I CRY IN SITUATIONS Ft. Jensen McRae | Episode 158

Fellow Virgo twin Jensen McRae is here this week!! Drew and Jensen unpack the drama behind Jensen’s cutthroat college improv tryouts, how a Phoebe Bridgers parody song made her viral, Grammy Camp, fear of insects, their favorite comfort movies, being Ed Sheeran heads, and so much more. Listen to Jensen’s new song “Praying For Your Downfall” out now everywhere! Jensen IG: https://www.instagram.com/jensenmcrae/ Jensen Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jensenmcrae?lang=en Follow The Comment Section on IG! https://www.instagram.com/thecommentsection/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Love the crown molding.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 0:25Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 0:30Speaker 03

  Network freedom and flexibility, that's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to build Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:02Speaker 04

  Well, what I thought was, I'm quitting music. That was really my thought was, $3? $3 sweaty bills for my troubles? No, thanks.

• 1:08Drew Afualo?

  You want to put them in my G-string while you're at it? Get away from me.

• 1:18Drew Afualo?

  Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Comment Section Show. Sorry, me, your fave, everybody knows me, who cares about me. Onto the guest today, we have the iconic, the legendary, the unbelievably talented Jensen McRae.

• 1:32Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me, Drew.

• 1:33Drew Afualo?

  Oh, my gosh, it's an honor. Honor and a privilege, I'm so happy to have you.

• 1:36Speaker 04

  I'm like, I'm beyond excited to be here. Like, this is a little bit of a bucket list kind of a moment.

• 1:39Drew Afualo?

  Shut up.

• 1:41Speaker 04

  I'm such a fan.

• 1:42Drew Afualo?

  Did you guys get that? Make sure you got it on camera.

• 1:44Speaker 04

  And the check will clear.

• 1:45Drew Afualo?

  Yes, and it will clear, and thank you for the plug, I appreciate it. I'm so excited to have you, I've been a fan of you for a while. We've been moots for a minute.

• 1:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, you've been oomph for a little bit, yeah.

• 1:55Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, we've been each other's oomphs for a while. And I discovered your music on TikTok, which I'm sure other people have too. But I know there's a lot more to your lore. So I would love, I actually have some fun facts about you, but we'll get into those in a little bit.

• 2:09Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh, is this Nardwar? Did you get all the deep cuts?

• 2:11Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I'm coming for his gig. I'm coming for his neck, Nardwar. I love him.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  He knows everything.

• 2:17Drew Afualo?

  I know, it's honestly kind of frightening.

• 2:19Speaker 04

  I know, that's all I know I've made it is if I get the Nardower moment when he's telling me what I wore to my improv show in 2013.

• 2:24Drew Afualo?

  Right, right. I know, that's why I said I got a little chilled on my smile. Looking into me. But I'd love to hear more about your lore, how you got into music and kind of how you transitioned into the career you have today.

• 2:36Speaker 04

  Um, I have like always been a musician. I've wanted to be a musician since I was really little and my parents stuck me in musical theater when I was a kid, recovering theater kid, I apologize.

• 2:45Speaker 04

  And it was really just like to get me out of my shell because I was really shy, which is like shocking now.

• 2:50Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, that is shocking to hear.

• 2:51Speaker 04

  I, it's like my bit now whenever I like start singing to myself in public and people like, oh my god, you sing? I'm like, no, I'm shy, I'm a wallflower.

• 2:56Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I'm trying to be mysterious.

• 2:58Speaker 04

  I, when I was, that's like an important part of my lore is being nine years old and like walking in the grocery store and like being like someone could be about to discover me and I just start singing.

• 3:06Drew Afualo?

  You're so mean.

• 3:07Speaker 04

  And it's always Miley Cyrus, G N O.

• 3:09Drew Afualo?

  Oh, has to be. What a banger, that's a good one.

• 3:12Speaker 04

  That was me so much, like even walking around my elementary school campus, there's no talent scouts there. There's no talent scouts there.

