#290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons

Dan Reynolds is the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, one of the most popular bands in the world. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Brave: https://brave.com/lex – Mizzen+Main: https://mizzenandmain.com and use code LEX to get $35 off – Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex and use code LEX to get 1 month of fish oil – Indeed: https://indeed.com/lex to get $75 credit – Grammarly: https://grammarly.com/lex to get 20% off premium EPISODE LINKS: Dan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanReynolds Dan’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/danreynolds Imagine Dragons Website: https://imaginedragonsmusic.com/ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (08:29) – Programming (27:30) – Johnny Depp and Amber Heard (32:23) – Las Vegas (37:25) – Spirituality (40:38) – Ayahuasca (50:56) – Depression and fame (54:40) – Introvert (1:07:19) – Advice from Charlie Sheen (1:19:58) – Making music (1:32:33) – Lesson from Rick Rubin (1:38:34) – Believer (1:46:05) – Father son relationship (1:47:22) – Dan’s first song (1:51:34) – Cat Stevens and Harry Chapin (1:56:17) – Advice for young people (2:04:49) – LGBTQ (2:09:11) – Religion (2:13:53) – Meaning of life (2:17:02) – Dan sings

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

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Dan Reynolds, the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, one of the most popular bands in the world with over 75 million records sold and with four songs being streamed over a billion times on Spotify. Given all that, Dan is one of the most down-to-earth, kind, thoughtful and fascinating human beings I've ever met, grounded in part by his lifelong struggle with mental health. The darkness, the love and the creative brilliance are all there in this one humble mind. For this reason and many others, we became fast friends. Plus, he recently started his journey in programming, which funny enough is where we start this wide-ranging, deeply personal and fun conversation.

• 0:47Lex Fridman?

  And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We've got Brave for web browsing, Missinham Maine for style, Athletic Greens for health, Indeed for hiring and Grammarly for linguistic sophistication and eloquence. Choose wisely, my friends. And now, onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make them interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by Brave, a fast, privacy-preserving browser that feels like Google Chrome but without the ads or the various kinds of tracking that ads can

• 1:29Lex Fridman?

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• 2:11Lex Fridman?

  the browser to create the thing that we know and love called the internet. Now...

• 2:18Lex Fridman?

  The fact that there's new players in the game that can become super popular and can bring new innovations to the table is really exciting to me. And that's exactly what Brave does. They also have a bunch of other things like, the thing I do want to mention is Brave's search engine. They have that too. You should use it as a lot of other exciting benefits over the alternatives. All of this at brave.com/lex. This show is brought to you by Miz and Main, the maker of comfortable stylish dress shirts and other menswear. I wear their black dress shirt and I love it. It combines comfort and flexibility of athletic wear with the

• 2:59Lex Fridman?

  fit and style of a custom dress shirt. It's lightweight, breathable, and moisture-wicking. They have a bunch of super cool looking styles that is almost too intense for me because, as you may or may not know, all I wear is either a white or a black dress shirt with a black tie. That's in terms of dressy, kind of stylish, classy wear. That's all I wear. And for that purpose, they have exactly the thing I go to, which is their black dress shirt. It feels, it feels kind of incredible. So first of all, look-wise, it looks like

• 3:38Lex Fridman?

  you would think a dress shirt looks like, but it fits your body well, or at least mine. It just feels right. And that's not a trivial thing to find, funny enough. Something you feel great in, something you feel both comfortable and just feel badass in. Right now, if you go to MizAndMaine.com and use promo code Lex, you'll receive 35 bucks off any regular price order of $125 or more. So go to MizAndMaine.com and use your promo code Lex.

• 4:09Lex Fridman?

  This show is brought to you by Athletic Greens and the AG1 Drink, which is an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. It replaced the multivitamin for me and went far beyond that with 75 vitamins and minerals. It's the first thing I drink every day. I drink it twice a day now. After a long run, which is what I'm about to go on, I'll come home, I'll mix an Athletic Greens AG1 Drink, I'll put it in the freezer, jump in the shower, and by the time I'm out, it's nice and chilled, which is just perfect. And I go to the zen place where I can think about how amazing life is. I can think about anything at all or nothing at all.

• 4:54Lex Fridman?

  And most of the time, it's nothing at all. The clarity of mind that comes after a long run, listening to audiobooks, or listening to brown noise, or just listening to nothing. It's a part of life that brings me joy. And most things in life bring me joy, but this is one of the intense constants of my joyful life. Anyway, they'll give you one month's supply of fish oil when you sign up to athleticgreens.com/lex. This show is also brought to you by Indeed, a hiring website. I've used them as part of many hiring efforts I've done for the teams I've led in the past. There is very few things in life as important as the people you work with.

• 5:36Lex Fridman?

  Maybe your family, your friends, and the people you work with. And quite honestly, some of the hardest things you do in life is with the people you work with. And for many of us, if our work is our passion, or at least some elements of our work is our passion, some of the most passionate hours of our life is spent with the people we work with. So we should find the right team, whether you're the person hiring or you're the person being hired. Indeed is the right tool. Right now, you get a free $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post, and you can get up to $500 extra in sponsored job credits with Indeed's virtual interviews at indeed.com/lex. Get it at indeed.com/lex.

• 6:21Lex Fridman?

  Offer is good for only a limited time. Terms and conditions apply. Go to indeed.com/lex.

• 6:28Lex Fridman?

  This show is brought to you by Grammarly, a writing assistant tool that checks spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and readability. Grammarly Premium, the version you pay for, the version they hope I convince you to get, the version I use, which is one reason you might want to consider it, because we're brothers in this, brothers and sisters united in this effort of achieving greater clarity and linguistic eloquence in the writing that we do. Because you don't want to descend into a Ulysses of Frangin's Wake by James Joyce type of stream of consciousness writing that many of us descend into. Because a mix of TikTok and Twitter

• 7:11Lex Fridman?

  and texting and whatever else the kids do these days has broken or damaged, or at least led to us becoming stale in our ability to be deeply thoughtful and eloquent and clear in our writing, which writing language is the way we can reach to another human soul and inspire. Anyway, Grammarly is available on basically any platform and major sites and apps like Gmail and Twitter and so on. Do more than just spell check, get your point across more effectively with Grammarly Premium. You get 20% off Grammarly Premium

• 7:55Lex Fridman?

  by signing up at grammarly.com/lex. That's 20% off at grammarly.com/lex. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Dan Reynolds.

• 8:29Lex Fridman?

  So we were talking offline that you're not just getting into programming. What's the most beautiful program you've ever written? Something that brought you joy?

• 8:40Speaker 01

  There's something, I really love completion. It's the reason that I'm addicted to songwriting. I like there being nothing and then having some blocks or tools and building them into what you want it to look like. And then I find it incredibly rewarding to stand back and look at what you did at the end. It could be anything for me. It was as simple to begin with as just, you know, because it's object oriented, like making a cube move. Like that, as simple as that, understanding that and knowing that I built that and made it do that is really rewarding.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  And I think it's the thing that drew me into, to wanting to learn more. But as far as what is some grandiose, like some big piece of code that I've done, like absolutely not. It's more, I'm still a level where it's more like, what is a tutorial that I followed?

• 9:37Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  And got, you know, and then, you know? Yeah. So I couldn't say I'm at a level where I've done anything beautiful at all in code.

• 9:45Lex Fridman?

  But you're also interested in potentially, like your heart is drawn to creating games.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Creating anything.

• 9:53Lex Fridman?

  And completing it?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:55Lex Fridman?

  That's the good, the feel good is it's done?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I've been working over the last two years with actually a team out of Kiev on, and we can get into that, it's a whole nother story, but on a computer game. And really have kept that kind of under wraps, but.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're kind of getting to a point now where we have a prototype that we can play and it's a lot of fun and thankfully, all the team members are in safe places now. Things have obviously been on hold for a little bit, but you know, when that started is when I really decided, okay, I need to understand base level coding in C sharp. So I'm not an idiot talking to these people. And so it's, you know, we've been doing that for a couple of years.

• 10:38Lex Fridman?

  So are any parallels between the final completion that you feel with programming? Which I think is a little bit more definitive, like there's debugging, the code doesn't work, it's messy and so on. There's the early design stages, you're not sure like how to have functions and classes, how it's all going to work. And then it comes together and it's really done because it works and there's a cube moving on the screen.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 11:00Lex Fridman?

  Is there any parallels between that and music? Because are you really ever done done with a song?

• 11:07Speaker 01

  It's, it's exactly the same thing for me, just in that it's art. I really believe that we have not fully encapsulated artists. Like when we say art, I think most people think, okay, the medium must be painting or drawing or music or writing. But I really believe anytime you're creating something, engineers, for instance, you're creating something with tools that you have and it can be incredibly beautiful. And so, yeah, I think, and it's never done. I feel like I look at songs that I've done and I never felt

• 11:52Speaker 01

  you have to let go or I have to let go. And that's all I've, I'm just continually making myself let go. But I look at songs that I've done and wish I had done more or kept going down that road and what would have happened. And I'm really contained to, because of what our band is and what our fans expect. And there's so much more to it that it's like, I'm fitting in a box always. You know, it's like this song shouldn't, shouldn't be longer than three minutes and 30 seconds. And I don't know if I remember the chorus after I heard it. Maybe I need to hear the chorus three times instead of those two times. It's like there's, there's certain, especially in pop music, it's really hard to.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's you. There's con. It feels like there's confines, even though people are like, "Well, there's no confines," but still, everybody's writing a pop song that's a few minutes and...

• 12:46Lex Fridman?

  Are those explicit in your mind, or are they just kinda, the gut is like you said, "Course, should you have course once, twice, or three times?" Is that a gut thing, or is that a rule thing?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  You know, I think it's a rule. I mean, it's obviously a rule I impose on myself. Nobody's, nobody's in my house saying, "Hey, Dan, if you don't do this, I'm gonna punish you." There's no major label president that's like, "Imagine Dragons needs to make pop music, Dan." You know what I mean? My manager doesn't even tell me that. I, I do it because it's what I perceive to be enjoyable. I, I grew up listening to a ton of pop music, and then I ended up being in what is quote unquote, "A rock band," which I've never perceived it as that, but that's kinda what the world has, has called it, and that's fine, but...

• 13:35Lex Fridman?

  So you're a prisoner of a prison that you yourself constructed. There you go.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Well, I'm a happy, I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm a happy prisoner of the prison that I have created for myself, and I made that prison thinking that it was a mansion.

• 13:50Lex Fridman?

  So you worked with Rick Rubin. What does Rick think about your prison?

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Rick, uh, Rick was, Rick was, you know, it was interesting to hear his outside opinion when we first met, because my biggest focus for so much of my life, my biggest fear was, and this stems from, I think, middle school is when it started, but everyone being in on a joke except for yourself. I really, like, the thought of thinking you're good at something, and really, you're terrible at it, and you're surrounded by people who are saying, "Yeah, you're good at it," and then by themselves, they're like, "He's terrible at this." Just kind of, and not just in regards to music or art, but anything in life. And

• 14:37Speaker 01

  I think maybe from having six older brothers, it stems from that too, like, always feeling inadequate, and like, the annoying younger brother, you know? But anyway, so Rick's, and that's something I've learned to let go of as I've gotten older and... And had life experiences. But one of the things that Rick said really early on that has stuck with me was he said, yeah, you know, we were zooming the first time we met. He said, I'd really like to work with you because I feel like you don't, you're not confined to a sound. You've done a lot of different sounds. And so it's exciting because I feel like your fans are forgiving more than other rock bands or bands. Because most people,

• 15:21Speaker 01

  when they hear, you know, when they hear a band, it's like, there's a very specific sound with it. It's like, they do folk music. Oh, they do like California rock, or they do surf, or they do, you know, like, there's, and your fans kind of want that. Like, they want them to do that thing. And then they don't do it. And sometimes that goes well, but a lot of times it doesn't. And people, you know, critics and everybody is like, go back to the thing that you did good and do that. Rick was felt, whether he was right or wrong, that we could, we could do, we hop genres so much. And that's been to our benefit and detriment, I think.

• 16:07Lex Fridman?

  Why detriment?

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Because people want you to be something. It's more, you can believe it more. I, you know, it's like,

• 16:17Lex Fridman?

  It's more authentic if you, if you never change.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  I guess. I don't know. I mean, it's certainly, it's not something I subscribe to because I agree, music that, but, but I also grew up listening to a lot of different genres, like cats, I would listen to like Cat Stevens, and the next song would be like Biggie, and then the next song would be Nirvana. And it was like, I like a lot of, and then Billy Joel, and then Enya. It was like, you know what I mean? I was a product, and I was a product of the 90s, which if you listen to 90s music, it really was all a lot of reason that people say, well, 90s were terrible. Like, a lot of people say that. I love the 90s. They're my favorite decade of music. Was there was a lot of Genre hopping and, and, and I don't know, I, I, I love that.

• 17:04Lex Fridman?

  She had the nineties had the boy bands and it had Pearl Jam and Nirvana.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  And it had a lot of like, women of the nineties was, is probably my biggest influence. Um, like kind of that like angry rock, women of the nineties, like Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill is one of my favorite records of all time. The, the lyrics were so intimate and, um, I don't know if she was angry or not. Sorry if she wasn't.

• 17:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but there was an anger to it.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  There was angst. Yeah. It was like angstiness and that in hip hop of the nineties influences me and then my dad. So anything my dad listened to, which my dad didn't listen to any of that. My dad listened to like Harry Nelson, the Beatles, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Billy Joel. Um, it was very much like singer songwriter.

• 17:55Lex Fridman?

  Do you mind if we throughout this, listen to a few songs? Cause you mentioned hearing this and then I was actually, um, yesterday and the day before, listening to a lot of his stuff. And it's just like, damn, he's good and not as known as he should be. Like, um, I was, I was getting, uh, do you mind if I play?

• 18:15Speaker 01

  No, please. Yeah.

