TBT: Machine Gun Kelly

Strap in for Season 8, babies! Bunnie sits down with Machine Gun Kelly for a vulnerable, no-holds-barred conversation. MGK opens up about his tumultuous past, from childhood trauma to his complicated relationship with his mom, and shares his journey to forgiveness. He goes deep into his evolution from battle rap to rock stardom, discussing why it's okay to blaze your own path as an artist. MGK gets candid about finding love with Megan Fox, his sobriety journey, and touching fatherhood moments with daughter Casie. He talks about his new collab with Jelly Roll, "Lonely Road", and gets us all misty talking about their beautiful friendship. MGK: Website https://www.machinegunkelly.com/ Watch Full Episodes & More: www.dumbblondeunrated.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bunnie XO?

  Hey guys, I need to ask you a question. I wanna know, why in the hell are you not on Patreon? I don't think you guys even realize how much content we have on Patreon. Let me break it down for you. We have the Bunny XO Show, we have Meet the D-Fords, we have Popaganda, we have more shows that we're adding, and not to mention, we have the visuals of the podcast. Not only that, we have four tiers that caters to everybody's budget and everybody gets the podcast. There's no more excuses. Head over to www.patreon.com/dumblonpodcast and sign up. Stop missing out. We have built a huge community over there, guys. I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of people over there.

• 0:41Bunnie XO?

  We even have live chats, live chats that I actually am talking in every single night. Last but not least, we give away gifts every frickin' month. I'm talking like signed stuff from Jay and I lives. You just never know what kinda surprise you're gonna get. It's like a Cracker Jack box. I love the community that we've built over there at Patreon. If you are already a Patreon member, I freaking love you dude. Thank you so much. You guys are my babies for life, my writers. If I could, I would literally make out with each and every one of you. I love you guys so much, and that's a lot of kisses, actually. Gotta go bye.

• 1:39Bunnie XO?

  Is this thing on? Hi babies, welcome back to season eight. Today, I have a triple threat. I mean, I don't even know, I think he might be a quadruple threat, but this man needs no introduction. Mr. MGK in the house, baby.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Hello, hi everybody.

• 1:55Bunnie XO?

  You've had a day.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  I've had, yeah, it's been a gnarly 96 hours, for sure.

• 2:02Bunnie XO?

  I feel like you don't ever stop, though.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Nah, this was my first four-day music video shoot, which you were in.

• 2:07Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 2:09Bunnie XO?

  And thank you for having us. Let's talk about it. What was, what was the video shoot about?

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Um, well, it was visually inspired by Beyond the Pines, I think story wise as well. Um, the first twenty minutes, anyway.

• 2:24Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, if you guys are gonna watch, if you're gonna watch Beyond the Pine, don't watch any more than thirty. After Ryan Gosling has his moment, don't watch it.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  It is, it's quite, uh...

• 2:36Bunnie XO?

  Thrill kill.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:37Bunnie XO?

  It's like a thrill and then it's just like, what happened?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  You're like, wait a minute, like, he's on every poster, this movie has to be about him. Yeah, that was kind of a trip. But aesthetically, that, I love riding motorcycles. I think telling the story of, uh...

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Lower-middle-class, struggling family and relationship is really what I grew up seeing. So it was something that felt, um, right to do on a song that everyone keeps telling me is a hit. So I think the glamorous approach was obvious and I kinda went the other way and kept it G. Like how me and Jelly's, um...

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Background is.

• 3:28Bunnie XO?

  You guys went back to your roots.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  I think, absolutely, I think, like, you know, we repped for...

• 3:36Speaker 01

  You know, when you get it, when you are exploring yourself in front of all these cameras and in the industry, um... Sorry, guys.

• 3:46Bunnie XO?

  These are some beautiful cats, by the way. Yeah, these are some awesome cats that just walked in, they're like, "Dad's home."

• 3:53Speaker 01

  But when you're exploring yourself in front of the cameras and, you know, you're seeing success and, you know, you obviously idolize people and lifestyles and things, you kind of, you know, you're doing your own outfit changes metaphorically towards...

• 4:11Speaker 01

  What you think would look cool with this era, what would look cool with that era. In this era for me, after all the glitz and glam of the last run that I've had, is just back to my roots, man. I went all the way to the top and I am just like,

• 4:29Speaker 01

  alright, I've seen it.

• 4:30Bunnie XO?

  I'm so excited.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  I'm out.

• 4:32Bunnie XO?

  I am so excited to deep dive all of this with you. So, circling back to the video though, so the song is for Lonely Roads, which my husband is gonna be featuring on. And that's out right now.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:45Bunnie XO?

  Because by the time this drops, it's gonna be out, so you guys need to go listen to it.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:49Bunnie XO?

  And when do you think the music video is gonna drop? Is it gonna drop before?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  I think the music video will be out by the time this is out.

• 4:54Bunnie XO?

  Yes, so you guys gotta go watch it.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:56Bunnie XO?

  Because it's gonna be awesome.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  I feel really, I don't really know what to do with my hands. Is it cool if I roll a cigarette?

• 5:03Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, of course. I would sit back, you know, this is your house, so I'm not telling you what to do on your couch. So, you have talked a lot about your childhood. And I just kinda wanna go back in time a little bit with you on that. Can we speak on your childhood a little bit?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. If I've spoken on my childhood, you know, if you're reflecting on past interviews, I don't really know how far they go back, but some of them was a very insecure, uh, excuse me. Insecure with speaking on just almost any interview I had done in which I covered myself with a egoic exoskeleton, but as far as my childhood,

• 5:45Speaker 01

  some of that I've spoke on in a way that I was still just very confused and very angry, and so I do

• 5:54Speaker 01

  not stand by everything that I said

• 5:59Speaker 01

  about the people in my life and my childhood because they deserve forgiveness and something different than the way that I may have.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Just, you know, so anyway.

• 6:12Bunnie XO?

  That actually kind of made me want to tear up because anybody that's ever, oh, let me get a hold of myself here. Anybody that's ever dealt with childhood trauma has gone through a time in their life where they were just so angry that they've said so many things about the people that were in their life that until you get to a breakthrough and you come, I don't want to say come out of the darkness because I feel like we're always sort of gonna have one foot in. But when you get to a point where you can look at them with love or forgiveness is huge.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  And they're just big kids. Like as a parent, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing every single day of my life as a parent. You're just figuring it out constantly, but hopefully doing it with love.

• 7:03Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  And sometimes, like in my situation with my father, he was so tormented from some of the most insane shit that I could imagine a kid could go through that he had to figure it out. But with almost every possible bad circumstance going against him too. So it's, it's, it's almost like the expectations are too high. Because we think, uh,

• 7:46Speaker 01

  that they're just, that, that they know everything because we grew up looking up at them. But we, we're, we're all just lost in trying to figure it out.

• 7:55Bunnie XO?

  I feel like you've been fighting since you came out of the womb. I'm just looking down at my notes here, but it says, you know, you, you were born with your umbilical cord wrapped around your neck, correct?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:05Bunnie XO?

  So I mean, you were already fighting the minute that you came out.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:09Bunnie XO?

  When you were born, you had your mom and your dad. I don't ever really hear you talk about your mom a lot. And a lot of the stuff that I got from your childhood, I didn't take from interviews. I kind of, if you listen to your music, you tell a story.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:22Bunnie XO?

  You speak a lot about your life in music. And I think that anybody that is, you know, a fan of yours or a listener of yours would know them.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I saved a lot of my, um, interview moments for my lyrics. So I think a lot of my childhood is represented in my songs. Um, my mom and I actually have reconnected in a really

• 8:51Speaker 01

  intense way in the past three or four years. Um, you know, that's how my fam- family is, they're, they're all from Norway. They're extremely Norwegian, so very stoic. You know, so the emotional side of things I get from my father, who was very, um,

• 9:13Speaker 01

  you know, he wore everything on his sleeve, right? So like, his depression was very obvious. His need for, for love was very, you know, like, uh, I, I was, I, I wish, I wish I could have told him, um,

• 9:32Speaker 01

  before he died that I was really inspired by how emotional he was. And like how, I thought that was really cool in hindsight.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Because I am very emotional as well. Probably because everything in my childhood is so Pisces, but, um, yeah, I was saying that on July 5th, it's the same day Hotel Diablo came out. Uh, but that's also the day he died and it, and it trips me out because on the album, I said, doctors said my dad won't be here a year from now. And then a year to the day he died. And then on that date this year, I was outside and I was, um, doing a ritual for him just to try and see if I could channel any.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  If I could hear him at all. But I did tell him what I, what I just said. Sorry if I'm very long-winded, I, I'm pretty awkward as a human and so I, I don't really know if, what I'm saying, if, if anyone gives a fuck, so maybe I'll just move on. What was the, what's the next question?

• 10:33Bunnie XO?

  You don't have to apologize though, it's actually beautiful what you say and it's so real and I think people need to hear what you have to say because there's a lot of people who are working through, including myself, who I just lost my dad last month and I, I know exactly what you're going through with, you know, a father who was absent, you know, in certain things and like, you know, just, we're all dealing with childhood trauma, but um, your dad actually, it says that um, your dad was tried at nine years old for his own father's death?

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:08Bunnie XO?

  Can we talk about that?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  I think so, that's interesting that you,

• 11:19Speaker 01

  yeah. Yeah, sure.

• 11:23Bunnie XO?

  That has to contribute to how he was as a father to you because it seems like it was almost um, generational, like passed down.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, every medium that I've spoke to or seer that I've spoke to says there's a generational curse on all the men in my family that they will die alone. And they've all died alone.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  I'm the seventh generation, which means that I should be able to break the curse and I was born on the twenty-second, which is a master number and the numerology behind mine is a curse breaker. So, I do hope in this lifetime that I master my best self and what I'm supposed to do. It's a very difficult road that I'm on right now with that and my father's uh, childhood journey definitely bled into mine because we uh, we shared the same bed, the same bed for um, years and that was.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  You know, the

• 12:23Speaker 01

  the body, especially if you're intuitive or born intuitive, your body receives the energy from all around you. So, you know, those years that my dad slept,

• 12:35Speaker 01

  depressed, I took on all that. And I just remember finding that I always used to get so mad at him when I was a kid because if I scared him or he heard a loud boom or a loud noise, he would freak out, like gnarly freak out. And I would be like,

• 12:59Speaker 01

  you're supposed to be like, you're supposed to be a man, dude. Like, why are you acting like this? And I would, we would, you know, it just made me hate him.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  And then you sit there and you think about a kid who was on trial at nine years old for the murder of his father. And knowing that, the police came and found the shotgun underneath the bed. And the story that was told to me was always that, you know, their dad dropped the gun in his head.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Essentially blew off. And so that all happened in the room with my dad at nine years old. And so him and my grandmother were tried for the murder.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  They were both acquitted.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  And I had a very interesting

• 13:51Speaker 01

  talk with him on his deathbed about that moment.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Which

• 14:00Speaker 01

  I think I'll leave that between me and my father.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  You know, that led to a lot of, like, you know, he had split personality and, and, and, you know, schizophrenia runs really heavy in my, in that side of the family.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  So a lot of things, man, I've taken on and I think

• 14:23Speaker 01

  I've

• 14:25Speaker 01

  projected myself to be somebody

• 14:30Speaker 01

  who

• 14:33Speaker 01

  has the stamina to endure all of these.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Things that come with fame and criticism and hate. Because I fought back with all those traumas by becoming

• 14:58Speaker 01

  what I always wanted my dad to be, which was like tough and, you know, shake everything off and just fight anyone who, you know, comes at you. I, I, I never understood why he was so closed.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  But dude, I'm tired and I'm a really shy, fucked up kid and internally and really broken and I'm just now fixing myself and I don't have the energy to be the image that I was.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Because I'm also kinda sick of being on an island alone where no one is, outside of my fans, you know, my fans who really can read the music and read into the music, sorry. But as far as like public persona, I'm really, really sick of being

• 15:51Speaker 01

  what they think I am. So I don't really know how I got onto that from my dad's story, but I don't know how you found that either. That's a very like, that was a very, uh,

• 16:08Speaker 01

  quite the piece of information to stumble upon.

