's like proving myself right
to myself every time. And I think it's happened so
many times now that I actually believe it.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
What can we gave from accepting our averageness?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
We free yourself because of course your average I mean,
just think of I think that's shit. You are at
everything you know like it just doesn't matter. I think
it frees you to instead think about how something feels.
That's all that life is an experience. You don't even
know how much you've got, so you might as well
see if you can notice your life as it's happening
(27:12):
in the moment, and instead of pursuing something that is
essentially impossible and certainly impossible for all aspects of your life.
You can't be the best person that doesn't exist there's
no such thing. It frees you to ask yourself, how
does this why does this matter to me? What does
it make me feel? What is the purpose of this
(27:34):
thing in my life? Why am I doing? You know?
Like if you pick up a paint brush and you
paint something awfully and it doesn't look like anything like
what you hoped it would look like, ask yourself, did
I enjoy this experience? Why am I doing this? Not?
Did I win the Archibald Prize. It's not going to
happen for one person every year it happens, But for
everyone else, why are you making this art? And I
(27:56):
think it helps us become more become more pret with
who we are and how we feel. I know, for
me personally, being present and asking myself that question and
like re entering my body and with my brain all
intact has changed my life. I mean, I used to
suffer with a terrible eating disorder where I feel like
(28:17):
I lost the connection with the experience of my own existence.
I would sort of I lost sense of my own hunger,
I lost sense of my own fullness. The only thing
that helped me get through that was finding a way
to be present again in my own body. Listening to
the cues that I have, trying to understand. Am I
(28:39):
hungry and my fool? Does it taste good? Do I
want more? What's going on? This? I feel like is
kind of the goal for me in all of the
things that I do, singing, pubchoir, driving, cooking, whatever. It's like,
how does this feel for me? Why am I doing this?
And is there a version of this that can assist
me experience my life more fully? Know?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Would you be okay to tell me a little bit
more about that I've do, I put this, I've had
experience in this area. It might for some people, it
might be it might be impossible to conceive that you
cannot feel your own body or your own hunger. How
(29:23):
does that? How does that start to show up? And
what was it that someone helped you with to how
do you start to reconnect with that?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
It doesn't happen at one moment. You don't just wake
up and be like, oh, fuck up my life today?
Like you know, it's an accumulation of so many things.
But I know that I became aware of the perception
of my body from others. So I think I was
just coasting along and then suddenly started to become aware
(29:53):
that maybe I was being compared with other people at
school and I wasn't as pretty, or my body is
not as nice as somebody else's. You realize that we're
being We're suddenly in a competition, which is so ridiculous,
but you know, it's reality that this is how we
treat each other visually. And so I think I started
to collect that interest in my mind, being like, oh, okay,
(30:17):
in the rankings, I'm here and I'm down the bottom
or whatever. Slowly it starts to accumulates as a worry.
I'm like, what am I going to do about this?
I know that I'm not doing well. You know, no
one says I'm beautiful, no one says my body's nice.
I mean, I went to an all girls school, so
it was you know, the whole time. But yeah, but
what really it was, what tipped it over into physical
(30:41):
actions to hurt myself was when I did go to
Zambia to live in the convent. I had a really
different lifestyle for two months, living like an actual life
of poverty and so like at school, I would eat
like pastry as soon as I got home. I had
a job at McDonald's. You know, I was like living
the good life.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I was.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I was having a lovely time, but I was stressed
about the way I looked. But when I went to Zambia,
I lost heaps of weight in two months. I was
walking every day, I was eating guabra, I was praying
for like six hours a day. I came back in
a smaller body, and you wouldn't believe, but every single
person I think I've ever met said you look so
beautiful now. Wow, right, and that I know that people
(31:22):
mean well. I think sometimes maybe they wanted to say,
are you eating healthier or looks like you've been exercising
or something, But everyone said you look beautiful now. And
so this just confirmed my suspicions that I had been
building and building and building, that I wasn't ugly, I
was in the wrong shape. Because everyone said, well, you're
(31:43):
beautiful now, I had the same face. So I think
that just tipped me over the edge. And all I
could think about was like, I cannot go back to
being more visible because it makes you invisible to others,
so which is not true, but that's how people would behaving.
And so I put my fingers down my throat. I
just didn't know what else to do, Like I need food.
(32:04):
We need food to live. The crazy thing about an
eating disorder is that there's no escape. Like I know
that you've you've already mentioned, you know, like battles with alcoholism,
you don't need alcohol to survive.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Literally, Yeah, food's really hard one. I've had a guy
who was a food addict on the show. Yeah, and
that's a really, really hard one because you actually need
food to sport.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
You have to confront the thing that you're scared of
three times a day. At least it.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Must have been, you know, obviously very hard for your
siblings and your parents.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, they fucking know what's going on there.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I just don't know because there's so many children in
my family's so much.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
This has to stop. What was the moment when.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Well, I mean I would have started around when I
was seventeen, and this is also at the same time
that I met this guy at UNI and maybe a
year into our relationship. I mean, by this stage, I'm
like blacking out when I stand up, but my hair's
falling out, all these ulcers and stuff. It's not good.
So yeah, my body was not doing great, and I
(33:07):
eventually just I was so embarrassed. It's so embarrassing to
admit to somebody that you're hurting yourself because you think
you're ugly. It feels really like weak even saying it.
It's just so embarrassing. It's like something's gone really wrong
with me, and I'm embarrassed to tell you this is
how warped it's got. But I was so shamed because
it just felt embarrassing. I mean, and the one thing
that really freaked me out, I was like, he's going
(33:29):
to think that he's been kissing me and my mouth
has been doing these terrible things. You know, I've been
vomiting all the time, and I thought he would just
never want to touch me again. But he was so compassionate.
And I know that lots of people who go through
disordered relationships with eating have shame responses from others like
how could you do this well? But he never even
(33:50):
entered that realm. It was like just compassion. He never
made me feel silly for doing it. It was just
compassion of like, oh my god, I hope that you
can learn to be nice to yourself because I adore you.
That kind of thing. And actually what he did was
he was like, I don't know how to help, but
would it help if I ate with you and not
(34:11):
in a way that was like we eat the same
this is this he was like. I explained to him,
I don't know when i'm hungry anymore, and I don't
know when i'm full, and they feel the same. And
he was like, well, I always know when I'm hungry,
like constantly. And he was like, if we eat together,
I'll stop when I'm full and I'll just tell you
it doesn't matter how much you eat. But like, I
trust myself. Yeah, and so I would just eat at
(34:33):
the same time as him to begin with, not necessarily
the same thing, but I'd be like, okay, well that
was a human amount that he's had. It's all fine.
And it took years.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yeah, I have. I had a similar experience. So I
lost a bunch of weight for a magazine thing and
couldn't tell when I was full, and I would just
shovel that's the word that they use for it. I
was shoveling, shoveling food. I couldn't tell what I was
f and I was like, this is not good. Yeah,
I couldn't feel word about it. It's different, but yeah,
for me too, when those hormones aren't responding correctly, when
(35:04):
the signal to tell you things are okay. And so
it took a while. But what's it like now on
the other side of this. I mean, you're a very
public person. You're you know, you see pictures of yourself,
you see footage of yourself. Are you able to go actually?
How fucking come a long way? Is it difficult to
look at yourself like that.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I've definitely come a long way. I could not pretend
even for a second that I am free of this.
I feel like it's when I do hear alcoholics talk
about it, or addict people who have gone through addiction,
I immediately recognize the language of it's always there. Yeah,
Like you know, one drink might send you over the edge.
(35:41):
Yeah yeah, Like I feel like one one purge would
do it right, Like it's just below the surface. But
the thing that has changed for me, that is the
huge distance that I've traveled, is that I'm able to
try and separate out objective and subject subjective feelings that
I have in my body. Like if I eat a
meal and I feel full, subjectively, I think to myself,
(36:04):
I think I must look so much bigger now that
I've had one meal. It's a strange thing in my mind.
