SOFI TUKKER On Unlikely EDM Superstardom, The Hard Business of Music, And The Athletic Art of Performance

Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, together known as SOFI TUKKER, defy every convention of electronic dance music. This conversation explores their unlikely origin story—from D1 basketball captain and aspiring diplomat to electronic music revolutionaries who’ve achieved stratospheric success by approaching their craft with athletic discipline and meditative mindfulness. Through an alchemy of Portuguese poetry and pulsing beats, they’ve amassed over 3 billion streams, scored multiple Grammy nominations, and landed high-profile Apple campaigns while sustaining well-being amidst non-stop touring. These two transformed my understanding of what electronic artists can be. SOFI TUKKER is a revelation—and a testament to the power of authentic self-expression. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Momentous: 20% OFF all of my favorite products👉livemomentous.com/richroll BetterHelp: Use the code RICHROLL to get 10% off your first month👉BetterHelp.com/richroll Calm: Get get 40% off a Calm Premium subscription👉calm.com/richroll RocketMoney: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money 👉 RocketMoney.com/RICHROLL Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉 richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  This thing that we started together out of air, you know, it's so cool. And we know if we wanna keep traveling and performing the way we do, we have to treat it like we're athletes, or else we're gonna hate life.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Being really happy and joyful and having these experiences of ecstatic dancing and connection is huge for health.

• 1:27Rich Roll?

  Sophie Tucker is an electronic dance duo whose meteoric rise has been catalyzed by a world hungry for connection amid global isolation. What began as an unlikely partnership between Sophie Holly Weld and Tucker Hallburn has become something transformative. Their distinctive blend of Brazilian bossa nova and electronic beats has captured imaginations worldwide, from Apple campaigns to Oscar-nominated films, earning them Grammy nominations and platinum record status across five continents.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  The show that we put on is so different than if you were to go to that nightclub on any other night.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  For us, it's more important to make the best show possible, possible.

• 2:11Rich Roll?

  But perhaps Sophie Tucker's most notable achievement isn't this chart-topping success, but rather their ability to maintain balance and maintain authenticity in an industry known for excess and burnout. In a world of late nights and chemical enhancement, that is the EDM world, these two have really carved out a different path, one that's grounded in wellness and mindfulness and intentionality, turning every performance into this positive, community-building game that you can win.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  We are so in love with what we do. I mean, it's the best thing in the world.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  You go out and play a concert, everyone wants you to win. There's like no other team trying to make you lose. Things can go wrong, but it's pretty nice.

• 2:52Rich Roll?

  And you can win every night.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  You can win every night.

• 3:00Rich Roll?

  What's happening? You guys are here. I can't believe you. You like figured out a way to like get over here amidst this insane schedule that you have, but you guys rule. I'm really happy that you're in the studio today. Thank you.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  This is very surreal for me.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  We're honored. We were gonna make this happen.

• 3:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You were in New York, Sophie and Tucker. You were in Vegas? Where were you? Earlier today?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Earlier? Yeah, yesterday I came from Vegas. Sophie came from New York.

• 3:27Rich Roll?

  And you're going back to Vegas today?

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, we play Vegas tonight, New York tomorrow.

• 3:31Rich Roll?

  When we were trying to set this up, I reached out to Sophie and I was like, can we find a date? And you texted me your tour schedule.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  For like three months.

• 3:39Rich Roll?

  I was like, it took me 20 minutes just to read it. I was like, there's no way this is happening. Like, I cannot believe the relentlessness with which you guys tour. It's impressive. I mean, you guys are playing shows almost every day, it looks like.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  I like the word relentless.

• 3:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say that's true. We love to tour. We love to travel.

• 4:02Rich Roll?

  On paper, like, you're a very unlikely duo. You're very different people. Together, it all makes sense. And you're like, of course, this works, right?

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Doesn't it?

• 4:11Rich Roll?

  But let's go back. I wanna, you know, tell the superhero origin story here.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  We have a lot of friends from college, actually, who meet us, or not who meet us, but who have found out that we're in a band together now. And they're like, wait, what? How is that possible that you two are in a band together?

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Well, they said this like 10 years ago.

• 4:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  They get it now.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  They get it now. We just ran into someone from college, like, an hour ago.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was fun.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Anyway, okay.

• 4:39Rich Roll?

  So you guys were both at Brown together back in 2010 to 14, or whatever.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 4:48Rich Roll?

  But you both arrived at Brown with very different backgrounds. I mean, Sophie, you like, you like, lived all over the world and went to school in all kinds of different places. And you're, you're talking about Massachusetts, dude.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  I was a jock from Boston.

• 5:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was a basketball player. I was going to college to play basketball. I loved the coach there at the time, TJ Sorentine. I thought he would develop me, you know, and, and I would be a pro. And that was my pretty one-track mind life at the time.

• 5:18Rich Roll?

  And you were captain of the team. Was that junior year?

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Junior year. Yeah, I was like, all-league sophomore year, captain junior year. And I ended up getting sick before the season started. And I got mono, which normally, you know, goes away in three or four weeks, and then you're fine. And my body never made it dormant. So I was actually really sick for like, seven months. I had to leave school for a year to keep my eligibility for basketball, because in the Ivy League, you can only play the four years.

• 5:48Rich Roll?

  In a four-year window.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a little bit different. And, um, and basically, I didn't know what to do. Yeah, I was just in bed, not knowing what was wrong with me, really, not having energy to get out of bed. And I moved back to Boston and was in my childhood room. And I wanted to be productive and didn't know how I could be productive, but I always wanted to make music. So I'd watch YouTube and just started producing music, really bad music.

• 6:19Rich Roll?

  Just like, initially on GarageBand or something like that?

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Started on GarageBand, and then FL Studio, and then Logic, and ended up in Ableton, where, where we make music now. But... Yeah, it was just, I was just, I just got obsessed with it.

• 6:36Rich Roll?

  And the mono thing, like, it's still with you, right? Like, you're still kind of...

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, they ended up calling it like chronic fatigue syndrome, which is really an umbrella term for we don't really know what's wrong with you. For me, it showed up a lot in inflammation issues that I've had ever since. I was never really able to be the same athlete again. I came back the next year and I played one more year at Brown. And we had a new coach and he just thought I wasn't working that hard, but I just physically could not do it. And it was really frustrating because it was my whole life. It was everything. I loved the game so much. I love basketball and it just wasn't fun because I was just getting killed.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  And I wasn't the, you know, I wasn't the star player he thought he was getting as a new coach coming in and I wasn't the same athlete anymore.

• 7:31Rich Roll?

  And so, so what is the existential crisis that was visited upon you when you're, you know, somebody who's just only been thinking about like your prospects in the NBA, like being a professional basketball player, just being kind of the overarching dream that's dictating all of your decisions?

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, NBA would have been great, probably marginal. NBA, probably European, but, but goals, yes. The identity crisis was the hardest part. I think I was known as a basketball player. That was my, I leaned into that so much growing up and in college especially, that was what I was known for. And I didn't know who I was anymore at all. I remember getting back to school after being in bed and not socializing for, oh, you know, basically a year. And I like was mumbling in a party, trying to like be witty and keep up with conversation. And I just, I just didn't, I was just... Confused and I had no clue who I was anymore.

• 8:32Rich Roll?

  Were you an artistic kid, though, when you were younger? Like, was music something that you were drawn to naturally?

• 8:39Speaker 01

  I loved music. I played drums in, like, middle school. I was in a garage band. But, you know, I don't read music. I didn't study it, really. I just, like, liked making mixtapes for my friends and showing people new music. And I just always loved it, but never had time. I was, you know, from when I was 12 years old, going to Nationals on my AAU team, it was just basketball.

• 9:04Rich Roll?

  And so, in the wake of this mono experience, you're back at Brown, basketball's out of the picture. I presume this was your senior year? And you're, like, trying to find, you know, something else to occupy that focus and level of, you know, kind of intensity that basketball occupied?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I basically found this new passion when I was at home in bed. Tried that one more year when I came back to school to play basketball and was still just making music on the side. And then, my senior year, the doctor said, "You can't play anymore. You're just, you're running yourself to the ground. Your body can't handle it. We don't really know why, but you just really can't do it." And I had one year left of school, and I said, "Okay, I have this other passion. How do I make this into a career? I have one year to figure this out because I got no backup plan right now."

• 9:54Rich Roll?

  Right, you're not gonna go work at a bank or something.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  I didn't want to do that. I wasn't prepared to do that. I don't think I would've been good at that, and I didn't want to do that.

• 10:01Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh. Meanwhile, Sophie, walk us through, kind of like, your background up to, up to the point where you meet Tucker.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  So I was born in Germany, and then I basically moved my whole life with my parents. So I went to international schools in Germany, Atlanta, British Columbia, Italy.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Then they moved to the Netherlands and they moved to Geneva.

• 10:26Rich Roll?

  Were they like diplomats? What was going on?

• 10:28Speaker 02

  So my dad is an international school headmaster. Even though I was like in Atlanta, Georgia, I was in a German program. So the bubble of my life has always just been international school kids, no matter what.

• 10:43Rich Roll?

  So wherever you were, you were in a school that wasn't of that place?

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 10:49Rich Roll?

  Tell them about the high school.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the high school that I went to was 200 students from 100 countries. And nobody could pay to go. So it wasn't like a rich kid's school. Each country basically chose two students from their country to go to the school to be ambassadors of their country with the idea that they would be future leaders of their countries that then when they're leaders, that they happen to know the other leaders of.

• 11:17Rich Roll?

  Right. So like the UN was a high school, like this is what it was.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  And it started after the Second World War. It's just this hope to make peace in the world.

• 11:25Rich Roll?

  Wow. You could not have had different. Yeah, I mean, that's, but like the breadth of like your experience as a young person, you know, that's, that's very unusual. I had never left the country. Yeah. I didn't leave the country until I was 21. Right. And Brown's like, what, like an hour drive from wherever you grew up or something, right? Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. And in the context of this high school, for instance, each room had to have four kids from four different continents and nobody could say, could share the same first language. So it was just so extreme in its internationalism. And the world that I grew up in was, you know, high pressure. I think I always had this idea that it was my responsibility to change the world, to really help. And.

• 12:14Rich Roll?

  Where does that come from?

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Well, it comes from the schools, I think, in part, and it comes in part from my parents unconsciously, which since then I just did this. Have you ever heard of the Hoffman Institute?

• 12:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  So I came back from Hoffman recently, and I, you know, I came back to my parents, and I asked them to basically tell me directly, like, "Hey, Sophie, it's not your responsibility to change the world." And it was very healing for me, because I don't think they realized that they put that pressure on me either.

• 12:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  But it was definitely there.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  It was hard to convince her to start a band. We'll get there. It's part of the story, I guess, but that is real. She was very resistant to being in a band because she felt like she had to do, she had a responsibility.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  I thought it was selfish.

• 12:58Rich Roll?

  That heavy lifting of saving the world, I mean, you know.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Man. But yeah, so that was my, that was my sort of upbringing. And then I went to Brown, and I realized that I was just really obsessed with Brazilian music. So I was taking voice lessons, and I realized that I just wanted to sing the songs in Portuguese, because I think my voice sounds better in Portuguese, and I just liked those songs.

• 13:20Rich Roll?

  How many languages do you speak, and how many of those did you learn through all of those experiences growing up?

• 13:27Speaker 02

  I really speak German, English, and Portuguese. And then I used to speak Italian, but my Portuguese has kind of overtaken the Italian.

• 13:35Rich Roll?

  What is it about Portuguese and the Brazilian culture that captured you so thoroughly?

• 13:41Speaker 02

  It's something so bizarre. It's almost like, someone has said, you know, that I was Brazilian in a past life, which I don't, I'm not really a past life person necessarily, but it was the music. You know, I heard the music, and I was just so attracted to the sounds. And specifically, this sort of bossa nova style music. It's very intimate. The singers are basically like whispering into the microphones, and it just suits my voice well. And so I was just singing all these songs, and my voice teacher was like, "Sophie, I think you should..." Learn Portuguese because they offer it here at Brown. So I went to the Portuguese professor. I was, you know, I just told her, I don't really have any connection with Brazil. I just really like the music. And so she encouraged me to take the course.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  And then at that point, I was just obsessed with learning Portuguese. So then I did a study abroad program and I moved to Rio. And I was so in love with everything about the culture that I learned about in Rio.

• 14:37Rich Roll?

  Because?

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Just, I think the first thing is the way that music lives in people's lives there. It's just, music is a central point of Brazilian culture and.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  It's crazy. You like walk on the street and like the people just playing music on the sidewalk are like the most amazing musicians and singers ever.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  And it's not their profession.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  They're just like their side, like they're just having fun, hanging with their friends on the stoop. Like it's crazy.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Thinking about how important Carnival is to Brazilians, I think says a lot. You know, the entire country takes off a week at minimum just to, you know, sing and dance and party.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Like two months.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  They spend the entire year prepping for Carnival. Their outfits and the songs and the samba parades in schools are just incredible. And I don't, I don't think there's any other place in the world that I know of. I also just like the styles of music a lot, but just the importance of music and the importance of celebration and dance and sort of this like vibrancy just really captured me.