• 3:19Drew Afualo?

  They're not coming for you there, girl.

• 3:20Speaker 04

  And I thought maybe I should just, just to be safe, I need to be singing all the time. So that was a big thing. I started piano lessons also when I was really young and I think like every kid is stuck in them, but for me it really stuck and started writing songs through that. And I started writing songs for school all the time, like whenever we had like a creative assignment and I had the option to write a song, I just would. And I would basically hold my classmates hostage and like bring a full 88 key keyboard like into the room.

• 3:46Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, shy wear. I'm not getting shy.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  It was, and that was when it changed. It was the musical theater, I did Grease one time and I said spotlight on.

• 3:55Drew Afualo?

  My calling.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  I was like, I found myself, I was doing the camp rock, the Disney knees.

• 3:59Drew Afualo?

  Gotta be.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  What's her name? Margaret Dupree? When she sang, this is a real, whatever.

• 4:04Drew Afualo?

  The, the, the star of like their talent show, Margaret Dupree.

• 4:08Speaker 04

  The winner, the true winner.

• 4:09Drew Afualo?

  The winner.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  Light skin queen.

• 4:10Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  My girl.

• 4:12Drew Afualo?

  Wigged down, mind you.

• 4:14Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 4:16Drew Afualo?

  And, and we'll get to that.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  Right.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  But that was my, that was my thing, was just like bringing in the keyboard and singing about like Animal Farm or whatever.

• 4:25Drew Afualo?

  Oh, nice. Oh, kinda deep.

• 4:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was in, when I was in seventh grade, I remember so clearly that it was also like, so we read Animal Farm, we had to do like a creative assignment, I chose to write a song. It coincided with when I had to do the swim unit in PE, so my, my wig, not laid. My hair, not a good situation.

• 4:41Drew Afualo?

  Right, right.

• 4:42Speaker 04

  And I was still like, I'm getting up in front of all of these people.

• 4:44Drew Afualo?

  Have to.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna sing this song about a pig doing propaganda.

• 4:47Drew Afualo?

  And how'd it go?

• 4:49Speaker 04

  And it did not go over well. I mean, the song's great, turned my peers against me, inevitably. They didn't like it.

• 4:55Drew Afualo?

  No?

• 4:55Speaker 04

  I had like a couple of shooters, who are still my friends now.

• 5:00Drew Afualo?

  Haters?

• 5:01Speaker 04

  Well, I had, well, I had a couple of people who were like really down for the cause, and then everyone else was like, when is she gonna stop? When is she gonna stop bringing in that keyboard?

• 5:08Drew Afualo?

  They said, "We got it."

• 5:09Speaker 04

  They, let me just say it, that a, that an 88 key keyboard, Casio keyboard hated to see me coming. Bringing that into it.

• 5:15Drew Afualo?

  Especially strapped to your back as a cartoon character, damn. Kid next door.

• 5:19Speaker 04

  I had the cymbals, I was the monkey with the cymbals.

• 5:22Drew Afualo?

  I was like, "Yeah, you just carry that thing around like a gun." You're like, "Oh, I'm so glad you asked, I actually do have something prepared."

• 5:28Speaker 04

  Why is she strapped? Why is she 12 years old strapped with the keyboard? And so I was doing that forever, and then I did like talent shows where I would sing original songs, not about books, we were reading for English class.

• 5:37Drew Afualo?

  Love.

• 5:37Speaker 04

  And then I went to Grammy Camp when I was 16, which is like, at the time, it was like a 10 day residential, like overnight camp.

• 5:45Drew Afualo?

  Right, that's a fun fact we have about you on here, Grammy Camp. Okay, Grammy Camp, it says, "For young music artists," and she was in an improv group called The Scene Monkeys.

• 5:54Speaker 04

  Oh, that's a brutal one. That's actually so mean, can we cut that?