I don't mean to be fat fobic or anything. It's
like this feeling that I have, like I think my
whole body has changed shape now I've eaten one meal. Yeah,
that's a really true feeling that I have. I have
changed visibly in front of everyone by eating this one meal.
(36:24):
But objectively, I'm a human person who fueled their body
with one meal. So you say both true things and
you try and figure out which one is the objective one,
and so it doesn't mean you can delete the subjective
feelings that you have. But it's like, I'm quite sure
that this.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Was a hue to be with both, and we're able
to go, where's the evidence? Yeah, where was the evidence? Fature,
there's and it's I mean, at first what I would
check my thinking with other people. I didn't like that
I had to check my thinking with other people. But
after I got over that, I just do it. And
it's smile easies. It's like I just got this idea.
They're like, I really just fucked that whole thing up there,
(36:58):
No you didn't, thank you, and then just check you
know that the whole time like it. Yeah, I know,
thank you, but they said it's cool. So I'm just
going to chill with them for a while, and unless
there's some fucking massive ramification that both of us missed,
I'll know that they were right.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Well, I'm even like this with the show, Like I
will very off of my poor crew. They're so they endure,
they endure my anxiety. But you know, I'll walk off
stage and five thousand people have come to sell out
the Horden or whatever, and I will teach the show
and I'll walk off stage and be like, I think
I fuck that up, but everyone cheered and everyone had
a great time, and they already want a ticket for
the next show. Like one of them is subjective and
(37:35):
one of them is objective, and you just have to
go with that one.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
How do you choose the tracks that you're going to douse?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I try and read the room. I mean, I like
to try and pick a song that I think suits
where we're at. I don't always get it right, and
plus everyone feels differently, but you know, if we've all
been really going through it lately, I might try and
pick something really up or like a punk soul or
something that we just like can like Fiz Pump in
the air, like I try and just meet people where
(38:12):
they're at, because I really want my audiences to understand
that music is shaped around us and can meet us
in our needs. Not we just go through and we
just worship at other people's like alter of talent, Like
we can do that as well. But you can shape
the music so that it feels right for you, and
(38:34):
I think that's huge for people. It's like it's a
privilege to know how to do that, and I like
to facilitate that for people and to be like you
feel angry, shout this.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
It's granting ourselves the permission once again to do this
thing that we were born to do, this thing that
feels really good for us, and the thing is good
for us when we do it with other people.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I feel like I should say I always hope that
pub Quiry is like the jumping off point for people.
Sometimes I see little pockets of the Internet being like
that bitch thinks she's like capitalized choir, and I'm like, no,
don't you see we're not in competition with each other.
Just because people come to my show doesn't mean that
they're not going to join a choir. Quite the opposite,
I think is that it just opens people's mind to
(39:13):
the post just.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Really really clear, just like and make me no matter.
Those people can get absolutely fine because they're not creating
this experience for thousands of people at once. Like the
deployment of psychological interventions at scale is really really really
hard to do, really hard to do. That's why there's
(39:34):
never enough therapists for everybody. But this experience you're giving people,
that's what people buy a ticket for. They want to
feel different to how they feel before they went into
the show, no matter what show you go to see it.
It's true, all right, but you're giving them something beyond that,
and you're allowing them to take home something that isn't
from the merchandise stand.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
The take home also by our merch but you go
on absolutely if you.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Have a band by their merch all the time, by
the thing, by the thing, you're giving them an experience
that the otherwise would never get, an uplifting, emotional one
which has nothing to do with anything except I'm standing
in a room with strangers and now we're a little
closer when we leave. Thank you very that being nice.
We need to feel that we're a part of something bigger,
(40:16):
and if we spend our whole time just like staring
into an led screen, we might be scratching the itch
of I'm a part of something bigger, but we're not. Actually.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
I think that's one of the most important things that
right at the beginning of the show, I might put
your phone in your pocket. You weren't going to watch
the videos back anyway, you don't even have the phone storage,
and you're going to miss the show because the show
is you don't look at your phone eyes up, like
it's an eyes up sort of show. And I think
just me bullying everyone into putting their phone in their
(40:47):
pocket and just freeing them and like the eyes up
experience is rare now it's one of the last analogue
things that we're doing that in Funeral is put your
phone away, And so I think that it has become
really a I didn't know that at the beginning, but
that is becoming increasingly crucial to the experience. It's like, no, no, no, no,
look up and feel something. Anything at this point would
(41:07):
be good. But if you can eyes up and look
around and see who else is helping, see who's confident,
and ask for help. You know, like we're in this
moment at the same time. It would be a shame
to miss it because you're like trying to zoom in.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
You're facilitating community engagement in a safe way, and that's
the thing that we all need. Loneliness is like, what
did I read this set the other day?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
It's like worse than smoking a package.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah, it's fifteen cigarettes today. Loneliness is as bad for
you as fifteen siguters that cigarettes today. And the other thing.
People who are who participate four times a month in
something along what you're describing in an organized group community thing,
they have on average a fourteen year longer lifespan fourteen fourteen.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
That's huge. Come to the show everyone, because.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
You think about why, right, Oh, there's people who are
looking out for me. I have a reason to go
and be I have I a contribute. I feel useful.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
I think that's actually that's really important to note, is
like pub choir is a one night stand. You can
keep coming back to the show, but it will always change.
There's thousands of people. I hope that people join their
choir if they enjoyed the experience, because you will see
the same faces again and you matter. You know your
voice will make a difference, an audible difference to that group.
Pub choir we can't hear, so you're free to enjoy
(42:29):
the experience. But there are so many choirs around the country,
and all of them one singers, especially men, and I
think it's so good for you. I've read a study
singers in a choir their heartbeat synchronized when they sing
because they're exerting themselves in the same way. They're all
breathing out in the same way, and then in It
is so like cellular the connection that we get when
(42:51):
making art with others using our singing voices. Like go
and experience this such a human connection.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
It's an important thing. You What have you found out
about because I learned this through you, through idle and
certainly in my own work. There's being perfect and then
there's just committing. Which one is more important?
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Oh my god, the committing. You have to be lucky
and commit the whole time. I I work so hard
it's getting silly, like I probably need some more boundaries.
But I really take pride in being precise about what
will make something work. That's probably the biggest challenges surrounding
myself with people who have the same dedication to the
precision of what we're doing. I just think I'm not
(43:41):
fucking around with this. I know that I wrote a
book about shooting my pants or whatever, but at the
end of the day, I have worked so so hard
to build this thing. It started with seventy people. I
was also a school teacher at the same time. I
was also running six choirs every night of the week,
I was half selling. I feel like I haven't truly
(44:02):
had a moment to relax and soak it in since
it started. But I feel like this is the appetite
now that I have. Where I'm not sure when I'm
full is that I just keep I feel like I'm
on the frontier of a new human experience or something,
and I'm like it's I almost feel obligated to find
out where it goes. So I will just keep incrementally
improving what I have already learned and apply that knowledge
(44:26):
each time, and I hope that it gets better and better.
And I'm so curious to see where it goes, because
I really don't think anyone's done this before. Choirs have
always existed, pubs have always existed, people have sung drunk
for thousands of years. However, the way that I've put
it together, using this visual methodology and this like improvised
comedy lesson that I'm doing, and the scale like it's
(44:49):
not a thousand people singing along, it's a thousand people
singing in harmony that they just learned. This is a
new human thing. And so I just feel like I
will keep going until I find an end, until people
like we don't want to see anymore. If people buy tickets,
I'm like, well let's go. Yeah, what happens next.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
The He's an actor, Dan McPherson. He's a dear friend
and I love him. He once got pulled up during
an AD break of the Logis. He got pulled up
on stage by and they do a lot to try
to keep that room occupied for the four minutes when
you're on an AD break, Right, He got pulled up
on stage with this comedian and they were trying to
(45:29):
teach him some fucking dumb dance man and I looked
at him and was like, oh damn, and it was
so cringe worthy and dances went. And this is the
guy who at the time was like shooting you know,
who's like a big war guy and was, you know,
making this big Navy seal movie. And he went and
he took off his jacket and he just fucking went
for it. And I text him afterwards like, man, you're
(45:50):
raising and goes when in doubt, commit commit to the beds.
