Jack Antonoff

Jack Antonoff (Bleachers, everyone for ten minutes) is a Grammy-winning producer, songwriter, and frontman. Jack joins Armchair Expert to discuss growing up as an unsupervised middle child in suburban New Jersey, processing profound family loss at a young age, and finding early identity through obsessive music discovery. Jack and Dax talk about grinding through DIY touring as a teenager, the evolution from punk purist to global pop collaborator, and how environment and movement shape his creative process. Jack explains why grief clarifies what truly matters, how the anxiety of the well running dry fuels his restlessness, and why starting over is the key to staying alive creatively. Sign up now in the app or at grubhub.com/plus/golddays to unlock exclusive Gold Days deals. Check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds: https://www.allstate.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Hi there.

• 0:05Dax Shepard?

  And today we have one of the most successful music producers of the last decade and also an incredible singer and songwriter in his own right.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:15Dax Shepard?

  Jack Antonoff. He has produced acclaimed albums from Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Florence Welch, and many more. His Bleachers albums include Strange Desire, Gone Now, Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night, the self-titled Bleachers fourth, and now the fifth album, Everyone for 10 Minutes. And I was so grateful for this episode because I was in the dark on Bleachers and now I'm in a.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  Now you're in the light.

• 0:46Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God, one song got me.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  You're staring directly into the sun.

• 0:50Dax Shepard?

  As you'll hear, please enjoy this very sweet artist, Jack Antonoff. We get support from Quince.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  I have to say, I am so ready for fall. I want sweaters. I've been craving a true crisp morning where I actually need a jacket. I can't wait.

• 1:06Dax Shepard?

  I'm fully there. The second it dips below 70, I'm like, this is my season. Give me the layers, give me the boots, give me a reason to wear something other than a t-shirt. And honestly, that's why I love Quince because fall is when your wardrobe actually has to show up and everything at Quince is 50 to 80% less than similar brands. We're talking 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters, starting at $60.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  $60. $60 for cashmere that you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. It's amazing. Gets me every time. It really shouldn't be real, but it is because they go straight to the factories, they skip the middlemen, and they just hand you the savings. The stuff isn't trendy. It's the kind of pieces you grab over and over because they work every time.

• 1:47Dax Shepard?

  The 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters for me are it. When I look at Steve McQueen, this man owned a couple of sweaters he wore all the time and he looks iconic.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  It's a uniform.

• 1:57Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  And Quince isn't just about the clothes. They have hotel quality bedding, cookware, bath essentials, thoughtfully designed furniture. You can really go there and outfit your entire apartment or house. So if you're. Of any kind of fall refresh at home too. Same quality, same attention to detail for every corner of your life.

• 2:15Dax Shepard?

  Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. We get support from AG1. Fall is that time when your body and mind are getting ready for the winter. You're settling in, bracing for the cold. Your body's already running a deficit from the shorter days and broken sleep patterns. You don't want a nutrient deficit stacked on top of that too.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  That's where your AG1 routine earns its spot. It's not fixing your sleep or your alarm time. It's giving your body what it needs so the dark mornings don't tank you before you even start. One scoop cold water every morning before anything else.

• 3:04Dax Shepard?

  AG1 Next Gen has 75 plus ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, superfoods, backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. Key nutrient levels improved with three months of consistent use.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  That's the part people miss. It's not a one day fix. It's what happens when you stay consistent.

• 3:22Dax Shepard?

  It's an easy, everyday thing. I've added it to my morning routine and I'm going to tell you, I actually love the taste of it. It's like Pavlovian. I drink it and I know I'm going to get that little vitamin buzz.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Well, that's also the thing. When you do it first thing in the morning, you already feel kind of self-esteem because you're like, I already did something good for myself.

• 3:39Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Go to drinkag1.com/dax. And for a limited time, get a free immunity bundle, including a bottle of omega three fish oil and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/dax. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that Armchair Expert sent you.

• 4:21Dax Shepard?

  You got a coffee? Do you like Tobaccico? They're very rare now. Do you know there's a shortage?

• 4:26Speaker 02

  I love them. I'll take one.

• 4:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I want you to have like one of our four reserves.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's worth like $96 now.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  The big shortage that I'm dealing with in my life, and I know there are more important things around the world, but the kind of almond butter I like.

• 4:39Dax Shepard?

  Oh, almond butter?

• 4:39Speaker 02

  The kind I like.

• 4:40Dax Shepard?

  Custance?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  No, I like a company called Woodstock. The one I like seems to be discontinued.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  I think I spent more money than people should spend on almond butter, like getting a case.

• 4:50Dax Shepard?

  Stockpiling it?

• 4:51Speaker 01

  What's so good about it?

• 4:52Dax Shepard?

  Me too.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Tell me about it. The texture.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  I don't know. I just love it. My life outside of my work is so like I eat the same thing. I do the same thing. So if I get into something, it's hard for me, which I think is bullshit. I can say that loud. But internally, I'm like, this helps the thing.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Oh, I see. You connect it to like your overall. Oh, interesting. Almost a superstitious one.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  I got really anxious otherwise.

• 5:14Dax Shepard?

  I'm painfully the same.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:16Dax Shepard?

  I just ate an oatmeal just before you got here that I eat 100% of mornings. I eat the exact same oatmeal. If I'm in a situation where I don't have my protein power or my almond butter. Yeah, I think like, oh, my sanity is really on the verge here.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Here's the upside.

• 5:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  When you are robbed of your little comforts and you're completely fine, you're quickly reminded that

• 5:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  How fucking stupid it all is. It's more if I don't have to think about my life outside of the important things, the people I love, my work.

• 5:46Dax Shepard?

  Why blow you tiles on it?

• 5:48Speaker 02

  You tiles?

• 5:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I think this is this term of like energy units for your brain.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  I think our friend Eric actually made it up. And we just use it.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Oh, Y O U. You tiles?

• 5:57Dax Shepard?

  Maybe he just, we learned it from him and he does mispronounce everything. But I now like, that's the real term for it.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  We've been using it as if it's a real word and I don't know that it is, but please use it.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah. I mean, reality is, as we.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Perceive it to be.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Deem it and say it. We, all of our names for things are just people like us, sat and thought of them.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  And that's that, you know?

• 6:20Dax Shepard?

  Just noises your tongue makes. This is how I feel about swearing with my children. I'm like, it's just a noise that comes out. You assign to it whatever you want.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Lately, I've been promoting my albums. I've been on the radio here and there and they're like, you know, no fuck shit piss, all this stuff. I'm like, okay. And then we're talking and then cuts to commercial and they're like, you know, 11 dead and blah, blah, blah. Torn apart by this gut strewn everywhere, shot in the face. And I'm like, I can't fucking just like say like, this song is fucking driving me crazy. That is not a problem in the world anymore. Cursing is not.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  You know, it's their motherfucker at this point is just like, means anyone like this motherfucker was talking, it's not even bad.

• 6:53Dax Shepard?

  It's colloquial.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  I just think the stories and words we generally hear in life feels like maybe it's time as a world that we're just like, if a kid says fuck, it doesn't matter.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Let's catch up.

• 7:05Dax Shepard?

  My thing is like, as long as they use it. First of all, they're not allowed to use it out of the house.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  They gotta use it funny.

• 7:09Dax Shepard?

  They gotta be good at it. And both of my kids are good. They don't just do it for the point of it. It's like every now and then one comes out and it's perfectly timed. And I'm like, perfect. Keep on it.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Like if I had a kid and they were like, pick up my fucking toy, I'd be like, this is bad. But if they were like, the new whatever is unfucking believably cool. I'd be like.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Nice use.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Or like if they're like, so this piece of shit tried to take my lunch.

• 7:31Dax Shepard?

  Yes, there's a moment.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  But I imagine words are actually very important to you.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  More than anything, yes. But I have an amazing split in my head about when I'm thinking in terms of imparting a feeling and when I'm just talking shit. So a lot of times I'm just sitting around being like, ugh.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  You have like two zones.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:47Dax Shepard?

  I gotta tell you something. I'm sure they told you, but like anything that we talk about that you don't like tomorrow, you're like, I wish I hadn't said that thing about Rachel. We cut anything out. So just start there.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  It's nice to hear because, you know, my work is so much fun and talking about my work and the interesting experiences I have has always been so much fun. And I feel like we crested into this place where it became not fun. And I think we're cresting back into a place where it can be, not just, when I say fun, I mean, interesting, deep.

• 8:10Dax Shepard?

  What was the peak of when it was not fun? What do you think was happening?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  I just think for good reason, the people running the show have been so disappointing that we've all, for good reason, been holding each other to a very intense standard of dignity as dignity has completely gone out of phase. I think that's coming back in a way, but I try to see things, you know, I have my own personal feelings about things. Then I have like my feeling and when I like pan back and see like, well, what are people feeling? Right now I feel like people are feeling. Starved for community. I feel like people are very bored with things they didn't think were possible to get bored about.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  That's interesting. Yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  Well, that's my essential feeling.

• 8:49Dax Shepard?

  I feel like people have grown, thank God, fatigued of being angry at everything.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Or realize how limiting it is.

• 8:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  And we're surrounded by a lot of people who, I think about this a lot, a lot of the people who are meant to shock us, and I'm not in any way minimizing how horrible and shocking their actions are, but them themselves is not shocking. Can you imagine like Trump got up there and was like, I gotta talk about my dad. I think there's something wrong with me.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  We'd be like.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  I know.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  Even when I see people who I have remarkable differences with having like some moment of growth, I'm stunned by like, growth is everything. It's all we have. And so I think when we're trapped in these endless conversations of people who are not going to do anything differently, we know exactly what they're gonna do, we know exactly how they're gonna do it. It's almost like a new kind of boredom.

• 9:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  A sadder boredom, not a fun boredom.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's interesting.

• 9:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I want to start with saying I'm very, very excited to meet you. And as we just discussed a little bit off, Mike, I'm friends with your sister Rachel.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  You know my family.

• 9:48Dax Shepard?

  Yes, your older sister.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  You know my family?

• 9:50Speaker 01

  I was invited to Rachel's fashion show, so I did get to meet her there.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  I can't say I know her, but hopefully one day.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  She's the most well-liked person.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  I've experienced.

• 10:01Dax Shepard?

  That holds.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  The reviews are like pretty.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Unanimous.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you got a problem with her, you gotta go away.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:08Dax Shepard?

  And I remember, so back when we were doing Parenthood, so I don't know if this was 2010 or 11, maybe nine, I was in New York and May and I were there to promote the show. And I was hanging out with May and she brought your sister along. And then I came to like her a lot. And then they were telling me, yeah, Rachel's brother's a musician. I was like, learning about you. This is pre 2000, I guess 14, everything kind of explodes.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  I'm like in a van, smoking pot. And you're like, great. And they were like, do you want to go to his show? There'll be nine other people there and you can't leave because he'll see if you leave.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  True.

• 10:42Dax Shepard?

  I don't know why it's so rewarding to have gotten this notion of you back then of you're a musician, but you're kind of like a punk kid. I don't know. And then you had to see kind of take over the world from a distance. I've always been like, I love that. I have another example that me and Aaron, my best friend from childhood, we were in California when we were 21. We were at a house party. This girl was talking. He's like, oh yeah, my brother's band is really good. It's getting big. They weren't like, what's the name of it? And she's like Korn. And Aaron and I were like, fucking sweet name for a band. I remember us laughing so hard that this girl's brother was in Korn. And then years later, of course, we were like, oh yeah.

• 11:20Dax Shepard?

  It's just kind of fun.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  But your little brother or big brother, I forget.

• 11:23Dax Shepard?

  Middle child.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Middle child.

• 11:25Dax Shepard?

  Same.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  It's a sort of invisible space in a nice way.

• 11:29Dax Shepard?

  You can choose to be really anonymous.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just there in my room, experiencing my OCD.

• 11:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And what's the gap between Rachel and Sarah?

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Me and Rachel are two and a half years apart. Sarah's five years younger, so we could have similar friend groups. And we did. Sarah was like younger. So when I was 15 and starting to get high, she was 10. That's a stretch.

• 11:48Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Rachel was 18 and.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, they didn't know each other.

• 11:51Dax Shepard?

  But I would argue you might've been in the same situation I was. It was five years and then six years and I was in the middle. So there was a teenager that was going berserk and then there was a baby on the scene. So between like the crying and then the teenager that was going berserk, I could have been downstairs lighting things on fire. No one would have known.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was pretty unsupervised. I mean, it was the time I was growing up, living in the suburbs, being a middle child. And then my younger sister was also born with an illness. So nothing was pointed at me. No one was watching me in a cool way. My parents are wonderful, but I just, I lived kind of maybe those last years of that suburban dream of you to just sort of leave the house.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Get on your bike.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  And not come back.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:29Dax Shepard?

  And no one's looking for you.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  And I was just gone and I would have lots of thoughts, a lot of that good boredom.

• 12:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I think there's tons of trade offs and positives.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't. I think it's a net negative, but wherever.

• 12:42Dax Shepard?

  I was also starved for attention. Clearly, you know, the second I could, I came here to try to get as much attention as I could. So clearly I craved it.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  I did too, but. I also believed so deeply in doing something that was worth attention and had like a real intense construct around that. But that also came from like the type of music I was listening to in that community. I was very obsessive about what mattered, what didn't. The rules in my head were very heavy then.

• 13:09Dax Shepard?

  Give me an example.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  I sort of wake up to the world. I hear my parents' music, which is great music.

• 13:14Dax Shepard?

  What did they like?

• 13:15Speaker 02

  The 60s, like the great stuff. And then I started to hear like the music of the 90s coming through like the radio. And that was a pretty heavy stuff too, in terms of what was real and what wasn't. It was made very clear to me, I don't feel now like this is shit. This is the real stuff. There were all these rules coming out of Seattle and all this stuff.

• 13:32Dax Shepard?

  The grunge era.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  You just felt all the intensity. I remember when Green Day put out Dookie, quite quickly hearing about how much shame they had after a kerplig. It was just a lot as a kid. I'm like fucking intense.

• 13:42Dax Shepard?

  Being a sellout was a really big thing then.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  It was a big thing.

• 13:45Dax Shepard?

  Eddie Vedder was quitting virtually. He's like, I'm not a sellout.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Also, pop was coming into its height, I feel like.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, in a different way. And I missed a lot of music of my time because it was so off my radar. But it was just made very clear, like the music I was listening to at that time that was mainstream, the artists would get to a certain point and just wig the fuck out. They would just be like, this sucks. And that kind of actually was pretty beautiful. But then I got quickly into local music where the rules were even heavier. And then my world got really small. The idea of a major label, if you didn't literally do it yourself, you were a piece of shit.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's so crazy.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  But I kind of loved it because it was community. We had a lot of great rules. You didn't put on a show unless there was also a fundraiser.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  There was no show that wasn't $5 or $4 with a can of food. There was political action everywhere and the fucking music was great. And the scene was so rigid that it really did weed out anyone who didn't just love it. It's like how I hear people who do theater talk. No one's there, doesn't want to be there.

• 14:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  It pays nothing and it's too hard.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, very pure.

• 14:47Dax Shepard?

  I think the downside is it was a little self pretentious.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure.

• 14:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I would think though, that the liberating thing about it is If the goal is to not sell out, you're kind of liberated from trying to figure out what people want.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  It's weird, and I take so much with me. I wrote about it so much on this album, but there's a part of it that is just who I am. And then there's a part of it that is separate. To me, the concept of selling out, being full of shit, phoning it in, assuming the worst of people, assuming people are dumb, that's all in the music. If you believe any of those things in the music, if you think people need to be pacified or pandered, then that's the worst selling out of all time. To me, it all lives in the music, the shows, what I would and wouldn't charge the audience for. Not trying to pull one over on people. Like, we just live in a, I think we're getting out of it, but I think there's been this kind of get the bag time period where a lot of bad actors have pulled one over on people. And you don't want your work to be for a very small group of people

• 15:44Speaker 02

  who can afford something. That's incredibly boring. How'd you guys meet?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  I started out as their nanny.

• 15:50Dax Shepard?

  Peripheral member of our friendship group.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  No, no, yeah, we were-

• 15:54Dax Shepard?

  Which led to babysitting.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  I actually don't know the story.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Sorry for the listener who's heard it.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Full disclosure, I can't listen to people talk much, so I don't hear pretty podcasts. But I think it's kind of maybe interesting, and I try so much, and there's so many things. I can only watch something.

• 16:08Dax Shepard?

  Well, first of all, we're on YouTube now, so that helps.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 16:10Dax Shepard?

  But what happens when you're listening to audio only podcasts?

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Well, when I was coming up, it wasn't a time of great diagnosis. But when I listen to people talk, or it can happen when I'm reading too, I can get sort of like flustered and anxious. I have to be very focused. It's not like I can't do it, but I don't get the joy that other people-

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Not pleasurable.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Like, for me, listening to music, watching a movie, that's the thing that I've heard people describe of like, they're friends on the podcast.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  That's so interesting.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  So I have no relationship to- and my cousin, Jacqueline Novak, has a podcast called Pug, which is like brilliant.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Very big.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  And she's one of my favorite minds to ever exist.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:41Dax Shepard?

  Can't do it.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I literally can and I do, but like, it's like, it's really weird.

• 16:46Dax Shepard?

  Ours is not that good, so this is a blessing that you didn't listen, because you might not have come.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Listen, we just found out today.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  You can only say that if it's the opposite, Dex.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  He's trying to be so weird.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  What'd you find out today?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  The third most-

• 16:59Dax Shepard?

  I'm sorry.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Fourth?

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Fourth most streamed podcast of all time.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Of all time. That's amazing.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Pretty good.

• 17:05Dax Shepard?

  I was hap- To see that.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Is number one, two and three upsetting?

• 17:08Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Well, no.

• 17:09Dax Shepard?

  One I hadn't heard of, though. Number two?

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, two I never heard of.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  What?

• 17:12Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  One was Joe Rogan, which we knew.

• 17:15Dax Shepard?

  Number one of all time.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Two is something I didn't know. My guess is international.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  And three was crime junkies.

• 17:22Dax Shepard?

  I never heard of number two.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  Then you all are the only one of your type.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  It's a German comedy podcast.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  That's kind of great.

• 17:28Dax Shepard?

  It's a German what?

• 17:29Speaker 03

  German comedy podcast.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  German comedy?

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Good for them.

• 17:32Dax Shepard?

  German shit talk.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  My favorite genre. I do a lot of bits in Germany that don't land.

• 17:38Dax Shepard?

  That's my favorite genre.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  I try and they for good reason. They're.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're just not.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  But I'm always trying bits and they're not liking it. It's one of the most successful places for my band.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Really?

• 17:47Speaker 02

  I think the Germans have an understanding of American Heartland music that's very pure or something. For real.

• 17:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I believe that.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Well, hopefully they listen to this and then they start listening to it. We get the German audience.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  It's we now, then we move up to.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  We get to that number two slot. Okay, our origin story. So we had friends in common. Then I did an episode of Kristen's show, House of Lies.

• 18:10Dax Shepard?

  As an actor.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, as an actor, I did a two line thing and she was like, oh, I know you. We chatted. They just had their first kid and I said, well, I am an actor, but I'm really a babysitter. That's how I make all my money. So if you ever need babysitter, she called the next week, date night babysat for them. And then they had their second kid. They needed a little more help. So I came on as a nanny. Worked as a nanny for a couple of years. Their second went to preschool and they were like, oh, we don't really have a need for her anymore, but we like her. So what should we do? And Kristen was like, well, would you want to be my assistant? So I said, sure. And then I started doing that. And then I started just kind of taking on extra projects of hers. Like I would write stuff for her. They'd ask, hey, do you want to do this thing for this magazine?

• 18:57Speaker 01

  I'd say like, I could write that for you. And she was like, oh, you do that? Then I started writing all her speeches and I started writing her commercials and then we became creative partners. And then Dax stole me right out.

• 19:06Dax Shepard?

  Cause all this time she's around and we have very differing opinions on most things. We'd love to argue in our kitchen. It was our hobby.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Quite different.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Really?

• 19:13Dax Shepard?

  Yep, very different.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Well, we have.

• 19:15Dax Shepard?

  More overlap.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Yes, there's more overlap than.

• 19:18Dax Shepard?

  But we like to make a meal of the differences. Anyways, we love debating each other. And so I was like, I'm going to start a podcast. I love being on them. We should do it together. And then we did.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  And now the only thing in our way is the Germans.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Germans, we gotta get them. Yeah, it's quite a story.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Really is. It's wild.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  It is weird.

• 19:36Dax Shepard?

  This is the part she hates, but that I love. She built a house that's bigger than ours across the street.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  It's not bigger. Okay, I can't. I can't with this lie.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Nice, nice.

• 19:44Dax Shepard?

  It's such a great American story.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  Here's the problem with everything. It's like, the truth doesn't matter. We're just gonna go with what's funny.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  So it's like, I'm sure you're right.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  The shiniest thing.