• 5:57Drew Afualo?

  That's actually so mean. And Nardward.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  No, The Scene Monkeys, wow, that takes me back. Yeah, I was, I did-

• 6:04Drew Afualo?

  Was that part of Grammy Camp?

• 6:05Speaker 04

  No, no, no, that was my improv team in high school.

• 6:07Drew Afualo?

  Love.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  And I only did it, cause I was, I, so I did musical theater as a child, I stopped doing it when I was like 13, mostly for racial reasons, I just like wasn't getting parts.

• 6:16Drew Afualo?

  Naturally.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  And I started to notice a theme as to who was, and I was like, let me take the hint, and just stop.

• 6:20Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  And so, but I was friends with all the theater kids, cause they were all like, the kids who were singing in the middle of the quad. And they were all like, you have to try out for improv, so I did, and then I was the only one who made the team, which of course was also a riff. That was another, it was World War Scene Monkeys.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  And so I did, I did improv in high school and then when I got to college, I tried to do it more, but I ended up getting cut from the college improv team.

• 6:44Drew Afualo?

  Damn, cold world.

• 6:45Speaker 04

  It was fine though.

• 6:46Drew Afualo?

  Why are you in so many cutthroat situations? I was like, damn, you compete in all your life.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  I literally, all of my life I've had to fight.

• 6:54Drew Afualo?

  All my life I've had to fight.

• 6:55Speaker 04

  I'm literally just emanating my own. But going into improv trials.

• 7:00Drew Afualo?

  And college, mind you.

• 7:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, my college improv trials. But that was how, I made a lot of friends through that, um, but the, the college improv thing, I went to USC. For music school, Fight On.

• 7:10Drew Afualo?

  Smarty pants.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  I try, I try. And the, the way that the improv tryouts worked for that, the team was called Comedus Interruptus. And they like, they spawned like a bunch of like SNL cast members and amazing like comedy writers and stuff.

• 7:21Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 7:21Speaker 04

  And the tryouts were like this big mass audition, everyone goes up and just like does improv.

• 7:25Drew Afualo?

  For the improv group?

• 7:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then it was very, very desirable. And then if you made it past the, there was like a first round of auditions and then there were callbacks where they picked like six people to be like on the team, like on probation kind of.

• 7:37Drew Afualo?

  Okay.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  And twice a week, you would go into like a gym at school and like do improv for, you would be tap dancing for your life.

• 7:45Drew Afualo?

  Why are they running it like an NFL team? They're like, this is the practice squad right here.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  That we were literally.

• 7:49Drew Afualo?

  We're gonna workshop you. We'll see if you get out of preseason, you know? Why are they running it that way?

• 7:54Speaker 04

  I think they were trying to see honestly, if your first audition was a fluke. And in my case, it was. My first audition, I killed it. And then the whole workshop, I was kind of bad.

• 8:02Drew Afualo?

  What'd you do for your audition? Do you remember?

• 8:03Speaker 04

  I do. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I remember that I was doing like a voice, like a southern kind of voice. And I was talking about gators. And I remember that that got big, when I brought up the gators, that got big laughs. Uh, and then I, the whole rest of the time I was in the workshop, I just couldn't replicate that magic. And I did get cut, but it was fine. Cause it was like, it was twice a week from like 10 PM to midnight, after I would have all my rehearsals for my music school.

• 8:27Drew Afualo?

  Well damn, why are you preparing for the Coast Guard? Like, why are you practicing so goddamn late? What is going on in the improv scene? I feel so uneducated. I feel ignorant as fuck. I did not know it was that serious.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  I don't think it was that serious in most cases.

• 8:41Drew Afualo?

  Like, maybe that was a me thing.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  I think it was a little, I think it was a little bit extra. I honestly.

• 8:45Drew Afualo?

  A little, yeah.

• 8:45Speaker 04

  I don't think that they were do, and also there were other improv troops on campus that weren't doing it like that.