I will always commit to the bid. And so when
it comes to singing, I noticed this on an idol.
It didn't like Shannon Grassy look not the best thinger
at the time. Didn't fucking matter. I believed every word
he said and he absolutely committed to it. There's a
(46:11):
big difference between hitting the notes and singing, and if
you are there just it's like, you know, what would
you do with karaoke if no one gave you hoot?
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Do that?
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Just fucking go for it, and people will pay that
you went for it way more than they'll pay your pitch.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Absolutely, I would so choose meaning over note every single time,
every day. I mean, ideally there's both. But you know,
if I had.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
To choose, wear this intersex. Which I love is that
you also did this in the realm of the shiny
floor television when you went and did the Got Talent
show in the States. That must have been something extraordinary
to do that.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
I think at a certain point you just reached saturation
of like things you can absorb. I mean, like I
know factual things about that appearance, like five million people
watch each episode in America, and Terry Crews is on
stage holding my hand, and like there's a spice girl
and whatever. I found out since it's past two hundred
and fifty million views the clip of my audition. But
(47:17):
I don't really understand what that means for me. I
was at work, I was teaching whoever was in front
of me how to sing something like I always do.
But it is wild to see on paper on what
that means. But I think I'm too present in the
moment to really be able to absorb all of that.
I did go on that Talent show not because I
(47:39):
think that music should be competitive. I have never felt
that art is it's incomparable. We can't compete. But I
really thought it would be a fun opportunity to flip
the script and just be like, the audience is the
main character of art.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
If people are listening to these, can you they might
not be able to get to pubquirl? Right? Does it
count singing along to the radio in your car?
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Singing along is a nice thing and a good experience
to do. Being the singer is different. Go join a choir,
there's just thousands. There's thousands out there. There's so many.
There will be acquire near you. In every regional town
there will be. If you're in a city, there'll be
acquir that does glee songs and acchoir that only does barbershop.
Like there's just there's a musical room. Have been in both, yes,
(48:29):
haven't we all? I mean there's like, there's many many
rooms in the house of music. If choir is not
it for you, there's probably a ukulele club as well,
next door at the next community hall. The thing with
pub choir is the bouncing off point. It's the context
for people's lives. It's a bit tiddy. The stakes are
low for you, hi for me, But there's just so
(48:51):
many opportunities to make music with each other. I'm always
team choir because you don't have to buy anything. You
have to bring yourself and the strument that you have
is unique, which I think is a really great reason
to use it, even if it's bad, because no one
else has that one. I would say I do think
listening more is a good first step trying to hear
(49:14):
the thing that you want. And an extension of that is,
could you hear the note that you want in your
head just before you sing it? Because I would say,
as a person who has given music lessons and being
a music teacher, the problem that I've often picked up
is that people are making noises and then thinking they
make a noise, and then they're like, oh, I missed,
(49:34):
and I'm like, well, now it's too late, isn't it.
It would be better if you could think about the
noise that you want just before you need it. It's
like preparing your body to make sound. In the book,
I talk about when you play darts, you look at
the board and then you line up the tip of
the dart, and then you prepare your body and your
muscles and then you throw. Do the same thing with singing.
It's like you line up the note that you need
(49:55):
and you prepare your body for where that might be high, low, loud, soft,
and then you see because by the time you've sung
the notes too late to take it back. You can't
there's no take back six. You can't suck it back in.
So think about what you want first, and isn't that
a good analogy for life. Think first and then make
your noise works.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
And if the noise is average.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Then I mean, it's not a crime. It's fine, it's
a move on. Next note, please, Yeah, it's all right,
it's all right, everything's fine.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
What did it like? I've had such a lovely times.
Fore you go with you? Thanks for coming in. That
was Astra Jorgenson. Her memoir is called average at Best.
If you're listening to this as soon as it comes out,
pubquir has got two days right around the country. The
link for that is in the show notes, as well
as a link for So What Now What, my new book,
which you can get right now, as well as tickets
(50:47):
for Story Club. Come to see the show in the
twelfth of October. Will be at the Factory Theater with
Cam Walker, Jenfricker, Lucy Bloom, Imma Na Cheety and Zoe
Norton Lodge and myself. Thanks so much for listening, Enjoy
the sing whatever you see, enjoy it because I don't
know about you, but that show made me want to
sing Bye bye.
It frees you to instead think about how something feels.
That's all that life is an experience. You don't even
know how much you've got, so you might as well
see if you can notice your life as it's happening
in the moment, and instead of pursuing something that is
essentially impossible, it frees you to ask yourself, why does
(00:24):
this matter to me? What does it make me feel?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Thanks for listening to the show. This is Better than Yesterday.
Useful tools and useful conversations to make your day to
day better than yesterday. Every episode since twenty thirteen. Thank
you so much for being here. My name Zolshi Ginsberg.
I'm glad you made it. I do have a question
for you, fairly simple question. Can you sing now? Maybe
because when I ask that question, you think, oh, look,
I can't hit the high bits in the Mariah Carey
(00:51):
song at Christmas. I don't sound, you know, like Bernard
Fanning does. I don't feel that. I don't hear that
pain in my voice when I talk about how these days,
I think like i'd planned. So when you ask me
can I think no, I can't sing. But hang on,
I did not ask you if you could sing well,
if you can speak, you can sing, and a story.
(01:13):
After all, talking is just very monotone. Singing Okay, this
is talking, Okay, this is now talking. Okay, this is singing.
It's the same muscles do all of it. If you
can talk, you can sing. We're like this with a
lot of things. We have a tendency just to think
because we can't do it perfectly, we can't do it
at all, so we don't even try. And that reveals
(01:35):
something about the way we think about ourselves, doesn't it. Well,
what could we go? And if we let go of
that just a little bit. I don't think there's any
person that is better to speak to about this concept
than my guest today. Astro Joginsen is known for leading
and pioneering something called pub choir. Basically, Astrod stands in
(01:56):
front of a group of people anywhere between seventeen and
several thousand people and uses some slides that she shows
a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of comedy, and in
less than one hour has that entire group of people
singing a song together at the top of their lungs
in harmony. This idea has taken her right around the world.
(02:16):
It's earned her the praise of stars like Kate bush Kiss,
the aforementioned of Boria Carey, and she's raised hundreds of
thousand dollars for charity. She's earned herself the Order of
Australian Medal. She did that in twenty twenty three. Not
long ago, Astrod was on America's Got Talent. That clip
has been viewed by squillions of people. She was feeding
on Australian Story and she now has a memoir called
(02:37):
Average at Best, and it's a really wonderful idea about
you know what this is. This is just fine as
it is, It's wonderful. She's a fabulous person. Today we're
going to speak about her journey, the way she looks
at life, the struggles she's had with perfectionism, the cost
of that, and all that we can gain by accepting
or even embracing our averageness. It's a brilliant chat. It's
(03:01):
going to make you want to sing, and I'm going
to get to it right after this break. Thank you
so much for listening to the show. This is better
than yesterday. We're about to get stuck into my chat
with Astrod Jorgensen. Just a heads up. Astrod's magnificent journey
(03:24):
does include a period of disordered eating, and we discussed
that today. We're going to talk about that about twenty
five minutes or so from now. So do you go
carefully around that if you need to, if there's a
need in you as well, to get some support or
some more information about that sort of thing for yourself,
for someone you care about. Get in touch with the
people at the Butterfly Foundation that do brilliant work Butterfly
dot org dot au or one eight hundred double three
(03:47):
four six seven three. Enjoy getting to know and I
can't wait to hear what you're seeing after you listen
to the wonderful Astrad Jorgensen. Thank you for joining us.