• 18:16Lex Fridman?

  I don't know, not to, not to open this conversation with a love song.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  I would like that actually, Lex.

• 18:26Lex Fridman?

  But without you is an incredible song.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Oh man, that's, yeah.

• 18:32Lex Fridman?

  And the heartbreak and the, and the longing.

• 18:40Lex Fridman?

  What?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  He's the best to do it. In my opinion, in my opinion, he's the best to do it.

• 18:47Lex Fridman?

  The vocal range.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  And just this sadness of like.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  There's something, uh, I, I don't even wanna talk over him because I, this is one of my favorite songs too, but I think people have a really good bullshit indicator.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  And

• 19:12Speaker 01

  music, in my opinion, whenever I meet a young artist and say, well, what's, I'm trying to make a new band and I wanna do something like how to be successful. I really think

• 19:23Speaker 01

  understanding that people have a really good bullshit indicator is the most important part of being an artist. And I'll, I'll explain what, what that means, at least to me. I think that in order to have success or, or be a leader or, or whether it's an art or anything, people need to believe that you believe what you're doing.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  I think the best actors, really when they're doing their thing, it's like they, it's not acting. They're, they're in it and it's how they feel and they're expressing that sorrow or joy or whatever it is. Harry, for me, Harry Nilson,

• 20:08Speaker 01

  he, I just believe it. He could, he sings that and I, I feel it. And whether he's the greatest bullshitter of all time, or it, I don't think that's the case. I think he probably was singing that song and he, he just could transport himself to wherever he was.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  It's what makes a great live act. It's what makes a great song. And someone could be the best actor and sing that in the same timber, same EQ, same compression, same everything. And there's some unknown there that I, you know, I don't, I, I think hopefully it will be known at some point. It's some scientific thing, but there's something there that the energy or something that people can perceive it and say.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  True or false? And if it resonates as true, it's so much more meaningful and it lives on. And if it doesn't, that for me is what is good art or bad. Like for people to dispute over like, well, sonics should sound like that's silly to me. It's like a song or, or even a painting like it's just the truthfulness of it.

• 21:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the, the truly great art goes, has to go to that place where you really are feeling it. Like you forget that you're being recorded, you forget there's an audience, you really are feeling it. Yeah, which I totally agree with you. One of the things that I love about the internet is it's brought the bullshit detector of the masses

• 21:42Lex Fridman?

  to power, which is beautiful because then the masses uplift the really authentic.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:49Lex Fridman?

  And even if you didn't write the song, I think it helps a lot, probably if you wrote the song. But you know, I was, I was, I was a little bit, maybe a lot, since we're in Vegas, a little heartbroken that to find out that Elvis didn't write his songs.

• 22:05Lex Fridman?

  But I like, for example, Rocketman, Elton John. Like to find out that Elton John didn't really know where the words of Rocketman came from, meaning like the depths of it, it's interesting. But nevertheless, he's super authentic because for Elton John and for Elvis, there's something in the, in the fun and the darkness and the entertainment of it. Like he goes to someplace in his mind that might not be deeply connected from where the lyrics came from.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  But he relates it.

• 22:36Lex Fridman?

  He relates it to whatever is in his mind and goes to that place emotionally.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and that's what I think it is. And that's why an actor, like I said, can be completely honest to me. Maybe they didn't write the script, but I, I write up, like I've always written all my own lyrics. It's a really personal thing to me. But I will say, I see people all the time who are performers like Elton John, for instance, who didn't write the lyrics that I believe that they, it means just as much to them as what I wrote, because they find the meaning in it for themselves. At least, the greats do. And I think that that's the difference maker. And I think you can perceive, and I'm sure you've seen art that doesn't move you, and maybe it moves someone

• 23:23Speaker 01

  else, but for you, for some reason, you perceive it to be uninteresting to you. And I feel like a lot of the time, I'm saying that it's, of course, sonically, maybe it's uninteresting to you, but I think the majority of the time, for myself, I can find inspiration in any sonic value or painting, as long as I see it, and I feel truth from the person that created it.

• 23:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but and for me, the lyrics, maybe not the entirety of the lyrics, but a few words can can can do wonders to take you to a place. And sometimes those words don't need to be connected with the other words. That's the beauty of of music. They're allowed to float in the space of mixed metaphors.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:05Lex Fridman?

  They're allowed to just jump around and somehow it paints a picture without actually, what is it, glycerine by Bush?

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Right. But it's also how the person says it, right? It's like, it's the, it's the feeling of exactly, and the same person could say that word 10 other ways and you don't care. But someone says glycerine or whatever it is, and it's like, oh, you know what, that I feel that. The way he said that, he meant it to me. You know what I mean?

• 24:36Lex Fridman?

  No, I can't forget this evening, or your face as you were leaving, but I guess that's just the way the story goes. You always smile, but in your eyes, your sorrow shows. Yes, it shows. Let me ask you to analyze this song. Do you, so there's a, there's a lady, possibly, who's leaving him. Do you think he's leaving her or she's leaving him?

• 25:02Lex Fridman?

  She wanted to?

• 25:23Lex Fridman?

  And the chorus is, "I can't live if living is without you." "Can't live, I can't give anymore."

• 25:31Lex Fridman?

  He's got a voice on him.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, he does. And if you really, there's been some incredible documentation on his life and the end of his life. And so my answer to this is probably skewed based on what I've seen about his life too. But he was a real alcoholic at the end of his life and it destroyed his voice. And ended up killing him as well.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  And so when I hear that, I perceive it as

• 26:04Speaker 01

  someone who is destructive and in a destructive place in life and can't love someone properly. And so they can't live with them, but they can't live without them type thing, which is really something I really identify with. And I think is, you know, one of the struggles of life is loving yourself enough.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Forgiving yourself for, for things and, and letting yourself love someone else. And, you know, at least when I listened to out of here, Harry being like, and maybe I'm wrong, but this is how I perceive it at least is

• 26:41Speaker 01

  not loving himself and feeling like he's deserving of this person. Like, "I have to let you go." I hear that, of course, and people are saying, "Oh, well, he's breaking up with her." But there's so much more complexity and nuance to, to relationships than that. And I, for instance, my wife and I went through really difficult separation.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  And that's, you know, a story for another day or, or different question or something. But the nuance of it makes me think of this when I hear this, which is

• 27:10Speaker 01

  there's just more to, to being with someone or not being with someone than, "Hey, I think that person's really attractive." Or, "Hey, that person makes me laugh or not," or, "I love them and now I don't love them." Love is such a complex nuanced thing that a lot of times there's just more going on behind the scenes, I think.

• 27:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, on a small tangent on that, just as a curious question. Have you paid any attention to the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trials?

• 27:38Speaker 01

  I have watched quite a bit of it because my wife really loves it and she watches it in bed at night.

• 27:44Lex Fridman?

  So it's raw, like to me, it's really, because you you've mentioned how complicated love can be. And it's, I've never seen, I don't care about the celebrity nature of it. I don't care if it was, I don't care who it is.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:57Lex Fridman?

  But it's just laid out in such raw form, the.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  For the world to see it.

• 28:02Lex Fridman?

  For the world to see the toxicity, but also the passion and and the clearly sort of the drugs and the drinking, but also like the longing and the dreams and I will always be with you. I will die for you, the the places, the roller coaster of love. And it's all there at the end, past the end. So it's like, I've also recently reread The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich about Hitler and Nazi Germany. It's the rise and the fall. And it's interesting to look at the entirety of that process after it's all over, many, many decades after it's all over. That book in particular, written by the person that was actually there.

• 28:45Lex Fridman?

  And so here we're seeing two people in the context of the courtroom analyzing this rise and fall of a love affair. It's fascinating.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  You know, the truth is, I was telling my wife this, actually, just the other day, because she was asking me what I thought about it. It makes me really sad. It's humorous, don't get me wrong. There's a lot of parts in it that are just really funny, like, but.

• 29:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  I look at it and I also see the internet, you know, someone's always the villain and someone's the hero, which is such a funny thing. And we talked about a little about this offline before we got on this, but I have a real firm belief in life that it's just more complex than you think, always, always. And Johnny, for instance, is very charismatic and you you love him and he's funny and this way he does things and he looks certain ways and he says things. He's just, you really love him. And I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but it looks like the internet is really like Johnny is the winner. Amber is is the villain and I kind of look at it. Yeah, and I kind of look at it and I feel like. Were any of you in their bedroom?

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Like, were any of you there for these things? And I'm not saying one way or the other. Like, the, all I see when I look at that is two people with a lot of deep-seated hurt, anger. And that anger is so poisonous to both of them. And they're, and they're getting through it in the way that they only know how. And I'm, I'm not saying we should, you know, we shouldn't be able to look at parts of it and laugh about it and stuff. And, and be virtuous or something, but just that there's not a hero.

• 30:26Lex Fridman?

  It's more complicated.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think, uh, unless you're, you've been living with Amber and Johnny, you don't know. And just because one seems more charismatic in the moment, or funnier, or more believable even, doesn't mean that their truth is the truth.

• 30:43Lex Fridman?

  And I, I feel like there's still love there too, which makes.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Oh, that's the hardest part. He won't even look at her. He looks down the whole time. And maybe people say, well, it's because anger, or, or hurt, or whatever. But I, the way that she looks and stuff, it feels, it just feels like there's so much hurt there. That it hurt, it hurts me to watch it. I just feel like, oh, my heart just like aches for them and, and for both of them. And I, I don't know either of them personally. And, you know, I don't know. Just hurts.

• 31:14Lex Fridman?

  But it's, I've never, I've never seen sort of love laid out in this raw kind of way. It makes me, uh, feel better about, like, it almost gives you, seeing people have gone through a struggle in this sort of mundane kind of way, gives you room to struggle yourself about the messiness of love.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  So true.

• 31:35Lex Fridman?

  Like, you're supposed to, like, a relationship is supposed to be simple or whatever. But this like, oh, man, this.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  It's like art.

• 31:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Uh, and, and for the record, like, I don't feel like it shouldn't be shown. Like, I think it's actually really beautiful art. And I agree, there's gonna be a lot of people who walk away from it and are changed in certain ways, or look at things different. I'm not saying it's changed in the whole world, the Johnny Depp trial, but it's art. It's just like, you would look at a painting and it might affect you. Um, my only commentary is more that there's not, I think it's silly when people say who's right and who's wrong, and who's the clear villain, and who's the, like, we love as humans, we have to have an answer for every, we have to put everything in a box. And it's like, well, we're looking at this and we're deciding. You're right and you're wrong. And, and I just think that's, it's silly unless it's your life.

• 32:24Lex Fridman?

  So, speaking of heroes and villains and highs and lows, you grew up in Las Vegas. And you said that Vegas is a performing town, a town of high stakes, drama and eccentricity. It's a town of high highs and low lows. And I'll be damned if my therapist didn't point out that correlation out to me personally a long time ago.

• 32:44Lex Fridman?

  So to me, Vegas, from the outside, is romanticized by certain movies. The lows define the beauty of this town. And, uh, certain movies, so To Me Casino, uh, with Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone, Leaving Las Vegas with Nicolas Cage, Fear and Loathing, Las Vegas with, uh, uh, with the Johnny Depp playing, uh, Hunter Thompson. First of all, what's your favorite representation of Vegas from a darker side? And do you draw any wisdom insight from the, the darkness, the lows and the highs in, in those movies?

• 33:29Lex Fridman?

  Or is it over-romanticized?

• 33:32Speaker 01

  So, I, I grew up in a really conservative Mormon family. And Vegas was established by the Mormons and the mob. Those were like the two very different worlds that created what Vegas is. And if you live in Vegas, it really shows in a lot of ways because Vegas has the, you know, the strip and the parties and the craziness, but it also has very like neighborhoods and, and big families and conservative people and, and, and liberal people living together in a really interesting way. And for me,

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Growing up here, for instance, was a lot of like driving on the freeway and my mom being like, "Children, close your eyes. There's a naked woman on that billboard and every..." Yeah. "Okay, Mom." On our way to church, you know what I mean? It was like, but also being like, "Whoa, this is crazy." Yeah. You know what I mean? Taking in whatever I could when I could. Yeah, yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  So I saw, and I'm grateful for that. Like, I really love that I didn't grow up as a Mormon in, for instance, like Utah or something like the typical place, because I saw both sides and I appreciated something from both sides. And now, as a person now who's not religious but just spiritually minded, you know, I, I, I'm grateful for that divergent character, that juxtaposition, dual edged sword that Vegas is. And I try to apply that to everything in life, which is like Johnny Depp in the amber. It's like there's two sides to every story. There's always two sides to every coin. There's always, and there's something to be said for both.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Like, I try to see people and even if, you know, it's, it's just, yeah, I try to apply that to life. As far as a movie that personifies Vegas or, or something in that medium that personifies Vegas in a way that, that resonates with me. Don't say Hangover. No, no, yeah. I, I also like, I wasn't even allowed to watch PG 13 movies growing up. So I, a lot of the movies that you're saying, like, I, I didn't, I either didn't see, I didn't have cable television. You know, I wasn't like a pilgrim, but I had a really, really conservative upbringing. So it didn't define your intellectual, like, development? No, no, I just, I can't think of any movie that comes to mind where I'm like, "That's my Vegas movie."

• 35:53Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, I'm sure, I've seen some of the movies you've said now, but I don't, I can't think of one that I'm like, actually personifies Vegas in a way that feels honest to me, like, or, or, or like, wasn't there a Chevy Chase? Was there a Chevy Chase? Yeah, yeah. I think that's maybe the only one I thought of that came to mind where I was like, because I love Chevy Chase so much that maybe it's one of his Vegas, Vegas Vacation or something? Yeah. So, but that's more like lighthearted. Yeah. Surge, that kind of stuff. Right. It's not like, I, I guess what I would say is there's no truth that has been, that I've seen of Vegas. Because what I see of Vegas is,

• 36:32Speaker 01

  There's obviously like the parties and stuff in the nightlife, which I'm not a big party person. So I haven't really experienced much of that. But I've also, there's also drugs and I have a strange relationship with drugs. I've lost a few friends to drug overdoses. And so I don't, that's not romantic to me. But there's also like, um, yeah, I mean, you asked for a dark reflection of it. I guess I certainly see a dark reflection to Vegas. And I don't, I feel like Vegas is typically personified as like at the tables and there is this, but it's also like, I have like friends who've lost all their money to gambling addiction. And, and so it's like, what I guess.