• 19:53Dax Shepard?

  Anyway, she has a house called Street. It's beautiful.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, massive.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  It is a beautiful house. It's a nice size.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  That's all that space. You know?

• 20:00Speaker 01

  So much space.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. Honestly, space helps me think. I think that's a good idea.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  It's not that much.

• 20:05Dax Shepard?

  Electric Lady Studios, you have your rooftop.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  That's actually quite small, but it is a space that helps me. Some places, you're just your fucking best. Some places, you're fucking worse than that's helpful. I kind of use all of it. I love making music in an anonymous space, like a hotel room. And I also love making music in a space where the literal objects and walls have been there at my worst or my best. But you play with it. I feel like I burn the spaces out and then I re-enter them and I'm here in LA, I was sitting here, I go back to Electric Lady, I was sitting in my apartment, I go there for a week. I'm on tour, I'm working in the hotel. I don't want to be anywhere ever for too long, except with the people I love, but I get very buzzed out.

• 20:42Dax Shepard?

  Cause you're afraid you're gonna run out of the inspiration that's implicit in that space.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  No, I think I fucked myself over at a young age. I just started moving around. I started touring, I was like 14, 15. I just think it's like a nurture thing. It's just what I do.

• 20:53Dax Shepard?

  And you're smart and evolved and you know, like, we are very much products of context. So it's like, the context keeps shifting and that's gonna probably promote different points of view for your art and everything else.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  I just think it's healthy also, if you're like someone who's hard on yourself. It's the beauty of touring, right? This happened in Cleveland. This is how I felt. I'd say the show was good. I felt off. Well, tomorrow in Columbus. It's the most literal wiping of the slate.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yes, brand new.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  I'm in a different place. There are different people. There's a different venue. It's all different. The repetition of starting over every day is very beautiful for me. I've heard a lot of people in my line of work who feel that too. And there's a danger to that too. You don't want to become a non-human.

• 21:30Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Where you're just starting over and over.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  No roots.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  You don't want to be the type of person that's like, stay at a hotel near home when you get back from tour.

• 21:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And if you're afraid to sit still, that's problematic.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  It's just a device in my life that I go back to. So I look forward to trips. I think about them. I think about what if I went here and recorded? I have a lot of like hope in that way and I like to stay there. A lot of the people around me feel that way. I like to dream about doing things.

• 21:53Dax Shepard?

  I was watching a 60 minute segment on Ted Turner. I've since also watched a doc that's great about him.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  On him too.

• 21:58Dax Shepard?

  Isn't incredible?

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Incredible. What an interesting character.

• 22:00Dax Shepard?

  What an interesting character. But on the 60 Minutes one, Jane was talking about what it's like to be married to him. And she said, it's hard because he has a jet and every four days Ted's like, let's go. And I was like, that's my dream existence. If every four days I could say, let's go. Oh, that sounds good.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  My happiest is to have no schedule and choose to just go places.

• 22:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  And my most unhappy is just when the schedule's too rigid. But that's why tour is beautiful because it's scheduled, but you're also just sort of gone.

• 22:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  It's interesting to integrate into your adult life, realizing who you are, that's not going to change. And then realizing which parts of those things work and don't work. And tour has been a real fun one because I just kind of like just drag everyone with me now.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Well, if you were a middle child and you were running out of the house and not coming back all day, I mean, that's maybe where that stems from. It's like you're kind of nomadic from the get.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  There was a lot to run away from and a lot to come back to. I don't know. I think I'm a little more free. I think I used to think it was like a problem, but now I'm surrounded by people who appear to love me through it.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:59Dax Shepard?

  Okay. What did mom and dad do for a living? Rick and?

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Shira.

• 23:03Dax Shepard?

  Shira.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Strange name, Shira.

• 23:05Dax Shepard?

  Yes. When I read it, I was like, is it Shira or is it?

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Shira.

• 23:08Dax Shepard?

  Shira.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Like you'd think.

• 23:10Dax Shepard?

  S H I R A.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah, that's what I think.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  She's a nurse.

• 23:15Dax Shepard?

  And Rick?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  He is an amazing guitar player and studied in New Jersey with Reverend Gary Davis Jr. Who's a brilliant ride time player. And then went to college, they met in college. And then when he graduated college, it sounds like a Springsteen song, which is what happened. His dad was like, cut your hair. You're coming to work at the shoe factory. And that's what happened.

• 23:31Dax Shepard?

  So grandpa owned a shoe manufacturing facility?

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, called Phoenix Footwear.

• 23:36Dax Shepard?

  Trusted brand.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, he dies in a car accident. His name is Jack Antonoff.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  That's how I become.

• 23:42Dax Shepard?

  So you never met him?

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Never met him and he looms. Loom sounds like a bad word.

• 23:45Dax Shepard?

  That's okay.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Loom's not bad, is it?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  It's not bad.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  A better word for loom that's more beautiful.

• 23:49Dax Shepard?

  He hovers.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Buzzes beautifully or dazzles.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  I like looms.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  When I think of loom, I think of like a.

• 23:56Dax Shepard?

  Looming.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  You're thinking of gloom.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Is that what it is?

• 23:58Dax Shepard?

  I think the looming looming means like there's an impending disaster.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  Looming is like my mother just looms over you like.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like looms large.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  He clearly was wonderful and was the head of the family and also died at a bizarre. You know, I've experienced death on both sides, shocking and non shocking. My dad tells the story and actually it's like a movie. My mom was a nurse at Holy Name Hospital where I was born and my dad called my mom when he found out and he said, don't go to work. My dad's there. I mean, it's so stunning of a line. It's crazy. And my mom was like, what? And my story, my parents' story, it's they're all sort of colored by these big moments of loss. So my dad has the shoe factory, they have Rachel, they have me. This is really in the air. Something happens with the government where you can now just import. I don't know what point in the eighties, the shoe factory.

• 24:45Dax Shepard?

  They started competing with China or wherever else.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  My dad tells the story like it was just one day it was over.

• 24:50Dax Shepard?

  Oh, fuck.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he's like a business guy. He's gotten involved in different things when we were growing up. He had a company that did carpet cleaning. We lived a very suburban, normal life. Our world was very rich, but small. We did things. We tried sushi.

• 25:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  I never went to Europe. I went to Disney World.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, same.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  I went to Burlington, Vermont.

• 25:11Dax Shepard?

  But I think anyone on the outside would go like, wow, there are two surviving children. One's this incredibly creative and wonderful fashion designer. One's this incredible musician. I think you're just inherently curious. Like, what do you think the quintessential thing they provided for you guys?

• 25:25Speaker 02

  There's layers to this. So the first thing I would say is when our sister died, I noticed this and I won't take any credit away from my parents who were very open to having our passions. But when she died, I was 18, Rachel was 20. They were so disconnected from what mattered. People my age were like fighting tooth and nail to get into a better college. They were just like, who gives a shit? I was already cooked at that point because she had been sick. It's really hard to care about things other than what's in your soul when faced with that, which is actually why. It's a really good time to make decisions when you're deep in grief. It's so clear what matters. When you're in grief, you're not having coffee with somebody you don't want to have coffee with.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yes, that's so true.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  You're not going to see a movie you don't want to see. You're not staying on the phone too long with someone who's bothering you.

• 26:06Dax Shepard?

  You're not ruminating on some object you hope to buy.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, you don't care, but you do care about the jokes.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  You care about the food. You're like, it's not everything serious. It just strips away the fog. And so my parents, like, you can live at home as long as you want. In my community, I was a fucking loser because all my friends are like going to college. And it was that time before the college myth had started to unravel a little bit. It was also a time when making art and things like that for both Rachel and I. What's your backup plan? Was everything?

• 26:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, well, you're in a suburb and so everyone's pretty much college bound.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the kids who weren't, it wasn't like do you. It was like, is so and so gonna be okay? It's a group of people. The first time my album is really about this, breaking the generational pact, your ancestral pact. But most of the community I grew up in were people whose parents had it worse and their parents had it worse. And their parents had it worse and they arrived at this suburban place where having food on the table, having a roof over your head and a good education was the top of existence.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Safety.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  Which, by the way, I don't think they're wrong. But Rachel and I, because of when we were born and because of the circumstances of our family, both kind of severed that and tried some shit. And then both ended up living home until we were like 26, seven.

• 27:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, you're both there for a long time. Okay, wonderful. What kind of boy were you? I know you were in a public school for a while.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Public school was terrible. It was like the 50s.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Like bullying wise?

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Jocks, cheerleaders, then like me and three other people.

• 27:28Dax Shepard?

  That's how I grew up.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Some of us were gay, some of us weren't, but we were all like gay. You know what I mean? It was so bizarre. I wasn't like ahead of my time or anything, but I was just sort of like, guys, what is up?

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  And it was so apparent to me at that time how kind of weird and repressed other people were. I wanted to be like, Jim, like, you're gay and that's great.

• 27:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  You should just, you know. Just owning it. Instead of like beating the shit out of my friends.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:52Dax Shepard?

  So you were a little Miss Viddy outcasty?

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Well, I was just so into music. The music I was listening to was very fucking serious and I was vegan. I was political and I was talking about all these things and I was listening to Papa Gandhi's Let's Talk More Rock and shouting Meat is Murder. Still believe those things no matter what twists my life has taken. Those are great educations. You know, it's a very New Jersey story. I was desperate to get out. Now we've moved back, but I was desperate to get out. I was like.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Isn't that ironic? We always make our way back.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  You know Jersey well?

• 28:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:23Dax Shepard?

  No, but we're in a string right now. We had Charlie Puth on who was talking about his love for Jersey. And then we just had Tom Pelfrey. I don't know if you watched Task. Did you watch Task, the HBO show?

• 28:33Speaker 02

  I didn't.

• 28:33Dax Shepard?

  He's this beautiful actor.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  But I'm pretty hip to anything HBO. I think that's like one of the great.

• 28:37Dax Shepard?

  If you gotta take a gamble, that's, that's a platform to do it. But he's from there and he was just talking about it. And then, yeah, the Springsteen of it all.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  The best way to put it, there's suburban mentality. There's outside the window of the party mentality. There's younger brother mentality. There's no place on earth where it's that literal. LA sprawls out, Tokyo, London. There is New York City packed to the brim, a very small body of water. And then most of the population of New Jersey just stares at it. Think about it scientifically, how much literal energy.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's so true.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Amazing energy turns into sad ash and sprinkles on the New Jersey. You are staring at it. Every band is playing there at any night. Everyone's having sex. Everyone's doing drugs. Every Broadway show, every bar.

• 29:17Dax Shepard?

  Movie stars live there.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  You are fucking face to face with what you're not. It is so potent. All the other cities I've been to and I've been to a lot of them, they sort of like subtly sprawl. It is dead serious.

• 29:30Dax Shepard?

  You're not here.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  You are not there.

• 29:31Dax Shepard?

  Robert De Niro is like a mile from you as the crow throws, but you'll never see him here.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  He's not thinking about you at all. Maybe once a week, you're the butt of a joke. Maybe.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  It's like on planes when you're in the seat behind first class. Like it's staring.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Oh man, I'm gonna take that.

• 29:46Dax Shepard?

  So probably everyone has a really healthy, less than ship on their shoulder.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  You were one or the other. I grew up with people who haven't been in New York City in years and live six miles away. They're like, why would I go there? To get a shittier Italian meal for twice the price and see Annie get her gun? Like, no thanks.

• 30:02Dax Shepard?

  Worse pizza.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  There's truth to it, but. And then you have people who are enamored with what else is out there in the world. It's like a storybook. I mean, it's medieval. It creates a fire in you that is wonderful and chipish.

• 30:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, the beauty of it is if you can be there with your cup full. I had no experience with Brooklyn. I went to a friend's house with like a rooftop thing. And I was like, oh, wow, this is better than living in the city because you actually get to see it. You get to see what the poster was and you see the Brooklyn Bridge and then you see that and the whole thing's there. So if you're there and you feel wonderful, it's almost like the most beautiful vantage point of the whole thing.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  It's where you're telegraphing from. Like no matter what I do in my life, I'm someone who has cooked in New Jersey and I'm telegraphing from what I call the shadow of the city from the outside. You hear it in the music. I meet kids who grew up in the city. They're just like, what's up? Like they don't have anything to prove.

• 30:55Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  They saw it all. They did it all. And that's why the Velvet Underground sounded the way they do. That's why the Strokes sounded that way. Music and your soul is telegraphing from you can't ever get it out of you. And I always wanted to talk about it, but in my early years, I had way more like New York was exploding when I started playing music. We'd go into the city and go to the Mercury Lounge and it was every label, every band. It was just, it was fucking happening and it wasn't because we were there. It was that time, you know, 99, 2000 downtown was one of the great moments. Then I moved to Brooklyn and I was always right outside of it. And it was beautiful and sad, like being from New Jersey.

• 31:28Dax Shepard?

  All right. I want to, because I have some theory about you based on nothing other than reading about you.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  Jewish.

• 31:34Dax Shepard?

  Jewish.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  If you're not Jewish, your whole thing is a big fucking problem.

• 31:39Dax Shepard?

  I will say, when I see the amazing success you've had working specifically with female artists, I think, yeah, he got trained great as a younger brother by an older sister. I just have some sense that you're comfortable with someone being older and a little bit dominant and you're not threatened by it and you know how to work with it.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure. Rachel is, my parents will hate hearing this. My parents raised me great. Rachel also raised me in a different way that was very lucky.

• 32:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Rachel always says like, I love my parents, I'm not shitting on them and they will definitely listen to this. But Rachel always jokes, you know, when I came into the world, I was just like, so I guess this is normalcy. And then when I came into the world, Rachel was like, this is weird. You know, she was like telegraphing to me like, hey, it's weird here.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Don't worry.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, don't worry.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  I see you.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, a lot of weird stuff happens.

• 32:29Dax Shepard?

  The moment my brother and I would always have like, we'd look at you, this is nuts, right? Yes. Okay, good. Then as long as you know it's nuts and I know it's nuts.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  Then we can, we're good. Yeah, I had the luxury of having that telepathy right away where she was three and I was one. And she was just like, they're weird. They do weird shit. But a lot of weird shit.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Yeah. Did you watch Sentimental Value, the movie?

• 32:50Speaker 02

  I fucking haven't yet, but it's one of those movies where it's just like, everyone who I love is like, you'll love this movie.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Yes. You basically just said the most important scene in the movie, which is this older sister and younger sister. And she said, the difference between our childhoods is that I had you.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  Oh, I see Rachel is on the front line.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  You know, like storming Normandy, like coming out of the boat and bulls are flying there. And I'm like nine shifts behind me and like, you guys are gonna clean it up?

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  And then we'll come in and just sort of like poke at the bodies?

• 33:15Dax Shepard?

  Once lunch is served?

• 33:16Speaker 02

  What's for lunch? Are we gonna grill on the beach? Someone said that. I don't know.

• 33:24Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 33:28Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking your phone's battery before heading out, that'll get you every time. Of course, your phone dies on the way to meet someone, leaving you wandering around quietly, panicking about being in the wrong spot. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary, subject to terms, conditions, and availability. Allstate North America Insurance Co. and Affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. This episode is supported by Helix.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Dax, is there anything better than crawling into a perfect bed on a cold fall night? Candlelit, hoodie on, maybe even some rain outside. The dream.

• 34:14Dax Shepard?

  That's the dream. You just described one of my ideal fall nights.

• 34:18Speaker 01

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• 34:32Dax Shepard?

  Ooh.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Which I really.

• 34:34Dax Shepard?

  Increasingly so.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  I need it. I have to have it. And I heard that you're supposed to sleep at a cold temp.

• 34:42Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Optimal sleep. It's very, very helpful.

• 34:45Dax Shepard?

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• 35:05Speaker 01

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• 35:12Dax Shepard?

  Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. Helixsleep.com/armchair. We get support from Scottsdale, Arizona. Monica, with summer ending or heading into fall, I've been researching a nice, quick getaway location, and I keep coming back to Scottsdale, Arizona.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Ooh, Scottsdale's good. What's drawing you to it?

• 35:38Dax Shepard?

  Well, first of all, I have this wonderful memory of going there as a kid. When I would go see my stepdad when he was working out there. The weather is perfect in fall. Warm, sunny, no humidity. And you can really do whatever you want with your time there. I want to do a sunrise hike through the Sonoran Desert. Be surrounded by Saguaro. And then at the same afternoon, just completely melt into a spa treatment at one of their luxury resorts.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Oh, that sounds amazing. I want to do that. Also, I was there visiting my brother once, and I loved Old Town Scottsdale. It's so walkable. They have galleries and cute little restaurants and shops. The food scene alone is worth the trip.

• 36:17Dax Shepard?

  What I keep reading is that it's luxurious, but not stuffy. There's no pressure to do it a certain way. You can explore public art, check out the architecture, go off roading in the desert, or just sit and watch a sunset.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  It really is the perfect fall reset.

• 36:31Dax Shepard?

  Learn more about all Scottsdale has to offer at. Unwind in Scottsdale.com. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do well. Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public facing and Squarespace was that bridge. Maybe you're in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skillset, a body of work, and it's been private. It's been yours, but at some point you're ready to put it out there and that transition from private to public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like a step.

• 37:13Dax Shepard?

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• 37:49Speaker 01

  Now, Aldous daughter syndrome is real.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  It's wild. Rachel carries it all. I'm more transient because I've luxury to be so.

• 37:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Okay, when do you start playing music?

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Kind of always.

• 38:01Dax Shepard?

  Dad taught you how to play guitar, I presume?

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Somewhat. He would play to us. I was always pick it up, bang on a piano. It got serious around like 12, 13, but I just always did it.

• 38:11Dax Shepard?

  And a lot of time alone in your room, that's what we were doing?

• 38:14Speaker 02

  My whole life. It made me feel seen in a way that I didn't feel anywhere else. And then when I started writing music, which is around 12, 13, I felt, for lack of a better word, like I could feel myself in a way that I hadn't ever before.

• 38:30Dax Shepard?

  Control.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, but also it's a very out of control thing, but just more a bit like how I hear people talking about God and religion. I just believed in it with zero cynicism. There was no edges. It was pure belief. I feel that way to this day, but like communication, I was. Shy in some places, kind of when I was growing up. And when I was writing music or making music, I felt like I was communicating with myself. And then an imaginary person who got me, I felt alive. Right around then, everything else in my life really stopped.

• 38:58Dax Shepard?

  Do you think though, that it was a medicine that without it, you would have been in a much worse state?

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Oh, I think I'd be dead. I had all these weird tendencies. I was such a collector when I was a kid. Like I went through like a baseball card collection and then like a stamp collection.

• 39:08Dax Shepard?

  Did you have ticks?

• 39:09Speaker 02

  A lot of ticks, you know, had to do this or everyone would die. Still have that. Yeah, I tried to keep it in check. And I go back and forth on it because like on one hand, it's bullshit. But then, no, it's sort of also like one's religion. As long as you can put it in a good place, it is nice to imagine yourself at the whim of someone you're praying to. But once I found music, that was it. Well, it's interesting when I look back, because my work, there's different sides to it, but it's kind of one thing. And I'm always sort of asked to explain it and I always just go back to the beginning. I always loved writing and singing. I always loved performing and then I always loved helping my friends with their music. And away my life is no different. It's just, you know, the hotel rooms are obviously nicer and I get to be in studios and stuff, but it's that thing. And the community around it. My biggest anxiety is ever, I was always worried someone was going to like quit the band,

• 39:54Speaker 02

  which was really hard back then, because a lot of people did music for fun and I was so serious.

• 40:00Dax Shepard?

  Do you think you stressed other people out around you?

• 40:02Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 40:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, like just fucking relax.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  It used to drive me crazy when everyone would talk about their plans.

• 40:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I still have that a little bit.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Really?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  When Dax will talk about the future and his future, it's like, well, what about this now? Why are you thinking about that?

• 40:19Speaker 02

  I love a no one leaves pact.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  I have that in my band now, I have that in my partner, we have my family. Like that comes from the family, no matter what the fuck is going on in my family. And not everyone has this, is like, you don't leave, you work it out. And I didn't realize how precious that was until I saw other people's families, some people leave.

• 40:36Dax Shepard?

  Now, the most unappealing

• 40:38Speaker 02

  trait of yours is

• 40:40Dax Shepard?

  name for a school I've ever heard is the one you went to, which is professional children's school.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, Rachel says it sounds like tiny lawyers, right?

• 40:46Dax Shepard?

  Yes, it sounds terrible. Tell me, what is the professional children's school? Because it becomes your gateway to Manhattan, yeah.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I was in public school in Jersey and then Rachel was in the musical theater. And she found this place where you could go and it was for like ballerinas and people in theater. I went from a New Jersey public school where everyone would say gay slurs to me, which was strange to a school where I was the only straight kid.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Why?

• 41:09Speaker 02

  A beautiful flip.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, one for you.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  The point of the place, I think it was made for the ballet dancers, was it to give you time to do your thing and I was starting a tour. But I used it as a way out and like I said, my sister was sick and I convinced my parents because they were just sort of like, yeah, sure. Is that going to make you happy? Nothing matters.