You've had it early morning.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I mean a pleasure. I love to talk about myself.
Really it's like my only expert topic.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So it's a delight to have you here. I love
I love the work that you do. I mean, I
grew up a musician. I've always I've always played voice song.
You know, there's just something about that thing which happens
on stage that I chased forever and it ended me
up in my career because like, I just want to
(04:30):
chase this and reading your story, I was like, oh, yeah,
I get that.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
You know, then, the difference between the feeling that you
get when you listen to music and the feeling that
you get when you make music, they're so different, and
a lot of people don't know that. A lot of
people listen to music and it fills them up and
they form memories and friends, and that's all brilliant that
I also do that, but I'm trying to offer people
(04:57):
the different feeling, which is what would it feel like
if you were the singer. And it is such a
vast chasm between those two things, and I think it's
important that we try.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Much like painting or drawing, for example, when we're little,
we don't give two shits at all. Look spaceship and
you look at it and go.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yep, well I love it.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
It's terrible, but they go there. It is there is
my idea in graphic form, and they don't care, and
they fearlessly go to it. And somewhere along the way
either they look to the side and see someone else
and go, o, mind's not as good as that. So
they even tell themselves I can't do it, or someone
(05:51):
says that shit, but it's not as good, and then
they don't ever touch crayon again. And this in many
ways it's the same with singing. Like at daycare there's
no kid, he goes, I, no, I can't sing. I'm
not going to do this. No, hun shut them, don't
get a ship.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They're right yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And somewhere along the way is kids. We go, oh,
I can't do that. Yes, And it's a really heartbreaking moment.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Isn't it It is? And I am convinced that everyone's
had it at least once, Like I have always been
able to sing pretty well in tune. I've had singing lessons,
but I've sung it. It's impossible to sing in tune
all the time. And so when it happens and people
pointed out to you, it feels so big because you
always yeah, when you when you miss the note or
you have a little local crack or whatever it happens,
(06:42):
you were the one who made the noise. So it
actually feels so personal. Like I've also had piano lessons, say,
and when you play the wrong keys, I mean I'll
just look at the key and be like, oh I missed,
But when you sing the wrong thing, it was very
it was internal only you were in control of all
of the minuteness of that, and so it's so personal.
There's nothing else to blame except you. So I think
(07:04):
when people laugh at your singing voice, that's why it
settles so deeply in your soul, because you did the
wrong thing. But I'm trying to say, it's not illegal
to sing out of tune. It's okay if you enjoy singing.
I cannot really help anyone sing better. I don't think
no one who comes to my show leaves as a
(07:24):
better singer. I just want them to free themselves of
the heaviness of the shame of singing. It's allowed if
you have a nice time singing, that's a great reason
to start.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Just because I'm like goutgout doesn't mean, ohka, I'm never
ever going to try and run.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And because you have run in your life at some point,
you have context for admiring goutgout. You're like, I tried
running two hundred meters, and I mean it would take
me like over a minute or something. Would I would
glumph at It's such a long way. I don't even
know if I'd make it. But because I've tried it,
when I see someone excelling. I think, shit, that's incredible.
(08:02):
I had tennis lessons for like one term at school.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I just on your parents, piano, tennis, whatever you want
to explore.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, they're like wall, he's so bad at everything, let's
keep looking important that. Yeah. I mean like I would
hold the tennis racket and I'd be like it's so heavy,
even just a hole, Like how am I supposed to
hit the ball back? Because I've tried that. And I
played one competition and I didn't score a single point.
And I remember so clearly. I lost every single every
single thing. And the other girl and they had one arm.
Now that's not the butt of the joke, but it's
(08:30):
just like, this is this was my level that I
was at. I was like two handing everything, missing every
single ball. But now I love to watch tennis because
I have some context. Like I deeply hope that the
experience that I'm offering people, but at any choir or whatever,
any art making, it gives context to life. Like if
people come to the show, try a little singing, have
(08:52):
a nice time, it might help them appreciate the incredible
art that's around us, the richness of music that is
like woven in all of our lives. I think context
is everything.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
We deny ourselves permission to do this thing that we
are born with the ability to do, and this thing
which has been scientifically proven to give us so much.
We're shutting ourselves off from this thing, and I find
that just kind of sad.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
It's so sad because it's so easy to do, Like
it's hard to do well, but that's the same with
all things. It's like not a birthright to be brilliant
at something, but it's so so easy to start singing,
open your face, push out a noise, like you know,
it doesn't need to be complicated. And there has never
been a human culture ever observed historically, bones whatever, archaeologically
(09:40):
that hasn't had music like this is so primal for us.
It's so right that we should do this, And it's
so equalizing. You know, you simply cannot be an acquir
by yourself. You must collaborate with other people in order
to get that sound that only we can create, and
then we all get to share in the result at
(10:00):
the end. Like it's just so ubiquitous, it's so equalizing,
it's so everything. I don't know. I'm obsessed with quiet no.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I'm here with it. I'm here for you because I'm
also I also think a lot about how a community
is the only reason that we survived. So it makes
sense to me that this thing sounds so good and
feels so good when we do it together. And I'm
fascinated with the research around what happens to us when
we sing and when we move in Unison, these things
(10:30):
have been systemaized through religious practices and various cultural practices,
but we don't have to be in those places to
access that. And so I understand why when I was
a kid and I went to I know you have
a story to do with you know, a certain nazarreiin Feller,
you know, influencing your life. But when I was a kid,
(10:53):
I got to play in bands every week. It happened
to be Jesus songs. But I was like, fuck it,
all right, older this because I get to play bass,
This is cool, and I get to sing songs, and
he's going to have to do a guitar solo and
it's gonna be awesome. But I was never into really that.
It was more like, I just love the way it
felt when we were all playing together and everyone was
singing together.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yes, I mean I relate very deeply to.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yes, this is what I found upon your ball. You know,
when your kids are teenagers, they tell you some interesting
things like this is what you want to do when
you want to support them, You go, okay, if that's
what you want to do. Tell me about the I'm
moving to Africa to becoming nun. Well.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
The crazy thing is I didn't even tell my parents
I was going to do that. I just took it
upon myself. I said, how did you even find out
you couldn't?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Like, at what point did you go com that's it.
Don't want to be a supercar driver. I don't want
to go, you know, be a graphic designer. I'm going
to go to Africa.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, I mean, it was pretty wild of me. There
was some context that I have an auntie who lived
in Zambia for twenty years and who is a nun.
So there's a nun in the family, and she looks
almost identical to my mum, but she's like the happy
version because she didn't have all these five goblin children
to look after, so she was, you know, like she
(12:01):
smiled like a lot more than my mom. And I
was like, oh, my.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
God, she's had a sleep. Yeah, she's not being pested.
Can I want you use you on your phone? Like
that's why.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
It's so quiet in the convent. So she was Yeah,
she looked really stoked, and I was like, oh my god,
I want to I want whatever. I'll have what she's
having or not having, you know what I mean. But like.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
It reminds me of a very poor, very poor taste.
I don't know if I dare say it. I know
we're talking about your auntie here. What do you call
a nun who's had sex?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Holy?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Some?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I also thought holy was good, but sounds good. Sorry, Auntie,
she's not listening to Skye. She lives in a convent
in Africa.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You know what, she's Christian. She'll forgive me.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
It's all working out well. I mean, I would see
her and I would think, like, I want to do
whatever she's doing. And exactly as you just said, my
childhood was infused with music at church, and so once
a week I would get this incredible feeling of like
connectedness and spiritual revelation. And I attributed that to Jesus.