• 37:09Lex Fridman?

  Dark underbelly to the whole thing.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, somebody maybe needs to make, maybe that's an open spot. There needs to be a dark side to Vegas. And it's about Mormons in Vegas dying to drug overdose or getting shot by the mob.

• 37:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Uh, so you mentioned your spirituality. You've, you said that having a crisis of faith or just the philosophical question of asking, who is God? Does God exist? Or in thinking of the flip side of that, of mortality, what happens when we die? Those kinds of things were extremely difficult, uh, deep, um, things for you in terms of your development, the whole process of figuring that out. Um, why does it hurt so much to lose faith in God?

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say that the seeking of God, let's say that, is an obsession for me and has been since I was young. I really feel that I'm a deep, deep, deeply like committed to finding answers in life. And there's some answers that I don't think there's an answer to. And I'm also very OCD by nature. So I just don't give up to that. I'm like, well, there must be somewhere in Tibet, there's some teacher or there's, there's somebody out there that has the answer. Or maybe it's yet to be found. I'm going to find it. Um, I'm really, my life has been to date, probably unhealthily committed to.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Finding answers about God or the lack thereof and mortality. It's all I sing about. It's all our records have been about.

• 38:53Lex Fridman?

  Who do you think is God? Have you ever gotten a glimpse?

• 38:57Speaker 01

  You know, I will say the closest I feel like I have been to experiencing God is, and this sounds so, maybe, I don't know. I don't know how it sounds, but it's through ayahuasca for me. That's, that's my honest answer for you. I feel like I had pretty much given up all hope of there being anything greater than, you know, us being, you know, evolving and being here and then dying and you're gone and that's it. And nothingness and from nothingness we came and nothingness we go. To where I am now, which is there are answers to be found. I don't know them. Like, I don't know what God looks like or if God is anything to do

• 39:41Speaker 01

  with the word God and the way that we say it. But I do believe pretty fervently that there is more to be found.

• 39:51Lex Fridman?

  Is it motion sensor or no?

• 39:52Speaker 01

  I don't know what that was. Looked like they have all died, actually. Do you know which one is it? Is it this one right here? Why don't I just take it out? That's fine. Take it out. Do you want to hold this chair? See if I can't get it like this. Yeah.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Almost there. I really don't know.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  There's gotta be like something saying about this. There we go.

• 40:26Lex Fridman?

  Chinese proverb.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:30Lex Fridman?

  How many people does it take to, what is it, unscrow a light bulb?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Light bulb. It was hot, too. It was like I was doing like the two finger like technique.

• 40:38Lex Fridman?

  I'm glad you survived that.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 40:40Lex Fridman?

  That'd be pretty ironic if we're talking about mortality and then this would be it for you.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  In that moment.

• 40:46Lex Fridman?

  I've never done ayahuasca, so it's a, it's a mixture of two plants. One of them is DMT, but a lot of people I really respect, very, very intelligent people. I had profound experiences with ayahuasca. What is that? What, where do you go? Where does the mind go? What the heck is up with that?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  I'll first say that I am like, I can't even smoke weed. I really do not enjoy it because I hate to let go of control. Like, if I feel out of control in life, it's like one of my biggest weaknesses. It's like very scary for me. I don't, and, and some people, you know, really enjoy letting go in that way. I really don't. So I was pretty terrified to make the jump then to ayahuasca. But my wife, who I deeply respect, made a profound change through ayahuasca. And I saw it.

• 41:43Lex Fridman?

  She led the way.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it wasn't a strange, like, I think most, we have a thing in America that's like a misconception, a stigma on psychedelics where, you know, it's like, it's a drug and it makes some people crazy. And then you're going to be on the street and you're going to be out of your mind. Or you're going to become like, you know, a crazy person, basically. And I think I really bought into that notion because again, I was raised, I wasn't even raised with cable TV. You know what I mean? Like ayahuasca is very like, I didn't, you know? You can imagine what that was like for a Mormon kid. I didn't know anything about it and never touched drugs at all and never even touched a cigarette, you know?

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Anyway, so I think we have this misconception about it where Americans are quick to go to their doctor and take any medication or drug. But, you know, whoa, when it comes to like psychedelics. Anyway, that being said, so I had that trepidation going into it, but I really love and respect my wife. And I saw it make a profound impact in her life where she suddenly was able to. Heal from a lot of trauma that she had, she had a really, she went through a lot in her life and it really helped her heal. But it also set her in a new path spiritually that

• 43:06Speaker 01

  seemed really like a place that I wanted to be. So I did it and I did it twice. The first time it didn't really have an effect on me, which happens to a lot of people, I guess. I drank, you know, this little thing and there was like this shaman who came over from overseas that was really, had been in, in the plant, you know, world for decades and was a really incredible, I don't even know if he likes to be called shaman, but.

• 43:36Lex Fridman?

  So it's supposed to be like thirty, sixty minute to take effect and a few hours, the journey lasts.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  About four, four hours.

• 43:46Lex Fridman?

  Four hours.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the second time I took it, I took, took it in, in, I would say twenty, thirty minutes in, exactly. I started to, I started to feel like I was like the dimension of what is reality, the curtain was pulled open and there was a lot more to discover. And it really blew my mind in a way that I think it would probably blow anybody's mind if, for instance, God descended or some Christian God or whatever it is. We all think it'd be this beautiful thing, but in reality, it would probably make people super fearful and think that they've lost their mind. Like I've always, yeah, I've always like joked that if the Mormon God came down and told my mom, like, if God himself came down and

• 44:32Speaker 01

  told my mom Mormonism is incorrect, she would say Satan.

• 44:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, we're never, I think our minds are just not prepared for a lot of, of, of anything that's really extreme. And it was very extreme. It was like the curtain of life was, was cut open, which scared me. But then I felt very much, and a lot of people that I've talked to have a similar thing where I felt very much like I was either communicating with something that was perceived as God to me, or highest sense of self, or mind, or mother earth, or, you know, it's called so many different names, but it's really, it's very.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  A lot of people have a very spiritual, similar experience with ayahuasca. And just in that it's like this kind of profoundness. It wasn't like, there was nothing, at least for me, that was, that felt like, just like psychedelic, funny cartoons or something. It was like, I'm about to go on a journey and it's, and I'm gonna communicate, I'm communicating with something that feels incredibly wise. Showed me a lot of things in my life, kind of almost like from a bird's eye, almost like I was looking through a video camera, a younger me. There was a particular thing that it communicated to me.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  I really have a hard time with, with accepting success and not feeling, like feeling undeserving or something. I can't quite put it into words, but of, of my position and what I've been given, I've been given so much. And it showed me this thing from when I was young, explained to me why I am where I am now. And, and I, to this day, like, it did not feel like myself telling myself that. That's the only way I can explain it, like, and there was a lot more that it showed me and, and that was incredibly healing for me. But just in, to be, like, to put it into a short thing, because there's so much to

• 46:35Speaker 01

  this. It felt, I walked away feeling very convinced that there is more to be known, for sure. And a lot of my deep, like, things that were traumatic for me, didn't feel traumatic anymore. Specifically, crisis of faith. I was very angry at my parents and my community for raising me in what I perceive to be

• 47:04Speaker 01

  falsehoods. And that, and that, uh, I felt like the bedrock of everything I believed was ripped out from me in my twenties. And then it was like, good luck in life. But really, my parents had given me everything that they could. And they believed that very much so, still. But a naive young me was angry and felt like they had been duped and thus I had been duped. But ayahuasca really showed me this roadmap of like, this is truth and you're concerning yourself about a grain of sand, which is Mormonism or whatever it is. And there may be some truths in that tiny grain of sand and there may be falsities. But so is all these other grains of sand, like focus on the truth.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Stop focusing on these little details that are meaningless and forgive and let go of people believing in those things to begin with. I don't know if that makes sense, but that was like the core thing I was taught and to let go of control. Stop needing to control everything.

• 48:03Lex Fridman?

  And it felt like the wisdom was coming from elsewhere.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Like it's really, I do not believe, at least in my current self, I don't have that, the mindfulness that I believe that exists in me to, to reach a lot of the conclusions that I did. And there was a lot more to it. And that would be for like a late night conversation with you, but it's so hard to put it into.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  You feel like a crazy person, any, at least anytime I talk about ayahuasca to someone who hasn't done it, I'm like, I don't even know where to begin. Like, how do you explain to someone that you felt like that a multiple dimension type thing happened in a way that, like putting it into words is, and none of it was words, by the way, that was communicated to me. It was like, you know how people talk about telepathy? And if it existed, it would be like, I could communicate to you in such a deeper way. I'm so confined by me having to articulate these words and put them in a sentence to you, Lex, and then tell you like, if only I could just be like,

• 49:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  And emotions do that sometimes, right? You could see my emotions and be like, oh, that communicates a lot. So that's what it felt like to me with ayahuascas. It felt like it was communicating to me very clear things, but it wasn't like, Daniel, it's me.

• 49:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Mother Earth.

• 49:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Let me, let me relax, sit back, let me show you. But, but it very, it was very clear to me what was being said. And no, it did not feel like me. Uh, but maybe science, smarter people than me who've done it would say, well, it was you and blah, blah, blah. Like, I don't know. But it was very convincing.

• 49:33Lex Fridman?

  There's a lot of stuff in that subconscious that

• 49:37Lex Fridman?

  we haven't explored, like we haven't explored the depths of the ocean. We haven't really figured out what's that, the Jungian shadow? What's going on underneath the surface of our conscious mind?

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:48Lex Fridman?

  And what is that connecting to? Is that, is that just inside our mind? Or is it some kind of, is there some kind of collective intelligence going on? Where all humans are connected to one kind of, uh, greater organism? Like, what is consciousness? We, we have a lot of hubris in thinking we understand any of it, like how the mind works.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:07Lex Fridman?

  At all. Like, what is it? Uh, like where, what is the origin of consciousness? What is the origin of intelligence? There's a lot of hubris about this. We, we give each other PhDs and Nobel prizes and congratulate ourselves as if we figured it all out. Um, but humility is helpful here. Nevertheless, that is the question that humans have been asking for

• 50:33Lex Fridman?

  ever since humans were humans, which is the question of mortality, the question of God.

• 50:41Lex Fridman?

  Uh, so whether it's Hamlet to be or not to be, I think that's the hardest, the most important question. Um, Albert Camus asked, why live?

• 50:56Lex Fridman?

  So in terms of crisis of faith, in terms of your search for truth, in terms of some of the dark places you've gone in your mind, what's a good answer to this question? So for Camus with Myth of Sisyphus, it was the question of suicide is what's the purpose? Like, what's a good answer to why keep going? Especially when you're struggling, especially when you're not, when you're feeling hopeless, when you're feeling like a burden in this search for truth, where you feel like you're surrounded by lies, what's a good answer to why live?

• 51:39Speaker 01

  I think-

• 51:40Lex Fridman?

  You ever found one?

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Well, it's the simple answer right now is to say for, it's very easy, once you have kids, to say, the right answer is you just, of course, you brought these kids into the world, so you have a responsibility that I feel deeply as a father to them, to always be there for as long as I humanly can, and to take care of them and protect them. It's the most innate sense in me, just, you know, it's wired in my animal, my animal existence. So if I take that away, right, because that's kind of cheating.

• 52:14Lex Fridman?

  Let's put that aside, because it is cheating.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  It's cheating.

• 52:17Lex Fridman?

  There's still, you're still, there's still some fundamental way in which you're alone.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And to that, that actually has been a real struggle for me for many years. I had a real turning point early in my career where we were flying somewhere overseas and we were in a really small plane and the lights went out and like all these red lights were flashing and the plane just started to dive. Completely like scariest plane experience I've ever been in. My manager was next to me, who's my brother, he was crying and texting his wife a goodbye. That's how like crazy this moment was.

• 53:02Lex Fridman?

  Was it real, like genuine-

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Genuine, like genuine engine went out, plane is going down, pilots looking like crazy in the front, and it was a really tiny jet.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  And, and like I said, my brother next to me crying, typing a text to his wife. Really, really scary. And I felt nothing. I genu- genuinely sat there and I was like,

• 53:30Speaker 01

  this might actually be nice. Like, I, I really felt like this goes down and like, ah, man, life sucks and it's hard. And that sounds so ridiculous, I know, to say, because I, again, I like, I'm in a different place now and I see my life for what it is, but at that moment, I did not.

• 53:48Lex Fridman?

  So life was primarily defined by suffering, it was a burden.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  It was, I felt.

• 53:53Lex Fridman?

  Lifted.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  I was incredibly depressed. I had been trying different medications since I was young and I just had not found anything that was working for me. And then I was in a faith crisis, lost all my faith. Started a band, it just became, I wasn't ever thinking that this band, I was like, when you call your band Imagine Dragons, you're not thinking that band's gonna be big, okay? It was like, I was like, this was like a side project that was fun for me. It was like art in college. I was at, in school and I was like, man, I hate this biology class. I'm gonna write down band names, like, you know what I mean? Like, it was not, hey, put everything aside. This is my career, let's go.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  Like, it just, it happened. And I'm an introvert by nature. I'm really not an extroverted person who likes to go out and like, I like to be at home with a couple of friends and have a late night conversation over good food. Like, that to me is a perfect night. Read a good book, listen to a podcast, go on a walk.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  You know, those are things that I really, really enjoy. And suddenly I'm in this life where I'm like supposed to be something that I really don't wanna be. Except for on stage, which is a really fast, like, strange thing to me, which is on stage, I feel so free and exuberant and like, an extrovert. And then I come off and I just feel like shrivel back into a show. Like, it's a, it's, I, I, music does that for me and performing on a stage does that for me.