• 41:26Dax Shepard?

  And we have a lot on our plate. So if you've figured something out for yourself.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  And that was a beautiful time. It saved my life in the sense that I think I had more fear, chip, rage about the things I wanted to do in my life because everyone was articulating to me why it wouldn't work out, which is a terrible thing we do to artists and is not even the truth. There's a lot of work in the field, ironically, as recent history has shown. You might be better off wanting to do something in recorded music than being a lawyer at this point.

• 41:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  I could do a million years on that alone, but I got there and I just was surrounded by people who weren't afraid of their hopes.

• 41:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it wasn't embarrassing to have dreams and aspirations.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a lot of rage when you declare that you want to do something.

• 42:06Dax Shepard?

  Why would you believe in yourself? I don't believe in myself.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  It's very American. In other countries, you know, being a singer, being an actor, being in the theater, playing music, the government deems it important enough to subsidize.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  So it's not, fuck you. You want to go play music? Well, I got to work this job. It's like, cool. And I love doing this. I'm a teacher. And in America, there's this sense and it cuts in different ways. I always say, when you go see a band at a club or a bar, right? No one's going to work for free. The bartender doesn't go for free. The security doesn't go for free. The band goes for free. I was taught to eat shit because I was so lucky to be there. And I have so many different feelings about that. Now, and it's interesting when you tour the world and you see how art is treated in different places. But yeah, there's a lot of that. There's a lot of, oh, you want to do this? Well, then you better fucking get your ass kicked out there. It's a badge of honor, but it's also like, that was

• 42:54Speaker 01

  It's intense. Yeah.

• 42:55Dax Shepard?

  But I think what's going on underneath is I'm afraid to pursue the thing I want to pursue. You somehow have this confidence that you don't deserve. And I'd be delighted if you fail to confirm that I shouldn't have tried. I'm totally sympathetic to that. It's scary to try.

• 43:08Speaker 02

  When I was 15, I was in bands, the kids in public school were like, fuck you. Why don't you come to do the shit we do? You think you're better than us? When I was 18, all my friends were getting into college and I was still in the van. They were like, how you doing? When I'm 21 and they're realizing that maybe college isn't going to lead to their dream job and I'm still in the van. They're like, good for you, man. I'm cool again. When I'm 24 and they can pay their rent and I'm living at home, still in the van. It's like, how you doing, man? Like, it goes in and out. But you do make that deal or you don't. You're not going to get anywhere toying with what else you could do in anything in life. You just have to make that deal and live by it.

• 43:40Dax Shepard?

  Well, I think this is an adorable chapter. So at, I guess, 15, when you're at the school, professional children's school, you form your first banner, maybe it wasn't your first band, but outline with friends from elementary school?

• 43:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:54Dax Shepard?

  And then you figure out how to tour. This is a part of the story that gets glossed over, I think. Ambition is very required. This is such an ambitious thing.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  We had a book called Book Your Own Fucking Life. It was a book that went around and it had all the phone numbers of the local promoters in the scene. And that's me and my friend Evan, who was in another band called Random Task. We did the tour together. I think they got from Austin Powers. But we sat down and we called and we said, hey, can we come play in Austin on this date?

• 44:21Dax Shepard?

  This is the Bill Gates part where it's like, you get a job designing this water and power program at 15, like you're calling around businesses.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  We thought it was a fucking honor to go on a tour. We weren't like, are we going to play to anyone? Is it going to be worth it? We just all saved up a bunch of money, all the bands. And we went on this tour and we slept in rest stops and we absolutely fucking loved it. It was freedom.

• 44:39Dax Shepard?

  And you're in your mom's minivan?

• 44:41Speaker 02

  My band borrowed my mom's minivan. One member could drive and did all the driving.

• 44:45Dax Shepard?

  This is adorable.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Could drive. I didn't even think about that.

• 44:48Dax Shepard?

  His mom's van, but he can't drive.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  I can drive. But it was crazy. I mean, it was so dangerous. Like the panhandle in Florida. It's just wild what could have happened.

• 44:55Dax Shepard?

  Also, if you would have gotten pulled over in the car, it would have been like, wait, there's an 18 year old, a 15 year old, and a 14 year old.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, they all have drugs. They all look like they're nine.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Were you guys being debaucherous?

• 45:05Speaker 02

  I loved weed. Drinking wasn't that big a part of my culture, but I fucked myself up. I don't want to jump ahead, but height of grief, I took a bunch of acid, hence that line, I want to get better, pain at the acid desk, and ruined myself. And it really changed my relationship to getting fucked up forever. I got burned out quick.

• 45:20Dax Shepard?

  Oh, boy. What age was that?

• 45:21Speaker 02

  20, 21?

• 45:22Dax Shepard?

  20.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, somewhere in there.

• 45:24Dax Shepard?

  Maybe that's a gift?

• 45:25Speaker 02

  I didn't come back for a while. It was terrible.

• 45:26Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  I didn't even like talking about it.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 45:29Dax Shepard?

  Wow, wow, wow.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Horrible. Sorry to anyone listening.

• 45:32Dax Shepard?

  Proacid.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  No, not proacid. I'm happy for those people. I'm sorry to the people who I'm triggering because they had that bad trip.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Oh, I see, I see.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Because I can go there. I just lost my sister. I'm with the band. We're like out on the road and we just got some acid and we're like, let's just eat all of it. There was no, it was a different time.

• 45:48Dax Shepard?

  Wasn't guided.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  No, it wasn't guided.

• 45:50Dax Shepard?

  No integration afterwards.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  It was really hard for me.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Called a family friend who was a doctor and I was like, I did this. I'm not okay. They actually weren't that helpful. They were like, well, it can change your brain chemistry.

• 46:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh, great. Just what you want to hear when you're convinced this trip's going to last forever.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  But I did kind of say in my life, because a lot of my friends got real fucked up on drugs after that and I was.

• 46:08Dax Shepard?

  Scared straight.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just trying to like hang on to my sanity without it all.

• 46:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so that band goes on. You meet a lot of different folks while touring and the next band is fun?

• 46:21Speaker 02

  No, Steel Train.

• 46:22Dax Shepard?

  Steel Train, I'm so sorry.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  There's a band in between.

• 46:24Dax Shepard?

  And Steel Train, you convinced two people to drop out of college, yeah?

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so how do we go from Outline to Steel Train? And is there any band breakup sadness there? Were these all easy transitions?

• 46:35Speaker 02

  They were easy-ish because I felt like a lot of my life, I was surrounded by people who were naturally moving into a different phase and I was just on the same track. And then I think I attracted people who Steel Train toured for like a decade. There is no more legitimate band on the road story who would go out and we would tour 200, 250 days a year and we played at 10 people, then we played at 20 people, then we played at 50 people, 75 people.

• 46:58Dax Shepard?

  You were doing 200 a year for 10 years?

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure. We were just gone.

• 47:01Dax Shepard?

  This is like the Beatles and the. German brothel story.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, we were gone. We lived on the roads. All we did, all we did was tour.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Still in the van?

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Okay, that van really.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  Not even close to the bus. I mean, you get good at it. You figure out all the hacks of how to get a good hotel for less money. You pull up and you say, we're a church group.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Don't you kind of miss that time?

• 47:20Speaker 02

  I miss it with every fiber of my being and don't want to go back to it.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  At the same time, I'm more in awe that it happened. It's nice when there's facts of your life that show exactly who you were. We just wanted to be there.

• 47:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  It's beautiful, though. And it was right before it all got really complicated in music. All we could do was play. I hold no judgment over anyone right now, but it got complicated. And all we could do at that time was just go and convince people to let us play, convince bands to let us open for them. Tell all the fucking press and TV shows that were there at a moment's notice. Someone cancels, we get to play Conan. It's our big break. I see it like the gas tank. For me, I was cooked. I was just gonna stay. But like everyone else, like just when it's like, we're not making any money, this sucks. We get a slot early on at a festival, buys us another six months.

• 48:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  We get to play Conan. My grandmother's like, oh, you know.

• 48:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  These things fill the tank back up.

• 48:12Dax Shepard?

  And you were approached by two dudes for Fun at this point.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Well, we had all toured together a lot.

• 48:18Dax Shepard?

  You had all toured together.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  I think the three of us recognized liferness.

• 48:22Dax Shepard?

  Right, like each other. Three, hell or high water, we're not deviating from this.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a side project. We started for Fun.

• 48:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so from the time you formed Fun, is that 2012?

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Earlier, maybe 10?

• 48:33Dax Shepard?

  Okay, when is the hit song drop? Is that 12?

• 48:36Speaker 02

  13, I think, somewhere in there.

• 48:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay, see, this wildly popular song, We Are Young.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Do you remember that thing you do?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:42Dax Shepard?

  Yes, that movie?

• 48:43Speaker 02

  It felt like that, hearing yourself on the radio, like all these things that I thought were not only impossibilities, they were so off my radar. I was so disenfranchised from the mainstream. I thought my path was like, I just looked at bands like.

• 48:55Dax Shepard?

  You resigned.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Spoon or Wilco and just strictly wanted to just play, find my audience and play to them forever. I never thought about being cast out in that big a net. You know, it's easy to talk about all like the shame and intensity here in Iowa and your cousin comes to show and there's no one there. This is obviously all those feelings.

• 49:10Dax Shepard?

  That's rough.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  And I carry them today, so I can get in. But truthfully, we wore that shit like armor, man. We were like, we are fucking here. No one's paying us to be here. No one's asking us to be here. This isn't some like American Idol shit where we have a panel of judges. You know, it's a group of people who no one said, oh my God, you're amazing. We played music that we felt like we had to make. Opposite of talent show music, as I like to call it, which is a lot of my favorite bands. It's like you can't really pinpoint exactly. And we would roll up and play to fucking no one and load our gear and sleep on the floor.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Fuck yeah, no one likes us.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, we would love when people came, but we were so empowered by how much it meant to us.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't for approval. You didn't make it for the approval. So then when it was on the radio, were you embarrassed?

• 49:53Speaker 02

  I was stressed because I'd spent my life doing what I do, which is really about my lyrics more than anything. And then I had joined this band for fun and they weren't my words. And then it got really big and it really freaked me out. Oh yeah, I started working all night. I also didn't like the idea of having to play We Are Young Forever. It wasn't my song, it wasn't my lyrics.

• 50:13Dax Shepard?

  It hurt a little bit.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Well, it was weird because I was getting everything I wanted.

• 50:17Dax Shepard?

  But you felt like it wasn't yours?

• 50:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so I just went and did my own thing.

• 50:21Dax Shepard?

  You do bleachers as a solo project in hotel rooms as you're touring with fun with this huge hit.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  It helped.

• 50:28Dax Shepard?

  You had money now.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  Some, maybe less than you'd think because of how it all works. But I remember, you know, that first year, starting to be like, oh my God, maybe I could get an apartment.

• 50:37Dax Shepard?

  Also, when you toured with fun, you're presumably sleeping in a privost.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Yep, that was exciting.

• 50:42Dax Shepard?

  That's gotta be fucking titty.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  But all complicated.

• 50:44Dax Shepard?

  Didn't feel right.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  Well, I'll tell you what happened. I felt so unseen because I had communicated so much in my life through my lyrics that I wrote. The first bleacher song was called I Want To Get Better, which could not be more of a Cliff Notes in my whole fucking life. Almost to an absurd degree, my reaction that was like, I'm going to write a song and start a band that completely sifts out anyone who doesn't completely understand who I am. So that first album is so abrasively confessional, but it's cool. It's neat to get something and realize that it's not weird. Number one song. And it was really cool. I'm not minimizing it, but I didn't sleep better at night. I actually was just sort of thinking about my lyrics and what I want to do and how I want to play and felt a little bit like I was getting. Hold.

• 51:25Dax Shepard?

  Do you feel like you were getting offered kind of like the golden handcuffs? It's like, oh, this could be a trap and it's unsatisfying.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  For sure. And also to be uninvited for so long and then to be invited, it makes decision making very hard. I've had this at many different points in my career. So when that first happened, it was like, we gotta go to Germany to do this thing. Now we gotta go to Japan, we just got this thing. And your humanity is gone because you're just gone. And it's a really beautiful lesson when you learn it that there's something you want to do. There's something you want to say and you do it. And when you do it, you do it because you do it, do it, do it, do it. And when people start to fuck with it, even on an absurd degree, people start asking you to do other things and it feels really good.

• 52:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  Because all of a sudden you're popular, but I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that.

• 52:09Dax Shepard?

  But and you're afraid if you don't do that, there'll be nothing else ever again. This is the last thing anyone's gonna offer me.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  And until you get your group of people around you, right? Which it wasn't at the time, you're getting weird advice.

• 52:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, a lot of new people enter the scene.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  A lot of new people and they've done it before.

• 52:24Dax Shepard?

  You're getting more attention from a label. There's all kinds of stuff happening.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  And you have this gut that is so clear, which by the way, it's so simple. Don't do anything that you're not excited to do. It's so simple. If something feels a little cheesy, it's very cheesy. If something feels like not you, it's not fucking you. It kind of is that pure. And then there's ways of doing things that aren't necessarily you, but you do it your way. And it's cool. But that was a tough time. I had music bursting out of me and feeling like it was being quieted by the success of something else. Very strange, guilty feeling.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Very strange.

• 52:55Dax Shepard?

  That is a bizarre experience.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  And you feel bad about feeling bad.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've had this a few times in my life where sort of people are like, wow, that must be the best. And it's sort of like, well, no, actually it wasn't. It was really hard and complicated because that wasn't my goal.

• 53:10Dax Shepard?

  We've talked about this with several actors. The one that comes to mind right now is Wednesday. Jenna Ortega. And I can so empathize with her, which is like, she has this moment of enormous opportunity and everyone around her. It's such an exciting thing and they're saying, you must be so happy. And then when so many people are telling you, you must be so happy, which isn't a real thing.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  They're just projecting all over you. They're just saying you got something that. That I've heard is

• 53:35Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  Thing to get.

• 53:37Dax Shepard?

  It's beautiful what they're saying.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:38Dax Shepard?

  They're excited for you.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  But no one's ever like, how you feeling?

• 53:41Dax Shepard?

  Right. Are you scared? I just said to her, like, that's a hard, cause then you're afraid if you're honest with people, you will appear to be ungrateful. And so now you're kind of locked in. You get isolated by this dissonance of everyone thinks I should be feeling so good and I'm not. What's going on? Am I broken?

• 53:57Speaker 02

  But you are who you are. I mean, don't make people feel bad, but the spectrum of ungrateful, that's a game you could play forever. One person seems ungrateful compared to someone else. You are living your life and you know, when something good has happened, but you also know that you will die. And there are things you wanted to do with your time.

• 54:13Dax Shepard?

  It's now yours to lose, which is stressful.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  It's very stressful and I've always been super in touch with that. And it's weird when you do a thing that everyone thinks is for everyone else, but it actually isn't. This is something I run into all the time, especially in my work with pop music. This is not a service industry in any way. And because everyone sees it or hears it, they think that it's made for their pleasure. And it's really not in a mean way. It's really not. Music is made because you feel compelled to articulate something.

• 54:44Dax Shepard?

  Because you're a little bit in anguish if you can't get that thing out in the way you want it out.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have a feeling and you feel crazy because you can't say it and you can't sing it. But you hear it and you spend all your time turning it into something reductive, but literally that you can press play on.

• 55:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  And then you want to take it out and celebrate it.

• 55:02Dax Shepard?

  And then sometimes people love it or not.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  But the act of releasing it, even just now, me talking, putting out an album, you're chucking messages in the bottle out in the world. You're not looking for everyone, just like in high school. It's like, where's that one kid? Something about them, I'm like, oh, my person, that's it. And when you do something that is public, there can be this sense from people that you're doing it to please the people.

• 55:24Dax Shepard?

  That the puzzle you were trying to crack was how do I get all these people to like it? But that wasn't the puzzle to crack.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  Trying to crack is like, if you fucking cut me open, what would the music sound like? Everything you write is the last thing you'll ever write until you do it again. And you have to do it in a different way. The uncomfortable truth for people who do work like this is that it does dry up. We don't like to talk about it, but very few, you either die. Dries up or you're a total unicorn. So I've been in a phase recently where I'm very surprised every time the feeling keeps coming, but I don't take it for granted. I don't sit there and think, yeah, this is what I'll do.

• 55:58Dax Shepard?

  You're dropping a bucket into a well and you're like, what day will the well be dry?

• 56:02Speaker 02

  The image in my head is a little net.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:04Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  Catching.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Marcus Mumford said the exact same thing, or I think it was him.

• 56:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Like, you're just out there trying to catch butterflies.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, like I could write a song, but who cares? I'm trying to write that song and I would never, when I'm producing a record, I can make something, who cares? It's like we're after something so specific and you just know it when you have it. Why it's so weird to me when people get in like arguments over music. It's like so obvious when you're going this way or not, but it's really maddening and I think it can drive you fucking crazy. I'm in a phase now of feeling really grateful for it, that I like do something that I can't control. Makes me feel like there's a mysticism to it, but I wouldn't name names, but I look up, I look at some people and I'm like, where'd it go? When will it leave me?

• 56:46Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Terrifying.

• 56:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you come across Taylor's radar? Is it from fun?

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Oh, in the best ways. It was from fun, but we met in Germany.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Oh, ding ding ding ding.

• 57:01Dax Shepard?

  This whole thing was scripted.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  We love that.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  At a thing.

• 57:03Dax Shepard?

  At the Shanghun Shanghun Podcast?

• 57:06Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah. Which is when it went number two in the world.

• 57:10Dax Shepard?

  It's all based on one episode still.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  What was that movie that had the great slogan about number two? It was the Heinz ketchup movie. It was a movie where it's number two and that ain't bad or something?

• 57:20Dax Shepard?

  Probably Crazy People, the Dudley Moore where he's an ad executive and vocals are boxy but good?

• 57:26Speaker 02

  Not that one? It's like a rom com where like there's a thing that's number two in the world.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  We're gonna have to find it for the fact check.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, someone listening is like, it's fun!

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 57:35Dax Shepard?

  Someone's punching their dashboard.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  We're in Germany, we meet at a thing and quite quickly we get talking about Yaz or as in Germany called Yazoo, a song called Only You. Do you know the song?

• 57:43Dax Shepard?

  No, well, sing it.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  Um, all I needed was the love you gave.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Yes, we all know this.

• 57:48Speaker 02

  All I needed for another day.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Beautiful song.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  All I ever knew.

• 57:53Dax Shepard?

  Only you.

• 57:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Great song.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Perfect song.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  It does that thing. You could weep to it. You could dance to it. You could drink to it. I could cry talking about it.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, all the beautiful, sort of like sad 80s stuff. So she's about to, you know, first time we worked together was on the making 1989. So we were just kind of humming on this thing together. Somehow we got talking about it. I'm about to make the first Bleachers album, which really has that tone. And we just stayed in touch and then we started listening to some music. And all the stories of my collaborations are just very simple. You meet, you see the same thing, you hear the same thing, and then you chase it together. I'm really reducing a huge thing that's a mountain. And there's great stories about that mountain with anything I've done. But truly what it is, is like, you have a feeling. So when we first met, whether we were talking about it openly or not, we were basically being like, man, Yaz rips. That shit's great. Not bring it back, but that feeling of sort of like

• 58:49Speaker 02

  the sadness of synthetic sounds, hearing someone fight their emotional way through the machine. It's pop. That's something. I think Alison Moye's voice, I mean, has that thing that all the greats do. It's so listenable and beautiful and so fucking painful.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  You know, maybe the greatest version ever of that is Nina Simone, where it's just both things are happening at once.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  So true.

• 59:08Speaker 02

  So we're humming on this thing without knowing we're talking about it. At the moment, it's simple. I love this song. How cool. Here's what I'm working on. Here's what I'm working on. We should message something. Send her a track.

• 59:17Dax Shepard?

  So it's all done through computer at first? When you say sending stuff, it's just like texting?

• 59:22Speaker 02

  Sending little ideas.

• 59:22Dax Shepard?

  How does it become official?

• 59:23Speaker 02

  It becomes official in a very simple way.

• 59:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  So at this point, like I said, I collaborated my whole life, but maybe like some doors are opening. I'm starting to write with people and do that because Fun had that hit. And I would inevitably get to this point when I would work on a song with someone, where they'd be like, okay, now we're gonna have a producer do it. And I'd be like, well, I have a producer. They're like, totally whatever you produce. And I'm like, all my friends' records. And it's like, bye.

• 59:43Dax Shepard?

  And can you tell us, like, in a literal sense, what the producer's doing?

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Well, there's many things. So the line between production and engineering is a very blurry run. The most simple way I could describe producing is what will it sound like? What alpha will it wear? Are the drums like this? Does an orchestra come in? So George Martin. Maybe the greatest producer of all time wasn't playing the strings, but he was saying, well, what if the strings come in here? And then what if we play them backwards? The ideas. I happen to also be an engineer, which is a different craft. They meet often.