(13:13):
But it took me a really long time to extract
the two things and realize that I was obsessed with music,
Like music is my spiritual revelation into.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Those because when I did a show called Australian Idol,
which was a singing show, a lot of the people
from that ended up in the show. I mean, where
also you going to get the experience to sing in
front of five thousand people every weekend who scream and
shout and call your name accept at those giant megaplaces
out west.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Right, Well, you can go to pob Choir because well.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
But so I would go out to these, you know,
I would occaional. We were doing backstories and stuff, so
I'd go there, I'd stand there, but I remembers standing
there going well, fuck of course, with that core change
and that key change and with that harmony, how could
you not be elated right out? I've got goosebumps. But
I'll get goosebumps in a Celindion song. All right, So
you're hacking this thing that my body does in response
to metrical vibrations of air and telling me it's Jesus,
(14:03):
But it isn't. It's just a really fucking great cadence. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yeah, Like the music has always been so deep in
my soul that just hearing, especially when I went to
Zambia and I heard my first Zambian church service. It
was like the most incredible music I have. I'm getting
goosebumps now. It was it was like life shatteringly incredible.
Like I was like, I'm obsessed with this. I would
like to live in this place, in this convent and
(14:27):
see this every day. But I have eventually learned to
extract the two feelings. I worship communal music making, but
it's interesting to me A lot of people, not a lot,
but you know, fairly regularly people will ask if pub
choir is affiliated with the religion, because so many of
us just associate beautiful communal experiences. We've only seen that
in churches. But I am trying to make the case
(14:49):
that this is for everyone, Like we do not have
No one's got a monopoly on singing together and waving
your arms to the music, Like I want to clap
my hands and be wholesome and joyful because I like
the feeling of it, and it doesn't need to be
connected to another being. You can do whatever you want
in your own head about it. But I want to
free us from attributing music only to certain parts of
(15:12):
life only certain people can have this in certain situations.
No music is just for everyone whenever you want, Like,
don't do it all the time. It'd probably be annoying,
but like you know, it doesn't belong to anyone to
keep it's ours.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
What was it like being in a community where singing
and to a large part dancing is just a part
of how you celebrate.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I had never experienced music making in this way until
I arrived when I was sixteen in Zambia. Because I
had lots of music lessons as a kid. I was
in lots of competitive arenas, I was in the Stedfords
and sitting for exams. Everything had a metric of measurement involved,
and so I didn't understand that you could make music
(15:56):
because it was an expression of something that words could
not say, or a feeling shared between people of joy
for someone else, you know, and so seeing I mean,
I was not only that, but I was so musically outclassed.
Like you can have all the music lessons in the world,
but you can you can never keep up with unless
you were raised in this culture of singing in this way.
(16:18):
Like I remember looking around the church, I couldn't even
find that Like time signature. I was like, what are
we in thirty one two? Like, I just somewhat what
time signature? Everyone is moving to a different song to
the one they're singing, Everyone's clapping on sevens, you know,
I'm like, what's going on with you? I just had
to receive. And I had never just sat back like
that and realized that music is an experience. Well it
(16:40):
can be an experience. And I really think it shifted
something in my brain because I just I think that's
what I had always been looking for but didn't know
how to articulate, or didn't even know to look for
until I saw it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
What did it feel like when you had made that
distinction within you? This thing which you had been shedding
with Jesus wasn't actually that? And how did that? You know,
that's a big spiritual thing to deal with at six stage,
seventeen years old.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, I was going through it. I mean, I met
a boy, to be fair, and I guess what changed
for me was I really had the hots for this
guy at Uni, and yet I still felt as passionate
about the music and the communal feeling. And I was like,
isn't that strange that it hasn't diminished at all this
feeling that I have even though I'm like foresure falling
(17:33):
in love with someone in the human realm when you're
supposed to be in love with Jesus. And I was like,
how could these things coexist? And then and it slowly began,
I realized I had correlated two things together, but they
were not actually causing each other. So, you know, I
pursued this relationship and I was like, the earthly form
is much more exciting to me, you know what I mean.
(17:55):
And then I was also still studying music, and that
love was still growing. And I also I did have
like quite a serious conversation with myself after I reached
out to the nuns of the same chapter from Zambia.
In Australia, they have some in Bendigo, and I reached
(18:16):
out to the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood FMDM
on the streets and I wrote an email saying, look,
I've just spent time for two months in this convent.
I really want to pursue this, and she that the
head none there was like, I really think that sixteen
is quite young and you should maybe live your life
just like a tiny bit just like come back, like
go to Uni or do something come back to me
(18:36):
in a few years, And that was very wise, thank goodness,
and so I did do that. And it was through living.
It was through the context of my own life that
I realized how things made sense.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Tell me about where you are now with your spirituality,
things like that.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
I almost think that attributing the unfathomable miracle of our
existence to a preconceived notion or like higher being takes
away the majesty of our existence. I almost feel like
the chaos is the most mystical version of this. And
(19:15):
I feel like when you make music, that is the
truest expression of worshiping the magnificence of being alive. Because
I have really come to believe that making music helps
you shift from the person who admires art to becoming
the artist. You are the creator. And then I think
(19:38):
there might be a temptation to be like, well, something
so incredible and so mystical must be a creation. But
I'm like, well, then what if God or a being
put their hands in the pie and made this happen
so that you and I would harmonize something together? Why
is God such a bully? In other ways, I just
think the incredibleness is in the chaos, and I've written
(20:02):
a book about it. No, it's not that philosophical if
I'm being honest, because like, you know, shit myself in
the book or whatever. But like the idea that this
all counts now. Yeah, Like I'm really starting to dig
my fingers into the idea that this this is heaven
right now like on Earth, depending on what you're doing,
This is what we have, This is all we have.
(20:22):
We just have the experience of being alive this one time,
and it is an unfathomable miracle to be able to
sing about it, even shittaly.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Oh yeah, I could talk a lot. I'm real into
this kind of so good you have a podcast then, yeah,
because it helps me when i'm if I'm having a
tricky time, because music is a time machine. David Lee Roth,
who used to sing in Van Halen. Not everything he
says is amazing, but he says some pretty amazing things.
He had this idea that whatever, whenever you get in
(20:53):
your car, just have a song that plays every month
that you have your life. Just have one song you
listen to at one point in the day every day
and then move on and then move to the next song,
because what you're doing then is you're compartmentalizing, You're putting
a time machine, You're putting little chapters in your life,
and when you hear that song, bam, you get transported back.
And that's what music does to us. We can hear
(21:15):
a song again and I'm fucking nerd man, and I
will listen to a song I haven't heard in forever,
and I will know every note of the guitar solo
and I haven't heard it in thirty one years. Music
can do that for us, and it is a beautiful
freaking thing. So I use I use music a lot
to help me get in and out of If I'm
having a funk, bad funky time, not a good funky time,
(21:36):
I will put on something that I've listened to at
a time, which is great, and it will help me
get there. And that's a really important thing for us
to have.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Well that's exactly I mean, I agree, because I even
I put in my book that people ask me a
lot what my favorite song is, and I'm like, it's
an impossible question, because no song is the right song
all the time. You go into your pharmacy of songs
and you select the song need for your ailment. That's
exactly what you're saying. It's like, I'm tired. I need
this song that I know will lift me up, because
(22:06):
that's what it's always done for me. Like, whatever you need,
there is a song that can provide. It's always changing.
I mean, it's like it's hard to think of any
other thing that gets us together so quickly and to
agree on something like you know, the sound of any choir,
but a pub choir. The show, it's the sound of
people agreeing on a shared goal.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, it's the sound of people collaborating for a three
minute idea.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Just a quick break from Astrid to say that's so
what now? What? The new book, my second book is
out right now. You can get the link in the
show notes and as well as that, we have a
live show this weekend in Sydney. We're doing a live show.