• 55:23Lex Fridman?

  Can we take a small tangent on that?

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, of course.

• 55:25Lex Fridman?

  What's the high, can we go through that, the introvert that wants to cuddle up and read a book? You're the front man of one of the, if not the biggest, rock bands today. Playing in front of huge crowds.

• 55:42Lex Fridman?

  What's the high of that? And how can you land back on Earth?

• 55:49Speaker 01

  The high of it is incredibly beautiful to walk on a stage, sing these songs that you wrote and see it resonate with people around you and sing with them. Different cultures, different places celebrate life. It's suddenly, the world seems like a fantastic place. It feels like we're all on the same team.

• 56:17Lex Fridman?

  It's like one big hug.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like everybody in that room gets it and they all like it just. It feels like what you want the world to be, which is just like this coexisting unit of people. And it's not even about like, you know, I just, it's incredible. It's for sure. It's incredible and I love it and I wouldn't do it unless I loved it. And then you walk off stage and you turn on the news and it's like, you see, you know, we're all against each other, everybody hates each other. And it feels that way in the world. So music really, that's why live music is so important to people. That's why music is so important to people. Cause even if it's just you and that person that wrote the song, you're listening to it and the two of you feel connected.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  You know, it's like you're hearing Tracy Chapman sing like Fast Car or something. You're just like, oh my gosh, like, yes, I get it. And you feel connected to that person. You don't feel alone like, so that's the high of it for sure. And then you get off stage and then, you know, as my, like my uncle's a heart surgeon, incredible heart surgeon who like writes the book. Like he's like the guy that the heart surgeons talk to. He's out of Nashville, Tennessee. He's just incredible genius man. He always worries and always reached out to me. He's like musicians die all the time. The reason they die, you know, is because you're getting on stage and your heart's doing this and your cortisol levels are doing this. You're getting off stage and then you're just doing this. And it's a really real thing.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Like you get off stage and you feel like you need drugs because you're like I, the world feels like, oh incredibly daunting. And it's also, I'm sure has to do with like some, some like health things in your heart and the cortisol levels that are so crazy. And then you come off and it's like.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  I know people are like, well, then nothing's enough, except meth. Nothing's enough, except heroin.

• 58:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  And that's why a lot of artists turn to that stuff. And, and I don't say it in a preach, I don't say it in a preachy way. Like, I've struggled with drug abuse in my life. And I really, I, I understand why artists turn to it.

• 58:23Lex Fridman?

  But also the fact that you're introvert. So the other side of it, the fame. That's something that you also said is a double edged sword for you. The interesting thing about fame is that you also mentioned, this is something you can't take back.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:39Lex Fridman?

  So it's a thing, you can't just like go on vacation to Hawaii and it's like, consider, do I like it or not? No, you're staying in Hawaii for the rest of your life and you've never been there before. Whether you like it or not.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:52Lex Fridman?

  So, um, what's that like? Being, you know, loved by millions and millions and millions of people. Which is, um, perhaps the best kind of fame in terms of if you had to choose the kinds of fames there are. And still being an introvert and all that kind of stuff. So what, um, do you feel?

• 59:16Lex Fridman?

  Do you feel alone, more alone, being famous? Is there a loneliness to it?

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's so, it's such a funny thing. Cause for, okay, if you had asked, if we were having this conversation a couple of years ago, I'd be incredibly guarded about this because

• 59:31Speaker 01

  the last thing I want to ever do is sound ungrateful or unaware of how much I have. And woe is the famous celebrity with money. Oh, is your life hard? Is it really telling me about how hard it is? But I'm also at a place in life now where I just like, I'm gonna always just speak my truth because that's the only reason I'm here. Is I'm here to speak my truth to you, so I'm gonna tell you my truth, whether it's whatever it is.

• 59:54Lex Fridman?

  But you're human and feelings are real. And so, and that's the interesting thing. You win a lottery, what's that gonna feel like? It's not about complaining, oh, it's so hard to win a lottery because you get a lot of money. No, it's still, you're human. You get to experience these feelings and it's fascinating. You put humans in different situations.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:12Lex Fridman?

  And, and it's also fascinating because a lot of people think, well, I would like to be famous. That's a big thing now on social media, on Instagram and so on.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  The whole world wants to be famous.

• 1:00:21Lex Fridman?

  Or rich or famous. And then it's very interesting to think, all right, well, once you arrive. Are all the problems solved?

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  No, yeah, so I will tell you, according to me, what the pitfalls are, whether it's true or not. And there are certainly some pitfalls. One, it's, once you're there, you can't go back. Whatever, maybe that's fine, because maybe you love it. But the real pitfall for me is that

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  you're now, you're Lex, and you're what everybody's perception is that Lex is, and that's what you are. Now, Lex is probably a lot more complex and complicated and has a lot more to Lex than the Lex that is the celebrity.

• 1:01:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  So,

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  but anybody who meets you, that's who you are to them. And you may, you may not feel this way, but you may feel confined to actually have to be that person to that person. Like, I, early in my career, for a long time, anytime I met someone, I suddenly felt like I had to be Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons. Anytime I met someone, including my family now, who are also like, whoa, this is crazy. You're like, Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons.

• 1:01:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  And I wanted to just be the goofball that I have been my whole life with my brothers and family. But suddenly I found myself feeling like, no, I have to be this, like, because that's who, that's who this is. So you're almost like playing a role. And it's like, I've heard a lot of actors talk about this, where they'll take on a role, and then it's like, they feel like they have to, they like, become that. And it's a really scary thing, like, you alter who you are almost to fit the notion of other people. Because especially if, a lot of artists are empaths. It, you know, a lot of people get into art in a deep way are empaths. And so you feel a lot of what people are feeling, and you're never wanting to burden people.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  And you're always wanting to deliver to that person, you know, what they want is like, people pleasing is very, goes hand in hand with a lot of like, these famous people, and they get to where they were because they know how to do that. They know how to be in a room with someone and look them in the eye and make them feel like they're the only person in the room. And then now they got that role in that movie because they sat with the casting director and they were like, So funny. Oh, has anybody like put on the charisma, do it all. And it's like,

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  anyway, I'm like, I'm going on a different tangent here, but long story short, there's a lot of things that are really unhealthy about it. And then a lot of people who want the fame, then the second it starts to go away, then they're like, who am I anymore? Like, that was everything. And now I'm like on the down and now I'm not a famous person anymore. And now I hate myself. Now I'm gonna do drugs. And it's like, it's like this vicious cycle. Like, you could never be famous enough. You're always gonna get like, there's just so much to it that I've just, and I, and again, like, I've, I've lost friends in this career to, to that, for sure.

• 1:03:16Lex Fridman?

  And there's a certain element to sort of just on the, the losing fame. I've interacted with a lot of folks,

• 1:03:24Lex Fridman?

  especially young folks, like on YouTube. So fame is a thing that has levels. You're always trying to be a little more famous. A lot of folks who are chasing fame, it doesn't matter how famous you are, you're always trying to chase more. And when you start to lose it, interesting things can happen if you're not self-aware, which is like, like you mentioned, you might be trying to grasp back at where you were by leaning into the formula that got you there. And so the, the, the constraints of the image that you mentioned becomes the thing that you're now trying to lean into, like, and that, that's actually walking away from who you really are. Like, you lean further into being that person. That's true for acting.

• 1:04:06Lex Fridman?

  That's true for, even on like YouTube, which is people acting, they have a role, they got them to the table somehow. Yeah, it's, it's dark, but I think those are,

• 1:04:19Lex Fridman?

  that's just put for everybody to see. But that's a very human struggle, even when you're not famous. Finding yourself, of being yourself, of not letting, not doing the people pleasing at any scale.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:34Lex Fridman?

  And being trapped by that.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and also feeling like it's never enough. I think that's something all he like, it, it very not, it's not just a famous thing, but it's like in the whole, like, everybody deals with feeling like, when I'm here, I'll be happy.

• 1:04:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  When I get that job, I'll be happy. When I have that money, then I'll be happy. When my, when I get that surgery and my nose looks like this, I will be happy then. It's like a constant chase of happiness instead of.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  Happiness, it's like the opposite. It's opposite of self-love. It's the opposite of happiness. There's no presence to it. You're constant. You're never going to find it. You're never going to arrive. And you're just going to live your life and then you're going to be on your deathbed and be like, I was chasing the wrong thing my whole life, you know?

• 1:05:23Lex Fridman?

  I should say that podcasts are interesting in that way. So for me personally, because you just talk a lot, you can't, people that meet you, they know you and they know the evolution of you. And that's the same thing for like you right now, Dan of Imagine Dragons, just being on a podcast, like long form reveals a side that liberates you more to be yourself to like, people see, oh, there's a human. They, because they, you know, music, they have a deep connection with you. They have experiences with you the way they experienced it. And that's who you are with them through the songs. But now you get to see, oh, that's a, that's a, there's a human being. He probably gets angry. He gets sad.

• 1:06:07Lex Fridman?

  He's excited. He's hopeful, you know, and there's a core that's a good human being. But the whole roller coaster of emotions all there. It's a giant, beautiful mess. And podcasts reveal that. That's why I love podcasts, like long form. You get to, you get to hear some artists and actors and so on. And some of them, you get to see, oh, you've lost yourself in the, in the surface. That's a tragedy with some actors, some great actors. They've, they've, they've left so much of themselves in the roles they've played that they can no longer be the thing they were before, those great roles.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  That's for sure.

• 1:06:49Lex Fridman?

  It's hard. It's hard to see. So you get to see that with Johnny Depp with, I don't know, Pirates. He was talking about that with Pirates of the Caribbean. That was a shift.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:58Lex Fridman?

  Like he's not that guy.

• 1:06:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:59Lex Fridman?

  He's forever.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Forever.

• 1:07:02Lex Fridman?

  Forever that guy. But the point is to remember that you're not into your family, which is interesting. You said with your family, when I see people close to me, they also, there is an element like that while you're that, they start treating you like the famous person.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I I'm fortunate to have my manager, who's my brother, my older brother, and my lawyer is my other older brother. And that's been helpful because the like, it's weird. It gets weird with everyone, no matter what. One of the best advice I was given was by Charlie Sheen.

• 1:07:39Lex Fridman?

  You got advice from Charlie Sheen?

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were playing.

• 1:07:41Lex Fridman?

  The wise sage of our generation.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  Wise sage, sage Charlie Sheen, but it was, it was really wise. I was sitting next to him and we were, we were playing some late night television. He said, this was right at the beginning, and he just said, boys, just mark my words. Your life is about to get really weird. That's all I said, but it stuck with me forever. And it's Charlie Sheen, so of course it sticks with you. And I remember being like, right, okay, Charlie Sheen, I'm not Charlie Sheen. It's not going to get weird like, you know. But it got really, really weird, really quick because suddenly you've existed your whole life in this way where everybody just, everything you get, you achieved, it was because you got it.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  And, and every conversation you had, like, if someone liked you at the end of that conversation, well, it's because they liked you. If they didn't like you, it's because they didn't like you. And you can make complete peace with that. At least I could my whole life. I was like, life is a challenge and be myself and I'm going to go through it and find some people along the way that I connect with and others know. And that social integrity is so important to us. And we think it would be nice to have this, and this is going back to the pitfalls of fame. We think it would be nice to walk into a room and have everyone be like.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  And you could be like dumpster fire and everybody's like, oh my gosh dumpster fire, that was amazing. You said dumpster fire was amazing. It's like, it's incredibly, incredibly lonely and it just breaks everything that you knew about humanness. And it sucks. So then you're seeking out people who that it doesn't exist with and families are closest you can get to that for sure. But even your family's, it's going to take a little bit where they're like, oh, this is a little weird. Like all my friends at work are now asking about you and you're my young stupid brother, but now you're suddenly like the young stupid brother that they want an autograph from and stuff. And it's, it still makes like, they have to get over that and figure that out. And, and then you meet people too, who know about this whole concept and they're like, well, I'm going to be an

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  asshole to him to show him that I don't subscribe. And you're dealing with like people who are like dumpster fire, the person who's like, you know, you could say something actually profound and nice and they'd be like, that's stupid and you're an idiot. Because it's like an actual attempt to like, show you how much they don't care. So you live in this very like.

• 1:10:09Lex Fridman?

  And still, nevertheless, even when nobody knew you, you were seeking for deep human connection with a small number of people. And now when a lot of people know you, you're still looking for deep connection with a small number of people. The struggle is the same. Can you, can you speak to, because you mentioned some of the dark moments, what advice did you give to people who are struggling with depression? And maybe for the people who love the people who are struggling with depression?