• 1:00:14Dax Shepard?

  What a shortcut. Instead of trying to articulate something to someone else operating, you can do it and quickly figure out, no, that's not right.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  I like to search. And so at that time, because I was loving Yazoo and Erasure and Robin had put out Body Talk and kind of changed everything. And, you know, I bought this keyboard that was called a Juno 6, which at the time was like $700, which is lols now. But, you know, I got it. And a lot of my favorite things come from not knowing something great. I play a lot of like cello now or instruments I'm not really acquainted with, because you find things without all the knowledge of what you're doing. So I'm messing around with this thing. I'm just starting to make things. And so I was just making tracks that would become the first Bleachers album and would become the first work I did with Taylor. It just all came from joy and a new soundscape. But that's like any time I make an album or collaborate with someone, you have a feeling, but you don't admit it.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  The feeling is, what if we did the most incredible thing ever together? You know, what if we got together and did something where one plus two equaled a million? But you gotta go in with some armor. You gotta say like, oh, like, check out this sound.

• 1:01:17Dax Shepard?

  We gotta act a little.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  You know, when you're at the bar and you're playing the game, it's like two pictures of them. It's like two pictures of you and then one of them has no ear. You're like coming up on the high score. And right in that moment, you get very quiet. And when you beat the high score, you don't jump up and scream. You just keep going. I always think about that when I'm making records. It's like, we don't sit around and be like, oh, my God, that's it. Everyone knows something's happening. And you just keep going.

• 1:01:40Dax Shepard?

  Do you think there's a huge undercurrent of like, we could jinx any of this at any moment? Because you're dealing with magic.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  Not could, like will. That's why my room at this point, like in the past, you know, somebody's let someone hear something, it would just die from someone else's gaze. I learned that from Taylor too.

• 1:01:57Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna ruin then one of your songs.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  What are you gonna do?

• 1:01:59Dax Shepard?

  Before you leave. My gaze is gonna be so powerful.

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  Should I wait? But the preciousness is the house of cards. Someone walks in, you're building something that only you see. And someone's like, what's that?

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Or like, ugh.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  I would just walk out there and just fly off the roof.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like why people don't tell other people what they're gonna name their kid. Cause you'll hear, they'll be like, oh, that's nice. And you're like, well, I can't name it that now. Because I hated that.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  What do you want? What are you looking for? You're looking for validation? There's nothing good that comes from me. Even if someone's like, you're the greatest to ever do it.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  What does that do?

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  What does that do for you? It's such a personal process. And I definitely learned that early on from Taylor. And then early on, from when I just really started writing the Bleacher stuff of like, I know what this is. Well, so to finish the story, we made those few songs that would end up being on 1989. And I was waiting for her to be like, and now so and so big shot's gonna produce it. And she was like, so when should we send it to mix? So she was the first person to believe in me as a producer. And it was obviously monumental cosign, but it takes that. It takes a person to hear something. And you have to remember at that time, she landed the plane so well, but making 1989 was a very strange move. There was a lot of people on the inside that were like, this isn't gonna work.

• 1:03:10Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  Everyone's gonna be bummed about this, this and that. You're gonna lose all these fans. And we did that a few times. Then we made a reputation and then folk, like it goes on and on. Everything's so high stakes with me. I feel like I love that moment where like, this is gonna land or fucking not land. But we are just riding.

• 1:03:25Dax Shepard?

  Going for it.

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Dax Shepard?

  You're aiming for the fences.

• 1:03:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:30Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:03:36Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Superhuman. I'm someone who wants to do big, meaningful work, but the small stuff eats up my day before I even get to it. The endless emails, docs, scheduling, follow ups that pile up. By the time all that's cleared, there's no energy left for the ambitious stuff. Most AI tools promise to fix that, but they require opening a new tab, re-explaining everything from scratch every single time. A week later, it's just another thing collecting dust in the browser. Superhuman, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already embedded inside the tools people are using. Email, docs, browser. It's not waiting to be found. It's already there, working alongside, clearing what's in the way. So the focus stays on what's actually worth doing.

• 1:04:20Dax Shepard?

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• 1:04:40Dax Shepard?

  We get support from ZipRecruiter. Oh, get recruiting. So I went down this rabbit hole the other day on real holiday jobs that exist and I couldn't stop. Somebody out there is hiring a ham glazer, a professional ham glazer. Another place is hiring a lead elf, implying a whole hierarchy of elves I had never even considered. Here's the thing, these jobs need real skills. People like that are hard to find. Whether you're hiring for one of these roles or any other role, the best way to find qualified people who are genuinely excited about your role is on ZipRecruiter. And right now, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/dax. Plus, ZipRecruiter has a new feature that

• 1:05:21Dax Shepard?

  shows you the most interested qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Let ZipRecruiter find the right people for your roles, seasonal or otherwise. Try it for free today at ziprecruiter.com/dax. That's ziprecruiter.com/dax. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

• 1:05:47Dax Shepard?

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• 1:06:13Speaker 05

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• 1:06:56Speaker 05

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• 1:07:10Dax Shepard?

  We get support by Peloton. You know that feeling when you're spiraling over a problem and you just can't figure it out? When that happens to me, I need a change of pace. And I've found that running is the best way. It takes my brain out of the driver's seat and I come back with a fresh perspective. Running can be freeing and cathartic, and Peloton helps you feel all of that. And now that feeling fits wherever you need it with the new Peloton Tread Flex. It's movable and foldable, designed to fit your life. So next time you feel stuck, you can go for a run literally anywhere, whether that's in your office, living room, or even the attic. Plus, they have classes with expert instructors and programs to meet you at any level and keep you moving. Let yourself run.

• 1:07:54Dax Shepard?

  Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com.

• 1:08:05Dax Shepard?

  What do you think it is about both of your symmetry that comes together? I don't want to tempt you to jinx everything, but just are you able to identify what it is about each other that produces this kind of harmony?

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  We're great friends, which is a beautiful thing, but that's not where it necessarily comes from. We have this third brain we can go to. It's a really weird collaboration because it has nothing to do with anything you want. It just is or isn't. You can make something with someone else or you can't. And if you can't and you try, you are going to make something so bad.

• 1:08:38Dax Shepard?

  I can imagine two like hyper talented people that like each other and are convinced that these two talents combined. You can only imagine the exponential explosion. And then, yeah, the frustration of the magic's not bad.

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  I mean, it's why we've had such a Drudge of poor supergroups. One plus one rarely equals two, let alone a million.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:56Speaker 02

  Usually it equals like point seven.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  That's so true.

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  A question I always get is who do you want to collaborate with? And I'm not even being like cute about it. I'm like, I have no fucking idea. All my collaborations have taken me by surprise in wild ways.

• 1:09:07Dax Shepard?

  Is Lord next? After the success of that, presumably people start reaching out to you.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  First Bleachers album, and then we quickly get to work on Melodrama and the St. Vincent album, Mass Seduction. It's not like something needs to come out and then everyone, you know, it's like people started to understand me. I started to have some songs that people heard that I had co-written, and then I started to have stuff that was my production too. And it was coming from such a different place because at that time I was really buzzing on this big sad kind of John Hughesy feeling, which wasn't really alive in the mainstream yet. It was just where I was at.

• 1:09:37Dax Shepard?

  So yeah, for people who don't know, John Hughes's Breakfast Club, he's Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  St. Almost Fire, 16K.

• 1:09:44Dax Shepard?

  Pretty Damn Pink, Uncle Buck.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Uncle Buck's so good. Is that, there's nothing left but grizzle and fat?

• 1:09:49Dax Shepard?

  No, that's The Great Outdoors.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  Great Outdoors.

• 1:09:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the old 96er.

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  I say there's nothing left but grizzle and fat in my head like four fucking times a day. I say that, my friend reminded me of Justice for Harambe, and now I say Justice for Harambe a lot, which was their tick. They say Justice for Harambe a lot in their head. But nothing left but grizzle and fat. You know, talking about the scene?

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  I've never seen it.

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  John Candy has to eat an entire steak.

• 1:10:10Dax Shepard?

  It's called the old 96er. If you eat the whole thing, you get it for free and they put your picture on the wall.

• 1:10:15Speaker 02

  And he eats the whole thing. And he goes, I'm done. And then the guy goes, no, you're not. And John Candy looks up and goes, there's nothing left but grizzle and fat. And then the guy gives him the look and then he eats the grizzle and fat.

• 1:10:26Speaker 02

  And that is in my head more than music.

• 1:10:28Dax Shepard?

  But yeah, John Hughes had this beautiful signature heart in everything.

• 1:10:33Speaker 02

  Well, he's not cynical. The act of making things, touring, making music, it's such a hopeful act. I don't think Lou Reed is cynical. I don't think Leonard Cohen is cynical. Like, I don't think it's possible. The barrier of entry to do the thing, to put it out, to be there. I love the subversion. I love playing with things and music that does that, but... The beauty of this is it's so uncynical. That's why I love playing live so much. You cannot go to a show cynically. It's not possible. If you did it, you would just get eaten up by the sincerity at the show. So many things in this moment in our lives happen cynically. Most forms of communication are what plays is just the cynical. When you get to a show, it's like, you're not leaving your fucking house. You're not paying money. You're not going through all the stuff, getting in the car to go somewhere. Not even be treated that well because of how the constitution is going. We get into that later.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  To get into that room, it's like church and what we do is so uncynical. And then the world is so cynical that they kind of smash together in this funny way.

• 1:11:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  The other way about movies too. You can't make a movie cynically. It's too much work.

• 1:11:29Dax Shepard?

  No, no.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're earnest in the making.

• 1:11:31Dax Shepard?

  And it doesn't work.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  It doesn't work. It just doesn't play.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  But it's like, they're also not. They're protecting themselves with the cynicism, but the act of making something is vulnerable.

• 1:11:41Speaker 02

  So fucking hopeful. Yeah. Even I know so many people who are like, oh, this is dog shit. But then they get talking to them and they're like, there's something there. Just leave with that.

• 1:11:48Dax Shepard?

  The cynicism is when Pulp Fiction comes out and it's such an enormous hit that people try to make it as a cash grab. And there's nine movies all of a sudden are trying to be turned to.

• 1:11:59Speaker 02

  The industry is cynical as fuck.

• 1:12:00Dax Shepard?

  Yes, that's what I'm saying.

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  Because they can't admit the one truth.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Exactly. But the creators are not.

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  We're going to put a lot of money behind something and we have no way of knowing what's going to work. And if they could just admit it.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  Everyone would be so much happier.

• 1:12:11Dax Shepard?

  And accept it, yeah.

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  Because hence collaboration, one plus one plus one plus one is never. We get to the end of every year, the best albums, the best movies, all the best work. It just fucking was.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  And then there's these.

• 1:12:23Dax Shepard?

  There's very little math.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, these like things that get smashed together that feel like shit.

• 1:12:27Dax Shepard?

  The only math that works is like IP and it's why moviegoers are a little bit cynical in general. Because the math does work.

• 1:12:33Speaker 02

  I have a friend who says, give me a movie quote from the past 10 years. And everyone goes, uh, but you go back further, it's like, you know, show me the money.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's scary, actually.

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  It's an interesting point.

• 1:12:44Dax Shepard?

  My curiosity is you've had such success with so many of these artists. And I do wonder, is that something you think is part of your skillset that you? And it's hard to say yes or no because it sounds egomaniacal. But is there something about? You that brings out some confidence in these artists. I guess you hope.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Well, obviously.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  I'm really dead serious about it, so I can meet people there and I also feel met there. I mean, there's different ways of doing it. There's the path of more fear based, like I have the sauce, which I think is ridiculous. But I think when you decide to take a journey with someone is really powerful. I always feel the analogy of like flying a plane. We see something, we're going somewhere and then we're going to do it. That's how great work is made is like, there's a North Star in the room and everyone's chasing it. Not to simplify something complicated, but I think bad work is made in collaboration when people have different North Stars and they're yanking each other in different directions. And then it kind of has no soul to it because it's all spread across something. But yeah, maybe, I mean, hopefully.

• 1:13:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So just to run through, because it's really bonkers and the list has to be said, just so that I can then ask the next question, which is 13 Grammys, but Taylor Swift, 2014 Grammy Album of the Year, then Lord's Melodrama, then Lover, then Del Rey's Norman Fucking Rockwell, then Folklore, then Did You Know There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard, Del Rey, then Midnight, then Tortured Poets Department, and then Short and Sweet, which here's where I really drop in. I am obsessed with that album. My daughter introduced me to her and I can't believe how great that album is. Just every single song is fantastic.

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  I love it so much.

• 1:14:20Dax Shepard?

  One quick question, when you're there at the Grammys and you have multiple Album of the Year nominations, that's happened before, right? There's a couple albums.

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:14:29Dax Shepard?

  What do you root for? You don't have to say which.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  Is there one?

• 1:14:33Speaker 02

  No, exactly what you think. It's like, this is crazy.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:36Dax Shepard?

  And will I cancel myself out?

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  I try to take all that shit as just encouragement. I try to take it two ways because I've noticed that it brings up a lot for people. I try to take it as encouragement and a moment to be with my family. You know, we don't look back often. My life is so forward moving, I'm on tour, the next city, the next song, the next thing. I'm so focused on what I'm doing next that anytime we get to go to those things, my dad will cry and we'll talk about the old days and.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so sweet.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  I like to try to access things at their best because otherwise it brings up a lot.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  Because looking back, I assume is too hard because there's so much pain.

• 1:15:10Speaker 02

  There's pain and else you just don't do it often. I don't make a lot of space for it. I'm not like a big reminiscer.

• 1:15:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, again, you might jinx everything. If you were to acknowledge how successful you've been, it might go away. Is there any anxiety about it or tension with it?

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  Oh, sure.

• 1:15:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it feels.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:15:25Dax Shepard?

  Again, back to the Jen Ortega thing. It's like you would think anyone who collaborated on that many hits in a row must be flying high. But I can also imagine it constantly being met with, then what do I do next? Or does it go away or any of those feelings?

• 1:15:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, things come and go. I think the most potent one I deal with is the feeling of being known or perceived in a way can be beautiful. And also you can feel like a version of yourself is being put on you. On the Bleachers record, on this new one, I really got into like my origin story. And I think the reason why I was so compelled to do that was because I feel like, not in a bad way, but just it all gets rewritten and it's weird.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  You lost your agency over that.

• 1:16:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, like having any digital footprint or public information about you kind of becomes law or becomes Bible. And that's great. That's really neat. Like all the things you just read is amazing. My soul is in all that stuff.

• 1:16:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  But then there can also be this feeling of you're just yourself and that feeling slightly ghostly in a way. And it's a weird twist because I'm also like extremely private. It's funny, but then I put so much into the music and share so much that you'd have the impression you know everything about me, which would be fair. For most of the time, it's like, once I'm done with it, it's yours. And you can hear me sort of stammering around it like it's just an odd thing. And I think it is actually getting better, but I think it was really odd in the past couple of years. But I think now there might be more grace towards artists and accepting the idea that part of the work is playing with their own hypocrisy. And that the raid you have at your senator might not be for your artist.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Yeah.

• 1:16:58Speaker 02

  Which makes sense.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  Celebrity's gotten nuts in the past few years. It's changed.

• 1:17:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, some people have done some weird ass shit and also the world has gotten to a weird place and you just put it all together. And I think everyone's really looking for some answers, but when I'm just sitting there writing, I'm not thinking about any of that.

• 1:17:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  It's complicated.

• 1:17:17Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and I promise you, I'm gonna do a real nice chunk on everyone for 10 minutes. Worry not.

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  You do.

• 1:17:22Dax Shepard?

  The last question I kinda have about your co-writing and your producing is, I wanna know, how does Kendrick Lamar come into the picture? For me, I would be like, I've established myself as I can work really, really well with these female artists, and it's a very specific thing. And if I were invited in to work with a rapper from South Central, I might have a little bit of imposter syndrome, or just fear of like, oh, am I gonna be the whitest, nerdiest person this guy's ever met? Like, what kind of feelings did you have?

• 1:17:49Speaker 02

  I just am so focused on the soul of what is happening. And that's bigger. That's just articulating a feeling, what someone or a group of people sound like at any moment in time. So, everything beyond that, to me, is secondary, whether it's genre, or personality, or age, gender, all of it's all so separate, cuz I boil it all down to, there's people in this room, we're all hearing a thing, and like I said, we're trying to literally make it a reality, and not just like a conversation or a feeling. So, I feel bizarrely comfortable in any situation where that's the goal.

• 1:18:22Dax Shepard?

  But did you meet him somewhere and start having a chat about Yaz?

• 1:18:29Speaker 02

  Not no, though. I have a band with a guy named Soundwave and a guy named Sam Do. Wave grew up with Kendrick and has produced all his albums. And they were upstairs at Electric Lady one day, and I was downstairs working on something, and Wave texted me, he's like, "Come upstairs and mess around." Go upstairs, start playing some chords, didn't leave for three years. And that's often how it happens.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  It's like love, there's just chemistry.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  It becomes like a secret world. That's what I feel like my collaborations are. And that's no different than what it was with that album, Ready, I'm. It's sort of like, you find something, and then you go apart, and you come together, and you revisit it, and you build on it, it's just a giant secret. No one knows it's happening. No one knows what you're thinking, what you're feeling, what it's sounding like, and then one day, boom, it's just out. It's wild. I love it. I love that wild anxiety of something coming out.

• 1:19:11Dax Shepard?

  But I have insecurities, and I guess I might be intimidated by Kendrick.

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  I don't feel very intimidated by anyone who...

• 1:19:19Dax Shepard?

  Is pursuing music?

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, cuz this image, I keep, it's like, we're all grabbing at something. And all the greatest people I've ever worked with. And a lot of the people you're naming, I truly believe to be the greatest of all time. Me in that exact place of we're just all grabbing at something. I would never name names, but the least inspiring people I ever met are the ones who say they know how to do it. Because it's like, oh, do you? Go do it. And it's often like a lot of things in life that the people who can explain exactly how to do it, how they're gonna do it, and why you're wrong and they're right, are really making up for something. And then you spend time with people who are known as the absolute top of their craft, and we're all having the same conversation, which is just like, what if? What if?

• 1:19:56Dax Shepard?

  You're comfortable in the uncertainty.

• 1:19:58Speaker 02

  It's all uncertainty.

• 1:19:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  And then knowing when it's done is pure certainty. I also don't understand why people tinker forever. It's like, once you hear it, it's like, all you want to do is back up the drive and put a helmet on it. It's like, you want to protect it. Like, you want to put it in that fucking thing in Beauty and the Beast that the roses in. It's such a protected space. You know, and then if I like go hang out with people, I'm like, oh, yeah, I forgot. The world sees you as.

• 1:20:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you almost gotta go somewhere.

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  Cause you're my friend from the studio.

• 1:20:20Dax Shepard?

  And see them through other people's eyes.

• 1:20:22Speaker 02

  Bang on things to try to find new sounds.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's gotta be so weird for you to see the way people are around Taylor or thoughts around her, the fainting. Like, she's your buddy. I mean, it'd be like if that was happening with you, which maybe it is.

• 1:20:36Dax Shepard?

  It does everywhere I go. I carry smelling salts with me and it happens so frequently.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  You're like, what are you guys doing? He's like, fine. He's just fine. He's a person.

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  Yes and no, but also I do see all this as magic. I'm like right there. I don't know, there's so many people in my life, different artists who I've had that relationship to not knowing them, but they very deeply got me through a period of time, saved my life in many ways. So I'm just not casual about any of this. When someone has a wild feeling about someone else, I'm never like, oh, they're just a person. I'm like, yeah, shit's magic. I get it. I have my own experience there.

• 1:21:08Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so Everyone for 10 Minutes is Bleacher's fifth album.

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and now here's where I will be very honest with you, and I'm embarrassed to admit, although I've heard all this other work you've done, I've not been consuming a lot of Bleachers.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Very oddly separate audiences.

• 1:21:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, sure. And I was completely missing the boat. I started with the new album and I listened to all those songs. And then I was like, oh my God, there's so many things I like about bleachers. I hear so much general public in it.

• 1:21:39Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 1:21:40Dax Shepard?

  Did you like general public? Fuck, they got some John Hughes drops, I think. I was so into new wave in junior high. That's what I regulated with. I was just so in love with people and so heartbroken. All that music was so perfect.

• 1:21:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, so dramatic in the best way.

• 1:21:54Dax Shepard?

  The horns, I fucking love the saxophone so much. You couldn't make a song in the eighties without saxophone. It was illegal.

• 1:22:00Speaker 02

  It became frowned upon.

• 1:22:02Dax Shepard?

  Got a little cheesy.