• 15:45Rich Roll?

  So you're naturally drawn to this genre of music and just to music generally, right? But as somebody who, who's thinking like, I'm supposed to be saving the world, do you kind of keep that, you know, as a side project because you're focused on, you know, going into the nonprofit world or whatever that might look like, government or diplomacy? Like, I don't know where your head was at, but.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's exactly, I think I felt this pull towards that allotted different styles of Brazilian music. And I also just knew that I wanted to live in Brazil because I like the culture so much. I just wanted to live there and be surrounded by it. But then I was studying conflict resolution and I think diplomacy was sort of. What I thought I should do, and I was a mediator at the time. And so it was something around that, you know, like diplomacy, mediation, conflict resolution, international affairs, something like that.

• 16:41Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. You're gonna be like that, what was that movie Nicole Kidman is like working at the UN and gets herself caught up in some kind of intrigue.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know that movie, but I need to see it.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  I don't know either.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  And then on the side, I was just, I was making music in Portuguese because I missed the country and the culture so much. And I just did it for fun, really. But secretly, I just wanted to sing and dance.

• 17:07Rich Roll?

  Were you, when you, when you returned from that semester abroad, were you performing music at Brown?

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I started, I did probably like three or four performances. And it was just, I wrote some music, you know, a lot of it was in Portuguese. It was just like me and my guitar. And then I had a piano player and a drum player join me on some gigs. And so we would play around school. And at the same time, Tucker was also DJing around. And so we were, we were hired.

• 17:34Rich Roll?

  Were you like the DJ at the, like at frat parties and stuff like that?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like the dude, so yeah, I went back to school after.

• 17:41Rich Roll?

  Just like the bro-y DJ.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  I learned how to DJ, but I wasn't that bro-y. I was always like the athlete that also had other friends. Because Brown, I think a lot of colleges are like, the athletes kind of stick to themselves. They all hang out at like the sports houses. And then there's everyone else. And especially at Brown, because if you're an athlete, you know, you get in, you're recruited athlete. But everyone else, it's so hard to get into Brown, that everyone else is like, very qualified.

• 18:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  And there's a big difference socially between, like, the school's what, 5,000 people undergrad? I never saw Sophie once. Like, I never even saw her.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  There were even different libraries.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  But you didn't even see me, right?

• 18:21Speaker 02

  No.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm 6'8", 6'7".

• 18:24Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't know if this was your experience too, but there's sort of like the library for the intellectuals and the library for the athletes.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  There was.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  No, really? And so we would study at different places.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  I never went into that library. I didn't go into the library that much.

• 18:38Rich Roll?

  And even, even like the social circles never interacted.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  But.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Not much.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  For an athlete, I was, I was like a.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  More of a cross pollinator.

• 18:49Rich Roll?

  A pollinator.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  A pollinator.

• 18:52Rich Roll?

  So then, so then how did you guys? First of all, when you were, when you were performing, I know you, you, you shared with me a while back when you were, when you were at our house, like this idea of taking these Brazilian poems and then turning them into songs. Is that what you were experimenting with at that time?

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:10Rich Roll?

  Already?

• 19:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little bit, so.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  You know, in like Christmas movies, when they, they start the movies by following different people's lives? And then they like bump into each other at the supermarket?

• 19:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  We're about to get into our like.

• 19:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we're, we're moving towards the meet cute.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  But it's, it's, it's like funny because.

• 19:29Rich Roll?

  It's also like a sliding doors thing. Because you could have easily not.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Easily.

• 19:33Rich Roll?

  Not met.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  We're painting such a.

• 19:35Rich Roll?

  And this never would have happened.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Funny like these two lives that had nothing to do with each other. And then all of a sudden, the most important person in your life.

• 19:42Rich Roll?

  In the screenplay, it's, yeah, we're building towards the inciting incident.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  And the funny thing is in the moment, I do. And I think this is common in those movies that we're talking about where I just didn't really, really make anything of it. Like I had my mind on so many other things that night even. That it just kind of happened. Yeah, the night we met.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  We'll get to it. We didn't get there yet.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 20:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  That's not romantic if anyone's wondering.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  No, no, not romantic at all. So basically I was asked to play at an art gallery because I had played one or two gigs. And I was just doing it for fun. And I was thinking, okay, what do I want to do after school? I don't know. I was going to, to job fairs. I remember going to New York and I.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Writing a thesis?

• 20:24Speaker 02

  I was writing a thesis. I was in the library a lot. And I didn't really enjoy the thesis process. And I also went to this job fair. And I remember talking to all these people who were technically in my field and just interviewing them a bit about what it would be like to, you know, work in a way that they do. And I just left the job fair. I remember being on the subway with some random girl that was there. And I just looked around, I started bawling my eyes out. And she was like, are you OK? I don't even know you. This is kind of weird that you're just crying, but what's going on?

• 20:56Speaker 01

  It's not that weird if you know her.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  She cries.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  And I just looked around and I said, I just really want to just sing and dance. You know, I just, I knew that that's what I really wanted to do, but I had to fight it really hard. So anyway, at that same time.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  You should have gone to Hoffman then.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  I know, right? I know, it would have been helpful.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  It's OK, it worked out.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  It did work out.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  I was her Hoffman.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I was asked to play my songs at an art gallery. And it was, you know, for about 10 people at college.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  At most.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so I went with the drummer and the piano player. And we were playing my songs. And they were inspired by, really, at this point, I hadn't started working with the Brazilian poet yet, but they were in Portuguese. And Tucker was also asked to DJ that same event. So he came to the art gallery. And he came early and he knew Bryn, who was playing piano with me. And he just said, hey, can I come up early? So he started bringing in a drum loop from a song. And he just said, you keep playing, just keep up with the drums. And so he sped it up and sped it up and sped it up and sped it up. And.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  So her songs just got like really fast. And I was like, this sounds better.

• 22:16Rich Roll?

  This is not only like the me cue, but also like the montage in every, in every like music biopic where they're in the studio and like they're just, they just craft the hit song like in like the snap of a fingers.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. I guess a couple of months later, we kind of had that moment. But this moment, do you remember the movie That Thing You Do?

• 22:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  With Liv Tyler and. I think, I don't know, anyway.

• 22:40Rich Roll?

  Tom Hanks.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. But in the movie, their drummer breaks his arm and they have to get another guy to come in, like the guy who works at the fridge store. And he's like really good drummer, but he just plays it way too fast. And then all of a sudden, it's like a hit.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  And I know. I always think about that.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Had you watched that movie before?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I wasn't like thinking like, I'm gonna be like, that thing you do.

• 23:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you have this little experience.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, and he says, hey, I really like that. Can we, do you have a recording of the song? And I did technically, but it was not really usable. So then I just went over to his house the following day and recorded the song.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was persistent. I was like, just come over tomorrow, we'll record the vocal and then I'll produce it into like a dance music setting and see how that feels. It just like felt like it would be a fun, good idea.

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  And where was your head at, Tucker? Like, were you like, oh, this could be just a fun little thing?

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this was an interesting year for me because I wasn't an athlete anymore. I had spent the summer before this year learning how to DJ, literally in my room at home in Boston, in my parents' house. And then I went back to school. The first week, I got a DJ gig at the Swim House, which, you know, I think got shut down after like three songs because from the police. But I just had a DJ controller and a big speaker, like a JBL giant speaker. And I had a car and people would just call me. After that first DJ set, people were like, oh, he's good. I like the music he's playing. And I got a couple more gigs the next week. And then people would just call me at like midnight and be like, we're gonna have a party tonight, come over. And I would just get out of bed, literally drive over and play till like eight in the morning.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  And it was like the best schooling I ever did, honestly. And there was a really good party scene at Brown. A lot of international people who like had a really interesting interest in dance music and it was a good time for dance music. It was just, like, things were just clicking.

• 24:41Rich Roll?

  And so Sophie comes over, you record this song, you do what you do to it. And was there a sense at that time, like, hey, this could be something? Or did you share that song and was it received well? Or like, how did all the dominos kind of fall to you guys saying like, hey, let's like make this a thing?

• 25:01Speaker 01

  I worked on that song for a little bit. It was very whatever for Sophie at this point, I think. She was like busy with her thesis and jobs. And she had a fellowship that I think she had just gotten. So she was gonna move back to Brazil after graduation and teach music and yoga, I think. And I was basically thinking like, okay, I think this is a good idea. The music I'm making is fine, but it's nothing special. You know, how am I gonna, you know, how am I gonna make music a career? And, and I thought there was something special there. So I kept kind of bugging her to do it. I also needed an extra credit to graduate. And at Brown, you can make your own class. So I was like, can we just like- Only at Brown. Can we make an EP?

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Can we make an EP of music?

• 25:47Speaker 02

  I loved that.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  And it'll get me a final credit that I need to graduate. And she was like, I don't have time. I have like way too many credits. I am writing this, I'm writing this thesis. And I was like, please just like let me do this so I can graduate, kind of. Like, that was part of my immediate idea for that, I think. And so we ended up basically taking some songs that she had written in Portuguese. And I produced them electronically and made them. And, and I got a course credit, but-

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Relentless.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  I was relentless in bugging her to like get out of the library and like make music with me. And then I'd say a week or two before graduation, I went to, or no, we were in the studio called Steinert at Brown. And I was working on a remix, actually, to like-

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Do you remember what it was?

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  What, do you wanna say it?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  It was an old Green Day song, a classic. And I was like, this is gonna be sick. People are gonna go crazy when they hear this. And I was, I had made the music. And I was like, Sophie, can you play something like this? Or no, then I think I, I was like, the remix isn't good enough. So we took off the Green Day part. And then I was like, but it's got a cool vibe. Do you ever play electric guitar? And she was like, no, I've never played electric guitar. So this is the moment when it was like the, so then our, we grabbed our friend's electric guitar and like a broken amp with like a blown speaker. And I put it in her hands and she starts like plucking it like a bass. And like doesn't really know what to do with an electric guitar. Cause she's like a really quiet acoustic player. And-

• 27:25Speaker 01

  I'd say within like five minutes, the drinky riff, the riff to our first song, "Drinky," was made. And it was such a, like, we had it on loop for like two hours and it never got old. And we were like, this is really good. And then, we were like, what should we do for a vocal? And she, this is when she was like, "Well, I was just doing a poetry reading with this Brazilian poet for my Portuguese class last week. And he has this amazing poem." And she just started reading it over the guitar and like the drumbeat. And I was like, "Record it." And so we literally recorded it. And then we had, and the song is literally like, just like four minutes of different variations of that loop, basically.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  And it was just like, special.

• 28:27Rich Roll?

  And that's the song that ultimately gets licensed by Apple, right? And they use it for their product launch or something? Like, was it the iPhone X?

• 28:36Speaker 02

  The Apple Watch.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  That was an Apple Watch one. And so it was just on SoundCloud at that point. And then, like a year later, it got nominated for a Grammy.

• 28:45Rich Roll?

  So you banged this thing out pretty quick, right? And you put it on SoundCloud? And then how long before?

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Well, no, there's a long period of time there, actually.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  If there was a movie made about it, it might seem quick.

• 28:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  But it wasn't.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  The longer version of the story is that we made that song, you know, we made 90% of that song.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  That last week, right before we graduated.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  But we still weren't a band.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  No.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Sophie was not trying to be in a band with me.

• 29:11Rich Roll?

  And you're just trying not to be like a wedding DJ.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, literally. I was like, "I don't want to be just a club DJ." I'd like, that's just, ah, that's gonna be tough. We're like, I don't know, I was gonna figure something out. And I went to New York. I was friends with these DJs named The Knox, who were a big group in New York at the time. And I showed them what I was working on separately. And then, they were like, "Eh, it's okay." And then I was like, "Well..." Check this out. And I threw him on some of the stuff we were doing together. And they were like, this is cool. You could maybe, you should pursue this and like, do this. And I was like, okay, that's all I needed. I needed one person in the industry to say, you could do this. So then I grabbed onto it. I called, stepped out, literally stepped out of the studio, called Sophie. I think this was like the day before graduation, literally.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember because it was right when I finished my final exam.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  And at the time, that was a really big deal.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 30:10Rich Roll?

  And you were, you know, crying after the job fair. So I presume you didn't like, get some job that you were like, sort of aiming towards at that point?

• 30:18Speaker 02

  No, but I did, so I had a fellowship to go to Brazil. So I was like, okay, I don't want to do that job fair thing. But I do know that I love Brazil. So I'm gonna go there. I have this poet I like working with. Maybe I'll make some music with him. Then I'll at least be in Brazil and then I'll figure out the whole like diplomacy thing later.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  I wasn't in the cards.

• 30:36Rich Roll?

  All right. So how did you talk her out of that plan?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  So I called her and I was like, let's start a band. We can do this. This song, there's something special here. And she was like, no way. Like, no, I don't even know you. We were like, making music for the past-

• 30:51Rich Roll?