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  So what I have found to be most successful for me, it's, it's back to the basics of everything that the therapist or psychologist will tell you, psychiatrists will tell you right when you meet them, which is exercise every day.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Eat healthy for sure. Find time, make time every day to do something that you love. Whatever that may be, whatever brings you joy. And you might, and when you're really depressed, that actually feels like nothing. Cause the things that brought you joy don't bring you joy anymore. When I'm really in the thick of it. But um, for me, I'll like, this is the cycle that I I'll go through is I'll I'll look at my life and I'll say, okay, what, what, what can I clean up? All right, well, for me, it was cutting out alcohol actually helped me a lot. Um, I know that sounds like a big, I'm not like, I'm not judging anybody for that.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  And I still, you know, drink on occasion, but I have felt like alcohol has been very unhelpful to my mental state. Um, feel less drive and less happiness the next day for things that I want to do. I feel like it plays a lot with your serotonin. So look for stuff to change. Clean living, yeah, clean living, but also understanding that, that sometimes it's just, it just is. And you just keep breathing and, and it will get better with time. This too shall pass. This too shall pass, like I, I really think that uh, in the winter, you know, I, I, I'm pretty sure. I mean, I've had a lot of, I've seen a lot of therapists and all of them say the same thing, which is like, you have major depressive disorder and this is what it is, but it's certainly worse for me in the winter months.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  So I know there's like, um, I can't think of the term for it, but there's a term for like seasonal depression. There it is. Um, so I'll get to the winter and suddenly I'm like, geez, everything really sucks on a deeper level. And then, you know, so it's like this too shall pass is another thing. It's like, just practice those things, absolutely see a therapist. That's my big, like, my biggest emphasis of life is to like, on stage, like my goal, like I have a few things that I really, really care about. One is, is, is mental health, health and de-stigmatizing therapy. Cause for me, I didn't go to therapy for a long time because I felt that it would be admitting that I was broken. It'd be admitting that I was weaker than. Lex, who doesn't have to go to a therapist because Lex is stronger.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  So be strong like Lex. You know, I would like, look at all my older brothers and I looked up to them so much and there were all these incredibly successful people. Plastic surgeon, anesthesiologist, a dentist, two attorneys, Stanford, NYU, like just like incredible, high standards, Eagle Scouts, you know, like they, valedictorians, like they just did it all. So for me, I was very, really did not want to, and none of them went to therapy. So it was like, what are you gonna be, are you, are you broken? Are you like the weak one who can't hack life? And I think that's incredibly dangerous. And I feel like it almost cost me my life because I took so long to finally go to therapy.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  So I really want kids to know, hey, like the great people that achieve great things that are doing amazing things, they probably have help, almost all of them.

• 1:13:58Lex Fridman?

  It's like go to the gym, but it's a mental gym. What, um, so I unfortunate, I want to be a psychiatrist when I was growing up. Maybe, maybe that's why I like podcasts. Maybe that's.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  I think you'd be a good one.

• 1:14:10Lex Fridman?

  Maybe, I would, I would.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  I think you are a psychiatrist, pretty much, right? Sounds like you're a psychiatrist.

• 1:14:15Lex Fridman?

  I think I need more, I, I think, I, I think actually to be a good psychiatrist, you also need to be seeking therapy from the, like, you also need to be, have some stuff to work through in your mind.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:29Lex Fridman?

  I think, uh, yeah, you have to have gone to some dark places.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  Empathize.

• 1:14:36Lex Fridman?

  The, the empathy, it's this ability to empathize and especially if you've directly experienced that you can, you can go to those places in your mind. Like, like you said, it's with the music, to be authentic, you have to really go there. What, um, why did therapy help so much? What is the process of therapy? If you can just educate a little more, is it, are you basically bringing to the surface and talking through things that you, because of the?

• 1:15:06Lex Fridman?

  The momentum of life, you just never allow yourself to speak through, to think through. Is that what therapy is? Or is this a more systematic thing?

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  So I've been to a lot of strange, different kinds of therapy. So I'll tell you, my first therapist.

• 1:15:21Lex Fridman?

  If I could sort of interrupt, how hard is it to find a therapist that connected with you?

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  It is, it's actually pretty hard, I think. I think, I think it for, well, actually I have a skewed view of that because my, going back to the beginning of my therapy was with a Mormon therapist. So it was very much like, well, are you reading your book of Mormon? And are you praying at night? You know what I mean? Like, that was a big focus of my therapy to begin with.

• 1:15:50Lex Fridman?

  And you're having?

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:51Lex Fridman?

  A faith crisis in the distance.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  Yes. It's like, well, and then.

• 1:15:56Lex Fridman?

  You're making it worse.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  Yes. The next therapist I went to was a Scientology therapist. I met my wife and she was Scientologist at the time, and she's not anymore. She's like, it's such a funny thing, like to look back on because we met. And I was like this Mormon missionary who had just got home from his mission and I met her and I was, she's Scientologist. I was like, wow, that's batshit crazy. Like, I'm not like, that stuff's crazy. And she's like, what are you talking about? That's your crazy. You're Mormon. That's batshit crazy. And the two of us were like, huh, maybe there's something to this to bolster us here.

• 1:16:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the tension actually forces you to think through like, oh, well, what is true?

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we really fell in love through that, which was like, maybe that we're both on the wrong track. Let's figure this out. But before that happened, we went to a Scientologist therapist who, that therapy consisted of, what have you done wrong to Asia? And they asked, they would ask me that question over and over and over and over until I'm like, thinking of the deepest, darkest things that were in the recesses of my mind. This was a therapy, this was marriage therapy. Anyway, I'm not going to get into that, but it was, it was Scientology therapy. So that was a different thing. And then I went to therapy, therapy, like no, not attached to any religion. And that was a really great experience for me.

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  And and since then, I've been through a couple of different therapists, but that was more because where I was and moving and things like that. So is it that hard to find a great therapist? Probably not, but maybe don't go to your Mormon therapist person that's a therapist. Or maybe that's maybe that's the route for you. Maybe it's the route for you. I don't know.

• 1:17:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but what is so is it bringing stuff to the surface, basically?

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, so I didn't even answer your question.

• 1:17:44Lex Fridman?

  What's the effect? Why is it so effective? Just is there something you could put words to?

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's obviously there's the common things you would think of, which is like, oh, I've been holding these things in and I don't want to tell anybody. And then I tell this person and oh, there's relief in that. But that's really not where the real work comes from. I think the real work is meeting with someone who is well versed and educated and understands. It's like it's like coding. It really is. It's like someone who like they listen to you and they're like, well, that was a trigger. And then this became this trigger and you're probably every time you're hearing that, thinking of this thing that happened earlier in your life. And they just will walk you through scenarios and maybe some of them aren't right, but some of them you'll be like, it'll resonate sometimes. You're like, wow, I I am feeling that because of that. And that did happen. And maybe if I tell call my mom and say this to her, it will make me feel better.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  Hey, mom, this happened. It's like work. You you you put in work and you have hard conversations and do difficult things. And if so, if your therapy is not difficult, I actually think that's that's not good therapy. Good therapy is it's going to be a little difficult. It's work like.

• 1:18:49Lex Fridman?

  During and after.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  Yes, like I had this incredible therapist who was who had. I told him when I was going to do ayahuasca, he was like, geez, you know, he'd he'd actually was a doctor before and a really well educated, studied person who had walked away from a brain doctor. What's the word for that? Brain doctor.

• 1:19:07Lex Fridman?

  A brain surgeon?

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  Neurologist.

• 1:19:09Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah, neurologist.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  And he and he and he said, well, basically, his belief was that ayahuasca was like.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  Basically doing therapy, like 50 sessions. He was like, it's, it's, it's like really intensive. He was like, you, I don't know if you want to do that. If you do, you can, you can make, you know, some big steps forward, but I prefer just to do one, one, one session at a time. And so yeah, it's, it's hard work and, and that I typically like, it's really hard for me to even talk about ayahuasca. By the way, going back to that, because I'm not looking to tell everybody to go to ayahuasca. It's incredibly hard. It was the scariest experience of my entire life. It felt like I went to heaven, but it also felt like I went to the darkest, deepest hell. That was incredibly scary.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  Incredibly scary. Yeah.

• 1:19:58Lex Fridman?

  He told the story of how you wrote the, the song believer, or like your, your childhood friend, I guess, Donald, like, like bullying and that kind of stuff.

• 1:20:11Lex Fridman?

  This song, I mean, a lot of your songs are super interesting. Sort of in terms of percussion, super interesting, super interesting lyrically, just how it flows. And also pain is at the center of it. I mean, a lot of, like you said, the crisis of faith. Some of these existential questions are basically behind a lot of your songs, funny enough. Maybe they're covered in metaphor, so it's hard to see. But it's there and this song is really, is really interesting in that way that it puts,

• 1:20:47Lex Fridman?

  you know, pain, you made me a believer.

• 1:20:53Lex Fridman?

  You break me down, you build me up believer. That's so interesting. Maybe can you tell this, the story of how the song came to be? I'd love to listen to it too. I, I have some questions musically about it too.

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean,

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  It's exactly what we're talking about with therapy. I just feel like the greatest things in my life have come from the deepest hurt. Like, losing someone, you know, that you love is maybe the hardest part of the human path for me, at least thus far. Like, I, when I think of, okay, what was the hardest thing? There's like, you know, there's like, you think of physical pain, or maybe like going through financial pain, or whatever. I think losing someone that you really love to death is one of the hardest. For me, I would say it was the hardest. And, um, but it also makes you look at your life completely differently, and alter your life, at least for me, in

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  ways that were really healthy. Um, being more present, letting go of things that were meaningless, trying to control what other people think about you, like wasting your time on things like that. And you suddenly see like, wow, like time, I got a small amount of time, like, how do I want to spend it? I'm gonna spend it in the best way I know how, and that's it. So, yeah, I mean, that's, it's a basic comment, concept that's been said a million times over in a million different ways. But that's pretty much what I was trying to say with believer, which is like, I've lost faith in, faith in everything at that time period. And, you know, or previous to that time period, and then I was rebuilding my faith, or my, my spiritual thought

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  process. And it was after ayahuasca, and it was like, you know, finding, being a believer, and that, and that's not necessarily like, a believer in God, or a believer in heaven and hell, or anything like that, but a believer in more, believing in goodness, believing in that there is some light, like, and again, those words like,

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  They're just words, and I wish there were better words to formulate the thought that I'm trying to express. But just more, like the thought of me dying, for me, I don't fear it. I don't fear it, but actually, I really fear not seeing my kids again. I'll say that. That is fearful for me. I feel like I love so deeply these children that the thought of like leaving them for me is a scary thought or something.

• 1:23:34Lex Fridman?

  They're they're kind of good reminder how much you love life, actually.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Lex Fridman?

  And you don't always remember that.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think having kids is not for everyone, for absolutely for sure. But for me, and especially you shouldn't be having kids to give yourself a reason to live. I mean, like, I feel like dying, I'm gonna have a kid. You might feel more like dying after having a kid, actually, you know?

• 1:24:00Lex Fridman?

  It's pretty stressful, but it is a place to like, I've changed a lot of people that I've known that it gave them a new intensity of gratitude for life, for sure. God, do you mind if we, I'll return to the the pain of the believer. Do you mind if we listen to a little bit of the songs?

• 1:24:24Lex Fridman?

  Do you write the music first or the words first?

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  The same time, which is very typical for me.

• 1:24:31Lex Fridman?

  By the, just the way it opens, like how, you know, intensity of openings. You ever think about like what the first few seconds sound like? Is that something that, like when you imagine a song, is it the opening you imagine?

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  No, it's it's kind of a, it's just a, I never think opening, I never think final. I think soundscape of how I'm feeling right now. So it could be the middle of the song for all I know when I'm, you know, when I'm, when I'm doing that. But my process for me is very much lyrics and melody and music really come at the same time. Like I, by same time, I mean, I'm, I'm a, as I'm expressing, maybe, you know, I'm feeling like.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Like, it's not that simple, but it's like, I'll, I'll hear it, like, it's like, here's all the orchestra and you're kind of just pressing all the buttons at once. And melody in my voice is just one of those instruments, you know what I mean? It's just utilizing one instrument.

• 1:25:35Lex Fridman?

  So you've seen the landscape, and that landscape includes melody, includes percussion lyrics a little bit, or lyrics?

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  Where, I will be words to begin with, like, a word here and there. Like, I'll be like,

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  you know, I'm like, what's a word that I'm thinking of when I'm feeling this soundscape? And I always create with no theme in mind. I'm never, for, for better or for worse, just my process is I'm sitting down and I'm writing a journal entry. Simple as that. It's like, when you sit down to write a journal entry, are you sitting down and you're like, Kev, I've had all these words here that I'm gonna put on the page and I'm gonna order it in this way. And my theme for my journal entry today is gonna be this. Maybe some people do, but I don't. My journal entry is, I don't know what I'm gonna say. Oh, how was today? Well, man, today was this and feeling this. And now that I think about that, I'm really angry about that. That hurt my feelings when this happened. You're like, you're formulating it as you go, and that's the joy of it. And for me, that's what music is.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  So I'll sit down, not thinking, hey, I've been wanting to write a song that has a hard beat. Or I've been wanting to write a song that's anthemic. Or I've been wanting to write a song that's, it's like, how am I feeling right now?

• 1:26:45Lex Fridman?

  And is joyful, is the feeling joyful to you or is it struggle? You just made it sound like it's joyful. Or at least fulfilling.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, fulfilling is the word I was kind of looking for, but there was.

• 1:27:00Lex Fridman?

  Cause a lot of artists talk about really, like, you talk about writers.

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  Cathartic, that's the word I was, it feels like. Having a good moment with a therapist where you're like, okay, I'm expressing this thing that I just need to express. For whatever reason, I need to express this. The majority of the songs I write, for the record, are never heard. I write over a hundred songs a year. I release twenty songs every three years. So, I don't know, what's that percent? Twenty out of three hundred? Come on, Lex.

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  It's less than ten percent.

• 1:27:35Lex Fridman?

  Less than ten percent, yeah.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  Eight, seven percent?

• 1:27:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  Anyway, so it's.

• 1:27:40Lex Fridman?

  And then like getting together with the band and like getting them selected down is really what the process has. So you're really writing

• 1:27:49Lex Fridman?

  a song per one to three days? Kind of maybe a song that you can't quite figure out the puzzle of that's gonna last a little, a little longer. Where's the struggle?

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  Every idea.

• 1:28:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. You finish every idea?

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  I do, I finish every idea.

• 1:28:04Lex Fridman?

  So it's not just like laying completely unfinished?

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  I could open my computer for you right now and I would show you hundreds and hundreds of songs that you would listen to and think, that sounds like a song. It's like there's rhythm, there's melody, there's multiple instruments, there's lyrics. Like, I, it's the same thing is, is for coding for me, which is music, which is, I can't walk away until I've completed it.

• 1:28:28Lex Fridman?

  But it's finished.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  My, well, finished is.