• 8:49Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  They had work-life balance.

• 8:51Drew Afualo?

  But they weren't like, the one, the group.

• 8:54Speaker 04

  Well, there was, so there was that, comedus was the short form. I can't believe how much I'm talking about improv.

• 8:58Drew Afualo?

  I love it. And when you see Caleb tomorrow, bring it up. Because he's an improv nerd, too. He loves improv. It's like they're like the Treble Tones.

• 9:07Speaker 04

  Oh, my god, true.

• 9:08Drew Afualo?

  Right. Like, there's other a cappella groups, but there's only one, Treble Tones.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  This is kind of the truth. So, Camus was the short form, and then there was a long form team. They were called Second Nature. So, they did like the long scenes. They did like a Herald, I think it's called. And so, it'd be like a really, really long scene that kind of started off kind of straight. They played it kind of straight. And then the comedy would come from just kind of sticking around and waiting it out. And that was when my best friend was on. So, I would go watch him. After I got cut from my team, I would just go watch him and lick my wounds.

• 9:31Drew Afualo?

  After I didn't make it to Hollywood like an American Idol?

• 9:34Speaker 04

  I did not get a golden ticket.

• 9:35Drew Afualo?

  They're like, you're going to Hollywood. Make it to the lives in The Voice. That's crazy.

• 9:41Speaker 04

  But I do think that is important to, I do think that's important to my lore, that I did improv derogatory.

• 9:47Drew Afualo?

  Well, obviously, I mean, you're a performer at heart. That's really what you are, an artist.

• 9:50Speaker 04

  I live to, I live to perform. Don't make me sing.

• 9:53Drew Afualo?

  Don't make me dance. That's one of me and my family's favorite SNL skits.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  It's a good bit.

• 9:58Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, that's one of my favorite, we reference that skit all the time.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  And I feel like you're also a performer. You're an entertainer. And like, I feel like anyone who's like constantly on, like that, you go to a party and your energy is like, you're always like a stone's throw from, don't make me sing.

• 10:10Drew Afualo?

  Right, right. It's like, it's like, don't look at me, but also like, I love to pull focus.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  And I know my angles, and I know where my camera is.

• 10:19Drew Afualo?

  Exactly. And then, and then that being said, I do love being the center of attention, that being said. So, is that when you, when you kind of pivoted away from improv? Is that when you kind of leaned just solely into music, or?

• 10:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I always knew it was music. Like, there was never, I knew I never had like a future in comedy. Although it is, I think it was, I don't know if it was Caleb that said this, but someone said like that all musicians wish they were comedians and all comedians wish they were musicians.

• 10:40Drew Afualo?

  That's actually so, I feel so red.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  And it rings really true.

• 10:43Drew Afualo?

  That's so true. I wish I was a musician all the time.

• 10:46Speaker 04

  And every time I'm on stage doing like my banter in between songs, it's me kind of like testing the waters a little bit. I'm like, could I do a high five? No.

• 10:53Drew Afualo?

  I did not know that about you. I knew you were funny. I, I obviously, every smart woman I know is hilarious.

• 10:58Speaker 04

  This is true.

• 10:59Drew Afualo?

  And every smart man I know is, you know.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  There's a few men, the, this, I feel like a funny man is kind of like a handsome man. It's like, when they get it right, it's really right.

• 11:08Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 04

  And a lot of the times, it's just not that right.

• 11:10Drew Afualo?

  Right, right. Like, when it hits, it hits good.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:12Drew Afualo?

  Because it's so rare. I was just, I just had Sabrina Breyer on the show and we were talking about men who want to go into comedy, like, and I always say, like, if you just get, if you give them one little laugh, whether it's like through the nose, or like an outright guffaw, they're immediately gonna be like, I should pivot to comedy.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  And also, any man who's ever, like, sang a song. If you're like, oh, your voice. Like, they're like, okay, that's my future now. I'm quitting my day job. And I am Bob Dylan. And I am.