• 1:22:03Speaker 02

  So then we lost it, but it's like anything, it's how you use it. I mean, look at the guitar. It's like you could make the guitar so cheesy or it could be the most interesting transcendent thing ever. I love the way Neil Young plays solos where he's like fighting it. Saxophone is the same thing, synths are the same thing. I love playing with things that have been distasteful and finding a new voice for them.

• 1:22:20Dax Shepard?

  Just in order, I love Dirty Wedding Dress. Take You Out Tonight, I'm gonna say there's a lot of springsteen in that song.

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  Dirty Wedding Dress and Take You Out Tonight literally take place where I live at the shore in Jersey.

• 1:22:31Dax Shepard?

  I can feel it.

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  That's my music. New Jersey has a sound that is one of the most important sounds in the world, but not documented the same way that like New York, London, Manchester. People obviously know Bruce, but there's so much more to it. There's Southside Johnny, there's that whole shore sound.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  We're learning so much.

• 1:22:47Dax Shepard?

  Charlie is like a historian on New Jersey musicians and he went to like some famous jazz pianist workshop.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, like camp or something.

• 1:22:55Speaker 02

  It's crazy jazz. The way I articulate, the way I use horns, which is very New Jersey is horns are coastal, right? Because when ships come in, you gotta blow a horn. You know, no one like hits the harpsichord when the ship's coming in, like you gotta blow a horn. So you think of horns, you think coastal, you got like New Orleans type jazzy horns. You got sort of New England, like Crab Shack, deep, deep horns.

• 1:23:12Dax Shepard?

  I love this take.

• 1:23:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, LA, sort of Captain Geach and the Shrimp Shark Shooter type, another, that thing you do reference horns. But then you got New Jersey, which is coastal horns, but big and sad, big soaring. Sad horn lines where it's like, there's a duality of there's a saxophone here, which is supposed to be like a wink, but they're playing this super sad, long line, very Springsteen, like God, that line, Secret Garden, when it's just like hanging over. I love that stuff.

• 1:23:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay. And then this happens to me almost quarterly, Monica will know this. I find a song and I listen to it thousands of times. I can listen to songs on repeat.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 1:23:49Dax Shepard?

  For hours and hours and hours. I never tire of it. And upstairs at L's is fucking.

• 1:23:54Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 1:23:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God, dude. I can't tell you the way I've been going through the last 24. ELS, Electric Lady Studios.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  I didn't put periods in it, did I not?

• 1:24:03Dax Shepard?

  Oh, so I did pronounce it wrong.

• 1:24:05Speaker 02

  You're correct. No, everyone says upstairs at L's.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  Because there's no periods.

• 1:24:08Dax Shepard?

  Figure out, yes, I did put it together afterwards.

• 1:24:11Speaker 02

  This is on me.

• 1:24:12Dax Shepard?

  But I was like, oh, is L's the friend's house? But then when I listen to the lyrics, I'm like, no, no, this is definitely where you record. Finish up a track, send a text, party on the roof, everybody get dressed. This feeling, if you're artistic, I feel like I just got zapped. It's like to me, when I finish a script and I'm like, I fucking did it. And I wonder if we have a similar emotional state where it's like, I have to earn joy.

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:37Dax Shepard?

  And when I earn it, the heights of joy I can reach.

• 1:24:40Speaker 02

  I want to party.

• 1:24:41Dax Shepard?

  I will let it fucking rip.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  When I'm there and I get something I like, by the way, that space up there, it's such like a secret rarefied place because it's all my friends, like no one's going to come and go live. So we're just actually completely loose and having fun. And so those nights when it's summer, you feel yourself from something you just made. And then you just kind of group text a bunch of people like, let's have pizza and drink on the roof.

• 1:25:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:25:03Speaker 02

  Those are the nights, and I'm a believer that it's always the good old days, but I'm like, we're like living in the good old days. And I want to write a song about that. The album ends with, I'm not joking, which is very intense love song. And then upstairs at ELS is like the credits rolling. I finished the album. Here we are.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:18Dax Shepard?

  I was kind of shocked. It wasn't like a first song on there, but I guess that makes a ton of sense.

• 1:25:23Speaker 02

  Well, that's a funny thing about sequencing it. Like my manager, my label, they're like, this is probably a hit single. And I'm like, neat. The album is my origin story, then it's people I've lost touch with quite quickly. And then it's my wedding and then it's. Depression and then it's sort of finding God through love. And then the credits roll and I'm at the studio finishing the album.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  It's a whole arc.

• 1:25:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. But what's cool about these days is people find their race to things.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:43Speaker 02

  But there's no doubt, I understand pop music, like that song is very catchy.

• 1:25:47Dax Shepard?

  My grievance is you've released three tracks already on the album that I can listen to on Spotify, which I could hit repeat on, but I have got the early things on the website. So I've listened to this song.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:00Dax Shepard?

  I'm not exaggerating 50 plus times in the last 24 hours and I have to go to my computer and restart it every single time and it's worth it to me.

• 1:26:07Speaker 02

  That means a lot to me.

• 1:26:08Dax Shepard?

  This fucking song.

• 1:26:09Speaker 02

  I'm not downplaying that song. I love that song, but it says a lot about songwriting, like capturing a feeling. Not everyone comes and hangs out with me at the roof up there, but everyone knows the feeling of, I feel enough joy in life to want to text my friends and hang out, which is kind of a big deal.

• 1:26:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  Most of the time I think we're all like, I feel like thinking about what I want for dinner and then blowing my fucking brains out is often a feeling. Or like, I feel like turning my phone off and pretending no one exists. So when I have those moments where I'm like, let's be together, makes me feel very alive and I'm trying to do more of it.

• 1:26:46Dax Shepard?

  But I could be projecting onto you because I feel like I know that moment so well.

• 1:26:50Speaker 02

  You're not projecting at all. It's literally that moment.

• 1:26:52Dax Shepard?

  Do you also relate to, and I'm just now at 51, the yolks coming off a bit. And I have to tell you, it's such a lovely feeling. But do you feel the weight of, I have to do so many things, everything I think I might be able to do, I must do, the daunting fucking force and burden of that?

• 1:27:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's one of the reasons why I love being on tour so much because you're like a baby, do nothing because the show is so big. So it kills that voice.

• 1:27:19Dax Shepard?

  I'm shocked you've never become a big addict because I'll tell you, I'm more and more understanding my addiction.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  I am too.

• 1:27:26Dax Shepard?

  What I realize now more than ever is that the benders were these little breaks I could give myself of like, okay, no, all we're doing is getting fucked up for three days. We're not going to try to be spectacular at anything.

• 1:27:38Speaker 02

  I mean, that's why Phantom Threat is one of my favorite movies. My wife jokes, sometimes when I get sick, it's the best time. Because everything gets quiet. You know, I'm a little bitch, but I'm not trying to conquer myself in my head.

• 1:27:51Dax Shepard?

  That's why I love road trips. Not allowed to do anything.

• 1:27:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I love Christmas time. I'm sure you, like me, had moments during lockdown that were transcendent just because it took the whole fucking world shutting down for me to get a break.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:04Speaker 02

  These are things I at once long to work on. And then also I'm like, eh, I'm away. I go back and forth. I have a feeling and maybe, do you have kids?

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:28:12Speaker 02

  This is my feeling and you can tell me this is bullshit or not, but I sit there and I think to myself, I'm running towards this thing. And when that happens, it's going to just like rewire me.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:28:22Speaker 02

  Maybe that's naive. Maybe it's going to happen and there I'll be.

• 1:28:24Dax Shepard?

  No, it'll a thousand percent because the voice of what I gotta do is like at three on the volume. And the what do these children need is at 10.

• 1:28:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:35Dax Shepard?

  And it's so liberating.

• 1:28:37Speaker 02

  Well, that's I feel my dog. So I can only imagine what will happen with kids.

• 1:28:40Dax Shepard?

  I'll stop working. Not true, but I will work in a way that is so much more healthy.

• 1:28:45Speaker 02

  Well, I've already started that. Getting married changed that because I always was running. I always had so many negotiations in my head. I was never with the right person. So I was like, eh, I have, eh, you know, that terrible sort of like, does everyone get everything? Well, I like my work. Maybe I'll just.

• 1:29:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:29:02Speaker 02

  I met my wife on the roof at Electric Lady.

• 1:29:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you did at one of your come over and get dressed.

• 1:29:08Speaker 02

  Lana's song, Margaret, he met Margaret on the rooftop.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  No, I have to go.

• 1:29:11Speaker 02

  Lana wrote a song about it.

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:29:13Speaker 02

  That's really sweet. But yeah, we met right there, which is another reason why that place is so special. Well, it's actually, what's interesting about it is when you find some common happiness, your work gets even better.

• 1:29:22Dax Shepard?

  I have to say, your wife, she's one of the.

• 1:29:25Speaker 02

  She's on your crush list?

• 1:29:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God, dude.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  She's on everyone's crushes. She's stunning.

• 1:29:29Speaker 02

  I noticed that sometimes when she like does something and looks really beautiful, like go on the internet and everyone's like, I'm going to kill you to me. And I'm like, huh.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:37Dax Shepard?

  He was on Fallon. He's like, I. Fight, find me in the street.

• 1:29:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like the idea. If someone came up to you in the street, I would, I would be so funny to do something. Okay, I do this, he was like, I like your wife a lot and I want to fight for her. First I would be like, well, that's her, my friend.

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  I've gotten in charge of her.

• 1:29:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I mean, it's just kind of ignorant lingo.

• 1:29:54Dax Shepard?

  This may shock you. I can relate to that.

• 1:29:56Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:29:56Dax Shepard?

  People like my wife quite a bit.

• 1:29:57Speaker 02

  Your wife's the best.

• 1:29:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Had you seen Once Upon a Time before you met her is my question.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, and she saw Spaceballs before she met me.

• 1:30:08Speaker 02

  No, I was totally aware of her and I met her once.

• 1:30:10Dax Shepard?

  Prior to the rooftop.

• 1:30:11Speaker 02

  Once. And now it's like a great moment that we look back on. It's so weird. And it was really weird as I met her a long, long time ago at this party. It was actually Taylor's party. And for some reason, we took a picture. Maybe she saw it in the future, but Taylor just grabbed both of us. There's a picture of the three of us.

• 1:30:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  And then two years went by before I ever saw Margaret again.

• 1:30:29Dax Shepard?

  Did she go to the children's professional school because she's a dancer?

• 1:30:32Speaker 02

  There's a lot of weird similarities in our life.

• 1:30:33Dax Shepard?

  That was kind of a joke, but she did.

• 1:30:34Speaker 02

  Oh, really? No, it's true.

• 1:30:35Dax Shepard?

  I just know that she's a dancer.

• 1:30:37Speaker 02

  I just assumed that maybe she lived in California and she's like from Montana, grew up in North Carolina. Very similar to me. I mean, I left Jersey, which is a lot closer, but she left North Carolina, went to the same school.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 1:30:50Dax Shepard?

  That is wild.

• 1:30:51Speaker 02

  And now we live in Jersey, which is very much how we both grew up. We're really happy to get out. The way people react to pop culture in New Jersey, there's like a sweetness to it because it's out of the sauce. New York less so, but LA is sort of like, everyone knows it. What are you working on?

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  The chatter.

• 1:31:09Speaker 02

  We got to Jersey and people were like, you do music? I love.

• 1:31:14Dax Shepard?

  Billy Joel.

• 1:31:15Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yep. We just saw him and he was really good. And I also love Pearl Jam. And then we are going to see Celine Dion.

• 1:31:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we have a house in Nashville and same. My neighbor's like, they've seen three movies in the last four years. And they're hardly interested and it's lovely.

• 1:31:32Speaker 02

  They're not like sitting there being like, well, this was an indie movie, but they spent $20 million on the promotion. So is it, you know, like not that shit. They're just sort of like, Zootopia is very good. And they're not wrong.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're not looking for a hot take.

• 1:31:45Speaker 02

  Kind of how I feel about movies in a weird way. Like I hear all the sauce. But I don't care at all. I don't make movies. I don't want to make movies. I like making music movies here and there, but zero ambition. So when I watch a movie, I am just fucking loving it or not. And that's all I care about. Where I know a lot of people who are in the sauce, it's just fascinating.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, some separation is nice.

• 1:32:02Speaker 02

  You get to experience people who are hitting you at all different levels, which is also like the show. When I play, there's people coming together from very different walks of life.

• 1:32:10Dax Shepard?

  I like it because it right sizes your thing. When you're talking to your neighbors, they're like, yeah, I like music. I like Billy Joel and I like Pearl Jam. And you're like, oh, right. That's the actual spot it occupies in people's consciousness. And I like being reminded of that. It's like, people like movies, but they like them. They're not fucking obsessed.

• 1:32:26Speaker 02

  I did love all versions. And very often, I always tell my friends, you play live, you see the 1% of fans that know everything about you, which I love. They know every bit. They know every joke. They know everything, every inside joke. And it's like, that interaction is really interesting. But there's also like Jennifer up in the rafters.

• 1:32:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, her friend Broder.

• 1:32:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. And she loves the band for a different reason. Yeah, Jersey's fucking chill.

• 1:32:52Dax Shepard?

  I think it's very good to get out of the bubble.

• 1:32:55Speaker 02

  LA gets hard for me. I don't know if you guys can relate, but it might be because I don't have a home.

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  He's feels that. I don't. I love it here. But I grew up in the suburbs also.

• 1:33:03Speaker 02

  Where?

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  Georgia, suburbs of Georgia.

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  Like Marietta?

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  Uh, very close to Marietta.

• 1:33:08Speaker 02

  There was a club in Marietta called Swayzies.

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't.

• 1:33:10Speaker 02

  And they had pictures of Patrick Swayze everywhere.

• 1:33:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh, good for them. I love Swayzies.

• 1:33:14Speaker 01

  A little more fun than I would expect from Georgia, to be honest. But I like this because it's a departure from that.

• 1:33:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. I just have no home. So I'm like.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, rootless.

• 1:33:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay, we've had you forever. My last question is, because you've worked with so many people, have you ever been called upon to smooth out a beef between two artists? And you don't have to tell me who, but have you been brought in?

• 1:33:33Speaker 02

  I haven't.

• 1:33:33Dax Shepard?

  You haven't?

• 1:33:34Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:33:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:33:37Speaker 02

  It's an interesting question, though.

• 1:33:38Dax Shepard?

  I can see that happening.

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  Trying to think if there's anything, not really.

• 1:33:42Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:33:43Dax Shepard?

  Okay, that's good. Thank God.

• 1:33:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but everyone's kind of in their own zone, especially when you're making an album. You're really just like off on your own thing.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  But are there betrayals? Does it feel like, oh shit, I guess I can't go work with this person now?

• 1:33:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, sometimes, but you always make your own decisions. I find that the whole world is so different and bizarre and interesting. And also all high school at the same time. It's amazing, but you have your people and you stand by them and you ride for them. But no, nothing that really like specifically happened.

• 1:34:09Dax Shepard?

  Right, right.

• 1:34:10Speaker 02

  You know, anyone who's really bummed anyone out that I know I try to hang with my friends.

• 1:34:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Okay, everyone, for 10 minutes, it's out May 22nd. You're gonna turn me down, as you should. It's a very crazy request. I've never done this, but I just want you to know.

• 1:34:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:24Dax Shepard?

  I am willing to dance with you to that song.

• 1:34:29Speaker 02

  Doves are ZLS?

• 1:34:30Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I've been dancing all morning to it.

• 1:34:32Speaker 02

  Okay, I don't know if I want to dance, but here's what I think you should do.

• 1:34:35Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:34:35Speaker 02

  Put it on, see what happens to your body, and let's just watch you.

• 1:34:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay, that's really stressful.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Oh my God. That's already the most embarrassing thing ever.

• 1:34:42Speaker 02

  I've never listened to the song with anyone who wasn't part of making it. I'm not asking you to dance for me, to be clear.

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  No, he clearly offered that up.

• 1:34:49Dax Shepard?

  What I know is that I can't tell you how I feel about it. I know that.

• 1:34:53Speaker 02

  You don't have to move. You could talk about it.

• 1:34:54Dax Shepard?

  No, I'm gonna move. The monocle edit it up because it's gonna be so cringy.

• 1:34:58Speaker 02

  What you might be really getting you going is the drums are a thing called a Lindrum, which probably most popular like Prince used a lot. It's this great 80s drum machine. And it's very punchy, and I think it might speak to your hips. And then we play like a lot of live drums on top of it. And I think maybe that speaks to your shoulders.

• 1:35:16Dax Shepard?

  Okay, good. I like, I like all this stuff.

• 1:35:19Speaker 02

  These are my ideas.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  That's not me of the song, literally.

• 1:35:22Speaker 02

  Have you ever danced with anyone on the show?

• 1:35:23Dax Shepard?

  Never. I've never done this.

• 1:35:25Speaker 02

  You look upset.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  I'm scared.

• 1:35:27Dax Shepard?

  I did this to BJ in Chicago Kid and Anderson Paak's song. That song fucked me up in a way that I had to dance.

• 1:35:35Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:35:36Dax Shepard?

  On Instagram, and a lot of my friends were worried about me, but I don't regret it.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  He had relapsed.

• 1:35:45Speaker 02

  Are you here all day?

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically.

• 1:35:47Speaker 02

  Like, do you just spend all day here?

• 1:35:49Speaker 01

  Essentially.

• 1:35:50Speaker 02

  Or do you go to your big house?

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  I go to my regular-sized house.

• 1:35:53Speaker 02

  Is it tough to be here in the small house?

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, all I do is look around, like, oh my god.

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  So you're like, Dax, it's just like...

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  These poor sons of bitches over here. Okay, are we ready?

• 1:36:02Dax Shepard?

  No, I'm still figuring it out, but I will.

• 1:36:04Speaker 02

  So like, so what happens after this?

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  We'll do a fact-check after this. So that's just him and I recording.

• 1:36:08Speaker 02

  Everything was facts?

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, we check these facts, and it's really fun. But really, it's just a chance for us to kind of just talk about nothing, and then I'll like, check some facts.

• 1:36:17Speaker 02

  Do you ever do episodes with no guests?

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  No, but the fact-check kind of serves. Oh my god. I love it. I'm almost gonna do this just to make Monica blow. Yeah, well, I mean...

• 1:36:28Speaker 02

  Is it a good vibe if you and I keep talking and he dances?

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  I know, I kind of want... Oh my god!

• 1:36:35Speaker 02

  So then what will happen?

• 1:36:36Speaker 01

  This is so intense. I can't believe you're making him watch you do this.

• 1:36:54Speaker 02

  Monica's upset.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  No, no, no, do not.

• 1:36:58Speaker 02

  Oh my god!

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Do not make me participate!

• 1:37:07Speaker 02

  Is this like a music video?

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  No, I am. I'm disassociated.

• 1:37:12Speaker 02

  He's free.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  I do, I do love this one. Hey, he did it! Okay.

• 1:37:25Speaker 02

  It's, I'll say this. It's very John Hughes, Dax, the way you're moving.

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  Oh, that's true.

• 1:37:30Speaker 02

  Keep it going.

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  I do like this song. This is great.

• 1:37:37Speaker 02

  I kind of like this now. I didn't like it at first.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Now you're ready.

• 1:37:40Speaker 02

  I kind of like it now.

• 1:37:42Speaker 01

  Oh my god, why are you raising it?

• 1:37:43Speaker 02

  I didn't like it at first, I like it now.

• 1:37:53Speaker 02

  He's in really good shape, huh?

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that I'll give him.

• 1:38:01Speaker 02

  Here we go.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  Like, when you do a plank and you have to hold it for the last minute?

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  How much more?

• 1:38:18Speaker 06

  Not much, but you truly look uncomfortable. Here we go.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  What? Oh my God. My eyes were closed and then I opened to that. Wow.

• 1:38:32Speaker 06

  Oh, that's good. I like that.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Okay, it's a new move.

• 1:38:38Speaker 01

  Hey.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  Oh. Oh.

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  This is the show. This is the show.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  Oh my God, it's like a 20 minute, 20 minute long song, you know? Why you made this song so long?

• 1:39:17Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:39:20Speaker 02

  Very compelling. I'm gonna say something, okay? It was upsetting and then it was really beautiful. I really feel like you really like. I thought I might give you. You really did get me there. I wanted you to see.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  Just leave the desk or the, you know. Look, it's like watching your dad, you know, it's watching your dad.

• 1:39:37Speaker 02

  This is how I felt, okay?

• 1:39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:38Speaker 02

  And I think we need to do five more minutes. Yeah, I'll sit back down. I felt like, first I was like, oh my God, what's he gonna do? And then I had that feeling like I'm at a comedy show. Is the comedian gonna bring me up?

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39:48Speaker 02

  And then, I'm not even joking, I feel like he's really going to another place and that's beautiful. And then I genuinely liked a lot of the moves because they felt like, is it Anthony Michael Hall in Breakfast Club? Kind of thing, Ali Sheedy. And then I quickly realized that what was going on was really about Monica. Her watching you with love. Are you sure there was? And. Well, I know you love me. With love and sadness, all it was. Was like the years you spent together, like it was all just happening. Like, I almost felt like her and her daughter, like it was like, that's Dax. I love him and what am I gonna do?