• 1:28:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it sounds like a song.

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  I certainly do a lot more with it after with the band, we'll pull it all apart. But it's a song. It'll be like, you know, it's, you'll listen to it and say, okay, that was a song. I get, you understand what, what it is, for sure.

• 1:28:45Lex Fridman?

  Do you think, this is a painful question from a fan perspective. Do you think there's genius on your computer that you walked away from that you just didn't notice it? Like, do you think there's truly great songs that you've written that you just didn't notice how great they are?

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  I, I think greatness is something that I feel I'm, I'm, I, I don't feel like I've achieved greatness. Genuine, I'm not saying that to you in a way of like humility.

• 1:29:17Lex Fridman?

  It's like Michael Jordan time.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  No, genuinely, I feel like I am on a journey right now to find who I am. And I'm thirty-four and it's like, I don't even, I, I haven't begun that journey. I feel like I'm just starting that. But that being said.

• 1:29:35Speaker 01

  I certainly don't know the right answer to what songs are, you know, beloved or good to the masses. Like Imagine Dragons is such a massive entity. It's like, there have been, I will say this, there are a couple of times where I fought really hard to decide on the single. Really hard. Or I always fight for what goes on the record, always. I always put the record together and that's the record that I wanted to be. And me and the guys come up with that. And it's, nobody else has influence, no manager, no label. The single, everybody wants to have a say in it. Your label wants to have a say in it. Your manager wants to have a say in it. And I have fought really hard over that. And I've been wrong before and I've been right before.

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  But as far as songs that I haven't put out, I mean.

• 1:30:22Lex Fridman?

  You can imagine so many songs, you think, you think of so many Beatles songs that are like some of their greats. While my guitar gently weeps. I'm trying to imagine weird sounding, not that interesting, possibly songs.

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  The majority of what we, honestly, they may, it may be, our best stuff is that we don't put out, for instance, because our band is such a,

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  it's such a complex question. I really don't know, actually. I don't know. Maybe one day I'll die and people will look and be like, I hated Imagine Dragons, but now I listen to that song. I really liked that. I wish they would have put that out. Or maybe they'll be like, oh, it's all sounds like shit. I don't really know.

• 1:31:01Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's, that's, sorry. It is a tragic thing. That's why I asked it, which is like, there could be some great, incredible things that, that will take you a long time to rediscover, to realize how great they are. And it's also the tragic aspect of being an artist is you don't know, forget fame or all that kind of stuff. You don't know what's going to really move people. Cause ultimately what you want is to, to connect with people and you don't know what that's going to be. It's hard. I mean, to me, it's, to me, it's tragic, just as a fan of yours to see. Maybe I wonder if there's like incredible stuff there, just as it is tragic to see great artists throughout history who didn't get recognition until they died.

• 1:31:46Lex Fridman?

  It's like, because they basically held on, you know, Franz Kafka was extremely self critical. A lot of these folks had an idea of what's good and not, and they were wrong.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:59Lex Fridman?

  They were, they had genius. They weren't entirely wrong because they became sufficiently popular, but it's interesting.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  I try to genuinely to release the songs that move me the most.

• 1:32:10Lex Fridman?

  Got it.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  I'll say that.

• 1:32:11Lex Fridman?

  You're an, you're your own audience.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I try to put out the songs that make me feel the most. Like, I feel, I feel that. That's my only gauge. Because it's so subjective of like, what is good? What's this? Nobody knows the song the masses are gonna like. Nobody knows that formula. Nobody knows it. So for me, it's always what makes me feel something. One of the main lessons Rick Rubin taught me when we worked with him on this record was he would say, he would, his, his main point that he would continually bring up went like, because he's not, he's not the type of person to be like, that's a bad song, or that's good. It's just not who Rick Rubin is. It's more like, there's more nuance to it. He would say, I don't really believe you on that song. That's what he would, he would say, he would say.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  And I knew that was like, that song's a no go. He'd say, and I, and I would genuinely, there was a time he said it, and it was about a song that I really, like, I really felt it and meant it when I said it. But he didn't believe it when he heard it. And that was enough. I was like, man, well, at the end of the day, like, I can believe it all I want. But if the listener doesn't feel the honesty in it, just like we were talking about earlier, I think the most important ingredient is, is this truth, perceived as truth to someone else? And if it's not, the bullshit indicator goes, and you're like, I don't care. I don't, throw it away. I don't care about it.

• 1:33:30Lex Fridman?

  Well, he, you said that he made you go through, like, line by line, the lyrics.

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  Every step. That was excruciating for me.

• 1:33:39Lex Fridman?

  Why was that excruciating?

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, it's Rick Rubin. So you're in the room with like Rick Rubin, who's done a lot of the greatest of all time. And um, so I had to first just put that aside and be like, okay, well, you've done a lot of my favorite records, but still you're you're human and not everything you say is gonna be right, you know? And I'm a strongly opinionated person and so is Rick. And so when the two of us were sitting in a room together, it was, you know.

• 1:34:08Lex Fridman?

  But the lyrics, which is interesting. So it's not not the entire composition, but just like, let's look at the lyrics. What do you mean here?

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because he would look over every, there was like, um, and there was, there were battles he won, battles that that that he didn't win. And maybe he was right. I don't know. I mean, there was, for instance, I'll give you an example. There's a song on the record called Number One. Okay. Rick will probably laugh when he hears this. Because this was a big one that we kept going back and forth on. But this will give you a good insight of what it's, what it was like, what it was like. And there's a line in it that says, I don't know. The chorus is, I don't know what I'm meant to be. I don't need no one to believe. When it's all been said and done, I'm still my number one. And he was like, ah, it just makes me cringe when I hear that. He's like, I just, like, do you have to be like, can it not be like,

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  you're still my number one? I was like, no, it's not about anybody else. Like, you know, it's about like self-love. He's like, yeah, but like, do you need to like, talk about self-love like that? And I was like, well, I feel like I need to. He's like, oh, but you know, is there something else we could say there? Like, we just kept, you know, we kept coming back to this song. Okay. I was like, I, and I changed it. I tried changing it. What did I change it to? It was like, it wasn't you're still my number one, because it just made no sense. It wasn't about some love thing or like someone else. I changed it to something else. And it just, it was the one thing that I was like, I'm really sorry, Rick. Like, I get it. And if it sounds cringey to you, it's definitely sounding cringey to other people, too. And that sucks. But I don't know how else to say this in

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  a way that I want to put that song out anymore. But there were other songs, for sure, where Rick was like, that or this, that word, hmm, feels a little trite. You already said that once. Can you say it in a different way? That was really helpful. And that, yeah.

• 1:35:56Lex Fridman?

  It's really interesting, because you're trying to say something so simply. And yet not make it cringe.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  And that's really hard.

• 1:36:04Lex Fridman?

  That's that's like, that's a strange art form because you want to say some of the greatest law songs. We we looked at the without you song. I mean, that's the whole thing is cringey. If you just read it on paper, like it's a like, like it's a court report or something, but yet it's not. Especially when sung, maybe, but no, there's something about. Yeah, maybe.

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  Sung in a way you believe it.

• 1:36:30Lex Fridman?

  When you believe it, but also written in a way that's singable in the way you believe it. So it's like.

• 1:36:37Speaker 01

  Right. And then. It rolls off, it just comes out in a way that just feels like silky and.

• 1:36:42Lex Fridman?

  No word catches your mind as cringey.

• 1:36:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:36:46Lex Fridman?

  It's just, uh, but then music. I think great speeches are like that, too, or just. You know, conveying, communicating ideas simply. That's the that's the art form is to not be cringey. So interesting. And then yet. Cause like when you're raw and real.

• 1:37:09Lex Fridman?

  It might at first feel cringey. So that the battle there and that that's where. You see people fail, like just regular artists, like, um, I don't know, open at open mic. I got open mics, so I just listen to musicians like when they write songs like they they fail that test. They write simple stuff, but it's cringey. Why? I wonder what was that like, what is that?

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, Lex, I tried to explain this to my brother the other day. Cause it's the same thing with a live performance. If I'm not in my right headspace and I walk on stage and I walk up and let's say I say something and I do this.

• 1:37:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:47Speaker 01

  Hey, cause I'm like, this is the move, right? I'm like, this is the move. The crowd doesn't care. In fact, the crowd's like, that's cringey when you did this. But if I wasn't thinking about doing this and I went up there and I said something and I really meant it and my body was like. I can't explain this to you and it's so silly to say out loud. But it's.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  People will resonate to it when it's real. And when it's acted, it doesn't, you could do it the exact, the motion could look the same. Your eyes look the same, but there's something about the energy that people know. They know if it's real or not.

• 1:38:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, people, like you said, incredible bullshit detectors.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. I'll go on a stage and if I'm not in the right headspace to be real, it won't be a good show. If I'm real, then it's a good show. It's as simple as that.

• 1:38:35Lex Fridman?

  Let's go through the song.

• 1:38:38Lex Fridman?

  Like I said, great opener. So you had this in your mind, this landscape?

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  The beat was first on this.

• 1:38:53Lex Fridman?

  What about the first and the second, like first things first?

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  The first line I wrote was first things first. I don't know why, it just was like, and then I was like, oh, that principle of, you know.

• 1:39:06Lex Fridman?

  Great line. Don't, second thing second, don't you tell me what you think that I could be. I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea. I'm the master of my sea.

• 1:39:17Speaker 01

  My dad had that in his office. He had this saying that was something about the sailor and being the master of the sea that I always loved.

• 1:39:27Lex Fridman?

  There you go. Simple statement.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:29Lex Fridman?

  Zero cringe in it. It's so powerful. It's so simple. I'm the master of my sea. This whole song is just trivial, but in terms of lyrically, but extremely powerful and original and unique sounding, something about the words. Just even, you don't have to actually sing them, you just read them. And then, and then raw. I was broken from a young age, talking myself into the masses, writing my poems for the few that look at me, took to me, shook at me, feeling me, singing from the heartache, from the pain, taking my message from the thing. I can't, why am I reciting your words to you? But the percussionist throughout it, the...

• 1:40:12Lex Fridman?

  And that that was there in the beginning.

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  The percussion is almost in the lyrics, yeah. And I'm a very percussive singer because I was a drummer first before I, I think same with Dave Grohl, probably a similar thing, which is, I think in percussive sense, a lot when I'm writing, because I, and I also was, before I could play an instrument, I would beatbox. And I think Michael Jackson did this too, actually. I've heard in the studio that he was very similar. But a lot of what I do is percussive, because my brain thinks in percussively first.

• 1:40:47Lex Fridman?

  A little more, because it's good.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  It's almost like a drum, like.

• 1:40:54Lex Fridman?

  And then you lay words on that.

• 1:40:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, this.

• 1:41:02Lex Fridman?

  It's building.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  It's almost like drums.

• 1:41:10Lex Fridman?

  It's all building to the chorus.

• 1:41:22Lex Fridman?

  What about the word pain? When did that come to you?

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:41:28Lex Fridman?

  Pain, you made me, you made me a believer.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just, the idea of, um, I just wanted to, I, I, I really, one of the things that, a lot of the songs that I like,

• 1:41:41Speaker 01

  I like divisiveness. For instance, not always, but there's times where I want someone to hear a song and I want them to either love it or hate it. I really don't want them to be in the middle ground. A lot of the songs that, like, a lot of my favorite songs are divisive songs. Um, and so for instance, with pain, I want to, I want you to hear that and almost like, it's like, whoa, you know what I mean? It's, it's, uh, it's something either somebody's gonna hear and they'll be like, man, I just don't want to hear that like that. Or it's like, oh, I felt that so deeply when he said that in that way because it sounded like this. And, and when you think of the word pain, it's like, that's, that's a, that's a.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  When I, at least for me, when I hear that word, I, it carries a lot of weight, carries a lot of weight. So I wanted to sing it with a lot of weight and to come into that chorus with like, like it's a striking moment. Um, and I'm also a tenor singing as, I'm sorry, I'm a baritone singing as a tenor. So that's where that natural like gruffness comes from is I'm singing out of my range really up in my head voice. And it carries a lot of weight with it because of the baritone.

• 1:42:51Lex Fridman?

  Can I ask you a specific sort of the pause before the pain?

• 1:42:57Lex Fridman?

  It's really interesting because it's like a double.

• 1:43:04Lex Fridman?

  What is that? Is that, how much work does that take to get that right? That's, that's incredible because it's like a, so you're, you're kind of seeing the beauty through the, and then that, whatever that sound is the.

• 1:43:16Speaker 01

  Right, the bass being rolled off.

• 1:43:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but yeah.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I actually, when I first, uh, was approaching the chorus, it was actually.

• 1:43:25Speaker 01

  Took a medicine, missing the heartache from the pain, taking my message from the veins, speaking my lesson from the veins, seeing the beauty through the, uh, seeing the beauty through the pain, you made me a. Like it came in on one, I'm not singing it right right now, but it, it did not wait. And it felt like it didn't hit in the way that it was supposed to hit. Because the, the, uh, you predict that, right? You're like, you're waiting to, uh, see the beauty through the pain, you made me a, right? It was like, the beauty through the pain, you made me a, made me. So I wanted to, to feel a little more like striking, like again, it's like that thing that makes you kind of do this a little bit. You're like, huh? But once you hear it a few times, you're like, ah, ah, and you predict, you know what I mean? It's like, I'd rather someone hear our song the first time and be confused by it.

• 1:44:10Speaker 01

  So they play it the second time and then they're like, oh, okay. You know what I mean? Like, I really don't want.

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  You know, I'd rather turn some people off along the way. And then the people who come along for you are gonna feel more committed, I think.

• 1:44:26Lex Fridman?

  It's just an interesting, like, it feels gutsy to insert silence, you know?

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what makes it, you know, it's like, the greatest speakers of all time are like, "And I told you."

• 1:44:38Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  "You would know." You know what I mean? It's like, you're like, "Oh."