• 16:11Bunnie XO?

  Um, I just did a little bit of research and I just, you know, I try to figure out what makes people tick and who they are and, you know, when I first met you, I even told Jay, I was like, this is a sweet boy that just has a wallop. Something hurt him and I just wanted to kind of, you know, and I'm sorry if I interfered or anything like that with, with your process that's going on, but I just kinda wanted to figure out like, you know, where is this hurt coming from and, you know, I just, I like to just go deep and figure out, you know.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's the truth and I don't run from the truth, you know, my, my father was on trial for a murder at nine years old, like I...

• 16:50Speaker 01

  That I watched every day.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  And you know, my mom, who's who's such a sweet woman, who I

• 17:02Speaker 01

  was was

• 17:05Speaker 01

  molded to be so mad at.

• 17:08Bunnie XO?

  Molded by your dad?

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:10Bunnie XO?

  Okay. When did she leave?

• 17:12Speaker 01

  At nine.

• 17:13Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  So both my dad and I had interesting nine or nine or 10 years. I think it was nine or 10 and it wasn't and it wasn't leave also. I like I I I mean, she left, but also my father was

• 17:27Bunnie XO?

  Hard to deal with.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Dude was gnarly, you know, like super gnarly.

• 17:34Bunnie XO?

  When was your dad's birthday? What sign was he?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  December 30th.

• 17:37Bunnie XO?

  Capricorn.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  And so I, you know, he would like the only word I didn't hear the word mom during my whole teenage years. All I heard was whore.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  And my mom is like the sweetest woman ever. And she's a scientist and she's so smart. And she's and and, you know, she's beautiful and she

• 18:04Speaker 01

  you know, I I really, I really missed her and I really regret missing all those years because of

• 18:16Speaker 01

  who

• 18:18Speaker 01

  I was, you know.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Those years are really important, you know, people, people shape you no matter how much you try to be your own.

• 18:25Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  So she helped me, you know, to realize that that all those things that happened. Especially just like that, like you can isolate just that. I mean, there's a lot of shit with my family, you know, like my dad lost his his brother. My dad has a twin. They were triplets. The triplet died at birth.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Uh, and if you just isolate the, you know, that trial. My dad after that, like I said, every, every loud noise, he would react like, cause he, you know.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  But he became, have you ever seen American Psycho?

• 19:01Bunnie XO?

  I haven't seen it.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Well, Christian Bale's character.

• 19:04Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yes, I'm so sorry.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Everything that he does is black or white. Right? There's no gray area. Every piece of clothing is folded perfectly. It's ironed.

• 19:15Bunnie XO?

  I feel like he had a little bit of autism.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  The, the, this, he would shave every morning. There was, there was, his isms like were so. Definitive and that's how my father was, like every piece of clothing was like this. He was obsessed with suspenders.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  And so, you know, you, that was the same thing, like did I, uh, uh, one, there was so many things that I did around that my dad would always like. Put in check, but I remember one, every time I held my pen like this.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  That's lazy. You hold your pens, you hold your pen like this. And.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  It's just everything was that. Like I remember when, when the first time I got arrested, when we got out, he sat us down and it was the Bible. You know, like.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  It's just, uh, yeah, like, uh, everything was very, there was no, oh yeah, you can do it your way. Like what, what's, what's your things that you wanna do?

• 20:16Bunnie XO?

  It sounded like he might have had a little bit of like severe OCD also. There's a song that you say, my heart was broke like my ribs as a kid when me and my father fought.

• 20:27Bunnie XO?

  Is that? A true story?

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:31Bunnie XO?

  Dad break your ribs?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and, and, and vice versa. It was more so his ribs than my ribs. Both, both of us got fucked up. I remember that, that specific fight was in a, was in our kitchen in Cleveland. And, uh, we were.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Uber twinning cuz both of us has this big ass black and purple. Right here.

• 20:55Bunnie XO?

  So you guys were just in your living room, just.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Kitchen.

• 20:58Bunnie XO?

  Going to kitchen, going at it.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was pretty common though, and I was a really, I acted out a lot, like one, I, once I got to the point where. I could fight back, I was just. On it, you know, but, but. Yeah, and I, and I was angry and I also, my dream was so.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  It wa- it was so potent, like nothing could stop my dream, I was going to be. A rapper, I was going to be a performer, like there was no.

• 21:26Bunnie XO?

  You manifested.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Curfew for me. And any, any punishment I had to take, I would take it. Um. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, when me, I'll never forget when me, Slim and Dub, we came to my house one day. And, uh, all of the furniture was gone and my dad was just sitting on the floor and he was like, going to Africa.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  My dad just did, and I saw, and I didn't see him till I was, till I was twenty six and I had already, you know, kinda achieved the dream. And, uh. I just remember.

• 22:00Bunnie XO?

  How old were you?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Uh, I think I was, uh, he had, he had.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Met my daughter.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Once before he left, so it was, I was probably nineteen cuz she was. You know, I was having the baby when I was eighteen and I was like, Dad, I'm having a kid, and that was another thing where he was like, there's no fucking way. Absolutely no way you're having, and he was, you know, disappointed cuz I was working in fast food and he was like. You know, why the fuck didn't you become a collegiate scholar?

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Um.

• 22:32Bunnie XO?

  Your mom, so just circling back to that real quick, just to clarify, so when she.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Just to clarify, my cat is shitting over there, so.

• 22:38Bunnie XO?

  Nice.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Uh, you guys.

• 22:41Bunnie XO?

  Catch the downwind.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Any downwind that is.

• 22:43Bunnie XO?

  Little air biscuits, we're good.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  That's, and that's my. That's my trouble child, I think he got it.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that one's tickets.

• 22:54Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, so. Going back to mom, just to clarify, when she left home, you chose not to be a part of her life? Or did she just go no contact with you?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Uh, well, you know, another thing that kind of came with her and I reconnecting was just realizing that my dad was keeping me from her for years.

• 23:15Bunnie XO?

  To hurt her.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and uh

• 23:21Speaker 01

  yeah, I mean, I, you know, I had had all those frustrations, like, why the fuck would you never call? Why would you never show up? I was in all these things came out like I was literally in your front yard and got the cops calling me. I, you know, every time I called, he would answer the phone and

• 23:38Speaker 01

  you know, go off. And so I, that was, that was a manipulative, uh, parent move. Where again, it's, it's really funny. I was at a Blink one eighty-two show the other night and, uh, they're about to do Stay Together for the kids, which is like, it's one of my, it's probably my favorite Blink song. And it's a song about broken home. And he was like, if anybody comes from a broken home, you know, raise, raise your cellphone lights. So all these cellphone lights go up. He's like, I just want you to know that it's all your fault.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  It's really funny because that was a prime example of that where it was like, I was kind of the tool of manipulation between the whole thing where.

• 24:21Bunnie XO?

  But it's never your fault.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  I, I understand, but I have to laugh at it at this point and, and, and honestly, it, it really, it, I kind of was, I kind of, there, there, it.

• 24:33Bunnie XO?

  There's a quote I heard today that I actually absolutely fell in love with. And it said, um, sometimes you're older than your elders on an energy level. Your parents might be younger than you spiritually.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Well, that is me and my daughter because my daughter is a wise oak tree.

• 24:48Bunnie XO?

  I have that in my notes. And we're gonna, so we're gonna talk about her too. We can move on to that. Um, let's talk about.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Well, I would like to say for the record, I, I, I loved my mom dearly and I, and I misrepresented her a lot early in my career. And not misrepresented in the sense of not speaking truth. I was speaking my truth, but I didn't give the masses a chance to understand her truth and I didn't, I wasn't in contact with her to understand her truth. And there was plenty of things that I was mad at her about because it was like, your fight has to be stronger. Like you gotta, you gotta get to me. You, if, you, you know, you gotta Liam Neeson this shit.

• 25:29Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, no, I get it.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Come fucking find me no matter what it takes. And, you know, because I was stuck in that situation, you know, my, the house I was even living in with my aunt and her husband, who was a giant piece of shit, I, I shouldn't have been, I shouldn't have been in that place, but.

• 25:55Bunnie XO?

  Can we touch on your aunt too? She was somebody who was very dear to you.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  That was my dog for life.

• 26:01Bunnie XO?

  Which was it, mother's or father's side?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  That was my dad's older sister.

• 26:06Bunnie XO?

  And tell me, take me on that journey with you guys' relationship.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  She was like the biggest supporter of any dream I had. I, I, I wanted to be a Jedi so bad.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  And, you know, she bought me this hockey stick so that I could take the end of the, the little hitting part off so I could have like a staff, like a lightsaber. And I would just always be in the yard and just be like, you know, I'd attach a carabiner to a rope to a tree and I would put a bandana over my eyes, like when they train and the lasers come with them and they can just feel. So I would always like hit the carabiner in the front yard and she would, any dream I had, she would be like, hell yeah, you're gonna be a Jedi. Like what, what can I do to support it? And I, when I wanted to be a battle rapper, you know, I would always make her watch, um, videos with me on BET and MTV and she was like, well, we gotta, you know, we gotta get you looking like that. So she took me and she got me my first like.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  You know hip hop outfit.

• 27:08Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Which in hindsight.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  I looked so fucking stupid.

• 27:14Bunnie XO?