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  And he's not, this is him, he's not putting on a show. It's so earnest and earnest can be.

• 1:40:29Speaker 02

  There's a chance that that's the video and that's it. I sign up. I can dance much better than that. I was on the spot. The space isn't great. In my bedroom today.

• 1:40:37Dax Shepard?

  I was like, I was born to dance to this song.

• 1:40:41Speaker 02

  I love to move my body. I just don't do to my own music unless I'm playing it because it feels funny.

• 1:40:45Dax Shepard?

  It feels.

• 1:40:46Speaker 02

  I do love to dance.

• 1:40:46Dax Shepard?

  I thought that could be the case.

• 1:40:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not that I'm not meeting you where you're at. I just, this was about you and then it was about Monica. I actually felt like there was double whatever glass here. I felt like I wasn't here and I was watching you alone and Monica was like a ghost watching it.

• 1:41:02Speaker 01

  That's fair.

• 1:41:02Dax Shepard?

  If I'm being honest, of the three minutes, probably 30 seconds of it, I was unselfconscious.

• 1:41:09Speaker 02

  That's it?

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:41:10Speaker 02

  I felt like the whole time.

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  It did feel like the whole time.

• 1:41:13Dax Shepard?

  That's good.

• 1:41:13Speaker 02

  I thought when you went to Monica, those are probably the moments of being self-conscious. You were like, I'm gonna.

• 1:41:17Dax Shepard?

  It's you. You're my guest.

• 1:41:18Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:41:19Dax Shepard?

  I'm doing something very bizarre in front of you.

• 1:41:20Speaker 02

  No, I like it.

• 1:41:21Dax Shepard?

  But it is with genuine intention.

• 1:41:23Speaker 02

  It's received.

• 1:41:24Dax Shepard?

  Of thanking you and hoping you can see what that song does to me.

• 1:41:29Speaker 02

  I will request other videos of you doing it.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Maybe to each song on the album.

• 1:41:34Speaker 02

  I will request that.

• 1:41:35Dax Shepard?

  Some people have hype man.

• 1:41:35Speaker 02

  I will request that you just do it. I request that it becomes your apologies to Matt Damon.

• 1:41:40Dax Shepard?

  I would love that. I sign up for it.

• 1:41:42Speaker 02

  If you have fucking Joyce Carol Oates here, you just kick the table over and just dance in Monica's face, right? If you have Nancy Pelosi here, you just flip the table.

• 1:41:51Dax Shepard?

  And go, you're gonna watch me dance for three minutes?

• 1:41:53Speaker 02

  I don't want them dancing.

• 1:41:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, okay, okay.

• 1:41:56Speaker 02

  It's not, it's not like a cheer tunnel. It's not that. It's a subversive, strange moment where you just interviewed, let's say, you know.

• 1:42:03Dax Shepard?

  Barack Obama.

• 1:42:04Speaker 02

  Barack Obama, right?

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  Or Michelle.

• 1:42:05Dax Shepard?

  He wouldn't have joined though.

• 1:42:06Speaker 02

  He's not allowed. The whole idea is because it's not like, we're zany. Here's a viral moment. It's not that. It's I just interviewed you and now you're gonna witness me having childlike joy around someone who knows me deeply and loves me and is embarrassed for me.

• 1:42:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:21Speaker 02

  You have to sit there and watch that.

• 1:42:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Also, I'm living out probably your worst fear.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  That's what, duh. But I just said, this is my worst.

• 1:42:29Speaker 02

  Really? I think we're honest, like, because I think when you're interviewed, you're so vulnerable and this is your guys' space and then I had to have the weird vulnerable moment of watching you.

• 1:42:37Dax Shepard?

  I know. Very uncomfortable to watch me dance. Almost worse than doing the dancing.

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  But that's why it feels.

• 1:42:42Speaker 02

  Remarkably.

• 1:42:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  That's why it feels tough. It's like now you're in this position.

• 1:42:48Dax Shepard?

  You're in an awkward position.

• 1:42:50Speaker 02

  Dax played with a line. So Dax didn't do something inappropriate, but we all felt like something inappropriate was happening. And that's really interesting. So imagining Joyce Carol Oates sitting here or whatever, and you do that. Joyce Carol Oates is.

• 1:43:04Speaker 01

  She's upcoming.

• 1:43:05Speaker 02

  Is she coming?

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:06Speaker 02

  Who's coming soon? Can you not say?

• 1:43:08Dax Shepard?

  Wait, who's coming?

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  That was a joke.

• 1:43:09Speaker 02

  But do you announce she was coming?

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we don't really, but we.

• 1:43:13Dax Shepard?

  It's always a secret.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  It's always a secret.

• 1:43:15Speaker 02

  Okay. So like, if I'm guessing, I don't know.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  Manifest something for us.

• 1:43:18Speaker 02

  Okay. How about, um, Joyce Carol Oates?

• 1:43:21Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:43:22Speaker 02

  Okay. How about, um, who would I love to?

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  Taylor. Let's use Taylor.

• 1:43:25Speaker 02

  She'd be great.

• 1:43:25Speaker 01

  She'd be great.

• 1:43:26Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:43:27Speaker 02

  But she'd be.

• 1:43:28Dax Shepard?

  She'd be really comfortable with that, I feel like.

• 1:43:29Speaker 02

  I feel like she'd be like, you go do your thing.

• 1:43:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:31Speaker 02

  Get done with yourself.

• 1:43:32Dax Shepard?

  This is what I'm trying to get guys to do.

• 1:43:34Speaker 02

  Vladimir Zelensky.

• 1:43:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Or how about Putin?

• 1:43:37Speaker 02

  Wait, what's his name? No, what's his name? Not Vladimir Zelensky. Oh my God. Did I just connect Vladimir Putin and?

• 1:43:43Dax Shepard?

  Zelensky?

• 1:43:43Speaker 02

  What's Zelensky's first name?

• 1:43:44Speaker 03

  Volodymyr?

• 1:43:46Dax Shepard?

  Volodymyr?

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  Basically the same.

• 1:43:47Speaker 02

  What the fuck is, is it really?

• 1:43:48Speaker 03

  It's something like, I don't know.

• 1:43:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yes. I'm not way off.

• 1:43:50Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:43:51Speaker 02

  Imagine you're getting into it with Ted Cruz and you're really going there. Or like, I'm just trying to think of an interesting character. Lindsey Graham.

• 1:43:57Dax Shepard?

  Lindsey Graham. That might put him over the edge. He might pass in my presence.

• 1:44:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, he might hit the rainbow bridge.

• 1:44:03Dax Shepard?

  But you had to have known Mr. Shepherd that he would have died.

• 1:44:06Speaker 02

  This big blue marble.

• 1:44:07Dax Shepard?

  Him watching you do something that is so antithetical to what he's about would kill him. You had to have known that, Mr. Shepherd, is what they'd say.

• 1:44:14Speaker 02

  I'm trying to.

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  Are you okay?

• 1:44:16Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm more than okay.

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  Okay, just wanted to check.

• 1:44:18Speaker 02

  This is where I live, in the place of.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  And you know, you are on stage and you're seeing this.

• 1:44:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Dax Shepard?

  In the most sincere, non-bitty way.

• 1:44:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:44:27Dax Shepard?

  I feel like I owe you that because of how much joy that thing gives me and how much I relate to the moment that you're describing.

• 1:44:35Speaker 02

  And put in a formal request for it to be the, and we ran out of time, Matt Damon of this show. Let's get this podcast to number three or two.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  Let's get it to number two. We gotta beat those Germans. This might get us there. This might get us there.

• 1:44:47Dax Shepard?

  Well, this has been a blast.

• 1:44:48Speaker 02

  Thank you guys so much.

• 1:44:49Dax Shepard?

  It's been a first for me and it's been a blast.

• 1:44:51Speaker 02

  And not a last.

• 1:44:51Dax Shepard?

  And I can't wait for people to explode to this song the way I just did.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  It's a great song. Now, I can say, even having experienced that.

• 1:45:01Dax Shepard?

  In the worst possible situation, you liked it.

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  I really liked it.

• 1:45:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:05Speaker 02

  I did have a thought while it was happening was like, is this a new kind of like strip club? Not stripping, but like, is this like a new thing where like a guy? Just sort of like has joy and you sit near.

• 1:45:16Dax Shepard?

  I think it would be too much for people to handle.

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:45:19Dax Shepard?

  Watching a man and just exude joy.

• 1:45:21Speaker 01

  I think it's, no, it's good. It's good to show what you just did is the opposite of the manosphere. So I will give you credit for that.

• 1:45:28Speaker 02

  You think that's the inverse?

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  I do.

• 1:45:30Dax Shepard?

  It was definitely not cynical.

• 1:45:31Speaker 02

  Definitely not cynical.

• 1:45:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And that's all we're going for today.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay.

• 1:45:33Speaker 02

  I think Monica's gonna unpack it for a long time is how I feel.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a lot to say with it. My schedule therapy.

• 1:45:39Dax Shepard?

  Well, this has been a blast. I knew I would like you because I love Rachel so much and it was everything I had hoped for. And I hope you'll come back.

• 1:45:45Speaker 02

  If you cut that part, my little heart will break.

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  We won't. I'll leave that.

• 1:45:48Dax Shepard?

  I can already read the headline. Dax Shepard forces.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  Honestly, that's my worry.

• 1:45:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, forces.

• 1:45:52Speaker 02

  You can't live your life. Yeah, but you know what?

• 1:45:54Dax Shepard?

  You can't do it. It's gotta be me.

• 1:45:56Speaker 02

  You gotta be you and you gotta dance for joy.

• 1:45:59Dax Shepard?

  When you have to dance, you have to dance.

• 1:46:00Speaker 02

  For real.

• 1:46:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:01Dax Shepard?

  It's the puzzle that needs solving.

• 1:46:03Speaker 02

  But next time you have like a dignitary or someone.

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is just what we do here.

• 1:46:06Dax Shepard?

  Jack, this has been a blast. Everybody, listen to everyone for 10 minutes, May 22nd. Come back. He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's gotta let him have the facts. Well, you got a free, you got a free dancer out of it.

• 1:46:25Speaker 01

  He did. He did. That could be, that just could be the music video.

• 1:46:29Dax Shepard?

  I don't know what they would have offered me, what the budget would have been, but it was, he got it for cheaper than whatever that was.

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  He sure did.

• 1:46:36Dax Shepard?

  A hundred dollars or something. Well, we're both, we both had whirlwind weekends.

• 1:46:41Speaker 01

  He did.

• 1:46:41Dax Shepard?

  Yes. You here in town, me in Nashville.

• 1:46:44Speaker 01

  I have my brother and his partner Emily in town and it was so fun. Also, they loved the house, which was really nice.

• 1:46:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Last time we checked in, we made a joke about if they say like, go to Malibu, you just keep talking, you know? Like they didn't say that. You just keep it, keep it going, keep it moving. Um, we did go to Malibu.

• 1:47:08Dax Shepard?

  Who brought it up?

• 1:47:09Speaker 01

  They did.

• 1:47:10Dax Shepard?

  What'd they say?

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  My brother was like. Or I just said, what is there anything you guys really want to do? And he said, we do want to go to Malibu.

• 1:47:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:18Speaker 01

  Oh shit, God, okay.

• 1:47:21Dax Shepard?

  Did you take Los Virginas or did you take Canaan Dune?

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  I took Canaan.

• 1:47:24Dax Shepard?

  Canaan, okay.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  I was sort of, I mean, I just follow, I follow my phone, you know? I follow my phone.

• 1:47:30Dax Shepard?

  It's good advice.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  Jess and I get in fights a lot about which app to use.

• 1:47:35Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  I won't say which one he uses.

• 1:47:38Dax Shepard?

  Waze?

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Not gonna say it. I'm not gonna say what he uses. I just really dislike the one he uses.

• 1:47:45Dax Shepard?

  Okay. I only hate one of the three main ones.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:49Dax Shepard?

  And I'll remain quiet on which one. But we have Apple Maps, we have Google Maps, and we have Waze, right? Am I missing one?

• 1:47:55Speaker 01

  Those are the three I know.

• 1:47:57Dax Shepard?

  Rob probably uses a punk rock one that's like, no one uses.

• 1:48:00Speaker 01

  It's like really cool.

• 1:48:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's like X traffic.

• 1:48:04Speaker 01

  Oh shit. I want to do that one. I'm not cool enough.

• 1:48:08Dax Shepard?

  Which one do you use?

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  I use, um, Apple. I use what's on my phone.

• 1:48:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  And I love it.

• 1:48:13Dax Shepard?

  And I use Google, and I love it.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  Okay, but we don't.

• 1:48:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's fine. We're not debating. Generally, when you and I drive together, I know where I'm going. We drove together last week to a screening.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  Uh-huh.

• 1:48:26Dax Shepard?

  I knew how to get there.

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, you didn't put it in.

• 1:48:27Dax Shepard?

  I didn't need that map.

• 1:48:29Speaker 01

  That's the difference between us. I-

• 1:48:31Dax Shepard?

  You would have mapped even that place that you know?

• 1:48:33Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely. I don't really know that place. Like, I do, but not enough. I need to-

• 1:48:39Dax Shepard?

  You know how to get to Sunset Tower on your own?

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  Although-

• 1:48:44Dax Shepard?

  I mean, it's two turns. Go down western to Sunset in a pinch.

• 1:48:49Speaker 01

  This is what I like about maps, though. It, it can tell if there's traffic, so it will take you a different way.

• 1:48:56Dax Shepard?

  It'll never take you the two turns version.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it doesn't take me two turns.

• 1:49:00Dax Shepard?

  No, thirty turns.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  Which, if I'm going on my own, I can get there on my own. If I didn't have my phone, I could get there. But I'm gonna go two turns.

• 1:49:08Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:49:09Speaker 01

  And when I follow the map, I feel like I'm probably getting there faster because it's telling me.

• 1:49:14Dax Shepard?

  I think you are, yeah.

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:49:15Dax Shepard?

  I'm living in great stress. Have you read all these articles? They're starting to mount cameras up everywhere as a big statewide initiative for, for speeding cameras.

• 1:49:25Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:49:25Dax Shepard?

  They're gonna be everywhere. And I think they let you go 11 miles an hour over the speed limit and then they just automatically send you a ticket.

• 1:49:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:49:33Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:49:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I got a list of the places they were putting it, but it wasn't terribly exact.

• 1:49:41Speaker 01

  Oh, no. This is gonna be horrible for you.

• 1:49:44Dax Shepard?

  It is. I'm gonna have to learn all new routes.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  They're really pushing you out of this city.

• 1:49:47Dax Shepard?

  They want me gone. They want me gone. They do.

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:49:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  Wait, that is annoying.

• 1:49:52Dax Shepard?

  And then I can't really speed in in Mount Juliet because there's so many cops.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  So that's okay. I was actually gonna ask you because in Georgia, you cannot speed. They they're, the cops are everywhere. They're in cars. There are speed traps. They're in cars that are black, that in black writing say like Duluth Police. So you can't tell that it's a police car.

• 1:50:15Dax Shepard?

  Until you're already pulled over.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:50:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:17Speaker 01

  And so it's always been a thing and I only go five over there every time.

• 1:50:23Dax Shepard?

  And that's the vibe in Mount Juliet. On the highway in Nashville, fine. People are flying. That's kind of fine.

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  10 over.

• 1:50:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, for people don't know the culture in LA, it's everyone drives as fast as they want, pretty much.

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  Because you actually cannot go that fast because there's so much traffic.

• 1:50:42Dax Shepard?

  Yes, but there, I gotta say, it's state to state to state. California is the least.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48Dax Shepard?

  Uh, oppressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're they're not running like, um, speed traps and stuff. They're there and they have a whole, I go when we made chips, I got to meet a lot of the CHP people and they have an actual a- agenda, which is they just are patrolling high accident areas, right? They're just trying to make everything safe.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  That's nice. That's good.

• 1:51:09Dax Shepard?

  All to say, people drive pretty fast, eh, on the highways here.

• 1:51:14Speaker 01

  On the highway, yeah.

• 1:51:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, everyone's going 80. That's definitely over an 11 over.

• 1:51:18Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:51:19Dax Shepard?

  That's 15 over.

• 1:51:20Speaker 01

  Again, only if there's no traffic, which is pretty rare.

• 1:51:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but when you get it, boy, you want it.

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  That's why, that's why.

• 1:51:26Dax Shepard?

  Anyway, I'm I'm just waiting. I I guess they're gonna have like a month grace thing where you'll get tickets, but you won't have to pay the fine and then it kicks in, then you'll have to pay a fine, but there's no points.

• 1:51:35Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:51:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but I just, I don't like the idea of there being a record for your insurance provider.

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  I don't love that either, but I don't really speed, but I just don't like being watched, even though that's kind of weird for me because.

• 1:51:48Dax Shepard?

  You're not a libertarian by nature, yeah.

• 1:51:50Speaker 01

  I'm not, I'm really not, I'm not, I've gotten more into privacy as the older I've got for some reason.

• 1:51:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, things happen when you're older. That's just how it is.

• 1:52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like my mother was just here and she's like, her trust level with the government is at a real all time blow.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 1:52:07Dax Shepard?

  And I think that's just aging.

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:09Dax Shepard?

  I mean, she's always was like a sixties flower power, pay to Vietnam, but now it's just feels like every, everything's not to be trusted.

• 1:52:18Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:52:18Dax Shepard?

  At any rate, so yeah, I have to drive pretty slow in Nashville. Um, and now it's looking like I'm gonna have to drive slow here. I'm gonna have to move to Germany. Autobahn, it's my last, I thought I was gonna retire in Nashville, but not, not the case.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  Oh, well, that's a ding ding ding for this episode, actually, because, you know, we are going to try to unseat um, the number two most streamed podcast, which is in Germany.

• 1:52:42Dax Shepard?

  Hoshindush, yeah.

• 1:52:44Speaker 01

  So maybe you should move there to just get like feet on the ground.

• 1:52:48Dax Shepard?

  Well, we at least know you can have an enormously huge podcast over there.

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  That's true, and I think you should postalize it. I mean, I think I'll stay, maybe we could start doing Zooms.

• 1:52:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Germany doesn't feel like the place for you.

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  It's not for me, I don't think. Although I do wanna visit there, I've never been there. I'm sure, I'm sure I would enjoy it.

• 1:53:06Dax Shepard?

  It answers the question, what if everything ran perfectly?

• 1:53:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:53:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, everything, everything runs exactly on time, everything's spotless, clean.

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:13Dax Shepard?

  They've got a real ethos there.

• 1:53:15Speaker 01

  And I appreciate both of those things, yeah.

• 1:53:17Dax Shepard?

  But then you do start feeling like, where's the, the Parisian vibe?

• 1:53:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:53:21Dax Shepard?

  Where's the sexiness?

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  And they're, okay, this is the show Gemisch die Hack. Oh, it's like a game.

• 1:53:30Dax Shepard?

  Well, they're playing, they're definitely playing a game. They're also, one of them's younger, so they've been hitting it hard. Either he started really young, or they've just had an explosive ride.

• 1:53:39Speaker 03

  Got three hundred and forty one episodes?

• 1:53:42Speaker 01

  Not that many.

• 1:53:43Dax Shepard?

  No, so they're, yeah, they're getting a lot of downloads.

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 1:53:46Dax Shepard?

  Everyone, every single German listens to it.

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  You think maybe they'll have a, that guy's hot.

• 1:53:49Dax Shepard?

  He looks like Diplo, right? The guy on the left or right?

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  On the right.

• 1:53:54Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah. They both have a thing.

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're both attractive.

• 1:53:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the guy on the left looks like Diplo now, that was his name?

• 1:54:01Speaker 01

  Um, that Diplo is his name?

• 1:54:03Dax Shepard?

  And being fit is his game, right?

• 1:54:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, he looks like him.

• 1:54:07Dax Shepard?

  I said, yeah.

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. I just looked up Diplo. It does look.

• 1:54:11Dax Shepard?

  It might be Diplo.

• 1:54:12Speaker 01

  What if it's Diplo?

• 1:54:13Dax Shepard?

  That would explain why he's got such a huge. No, he looks older here. That's, that's comforting.

• 1:54:16Speaker 01

  That's Diplo.

• 1:54:17Speaker 03

  That's Diplo.

• 1:54:18Dax Shepard?

  Oh shit. I those dude, that's, they're identical.

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  Wait, is, maybe it is Diplo's podcast. Hold on. Gemisch? Oh no. It's like, it literally comes up in German. No, Felix Lobrecht and Tommy Schmidt.

• 1:54:34Dax Shepard?

  Congratulations, boys.

• 1:54:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:37Dax Shepard?

  Wow, man.

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  Hey, have us on.

• 1:54:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Let's get us big in Germany. I can hit him with my six sentences of German and then we're out.