• 1:44:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. What is that? Yeah, that's so interesting to do that just at the right time.

• 1:44:50Lex Fridman?

  And then "Pain," right? Uh, man, this is, it's a brilliant song. Did you know it was a good song when you, when you wrote it? Out of, out of the thousands of songs you've written?

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  You know, I, it's always the same thing for me, which is like, I'll, if I wanna listen to the song, and I wanna listen to it a lot of times, then, then those are the songs we put out. And I, and I only wanna listen to the songs that make me feel something. Whether or not it's like, our single that did the very worst of all our singles was the song that I wanted to listen to the least. But it made the most sense as a single, which was all the wrong reason to choose it, right? It was this, it was a, "I Bet My Life" is the single off our second album. And that song was originally written, it was just a guitar and a vocal, and it was very just quiet and laid back. And we were like, "Well, let's try to dial it up, let's try to produce it." And we overproduced that song. We self-produced it as a band, and we overproduced.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  And that song, I mean, it's, it did good, you know, in terms of a song, but for us, it did not do good. Um, compared to our other songs. And I really look back at that and learned a lesson from that. It's like, if I don't wanna listen to the song, that's a sign already. If you don't wanna listen to your own song, it's probably not a good song.

• 1:46:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. You, you said your dad, um, elsewhere in today, just said that your dad early on was a kind of, uh, the early Rick Rubin.

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:18Lex Fridman?

  So when you were starting out, he was, um, he gave you feedback, you listened. What did you learn about music, about life, from your dad?

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  My dad is a really quiet, farm, grew up on a farm, very humble.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  I think he starts every sentence by saying, this is just my two cents, pretty much. You know what I mean? It's like, he's like, take it or leave it. Like, you know what I mean? He's that, that kind of a sense, like, there's humility in everything. And it's real for him. It's not like, false humility. He really, I really feel like when he's saying things, he really is like, maybe this isn't any worth to you, son. And he means it. But here it is. And it's always gold. And I'm like, wow, dad, that's incredible, you know? So what, in those early days of you like, so you were like 12 or something like that, like, starting to write songs? I was 12. I wasn't showing my music to anyone. I started writing my, when I was 12, and I probably wrote for at least, let's say, six months or something. And I had written probably, I don't know, like, a lot of songs during that. What was the topic, by the way? Love? It was all sad.

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  No, it was, the first song I ever wrote went,

• 1:47:33Speaker 01

  and it was like a bluesy thing. It was like, there was my voice doing that, and then it was like, "All by himself, no other one around. And he stood all alone. When would he be found? Did he want company? Or was he fine on his own? Everyone needs a friend. So why was he all alone?" You know what I mean? It's like, but I was like a 12 year old with, I just felt like depressed for the first time. And I was, and I just was like so- I think he discovered the blues as a 12 year- Yeah, right, right. It really was. It was like my sense of the blues at that time, for sure, like, bad version of the blues.

• 1:48:17Speaker 01

  But it was like 12 year old kid with a bunch of acne and like, I just like, I hated going to school. I felt like the, I, I just had not found myself. That's like a great song, by the way. By the way, I wanted to keep listening, I forgot else.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know about that, but, um, yeah. Yeah, what was your dad, at which point did you begin to share it with your dad? A lot of the songs that I wrote in the beginning were very much like Bobby McFerrin like that, because we are, are, um, Mike was in a part of the house where I couldn't bring over the piano, and the only instrument I played at the time was the piano. So I would do everything with my voice. But then I started teaching myself the guitar in those, in that beginning, like, six month period, just watching my brothers play in their garage bands in the, in the basement. And then I started to write songs a little more, more like Enya vibes, like, stack my voice like 20, 30 times and like, And you meet like Jare, which is who my dad would listen to a lot, John Michael Jare.

• 1:49:09Speaker 01

  This incredible synth genius. But anyway, so I finally got my like gall up enough to show it to my dad one day after work. And I got very little of my dad because there were nine kids and he worked from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m. Will come home very tired and here's nine kids that are like, Dad, you know, and you're the young one. You're not, you're just gonna miss. I was in the middle kind of too. So it's even, you know, middle child thing. But I sat him down. I was like, Hey Dad, I just want to like, can I show you a song? And he was like, oh, you know, he didn't know I was writing anything. And I showed it to him and he listened. And he took it off and he really looked at me and was like, that was really good. He was like, I thought, and this, when you said this, it made me feel this. He was like, and that did it.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  I probably would have given up music. Like, I look back, that was a very pivotal moment for me. I was like, in a place where I was like, is this good, bad? I don't know. Maybe it's so embarrassing and terrible. And I was already writing lyrics that were a little like overly metaphorical to hide that I was dealing with faith crisis. Because I thought, okay, I'm gonna show this to Dad. I don't want my dad to know I'm like questioning the truthfulness of Joseph Smith. I'm not gonna be like, is Joseph Smith a real prophet? Is Mormonism true? I don't really know. Like, you know what I mean? I was like, writing way overly metaphorical. But because my dad really validated it and he was a no bullshit person. So I knew when my dad said that, I was like, you know what? At least my dad really actually thinks this is cool.

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  And I really trusted my dad's taste and thought everything he listened to was cool. So I was like, wow. I keep doing this. And I just showed it to my dad for years and years. And still to this day, I send every song to my dad.

• 1:50:42Lex Fridman?

  So he, underneath it, with the feedback is always like, ooh, I like this idea. I like this. This is a positive, like a

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  Not always positive, no.

• 1:50:50Lex Fridman?

  But like underneath it, do you sense the positivity? Because I think

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  Always. Never, never mean, never malicious.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  You know, there's like, there's two types of criticism. There's like criticism that's just like, you're looking to be hurtful to someone. And then there's criticism that's like, really important for art. It's the type of criticism that's like, you see the value in what's happening. And if it's honest, then you maybe communicate with that person like, I see what you're trying to do with that. You know, it's not even like you have to say that or whatever, like butter it up. But it's like, my dad would just give me the, this honest criticism that would be like,

• 1:51:28Speaker 01

  You know, it certainly wasn't always good, but I knew it was always well intentioned. I guess that's, that's how I would say.

• 1:51:34Lex Fridman?

  You mentioned, made me re-listen to it. I'm a big fan of Cat Stevens. You made me re-listen to Father and Son. I probably, all sons have issues to work through with their fathers. And you said that you connect with this song in particular. I think, so you're a father now. What is it about the song that connects with you? For people, let me, let me play, let me play a little bit. People should educate themselves on Cat Stevens.

• 1:52:01Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:52:02Lex Fridman?

  Ride on the peace train.

• 1:52:03Speaker 01

  The best, the best. Ride on the peace train.

• 1:52:06Lex Fridman?

  You think this is a hopeful, a sad song?

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  I hear it as hopeful. I hear it as a loving father saying just what his son needs to hear.

• 1:52:14Speaker 02

  It's not time to make a change. Just relax, take it easy. You're still young, that's your fault. There's so much you have.

• 1:52:27Lex Fridman?

  It's like that calm wisdom.

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:30Lex Fridman?

  There's time.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  It wise.

• 1:52:32Speaker 02

  If you want, you can marry. Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

• 1:52:40Speaker 01

  And just the way he says that, like, that should be a corny line, but it's not corny at all. It's like.

• 1:52:46Lex Fridman?

  Look at me, I'm old, but I'm happy.

• 1:52:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I mean, the simplicity there. And, yeah, but it's such a contrast with, what's his name? Harry Chapin with the Cats in the Cradle, which is like

• 1:53:10Lex Fridman?

  the sadness of, so this feels like there's a

• 1:53:17Lex Fridman?

  a wise, calm connection between father and son, right? With Cats in the Cradle, I don't know if you remember that song.

• 1:53:27Lex Fridman?

  He learned to walk while I was away and he was talking before I knew it. And as he grew, he'd say, I'm gonna be like you, Dad. You know, I'm gonna be like you. And the idea of that song is that he does become like his dad.

• 1:53:41Lex Fridman?

  Which is funny, you know, something you said. But in a different way, you become too busy to make that connection. His dad was too busy to make a connection with his son. In a, not a dramatic way, in a very kind of calm, natural way. Like, you don't, you just don't have time. You're, you're busy at work, you're providing for the family and so on. There's connection, but you don't really get, form that like depth of connection. And then the father, when, when the son shows up from college and all that kind of stuff, he doesn't spend any time with the father. All that, and just the calm sadness of that, that we, we live, we can live parallel lives and never quite connect.

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  And there is a little bit of that in father and son with Cat Stevens too, you know, like when the, when the son is saying, "From the moment that I could talk, I was ordered to listen." I always, I always remember listening to that line, feeling like, that really moved me. But the beauty of that song is it shows, it's kind of like the theme of what I feel like we've talked about since the second you got here, which is something I really like, I don't know why it's such an important theme in my life right now, but the duality of just understanding that you don't understand someone else's situation. And there's truth to both sides. Like, there's truth to what the father is saying to the son. He's like saying these things and he's like, "I'm looking out for you. I love you. Take your time with these things. If you want to get married, you can, like, these things will bring you home."

• 1:55:06Speaker 01

  And then the son saying, "Listen, like, I, I want to pave my own path. I want to do this. Like, why are you telling me this?" Like, the son's not wrong, because there's a lot of parents who tell their kids what to do and they're wrong. You know what I mean? Like, and they don't let the kid form the path that they need to. But should you not be a parent? Like, you know, there's just two sides.

• 1:55:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the, there's a, there's a thing. It is annoying, when you're older, you get, you get to see people do all the same things and you could say, "Well, this is, this is a phase and you'll see that this actually will end up in this way." You can like predict how the life unrolls and it's very annoying for young people to hear, especially because it's probably going to be true. It's like, "No, it's not going to be like this. No, it'll only be different." But then you become that person. But that doesn't mean they also, let them live that life.

• 1:56:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:56:02Lex Fridman?

  Let them make the mistakes. But they're not mistakes, actually. They're, they're like... Beautiful deviations from the, from the path that they end up on.

• 1:56:14Speaker 01

  Very true.

• 1:56:14Lex Fridman?

  Those, those make the path. Do you have advice for young folks today? You've had like an incredible dark journey and a successful one, a loving one. And one of the most successful artists in the world. Is there advice you can give to young people today that would like to find themselves to that way? Especially if they're struggling?

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  I thought you said device at first and I was like, honestly? I feel like that device is not helping.

• 1:56:49Speaker 01

  Maybe everybody should get away, throw away their devices. Advice?

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  I would just say like, what I emphasize to my kids is I really, really want my kids to just learn to love themselves. It's, it's easier said than done. It's really easy to pick on yourself in life. It's really easy to look in the mirror and wish you looked different, wish you were more successful like that person over there. Wish that, you know, wish a lot of things. And people that I see that really succeed at life, really succeed truly. And that doesn't mean they're making money necessarily, or they're succeeding and, you know, they're talking to a lot of people like their success.

• 1:57:39Speaker 01

  Success to me is like happy and real, they have real self-love. You meet, you know, when you meet someone, you meet Rick, for instance, you meet Rick Rubin. Rick has a calmness about him and it's funny because everybody sees him as this like Zen master, like Rick is just a really loving person who also loves himself and has self-confidence because you just see it and it resonates. And that's why he draws people and that's why he's so great in the studio because you know his intentions always. As an artist, when a producer comes in, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are your intentions? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to get a hit out of me for the label? Or you're trying to make me something, are you trying to like make me this so you can prove this about yourself?

• 1:58:22Speaker 01

  Like, there's a lot in that dynamic and the reason that Rick is so good is because you know his intentions. And his intentions come because Rick has that self-love. So for me. Find the things about yourself, because they're there, that you love, and really focus in on them. And it's not selfish. Like, I feel like I was brought up in a family too, where it was like, never look inward, like, be selfless, like, serve, serve, serve. Which, by the way, is a true principle of life. I think you love yourself more when you serve more. I think that's really evident in life. But also, spend time doing the things that make you happy. Take time every day to go on that walk that you need to go on. Listen to that book tape that you need to listen to.

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  Like, for me, that's something I need. I know if I do that, I'm gonna be a better dad, because I did, I did, I gave myself some, some love back in life.

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  And, uh, and I just forgive yourself, I think. Forgive yourself, because everybody messes up. Everybody hurts others. Everybody says unkind words at times. Everybody, everybody fails all the time. And if you think that you're gonna not, you're wrong, and you're eventually going to, and you're either gonna punish yourself for it every day, and be a lesser version of what you could be, or you're gonna forgive yourself for it. And if you've learned that that's not something you want, then try not to do it again. If you do it again, and, and you're probably gonna do it again, whatever that is, you're gonna, you're gonna gossip about that person, you're gonna feel bad, because then you gossiped about someone.

• 1:59:52Lex Fridman?

  Is there something you could say in terms of self-love? Is there a role for being critical, like, that, that, those demons of, like, self-criticism? Do you need a little bit of that? Tom Waits talks about, like, my tongue with a little drop of poison.

• 2:00:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:00:05Lex Fridman?

  Need a little poison? Or, or is it, is that silly?

• 2:00:09Speaker 01

  No, I mean, it's, look, it's my, my biggest thing in life that's, has been like, the thing that I've worked on the hardest for the last few years, is to not be overly critical.

• 2:00:22Speaker 01

  And to let go of control. I, I, I think, um...

• 2:00:29Speaker 01

  It's really easy to kill an artist. It's really easy to kill an artist. Like if my dad would have sat down with me that day. And even if he would have just sat down and been like, good job son, okay. It sounds silly, right? Like I don't, I didn't, not everybody has a dad who's gonna ever do something or put in the time or whatever. But that would, that might have altered everything for me. Like my dad taking the extra time to be, to just give me a thoughtful response opposed to, kids know, kids know when you're, when you're just like trying to get out of the room or whatever. I knew he wasn't. And that did a lot, so yeah.

• 2:01:06Lex Fridman?