  No, what was it? Now you gotta tell me what it was.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  It was probably just like some like Anichi denim shorts that were just like. Down to like my shins with like with these stitches in them. So it was different colored denim on it, matching denim, whatever. But it's crazy because when I wore that to school. Everyone all of a sudden, it was like right when at the end of the year, when all the yearbooks, you sign everyone's yearbook and the first. My on my sixth grade yearbook, it's so cool because no one signed it because I had no friends except for my one, my one boy who's, who's locked up and was still my friend. But uh, seventh grade, man, when I pulled up in that denim thing, everyone wanted to sign my yearbook and I was battle rapping too. So everyone was like, hell yeah. You know, like they were, they were fucking with my heart. They could see I was. They could see I was vicious and I had good rhymes.

• 28:00Bunnie XO?

  As a child, that's all you need is one person in your corner, just telling you, you can be whatever the fuck you want to be.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Totally. And then, I mean, she carried that mentality. So heavy into my career because she worked at Target. And um.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Dude, I, we would, there was a strip club across the street called Shotgun Willie's. And it was in the parking lot of this Target and um, one of my proudest moments was pulling the tour bus up to Target.

• 28:28Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  To pick her up.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  But she had a, she had these glasses on. And I was like, Barbara, like, you know, take your glasses off. Like I want, you know, connect with me or whatever. And she wouldn't take them off. And I was like. I was like, what's wrong? And you know, she, she finally took her glasses off. She had a black eye.

• 28:48Bunnie XO?

  Oh no.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  My uncle had fucked her up.

• 28:50Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  And.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  You know, one, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't. Just go kill that motherfucker right there, you know, and like that was. Obviously. In the plans, but everybody was like, dude, you have so much going for you, you know, like, don't. Don't make this decision, but that was my heart, you know, like I, I, I couldn't. Take.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  That anyone did that to her, you know, so.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Espe- especially him, but um.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Anyway, cut to a couple of years later.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  You know, we're at the, we're at this, uh, at Shotgun Willie's. And all the dancers are coming up to me. And they're like, yo, we like, we love your aunt. You know, is, is, does she work at Target? And I was like, yeah. She was like, yeah. They were like, yeah, anytime we go over there to buy anything. She always has like MGK CDs next to her register.

• 29:47Bunnie XO?

  Oh my goodness.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  And if you look young. Or you buy anything that resembles like you might listen to me, she'd be like, have you guys heard of MGK? That's my nephew. You should buy the CD. Or like if I was on the cover of a magazine, like Inked Magazine or something like that, she'd be like. You know, if someone's buying like a, I don't know, a cool T-shirt or another CD or something, she'd be like. Dude, you should, you should buy my nephew's, uh, magazine cover. And so she was obsessed with. With me and I was like a really, really inspiring person in my life. And, you know, watching her go through. Cancer and then beating that and, um.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  She was always really resilient. But she, she and my father, they both died from, from liver cirrhosis. They, they, they drank themselves to death. That was a, uh.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  That was a hard one to buy, especially because the last phone call that I had, I, I cut her off. Like I was, I was in a, I was in a really bad mood. I was in Germany about to do this festival called Splash Festival. And, you know, she would always call me and it was one of those conversations where I was like. She was, honestly, she was probably just giving me love and I'm really uncomfortable with love.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  And if I, if I'm, if I'm at that point in my life, if I was getting any of it, I got, I got really like, oh, just. And I just hung up the phone and that was the last time I spoke to her. And they called me and told me she had passed right before I went on stage.

• 31:12Bunnie XO?

  She knows you love her though. She can hear you talking about her at any time.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, that's one where. Man, I always just wish you would come to me in my dreams or something. Like I never got closure with that. And she, I, I, I did ask. That the spirits don't take her to the next.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Life yet. Like I, I, I, I really want her to be a spirit guide for me in this lifetime. Like I want her to. Stay watching over me. And I feel like it's, I feel like it's happened, you know, like I've had a really big turnaround in the past couple of years. Spiritually and, uh.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Even just with career, you know?

• 31:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I guarantee that's her hand in that for sure.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is it, do I, do I, am I like, look, is it, what am I supposed to do with my eyes?

• 31:58Bunnie XO?

  You're doing great. Don't, don't overthink it. You're crushing it. Um, so you started battle rapping in?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Seventh grade.

• 32:06Bunnie XO?

  Seventh grade?

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Maybe sixth grade, seventh grade though.

• 32:09Bunnie XO?

  Was that your outlet because you were such an introverted child and just such a, you know, had such a crazy home life and abusive home life? Was that your outlet? To just go and be like, you know, cause I, whenever I envisioned battle rappers, I envisioned like the aggression and just, you know, sniping people verbally.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I desperately needed something to fit in. You know, I was an okay skater.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  I was an okay fighter. Fighting was really big growing up, you know, like, all these kind of, uh, different outlets of,

• 32:50Speaker 01

  kind of like alpha

• 32:54Speaker 01

  actions

• 32:57Speaker 01

  were the highlight of what seemed like people were accepting. You know, like, a lot of my friends were in gangs, so I wanted to, you know, be a gang member, a lot of, but what I was obsessed with was music. You know, like I loved,

• 33:12Speaker 01

  I, I, I just, I loved music. That was who was always talking to me was my headphones and so I, uh,

• 33:18Bunnie XO?

  Who were your influences back then?

• 33:20Speaker 01

  DMX was huge for me. Tupac was huge for me.

• 33:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  The Kanye had fifty albums and Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit and that, that, that, that era of albums was, was so, and all the angst I needed, it was saying all the stories of a runaway, fuck up, broken home, youth and.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, my first battle rap, I'll never forget. I don't remember any of the lines that I said, but I do remember I looked up. It was a dude that was taller than me. And the last line, I was like, bitch, get your tall ass down and kiss my feet. And it rhymed with whatever I'd said before. And everyone was just like, ah. And lost their mind.

• 33:58Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  And it was so opposite of how I was. At home, because at home I was.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Essentially bullied to just be like a.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Piece of furniture in the corner, you know what I mean? Like, I, I didn't really have a voice at all. So I had to.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Find a way to have a voice and battle rap gave me my.

• 34:20Bunnie XO?

  Your alter ego.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 34:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  For sure. And then I probably, probably got lost in that because I just started to just, that was the person who was accepted. So I just became that person.

• 34:31Bunnie XO?

  I one hundred percent resonate with that because I was abused by my stepmother growing up. And so she was the bully at home and I became the bully outside of the house. It's because you just feel like you have to put on this. This facade so that nobody can hurt you because you already get hurt so much inside your house that when you leave the house, nobody's gonna fucking hurt you because you control that.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 34:54Bunnie XO?

  So battle rapping became your love.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 34:57Bunnie XO?

  And then, you know, later on down the line, you ended up having a baby when you were about eighteen, correct?

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:04Bunnie XO?

  Can we talk about Casey?

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I'd love to.

• 35:07Bunnie XO?

  Let's talk about her. You light up whenever you talk about her.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:10Bunnie XO?

  And I love that. And I noticed in a lot of her interviews, um. You know, she does seem like such an old soul.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  I'm telling you.

• 35:20Bunnie XO?

  Even hearing you on the phone with her last night, it was like you were reporting to your mom, like you, like even your demeanor and everything like kind of changed.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. My, well, my, my life changed. Like that was, I'll never forget the first breath she took. She came out, she wasn't breathing. And then the doctor. I, I think like tapped her chest or something like that. And she, she did the like. And I just remember everything was jokes and me trying to make her mother feel.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  I was trying to make her mother laugh while she was having, which was just going.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  So poorly, like it was so bad. It was, I didn't know what to do. I should have been calming, but I was just trying to make jokes. She was like, shut the fuck up.

• 36:03Bunnie XO?

  She's like, I'm shitting a kid out here.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and uh, man, when she took that first breath, dude, every tears like Niagara Falls started coming and I fell in love. And that was really the first person I ever, you know, loved.

• 36:20Bunnie XO?

  Like they actually gave you that feeling of love besides your aunt?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 36:24Bunnie XO?

  You said that you were number 22, which I'm, I was born on the 22nd myself.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Were you really?

• 36:28Bunnie XO?

  Hmm, January 22nd.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Wow, cool.

• 36:29Bunnie XO?

  And we are, we are rule breakers and generational curse breakers.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:34Bunnie XO?

  And I feel like it stops with you with the lineage that your family has with the men.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:42Bunnie XO?

  And I see what a father you are to Casey and, you know, can you appreciate that you've actually broken that curse with your family?

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know. I gotta finish this life first and do a review of my soul.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Kinda see if I made the right decisions or not. And I feel like one of my favorite quotes, which my friend My Son gave me was.

• 37:07Bunnie XO?

  We love My.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Uh, I thank God that I have the ability to punish myself today so that I can forgive myself tomorrow. So, you know, for the mistakes that I've made, I'm grateful that I also have the choice to forgive myself.

• 37:25Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  You know, the, uh, after, cause I think a lot of us live with like, oh man, I messed up. Like I, I, I'm just stuck being that mistake. And it's, it's really hard with the internet too, just constantly wants to make you be that mistake also. And I just want everyone to feel comfortable to know that, you know, God or the universe or, or, or, or energy period has given you the ability to forgive yourself. Like that's a choice that you have to make. And just like you have the choice to get in your car and drive somewhere, get out of bed and do something like you have,

• 38:09Speaker 01

  you have that ability to forgive yourself, which is really important. Otherwise, those things are just gonna, you.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Grow inside of you and eat you alive. And that's I think a lot of I honestly, I truly believe that you know, things like cancer or disease in some cases come from

• 38:30Bunnie XO?

  Trauma.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  And secrets that you've withheld that you can't forgive yourself for.

• 38:34Bunnie XO?

  Secrets keep you sick?

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yes, so it's really important to

• 38:39Bunnie XO?

  Get it out?

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yes. And accept and forgive.

• 38:43Bunnie XO?

  Do you think you'll ever be able to give yourself your flowers while you are alive, though? For for being the father that you are? Like, you may not feel like you're perfect, and I don't think anybody's a perfect parent, but coming from what you grew up in to who you are now and the father that you are to Casey.

• 39:01Bunnie XO?

  Would you, can you ever just look at yourself and be like, yeah, I did do that?

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I

• 39:10Speaker 01

  I could always, you know, I could be a better father, so I just, I don't know, I mean, I hope, I hope that

• 39:21Speaker 01

  I'll always

• 39:24Speaker 01

  be someone that she can depend on and lean on and love. I guess I'm just so scared because I know how my relationship with my parents was and you know, I was so mad at my dad up until the last moments of his life, so I just

• 39:37Bunnie XO?

  I know how that goes.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  I almost, uh

• 39:42Speaker 01

  I don't know, and I'm like, I'm so in love with her that I'm scared. You know, you don't ever want to like disappoint, and so I, yeah, I mean, I

• 39:51Speaker 01

  it's not for me to give myself any flowers, I guess I

• 39:55Speaker 01

  I, uh, that's for her to decide if she, you know, if I did a good job or not.

• 40:01Bunnie XO?

  I understand that.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:03Bunnie XO?