  You barely knew each other.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Four, three, four, or five months. But we were never even hanging out socially. Like, we weren't, we didn't have the same friends. We weren't, I think I brought you to like a DJ gig I did once at this club called The Coliseum. And she was like, what is this? It was like a rave. And she was like, I don't know what's going on here. And-

• 31:09Speaker 02

  I mean-

• 31:10Speaker 01

  A little. You were pretty wide-eyed.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  I, do you remember that night, your dad was there?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  I know, my dad came to see me DJ for the first time. And you were there.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  I danced a lot.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  You danced. It was the dripping in gold.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  It was a really fun party.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  It was really fun.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  But yeah, definitely not-

• 31:26Speaker 01

  We were throwing really good parties.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  Not at anything that I've been to.

• 31:28Rich Roll?

  So what flicked the switch then?

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Well, he was relentless.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Persistence.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he, I mean, he just made a really good argument.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  So I basically, what I did was, she said no. And so then I was like, okay, well, how am I gonna convince her? And then I really thought about it. I think I had a conversation, probably called my dad, and we like talked it through. And we were like, okay. Because I'd gotten to know her enough to know that she felt this big responsibility. She wanted to make a difference. She really wanted to go to Brazil. She had all this education. I think she felt a little pressure from her parents and from herself to be a diplomat or do something and really like change the world. And so I called her back. This, it was over a couple of days' conversations. And I said, "So, if we do this, and it's successful, you're gonna be able to help so

• 32:19Speaker 01

  many more people than if you go back, no one knows you, you're like helping one person at a time. Like, yeah, it's valiant, but like, you'll be able to make such a bigger difference in the world, especially in Brazil. And I promise we'll focus on Brazil and like make that a priority for us."

• 32:38Rich Roll?

  That's a pretty good argument.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  And that was the argument.

• 32:40Rich Roll?

  Going right to the heart of your motivation.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  And I knew she secretly wanted to do it.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  I just wanted to sing and dance. That's what I wanted to do.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  You say it like it's so chill.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  I know.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  We do more than sing and dance.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  No, I know, but I think at the time...

• 32:54Speaker 01

  It's 1% of our job.

• 32:55Rich Roll?

  You're like workaholics, full on.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  But it's because we are so in love with what we do. I mean, it's the best thing in the world. Like, I would do all of this in my free time if I had another job, you know? So I feel like I'm just like living out my dream hobby.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Sure. I mean, all the travel and the packing and the repacking and the...

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, the travel maybe a little less, but the actual work, I mean, the making music and performing music and everything that goes, you know, into what we do is...

• 33:24Rich Roll?

  Well, it's a special time for you guys right now, too, right? You've worked hard to be in the position that you're in and you should take full advantage of every opportunity. And there's a lot of opportunity for you right now.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, although ironically, I feel like we're also taking fewer and fewer and fewer opportunities, which is the best part of right now. Like, I think before-

• 33:45Rich Roll?

  But you get, yeah, but you're in a position where you can say no.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 33:49Rich Roll?

  And you gotta say, you know, you have to say no to protect the better opportunities.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, I feel way healthier now than I ever did. We used to pop around the globe in a really bizarre way and now we can be like, no, we're not gonna go to Japan for a day and then back to Europe. That's crazy. Which is really nice.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  It used to feel like, no, we need to do this or else we'll be missing a huge opportunity. And now it's a little more on our terms. But we still, I mean, we're still definitely relentless. And early on, we would butt heads on this a little bit. I remember one of the first, and this is where like my sports background really came into play and we had to figure out where it fit with each other. Cause like, we were in the studio, so we ended up moving to New York and working out of the NOX studio, the guys who I was friends with and Sophie was friends with too. And we were working at nights when they weren't in there or when they were on tour. And we were, it was this little place in Chinatown. I've never seen so many rats.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Not in the place, but that walk that we took from my house to there. Man.

• 34:59Rich Roll?

  And this is like 2015?

• 35:02Speaker 01

  14 still. Yeah, like the summer right after graduation. So we were sort of in the studio, trying to make our first like EP, literally learning how to make music, trying to figure out how to use the studio. Like, literally, it would probably take us like three hours to hook up the microphone because I was like still learning how to do stuff. And we, it was late one night, I remember, this is like one fight, and we've talked about it and it doesn't, it doesn't show, Sophie's a really hard worker, so this isn't to say she's not, but we had an argument because it was late and she was like, I'm tired, I wanna go to bed. And I was like- Who cares if you're tired? You know, we got here a couple hours ago. Like, I used to wake up at 4:30, run stadiums,

• 35:45Speaker 01

  and then go lift, and then go to breakfast, and then go to practice, and then go to class, and then go back to the gym. Like, the things that you sort of have to do as a Division One athlete are just physically so painful that... And you know, like, physical pain obviously is better than I do.

• 36:07Rich Roll?

  Well, yeah, but you're just instilled with a sense of discipline early that gets reinforced and becomes just sort of who you are.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so we would kind of butt heads. And she's like, "No, but it's creativity." You know, "I need to, like, feel not tired to make the music and feel..." And I was like, "No, you can just do it." And then, like, we... And "somewhere in the middle" is probably the right answer.

• 36:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is. It is, I mean, there's... That's a true statement on some level. Like, it is curious, like, where does the athlete mentality or mindset, you know, benefit the creative process? And when does it work at cross purposes with it? Because obviously, there's the performance and touring side of it. And I would imagine, in that context, like, the athlete mindset is very helpful because it's so draining and you're putting on this... It's an athletic performance, what you guys do, right? So that's sort of like...

• 37:00Speaker 01

  She's probably become more of an athlete in those regards than I am now because of my inflammation and because of a lot of things. She's really more of a physical athlete now. Like, the way she treats her body, makes sure she gets her workouts in every day, you know, follows a workout regimen, her sleep, her eating habits. Like, she's probably better, like, now as a touring athlete than I am. But it's just... But she's, you know, picked that up.

• 37:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I want to get into all that. We're working our way towards it. But I mean, I think for right now, on the idea of, like, the athlete mindset and when it's helpful and when it's not, like... Setting aside the touring piece and focusing on the creative act of making music in the studio, or the writing and all of that, you can't force that on some level. I mean, you can show up for it and be disciplined about it, but on some level, there's a sort of an allowing that has to happen, right?

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Kind of, but we're both kind of going like this in our heads, because I think we have men in the middle.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  10 years later, we don't still fully agree on it, maybe.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  No, I actually think we agree.

• 38:09Rich Roll?

  But that tension is what is the grist, right?

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I really do think it's we found a nice middle ground, which is, there are all sorts of things that you brought over from basketball and from your athletic mentality that I think, maybe you've even changed your mind on. You're like, oh, well, I had grown ass men screaming in my face, telling me to get the ball, or whatever they say.

• 38:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's helpful to have old men yelling at you when you're younger.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  It's weird. From like, age 12, it's the only time, this is one of the only things in sports that grown adults will be screaming demonstratively in your face.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  But I think the reason that I bring it up is because he does bring it up a lot, and I'm like, yes, and I actually don't think that's how most humans get motivated. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's not how I get motivated. So, moving a bit away from what you were used to, what do you think?

• 39:12Speaker 01

  No, no, I don't think I necessarily get motivated by someone yelling in my face.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Just for the record.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, that's good to know.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  But I definitely don't get shook from criticism or negative comments, or you learn not to get shook by stuff as much.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  And I think we've...

• 39:35Speaker 01

  And that's a big help in this business, I think.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  And that took me a second.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  And a lot of people who weren't, who didn't have that sort of sports background, they get very shaken by criticism or...

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Hate, or whatever you call it, trolling, whatever you call it.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  But I think in creativity, it's really important to show up in times that you don't want to show up. And I think that's something that Tucker definitely brought to the band.

• 39:58Rich Roll?

  That's the Steven Pressfield war of art. Like, if you're a pro, you show up for it no matter what.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, you show up for the inspiration.

• 40:06Rich Roll?

  And so there's the discipline piece. But then there's the, when you are showing up, like, how do you open yourself up and be a channel, rather than like, you're in the gym and you're just like pushing, and how many reps can I do?

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  And there is definitely that point where I think it's okay to say, you know what, not today. It's not happening, and we're not gonna keep pushing, because now we're just working hard and not working smart. So I think we're still developing.

• 40:30Rich Roll?

  How much of the writing process do you guys do together, versus you go your separate ways and then like, bring ideas to the table?

• 40:37Speaker 01

  It's really both.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  We do both. I mean, a lot of our songs and albums and things were like, made from both of us being in the same room together from the beginning. But we'll always start an idea with something, maybe something coming from Sophie, or something coming from me, or, you know, an old jazz song that I found that I think Sophie would find interesting or sound really good, like reinterpreting, or Sophie, you know, just playing guitar in a room late at night, thinking of an idea. It's all over the place.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think we're individually always collecting ideas and just looking at what is inspiring us. And then when we come to the studio and when we come together, we kind of do a little show and tell. And we're like, well, this is a beat that I made last night, or like, this is, these are some words I've been thinking about, or this is a concept I really want to write a song about, or here's a melody I thought of, and I wonder how it could work with the beat that you've been inspired by, or the sample, or whatever.

• 41:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. On some level, like, the idea of like, mashing genres, I mean, it's not entirely new. I mean, Aerosmith and Run D M Z, all these sorts of, you know, kind of experiments with this over the years. Moby, you know, like, everything that he did by taking, you know, kind of older music and putting it together. When you reflect on like, kind of... What you guys do specifically, like what is it that you think makes it stand out or is unique beyond the fact that you're singing in Portuguese or in different languages? And using these bossa nova kind of like overtones?

• 42:15Speaker 01

  I think there's a couple. You can go first. I'm curious what you'll say.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  I think it's just that we're two very different people. And so the combination of what he's inspired by and what I'm inspired by is often kind of bizarre because there are not many people in bands with two people like us together in one band.

• 42:36Rich Roll?

  And yet, everybody assumes that you're together. You live together now. Yeah, like you're, you spend all your time together, but you're not together together.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  And we'll be listening to different music. You know, if we're both sitting on a plane ride, you couldn't imagine how different the music in our headphones are. It's a Venn diagram and it's like so much of the things that I like and that I do and that I'm interested in in life are things that do not overlap with Sophie and vice versa. But the small overlapping moment is what Sophie Tucker is because we both love it so much and we both get so excited about it, even though our overall interest circles don't overlap that much. So like it's a, it's something like if we both get really, really excited about it, there's something special about it because coming from such

• 43:26Speaker 01

  different places, perspectives, backgrounds, we both still love that. So it's got to cover a decent amount of people.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  So you're in New York, you're in the Chinatown studio, like banging out this first EP. How long from, from that experience to like the SoundCloud, to Apple, to, you know, kind of having your first licensing thing and, and having like the visibility that comes with that?

• 43:52Speaker 02

  So basically...

• 43:53Rich Roll?

  It happened pretty fast, right?

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Not really. I mean, it depends how you look at it, you know?

• 43:58Rich Roll?

  It looks like it does.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  It's relative.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, relatively it did.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  But we made, we made our first EP, pretty much finished our first EP and then I...

• 44:05Speaker 01

  In the summer after graduation.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. And at the time, I was an obsessive runner. And I realized, over time, there was this pain in my foot that I had, I had a stress fracture in my sesmoid toe. And so I started wearing a boot on that leg, on that foot, sorry. But I kept moving and I kept doing a ton.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  We were out, like, this, we'd just moved to New York. We were out every night. It was such a fun time. But, you know, you're walking a lot.

• 44:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and dancing and on my feet, anyway. And then I basically developed the pain in the other foot. So I had sesmoid fractures in both of my big toes. And so my doctor just looked at me and he was like, "You really only have one choice. You have to go into a wheelchair." So here I am in New York, thinking, "Oh, my God, I have no money."

• 44:57Speaker 01

  And she lived in the worst, like, six-floor walk-up in Chinatown. That place was bad.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  That was really bad.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  With like, six people that you didn't know.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  That place was bad.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  And so I just, I had one option, which was to go move home. And at the time, my parents lived in the Netherlands. So I left New York, I went to the Netherlands, and I was in a wheelchair.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  And we were just about to sort of launch this project together. And so I was like, in New York, like, "Well, I don't want to have to try to go get another job." Like, you know, basically asking my parents, like, "Can you help me pay rent for a few more months? I think we have something special here and I don't want to, like, abandon it. But Sophie has to go heal her feet."

• 45:41Speaker 02

  And I didn't know that my feet were going to be healed, you know? It was kind of a toss-up, too, because sesmoids, I guess, they just, you just hope that they heal.

• 45:48Rich Roll?

  And you're like, 21 and in a wheelchair, right when, right when your life is about to start.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so I'm living with my parents and, you know, my parents are kind of convincing me to apply to jobs. So I'm applying to jobs, thinking, "Maybe when I get out of the wheelchair, I'll be a, I don't know." Mediator.