Story Club is Back, featuring the wonderful Jenfricker, Lucy Bloom
cam Walker who co wrote my book with me Emman
Naciti and Zoe Norton Lodge. A theme is the big reveal,
(22:57):
and I think my story is going to be somewhat
about the rocky or a picture show. But you'll have
to come along to find out, because this might be
another one that never makes the show, never makes the publisher.
I may never put this one on YouTube. There's a
couple that I don't, and that's there's something that you
just have to be in the room for. Tickets are
in the show outs for that as well. Back with
more from Astro at a moment for someone who's experienced
(23:26):
the pursuit of perfection in the competition space. As you mentioned,
whether it be was it was it like I don't know,
ameb or whatever. Piano.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, I did piano and violin exams like all Asian children,
and I actually the whole time wanted singing lessons, but
that didn't seem intellectual enough because too mystical you can't
see the instrument. So I ended up paying for those
as an adult. But I had violin and piano lessons
sponsored by my grandmother in Singapore. Yeah, and I also
(23:57):
did speech and drama instead, which is basically competitive reading
out loud.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I've done that, Oh yeah, well, and truly that's prettical.
And so you've been in this competitive environment. Perfection is
really a thing that we want that you're being told,
is that's what you're looking for?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, I mean, it always feels better to win than
to lose, right, Yeah, it feels good to get it.
Once you get an A plus, you're like, oh my god,
that feels so much better than an as That was
the very Asian of me. I feel like, once you
taste a little bit of success, of course you want that.
It's a better outcome than losing, being a loser of something. However,
best in itself suggests that it's rare. How can best
(24:40):
exist without everything else not being the best? And so
it becomes this impossible task because we are upset with
ourselves all the time for not being the best. But
I mean, let's be honest, there's like billions of people
in the world. Is if you're going to be the
best in anything? I mean, and even if you are, like,
what about everything else? I'm such an idiot in so
many ways. I think that I have become the best
at one thing, sliver flver of my life, but everything
(25:04):
else is so deeply average mediocre. I just the pursuit
of best is impossible. I want to be done with it.
I'm not it's so hard to shake in your mind,
but I know everyone, we're all like disappointed in ourselves,
not being the best all the time. You just can't
unless we let it go, we will only set ourselves
up for misery.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
When did you come to accept average into your life?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
It's so it's so strange. I think it was pub Choir.
It's weird because I am the only person who can't
go to the show because I'm doing it, And so
I watch pub choir the experience. I facilitate it for others,
and I watch thousands of people at a time have
this huge, like conversion moment where they had transformed from
(25:50):
the audience to the performers. They feel so incredible. And
the whole time I was at work and I was teaching,
and so I watched that happen, and I think, oh,
looks good, and I've heard good things. I wish I
could go. I can't. But in a strange way, the
message that I say at the show has kind of
started to become important for me. I've started to believe
my own shtick, which is, like I say to the audience,
(26:12):
it doesn't matter if you miss the note. Someone near
you was clever. They've got it. We'll figure it out together.
Saying these things to me on stage. It's like my
own therapy for two hours at a time at every show.
It's almost like I'm not sure if I fully believed
it at the beginning, but every time I do the show,
it's like collecting little confidence in my backpack and I
(26:34):
bring that on stage with me, and I kind of
think like this has always worked. I think that we
can achieve this together. And it's like proving myself right
to myself every time. And I think it's happened so
many times now that I actually believe it.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
What can we gave from accepting our averageness?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
We free yourself because of course your average I mean,
just think of I think that's shit. You are at
everything you know like it just doesn't matter. I think
it frees you to instead think about how something feels.
That's all that life is an experience. You don't even
know how much you've got, so you might as well
see if you can notice your life as it's happening
(27:12):
in the moment, and instead of pursuing something that is
essentially impossible and certainly impossible for all aspects of your life.
You can't be the best person that doesn't exist there's
no such thing. It frees you to ask yourself, how
does this why does this matter to me? What does
it make me feel? What is the purpose of this
(27:34):
thing in my life? Why am I doing? You know?
Like if you pick up a paint brush and you
paint something awfully and it doesn't look like anything like
what you hoped it would look like, ask yourself, did
I enjoy this experience? Why am I doing this? Not?
Did I win the Archibald Prize. It's not going to
happen for one person every year it happens, But for
everyone else, why are you making this art? And I
(27:56):
think it helps us become more become more pret with
who we are and how we feel. I know, for
me personally, being present and asking myself that question and
like re entering my body and with my brain all
intact has changed my life. I mean, I used to
suffer with a terrible eating disorder where I feel like
(28:17):
I lost the connection with the experience of my own existence.
I would sort of I lost sense of my own hunger,
I lost sense of my own fullness. The only thing
that helped me get through that was finding a way
to be present again in my own body. Listening to
the cues that I have, trying to understand. Am I
(28:39):
hungry and my fool? Does it taste good? Do I
want more? What's going on? This? I feel like is
kind of the goal for me in all of the
things that I do, singing, pubchoir, driving, cooking, whatever. It's like,
how does this feel for me? Why am I doing this?
And is there a version of this that can assist
me experience my life more fully? Know?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Would you be okay to tell me a little bit
more about that I've do, I put this, I've had
experience in this area. It might for some people, it
might be it might be impossible to conceive that you
cannot feel your own body or your own hunger. How
(29:23):
does that? How does that start to show up? And
what was it that someone helped you with to how
do you start to reconnect with that?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
It doesn't happen at one moment. You don't just wake
up and be like, oh, fuck up my life today?
Like you know, it's an accumulation of so many things.
But I know that I became aware of the perception
of my body from others. So I think I was
just coasting along and then suddenly started to become aware
(29:53):
that maybe I was being compared with other people at
school and I wasn't as pretty, or my body is
not as nice as somebody else's. You realize that we're
being We're suddenly in a competition, which is so ridiculous,
but you know, it's reality that this is how we
treat each other visually. And so I think I started
to collect that interest in my mind, being like, oh, okay,
(30:17):
in the rankings, I'm here and I'm down the bottom
or whatever. Slowly it starts to accumulates as a worry.
I'm like, what am I going to do about this?
I know that I'm not doing well. You know, no
one says I'm beautiful, no one says my body's nice.
I mean, I went to an all girls school, so
it was you know, the whole time. But yeah, but
what really it was, what tipped it over into physical
(30:41):
actions to hurt myself was when I did go to
Zambia to live in the convent. I had a really
different lifestyle for two months, living like an actual life
of poverty and so like at school, I would eat
like pastry as soon as I got home. I had
a job at McDonald's. You know, I was like living
the good life.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I was.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I was having a lovely time, but I was stressed
about the way I looked. But when I went to Zambia,
I lost heaps of weight in two months. I was
walking every day, I was eating guabra, I was praying
for like six hours a day. I came back in
a smaller body, and you wouldn't believe, but every single
person I think I've ever met said you look so
beautiful now. Wow, right, and that I know that people
(31:22):
mean well. I think sometimes maybe they wanted to say,
are you eating healthier or looks like you've been exercising
or something, But everyone said you look beautiful now. And
so this just confirmed my suspicions that I had been
building and building and building, that I wasn't ugly, I
was in the wrong shape. Because everyone said, well, you're
(31:43):
beautiful now, I had the same face. So I think
that just tipped me over the edge. And all I
could think about was like, I cannot go back to
being more visible because it makes you invisible to others,
so which is not true, but that's how people would behaving.
And so I put my fingers down my throat. I
just didn't know what else to do, Like I need food.
(32:04):
We need food to live. The crazy thing about an
eating disorder is that there's no escape. Like I know
that you've you've already mentioned, you know, like battles with alcoholism,
you don't need alcohol to survive.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Literally, Yeah, food's really hard one. I've had a guy
who was a food addict on the show. Yeah, and
that's a really, really hard one because you actually need
food to sport.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
You have to confront the thing that you're scared of
three times a day. At least it.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Must have been, you know, obviously very hard for your
siblings and your parents.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, they fucking know what's going on there.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
I just don't know because there's so many children in
my family's so much.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
This has to stop. What was the moment when.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Well, I mean I would have started around when I
was seventeen, and this is also at the same time
that I met this guy at UNI and maybe a
year into our relationship. I mean, by this stage, I'm
like blacking out when I stand up, but my hair's
falling out, all these ulcers and stuff. It's not good.