  So let, take me on this journey where, you know, you're battle rapping, you just had a baby, and I think you were at South by Southwest in Austin.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  I mean, the story that was kind of built was that, but essentially

• 40:19Speaker 01

  we had did, I think, a Southwest even, South by Southwest prior to that, maybe even another one before that, I think

• 40:28Speaker 01

  everyone had kind of discovered me at the same time, label wise, because there was a big bidding war. And, um

• 40:38Speaker 01

  yeah, I mean, essentially.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  We had to, you know, choose a label to go with and but it it wasn't South by Southwest. It was really the mixtape circuit like we were the the one thing that I always loved that we did was we would catch

• 40:58Speaker 01

  everyone coming out of school and we would hand them our mixtape and so all the seniors who would graduate. You know, go off to college and all these different parts of the country. And they take a piece of home with them with our with our mixtape and they're like, yeah, but back home we got this kid like you got to check him out. And so like the word really started to spread. And that was when mixtape era was, you know, it was really important and blog era was really important and the me and Mac and Wiz and uh, Big Sean's and Kendricks and ASAPs, all all these. You know, all these mixtape kids were just kind of just

• 41:39Speaker 01

  ground zero handing out CDs. So I I still meet people who are like, yo, I remember you gave me this. And whatever year and you know Slim was a huge part of that. I mean, I I remember I saved up so much just to buy my own like CD burner. And we would print all the CDs, put the labels on, we shared a one bedroom apartment together and we would just go out and hand them out. And there was this one really funny memory where we went gathered up all these coins like we saved like, I don't know, three hundred, four hundred dollars worth of coins.

• 42:10Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I remember that the the vending machine that you would take it to.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Tells you like.

• 42:14Bunnie XO?

  Or you do like the big water bottle.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And then we bought a Juno keyboard with that.

• 42:19Bunnie XO?

  Kids now will never know.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  They'll never know.

• 42:21Bunnie XO?

  They'll never know.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  It's all right.

• 42:22Bunnie XO?

  But you got a keyboard. Yeah, it's crazy.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we got a Juno and we made all our beats with that. And uh, yeah, I don't know. I also was just like, dude, I would just rap for every single person that would listen. That was kind of, I worked at an airbrush shop and that was kind of what I was like, uh, Cleveland famous for was just like, oh, that's the white boy from the airbrush shop who always raps for everybody. Or I would go in front of the mall because the mall was that is is the big skyscraper in downtown Cleveland. It's called Tower City. I would go in front of there. That's like the the meeting point point between east side and west side. On um, where the trains come and I would just rap for everybody out front or battle rap whoever. The.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  You know, the Illuminati talks and all that stuff that that come towards me from people. I just, it's, it's, I explain it best in the end of that El Pistolero song. When I say, I don't worship the devil. That's just what they say when you get on this level.

• 43:16Bunnie XO?

  Literally.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Just like.

• 43:18Bunnie XO?

  They accused Jay and I of being.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  I'm like, look, homie, like, this is what hard work is. Hard work means that's, you know, something comes from it. And if you look at my journey, I've been pushing and pushing and pushing and, you know, by all means, I would have loved a.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  So I would have loved a button pusher to be like, we're gonna make him huge.

• 43:42Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, they would have saved me a lot of stress and a lot of friends lost and a lot of, you know, a lot of years. You know, it's odd to be

• 43:55Speaker 01

  on at nineteen and not experience your biggest success until you're thirty.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  And, and that was one thing that Jelly, I loved that speech when he was like, don't ever, when he won Best New Artist.

• 44:07Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  And.

• 44:08Bunnie XO?

  Took me thirty-eight years to get here.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. And, and don't ever let age be a, a factor in.

• 44:17Bunnie XO?

  Two Chainz didn't hit it off till he was like forty, right?

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Dude, he was like thirty-six or something like that when it happened. And I, I, I hate that the expression, grow up.

• 44:28Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Like I posted, you know, the fangs or something like that the other day. And you see one comment out of the five thousand that you just zoom in on. And it's like

• 44:46Speaker 01

  something about like, grow up or, you know, you're too old to be doing this or whatever it is. Which is so ironic because we're all still so young. But to me, that's just a sign of you being scared to ever unleash your creativity. I, I couldn't imagine if Tim Burton had to come up with Nightmare Before Christmas before he hit twenty years old.

• 45:07Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Because we, we wouldn't have these things. Like, there is no age on art, there is no age on fun. I love, I was just reading this book earlier, let me see if.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, join with all those who experiment, take risks, fall, get hurt, and then take more risks. Stay away from those who affirm truths, who criticize those who do not think like them, people who have never once taken a step unless they were sure that they would be respected for doing so, and who prefer certainties to doubts.

• 45:41Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  I don't ever want to step and know that the ground is gonna hold me.

• 45:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  The best part of life are these risks that I take. And the worst thing I could ever imagine being is someone who is caged in because others live in a cage.

• 45:54Bunnie XO?

  One of my favorite quotes is from Oscar Wilde, and it's, "You will always be fond of me, for I represent to you the sins you never had the courage to commit."

• 46:02Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, what is growing up?

• 46:04Bunnie XO?

  Literally.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  It's so odd.

• 46:07Bunnie XO?

  You gotta always just be in tune with your inner child, and I think that...

• 46:10Speaker 01

  A thousand percent. The second that your light is fueled by gasoline instead of natural wood, means that it's forced, like this is all things

• 46:21Speaker 01

  that burn inside of me naturally. Why would you want a synthetic result instead of something that is organic?

• 46:35Bunnie XO?

  I think it's the world is so programmed, and people just take everything so literal now, and it's just like, there's a time limit on everything, and really, people don't realize that time is like the most precious commodity, and something that you'll never get back. And it's like, why don't you want to do what you love with that time, instead of what the world's telling you to do?

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Also, why,

• 46:57Speaker 01

  if someone had their childhood robbed, would you not want to allow them that back? That's like expecting...

• 47:06Bunnie XO?

  That gave me goosebumps.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  If Helen Keller got her hearing and her eyesight back at thirty-six, being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, why are you on a, why are you

• 47:20Speaker 01

  on a, why are you on a seesaw?

• 47:23Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  That's for kids, like, well, I never got to experience this. Like, I want to experience all the joys of life. So to me,

• 47:33Speaker 01

  let me experience all these joys I didn't have. Twenty, in my twenties, I was on drugs. I don't remember.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Fucking any happy moments.

• 47:43Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  I don't remember any of the, you know, attaining the these, the shows that, you know, finally sold out. I don't remember those things, so let me enjoy. I didn't get to, I was so, so tight and, and determined to, you know, overcompensate for the

• 48:04Speaker 01

  traumas that I had to show that I was good enough, that I didn't get the chance to creatively express myself, maybe with things like

• 48:14Speaker 01

  that make me happy. I was trying to, you know, satisfy others.

• 48:21Bunnie XO?

  Mask also mask all the pain that you went through. When did your drug abuse start?

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 48:31Bunnie XO?

  Or drug experimentation?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Probably, I mean, eleven was the first time that I did ecstasy with, with my one friend who lived on the same street because his older sister dated a rave DJ.

• 48:45Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my goodness. Eleven years old?

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it was, it was, it was funny. They like told us how to, you know, they told us how to do it. They gave us a little, um, pacifiers because your teeth grind.

• 48:55Bunnie XO?

  Oh, that's not, but you're eleven.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then, you know, then it, it's not like it, you know,

• 49:02Speaker 01

  it's not like it continued daily. It was, it took breaks and I was, um, more focused on music than I, than I was being a burnout. But then in my twenties,

• 49:15Speaker 01

  I went the fuck off.

• 49:16Bunnie XO?

  Made up, made up for lost time.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 49:19Bunnie XO?

  What was your drug of choice?

• 49:24Speaker 01

  It started,

• 49:27Speaker 01

  started with weed and alcohol, then I, I really loved snorting Vivans. Because the, the work ethic that came with it, just being able to like lock in on something and being like, oh, my God, I just wrote six songs in two hours, you know, like.

• 49:41Bunnie XO?

  Are you diagnosed ADD?

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Oh, for Vivans and stuff like that? Hell, no.

• 49:48Bunnie XO?

  Well, just because they work so good on you. Because I know when I take Adderall, it makes me feel like I am cracked out and I have the opposite effect than getting anything done.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I also think maybe when I was, yeah, I don't know. Who knows?

• 49:59Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Um,

• 50:03Speaker 01

  loved.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Loved like hydrocodone.

• 50:08Bunnie XO?

  Oh yeah, I love a good Lord Irv.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Loved Percocet, that was my, my dad loved Percocet too, Percocet and red wine. Like my dad's twin told me that.

• 50:18Bunnie XO?

  Was your dad an addict also?

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't, I, that was actually how he really connected to my music was he went to rehab, uh, when he came back from Africa and he met someone with an MGK tattoo.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  And that guy, whoever that was, shout out to you, my boy, cuz you really opened up a big door for me and my dad's relationship cuz I guess the kid was like, dude, you don't know what your kid like means to people? You don't know what this like, this, this music does for, for, for us and so my dad really kinda had a different respect for me, um, after that rehab stint. And like, like I said, you know, he, the last that, what's up, boy? The, the, the last thing that we did, which, you know, he was too far gone anyway, so I wasn't even like I was trying to be the, you know, rule enforcer, but he was like, dude, can you just sneak me in some whiskey? Cuz he was in hospice and obviously you can't drink or do anything and

• 51:15Speaker 01

  at this point, you know, his, his, his feet had already been amputated.

• 51:18Bunnie XO?

  Oh my goodness.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  That was, you know, one of the hardest things in my life was like putting on his socks over,

• 51:26Speaker 01

  um, his,

• 51:30Speaker 01

  whatever was left of his, you know, feet or whatever and exa- exactly. Um, and yeah, I went and got the best bottle of bourbon I could find and we,

• 51:45Speaker 01

  we drank and then

• 51:49Speaker 01

  he, he pieced out.

• 51:51Bunnie XO?

  Do you feel like that helped kind of put you into more of a pop culture moment, quote unquote, and, you know, hotel? Diablo was kind of under the spotlight.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Oh, I actually feel like Hotel Diablo was severely underappreciated.

• 52:06Bunnie XO?

  Really?

• 52:07Speaker 01

  For sure. I think I think until like

• 52:12Speaker 01

  until later, you know, it got appreciated as, you know, probably my best body of work. As a rap album.

• 52:19Bunnie XO?

  It got one point three billion streams, but you feel like the media kind of wrote you off, right?