• 46:06Rich Roll?

  Just when you, just when you were about to reach like escape velocity. Yeah, like you get pulled back in.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:12Rich Roll?

  And re-indoctrinated.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  I remember you were, you were signing up to be a personal trainer.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  No.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  That's absurd. That's crazy behavior.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  I know.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Gosh, okay. Not surprising. It turned out to be a really amazing period of time because for four months, Tucker and I.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Was it four months?

• 46:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was four months.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Sheesh.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Tucker and I talked every single day on Skype. And at the time, we still weren't really friends. Like, we didn't really know each other. We hadn't really gotten vulnerable. And so now, I think in some ways with the safety of, you know, it being on the internet instead of in person, I felt like I really got to know him. And I was in a really vulnerable spot. I was really anxious. I was scared.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  And I had been in that spot a few years earlier.

• 47:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Literally in bed.

• 47:08Rich Roll?

  Kind of like trauma bond over.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:10Rich Roll?

  Your health.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:12Rich Roll?

  Illments.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  I would say that's when we really became friends.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was really able to relate and sort of help through it in an interesting way. I also, though, was having a lot of anxiety because.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  I didn't have anything going on. I didn't have a job. It was a weird time.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  I got on Prozac back then, actually. I was like, had a couple of panic attacks. It was, it was a weird time.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  It was a really weird time, but I think, I mean, you know, Tucker is a six foot seven guy. He used to only wear black leather jackets and like, there was an impenetrable kind of vibe. And suddenly I just saw this sort of softness under that. And like, when he was going through panic attacks and anxiety and I was having all this fear and anxiety, I think suddenly we saw each other's humanity in a different way and became friends in a different way. And we were able to say, okay, if we're gonna start this band together, what's important to us? What are our values? What do we like to look at? Like, what fashion is interesting to us? What part of the world is interesting to us? You know, we had to just ask all.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  All of these big questions and we had the time to actually mull it over. And it was amazing period of time in the end.

• 48:21Rich Roll?

  That's a very kind of mature way to approach, you know, the kind of formation of a band to like, exchange, you know, what your values are at the outset. You know, as highly unusual, I would imagine.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  If you have a chance to start a band with someone who studied conflict resolution.

• 48:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you should take advantage of that, right? Because of course, you know, the most, you know, successful bands all fall prey to, to their inability to navigate conflict, right?

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:53Rich Roll?

  And, and as like the success, you know, as you sort of scale up your success, then the stakes get higher and I would imagine like that ratchets up like the potential for explosiveness if you don't have, if you don't have those skills to kind of work through stuff.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  It's been communication for us, like really outward, open communication. If anything's ever bugging us, we don't like keep it inside and let it grow. It's just talk it out and I'm a full goldfish. Like I was a shooter in basketball, you know, if you miss 10, that means you're going to make the next 10. You forget about the last shot and you just make the next shot always.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  It's amazing for me.

• 49:34Rich Roll?

  So there's no, you don't, you don't have, like there's a, there's no residue for the.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Ever.

• 49:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  I, I will literally forget about it.

• 49:43Rich Roll?

  That's a superpower, actually.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  It really is. Yeah, also start a band with a goldfish. Who will just forgive you for anything you say, you know?

• 49:52Speaker 01

  I'm just not very sensitive of, if you can't like say something that's going to like kill me also, I don't know. Like I'm sensitive in ways, but not like.

• 50:00Rich Roll?

  What, what is the, like the impetus between, you guys are not together, but you live together. Like, why did you make that decision? Did it not occur to you that maybe your relationship would be healthier if you had at least some separation?

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, didn't occur to us at all.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Relentless.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, relentless.

• 50:20Rich Roll?

  So then it could just be two, four, seven.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  You can just work all the time.

• 50:23Rich Roll?

  It's just two, four, right, yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I actually think.

• 50:25Rich Roll?

  You wouldn't miss a single opportunity.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Well, just ideas, like when you get inspired. Like, we're excitable people. We work off excitement. So if I'm just chilling on a Sunday and I have a great idea, she's there and we just will like cancel plans and hit it.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  Sophie! Sophie!

• 50:44Speaker 01

  I'll make her cancel plans and we hit it.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I will say that I think that right now in the evolution of our band, I feel like we're kind of individuating for the first time. You know, we're kind of like, maybe we don't have to live together. You know, I think we're accepting that we have, like Tucker did a gig without me for the first time, like last week.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  But it was a private gig. It wasn't like a, you know, it was like a wedding.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  But still, like, that's the first time it ever happened.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Sophie Tucker performance at a wedding.

• 51:20Rich Roll?

  I get it, I get it.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  So I think there is, yeah, that we kind of had a coming together where, you know, we moved in together, what, in five years ago, probably? And it just worked really well.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Six years, seven, six, seven, six years.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he just bought a house on his own, as an example, so.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the first few places we lived, we like split them. So we bought them together. And then we still live together. I mean, I technically bought this house in Las Vegas and she has like, you know, I made sure it had like a good, separate, private area that Sophie would like, so she'd like to be there.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  But still, he gets to go decorate the house exactly how he wants to do it.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 52:05Rich Roll?

  How does it work, though, if like, you, like, when you're cohabitating and like you like are dating somebody else or you're bringing other people back and like, you know, like it just, you're just, it creates a complex dynamic, I would imagine.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  For sure, complex. I mean.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're kind of dating both of us in a way.

• 52:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah. That comes with the package.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Like, not really.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  That's a stretch, but yeah.

• 52:27Rich Roll?

  Well, it's a witness test, too, because if you bring someone in and they can't handle that, they're out immediately, right?

• 52:33Speaker 02

  I think we also both handle it very differently, but our dating lives are also very differently.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Different, sorry. Well, I mean, you know, I dated his best friend and his best friend lived with us, so that was a dynamic for a while, where it was kind of just the three of us. It wasn't really, like, yeah, he was my boyfriend, but also they were best friends, so that worked really well, actually. And then I think when he brings girls back...

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Back? Like, she's my mother.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  To our house, yeah, I know. I'm just very...

• 53:06Speaker 01

  She's judgy like my mother.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  I'm not even, I'm not judgy, I'm just boundaried.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  She's judgy.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  I'm boundaried until...

• 53:13Rich Roll?

  She's hot off your Hoffman experience.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's cold.

• 53:17Rich Roll?

  Laying down the boundaries.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  I can be kind of, I can be kind of cold.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  She scares them away, for sure.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, but only, only until if I see that he really cares about them, you know?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  I care, I always care about them.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  No, but like, if they're really gonna be a part of your life, then I think, then, but I'm this way with everybody, I think. I'm just, I have boundaries unless I open the floodgates.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  So, I'm not like...

• 53:41Speaker 01

  My floodgates are pretty open.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  But we live together, so it's different.

• 53:46Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  Like, Tucker's more of a, like, be friends with everyone.

• 53:50Rich Roll?

  Everybody, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Have everyone over, they're like fam, even though they met like a week ago, but it's amazing.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  But I like having like a clubhouse feel.

• 53:56Rich Roll?

  Right, I mean, that's the vibe that I get from you. Maybe that comes from basketball, or maybe that's, you know, innate to you, but like, you're, you're like a team player guy who needs a lot of people around all the time. And Sophie strikes me as somebody who, who maybe isn't always down for that. Not in a derogatory way, like, like, your, your quiet time, your down regulation, you know, solo time is important.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I spend a lot of time in floatinks.

• 54:19Rich Roll?

  You do?

• 54:20Speaker 02

  I do, yeah.

• 54:21Rich Roll?

  You know where they are in all the cities where you visit?

• 54:23Speaker 01

  She does.

• 54:24Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 54:25Speaker 02

  Literally, every city.

• 54:26Rich Roll?

  How do you guys downregulate after a show? I mean, these shows you guys do go into the wee hours, right? And then you're traveling to the next city. I just know, like... Even if I just do like a talk in front of people, like it takes me a long time to like, I can't just go to sleep. How do you like de-escalate those experiences that are so like hyper peak, you know, with thousands of people? And then do it night after night after night without exhausting yourselves?

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Super differently, like everything else. I can just go to sleep.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  Isn't that amazing?

• 54:59Rich Roll?

  You can just sleep anywhere?

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:01Rich Roll?

  That's another superpower.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, yeah. Not always, but pretty much I just go to sleep.

• 55:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I do a lot of different things. I mean, one thing I do is a float tank. I feel like doing that once a week is a game changer for me. And I found one in pretty much every city in the world.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  They're everywhere now.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  They're everywhere.

• 55:26Rich Roll?

  But like when you conclude a show for the night and you're like, I only, I only have this amount of time to sleep. Like I gotta like figure out how to like.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  I feel like it used to be harder, but I'm, I'm actually much better at managing it now. I mean, I just go.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  She used to be really extra. She'd have like a two hour wind down routine.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  And this is when we had to like share rooms because we like weren't making any money and we couldn't afford to like have separate rooms. And she would literally be like stretching for two hours. And I was like, go to bed.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  I mean, now I have, I have a physical cooldown. I have a vocal cooldown. It's short. It's like, you know, five, 10 minutes. And then I, I go into my bunk. I read a book or I watch something, you know, putting my legs up the wall. Sometimes I take some, think something to sleep if we're on the bus and I know it's going to be a shaky night. I mean, I've kind of also embraced that sometimes like pharmaceuticals are, are great.

• 56:22Rich Roll?

  Effective.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. When needed, it's better than like back to back to back really bad night of sleep.

• 56:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, you're, you're not like sober sober, but in the EDM world, I would imagine you're very sober, right? Like you're basically in these environments that are like, you know, just off the rails, like every single night, just insane amounts of drugs and alcohol.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  No, I would say I'm sober sober.

• 56:46Rich Roll?

  You are, you're sober sober.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  Besides like a sleeping pill every night?

• 56:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, like I forget what I take, but I just started taking it from my-

• 56:52Rich Roll?

  California sober is when you smoke pot and but you don't drink, right? It's some version of California sober.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, when I say taking something, I'm talking about like Benadryl, you know?

• 57:00Rich Roll?

  Oh, okay, you're not talking about like Valium or Ativan or something?

• 57:04Speaker 02

  No, no, that would be too intense for my system. I'm so sensitive.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  When we go on like a European flight and she's like, I'm gonna take Xanax or something, it's 1/16 and she'll like still panic if she takes it. It's crazy.

• 57:16Speaker 02

  Actually, I actually did panic because I was like, I don't like when things are happening to my body that I don't, that are unfamiliar, that I don't know. Because I've been sober for over 10 years, so any, and I don't really like, I mean, it's, it's kind of new that I've even embraced that maybe it's okay to like take 1/16 of a Xanax on a plane, you know? But the first time I did it, I was like really panicking. I looked over at Tucker and I was like, I, I just feel like something's happening in my body and I don't know what it is. And he was just like, Sophie, calm down, everything's gonna be okay, you know?

• 57:45Speaker 01

  You're good.

• 57:46Rich Roll?

  It's, it's pretty anachronistic that you guys are so like oriented around like well-being and like taking care of yourself in a, in a world that is sort of, you know, at cross purposes with that. Like every, every like, everything about those, that world that you inhabit is like working against that.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Kinda, but, but I also think that's part of the, our goal, you know, the, the shared relentless goal that we have to grow and continue growing this like community and, and this thing that we started together out of air. You know, it's, it's so, it's so cool and we know if we wanna keep traveling and performing the way we do, we have to treat it like we're athletes or else we're gonna hate life. You know, we're not gonna be charming when we get up early to go to a radio station and, and have an interview. We're, we're gonna not enjoy life. We're gonna be rude to people. It would change everything. So, and I mean, I'm not sober sober, but like, you know,

• 58:48Speaker 01

  I'll have a drink here and there and pop off occasionally, but like- We're pretty much athletes.

• 58:54Rich Roll?

  And you're modeling it to not just your audience, but other musicians as well. Like, that's part of changing the world, Sophie.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:03Rich Roll?

  You feel good about that?

• 59:04Speaker 02

  I mean, a lot of people do come to us, you know, and they just ask us, how do you do it? Because either they're thinking of becoming sober, or they see that we're able to withstand the schedule that we have, and they want to know how. And a lot of it does have to do with these, like, kind of boring, simple, but, like, amazing little tricks that we've learned. But I also think that it's important not to discount the role that joy plays in wellness. You know, like, to be truly well and truly healthy, I think being really happy and joyful and having these experiences of ecstatic dancing and connection is huge for health. Like, I feel like all of our cells in our bodies are like, oh, yay!

• 59:46Rich Roll?

  And that's really the experience you're trying to create in your shows. Like, it's really a joy-spreading, kind of happiness, you know, experience.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  So it's not like the environments that we're in, or that we're creating are, like, going against, you know, being healthy. I think they actually work together.

• 1:00:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but, like, for example, you're playing in Vegas tonight, right?

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Rich Roll?

  At, like, what casino?

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, one to three.

• 1:00:06Rich Roll?

  Like, one of those, like, pool party, like, kind of situations?