So yeah, my body was not doing great, and I
(33:07):
eventually just I was so embarrassed. It's so embarrassing to
admit to somebody that you're hurting yourself because you think
you're ugly. It feels really like weak even saying it.
It's just so embarrassing. It's like something's gone really wrong
with me, and I'm embarrassed to tell you this is
how warped it's got. But I was so shamed because
it just felt embarrassing. I mean, and the one thing
that really freaked me out, I was like, he's going
(33:29):
to think that he's been kissing me and my mouth
has been doing these terrible things. You know, I've been
vomiting all the time, and I thought he would just
never want to touch me again. But he was so compassionate.
And I know that lots of people who go through
disordered relationships with eating have shame responses from others like
how could you do this well? But he never even
(33:50):
entered that realm. It was like just compassion. He never
made me feel silly for doing it. It was just
compassion of like, oh my god, I hope that you
can learn to be nice to yourself because I adore you.
That kind of thing. And actually what he did was
he was like, I don't know how to help, but
would it help if I ate with you and not
(34:11):
in a way that was like we eat the same
this is this he was like. I explained to him,
I don't know when i'm hungry anymore, and I don't
know when i'm full, and they feel the same. And
he was like, well, I always know when I'm hungry,
like constantly. And he was like, if we eat together,
I'll stop when I'm full and I'll just tell you
it doesn't matter how much you eat. But like, I
trust myself. Yeah, and so I would just eat at
(34:33):
the same time as him to begin with, not necessarily
the same thing, but I'd be like, okay, well that
was a human amount that he's had. It's all fine.
And it took years.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yeah, I have. I had a similar experience. So I
lost a bunch of weight for a magazine thing and
couldn't tell when I was full, and I would just
shovel that's the word that they use for it. I
was shoveling, shoveling food. I couldn't tell what I was
f and I was like, this is not good. Yeah,
I couldn't feel word about it. It's different, but yeah,
for me too, when those hormones aren't responding correctly, when
(35:04):
the signal to tell you things are okay. And so
it took a while. But what's it like now on
the other side of this. I mean, you're a very
public person. You're you know, you see pictures of yourself,
you see footage of yourself. Are you able to go actually?
How fucking come a long way? Is it difficult to
look at yourself like that.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I've definitely come a long way. I could not pretend
even for a second that I am free of this.
I feel like it's when I do hear alcoholics talk
about it, or addict people who have gone through addiction,
I immediately recognize the language of it's always there. Yeah,
Like you know, one drink might send you over the edge.
(35:41):
Yeah yeah, Like I feel like one one purge would
do it right, Like it's just below the surface. But
the thing that has changed for me, that is the
huge distance that I've traveled, is that I'm able to
try and separate out objective and subject subjective feelings that
I have in my body. Like if I eat a
meal and I feel full, subjectively, I think to myself,
(36:04):
I think I must look so much bigger now that
I've had one meal. It's a strange thing in my mind.
I don't mean to be fat fobic or anything. It's
like this feeling that I have, like I think my
whole body has changed shape now I've eaten one meal. Yeah,
that's a really true feeling that I have. I have
changed visibly in front of everyone by eating this one meal.
(36:24):
But objectively, I'm a human person who fueled their body
with one meal. So you say both true things and
you try and figure out which one is the objective one,
and so it doesn't mean you can delete the subjective
feelings that you have. But it's like, I'm quite sure
that this.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Was a hue to be with both, and we're able
to go, where's the evidence? Yeah, where was the evidence? Fature,
there's and it's I mean, at first what I would
check my thinking with other people. I didn't like that
I had to check my thinking with other people. But
after I got over that, I just do it. And
it's smile easies. It's like I just got this idea.
They're like, I really just fucked that whole thing up there,
(36:58):
No you didn't, thank you, and then just check you
know that the whole time like it. Yeah, I know,
thank you, but they said it's cool. So I'm just
going to chill with them for a while, and unless
there's some fucking massive ramification that both of us missed,
I'll know that they were right.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Well, I'm even like this with the show, Like I
will very off of my poor crew. They're so they endure,
they endure my anxiety. But you know, I'll walk off
stage and five thousand people have come to sell out
the Horden or whatever, and I will teach the show
and I'll walk off stage and be like, I think
I fuck that up, but everyone cheered and everyone had
a great time, and they already want a ticket for
the next show. Like one of them is subjective and
(37:35):
one of them is objective, and you just have to
go with that one.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
How do you choose the tracks that you're going to douse?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I try and read the room. I mean, I like
to try and pick a song that I think suits
where we're at. I don't always get it right, and
plus everyone feels differently, but you know, if we've all
been really going through it lately, I might try and
pick something really up or like a punk soul or
something that we just like can like Fiz Pump in
the air, like I try and just meet people where
(38:12):
they're at, because I really want my audiences to understand
that music is shaped around us and can meet us
in our needs. Not we just go through and we
just worship at other people's like alter of talent, Like
we can do that as well. But you can shape
the music so that it feels right for you, and
(38:34):
I think that's huge for people. It's like it's a
privilege to know how to do that, and I like
to facilitate that for people and to be like you
feel angry, shout this.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
It's granting ourselves the permission once again to do this
thing that we were born to do, this thing that
feels really good for us, and the thing is good
for us when we do it with other people.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I feel like I should say I always hope that
pub Quiry is like the jumping off point for people.
Sometimes I see little pockets of the Internet being like
that bitch thinks she's like capitalized choir, and I'm like, no,
don't you see we're not in competition with each other.
Just because people come to my show doesn't mean that
they're not going to join a choir. Quite the opposite,
I think is that it just opens people's mind to
(39:13):
the post just.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Really really clear, just like and make me no matter.
Those people can get absolutely fine because they're not creating
this experience for thousands of people at once. Like the
deployment of psychological interventions at scale is really really really
hard to do, really hard to do. That's why there's
(39:34):
never enough therapists for everybody. But this experience you're giving people,
that's what people buy a ticket for. They want to
feel different to how they feel before they went into
the show, no matter what show you go to see it.
It's true, all right, but you're giving them something beyond that,
and you're allowing them to take home something that isn't
from the merchandise stand.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
The take home also by our merch but you go
on absolutely if you.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Have a band by their merch all the time, by
the thing, by the thing, you're giving them an experience
that the otherwise would never get, an uplifting, emotional one
which has nothing to do with anything except I'm standing
in a room with strangers and now we're a little
closer when we leave. Thank you very that being nice.
We need to feel that we're a part of something bigger,
(40:16):
and if we spend our whole time just like staring
into an led screen, we might be scratching the itch
of I'm a part of something bigger, but we're not. Actually.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
I think that's one of the most important things that
right at the beginning of the show, I might put
your phone in your pocket. You weren't going to watch
the videos back anyway, you don't even have the phone storage,
and you're going to miss the show because the show
is you don't look at your phone eyes up, like
it's an eyes up sort of show. And I think
just me bullying everyone into putting their phone in their
(40:47):
pocket and just freeing them and like the eyes up
experience is rare now it's one of the last analogue
things that we're doing that in Funeral is put your
phone away, And so I think that it has become
really a I didn't know that at the beginning, but
that is becoming increasingly crucial to the experience. It's like, no, no, no, no,
look up and feel something. Anything at this point would
(41:07):
be good. But if you can eyes up and look
around and see who else is helping, see who's confident,
and ask for help. You know, like we're in this
moment at the same time. It would be a shame
to miss it because you're like trying to zoom in.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
You're facilitating community engagement in a safe way, and that's
the thing that we all need. Loneliness is like, what
did I read this set the other day?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
It's like worse than smoking a package.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah, it's fifteen cigarettes today. Loneliness is as bad for
you as fifteen siguters that cigarettes today. And the other thing.