• 52:23Speaker 01

  I'm for the people, you know, I'm I'm a man of the people, so I really only care what the people think the the the whole like yearning for critic like approval.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Left me many years ago. That's why I, I mean, if you think that I for one second thought that me making a pop punk album was gonna satisfy anybody other than what I wanted to do.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  I it has to be, you know, like I I clearly knew that it was gonna rupture the structured system of like you're supposed to do this and you're you know, labeled as this, so this is what you are. I'm I'm wearing the shirt of a boundary breaker. I look up to those who who break the system and make people think that's what art is supposed to do, so.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  I I also struggle with the like, did that bring spotlight because I'd been facially and musically famous for

• 53:27Speaker 01

  eight years before that, there wasn't a street that I could walk on from here to Australia to Germany to anywhere where people weren't like, oh shit, that's Machine Gun Kelly, so.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  I I just think the internet narrative really tries to force something that

• 53:46Speaker 01

  you know, in time, as long as I continue to run my own race. People will look back on and it won't even be a

• 53:54Bunnie XO?

  I think you've proven yourself.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 53:58Bunnie XO?

  One point three billion streams is nothing to golf at. I mean, that's, I think that's the people telling you that they're consuming you.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 54:06Bunnie XO?

  They're loving you.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  And and I'm the opposite of Wizard of Oz. I'm outside.

• 54:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Constantly making sure that

• 54:18Speaker 01

  you know, my feet are touching ground and then I'm connecting with the people that I'm speaking for.

• 54:24Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely. And I think that's why your fans love you and the people in your life love you because you are such a strong force to be reckoned with.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 54:32Bunnie XO?

  So diving back into your album with Hotel Diablo, it was bittersweet. You know, we talked about the 1.3 billion streams and stuff like that, but you did also touch on the fact that your father did die the same day that that came out. And you had said in an interview somewhere that a neighbor had told you some fucked up things that you couldn't get closure on.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:52Bunnie XO?

  Can we dive into that a little bit?

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  It was so eerie and so

• 55:08Speaker 01

  really just wrong in my opinion because I was not able to, you know, speak to my father or my aunt about any of the things that were said about him. But, you know, one thing I know that he wanted, that he had asked me to do was to go into his safe, which was in storage in Cleveland. And, uh, so I did that and that was, you know, kind of where I got

• 55:36Speaker 01

  some psychological closure that, you know, he had a severe split personality disorder. And, uh,

• 55:45Speaker 01

  you know, I had, had a just gnarly kind of rehab stints throughout my life that I never really knew about. So like when he would be like, oh, I'm gonna go on a job interview. And it would be like a long time he was gone. Like I was kind of putting the pieces together like, oh, he was in rehab.

• 56:02Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Um.

• 56:04Bunnie XO?

  The reason, the reason I'm asking is because you had said that it sent you into such a spiral that you ended up putting a shotgun in your mouth?

• 56:11Speaker 01

  Well, that, I, I guess I wouldn't necessarily talk about that because it's really hard to, for things to get taken out of context. I also think drugs are really mind altering and like people should be really careful of what

• 56:26Speaker 01

  it does to your brain chemistry because maybe that's not even necessarily you doing the, the actions, you know, that

• 56:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely. It's something else taking over your body.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  Um, but you know what I can say is it made me so uncomfortable that I didn't even want to put my dad's ashes and my aunt's ashes in the same room as each other.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 56:57Bunnie XO?

  How do you move on from something like that? How do you like, cause you're, you're literally, you're riding one wave where you don't feel, you had said that you don't feel like Hotel Diablo got, you know, what it deserved. But on the other hand, you, you know, the streams don't lie. And then you're dealing with the situation with your dad and drug use and mental health. Like where, where does a, a, a shining light come in? And like, where did, where do you, how do you navigate through such a dark time like that? Of highs and lows?

• 57:27Speaker 01

  My specific situation was really fortunate because of the group of friends that I have. And they've been the same group of friends that I've had since I came in. So I learned the power of expressing and being vulnerable and like getting, speaking things um to them and receiving really grounded advice and comfort and loyalty from people that I know would never turn their backs on me no matter what. And I've tested that to the max, you know, where if they were gonna leave, then they would've left a long time ago.

• 58:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Um, anyone that gets close to me, I push them away.

• 58:05Bunnie XO?

  To see if they stay.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  For sure. It's all a test. It's not because I want them to go anywhere.

• 58:09Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  I'm never, I was watching this video my mom sent me of me as a kid where I was like, I had a really funny lisp when I was a kid. I had to get my phrenulum cut because my tongue wouldn't go past my teeth. So I, I talked like this and like, it was really funny and like, I couldn't say my Rs very well. So I was walking around and I was like, my mom was filming me and I was like, I'm hunting bales. And she was like, uh, okay, well, like, where are you gonna go? And I was like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go over there and I'm gonna hunt, I'm gonna hunt bales. And I started walking and I'm just like waiting for her to like come with me. And I'm just like, come with me. And like that, that really like is a.

• 58:55Bunnie XO?

  Testament.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Well, it's like a microcosm of who I really am where I. I I really don't wanna be alone like I I don't ever want.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  I don't ever wanna be alone, you know, like I love. My friends so much and I I love really hard, uh, but I'm not good at.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Showing it, I show it by being an asshole or. You know, trying to show like. Oh, see, I knew you would leave me. And.

• 59:28Bunnie XO?

  Kind of like a form of self sabotage.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Oh dude, self sabotage king right here.

• 59:32Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  And, uh, it also got, you know, it's funny covid helped me.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Stop cocaine like cocaine was, you asked me what my favorite drug, what my drug of choice was cocaine was. The shit to me, like it gave me the, like me and jelly talked about that all the time where.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  I I'm I'm so socially awkward, but I would do that before I went somewhere and I would leave and just be like, I just fucking. Killed that shit in there like everyone loves me, dude, like I was.

• 1:00:05Bunnie XO?

  Brought you out of your shell.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Talking to everybody and duh duh duh, you know, just like this. False. Sense of, you know, Superman syndrome or just like. You know, I I whatever. And so I, you know, it's funny because covid really helped that because obviously everyone thought it was a. Fucking zombie apocalypse. So none of the dealers would leave their house.

• 1:00:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. Bougie ass dealers.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Exactly. So you had no choice.

• 1:00:29Bunnie XO?

  I remember back in the day when, yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  All right, like, you know, I gotta find something else, um.

• 1:00:34Bunnie XO?

  When did Megan enter the picture?

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Right, I was just, that was, that was right there where I was leading into. How powerful the heart is because you can.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Play with every other sense that you have in your body. But if your heart isn't there. Uh, it's like. It's like this, it's like this example of, you know, being an archer and you can be so. Technically skilled and all of these, your precision could be perfect, right? And all that stuff, but. If you switch. To an uncomfortable place like a shaky bridge.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  If you're not shooting from your soul, then all that precision, all the technicalities that you've mastered, like, nothing beats a shot from the soul. Right, like, that anybody, that's why, that's why I never care when people give me shit about guitar playing. I don't care how technically good you are, like, every time I, I play my guitar, I'm playing it from my heart, so whatever I'm playing is how I felt that day and you know, the people who are like, why do I, why, why, why am I not, you know, on, on his level of fame or other things like that, I, I, all I've done is just shoot shots from my soul, so if, there's nothing to deny that, there's people that will always resonate. And, you know, my arrows will hit their heart. And

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  that woman

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  struck a bullseye, and when I felt that sense light up,

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  everything else went away and I learned what it was to accept

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  living. That was like,

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  it, it, it gave, it gave purpose to

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  everything I was confused at why I was here for. And so, um,

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  I was, you know, I'm forever grateful to God and indebted to the destiny lines that wove me into that wove me and her together. Because that was something where, you know, when I saw her eyes for the first time, it was like I had a telescope to every secret in the universe. And I think what followed that really

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  proved

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  What Moving With Love does because you know my the album that I made after that was just Take Us To My Downfall went to a level I'd never experienced and you know I started to be able to feel my body in different ways my mind like the frequency of my mind and the information that started coming into it and the way that I was able to start processing my own you know she was a when you know when you have a twin flame relationship it's you're essentially looking at a mirror at all of the things that

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  you fucking have ran away from your whole life and you know it's it's not like this

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  grand waltz of

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  love and and gentility it's really really really

• 1:04:22Bunnie XO?

  dark

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  dark at first and it's toxic because you're staring it's you're essentially

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  do you watch Harry Potter

• 1:04:31Bunnie XO?

  I don't but they do

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  there was a remember that mirror where he could look in and he could see his parents and all that so it's like it's like looking at that but instead you're seeing all of the things that you've ran away from this whole time and all the things that those drugs have numbed and the music and successes have numbed

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  and you're forced to either

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  look away and lose

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  or face and embrace

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  and that is the endless waltz that we are constantly in with each other and so I think the reason that she and I have stepped away from publicizing anything in our relationship just down to photos of us having fun together or things like that is because

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  We're both really intuitive people. And so we feel the millions of

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  we feel the millions of

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  hate that comes at you.

• 1:05:45Bunnie XO?

  The universe wants to tear down beautiful things, always. But you guys standing together will never allow that because you guys are way stronger than any hate that you guys could ever receive.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Well,

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I, I won't lie and say that, you know,

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  the evil I didn't really, really take a toll on what

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  you know, we, we thought was a

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  a beautiful thing that we could maybe inspire people to, um, not mimic, but just inspire people to love, right? Like that, not, not love us, but just inspire the action of love because I would be wrong in saying that we don't all

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  you know, kind of look at what we see on TV or on our phones and

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  you know, want to mimic, or we think that, you know, I, I grew up, like I said, the the main word that was in my house from my father about my mom was horror. And the things that I would see on TV from the movies and the music I was listening to was not about monogamy and was not about love. It was about the complete opposite. And so me

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  and her being

• 1:07:11Bunnie XO?

  You also have a huge mother wound, too.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  For sure. And, and, and she clearly, uh, you know, Meghan was a a big, uh, test for me in that.

• 1:07:22Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Because you're confronting all of your mother wounds when you find the person that you love and that, uh, relationship

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  or that, that idea that we had where, where we were like, you know, let's, let's change what's in mainstream media about

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  relationships, like let's, let's show love. Uh, you know, kind of felt like it backfired because it's, it's cute at first and then people get sick of

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Seeing you happy. And I, you know, I'm actually fortunate because I feel like a lot of the exes that I have and um, you know, the women that I've met in my life and they they've all kind of had a

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  an empathy for seeing that, uh, man, it's just a broken kid, man, like

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  you know, he'll he'll figure it out one day. I I've been supported in that for a a long time and I really appreciate all those people um that I've met on my journey for being so kind to me and understanding that I was just, you know, figuring myself out, but um, the hate that came with the relationship was

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  you know.

• 1:08:46Bunnie XO?

  But don't let them win.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  No, I know, but it's but now we just don't let it be anybody's business, right? They don't

• 1:08:51Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely, because what they don't know

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  They don't know if they're winning or losing.

• 1:08:53Bunnie XO?

  Right, for sure. All they need to know is that you guys love each other and you guys are, you know, in it to win it.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  I think

• 1:09:02Bunnie XO?

  Go ahead.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I'm I'm done.