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Tonight's a nightclub, so it's inside 1 a.m. to 3 a.m.

• 1:00:11Rich Roll?

  I mean, those are, those are pretty unhinged environments.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  That's not the most healthy environment. But the past two months, we've been on our live show tour, which is a concert. Most of the shows are from, like, 9 to 10:30. It's, you know, we have dancers, you know, ice after the shows. We tour on a tour bus. They're not, the hours aren't that crazy. I was gonna say this earlier, when you said, what makes you unique, separate from the Portuguese and stuff? And I think I never answered it, but I was gonna say... We have a live show, which is like a concert. It's like a spectacle, an experience, a show to watch. But then we also will have a residency in Vegas where we DJ and it's a party. And we, it's a totally different experience.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  And then we're also now doing these like stripped or going to do, uh, we haven't really announced it yet, but there's gonna be this like sort of jazz show and stripped down and, and doing all those things, but being ourselves, you know, no, there usually just isn't like a DJ act who plays in Vegas, who will also do a jazz show in a, in a Blue Note or, or something like that.

• 1:01:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  And I think it's cause.

• 1:01:23Rich Roll?

  That's super different.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  It's just different and we, we don't feel limited to genres, which I do think in dance music, it's very genre specific.

• 1:01:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  So I, I think it's good and bad, you know? Sometimes we don't fit in and then it's harder for people to understand what are we? If they're coming to a Sophie Tucker, their show, they're like, well, first of all, most people think Sophie Tucker is one girl named Sophie Tucker. And then so they're like, who's the tall guy with Sophie Tucker?

• 1:01:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  So like, we're working against that already.

• 1:01:52Rich Roll?

  It's sort of like a Eurythmics situation a little bit. Andy Monix, Dave Stewart, doesn't it?

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's like, so then, you know, and then it's like, well, is it a DJ set or is it a live concert? Are they gonna be playing instruments? Are they gonna be DJing or, or Sophie gonna be playing an acoustic guitar and singing jazz music? Like.

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  Could be any of it.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Well, we try to make it clear. We try to make it as clear as possible and you understand what you're getting into. But it's a plus and a negative because I think sometimes it's better for people to just know exactly what you are.

• 1:02:24Rich Roll?

  They can't pigeonhole you, but what makes you interesting is the fact that it's different, even if it challenges people to figure out how to like where, where they're supposed to compartmentalize you or plug you in.

• 1:02:34Speaker 02

  The other thing that also really excites me is, you know, typically if you're going to Vegas to, we're playing at Marquee tonight from 1 to 3 a.m. You're almost always gonna see. A dude DJ up there with a bunch of girls, you know, in like little outfits dancing around. When you come to our show, first of all, there's, I think I am the, like, maybe the only woman on the lineup of this year.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, the residency lineup.

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  And we bring our like fabulous flamboyant dancers of all different genders. And the show that we put on in that same environment is so different than if you were to go to that nightclub on any other night.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  And that really, I really am excited by that.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, that drives us.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  I'm proud of that, yeah.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  Sort of changing culture a little. See, you're changing the world.

• 1:03:26Rich Roll?

  I heard you tell a story about, I think you were in Paris and you were backstage at some, some event and there was a French band that was going on and, and like they couldn't believe that you weren't drinking before the show. Do you know what you're not talking about?

• 1:03:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, actually, no, exactly what you're talking about.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, they really couldn't believe that we weren't gonna get drunk before the show.

• 1:03:49Speaker 02

  People always think we're on all sorts of drugs or that we're drinking or, I mean,

• 1:03:54Rich Roll?

  Well, it's an easy assumption to make because if you're in this world, like, obviously, maybe that's what, you know, attracts you to it or must be part of your experience as well.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  I love the music.

• 1:04:07Rich Roll?

  What is your green room routine and like what's on the rider?

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  We like work out in the green room usually.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  We have our teas. This is our, these are our teas, the mate teas.

• 1:04:15Rich Roll?

  I was gonna ask you about this. It's very smart to put them in cans that sort of look like Red Bull.

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:21Rich Roll?

  That's very like consistent, you know, with.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  It's like a healthy energy rather than something else.

• 1:04:27Rich Roll?

  And then. It's like mate tea.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  No, it is mate tea. It's really clean.

• 1:04:31Rich Roll?

  When did you start, when did you start this?

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  So it's actually, we got involved a few years ago. It's a originally a cachaça company. So it's the alcohol that is a Brazilian rum that you make out of sugarcane and you put in a caipirinha, which is like the Brazilian national drink. And Sophie, as a sober person, basically was like, look, I love this company. I love the mission. And they, they plant a lot of, they're doing a lot of reforestation in the rainforest in, in Brazil. And Sophie was like, but I'm sober and I feel a little uncomfortable.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Representing an alcohol company. And everyone was like, makes sense. But she said, but can we make a non-alcoholic, you know, part of it and make something that she can really get behind? And so that's, so that's what NovaFog is.

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, one of the things I love about it is that we have an alcoholic version of this. And so you really feel like you're participating in the same way when you have this. But then Tucker has, you know, the alcoholic version that's like slightly different. And it's a different color, but we're still like at the same party, having the best time ever. Not feeling like we're in totally separate planets.

• 1:05:58Rich Roll?

  The rider. So you're working out in the green room ahead of time. You have foam rollers.

• 1:06:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I actually stopped foam rolling though. It's, it turns out it's not very good for me. But we have a yoga mat, we have weights, do a little workout. We have protein bars.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  It also depends if it's what type of show we're doing. So our live show will really get like fully sweaty and warmed up before the show starts. So that we come out right away. And a DJ set, it's a little more casual, a little less preparation because we don't have to put our bodies through as much. So it depends. But I've even started doing vocal warmups recently because I'm singing a little bit more. But Sophie's really good about that.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess the rider does range a lot. I mean, we have a pretty extensive rider during our live show.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  You like what's on the rider? It's like avocados and pulled chicken.

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Olive oil, gluten free bread.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  We make full meals.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  We just make little meals.

• 1:06:59Rich Roll?

  Are the stagehand guys like, are you sure? This is all you want?

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  But which bottles of alcohol?

• 1:07:04Rich Roll?

  I can hook you up. I got a guy.

• 1:07:07Rich Roll?

  Was it 2000? So you're back from the wheelchair experience. You're back in New York.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Rich Roll?

  And how long was it before the Apple thing? Because that was really like kind of your first break, right? Is that, that's correct, yeah?

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  I had just gotten out of the wheelchair and then we put it on SoundCloud. And Apple reached out to us and said, hey, we want to put your song in a commercial. And we just looked at each other, we're like, is this the real Apple email? What is this? Is this a joke?

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  We thought a friend was like punking us because it was through a different, you didn't have like .apple or anything and which I guess, I don't know. Everyone can have a .apple. I don't know. We were shocked.

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  But it's real.

• 1:07:45Rich Roll?

  How long had it been on? Was it getting a lot of activity there?

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  I think a couple of weeks.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  Not much.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  It was getting activity. It was, it was because back then it was, it was early Spotify streaming days. So it was basically, there's a lot of blogs on the internet and people like, had these like tastemaker blogs and there was like an aggregate called Hype Machine. And basically if a bunch of blogs were posting about your song, it would go to this aggregate like list. And if it gets to number one, you know, a lot of people, it's sort of a tastemaker-y thing to pay attention to, but I was really paying attention to it a lot. And Drinky went to the top of it for like the full amount of time it could. And then went back on the list and went to the top again.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  And we were like, something's going on here. But it didn't like have, you know, compared to a standard today, it had no, nothing. But at the time, we were like, something's bubbling. But we didn't know where to start. We didn't have a manager. We didn't have a lawyer. We didn't have anything. So we got this email and we were like, we need a lawyer. Like they're going to send over a contract. We don't know what any of this means.

• 1:08:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:08:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you know, it was real. We were able to pay rent suddenly, so I stopped looking for other jobs. And then we just kind of. Went full force and started being really relentless.

• 1:09:09Rich Roll?

  So that was, what year was that?

• 1:09:10Speaker 02

  2016.

• 1:09:12Rich Roll?

  And the following year?

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  Fifteen or sixteen?

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  I think it was.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  No, I think it was fifteen and then it got nominated for a Grammy.

• 1:09:18Rich Roll?

  It got a Grammy nomination.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  For Dance Record of the Year and it was the 2016 Grammy.

• 1:09:23Speaker 02

  And this was the song that we made during college.

• 1:09:26Rich Roll?

  At Brown.

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, where I had never played the electric guitar before and it was a Portuguese poem.

• 1:09:30Rich Roll?

  So yes, you've been doing it 10 years and maybe I was a little overly excited about compressing the timeline, but that's still like, like literally the thing you made, you know, quickly in college that I'm sure you iterated on and improved before you, you know, before it became what it became, but like that, that gets nominated for a Grammy?

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:50Rich Roll?

  And you guys figured that out before you even really knew each other?

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that was a crazy moment. We were doing a music video shoot on the day we found out and we didn't know it was even entered in the running. We didn't know it was a possibility. Never in our wildest dreams. And, and we, I looked at my phone after some scene in a shoot and it said like 300 texts or something. And I was like, what the hell is going on?

• 1:10:20Rich Roll?

  So you, you weren't even thinking that that could be a possibility or whatever?

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  The nominations were coming out. It was not on our radar. We were just trying to like, just have people know who we were somehow.

• 1:10:31Rich Roll?

  What was it like to go to the Grammys for the first time?

• 1:10:35Speaker 02

  It was terrifying.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:10:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  Well, because I'd never like posed on a red carpet before. I found that very intimidating.

• 1:10:46Rich Roll?

  You're, that's shocking now.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  No, it's not. We were at an event last night.

• 1:10:50Rich Roll?

  Sophie is like the most fashion forward, like you're made for this shit.

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  You have no idea how much that is not a true statement.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  When we started the band, she hate, she literally like, was like, I don't like fashion. I don't think it's good for the world.

• 1:11:07Rich Roll?

  That's, that is shocking.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  I'm like, not interested.

• 1:11:10Rich Roll?

  You're all about the fashion.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  I'm not into it. And I was like, I kinda like fashion. Like, I would like, tried to do a dual Riz D Brown fashion program thing that I couldn't do because of basketball.

• 1:11:22Rich Roll?

  So the art thing was there?

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  It was, it was like, always, uh, in the back of my mind, but everything was back Bernard for basketball. I would, I was definitely not like, the typical athlete, but it was different. You know, athletes all wore like, the same like, sports teams hoodies and sweatpants and stuff. And I like, didn't, and my coach was kind of like, why don't you hang out and dress like the guys more? And I was just a little more, I don't know.

• 1:11:48Rich Roll?

  The seeds, the seeds were there.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  The seeds were there.

• 1:11:51Speaker 02

  Like, did you notice even when we walked in, that I, I asked Tucker, like, this shirt or this shirt? Like, this pants or this pants? Like, he's kind of...

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I, I've, I've made, when I look back on things, I've made some horrible decisions.

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, that is also true.

• 1:12:06Rich Roll?

  Well, if you're gonna be fashion forward, you know, a lot of it's not gonna age well.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  It's true. That's true.

• 1:12:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  That's what I tried to tell Sophie.

• 1:12:14Rich Roll?

  That just goes with the game.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  When I see old photos, I try to make that argument. It could get rough.

• 1:12:19Rich Roll?

  But anyway, you're at the Grammys.

• 1:12:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Rich Roll?

  And you're, you're, you're overwhelmed by it.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think the, the experience of going to the Grammys, watching the Grammys, looking, like, being around all these other artists, that was really cool. For me, the thing that was intimidating and just like, scary, was the red carpet and the dressing up and the posing, like, that stuff. Which, honestly, it's funny that it feels like that is me, but it still makes me uncomfortable.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  Last night, we were at an event.

• 1:12:46Rich Roll?

  Well, because there's the contrived nature of like, what that process is like, to walk those carpets and stand there.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  Oh my god, it's so weird.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  It's real uncomfortable.

• 1:12:55Rich Roll?

  But the fashion piece, though, like, just the way you kind of like, you know, rock it out, like, to me, I would have assumed that that was sort of a natural thing for you.

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  No, no, it's definitely new, and I definitely get a lot of help. On purpose, because I feel like I could walk out of the door and just wear things that I would deeply regret. And actually, in many ways, at both of the Grammys that we went to, I kind of regret what I wore, actually. And I remember being like, oh, yeah, let's try that new hairstyle. That looks good on that person. And then they did it. And then I walked to the red carpet and I looked at pictures. I was like, I should have never tried a new thing on such a sort of visible moment. But, um.

• 1:13:37Rich Roll?

  Well, we learn.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's always a learn. Like even last night, we went to a red carpet. And as we were in the car, I was thinking, oh, it would be important, maybe, to figure out how to pose, you know, in these jeans, you know. And then I got there, and I was like, ah, too late, whatever, I don't care. But I was kind of uncomfortable. And I was kind of posing weird. And it's just, it's very unnatural for me. It's something that you actually do have to.