People who are who participate four times a month in
something along what you're describing in an organized group community thing,
they have on average a fourteen year longer lifespan fourteen fourteen.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
That's huge. Come to the show everyone, because.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
You think about why, right, Oh, there's people who are
looking out for me. I have a reason to go
and be I have I a contribute. I feel useful.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
I think that's actually that's really important to note, is
like pub choir is a one night stand. You can
keep coming back to the show, but it will always change.
There's thousands of people. I hope that people join their
choir if they enjoyed the experience, because you will see
the same faces again and you matter. You know your
voice will make a difference, an audible difference to that group.
Pub choir we can't hear, so you're free to enjoy
(42:29):
the experience. But there are so many choirs around the country,
and all of them one singers, especially men, and I
think it's so good for you. I've read a study
singers in a choir their heartbeat synchronized when they sing
because they're exerting themselves in the same way. They're all
breathing out in the same way, and then in It
is so like cellular the connection that we get when
(42:51):
making art with others using our singing voices. Like go
and experience this such a human connection.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
It's an important thing. You What have you found out
about because I learned this through you, through idle and
certainly in my own work. There's being perfect and then
there's just committing. Which one is more important?
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Oh my god, the committing. You have to be lucky
and commit the whole time. I I work so hard
it's getting silly, like I probably need some more boundaries.
But I really take pride in being precise about what
will make something work. That's probably the biggest challenges surrounding
myself with people who have the same dedication to the
precision of what we're doing. I just think I'm not
(43:41):
fucking around with this. I know that I wrote a
book about shooting my pants or whatever, but at the
end of the day, I have worked so so hard
to build this thing. It started with seventy people. I
was also a school teacher at the same time. I
was also running six choirs every night of the week,
I was half selling. I feel like I haven't truly
(44:02):
had a moment to relax and soak it in since
it started. But I feel like this is the appetite
now that I have. Where I'm not sure when I'm
full is that I just keep I feel like I'm
on the frontier of a new human experience or something,
and I'm like it's I almost feel obligated to find
out where it goes. So I will just keep incrementally
improving what I have already learned and apply that knowledge
(44:26):
each time, and I hope that it gets better and better.
And I'm so curious to see where it goes, because
I really don't think anyone's done this before. Choirs have
always existed, pubs have always existed, people have sung drunk
for thousands of years. However, the way that I've put
it together, using this visual methodology and this like improvised
comedy lesson that I'm doing, and the scale like it's
(44:49):
not a thousand people singing along, it's a thousand people
singing in harmony that they just learned. This is a
new human thing. And so I just feel like I
will keep going until I find an end, until people
like we don't want to see anymore. If people buy tickets,
I'm like, well let's go. Yeah, what happens next.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
The He's an actor, Dan McPherson. He's a dear friend
and I love him. He once got pulled up during
an AD break of the Logis. He got pulled up
on stage by and they do a lot to try
to keep that room occupied for the four minutes when
you're on an AD break, Right, He got pulled up
on stage with this comedian and they were trying to
(45:29):
teach him some fucking dumb dance man and I looked
at him and was like, oh damn, and it was
so cringe worthy and dances went. And this is the
guy who at the time was like shooting you know,
who's like a big war guy and was, you know,
making this big Navy seal movie. And he went and
he took off his jacket and he just fucking went
for it. And I text him afterwards like, man, you're
(45:50):
raising and goes when in doubt, commit commit to the beds.
I will always commit to the bid. And so when
it comes to singing, I noticed this on an idol.
It didn't like Shannon Grassy look not the best thinger
at the time. Didn't fucking matter. I believed every word
he said and he absolutely committed to it. There's a
(46:11):
big difference between hitting the notes and singing, and if
you are there just it's like, you know, what would
you do with karaoke if no one gave you hoot?
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Do that?
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Just fucking go for it, and people will pay that
you went for it way more than they'll pay your pitch.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Absolutely, I would so choose meaning over note every single time,
every day. I mean, ideally there's both. But you know,
if I had.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
To choose, wear this intersex. Which I love is that
you also did this in the realm of the shiny
floor television when you went and did the Got Talent
show in the States. That must have been something extraordinary
to do that.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
I think at a certain point you just reached saturation
of like things you can absorb. I mean, like I
know factual things about that appearance, like five million people
watch each episode in America, and Terry Crews is on
stage holding my hand, and like there's a spice girl
and whatever. I found out since it's past two hundred
and fifty million views the clip of my audition. But
(47:17):
I don't really understand what that means for me. I
was at work, I was teaching whoever was in front
of me how to sing something like I always do.
But it is wild to see on paper on what
that means. But I think I'm too present in the
moment to really be able to absorb all of that.
I did go on that Talent show not because I
(47:39):
think that music should be competitive. I have never felt
that art is it's incomparable. We can't compete. But I
really thought it would be a fun opportunity to flip
the script and just be like, the audience is the
main character of art.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
If people are listening to these, can you they might
not be able to get to pubquirl? Right? Does it
count singing along to the radio in your car?
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Singing along is a nice thing and a good experience
to do. Being the singer is different. Go join a choir,
there's just thousands. There's thousands out there. There's so many.
There will be acquire near you. In every regional town
there will be. If you're in a city, there'll be
acquir that does glee songs and acchoir that only does barbershop.
Like there's just there's a musical room. Have been in both, yes,
(48:29):
haven't we all? I mean there's like, there's many many
rooms in the house of music. If choir is not
it for you, there's probably a ukulele club as well,
next door at the next community hall. The thing with
pub choir is the bouncing off point. It's the context
for people's lives. It's a bit tiddy. The stakes are
low for you, hi for me, But there's just so
(48:51):
many opportunities to make music with each other. I'm always
team choir because you don't have to buy anything. You
have to bring yourself and the strument that you have
is unique, which I think is a really great reason
to use it, even if it's bad, because no one
else has that one. I would say I do think
listening more is a good first step trying to hear
(49:14):
the thing that you want. And an extension of that is,
could you hear the note that you want in your
head just before you sing it? Because I would say,
as a person who has given music lessons and being
a music teacher, the problem that I've often picked up
is that people are making noises and then thinking they
make a noise, and then they're like, oh, I missed,
(49:34):
and I'm like, well, now it's too late, isn't it.
It would be better if you could think about the
noise that you want just before you need it. It's
like preparing your body to make sound. In the book,
I talk about when you play darts, you look at
the board and then you line up the tip of
the dart, and then you prepare your body and your
muscles and then you throw. Do the same thing with singing.
It's like you line up the note that you need
(49:55):
and you prepare your body for where that might be high, low, loud, soft,
and then you see because by the time you've sung
the notes too late to take it back. You can't
there's no take back six. You can't suck it back in.
So think about what you want first, and isn't that
a good analogy for life. Think first and then make
your noise works.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
And if the noise is average.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Then I mean, it's not a crime. It's fine, it's
a move on. Next note, please, Yeah, it's all right,
it's all right, everything's fine.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
What did it like? I've had such a lovely times.
Fore you go with you? Thanks for coming in. That
was Astra Jorgenson. Her memoir is called average at Best.
If you're listening to this as soon as it comes out,
pubquir has got two days right around the country. The
link for that is in the show notes, as well
as a link for So What Now What, my new book,
which you can get right now, as well as tickets
(50:47):
for Story Club. Come to see the show in the
twelfth of October. Will be at the Factory Theater with
Cam Walker, Jenfricker, Lucy Bloom, Imma Na Cheety and Zoe
Norton Lodge and myself. Thanks so much for listening, Enjoy
the sing whatever you see, enjoy it because I don't
know about you, but that show made me want to
sing Bye bye.
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