• 11:37Drew Afualo?

  I was gonna say, do you get mansplained a lot about music by men?

• 11:40Speaker 04

  Um.

• 11:41Drew Afualo?

  Or to have you?

• 11:42Speaker 04

  Historically, sure. I mean, there's definitely been, I remember one time I was on a dating app, and I, like, had a picture of me playing guitar, and a guy messaged me and he's like, do you actually know how to play guitar? And I was like, yeah. Like, I, I would, like, why would I? Like, what, like, unlike men, women are not posting with guitars to pull on dating apps. It doesn't work, first of all.

• 12:03Drew Afualo?

  That's not really how that works. That, that reminds me, I got a comment that was like, when women make men laugh, or make anyone laugh, they, they think to themselves, oh, I love making people laugh. When men make people laugh, they're like, I should, I deserve to be famous for this.

• 12:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:16Drew Afualo?

  That's how I feel, they think about music. Like,

• 12:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:19Drew Afualo?

  Women do it for the love of the game. And they're like, I just love it. I just feel good. It makes me feel good. And then men do it, get one viral video and they're like, well, obviously, I'm famous.

• 12:28Speaker 04

  It's really wild. I've saw, I saw a guy, and I won't name names, but a guy who wasn't even a musician, but a guy who just works in the music industry, who posted a video about, like, giving advice, unsolicited, and it went, I don't even know if I want to say viral. It got some attention. And then, now, then proceeded to make a string of videos talking about, it's really easy to go viral. I do it. Why can't you do it? And I'm like, really, I need you to really look in the mirror.

• 12:50Drew Afualo?

  No, for real.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  I need you to do a moment of self reflection.

• 12:52Drew Afualo?

  That's how I feel when men tell me I'm not funny. I'm like, well, if we were to check tape, one of us is clearly funny.

• 12:57Speaker 04

  One of us is getting paid for it.

• 12:59Drew Afualo?

  One of us has quite a few, like, licks under my belt. I don't know if we want to check tape, we can, if you'd like to, but...

• 13:05Speaker 04

  And in your words, one of us is working at Autozone.

• 13:07Drew Afualo?

  Right, right, exactly. Right, right, right, right, right. I was like, no, for sure, I take that, that kind of commentary very seriously. Not. Like, I'm like, nah, I'm not listening to an unfunny bitch tell me how to be funny. I'll say, I did find you, I think the first video I ever saw of your music was your song about, uh, Boston.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Oh my god.

• 13:26Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, that was the first one I ever saw of you. And then I was like, okay, T, period. And I commented on it, and then I went and saw you follow me, and I was like, and, period, follow back. Immediately. I said, douche, right, apology to Jenson McCraig.

• 13:38Speaker 04

  Thor hammer.

• 13:39Drew Afualo?

  Yeah. I'd love to know when you felt like it was actually turning into like, oh my god, I could like, really make money off music and keep doing this for a living.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  Kind of the first thing that happened that was like a big, like, break for me, I guess, was at the beginning of my senior year of college, um, that my manager, who's here, my managers are here. Um, but one of my managers just like found me on Instagram and just like booked me for a show and was like, do you want to play this random show in West Hollywood? And I was like, yeah, sure. And she's like, you'd have to bring like 20, 25 people. And I was like, babe, I can't do that. I don't have a draw. I have, my draw is none. She's like, can you bring three people? And I was like, I bet I can scrounge three.

• 14:10Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I could definitely ruffle up some three.

• 14:12Speaker 04

  Well, because I was like, I can bring my mom, I can bring my little brother, and I can bring one friend from school. That's easy.

• 14:17Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 14:17Speaker 04

  And so my mom came, my little brother had homework. He was in high school, couldn't go. And then none of my friends from school came. So I brought just my mom. And...