• 1:09:06Bunnie XO?

  No, I love hearing you talk. It's like poetry, so I could

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  I just feel like I'm a really boring talker right now.

• 1:09:12Bunnie XO?

  No, it's actually really beautiful. I I guarantee

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  I talk at like a two mile per hour pace and I don't necessarily

• 1:09:19Bunnie XO?

  No, I think

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  I'm better at writing the music and talking than I am at actually conversational talk.

• 1:09:25Bunnie XO?

  No, I think people at home are actually probably gonna fall in love with you because just hearing you talk is so beautiful and it's very poetic. I just have one question, though. Like, can we just focus on the fact that Meg Megan had way more swagger than you when you guys met? Because you met her at a party and she said, you smell like weed and you looked at her and you said, I am weed. And then you you guys saw each other, what, like a year later? And you walked into her trailer and and

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  No, I sat outside my trailer

• 1:09:54Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  Praying to God that she would look over when she got out of her car to walk into her trailer and maybe have like an a tiny inkling to be like

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  come over here. And it worked.

• 1:10:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, you manifested that.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Except, yeah, the first but first time, that was the second day of work, the first day of work.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  Uh, I was so awkward and just stared at the ground the whole time and she just asked me questions and

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  she has really pretty feet, so I was like she had, she had

• 1:10:27Bunnie XO?

  But didn't you walk

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  Looking at the ground like I was like, I don't know, I was just, I was super awkward, didn't know anything what I didn't know what to say. She just asked me a bunch of questions and asked me when my birthday was and things like that.

• 1:10:38Bunnie XO?

  Didn't you walk in and she said, um, how are you? And you said, I'm broken. And she said, well, let's find you.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  I said, I'm lost.

• 1:10:44Bunnie XO?

  And she said, let's find you. I'm like, go fucking Meghan, go. Like, that was, that's hot that she did that.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, agreed.

• 1:10:52Bunnie XO?

  Oh. So what was it like making, you know, on the set of this movie, what was it like doing your first scene with her? Did you just know from the get-go that you guys were gonna be together?

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  Oh, I was obsessed.

• 1:11:06Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  For sure. I was obsessed. And, uh,

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  yeah, like her conversation is just so entertaining. She's so fun to listen to. She has so much to say and she's so intelligent and she's, you know, she's really deep and she's dead sober. And, uh,

• 1:11:26Bunnie XO?

  All the things you didn't think were possible in a woman?

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I grew up with a very skewed, you know, outlook and like I said, like my, my idols were kind of like my parents. So I, I was operating in a frequency that wasn't mine. So a lot of those years and, you know, things that I'm judged for, I'm just like,

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  it's, you know, that's, that's a, a young man operating uh,

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  in a frequency that is not aligned with who I really am. And so it, it also kind of trips me out because, you know, our skin cells regenerate every seven years. So I'm, I'm literally not the same person that I was seven years ago, let alone the same person that I was yesterday. Every day I'm constantly evolving and growing. But it's something really important to keep in mind, dude, because people, you know, if, if they're

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  Down in the pigpen, getting dirty. They want you to be down there with them.

• 1:12:26Bunnie XO?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  They don't, they don't look at the ones up outside of it.

• 1:12:30Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Being stoked, they're, they're like, fuck that, I'm trapped down here, you gotta, I'm, I'm gonna do anything I can to get you down here with me. Instead of being like, I'll do anything I can to get out of here and be there with you.

• 1:12:40Bunnie XO?

  Hmm. They love you when you're on their level. If you get any higher than that, they tear you down. It's like they build you up to tear you down.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's a, it's a very, very toxic cycle to participate in and a lot of us are in it. I was in it for so long. Um, so gotta get out of it. And that requires strength and discipline and, and change, you know, going back to our quote about not, you know, not, not aligning with those who are scared to take the next step unless they're completely positive that

• 1:13:14Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  The ground will not break beneath them.

• 1:13:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Bunnie XO?

  Moving on from Megan, let's talk about tickets to my downfall. That was pretty life-changing for you.

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:26Bunnie XO?

  And I don't think, look at your smile. I love whenever you, um, own your accomplishments. I think that's a good thing for you.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  I'm just smiling, I don't, I'm not like saying it was like

• 1:13:36Bunnie XO?

  But stop it. You could be like, yeah, motherfuckers, I did that. Like you did so good. I mean, to do a genre switch, I, I've only seen a few people do it successfully and that's you, my husband, and maybe a few other people. And it is not easy because one, you have to win over brand new fans and then your old fans get mad, you know, like, you know, because you've been there.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:57Bunnie XO?

  What was it like dropping that album? Were you absolutely petrified or did you know that it was gonna be what it was?

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Oh dude, I already felt completely alienated. I, I, I've been an outlier since birth, so I kinda just got back into that mentality of Being a kid who wanted to be a Jedi. You know, I, or I did, I mean, when I was trying to be Super Saiyan, I cannot describe to you how awkward I must have looked because I would be in my front yard like.

• 1:14:31Bunnie XO?

  Really channeling.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  Fully trying to get my chi to explode off of me and come meha meha anything. So I, I, uh, yeah, tickets I did purely out of the, the spirit of what I wanted to do. I also did, I was a Warped Tour kid, like I, the, the, the people that act like that was new for me, it's, I don't know if the right, is bequeath? What does that word mean? Because I've been.

• 1:14:57Bunnie XO?

  I bequeathed you. So like in a will, in a will, they would like bequeath you.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  Ah, okay. Well, I have been completely, what's the word for like, lost, like shocked.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  I, it's, insert synonym for shocked, but I have just been

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  so confused at the narrative of, you know, me trying something new and like I've been a band since I started. I've been flabbergasted.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  That, that you have the nerve to even act like that is something new to me. I've been a pop punk kid since I was

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  just since, you know, like that, that, that, like, I also was, I, the one thing that confused me so much was, you know, kind of when I came out with that, I was, I knew I was relighting a flame for

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  all of the peers that I had been friends with and grew up with and knowing that I now had a platform that could shine light on something that I loved and, you know, all of the people that, you know, I, I remember seeing you say, you know, something about motionless and white and, you know, your husband doing a song with, with the falling in reverse. And those are all guys I had, I've toured with. I've literally been on warped with those guys in 2011, 2012, 2010, like doing the Ernie Ball stage, doing the main stage, playing as a band, covering Blink songs. And, uh, just never really had the means.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  Or the discipline to sit down and just make an actual record that sounded like the universe I was already a part of. But I couldn't believe the lack of support from the guys that uh I was really kind of supporting by putting this album out and I really felt like we all missed an opportunity to

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  make that scene.

• 1:17:07Bunnie XO?

  Pop again.

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  Pop in a in a way that felt like there was a ceiling. And I was I'm, you know severely disappointed at the the bands who didn't speak out or speak up.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  For the movement that was happening because it had nothing to do with

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  my music. It had to do with the fact that there's a new generation of kids who are like, holy shit, like I want to play guitar. Because

• 1:17:35Bunnie XO?

  Bring seeing kids back.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  Everyone before then, and I don't mean everyone, obviously the scene is always alive, but I'm just saying in mainstream culture, you know, like the Migos and Chief Keef and that was the that was the shit when all the kids were like, ah shit, I want to wear

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  you know chains and cadences like that on eight oh eights. And I was also kind of seeing instrumentation die in mainstream radio and award shows and all those things. I was missing bands.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  You know, all of the bands that were happening were bands that have been around for generations. And I was like, no, it's time for this new shit and and you know, I even loved going to the Blink show recently and seeing Pierce the Veil open. I was like, oh, that's so sick. You know, like they deserve a they deserve this new audience and um I just felt like there was a real lack of support from people that I I watched sit side stage with me when I would perform a Warped Tour. And who supported me when I was down, right? Who supported me when I was on at one P M. Or two P M. And I wasn't a force to be reckoned with in their eyes. Like it was it was just something cool like, oh shit. You know, we fuck with this dude. But then, uh, you know, we didn't form an alliance like I wish I wish we could have. And I really felt like that was a missed opportunity and

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  you know, all the YouTubers, the reactors and

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  You know, people who had a platform who like joined the train of this is cool to shit on for likes or you know scared to embrace what's uncomfortable.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Not cool. I think it's it's way bolder to rock with something that

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  is uh gonna give that's gonna make other people look at you like, why are you down with that? Because I experienced that as a kid when I would be like, I love Blink 182 and everyone was like, no, man, that's not punk, anti-flagged punk, no effex is punk. And you're damn right, but Blink makes great music and they're also punk as fuck. Just because they're on MTV doesn't mean that they're soft or that their music is, you know, less

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  has less meaning like I guess. So, you know, with with my shit, I think um I'm very happy and honored to anyone who listened to my album and embraced it and is an MGK fan because I really think that you're the outliers and I really think that it makes you in hindsight in 10 years from now, it's gonna make you feel proud that you are on this side of that movement as opposed to that side because my my wave doesn't crash.

• 1:20:13Bunnie XO?

  That album did great, though. Let me look at the streams. That album did great. It got like eighty one point one million streams. Is that correct?

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:20:21Bunnie XO?

  That's not correct? When you Google it, that's what that's what it says. It says eighty one point one million streams.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Oh, on Spotify, it's I think three billion.

• 1:20:31Bunnie XO?

  Three billion?

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  On Spotify alone, yeah.

• 1:20:33Bunnie XO?

  Anyway, that's still a ton of fucking streams. Like, anybody that has anything bad to say about it is just literally promoting your album so people will listen to it at this point.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  That's true. Maybe I'm being pessimistic in my outlook, you know?

• 1:20:45Bunnie XO?

  I'm just saying, even if they're trying to hate on you, it's like fuck those people, dude, because they're gonna make people curious and that's, you know, part of the streams that you're having.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, you know, I I don't do, I don't really do interviews ever, so I guess I don't really get to say my side of things. So I think I was more so not trying to point out any negative. I was just trying to fact check things because it's time for

• 1:21:08Bunnie XO?

  Everything you said was fine.

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  It's hard, it's hard for me to watch narratives be, be, be carried by falsified facts. Just like the thing with like, oh, he switched genres after this. It's like, oh, it's impossible. There was a rap album that followed that, which was also my most successful rap album. There was, you know, a pop punk album that came, which was naturally leading up to that. Because even on my first album, the first track featured Avenged Sevenfold, which is a very goaded.

• 1:21:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Band and.

• 1:21:32Bunnie XO?

  And shadows.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like those are these like this, this is all, you know, on Hotel Diablo, I left the last track being, I think I'm okay. Letting people know that the next era is, is coming and it came.

• 1:21:44Bunnie XO?

  But even if.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  That's what she said. And.

• 1:21:47Bunnie XO?

  But even if you did just say, say that you didn't have all that background and you didn't have that track record. Even if you did come in and say, hey, you know what? I want to do rock. I'm going to pick up a guitar. I'm going to learn how to fucking play. Why is that not okay?