• 1:54:45Speaker 01

  Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Oh, it's a comedy audio show. So.

• 1:54:49Dax Shepard?

  Lots of, lots of scheisha.

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:54:53Dax Shepard?

  So I went to, I'm fresh off of Nashville.

• 1:54:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:54:56Dax Shepard?

  We started the Hulk Hogan documentary.

• 1:54:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:59Dax Shepard?

  Which was incredible. So incredible that we had a reservation for Brick Tops at 7:30 and we.

• 1:55:05Speaker 01

  Your favorite restaurant.

• 1:55:05Dax Shepard?

  Favorite restaurant. We considered not going.

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:55:09Dax Shepard?

  Went to Brick Tops. It was delicious. They've taken the ribs off the menu.

• 1:55:12Speaker 01

  Uh oh. That's, you have notes?

• 1:55:14Dax Shepard?

  I love those ribs. And then Saturday, more boating. We went and watched them unload the coal for the electric plant. Watch them unload the barges.

• 1:55:27Speaker 01

  God.

• 1:55:28Dax Shepard?

  We got so distracted by that. We almost missed our big horseback riding adventure. We're out there just watching this thing.

• 1:55:35Speaker 01

  Different versions of.

• 1:55:37Dax Shepard?

  I know. We were, we were riveted, Monica. The way this pulley system moves the barge and then each scoop. It picks it up. Like, I don't know how it picks up that cleanly. Yeah. And we just watched them. Anyways, then we had to haul ass back because we had horseback riding.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:55:53Dax Shepard?

  We had to drive 35 minutes out there for that. That was a surprise for them. I had asked Aaron earlier in the day, how much he weighed because they sent an email saying you, you can't be over 240. I was like, oh shit. I don't know what Aaron's weight's at right now.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:06Dax Shepard?

  And then like, then I wanted to tell them if they asked you, just say 239, but they did weigh us.

• 1:56:10Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Yeah. That's not something to fuck around with.

• 1:56:13Dax Shepard?

  He was fine. He was like 230. Everything was cool.

• 1:56:15Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:56:16Dax Shepard?

  But when we pulled up, he goes, oh my God, horseback riding. Thought maybe we were taking a helicopter ride because you asked how much I weighed. I was like, well, that'd have been cooler.

• 1:56:24Speaker 01

  He wished. He wished.

• 1:56:26Dax Shepard?

  So we went and you know, I thought it was going to be really fun because I like being scared and I'm scared on horses.

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, yep.

• 1:56:33Dax Shepard?

  They scare me.

• 1:56:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:35Dax Shepard?

  Some bad experiences.

• 1:56:36Speaker 01

  They're majestic animals, but they are, they have minds of their own. They're in charge.

• 1:56:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:41Speaker 01

  Actually, this is good for you. You're like relinquishing this other thing is more powerful than me.

• 1:56:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's like immersion therapy of some kind. But of course, we start doing this trail ride through the state park and it's beautiful. But little hints are coming out right away. It's like, how old are everyone's horses? Oh, turns out mine's 25, right? And they're like, oh, it's about as old as they get.

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:57:05Dax Shepard?

  They said, he probably should have been retired. Like now they, now they start saying like, maybe they, he's past his prime and he should have already been retired. And I'm like, if they lived at 25 and mine's 25, that's like, that's the equivalent of being 100.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  Okay, he's, he's a grampy.

• 1:57:19Dax Shepard?

  Yes, he doesn't want to be out there.

• 1:57:21Speaker 01

  Uh oh, okay.

• 1:57:22Dax Shepard?

  So he likes to follow the leader's horse right with his face on the horse's asshole.

• 1:57:28Speaker 01

  Do you think he had a little bit of dementia, just a touch of it?

• 1:57:31Dax Shepard?

  He had something going on.

• 1:57:32Speaker 01

  Horse dementia.

• 1:57:33Dax Shepard?

  He wanted to be nose to butt, but if Aaron's horse got even close to mine, he would jump and kick. And so mine was intermittently kicking and stopping and freaking out and doing more kicking. And then Aaron's was like trying to avoid getting hit by the kicks and almost hit Aaron in the face. And so I just had this complete uneasiness for an hour and a half.

• 1:57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:54Dax Shepard?

  Like, when's my horse gonna really do something wild?

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:57Dax Shepard?

  And then.

• 1:57:58Speaker 01

  Were you able to laugh or were you like, I want this to be done now?

• 1:58:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:58:02Speaker 01

  Both, maybe?

• 1:58:03Dax Shepard?

  Both, yeah. And then another, like there, it was a little muddy and slippery, so the horses were slipping a bit. And then, and then one of the, the gals said, oh yeah, these horses have been clumsy all day. So it was like, this is too old, should have been retired. They've been clumsy all day. I just kept thinking like, we keep, kept getting more and more hints that it was gonna go terribly awry. And then we never rode fast where I could have maybe gotten the giggles where I'd be really scared.

• 1:58:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:58:30Dax Shepard?

  So it was just this like, my least favorite part of it. I'm just having anxiety that my horse is gonna buck me off or something.

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  Now, did you cycle? I'm more interested in the psychology, obviously.

• 1:58:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:40Speaker 01

  So were you like, why did I do this? And like, it was for, to be funny and like, at what point am I not gonna do this anymore for bits? Or like, what was happening in your mind when you're just uncomfortable?

• 1:58:54Dax Shepard?

  Existential stuff.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  Oh, you weren't, okay.

• 1:58:56Dax Shepard?

  Anywho, it was fine. We started forgetting we were on a horse trip and just started. You have, you have like a guide in front and a guide in back, then the three of us.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:07Dax Shepard?

  And first we're doing horse talk and horse questions and state park. And then we're just like, no one is gonna talk how we are. And then we're just doing our dumb stuff.

• 1:59:15Speaker 01

  Okay, fine.

• 1:59:16Dax Shepard?

  It was great. It was great. And then we came back and my neighbor Nate had made this incredible smoked feast for us. Pork butt smoked and two racks of ribs that were impossible.

• 1:59:30Speaker 01

  Which is good because you didn't have ribs the night before.

• 1:59:32Dax Shepard?

  That's right. Kind of a blessing, really.

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:34Dax Shepard?

  So then Nate came over and then the four of us had dinner and we stayed up and then we watched some more. Oh, I left one thing out. We had gone for a walk on Saturday through the neighborhood. Tyrell was in the mood for some exercise. So we took this long walk and there was the cutest little boy. He had to have been between 10 and 12. And he had a little mini bike, an old fashioned mini bike with a lawnmower engine and two wheels.

• 1:59:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:57Dax Shepard?

  And he was ripping back and forth and we were like cheering for him. Oh, you know, the first thing we saw him do is he pulled his, before he even knew we were watching him, he pulled his motorcycle over, got off and moved something out of the road. And we're like, what was that? And then when we got to the road, we saw he had, he saw a turtle in the road and he pulled over and moved it out so it'd be safe. So we knew he was a really good boy. So we were like waving to him every time. Every time he'd drive by, he'd quickly wave and put his hand back on the gas pedal, on the throttle. So on Sunday, we got all of my motorcycles out and we were ripping around the yard and Tyrell hadn't been on a motorcycle in 25 years. So that was hilarious. And, and then I was like, all right, let's go out in the neighborhood.

• 2:00:35Speaker 01

  Horse.

• 2:00:36Dax Shepard?

  He was on a motorized horse. And we went over to the little boy's house. We went out into the neighborhood. He already had his mini bike out. He heard us in the yard. And his dad said, he heard you and got his out. And I said, oh, good. Well, we invite, we've come over to invite him on a ride. So we went on a ride with this little boy. It was so fun. We just did a bunch of laps of the neighborhood.

• 2:00:55Speaker 01

  That is so cute.

• 2:00:57Dax Shepard?

  It was really, really sweet.

• 2:00:58Speaker 01

  God, he probably like.

• 2:01:00Dax Shepard?

  I have a cutest video I showed you. It's him pulling up and waving. Oh.

• 2:01:04Speaker 01

  He probably, you just like made his whole, you know, probably like day. Cause you know, kids, they forget.

• 2:01:10Dax Shepard?

  They reset quickly.

• 2:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, but wow, it's really sweet. Really, really sweet.

• 2:01:15Dax Shepard?

  For 36 hours.

• 2:01:17Speaker 01

  I can't believe he moved a little turtle out.

• 2:01:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he was a nice boy. He had a good heart, but he liked ripping around.

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  Boys like.

• 2:01:24Dax Shepard?

  That's what Aaron said. If we were in Melford, we would saw that kid try to catch air on it.

• 2:01:27Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:01:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I wonder if I could jump this turtle.

• 2:01:29Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:01:33Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 2:01:40Speaker 04

  With a Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One, you earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase and you get big purchasing power so your business can spend more and earn more.

• 2:01:59Dax Shepard?

  And then Sunday massages for all three boys.

• 2:02:03Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 2:02:03Dax Shepard?

  Tyrell had never had a massage in his whole life. I can't believe that.

• 2:02:07Speaker 01

  So that's.

• 2:02:08Dax Shepard?

  Fifty-one years.

• 2:02:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Did he enjoy it?

• 2:02:12Dax Shepard?

  He loved it.

• 2:02:13Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 2:02:13Dax Shepard?

  Of course.

• 2:02:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're the best.

• 2:02:15Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 2:02:16Speaker 01

  But I know, I'm like, I bet my dad, well, not I bet, I know, like my dad's definitely never had a massage.

• 2:02:21Dax Shepard?

  He's never had one.

• 2:02:22Speaker 01

  My mom either.

• 2:02:23Dax Shepard?

  Really?

• 2:02:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh, they're so nice.

• 2:02:26Speaker 01

  But they won't want it.

• 2:02:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Tyrell was saying he never wanted one because he has hair on his back. That was the whole reason. And Weekly was like, you know, almost all men have hair on their back. It's not like it would be uniquely disgusting for the massage therapist.

• 2:02:38Speaker 01

  Yesterday I had things I was supposed to do. I had to work. I had to edit. I had to do.

• 2:02:46Dax Shepard?

  You're a busy woman.

• 2:02:46Speaker 01

  I'm a busy lady.

• 2:02:48Dax Shepard?

  Can't just be hosting the rest of your life.

• 2:02:51Speaker 01

  Well, no, my, my, my brother was gone.

• 2:02:53Dax Shepard?

  Oh, he left.

• 2:02:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were gone. So I had like stuff. I had a whole day planned of getting, being productive and I didn't do any of that.

• 2:03:02Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:03:03Speaker 01

  I started going through some pictures because I needed to print some pictures. I've decided, you know, currently my house doesn't have many pictures, personal pictures. There's art. I'm getting into art. That's it. We'll put a pin slash bookmark in that. And I have a couple pictures in my bedroom and a couple in the guest bedroom, the guest bedrooms, but none in the living room. And I was like, you know what? I need like, if you walk in here, you don't know who. Lives here and you don't know who they love, you know?

• 2:03:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  So I and I had, I knew I had some frames, but I didn't know where they were. They were in the garage. So I had to, you'll be interested in this. I cleaned out my garage.

• 2:03:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God.

• 2:03:49Speaker 01

  It was really hard. I hated it.

• 2:03:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  Um, but I got all my frames and I brought them up and I was like, okay, now I need to print pictures.

• 2:03:56Speaker 01

  So I went through, I was going through so many old pictures and I was bothering everyone. I was like, you know, texting everyone, do you have this picture? Do you have this picture? Do you have any pictures of this?

• 2:04:07Dax Shepard?

  You're calling on others also.

• 2:04:08Speaker 01

  Yes, I was. And so I was doing that. And then also, you know, the photo book I made for Ryan for Secret Turkey last year.

• 2:04:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:16Speaker 01

  Artifact uprising. I'll give them a shout out. Amazing photo books.

• 2:04:23Speaker 01

  Oh, I hope I don't have another cough attack.

• 2:04:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, God, don't leave. You can cough here.

• 2:04:28Speaker 01

  Callie is the one that introduced me to them and she has great taste. So, you know, and you can make these photo books and they're so cool. They're not your average photo books. Uh, sorry, average photo book places, but I made, um, three photo books.

• 2:04:45Dax Shepard?

  Ah.

• 2:04:45Speaker 01

  One was Golden Globes.

• 2:04:49Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:04:50Speaker 01

  Second was SAG Awards, SAG Actor Awards. Third was my apartment. This one was hardest because I was like, I, I think I only want pictures in the apartment. I need to boil it down to 50 pictures.

• 2:05:06Dax Shepard?

  That's the max.

• 2:05:07Speaker 01

  I was trying to balance like pictures of the actual apartment and then some pictures of people. You know, it's a lot to think about.

• 2:05:14Dax Shepard?

  Your different meals you've hosted.

• 2:05:16Speaker 01

  And we did not take enough pictures in that apartment. I was actually kind of pissed.

• 2:05:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:21Speaker 01

  But again, I'm asking people. I was, I, I, not to, not to throw her under the bus, because obviously we love her the most here, but I had to ask Kristen for a picture.

• 2:05:32Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:05:33Speaker 01

  And she's just not, sometimes she's not the best at responding.

• 2:05:37Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 2:05:37Speaker 01

  So I got a little nervous because I really wanted to get these books in, you know, in.

• 2:05:41Dax Shepard?

  You wanted to get it off your plate.

• 2:05:43Speaker 01

  I did.

• 2:05:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  And I, I asked her, I said, do you have the picture of me, you, Dax and Anna from the Vanity Fair party?

• 2:05:52Dax Shepard?

  Ah.

• 2:05:53Speaker 01

  I knew she had it. And then she wasn't responding. And so you know what? I, I checked back in and I felt bad. She's a busy lady. She's shooting a show right now.

• 2:06:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:02Speaker 01

  I did my due diligence. I first texted Anna.

• 2:06:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:06:06Speaker 01

  I said, do you have this picture? She didn't. Um, but she was on South with Kristen, so she went to get Kristen's phone. This was going to solve my problems, you know?

• 2:06:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:16Speaker 01

  But Kristen had already left.

• 2:06:17Dax Shepard?

  For the listener, it sounds like you're crying, but you're not crying.

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  I'm not crying. I have, I'm having a cough attack.

• 2:06:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she's having one of her cough attacks that are springing up more frequently.

• 2:06:25Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:06:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:27Speaker 01

  Really, I don't know, I haven't. And now I guess when I'm talking, they're having, do you think they're psych, now I'm getting nervous, they're like psychosomatic or something.

• 2:06:36Dax Shepard?

  Well, isn't everything at least half?

• 2:06:38Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't, I'm unwilling to accept this as something. Like I, because you know, I canceled my doctor's appointment.

• 2:06:46Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay. This, I didn't.

• 2:06:48Speaker 01

  Oh, so I had a doctor's appointment set because I've been getting sick a lot. I've been getting a lot of bugs.

• 2:06:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:53Speaker 01

  And, you know, this is why single people don't, they die. You know, they, yeah, they don't live and they die because they don't go to the doctor. Luckily, I have Jess who said, I, I want you to go to the doctor.

• 2:07:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:07:07Speaker 01

  This is too many bugs and they're lasting for too long. And I was like, okay, sure, maybe next time, you know? And then, but this last bug was lasting for so long, I did make an appointment. Had it scheduled, but then I got better.

• 2:07:23Dax Shepard?

  It's always the case.

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:25Dax Shepard?

  It's not gonna make the appointment, or you show up at the doctor.

• 2:07:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:28Dax Shepard?

  You start feeling great.

• 2:07:29Speaker 01

  And it was in 8 a.m.

• 2:07:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:07:31Speaker 01

  And I was like, I'm not going, so I canceled.

• 2:07:34Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 2:07:35Speaker 01

  Um, I did break the news to Jess yesterday that I didn't go, and he was mad.

• 2:07:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:07:40Speaker 01

  Um, and now I'm mad, I guess, because I'm, I still have, I, I thought I was better and I have a little bit of a cough attack. But that's okay, I'm gonna edit all out, so no one's gonna even know what we're talking about.

• 2:07:49Dax Shepard?

  No, it'll be like, what are they talking about?

• 2:07:51Speaker 01

  Anyway, so, I got the picture. She, I, I pestered her. I said, sorry to be a pest. But you know, sometimes you have to be a pest in life.

• 2:07:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:07:59Speaker 01

  To get what you want.

• 2:07:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:00Speaker 01

  Sorry to be a pest. I just really wanna get this book in today. And so she sent it to me, and, great, that one's sent in.

• 2:08:09Dax Shepard?

  Perfect.

• 2:08:10Speaker 01

  The Sagord one's sent in. I had to ask, I know, it's really pestering Anna a lot for those, like, do you have any pictures of Kristen while she's on stage?

• 2:08:19Dax Shepard?

  Wow, yeah.

• 2:08:19Speaker 01

  Um.

• 2:08:20Dax Shepard?

  You guys, you know, I gotta finish this book today.

• 2:08:22Speaker 01

  I did. She was like, what's going on?

• 2:08:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it was the rush.

• 2:08:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then the apartment, that was real. I, I reached out to a lot of people, Anthony, Allison, Rachel, um, Jess, Anna. But it was fun for me, cuz I was going back through all my pictures and looking and just like, man, have we changed.

• 2:08:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:43Speaker 01

  Because you know what's really fun about the apartment? I moved in March of 2018. We started this show February of 2018.

• 2:08:51Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:08:52Speaker 01

  So it really bookmarks that time.

• 2:08:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:55Speaker 01

  And it's really sweet to like, see over the course of the past eight years, how much has changed. Just us personally growing, but also just look-wise. And also what we've all been through.

• 2:09:08Dax Shepard?

  Me the most, right?

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  You look so different.

• 2:09:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:11Speaker 01

  But not, you don't look older, you just look different because you've changed your body so much.

• 2:09:18Dax Shepard?

  I know. Do you think people think I had like reconstructive surgery?

• 2:09:21Speaker 01

  Well, you haven't. I can, I can confirm.

• 2:09:23Dax Shepard?

  We haven't done that. But yeah, my, it's changed so much, it really, I feel like if you did a before and after, a random picture from Parenthood and now.

• 2:09:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:34Dax Shepard?

  You could make some case that I've had like, some kind of a face transplant.

• 2:09:37Speaker 01

  Rob, will you put two pictures up, one of Dax during Parenthood and one of him at the Golden Globes? Or this morning, yeah.

• 2:09:44Dax Shepard?

  Did you take any photos of me this morning?

• 2:09:46Speaker 01

  I think, actually, I really did. It was interesting because you know, I'm always like, why are you, you don't need to like, keep working out and whatever. But I've been noticing some other people aging.

• 2:10:00Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh. You mean you shouldn't work out or I shouldn't?

• 2:10:02Speaker 01

  You.

• 2:10:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh, right, right. Okay.

• 2:10:03Speaker 01

  Well, like, just like you're, you're so big, you know? Um, mus- muscular and I get worried that it's, it's causing you to have dysmorphia and you're, you know? But when I was going back in time and looking at these pictures and also simultaneously I'm watching some other people in the sphere age.

• 2:10:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:21Speaker 01

  I was looking at other pictures of people as I'm.

• 2:10:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:24Speaker 01

  As I'm.

• 2:10:25Dax Shepard?

  It's all right there.

• 2:10:26Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. I was like, oh, wow. He does look healthy, like, and that's good. So he probably should still continue on this path. So I have to give it to you.

• 2:10:38Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. Thank you. And I'll meet you halfway, which is, I think the area where it's going to be problematic. And this was in the Hulk doc.

• 2:10:46Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Well, for the listener, we have a very beautiful picture of Dax and Kristen at the Golden Globes. And then Dax on parent. Okay. You do look younger.

• 2:10:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:57Speaker 01

  But you don't look old at all.

• 2:11:00Dax Shepard?

  I just look completely different. I look super masculine on the left and not on the right.

• 2:11:06Speaker 01

  You look very.

• 2:11:06Dax Shepard?

  My beard came in and since then, like, I couldn't grow a full beard back then.

• 2:11:11Speaker 01

  You look very boyish on, on the right.

• 2:11:15Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 2:11:16Speaker 01

  Can you, sorry, Rob, because I know that you're like doing some cool like stuff. I wonder if you can get a picture of Dax and Kristen at the Chips premiere. Yep.

• 2:11:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:11:26Speaker 01

  She's looking so good. Just perfect. She's doing amazing.

• 2:11:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Started hot and ended hot.

• 2:11:34Speaker 01

  From A to Z.

• 2:11:35Dax Shepard?

  And I started at a six and went to a seven.

• 2:11:37Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 2:11:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is just, I was so, I was clean shaven a lot.

• 2:11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. She looks the same. Um, yeah, you look, yeah, you're right. You know, because you don't have facial hair.

• 2:11:52Dax Shepard?

  I look like I could sell you a car in this photo from the Chips premiere.

• 2:11:56Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 2:11:57Dax Shepard?

  Like what do you have a large family, sir? Do you? How many passengers do you carry normal?

• 2:12:03Speaker 01

  You guys watch the fact check. The fact check has visuals now.