• 1:14:02Rich Roll?

  I think it's good that it maintains its unnatural quality. If it starts to becoming too natural, then I think maybe that's concerning.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  The worst part of those, the photographers are like, who are you? And they're like, why should I care? And I'm like, I don't know. Let me just walk. I don't know. You know, or like, you walk by all the people, like, doing interviews, and they just don't want to talk to you. And you're like, okay.

• 1:14:26Rich Roll?

  Because someone more important is, yeah, is like, you know, welcome to Los Angeles, basically.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just so.

• 1:14:31Rich Roll?

  But you go, so, yeah, you went twice, because you got, you had an album nominated in 2019, right?

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:37Rich Roll?

  So you've been twice nominated. Now you have something like 3 billion streams, or some crazy number that you can't wrap your head around, like.

• 1:14:47Speaker 02

  It is something crazy that I can't wrap my head around, yeah.

• 1:14:50Rich Roll?

  What were the other kind of, were there other big, kind of like, breakthrough inflection point moments? Or has it just been the grind, you know, like, the relentless sort of grind of building upon each little win?

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  I feel like in a sort of era of, like, viral things, we have been kind of on, like,

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Slow growth, you know? I mean, slow relative, you know, I'm sure it's not slow, slow, but like, there was never a crazy moment when all of a sudden we had a number one hit and things were crazy.

• 1:15:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  It's been really like a, we're growing this community. We're figuring out who we are slowly. You know, like even with clothes or even with, you know, how we act or anything, how we eat. You know, I wasn't gluten free when we started. Like, there's so many things that I feel like we're like learning about ourselves and it contributes to our growth in different ways.

• 1:15:48Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I kind of feel like the most recent tour we did was an inflection point, but not in a really big, like, explosion kind of way. It was more just that I feel it solidified what we're about to the people who came to the show. And so we just finished the North American Live Show Tour for our album, Bread. And we put so much into this show. I mean, it was more production and sort of volume, quality of everything. I mean, we just put a lot into the show. And it felt like the entire audience came dressed up, like, ready to have the time of their life.

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  We got to talk to a lot of people at, like, the VIP thing before the shows and kind of hear from them about what the album meant to them. And it was just internally, I think, a really big inflection point because we got to actually see how our message has been translating. And it just feels like it's very cohesive or intentional.

• 1:16:57Rich Roll?

  Of a piece, yeah.

• 1:16:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it feels like it's making sense right now.

• 1:17:00Rich Roll?

  People are finally sort of able to make sense of it in their own minds. Yeah. It felt like, from an outsider looking in, who knows nothing, like, it was a leveling up year. Like, you did, like, the Today, you were in New York, when you launched, you were, you did the Today Show, right? Or like, one of those morning shows?

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  Good Morning America.

• 1:17:18Rich Roll?

  And like, the video that you made going down, you know, like, on the street with all, like, all of that felt like, oh, this is entering, like, a more kind of mainstream. Awareness, consciousness level with what you're doing and all the like your Times Square billboards and all that kind of stuff that came with that.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  It's felt good. Yeah, like it's just keeps sort of growing. And I think for me, I'm, I don't know, I have trouble reflecting. I just not trouble. It's cool when we do it. I just don't do it much. Yeah, because I don't remember anything that happened. But like, I'm always looking to keep the momentum. And like, what's next is just how I feel like I'm built, which I think is not good for some things. But also, it keeps the ship moving. And so I'm always thinking like, okay, we just finished that tour. You know, I can't wait to the next bigger tour. You know, that's just, and I don't know if you're always thinking like that.

• 1:18:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think we're a little bit different in this way. I definitely also think about what's next. But I think maybe I reflect more or.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:18:32Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:18:32Speaker 02

  But I kind of feel like we do also pause, you know, to just be like, this is really cool. Like, this is something that we dreamed of, and now we're doing it.

• 1:18:40Rich Roll?

  I'm glad you do that. Like, just the word pause in and of itself, like, it doesn't, because when you look at like, your life, it doesn't look like there's any pause.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  I don't know if pause is the right word.

• 1:18:49Speaker 02

  Well, I also feel like there's a surprising amount of pause. Like, the schedule looks crazy, but I feel very, I don't feel crazy at all. Like, I used to feel crazy. But I feel like now.

• 1:19:04Rich Roll?

  Because you acclimated to it? Or you found a way to like, be a quantumist amidst all of it?

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  I'll grab 3:30 tonight when we finish our show.

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  No, I'm being totally serious.

• 1:19:15Rich Roll?

  I hope you're gonna sleep a little bit before you have to go on stage at 1 o'clock in the morning tonight. No?

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  But then the problem, the real problem is, we get off at 3:00 and our plane takes off at 6:00 to go to New York. And then we land and you lose the time. And then we play when we get there.

• 1:19:30Speaker 02

  Okay, so I used to freak out about that.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  And then you call her then.

• 1:19:35Speaker 02

  No, but I used to freak out about that all the time. And I used to be like, oh, my God, I'm only getting three hours of sleep tonight. I'm freaking out, I'm freaking out. I don't feel well. Oh, my God. But now, I keep this log, and I've been keeping it for a while. And I think sleep tracking is really dangerous for me because I get really obsessed with the numbers.

• 1:19:56Rich Roll?

  You would just be in the red all the time.

• 1:19:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. But the truth is...

• 1:19:59Rich Roll?

  It would start to wear away on your brain.

• 1:20:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do count how many hours I sleep and the quality of my sleep. And I look at it only after a week has passed. And then I know, over the course of seven days, how much I've slept on average. And every single week, I always sleep the same amount. That's what's so crazy. Over a seven day period of time, I'm always between 7.5 to 8.5 hours a night. Whether I have a week where I'm sleeping consistently eight hours a night or whether I'm having a week...

• 1:20:32Rich Roll?

  It'll be three, four, five, 12.

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

  And so I kind of stopped freaking out about the three hour a night thing a while ago once I realized that my body always recalibrates and will figure it out. And I haven't gotten sick in a long time. I feel really healthy. I feel like we do have moments to pause, you know? Even doing things like going to the float tank. These are these moments where I feel like we do have a lot of space in our life to pause and just be like, wow, we just sold out the Santa Barbara Bowl. That's so cool because we opened for Odeza at the Santa Barbara Bowl four years ago. And that was always a dream of ours. And now we're here. And I've always wanted to be on the Rich Roll Podcast. And now we're here. I mean, that's so cool.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  Actually, true.

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  This is like a pitchy moment. No, it is. I'm dead serious.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  No, not kidding.

• 1:21:19Speaker 02

  I'm dead serious.

• 1:21:20Rich Roll?

  I reached out to you thinking, they're not gonna come. Is it a brand show every night?

• 1:21:24Speaker 02

  I freaked out. I was like honored.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  We've been talking about you for six, seven years. Like a long time.

• 1:21:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  A really long time.

• 1:21:32Rich Roll?

  Awesome. Thank you.

• 1:21:34Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:21:35Rich Roll?

  I'm curious about how the business of it all works. The music business has changed so much and it continues to change. How does it all work? What's fact? What's fiction? I mean, my sense is touring is now, that's how you do it. You're not doing it on album sales. And we've all heard what streaming revenue is on these platforms. And you have to diversify. You've got like, we have this Novo Fogo and you've got merch and all kinds of other stuff. But how do you think about it? What is the brass tacks of this sort of business economic end of how it is that you do what you do?

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  There's a lot of ways to do it, I think, and it depends on the genre. Music is really different. Like, the industries are completely different. How things are handled, how contracts are handled, like, when you get paid, depending on if you're, like, in pop, or hip-hop, or dance. And we're kind of, you know, in dance, and pop, and alternative, somewhere, you know, in there. More in dance than the other. But I would say for us, an interesting thing is, you don't really make money touring as a band. DJing, you know, there's much less overhead. So we can go with a USB stick and headphones. We can go to a club.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  There's already lights, and you just maybe bring a USB to give to a visual person, and then you have a full show. And that doesn't cost much. And so you can, you can take home more money DJing, for sure. But the live show, you're not, you're pretty much losing. We were losing money touring for the first four years. Wow. And the reason we were able... Just because of all the costs, and the transpo, and the crew, and the... The flights. Even when, like, we were starting, our first headline tour ever, we had done, like, three opening tours, which, you know, you're barely getting by, if anything.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  And we're, like, following some band on a tour bus in, like, a rented Chrysler Town and Country, with one other person with us, who's a sound guy and a tour manager. We put up things, break it down before the shows, onstage in front of people, like, you know, we're sharing a room, like, those things. And then, the reason we were able to do all this, and lose money on it as an investment, was because...

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  We were sinking, which is like the commercials.

• 1:24:13Rich Roll?

  Right, so the licensing is a big...

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  The licensing.

• 1:24:16Rich Roll?

  It's just sort of powering the whole thing for a while.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  I would say four or five years, 90% of our income was from licensing.

• 1:24:22Rich Roll?

  I looked on IMDb, you guys have like 31 credits of your stuff showing up in movies and TV.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it turns out that we make music that

• 1:24:31Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  works really well in licensing, which isn't always the case also for people, but you know, so far, knock on wood, it's it's served us really well.

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  I think it was in 2018, we got in a, we were nominated for best licensing artist in the top five in like the world.

• 1:24:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  And other artists were like Katy Perry and like some huge names. And we were like, this is so weird.

• 1:24:58Rich Roll?

  That's crazy.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  And our manager.

• 1:24:59Rich Roll?

  So sort of like quietly the moneymaker.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Rich Roll?

  Where you go out and do your other stuff.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Kinda, our manager, who's like an old school, really great guy, was like, just so you know, it's not always gonna be like this.

• 1:25:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  It's like pop music, there's like, you're hot.

• 1:25:14Rich Roll?

  You're the new kids.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Among all the licensing directors and all these shows and Netflix and all these places and and one day, you know, it's gonna be some other new band that they're all excited about and it's not gonna always be like this. But for us, it was like that for a little while and luckily, you know, we grew our touring and invested enough in it to that, once you get, he always used to say, when you get to 1,000 cap rooms, you're gonna start being able to make money on touring. And because we're crazy and we always want the best show ever, when we got to 1,000 cap rooms, we were like, wow.

• 1:25:50Rich Roll?

  You just ramped up your costs.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  We need to, we need lasers, we need dancers, we need this. So then he's like, okay, when you get to 5,000 capacity rooms. And we kind of keep being ridiculous like that.

• 1:26:01Rich Roll?

  It's like the Wall Street investment banker who could, you know, keeps like, well, when I get to the, you know, but just keeps buying more and more shit.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, oh yeah, I'll be rich when I make this much money, but your house now costs a million dollars a year. And so I think for us, it's worth it because we wanna invest in the artistry and keep growing it. And I think a lot of people maybe, you know, will make those artistic decisions.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  Because of they want to make money on a certain tour and then they kind of get stuck in that level of capacity rooms.

• 1:26:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  And you know, sometimes it's the right move, but sometimes for us it was more, it's more important to like make the best show possible, possible.

• 1:26:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, because ultimately that's the investment that you're making for the longer game, right?

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  And it does pay off, you know, then a festival offer will come and they'll be like, well, your show is so big, you know, just visually it's so big that it can actually fit in this stage. And so then you get a good offer for that festival.

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  I think they look at it a little more numbers wise. So they'll say, okay, you sold 15,000 tickets in this city, like hard tickets just for you. And then, then they'll sort of calculate and be like, okay, this was worth this much for a festival set. And festival sets do pay a lot more than like a headline show. But you do the headline show to show the, the festival bookers in that region, your pull, basically.

• 1:27:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you have a team, you have a lawyer, you have a manager, you've got, you know, all the kind of typical people that a band of your kind of, you know, size and stature would have. You're on a label, right?

• 1:27:39Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:27:40Rich Roll?

  Yes, are you?

• 1:27:41Speaker 01

  Kind of independent.

• 1:27:42Rich Roll?

  You're independent. So you're doing it without, that's interesting.

• 1:27:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:46Rich Roll?

  You were on a label previously? Like I was just kind of like, I just wanted YouTube and put your name in to see like what videos would show up that aren't on your channel. And I saw some really big videos with a lot of views that were like on a label channel. And I just assumed that was your label, but that was your previous label?

• 1:28:01Speaker 02

  Well, so kind of, but basically that was our previous label, X U S. So we were signed to Ultra, but not in the United States.

• 1:28:09Rich Roll?

  I see.

• 1:28:10Speaker 02

  We had a distribution deal with them in the U S, but we were technically independent in the U S. So we were on Ultra for the rest of the world. And so we would upload our YouTube videos with them, for instance. But it did mean that we had a very different situation, you know, financially and also artistically, because we've always been able to call the shots. Because if we're independent in the U S, we're like, okay, we want to release X song, you know, in a month or whatever. And then the rest of the world kind of has to follow suit and we get to play. You know, I don't know, point guard, if that's a metaphor.

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like, oh, nice.

• 1:28:48Rich Roll?