• 1:21:58Speaker 01

  It's so okay.

• 1:22:00Bunnie XO?

  Exactly.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  Do whatever the fuck you want. Nothing matters, dude.

• 1:22:04Bunnie XO?

  Like as a society, we have to do better.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  You have to just do whatever makes you feel happy.

• 1:22:10Bunnie XO?

  If you want to rap one day, you want to sing country and do the fucking polka, do it.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  Look at me. Watch what happens. I just rapped last week and then Lonely Road dropped. That's a country rock record.

• 1:22:20Bunnie XO?

  We're bringing MGK over to country, guys.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  It's always a possibility. I love, I love the, I love, I.

• 1:22:26Bunnie XO?

  Listen, you're a cover.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Some country chords.

• 1:22:28Bunnie XO?

  Your cover you just did of Luke, not Luke Bryan, sorry, sorry Zach, of Zach Bryan's, um, Sun to Me.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:37Bunnie XO?

  Was beautiful.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:22:39Bunnie XO?

  And you, the delivery, your voice, everything was amazing.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  Thank you. That song really spoke to me. And so I was really happy I did that. I was, I was so flattered. I saw a tweet. Someone pulled the tweet up from Zach in 2012 where he was like, it's an MGK day.

• 1:22:54Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  And I was like, sick. The universe is cool.

• 1:22:58Bunnie XO?

  You call Megan the sun to you, don't you? Does that have any sort of?

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  She has so many nicknames. Yeah. I, I, I love, uh, I love Maki. I call her Maki. She calls me Buddha.

• 1:23:09Bunnie XO?

  Why does she call you Buddha? And why do you call her Maki?

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Question. I don't know why she calls me Buddha. Cause I'm not essentially very Buddha like.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  I can start now, hold up.

• 1:23:24Bunnie XO?

  There you go. You need a belly though, too. You gotta get that belly going. There you go.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  I can push out.

• 1:23:31Bunnie XO?

  She calls you Lambie too, right?

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  Lambie, yeah.

• 1:23:33Bunnie XO?

  Lambie. She said you had to earn that back, though, in an interview.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:37Bunnie XO?

  Why did you have to earn it back? What'd you do?

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  I think, you know, like Lambie is like a, the, the very like vulnerable, softer side. I don't know. What is it? Is a lamb a sheep?

• 1:23:48Bunnie XO?

  Yes, uh, yes. It's a baby sheep, correct?

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  A lamb is a baby sheep?

• 1:23:53Bunnie XO?

  I think so.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  We all don't know. I don't know. It's all we know is that it's, it's, it's cute.

• 1:23:56Bunnie XO?

  We think we're smart over here.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  It's cute and soft.

• 1:23:58Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  So I'm assuming that it had something to do with that, unless I look like a lamb, but I think I look more like, I've been, I've been labeled a meerkat.

• 1:24:06Bunnie XO?

  No. You think? You have very-

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  As far as like physically.

• 1:24:11Bunnie XO?

  When you told me your background, it makes complete sense.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  Norwegian?

• 1:24:15Bunnie XO?

  Yes, you have all of the features.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, my family is like he- heavy, heavy Norwegian, like even the church services once a week are, are done in Norwegian. They're from a town where the Vikings came a long time ago and such an odd path that, you know, they came, they ended up there, but even the bowling alley in that town is called Nordic Lanes. All the holiday meals are Norwegian food. Everything is-

• 1:24:41Bunnie XO?

  Have you ever been there?

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  To Norway?

• 1:24:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:44Bunnie XO?

  Oh, do you love it?

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:45Bunnie XO?

  Do you feel, like, when you go back, because I'm Brazilian and I haven't been back to Brazil yet, but they always say when you go back to like your motherland, your soul feels it. Is that true?

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and I think the, the, the magic of that culture is, is, is very, um, active in my blood, so, you know, the

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  when I'm able to, um, you know, tap into that depending on certain moon phases and, um-

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  You know, I

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  Kinda, it's hard not to say ritual because people just take it and run.

• 1:25:29Bunnie XO?

  A ritual is something that you do over and over and over again. It doesn't have to be something satanic.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  No, not at all. That's what's so sad is that the

• 1:25:36Bunnie XO?

  OCD people have rituals. I have rituals.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Right, right. But what's so sad is that magic is so real and it's

• 1:25:43Bunnie XO?

  It is.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Such a, uh, it's been erased from our entire history because it's so scary to know that we all have the power to

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Create

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  A product out of a dream. And You know, even, you know, if we're just speaking about, you know, uh, moon phases, like the beauty of

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  Tapping into that, like, you know, when people struggle with fasting or something, like if they would just tap into what, like Ikadashi, which is an Indian

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  Practice of Fasting, which is 11 days after the full moon or new moon. Either one, the, the pull of the moon is a lot less, so the demand for your body to have food and water on that day is

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Is the least.

• 1:26:41Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:26:42Bunnie XO?

  I love that. That's fascinating because the moon makes women have their periods. It makes the tides.

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's so much power in that. There's so much power in that. So It's, it's, there's the least amount of pull from the moon on that day, so you're able to Go that whole day without, without really feeling that urge if you Um, you know, work up to that point and you could just start there. It's a really, really Special day if you're ever trying to, uh, You know, get into that because It it helps your your body kill all the sicknesses like when you when you practice those things your cells you know turn over and it's a lot of magic and just just that practice but

• 1:27:24Bunnie XO?

  um There's a lot of magic in everything and if you can just I wish more people didn't demonize it as much as they do and I just feel like even you know not to get into religion because I don't really talk about religion that much on the podcast but you know even Christianity has taken so many things from pagans and you know there's just there's a whole world out there that if people just kind of explored it they would see that it's not bad and it's not evil it's not like what they portray in the movies and it's not like good witch bad witch of course there's bad people who do bad things with good things that they're given but that doesn't mean that that's how it has to be

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah but I I guess I

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  I also enjoy that it's a

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  a scary

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  idea because it would then just become oversaturated and

• 1:28:24Bunnie XO?

  True

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  It's you know I don't know you need you need you need some people to be over on that side so that

• 1:28:32Bunnie XO?

  I always say we're the kids from the witches that were burned

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Word

• 1:28:36Bunnie XO?

  Your friendship with my husband I think is the cutest thing I've ever seen because he is in desperate need of a little brother

• 1:28:45Speaker 01

  Right

• 1:28:45Bunnie XO?

  And I don't know maybe you need a big brother too and he just absolutely loves you and adores you like this man like he just he's like Kells he calls you Kells and it's just the cutest thing ever and he just really I don't know it's like you guys are just like kindred spirits

• 1:29:02Speaker 01

  I agree which is so interesting given that we started out you know hating each other

• 1:29:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah let's talk about it

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  You know that was actually so long ago I mean

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  uh you know for the new jelly fans I knew him as a rapper and for the new MGK fans I am a rapper

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  And I forgot what started all of it. I mean, I know me and Yella.

• 1:29:30Bunnie XO?

  I think it was him just kind of sticking up for Yella.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, me and Yella didn't, you know, we didn't rock with each other. And Jelly's very loyal. And it kind of got to a point though where like a lot of, you know, it was, there was a lot of street shit and gang shit behind it. On both ends and I think if I'm not mistaken, two of our big homies sold dope together like on through, through, from the Ohio to Nashville slash Atlanta connection. And they were both like, y'all white boys gotta chill because it's fucking up business. So.

• 1:30:01Bunnie XO?

  I don't think they realize how intertwined like Ohio, Nashville and Atlanta are.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, big, oh, yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's like this. So.

• 1:30:08Bunnie XO?

  I learned that moving to Nashville. I never knew, you know, because I'm from the West Coast. So I was just like, thought the West Coast shit was going on, never knew. And then when I moved out to Nashville and Jay told me about like, you know, the GDs and like, you know, all that stuff.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  Gang culture and the drug culture between all those, like those highways are really.

• 1:30:24Bunnie XO?

  Wild.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  So we, through, through that, I mean, there was always respect, I'm sure, you know, because at the end of the day, we were all putting out hot shit and, you know, the

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  handful of

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  fucked up, tatted white boys is slim to none, you know what I mean? Like especially at that time, the ones who had, you know, made it past a mixtape buzz. So, you know.

• 1:30:53Bunnie XO?

  A lot of ego.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but also you kind of, you're, you're all just waiting for each other to be like, yo, I fuck with you.

• 1:30:59Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  So, once that happens, we were locked in because obviously then you, you respect each other's G too. So, you know, because you know that where each other comes from and all that. And I'm pretty sure Jelly and I squashed it through a really drunk.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  FaceTime.

• 1:31:16Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, recently though, right? It was like a year, about a year.

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  Five, no, it was like five, six years, because then, because then the drunk, the drunk FaceTimes would continue.

• 1:31:24Bunnie XO?

  I remember, right, right, um, I think you had came back to Nashville to do something with Yella and we were gonna be in the video, but we weren't like in town or something, and I think that's when you guys had squashed it, yeah.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Right, and that was a tense video shoot, too, because that was the first time me and Yella's people all, like my people and Yella's people all were face to face since the beef was kind of squashed. So we were all in there like, yeah, I mean, it was a lot of, a lot of guns, a lot of egos.

• 1:31:53Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I think that was really.

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  And everyone, but everyone put it aside, because music, dude, it's crazy how music brings people together, and.

• 1:32:01Bunnie XO?

  Totally, but I think you brought up a really good point, because a lot of these beefs could be squashed by, one, setting egos aside, but two, all you, you said all we needed to hear from the other person was that you fucked with me. And it would have just been, you know, like, I think a lot of people, especially in the music industry, need to hear that right now, because it's like, what are we beefing for?

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  And all we, all we want is validation.

• 1:32:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  Because, and, and if you're like me and Jelly, like, you, you, you don't, you don't get it from your parents, so you want it from somebody else.

• 1:32:28Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  And, um, that's why I DM, you know, any artists that I see doing their thing, whether they fuck with me or not, I'm always like, you know, I like this.

• 1:32:39Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  Whatever, so.

• 1:32:40Bunnie XO?

  I feel like that's what the OGs are supposed to do to the people that are coming up in the game. I feel like you guys, I, for you to do that, I think is awesome, because my husband does that, too. And I think that just speaks volumes of your character, because not a lot of people will do that.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, they didn't do it to me, they still don't do it to me, so I, you know, I'm, I'm lonely in that sense. Jelly's one of the few people who, you know, rides for me publicly, which means a lot, and, uh, the.

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  The amount of

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  authenticity behind how much he says, "I love this dude." speaks for a hundred other people who can say it half-heartedly, so. I, uh, and I really actually just appreciate the hours that we've spent. Where my temper is in a different, my temperament is in a different place than his is.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  And I'm, I, you know, I still have this.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  I love this quote, actually.

• 1:33:42Bunnie XO?