• 2:12:06Dax Shepard?

  There's so many visuals.

• 2:12:07Speaker 01

  And like this episode's pretty visual heavy.

• 2:12:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:10Speaker 01

  So I would recommend coming and watching. And also look how fast Rob worked his magic.

• 2:12:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he is good on a computer. It doesn't get better.

• 2:12:19Speaker 01

  Okay, this is actually great because, well, you can't see your eyes. You're wearing sunglasses in the one on the left.

• 2:12:26Speaker 03

  Want me to take them off?

• 2:12:28Dax Shepard?

  Take off his sunglasses and paint in my eyes, but make them look my current eyes, not eyes from Chips.

• 2:12:33Speaker 03

  If I had Photoshop, I could. Um, I got another one.

• 2:12:35Speaker 01

  No, it's okay. I mean, there must be a picture of you without your sunglasses on.

• 2:12:39Speaker 03

  There is. I found one.

• 2:12:40Speaker 01

  You're wearing sunglasses there?

• 2:12:42Dax Shepard?

  Sometimes I do, yeah.

• 2:12:43Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 2:12:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, why not?

• 2:12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. Um.

• 2:12:46Dax Shepard?

  Jack Nicholson always did.

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, they look nice.

• 2:12:50Dax Shepard?

  I don't think he ever took his off outside of a movie. If he's at the Lakers game indoors, he's got an interview. He's got his shades on at all the award shows.

• 2:12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:59Dax Shepard?

  It's kind of cool.

• 2:13:00Speaker 01

  Oh, there we go. Very nice. Okay. This is a picture without his sunglasses on.

• 2:13:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I just look more like my dad now.

• 2:13:09Speaker 01

  Wait, what's happening? Why is Chris?

• 2:13:11Speaker 03

  This is the Golden Globes the year before, maybe?

• 2:13:13Speaker 01

  Years ago. This is from this year. Okay. Yep. So this is from a couple of months ago.

• 2:13:18Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:13:19Speaker 01

  And the one on the right is from Chips. So again, she looks the same, actually wearing complimentary outfits. I really like what's going on here.

• 2:13:28Dax Shepard?

  Of green and.

• 2:13:29Speaker 01

  And black and purple. Pretty.

• 2:13:31Dax Shepard?

  Purple.

• 2:13:31Speaker 01

  Okay, and it's the facial hair, but also, yeah, you look, it does look like your face has changed shape, but it's because of.

• 2:13:42Dax Shepard?

  Neck.

• 2:13:42Speaker 01

  Of, well, yeah, the muscles.

• 2:13:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, it's weird.

• 2:13:47Speaker 01

  Really interesting.

• 2:13:48Dax Shepard?

  Oh, but I was gonna say, watching the Hulk doc, the thing that I think could be in my future that's problematic is both the Hulk Hogan doc and the Ronnie Coleman doc, both these guys still lifting weights.

• 2:14:01Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 2:14:02Dax Shepard?

  And they can't walk.

• 2:14:04Speaker 01

  No, you can't.

• 2:14:05Dax Shepard?

  Or they can barely walk, right? They have a cane. He can't get up off the machines, but he's still lifting a ton of weight. And I'm like, what's going on there where it's like you're still very strong, but you can't walk? And you just keep lifting weights because the idea of getting smaller seems terrible.

• 2:14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you gotta watch out.

• 2:14:22Dax Shepard?

  That's a trap I could definitely fall into.

• 2:14:24Speaker 01

  Well, I'm glad you saw that as a cautionary tale.

• 2:14:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:14:26Speaker 01

  Um, Rob.

• 2:14:27Dax Shepard?

  I can still walk pretty good though.

• 2:14:28Speaker 01

  Just out of curiosity now, I want to, can you, can you show me at the Chips premiere and me at the Golden Globes? Okay, yeah, so on the left is.

• 2:14:39Speaker 03

  We don't own that photo on the left.

• 2:14:40Speaker 01

  What?

• 2:14:41Speaker 03

  We don't own that photo on the left.

• 2:14:42Dax Shepard?

  Does a lambie own it?

• 2:14:44Speaker 03

  The watermark all over it.

• 2:14:45Speaker 01

  We don't, we don't own that picture on the left, but we own the one on the right.

• 2:14:49Speaker 03

  We don't own either, but.

• 2:14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, do you think I look different? Everyone weighs in.

• 2:14:56Dax Shepard?

  Pretty similar. What do you think?

• 2:14:59Speaker 01

  I actually, I look, I mean, I look, yeah, I guess I look younger on the left.

• 2:15:04Dax Shepard?

  You still look like you're going to a nightclub.

• 2:15:07Speaker 01

  I do, I'm wearing a jumpsuit. But I'm more, I'm, I'm smiling with my teeth.

• 2:15:12Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, which is nice.

• 2:15:14Speaker 01

  Um.

• 2:15:15Dax Shepard?

  Your eyes are very dark.

• 2:15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but my eyes are pretty dark on the right.

• 2:15:20Dax Shepard?

  Same thick hair.

• 2:15:21Speaker 01

  I actually don't think I look that different.

• 2:15:23Dax Shepard?

  No, no.

• 2:15:24Speaker 01

  Huh, but I, I just, yeah, I just look younger.

• 2:15:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, younger.

• 2:15:29Speaker 01

  But huh, interesting. I think I, I, I actually think I look better on the right. Okay, no one here wants to comment on that. That's okay. You don't have to, you don't have to, but I do think.

• 2:15:44Dax Shepard?

  You like how you're trending.

• 2:15:47Dax Shepard?

  You look great in both. I don't know that we can really say which is better. Just a little different with some age.

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Have my features changed?

• 2:15:58Dax Shepard?

  No, I mean, if you were smiling with your teeth in the right, I think we would, it would be a better comp.

• 2:16:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:16:04Dax Shepard?

  But you've, you've said goodbye to that, right? We don't smile with teeth anymore?

• 2:16:07Speaker 01

  There are pictures with my teeth. I, I do both, but.

• 2:16:11Dax Shepard?

  But are people advised not to?

• 2:16:13Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 2:16:14Dax Shepard?

  I don't really know the rules.

• 2:16:15Speaker 01

  Not necessarily. It's just like.

• 2:16:17Dax Shepard?

  I never figured them out.

• 2:16:18Speaker 01

  It is supposed, I think you're just like, it's like more model-y, yeah, or chic or whatever. It's stupid. People should smile. Whenever I'm home with my friends at home and we're taking group pictures, they always make fun of me. They always say, Monica, smile with your teeth.

• 2:16:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 2:16:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:16:36Dax Shepard?

  Even in group photos?

• 2:16:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:16:38Dax Shepard?

  So it's not just a red carpet thing?

• 2:16:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, now I'm just like used to doing it. So I, I-

• 2:16:43Dax Shepard?

  That's your natural-

• 2:16:44Speaker 01

  Now it's become a little more common when there's a camera to not smile with my teeth.

• 2:16:49Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 2:16:49Speaker 01

  But these people who've known me my whole life are like, absolutely not. You're smiling with your teeth. Yeah.

• 2:16:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:16:54Speaker 01

  And I like that. They're keeping me-

• 2:16:56Dax Shepard?

  Grounded.

• 2:16:56Speaker 01

  Keeping me grounded. That's right. All right. Should we do a little Fackies?

• 2:16:59Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 2:17:00Speaker 01

  Okay. So this is for Jack. Oh, for the people who haven't guessed or known or watched this episode, this is the one where Dax dances.

• 2:17:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Hot off the presses.

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, which may or may not be in the episode. We don't know.

• 2:17:19Speaker 01

  We still don't know.

• 2:17:19Dax Shepard?

  We don't know. We'll see.

• 2:17:20Speaker 01

  Um, but just reminding everyone, Jack loved it.

• 2:17:26Dax Shepard?

  He's requested that I do it at the end of every episode.

• 2:17:29Speaker 01

  So much so that he texted you-

• 2:17:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:31Speaker 01

  As like really doubling down, please do that at the end of every episode.

• 2:17:34Dax Shepard?

  I don't know if it's all just a big trap to embarrass me or, but I kind of trust him.

• 2:17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17:38Dax Shepard?

  He seems like a very trustworthy guy. He had a beautiful knowledge of himself.

• 2:17:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did.

• 2:17:43Dax Shepard?

  I text him then I thought.

• 2:17:45Speaker 01

  You know, obviously we didn't get into this in the episode, but Jack has a, quite a list of-

• 2:17:53Dax Shepard?

  Ex-lovers?

• 2:17:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:17:55Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 2:17:55Speaker 01

  And, um, I get it.

• 2:17:58Dax Shepard?

  Sure. Yeah.

• 2:17:59Speaker 01

  I get why.

• 2:18:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:18:01Speaker 01

  He definitely makes you feel very seen.

• 2:18:03Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:18:04Speaker 01

  He connects. He makes eye contact. He's asking questions. Um-

• 2:18:10Dax Shepard?

  It's that easy, guys.

• 2:18:12Speaker 01

  It's literally that easy. Literally that easy.

• 2:18:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah.

• 2:18:17Speaker 01

  But apparently it's not easy.

• 2:18:18Dax Shepard?

  It's not easy. It's scary.

• 2:18:20Speaker 01

  It's scary.

• 2:18:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, boys are really scared when they're talking to a girl they like.

• 2:18:23Speaker 01

  I know, but you guys, you can do it. You can do it. You just ask.

• 2:18:27Dax Shepard?

  No more lines to fight. There's no more tribes to fight off.

• 2:18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're okay.

• 2:18:30Dax Shepard?

  The last thing you gotta do, that's uh, risk.

• 2:18:33Speaker 01

  Risk heavy. And you, you just look people in the eye, you ask questions, you do, you do need to be a little vulnerable.

• 2:18:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:43Speaker 01

  But he wasn't too vulnerable either. It wasn't like, we've had more.

• 2:18:48Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 2:18:48Speaker 01

  So, but I, I really, I understood it. He connected.

• 2:18:52Dax Shepard?

  This is a duck, duck goose. I was in my bedroom and I could overhear Tyrell getting a massage.

• 2:18:56Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 2:18:57Dax Shepard?

  And this was an hour into the massage. And as I like walked through my bedroom, I could hear him in there asking her a million questions. He was still talking to her. Summer, she's incredible. And I literally thought like, oh yeah, Tyrell, who's women have always liked.

• 2:19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:13Dax Shepard?

  Um, is very engaged in just asking questions and curious.

• 2:19:17Speaker 01

  Curious.

• 2:19:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. And she's married and all, but I was just like, oh right, that's what, that's how people like each other.

• 2:19:25Speaker 01

  Do you think the phrase curiosity killed the cat is the reason like all of, all of these men are confused?

• 2:19:32Dax Shepard?

  No, I just think for some reason it's counterintuitive, but I think for some reason men don't know what to ask. Like they think it's more complicated than it is.

• 2:19:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or they, I think maybe they feel like they should have the answers so they don't need.

• 2:19:46Dax Shepard?

  It's time to like, you show them.

• 2:19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:49Dax Shepard?

  What kind of a catch they are.

• 2:19:50Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 2:19:51Dax Shepard?

  You don't need to do that, no.

• 2:19:52Speaker 01

  And, oh, for people who are definitely going to ask, I want to cut this off at the pass. Uh, last week, I think it was when I said I engaged with something um, that a lot of people like, but I didn't like, or maybe I even said I was reading something.

• 2:20:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:12Speaker 01

  It is not Lena's book.

• 2:20:14Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:20:15Speaker 01

  It's not Lena's book. So I, I know that's gonna, I think people are gonna assume that.

• 2:20:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:20:20Speaker 01

  I am reading it and that is not what I was talking about.

• 2:20:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 2:20:24Speaker 01

  All right. Topo Chico shortage.

• 2:20:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, let's talk about it.

• 2:20:28Speaker 01

  Let's talk. Okay, shortage is gonna last through the summer of 2026. That's this summer.

• 2:20:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:35Speaker 01

  Why is it happening? Coca-Cola conducted maintenance on the bottling factory and found geology issues in the source wells.

• 2:20:43Dax Shepard?

  Oh boy.

• 2:20:46Speaker 01

  All right.

• 2:20:47Dax Shepard?

  That can't be great if you've bought a company and it's all dependent on one source well, but you didn't figure out if that well's.

• 2:20:55Speaker 01

  Geology issue.

• 2:20:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 2:20:56Speaker 01

  This is like ding ding ding to your peptide.

• 2:21:01Speaker 01

  Your peptide was rancid, your peptide wasn't rancid that we know of, but your.

• 2:21:06Dax Shepard?

  Something in the vial was.

• 2:21:08Speaker 01

  The bottling.

• 2:21:09Dax Shepard?

  No good, yeah.

• 2:21:10Speaker 01

  This is weird. This happened to you twice. Remember when you had that like rancid water, flavored water and you gotta.

• 2:21:17Dax Shepard?

  At the ranch.

• 2:21:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you got a crazy.

• 2:21:23Dax Shepard?

  Honus.

• 2:21:24Speaker 01

  And puking.

• 2:21:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, food poisoning.

• 2:21:27Speaker 01

  Food poisoning, thank you.

• 2:21:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got crazy food poisoning from that.

• 2:21:31Dax Shepard?

  But everyone else was fine.

• 2:21:33Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:21:34Dax Shepard?

  Like other people drank those and then no one else had a problem.

• 2:21:38Speaker 01

  I thought it was in your trailer and it was like.

• 2:21:41Dax Shepard?

  It was just this brand with this flavor. Anytime I had it, it made me sick. That was a one off batch.

• 2:21:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I thought it was.

• 2:21:48Dax Shepard?

  Well, I think the three times I've had it, I've gotten sick.

• 2:21:52Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, okay.

• 2:21:52Dax Shepard?

  I think there's just something specific I'm allergic to.

• 2:21:56Speaker 01

  Also, then then we then it isn't food poisoning. It's you have an allergy.

• 2:21:59Dax Shepard?

  I guess. I didn't hear anyone else complaining about it.

• 2:22:02Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 2:22:03Dax Shepard?

  And there's big gaps in times when I've tried the product.

• 2:22:06Speaker 01

  Really? You sure you tried it again? Why would you do that?

• 2:22:10Dax Shepard?

  For fun. I think it was like, I think it was like, like one of the normal water companies made flavored water for a minute.

• 2:22:17Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 2:22:17Dax Shepard?

  It was those.

• 2:22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:22:19Dax Shepard?

  And one of the flavors, black cherry or something. No, going out for me, yeah.

• 2:22:25Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, because it wasn't just honest. You you were fully.

• 2:22:28Dax Shepard?

  Growing up.

• 2:22:29Speaker 01

  Food poisoned, yeah.

• 2:22:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:32Speaker 01

  Not good. Okay, um, we are young release date, September 20th, 2011. That was a fact.

• 2:22:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:22:40Speaker 01

  What is the rom com movie that mentions the Heinz slogan? It's probably what Dax said, Arthur II on the rocks, the sequel to the 1981 hit, starring Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli. The film references the famous marketing slogan, Heinz 57, number two in the world, and that ain't bad. Other options, Agent Cody Banks two. Destination London, also lightly mentions Heinz, but it isn't a rom com. Other famous ones are When Harry Met Sally, but that's just product placement.

• 2:23:11Dax Shepard?

  Okay, that's standard.

• 2:23:13Speaker 01

  What year has Jack been at Grammys with multiple Album of the Year awards? He's been in this position three times. That's awesome. He was the first person to ever be nominated in all three major categories, album record and song of the year.

• 2:23:29Dax Shepard?

  Whoa.

• 2:23:29Speaker 01

  For two different artists in the same night in 2026. The only other people who've been nominated for multiple albums and album of the year is Serbian Gania. This feels a little bit like the Spotify list.

• 2:23:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:23:43Speaker 01

  Um, Pharrell.

• 2:23:44Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 2:23:45Speaker 01

  And Tom Elmhurst.

• 2:23:48Dax Shepard?

  I don't know Tom Elmhurst.

• 2:23:49Speaker 01

  Me either. Years he had multiple nominations in album of the year category, 2020, he did not win. Um, this one is a technicality because he was not technically nominated, but he did produce the second album on the list. Norma fucking Rockwell, Lana Del Rey, and then Arizona baby Kevin Abstract. 2024, he won with Midnight's, Midnight Taylor Swift, and did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard Lana Del Rey? 2025, he did not win Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift, Short and Sweet Sabrina Carpenter.

• 2:24:23Dax Shepard?

  Oof.

• 2:24:24Speaker 01

  2020. I know, but they didn't win.

• 2:24:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 2:24:27Speaker 01

  Okay, 2026, he did not win Man's Best Friend Sabrina Carpenter, GNX Kendrick Lamar. Man, he has some amazing albums under his belt. This is so cool.

• 2:24:36Dax Shepard?

  No, he's kind of the producer of the last decade.

• 2:24:39Speaker 01

  I know, I know. I know, it's so cool. Okay, the president of Ukraine. This was upsetting, yeah. Vladimir. So it is, so it's not Vladimir, Vladimir, very close, Zelensky, yeah. We knew that, we just.

• 2:24:56Dax Shepard?

  Honest mistake.

• 2:24:57Speaker 01

  Honest mistake.

• 2:24:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, honest mistake.

• 2:25:00Speaker 01

  Ding ding ding. Um, okay, those are facts for Jack.

• 2:25:03Dax Shepard?

  I loved him.

• 2:25:04Speaker 01

  He was really, um, great.

• 2:25:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:07Speaker 01

  Great. Um, I really enjoyed him too.

• 2:25:09Dax Shepard?

  He's a real artist.

• 2:25:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:25:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:13Speaker 01

  He is a, that's exactly right. He's a real artist.

• 2:25:16Dax Shepard?

  Real artist.

• 2:25:17Speaker 01

  And how should I say it? I probably shouldn't say it, but I'm think I'm gonna.

• 2:25:22Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:25:22Speaker 01

  I think being a real artist, truly, madly, deeply TLC.

• 2:25:27Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:25:28Speaker 01

  Is a bit of a burden.

• 2:25:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, of course. Yeah, all of these phenomenal writers wrestle with depression and anxiety. Yeah, I think it goes hand in hand.

• 2:25:39Speaker 01

  It's a lot.

• 2:25:40Dax Shepard?

  With a willingness to sit in a room with uncomfortable emotions and convert them into something.

• 2:25:44Speaker 01

  And like, it's a need that must be met. The need to create.

• 2:25:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:50Speaker 01

  It has to be met and in a way that's different from me or I won't say you.

• 2:25:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you can say me.

• 2:25:58Speaker 01

  Me or you, right? Who who are creative and have.

• 2:26:01Dax Shepard?

  The only place I've ever felt it is just writing where it's like there have been things I have to sit down and write. Uh, but other than that.

• 2:26:07Speaker 01

  I love it. I love writing and have written and I love creating things. But I don't feel like I'll die if I don't.

• 2:26:19Dax Shepard?

  Right, yeah.

• 2:26:20Speaker 01

  And.

• 2:26:21Dax Shepard?

  I have too much fun with other people.

• 2:26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can do other. I know I can do other things in this life.

• 2:26:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:26:27Speaker 01

  And not cease to exist, you know? But but he is one of those in the category like he just has to. He has to do this.

• 2:26:35Dax Shepard?

  This is a ding ding ding. I happened to read this this morning that Michael Jackson one time called. The guy was producing his album at like three M and said, wake everyone up, get them to the studio right now.

• 2:26:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:48Dax Shepard?

  And when he was there, he explained to the musicians, the reason they had to come tonight is that God sends songs down.

• 2:26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:57Dax Shepard?

  And if he doesn't catch it, Prince will.

• 2:27:00Speaker 01

  See?

• 2:27:00Dax Shepard?

  It was literally like either he's gonna catch this song right now or Prince is gonna. So he has to wake up and do it now. Before Prince catches it. Yeah.

• 2:27:10Speaker 01

  It's really.

• 2:27:10Dax Shepard?

  And I think he believed that.

• 2:27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And now I know, who's to say it's not true?

• 2:27:15Dax Shepard?

  No, but every time we talk to one of these super prolific talented songwriters, they're all describing it the same way.

• 2:27:20Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:27:21Dax Shepard?

  So, yeah, who am I to say it's the other way?

• 2:27:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, wow.

• 2:27:25Dax Shepard?

  And I'm grateful to these people who I do think in general suffer a little more and then give us these incredible things.

• 2:27:31Speaker 01

  Me too, me too. I have a lot of compassion for these artists because their, their brains are working in a much different way. And that has bad, there are bad things to that.

• 2:27:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:43Speaker 01

  But then we get to like benefit from their genius.

• 2:27:46Dax Shepard?

  Consume it and dance.

• 2:27:47Speaker 01

  And we also have so many opinions about all of them, right?

• 2:27:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. And how they should behave.

• 2:27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:52Speaker 01

  Which is maybe not fair. All right, well, that is it.

• 2:27:56Dax Shepard?

  All right, love you.

• 2:27:57Speaker 01

  Love you.