  So then you own your masters.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, which is huge.

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  Just licensed them out.

• 1:28:54Rich Roll?

  And you've been able to do this.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Most of them are back already from early.

• 1:28:57Rich Roll?

  Without like, yeah, that's, that's very cool.

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, and now we're.

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  Really interesting thing about that move, and this was all our manager, who's the best guy ever, Neil Harris, just a great dude. And I don't know if we're like divulging too much, but I mean, this is all, no, I mean, this is, this is what it is, or what it was. We're not in this deal anymore.

• 1:29:17Rich Roll?

  I'm just interested in like how an artist thinks about like their own rights and the, and what they're creating and how much control they are able to exert over like, you know, how it's distributed and everything that comes with that.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  That's always been really important to us. I think we've always wanted to call the creative decisions. And I think for what we do, it makes most sense for us to do that. Some people, it probably does make more sense to be on a major label who can pull the levers to like make you have the biggest radio hit in the world, you know? Like, we might not be able to do certain things like that without a lot of help. Or like, we could go out and hire people on our own with our own money. But like, we don't necessarily have all the, the power behind it. But, but the interesting thing about that deal with Ultra was because we were sinking

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  like crazy, especially at that time with commercials and movies and things, because we did not sign to any label in the US and all of the sinking, not all, I'd say 98% of the sinking opportunities that came to us were from the United States.

• 1:30:29Rich Roll?

  You get to keep all that money.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  We get the master and the publishing side. If we had signed, we wouldn't have known this, but if we had signed like most people would have with Ultra worldwide, we would have had 50% of that income. They would have gotten 50% of every single one of those things.

• 1:30:48Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  That's a lot different.

• 1:30:52Rich Roll?

  That is a lot. That is a lot. And you've already done a lot of the hard work that that a band would rely upon a label to do early in your career to kind of get you to where you're at. And obviously, I'm sure there's still, if you were to go with a label, there are certain levers that they could pull that could probably accelerate, like, you know, your trajectory or whatever. And I would imagine, especially with the latest album, like, that they're knocking, I'm sure you're getting, you know, approached for that.

• 1:31:22Speaker 02

  I mean, we talk about it all the time, because right now, we're on, or actually, we're not on anything right now, because we just did, um, we did a deal with Virgin, who is the independent arm of Universal. So technically, we're still independent artists. We, I don't know, like, the verbiage is a little bit confusing.

• 1:31:40Rich Roll?

  It's like a distribution deal, like, an output deal.

• 1:31:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  But they also, to give them more credit, there's a bunch of really smart people at Virgin, and, and they help a lot.

• 1:31:50Speaker 02

  And Ultra also was extremely good to us. Like, we've had incredible experiences in, honestly, in our entire business, like, from management to label to, we've had a really amazing experience with people that we've gone to work with, and, um...

• 1:32:05Rich Roll?

  But this means that you both have to be entrepreneurs, right? Because when you're considering a tour, like, you're, you're responsible for the outlay, right? Like, you've got, you've got to underwrite this thing. You're not looking, a label's not taking care of that stuff. That's on you guys. Like, that is a lot, that's a lot.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  The music videos, the album artwork, everything.

• 1:32:24Rich Roll?

  You pay for all of it.

• 1:32:25Speaker 02

  Everything, yeah.

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Like, we kind of went nuts on this most recent album, Bread, because we had such a clear vision of what we wanted to do artistically and for the music videos, and we...

• 1:32:36Speaker 02

  We spent a lot of money.

• 1:32:37Speaker 01

  We spent a lot of money on it. And, and I don't, I don't regret it at all. And, you know, I think that was part of the leveling up this year, that felt like we were really, you know... Doing it to the next level and for us as an independent artist, that's, you know, investing in ourselves.

• 1:32:56Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  Because also the deals are just bank loans, otherwise.

• 1:32:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:33:00Speaker 01

  You know, if someone else is paying for it, you're paying them back.

• 1:33:02Rich Roll?

  I know, I know. And, but you don't think of it that way and so you don't, you're not as cost conscious.

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  It's easier not to, not to upfront the money.

• 1:33:11Rich Roll?

  Right. It's your cash.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  It's easier on your like-

• 1:33:14Rich Roll?

  But that even makes it more impressive when you're like, alright, we're at this level of venue, like, we're gonna, we're gonna up our production, you know, like, you're, that's, you're, you're incurring that risk.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  It's definitely a risk that we take, yeah.

• 1:33:26Rich Roll?

  Wow. And how much does these other kind of like ancillary streams come into play, like merch and sponsor deals with brands and things like that, like, that's, I mean, you guys are like, do you have a CEO? Like, who manages all of this stuff? Because you're, especially when you're not sleeping and you're playing every single night, like, there's a lot of business that has to get transacted.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  There's a lot of business.

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have our manager, Neil, who's kind of, you know, I would say overseeing everything. We have awesome agents at WME who, you know, some are our show agents, some are our partnership agents, some are our private agents. Privates are another thing, if you're just talking business for artists, that-

• 1:34:11Rich Roll?

  Like, playing the, playing, like, flying to Dubai and playing some birthday party.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  Yes, but it's not just Dubai.

• 1:34:17Speaker 02

  We've never been to Dubai.

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  There's, there's really wealthy people everywhere and a lot of them like to party and have shows.

• 1:34:25Rich Roll?

  That's the other quiet kind of like-

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  They don't want to go to a concert, they want to bring their own concert. And that is a huge income stream for a lot of artists and you, you know, you don't post about it on socials because it's a private thing. And people don't necessarily know that, like, the days off, when it looks like, like the schedule you saw, I don't think it had the privates on there. Because, well, maybe it did.

• 1:34:45Speaker 02

  It did, that was my private schedule.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  That was the private, you got the real schedule.

• 1:34:48Rich Roll?

  I got the real one, yeah.

• 1:34:49Speaker 02

  Well, I just keep that for my friends so they know where I am. They're like, hey, wanna hang out? I'm like, mm, here, let me just send you something.

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:56Rich Roll?

  So, in the, in the kind of pie, like, what, like, how does it break down percentage wise? Like, the, the private party thing, like, that, is that a, like, that's a, you know, on the larger end of, like, the percentage?

• 1:35:09Speaker 01

  I wouldn't say at this point, we, we were just doing a lot of scheduling for next year and- It depends on the year. Like this year, we had an album, so we did our live show touring. And that takes like three or four months off the table for big DJ gigs, festival gigs, and privates for the most part. Because we're kind of investing that time in building the brand. So like, we're not making as much money in those months as we would have if we didn't do that tour. But in the long run, I think we are. But so like, this year, I don't know what the pie would be for percentages.

• 1:35:50Speaker 02

  I mean, I do know what it is. I looked at it recently.

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Is there a pie?

• 1:35:55Rich Roll?

  How much, I'd be interested in like, how much of it, how much of it is revenue from the streaming platforms?

• 1:36:02Speaker 02

  So it's a surprisingly large amount for us, actually.

• 1:36:06Speaker 01

  It is. Because we own it.

• 1:36:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and we didn't expect it to be as big as it was, actually. And that was a really exciting moment for us, actually, when we saw that streaming is paying off.

• 1:36:17Speaker 01

  But a lot of it was like the catalog. Like, it's not just like the new songs we put out now that, you know, have, I don't know.

• 1:36:24Rich Roll?

  And that catalog just increases in value with every new contribution to it.

• 1:36:29Speaker 02

  And I'm sure, you know, in the olden days, it would have been more and obviously different, but I think, you know, we kind of.

• 1:36:36Rich Roll?

  But you would have had to have been on a label and you would be splitting that up with a lot of people.

• 1:36:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's different. Who knows if we ever would have, in the olden days, you know, the only artists who you would get introduced to were people that labels, you know, paid the radio stations to play. And there's only a certain amount of them that would get signed. I don't think they would have signed a Portuguese singing guitar dance music band. So I don't, you know, yes. If we had a Grammy nominated album in the time of CDs and vinyls, we would have made a lot more money. Would we have had?

• 1:37:14Rich Roll?

  That you would never have had that opportunity?

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  I don't think so. So like, you can't really.

• 1:37:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah. How do you think about like those platforms like Spotify, Amazon, you know, Apple Music, all of those? Like, I'm sure you have relationships at all of those places. I was just at a event the other day.

• 1:37:33Rich Roll?

  For Spotify, like they put on this whole thing at the headquarters here in LA. They're introducing all these new tools for podcasters and the creator economy. And they put on a huge show and it's like impressive to see a company who's thinking about these things and trying to iterate. But I also, you know, am well aware that like anything they're introducing is benefiting them more than, you know, it's like they're creating a better experience for the audience and they're creating these tools for the creators. But ultimately, it's about like growing their platform and their premium subscriber base, right? So you need them because they're what's spreading everything out into the world. How do you kind of like think about those relationships?

• 1:38:18Speaker 02

  I don't think too much about the sort of technology and the changing technology because I just don't feel like I could keep up. But I think we just try to have really good relationships, period, you know, across the board. And our team is amazing. Like we just have really great people working for us and making sure that, you know, we're giving attention to all of our different relationships. And they're also, their fingers are on the pulse in terms of what's happening with Amazon Music versus Apple Music versus, oh, actually, in this country, like Deezer has a bigger market share. So like, let's make sure that we're super serving them.

• 1:39:00Speaker 02

  And I think, you know, Tuck and I, for the most part, are just kind of like, we're here to, like, we love running the business.

• 1:39:08Rich Roll?

  You're focused on doing the important thing, which is like focusing on your music.

• 1:39:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and we've delegated, you know, thinking about the technology and the pulse and the market shares and that kind of thing to some really smart people. And then we do our best to keep up. And it's, it's, it can be a lot because, you know, there's like, at any given time, just so many different partners to be sort of paying attention to and super serving, to the point where we also have to sometimes push back and be like, we, if we did all of this, we would have no time for making music. So we simply cannot spend our time doing this, even though on a business level.

• 1:39:43Rich Roll?

  The bigger you get, the more like kind of onerous that'll become, right? All the pressure to do all those other things.

• 1:39:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:49Speaker 01

  And I think in terms of, you know, the, the types of deals that they have and the percentages they take in those things, like, also.

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  You also can go on your phone and look up any song in like the world and listen to it.

• 1:40:06Rich Roll?

  Right. It's crazy.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  Pretty cool.

• 1:40:08Rich Roll?

  Our youngest daughter, like she listens to all kinds of stuff that like when I was that age, it's just like to your point, like, yeah, it's like, oh, my, my friend's older brother, you know, and gave me a Steve Miller, you know, album or something like that. Like now, like, the entire encyclopedia of music is available and, and young people are being exposed to so many genres and they're not limiting themselves to any one of them.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  And I think they're seeing the trends of the past few years have also been a lot of older music is having more streams than new music. Like the pie chart of, you know, new releases compared to sort of legacy catalogs. Legacy catalogs are growing and it's just, it is what it is.

• 1:40:55Rich Roll?

  It's super interesting.

• 1:40:56Speaker 01

  It's cool. I think, you know.

• 1:40:58Rich Roll?

  What is your advice to young creative musicians who are at the start of their, you know, journey with this? Like what mistakes did you make or what should people look out for? What should they worry about and not worry about?

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, I've said this before, but make music you love. I think too many people make music that's like a hot genre right now and it sounds like what the successful people are doing. And if I had listened to a, I don't know, Calvin Harris song and tried to make something that sounded just like that, it would be worse. He's the best at that. So why would you want to compete with that? You know? So for us to come out and make something that sounded like nothing else, it was sort of just what we made. It just sort of happened to be what we make, but I think that was one of the reasons it

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  cut through and was able to penetrate the world because it wasn't being like, oh, is this better than this giant Calvin Harris hit? Or, you know, it wasn't being compared to those things. And if you're not being compared to those things, it can just be good on its own. So if you make something you love that's unique and different, that would be, I think that's the best way to do it because there's so much stuff and people are so good. Like people are so good at making music.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  So much better than than we are. Like, there's so many talented people. But a lot of people are trying to make things that sound the same.

• 1:42:28Rich Roll?

  Right. But then you're you're sort of involving yourself in like a competition, right? Like a competitive mindset. And and like, you're an athlete. I'm sure you're very competitive.

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  I'm a really competitive person.

• 1:42:39Rich Roll?

  You're right. So so but you have to let go a little bit of that, right? And just be like, I'm not competing against Calvin Harris or anyone else. I'm basically competing with myself to, you know, bring voice to whatever is unique about me.

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  Also, the dance music world specifically is really inclusive. Like, everyone's kind of friends with everyone. Like, yes, I'm sure everyone in inside has a little bit of, you know, I want to be the biggest or best or competitiveness. But like, people are really like, oh, they're popping off, let's collaborate. You know, like, the people are pretty supportive of each other that I found surprising coming out of sports. And coming out of like, schools, honestly, that is really cool. Also, the other thing I realized coming from basketball, you go out to play a game and there's a whole nother team trying to make you lose. And often, there's half the fans trying to make you lose.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  You go out and play a concert, everyone wants you to win. There's like no other team trying to make you lose. Things can go wrong, but it's pretty nice.