  I'm a quote person too.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:44Bunnie XO?

  I have so many of your quotes in here, so if you see me, look down, I'm just looking at these pages of notes that I have for you.

• 1:33:51Bunnie XO?

  These cats fuck with me.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  This was something that, that, uh, Halsey had said to me about me. She said, "A child who grows up in a village where he wasn't held grows up to burn the world down so they can feel the heat."

• 1:34:05Bunnie XO?

  That gives me goosebumps.

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  And so a lot of that

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  is still so present in my temperament and Jelly is great about.

• 1:34:18Bunnie XO?

  Diffusing.

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  Diffusing. And, you know, I'll have, you know, I, I have things where, you know, I, I bring to him like, "Hey, I'm mad about this at you." And he's able to

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  hold space for it and redirect it. And it's just, and, and at the same time, make me feel validated for the emotions and feelings I have. And then give me a solution as well. So I, I, uh, was really really lucky to meet your husband and make a, you know, gain a big brother.

• 1:34:54Bunnie XO?

  Well, he feels the same about you. And I think this is gonna be a lifelong friendship and I am here for it.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:35:00Bunnie XO?

  I think you guys complement each other. So let's talk about mental health and sobriety. Where's your sobriety journey now?

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  I'm completely sober from, from everything. I don't, uh, I don't drink anymore.

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  Um, I haven't drank since last August.

• 1:35:13Bunnie XO?

  And you hold to that because I actually wanted you to have a drinking contest with my husband and you were like, no, I'm sober.

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  It just kills me because I just know I would have fucking drank that man under the table.

• 1:35:23Bunnie XO?

  If you ever do, we're not encouraging it, but if you ever do, please don't.

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  It was hard and when we were shooting Lonely Road and, you know, he rented out the bowling alley and the drinks kept coming. I was, that was like probably my, the second night in this process that I've had where I've ever just been looking and it was probably just from that place of ego where I was just like,

• 1:35:44Speaker 01

  Jelly, I just want to drink you under the table right now.

• 1:35:46Bunnie XO?

  In this high ass altitude after I've been sober.

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I, we showed up to set the same time the next day and I saw his condition and I saw mine and I was like, eh, I made the right choice.

• 1:35:56Bunnie XO?

  No, literally. He tries to get me to drink all.

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  It was rough. He showed up and he was like, Bubba, just tell me when, tell me when the camera's rolling. I'll, I'll, uh, I'll step out when, when, right when it's time.

• 1:36:08Bunnie XO?

  He texts me, he's like, I'm so fucking hungover. I'm like, good. I'm like, I love when he does that to himself because then it makes, he takes a break from drinking. So I'm like, yeah, you know, have a ball, honey. Do whatever you, I said, it's high elevation. So just pace yourself. And he's like, I got this. I'm like, whatever. So you're sober off everything. Is your mental health better now that you're sober? Or is that when the real battle has begun? Because I know when I got sober in 2017, it was sobriety sucks. It was the hardest journey that I went on because then I had to get to know, know myself.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:39Bunnie XO?

  And that was the real battle. I had to get to know myself without something in my system, you know, masking.

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  That was really,

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  I get mad at sobriety a lot, you know, that, that is like a, I'm still in that phase of.

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  Of uh.

• 1:37:04Bunnie XO?

  Rebellling.

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, you know, I I didn't tell anybody outside of, you know, the closest to me, but I I went to rehab right when we got off the European tour last year. And that was my first time I ever went to rehab. And

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  man, they just gave me so many ways to operate the body and show where this like anger is coming from and methods to to quell it. And um, I met with a lot of psychiatrists, some who gave up on me and many therapists who did the same.

• 1:37:43Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  But I uh

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  ended up falling into an awareness of what my condition is and have made peace with it. And it's a constant.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  It's a constant tightrope walk.

• 1:38:07Bunnie XO?

  Can we speak on what the condition is?

• 1:38:11Speaker 01

  That one feels a little too brand new for me to confidently um

• 1:38:21Speaker 01

  say, but

• 1:38:22Bunnie XO?

  I respect it.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  I've also been

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  able to have my art.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  And that's kind of where I feel really comfortable. Um

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  taking it out and wood carving, you know, I like doing that. I like.

• 1:38:42Bunnie XO?

  You can whittle some wood.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  I can whittle some fucking wood.

• 1:38:45Bunnie XO?

  I fucking saw that video you you posted. I was like, this is crazy. That takes precision.

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. That's my my grandpa's a Norwegian uh wood carver. So.

• 1:38:58Bunnie XO?

  It's like Tommy Lee with the bonsais.

• 1:38:59Speaker 01

  Where Tommy's cold with the bonsais.

• 1:39:01Bunnie XO?

  He's cold with the bonsais.

• 1:39:03Speaker 01

  For sure. Uh, yeah, what else do I do? Take care of my cats, be a volleyball dad, go on dates.

• 1:39:11Bunnie XO?

  Has Megan been a catalyst in your sobriety?

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  I think all my friends. I think everyone's just really, yeah, I mean, absolutely. Megan has for sure been um.

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  Extremely helpful in dealing with the kind of

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  psychological withdrawals that come with.

• 1:39:33Bunnie XO?

  Getting off drugs.

• 1:39:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:34Bunnie XO?

  It's rough.

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  And being, um,

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  accepting that

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  having fun isn't

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  being a

• 1:39:52Bunnie XO?

  Self medicated.

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  Or like being

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  dang sorry, I'm like, I'm, I'm

• 1:40:05Speaker 01

  bad at answering these questions because I'm like new to all this.

• 1:40:11Bunnie XO?

  I think you're doing great. I think you've crushed this entire interview.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  Am I putting you to sleep over there?

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  I've just been really happy

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  seeing everybody. Right? Like, I love that I'm clear when I look at, you know, the person I love. I'm really happy that when I'm clear when my daughter and I are having our conversations and I'm coming from a place of being centered and holding space for what a child needs from their parent, you know, which is patience and, um,

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  advice that doesn't come from like, I just want to get through this so I can go and satiate this.

• 1:41:03Bunnie XO?

  Desire.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, this like demon in me, you know, like that's been a huge reward for me and, um, I give a lot of props, a lot of props to everyone around me for, for never quitting before I got to this point because I really hope I'm a lot more of like a, a pleasure to be around and, and

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  I have.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  It's funny, this is this is my, this is my

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  my cat that kinda

• 1:41:41Bunnie XO?

  Your emotional support cat?

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  No, this is the, this is the troubled one.

• 1:41:44Bunnie XO?

  Really?

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  This is me in cat form right here.

• 1:41:46Bunnie XO?

  But every time you talk about something serious, or like you are kind of like tied up on your words, they, is it a he or she?

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  It's a he.

• 1:41:54Bunnie XO?

  He chimes in. Have you noticed that?

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:57Bunnie XO?

  He's like, "I got you. I got you dad."

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  And he just purred for the first time in two years. So he was a lot like how I feel I was where, you know, Megan was

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  she saw like who I truly was and she was just waiting for that to be able to come out, you know, cause that's that's the reward when you have a soulmate is to be able to be connected with that person's soul. And when you're blocking it and covering it with all these things, you weren't able to see it. And, you know, same goes for uh, you know, Casey, one of the biggest things that killed me in that relationship was when she would be like, "Dad, I know when you're high." So you, you, that is like the ultimate uh sign of

• 1:42:49Speaker 01

  like just disappointment in yourself. And yeah, I uh

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  I continue to, you know, embrace that this journey is gonna be hard for me, but I accept it and forgive myself um, for

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  I really don't know. I'm also like really hard on myself, very self-deprecating. So I guess yeah, I'm just happy that I'm able to start to

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  be comfortable enough to show people who I am, cause I kinda depended on my art to do that. And you gotta understand that a lot of people weren't gonna

• 1:43:32Bunnie XO?

  Listen to lyrics.

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, um, and Jelly inspired me to do that too. He was kinda like, man, you gotta, you gotta get out there and talk and show people who you are. I mean, all my friends, my huge, huge advocate for

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  Being like, man, I just wish people could see who I see. Megan, huge advocate for that.

• 1:43:52Bunnie XO?

  Mod loves you. He started crying on the podcast when he was talking about you guys' friendship.

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  I love him to death now, sitting in that sunken pit over there and smoke thirty cigarettes with him at 3 a.m. talking about life and bitching about sobriety and just getting it out there.

• 1:44:10Speaker 01

  You know, all my friends, like even when Slim came and Ashley's over there and all these people that have just been with me through this whole ride. I really just kinda wanna, that thought of when you die, how will people remember you? I don't necessarily think it's, man, he made great songs.

• 1:44:30Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  You want people to be like, man, what a great, you know, what a, what a, I could call on that person whenever I needed something. Like that was, that person was always there for me, but you can't be there if your mind is on Neptune.

• 1:44:47Bunnie XO?

  That's how, that's how they say, uh, people will always remember you for how you made them feel.

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  Ooh, it's a good one. Yeah, that's how I'm operating right now. I just like, I just, yeah.

• 1:45:00Bunnie XO?

  I think you're doing great.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  Dude, I suck at talking.

• 1:45:03Bunnie XO?

  Uh, I think, I don't know, you did, we did about two, we did about two hours, right? I think, yeah, I think you did great. So wrapping up, what can we expect from you moving forward? Cause you did take it, are we going back to rap? Are we going, are we staying in the rock genre? Or are we just gonna do whatever the fuck we feel like doing?

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  I'm doing whatever the fuck I feel like doing.

• 1:45:27Bunnie XO?

  Attaboy. Country. Let's do country.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  I'm doing whatever the fuck I feel like doing. I love rapping. I love playing my guitar. I love belting out whatever I'm holding inside in sentences that feel like

• 1:45:48Speaker 01

  an explanation of feelings.

• 1:45:51Speaker 01

  And, yeah, I don't, I don't know, I, I, I, I would honestly say like at this point,

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  nothing I've done will be repeated, so everything will be new, which will come with some more controversy only this time.

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  My, both my feet are on the ground and I'm unstoppable. And I also don't give a fuck anymore. Art wins and heart wins and I got both.

• 1:46:29Bunnie XO?

  Let's fucking go. Well, I'm proud of you and Kels, I think you did fucking phenomenal in this interview. Can we give him a round of applause? I think you did amazing.

• 1:46:39Bunnie XO?

  You did so good and thank you.

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  Thank you, Bunny.

• 1:46:41Bunnie XO?

  Dude, thank you for coming on the podcast. I'm so happy to have you.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Thank you. My cats have absolutely shit up everywhere. I know you can smell it. I'm so sorry. We chose the room right next to where the litter box is.

• 1:46:52Bunnie XO?

  Totally fine. It was a vibe and we just loved being here. So, thank you so much and thank you guys for tuning into another episode of Don Blunt. We will see you guys next week. Bye.

• 1:47:05Speaker 02

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