  But is that, is that a huge? Isn't that what makes the artist? It's the fragility of it. That like, uh, would you have it any other way?

• 2:01:17Speaker 01

  No, no, I, I, I agree with you. I think that that's what, that, uh,

• 2:01:24Speaker 01

  that's the beauty of art. But I think also on the same token, it's like,

• 2:01:31Speaker 01

  I went to, I went to Music Cares recently, which is a charity for musicians that are down on their luck. That maybe were successful at one point or have never been successful and they can't pay the bills. And this charity contributes money to these artists, aspiring artists, or artists who've had drug issues and like, there's a lot that they do. But, and there was a statistic that they told that was staggering to me, which is, I think it was 75% of artists, musicians, say they struggle with severe depression. That's really high. I don't know what the national average is, but I would guess that that's higher than national average per occupation. So I just think there's a tricky balance. There's a tricky balance in, in art.

• 2:02:17Speaker 01

  So yeah, of course, like it's, it's a necessary thing, the fragility of it all. But, um,

• 2:02:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I, I wonder, cause I'm extremely self-critical and I sometimes ask myself the question.

• 2:02:33Lex Fridman?

  I've romanticized it, or rather, I've learned to be, for it to be productive, to channel it into productivity. But I, I wonder if there's better ways to do that. And I also wonder if it's eventually the thing that destroys me. Like if long-term, if it's a healthy thing, it might be useful when you're in sort of.

• 2:02:56Lex Fridman?

  Actively fighting the battles of the day, for me, it's engineering challenges and all that kind of stuff.

• 2:03:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:03Lex Fridman?

  But then when you're sitting back and enjoying life with family and so on, is that going to be, like, do you need to find that self-love, like, ability to kind of silence the voice of criticism in your head?

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  You know what, I really, you're making a good point, and I think that the middle ground is you need, you need self-doubt to push you to be better. I do believe that, like, for instance, if I, if I believed, I've hit my, like, when you're like, is there a song on there that you think is genius? If I think I've written a genius song ever, I think I'd probably stop. I think I'd be like, you know what? Did it. I wrote, um, what's that perfect song?

• 2:03:55Lex Fridman?

  Uh, by Tom Bunyan.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  Imagine.

• 2:04:01Lex Fridman?

  Imagine, yeah.

• 2:04:02Speaker 01

  Okay. If I'd written Imagine, I'd probably be like, that's it, did it, all right, perfect song has been written, that's the best thing I'll ever do.

• 2:04:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:10Speaker 01

  So, the fact that, that there is, like, self-criticism and criticism outside, I think is necessary. A hundred, a hundred percent for sure. It pushes you, it pushes you, it pushes you. It's just finding the right middle ground for that young aspiring artist to also not feel squashed and to be heard and to love, just to, not even to feel squashed, just to love themself, so that when they're in the room playing the song, they'll believe it because they believe themself. They love themself enough that they believe it, and then they'll do a great, and then the song will come out great, and they'll do a great performance.

• 2:04:48Lex Fridman?

  I have to ask, it's one of the very interesting aspects of your life, of the way you put love out there in the world, what is at the core of your support for the LGBT community?

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  A couple of things. So one, growing up in, from a young age in the artist community, a lot of my closest friends were LGBTQ, starting in middle school. And I think a lot of the best artists in the world are LGBTQ, and that's just, it's not a secret. Like, it's just, it's, like, the artist community is filled with lots of LGBTQ people. So I think being raised in that community, in that my friends struggled with their faith and their sexuality, really opened up my eyes to how incredibly hard that path is.

• 2:05:47Speaker 01

  For instance, okay, when I was in high school, there was someone who went in front of, who was LGBTQ and was Mormon, and felt like there was not a place for them in the church. They felt like the path, you know, when, when you're being told that it's evil, and you believe it, because you believe in your faith, and you feel like it's unchangeable, you're putting a kid in a situation where there's really no good resolution. It's either be alone for the rest of your life, or marry outside your sexual preference, which I don't want to marry a man. Like, if I was forced to marry a man, I'm like, I don't want to. I don't want to marry a man, because I'm heterosexual. So you're forcing a kid into

• 2:06:30Speaker 01

  a situation where it's very dangerous. Long story short, this kid went in front of the Las Vegas Mormon temple and shot himself. Killed himself. That impacted our community. Like, and not just that, but it was like, severe bullying to LGBTQ kids. In the 90s, it was especially different. Like, there's still bullying, don't get me wrong, but man, like, bullying in school, I don't really know, actually, what it's like in schools now. Maybe the bullying's just as bad as it was in the 90s, but there was like, it was, like, I would hear all the time, like, the F slur being slung out at people who were

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  LGBTQ, all the time. And I wasn't even LGBTQ. So, I, you know, it's, just seeing that, I think that every...

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  Any social justice issue takes all sides. It takes all pieces of the puzzle. If only the pieces of the puzzle contributed are from the side that is affected. I don't believe that we'll ever have resolution. We're doing a shit job and we need to do better. And that's just, uh, that's, that's the reality of it. So that's part of the reason I also have family who's LGBTQ and, and it's just something that's been part of my, my path and I, I feel like I'm, I'm a big believer in take the path that is presented to you. And this was just something that came up in my life a lot. When I met my wife, she was living with her two best friends who are LGBTQ, who really didn't want her to marry me because I was Mormon and at the time it was Prop eight,

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  which was Mormons were fighting against gay marriage. And so that, then they didn't come to our wedding and that really broke my wife's heart. Um, so it was just like, because Mormonism represented everything that, that was against their community. So.

• 2:08:26Lex Fridman?

  So you felt you had to say something.

• 2:08:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I felt like by not saying anything, I was saying everything. I felt like by not speaking up and being like, hey, Dan Reynolds is Mormon singer. Here's this new band, Magic Dragons, and they're Mormons. It was like, okay, well, what do Mormons represent? They represent Prop eight. What does Prop eight represent? Bigotry towards the LGBTQ community. So what do I do? Okay, I can speak in every interview and be like, well, that's not me. I don't believe that too. Or I could just be more active about it. And especially when it was affecting my family and friends throughout my entire life. It was like, all right, this seems like a path that you need to go down. So long story short, it was a path that just presented itself through, through things in my life.

• 2:09:10Lex Fridman?

  So just on that topic, religion and God give a lot of meaning to a lot of people. It's, it gives a tradition that brings people together, um, across the generations, but it also can hurt people. What do you make about that tension? So a source of meaning, but also a source of pain for people.

• 2:09:35Speaker 01

  The reality is, at least to me, again, this is just my reality. I feel like I'm doing my dad's thing every time I'm talking to him. I'm like, I don't really know. My two cents. Here's my two cents. You have become your father. Yeah.

• 2:09:49Speaker 01

  The reality, and it's my reality, and it is the reality for sure. Yeah, right. Is, uh, there's, I think that

• 2:09:59Speaker 01

  religion has brought a lot of hurt and pain to a lot of people. Absolutely, it has. That, I, I don't think anybody can dispute that on it, on either side. Um, whether it's war, um, you know, whether it's slaughtering of entire peoples, like it's, there's been a lot of pain and suffering that has come from religion. Um, so my little thing that has been hard for me is a faith crisis, right? I had religion and then I, I lost it and then I had nothing. So that's, for me, I was like, well, religion did that to me, right? Like, but then at one point, it's kind of like, how much of my life am I just going to complain about, like, being raised Mormon?

• 2:10:42Speaker 01

  Or being depressed, like, you know, as I get older, I'm like, okay, so what? Like, okay, it's really hurt me, but were there any good things that came out of Mormonism? Well, yeah, there's a lot of good things that have come to my family through Mormonism. Closeness, we're really, really close. Mormon culture is that you live together forever, right? The teaching is that you're in, your families are forever. We die and then we go to heaven together and we're together forever. My family really believes that principle, all of them do.

• 2:11:11Speaker 01

  And that instills a certain way of living that's kind of beautiful. Even if it's naivety, there's something kind of beautiful about believing that we're forming these bonds together as a family and that like, we're going to be together forever. It brings a lot of comfort to a kid, too. When I was little, I was like, wow. It's gonna be okay if I die because I get to see my mom again. You know what I mean? I like, I really believe that. Is the right answer that you tell that kid? Actually, when you die, you're not gonna see your mom again. Maybe it might be, I don't know. And everybody's gonna, anybody who has a kid is gonna face that, that moment. I've already faced it where you sit down and my kid was like, hey dad, when you die, am I gonna see you again?

• 2:11:53Speaker 01

  That was actually a really hard moment for me because I was suddenly faced with, okay, do I give the answer that I thought was bullshit? Or do I give the answer of what I think it is? Or do I give the real answer, which is, I don't know? And that's what I chose. Which as a father, that's not always the easiest answer because your kid, it's a wonderful thing that you feel like you can give your kid the comfort of like, hey, your parents are gonna take care of everything. We know everything. We've been around. My kid's always like, are you the strongest? I'm like, yeah, I am the strongest. Stronger than everybody? Yeah. Yeah, stronger than everybody. So when you're faced with that moment, it's like, it kinda sucks to tell your kid like, you know what? I don't know if you're gonna see me after I die.

• 2:12:37Speaker 01

  But that, but I hope. That's why I said, I was like, I don't know, but I, but I hope. I really hope, because that would be awesome if we can hang out forever. And if there's any way for it to happen, I'll make it happen. You know what I mean? That's kind of what my answer was. So long story short, sorry, I know that I'm being lengthy on this. Is there like, what is my thought on religion? It just is, it's gonna, it's been here forever. It's coping. It, maybe it's, I, I can't say whether it's true or false. How the hell am I supposed to know? You know what I mean? Like, I've lived thirty, forty years on this planet. A lot of people have been around a lot longer than me and they really believe very deeply. And a lot of them are smarter than me. You know what I mean? Like, I look at my older brothers, for instance, who are very practicing Mormons.

• 2:13:22Speaker 01

  These guys are hyper intelligent. My, my younger sister, hyper intelligent. All of them start smarter than me. They all believe it still. So what am I supposed to say? Well, you're all stupid. You know what I mean? Like, you're all wrong. I don't know. May, like, maybe it's the South Park episode where everybody dies and then they're like, well, the right answer was Mormonism. And everybody's like, aww. Like Mormon Mormons love that moment in South Park. They're like, hey, that day may come. That day may come.

• 2:13:52Lex Fridman?

  Yes. So maybe, maybe I don't know is the honest answer for everybody around the table. But the biggest question for which I didn't know is the right answer is, uh, what's the meaning of this whole thing? What's the meaning of life?

• 2:14:09Lex Fridman?

  Now, you're not allowed to say I don't know.

• 2:14:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:14:13Lex Fridman?

  You can be just like your dad and say, let me just give my two cents.

• 2:14:18Speaker 01

  Take it for you. Whatever it's worth. Take it or leave it. It's probably worth nothing. It's piddle on the ground.

• 2:14:27Lex Fridman?

  I mean, what, why are we here? Is it, it's just busily creating all these kinds of things, worrying about things, having kids.

• 2:14:37Speaker 01

  I, my purpose, at least right now, is to wake up

• 2:14:47Speaker 01

  and try to

• 2:14:51Speaker 01

  bring light, love to the world, light, love to myself and have integrity. That's my purpose.

• 2:15:04Speaker 01

  The ultimate purpose of life, that I guess that's my ultimate purpose of life. I, I, I don't know what happens when I die. Ayahuasca gave me some sense that there's more to be known. I'm sure there are other things in life that would give me that, that I'm, and I'm looking, I'm looking for it. I'm a seeker. Like I'm, I'm always looking for the next, something to give me hope in something more, even if so, I could just not bullshit my kids when they ask me that question and be like, you know what?

• 2:15:34Speaker 01

  I really don't know. I, I, I want to not know more, if that makes sense. I don't want to, like, I want to see things that make me confused, that make me question what I already knew. Like I am, like, when I meet an atheist who comes up to me and they're like atheism, atheism, atheism. It's just as laughable to me as when I meet the Mormon who comes up and they're like Mormonism, Mormonism, Mormonism. I'm like,

• 2:16:04Speaker 01

  How do, how do anyone, how do you guys know that like, like, and you know?

• 2:16:11Lex Fridman?

  So you feel like you're doing some, through all your travels, through all the people you meet, you feel like you're still keeping your eyes open and your heart open to sort of discover, discover something new, like the ayahuasca experience, that there might be, there might be deeper truths out there.

• 2:16:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and I want to find them and I want to surround myself with people who are just looking for it. I'm not, I'm not interested in people who are just looking to point fingers at each, like I, life is so short. I'm looking for, it's one of the reasons that I wanted to meet with you is I was like, wow, Lex really seems like he's on a journey to find truth and that humility for me is same thing with Rick. It drew me to Rick. It was like, I really, I, I see that and I identify with it and that's what I'm looking for. There's the final song on our record, our new record that's coming out. The chorus goes, um, and this is like, this is my best answer to, to what, to what you're asking.

• 2:17:08Speaker 01

  The chorus goes, "Take it easy on me, I need some lullaby. They tell me heaven's just a lie. Well, I'm not surprised. Tell me that you know, no, you don't. Yeah, you're just like me. Can't we just all hope for the best? Take it easy." So that's it for me. It's like, I'm in a place where I'm like,

• 2:17:35Speaker 01

  I don't know. Tell me that you know. I don't, I'm not going to believe you. Maybe you do. I, I'm not going to believe it, but

• 2:17:42Speaker 01

  like, let's just be easier on each other and like, try to find truth wherever it may lie. But above all, know that we don't know jack shit.

• 2:17:50Lex Fridman?

  I think that's a mic drop moment. Dan, thank you so much. You're an incredible human. I love that you share with the world the darkness of your mind, of your life experience and the, and the beautiful light that you've shown to the world. So it's a huge honor and thank you for spending your valuable time. Good luck on the tour.

• 2:18:07Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

• 2:18:10Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Dan Reynolds. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Aldous Huxley. "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.