• 1:43:44Rich Roll?

  And you can win every night.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  You can win every night.

• 1:43:46Rich Roll?

  And it's always a home team advantage, basically, no matter where you are.

• 1:43:49Speaker 01

  A home game.

• 1:43:50Speaker 02

  Unless you're like, opening for, what if we open for some really funny people?

• 1:43:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's a different thing, right?

• 1:43:56Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. Do you remember that one in New Orleans? Who were we right before? Marilyn Manson?

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:44:02Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:44:03Rich Roll?

  You open for Marilyn Manson?

• 1:44:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, basically.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  It was a fest, Voodoo Fest.

• 1:44:06Speaker 02

  We were right before them.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  It was a long time ago, early on. And there was like, four layers of Marilyn Manson fans in the front, waiting for him to play after us. They were looking at us. So just, yeah, unimpressed is the right word.

• 1:44:23Speaker 02

  We've definitely had moments like that. It's not really like a home game then, but.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  That's true. It's not always the perfect, so you can get put in some bad situations. But you know what I mean, you know, and, and.

• 1:44:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, if you're the opening act, you're, it's an away game.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it depends on who you're opening for, too.

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  It's true. But the, sorry.

• 1:44:42Rich Roll?

  Go ahead.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  Just the other thing that I like to make the comparison to is in basketball or any sport, if you're an amazing basketball player, it doesn't matter if you're an asshole. It doesn't matter if you, people like being around you. It doesn't matter if you're a good teammate. Like, if you're the best player, you're gonna play. You're gonna be on the court. And in, in this, I noticed, it helps a lot to be a good person. It helps a lot to be someone people want to be around. Like, all those intangibles, I think, can get you really far in this compared to in athletics, because it's just about production. And it's not exactly like that with music.

• 1:45:27Speaker 01

  So I've, I've really, I learned that early and I thought that was pretty exciting, because I can use other skills that I've, you know, developed my whole life to, to help us in this, that are unrelated to music.

• 1:45:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What do you think, Sophie, in terms of, like, advice you would give to your younger self or a younger artist, whether it's a musician or some other kind of, like, creative pursuit that you've learned?

• 1:45:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I would definitely encourage collaboration. In this case, you know, I, I would encourage my younger self to say yes to collaborating with Tucker.

• 1:46:03Speaker 01

  We got there.

• 1:46:04Speaker 02

  We got there eventually. And I, I think we've seen a lot of young artists, or just sort of people that are starting out as artists, when they do embrace collaboration and working with other people and sort of sharing ideas and getting inspired by other people, that it's really worked for them. And we have also seen artists that sort of gatekeep and get really fearful of, like, their ideas being taken, or like, you know, when, when they're not open to collaboration and they're not, they're not, like, going into it with an open heart and. That has hurt a lot of people and a lot of friends, actually, that we've seen along the way. And I think, like Tucker said, these intangibles, you know, there's a lot of people that we got to work with early on. For the first couple of years, we were, you know, we were not making money.

• 1:46:49Speaker 02

  And they took a chance on us because we had good relationships and they believed in us as human beings. And I'm sure those people would not have stuck it out for those first couple of years had we, you know, been assholes.

• 1:47:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:03Speaker 02

  So, just, uh, relationships are huge in our industry and, um...

• 1:47:09Rich Roll?

  People want to work with, like, people that they like and who are respectful.

• 1:47:14Speaker 02

  It's really cool.

• 1:47:15Speaker 01

  You'll hear about, you'll hear about the people who aren't nice.

• 1:47:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  And it's simple, it's like, we're all playing the same venues, we're all playing the same festivals, all the same crew members are working all the same festivals and venues. If you're, you know, if you're a dick, they're gonna tell everyone. That's gonna get around quick. Yeah, everybody's gonna know.

• 1:47:33Speaker 02

  And I think it also has to do with who you work with. You know, we've talked about Neil and Justina, who's, we, this is like our sort of core four that we've been working with since the very beginning. And the number of times that we've heard from other people in the industry who come to us and they say, "We worked with your management team and, you know, we work with so many different people, but your team was so fair, so kind, so, you know, good at listening" and all these things, like, "We really just wanted to keep working with you." And that, I think, you can't really quantify how far that takes you, but it's been something that has helped us for sure enormously. And also just makes our life a joy because we have good business relationships and also just good relationships in general. It's fun.

• 1:48:18Rich Roll?

  It's smart. You're like playing the long game, too.

• 1:48:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:48:21Rich Roll?

  The one thing about you guys that really stands out is just that it's just positive vibes all day long. Like, there's no negativity to your point about, like, competition or like, you know, kind of... Thinking about what other people are doing, like, it's just, it's just, it's all good. You know, it's all like positive, uplifting energy. And I'm sure that's the, you know, that's the experience that being in your audience, you know, is like, right? Like, but it exudes, it's like a very authentic, you know, kind of like aura around you.

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  I feel like I have to call myself out a little bit here, because Sophie's definitely thinking it, and I know what she's thinking.

• 1:48:58Speaker 02

  Oh, what was I thinking?

• 1:48:59Speaker 01

  Well, that I-

• 1:49:00Speaker 02

  I was nodding my head, just being like, yeah, it's true.

• 1:49:03Rich Roll?

  You're so positive.

• 1:49:04Speaker 01

  No, no, we are, we are positive. We're definitely positive.

• 1:49:07Speaker 02

  What were you thinking?

• 1:49:08Speaker 01

  One of the ways that I motivate is being very aware of how everyone else is doing, and using my competitiveness to drive me. So, I can't say that I don't look at other people who are like selling more tickets than us, or have a better song, or a song is doing better, or whatever it is, and it doesn't... There was a bit of a time, when I remember, I would like forward stuff to Sophie and be like, damn, look at that, look at them, look at their show, look at, look at the venue they played, you know?

• 1:49:42Rich Roll?

  But that's different from like talking shit about people.

• 1:49:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  Oh, no, it's positive, I mean, I'm-

• 1:49:47Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's, it's one thing to like, look at that and be inspired and have it motivate you.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I guess the point was, she took it as negative, because she was like, that's not what motivates me, comparing and seeing that like, maybe our venue's smaller than theirs, that's not, that's just, I'm gonna take that sort of negatively, and I'm gonna internalize that negatively, and it's not gonna make me feel good. And for me, I'm like, let's go, you know, I wanna go get it.

• 1:50:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think, in that way-

• 1:50:19Rich Roll?

  I get it.

• 1:50:20Speaker 02

  In that way, it's, yeah, I don't know if I would use the word negative and positive to describe that, but definitely, the thing that most motivates me is, you know, being really grateful for what we do have, and focusing more on that, and then, kind of-

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  You don't like the comparisons?

• 1:50:40Speaker 02

  I don't like too much of it. I think without, without gratitude, it hurts me. And so, I just felt like there was a time-

• 1:50:49Rich Roll?

  She has the evolved perspective.

• 1:50:50Speaker 01

  She's more evolved now.

• 1:50:52Speaker 02

  No, I'm just, I'm-

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  I'm a little more of a killer.

• 1:50:56Speaker 02

  Maybe, but I think we're also in our own ways. I don't know, I think, I do think that when you focus on the things that you're really grateful for, they tend to

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  Expand.

• 1:51:06Speaker 02

  Expand and multiply.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  I'm not saying let's not focus on what we're grateful for.

• 1:51:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's all we're saying.

• 1:51:11Speaker 01

  I'm just also saying like Let's get after it. Let's get after it a little bit.

• 1:51:14Speaker 02

  So I like both perspectives. But again, I think the motivational piece of it is like, I actually think that if what we want is, you know, bigger venues and all these things that actually like focusing on what's really working for us is actually going to get us there. So it was more like a pivot of perspective of how do we, how do we get there? And for me, yeah, focusing on the positive things were definitely going to be more fruitful in that way, towards that same goal. But

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  But I just didn't take them negatively. They're the same things, I just didn't take them negatively.

• 1:51:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, and to some extent, it's kind of semantics, whether it's like positive or negative, but I do think that we have a culture of positivity, of lifting people up. And this is kind of what I was saying, where I feel like this last tour was a moment for us, where we realized that all of the people who come to our shows feel that same way. And that that message is clear, that people are showing up being like, I'm gonna come to this show and I'm gonna dress up with the craziest outfit I have in my closet and I'm gonna scream and dance and like let loose and let go of all the things that are not serving me anymore and make friends.

• 1:52:27Speaker 02

  And like the fact that we've created an environment that people come to for that is just so cool and something I'm so proud of. I think that culture does permeate like our entire business, our friendship. And that isn't to say that there aren't hard things, challenges, negative moments that I think we have to give. Some space for. It's not like we're, you know. What's the word? Sort of like positivity police. Like, we're not like, you must be positive at all moments, you know? I think there's a lot of-

• 1:52:58Speaker 01

  No, not at all. I mean, last week, we had a week of bad news, honestly. Like, we had a bunch of shows, but there was an election. And the day before, we had played at the other side's, the side who lost rally. And so then, so that was sort of like a weird... And then, the Grammy nominations came out, and we weren't on them. And as a competitive person, I was pissed. You know, I was not, I wasn't happy for a lot of reasons. Women, and then also myself, for the Grammy one. And we got a bunch of messages, sort of encouraging messages, mostly from our family, I think. Just saying like, what your, your show tonight is actually more important now than it was yesterday.

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  Because, like, you need to give that, we need these spaces of joy and inclusion and, you know, loving yourself and fun and escape from a really heavy world right now is more important than ever. And, and so that, that did feel... That felt good, even in a shitty time.

• 1:54:03Rich Roll?

  No, it's special what you guys are doing. Sophie, do you feel like you're changing the world?

• 1:54:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do, but I also, but I also don't feel like it's my responsibility to anymore. That's even better, actually. Like, I feel like I'm really proud of what we do on a daily basis. But it's also, like, I don't have this, like, savior complex thing anymore, you know? I'm like, it's not, it's not my job. It's my job to do the best that I can every day, but I'm not supposed to, like, save the world single-handedly, you know? That's, that's unrealistic.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  I don't know, Sophie for president.

• 1:54:34Speaker 02

  No, God, no, I would be the worst. Don't.

• 1:54:38Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God. Where would that leave you? How, how would you, how would you [bleep] fit in? The administration?

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  I'd be in the administration somewhere. Maybe, uh-

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  Her stylist.

• 1:54:52Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 1:54:54Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 1:54:56Rich Roll?

  You guys are awesome. I'm just delighted by both of you. I think you're just at the very beginning of a very long journey that is going to be bright indeed. So I appreciate you guys coming in today. It's super fun.

• 1:55:09Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:55:09Rich Roll?

  I hope you guys get some rest at some point.

• 1:55:11Speaker 02

  I feel rested.

• 1:55:12Speaker 01

  Not today.

• 1:55:13Speaker 02

  I feel amazing.

• 1:55:15Speaker 01

  Call her at 4:00 AM tonight.

• 1:55:16Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  Or after the flight in the morning.

• 1:55:19Rich Roll?

  I still have to come to a show also.

• 1:55:21Speaker 01

  You need to.

• 1:55:22Rich Roll?

  I was trying to remember, what show did Julie come to?

• 1:55:25Speaker 01

  The Santa Barbara one would have been so good.

• 1:55:26Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:55:26Rich Roll?

  Where she came on stage?

• 1:55:28Speaker 02

  I don't know where it was.

• 1:55:28Speaker 01

  I don't remember what city she was in. In Miami, that's where I met her.

• 1:55:30Rich Roll?

  Was it Miami?

• 1:55:31Speaker 02

  Miami.

• 1:55:31Speaker 01

  I met her in Miami, for sure.

• 1:55:33Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, that was such a long, that was pre-pandemic.

• 1:55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, a long, long time ago.

• 1:55:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Wow.

• 1:55:38Speaker 01

  I remember.

• 1:55:39Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was fun.

• 1:55:41Rich Roll?

  I can't stay up that late, though, anyway.

• 1:55:43Speaker 01

  Well, our live shows are like nine. It's not all.

• 1:55:46Speaker 02

  We have like.

• 1:55:48Speaker 01

  We have day shows, too.

• 1:55:49Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did? Yeah, I'll sign up for the day show.

• 1:55:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  It's fun.

• 1:55:53Rich Roll?

  All right, cool.

• 1:55:53Speaker 01

  A real honor, though. Thank you for having me.

• 1:55:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that honestly was a joy.

• 1:55:57Rich Roll?

  No, you guys are awesome. I'm a huge fan of everything you're doing and, you know, win in yourselves. Thanks for coming in.

• 1:56:04Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 1:56:05Rich Roll?

  Cheers. Peace.

• 1:56:20Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors,

• 1:57:03Rich Roll?

  who keep this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers, head to richroll.com/sponsors. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel

• 1:57:44Rich Roll?

  Solis. And thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Pls.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  Namaste.