• 14:24Drew Afualo?

  You're saying you asked for three, brought you one.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  I brought one. And I played this, played my heart out, mind you. Played my heart out. And then as it was over, as I'm walking out the door, the guy at the door stops me and he's like, wait, I have to give you your money. And I was like, I didn't know I was getting paid for the show. And he's like, you get paid based on how many people you brought. And I was like, oh no. And he gave me three dollars.

• 14:42Drew Afualo?

  Right, and you said, "This woman is worth so much more than that misogyny."

• 14:45Speaker 04

  And I, well, I was just-

• 14:46Drew Afualo?

  This is misogyny, I'm witnessing it live.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  What I, well, what I thought was, "I'm quitting music." That was really my thought was, "Three dollars? Three sweaty dollar bills for my troubles? No, thanks."

• 14:55Drew Afualo?

  You wanna put him in my G-string while you're at it? Get away from me.

• 14:58Speaker 04

  I left that venue, my mom drove me home, and I was like, "I think I'm done trying to be an artist. I can't do it anymore." But of course, my future manager was like, "Can I send some of your music to a friend of mine who's a producer?" And that ended up kind of being the beginning of the end, frankly. They're stuck with me now. Um, but I went, I, I had a meeting with him, and we had some sessions. And the first session that I ever had with him, I wrote a song called "Adam's Ribs." And then the second session, I wrote a song called "Story Gonna Get To You." Both those songs ended up on my first album.

• 15:22Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 15:23Speaker 04

  And the third session that I had, uh, my manager was there, and then my producer's manager was also there. And they were like, "We would like to make an album with you and for you to be a pop star now." And I was like, "I don't have plans after graduation. This sounds perfect."

• 15:34Drew Afualo?

  You're, "Oh my god, great, cuz I'm unemployed. This works out great."

• 15:36Speaker 04

  It was the fall of my senior year of college, and I had just started talking to one of my professors about getting an internship. Cuz I was like, "I don't really have like a job lined up or anything. Like, I feel like I need to figure out kind of what's next."

• 15:46Drew Afualo?

  But you majored in music.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I majored in pop music with an emphasis in songwriting.

• 15:50Drew Afualo?

  Love.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  Um, and so that was like the first cool thing that happened. And then I ended up signing to a label like right after I graduated. But like the first like really big, like, my first viral moment was in January of 2021, I went viral on Twitter for writing a Phoebe Bridgers parody.

• 16:04Drew Afualo?

  Love. That is also a fun fact on here too. It says, "Her song 'Immune' was inspired by a joke she made on Twitter about Phoebe Bridgers writing a song about the COVID vaccine."

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Yes. It was the height of lockdown, and I was, we were like six months out, I guess, from Phoebe's last album. And I was, I just came up with this joke. I was like, "Oh, I bet Phoebe will write a song about getting vaccinated while waiting, well, waiting in line to get vaccinated at Dodger Stadium."

• 16:28Drew Afualo?

  And that is something she would do.

• 16:30Speaker 04

  And it felt right, and I sent it to my friend and didn't tweet it, and I was like, "Haha." And she was like, "You should post that. That's actually funny." So I did, and it started to get-

• 16:36Drew Afualo?

  She said, "Everything else you've said, this one though?"

• 16:39Speaker 04

  She's like, "This hits, actually."

• 16:40Drew Afualo?

  People should see this.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  So I posted it, and then it got like a couple hundred likes, and I thought I was famous.

• 16:45Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 16:46Speaker 04

  And you know how like, back, back when Twitter was, was banging, every single tweet that went well, someone would link under "Check out my SoundCloud."

• 16:52Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  And I was like, "I need to do the Jensen McRae equivalent of that." So I was like, "Let me just write this song." So I wrote it, I posted it, and then it ended up trending, which was like completely baffling. Like Twitter was already kind of on the way out a little bit at that point.

• 17:04Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 17:04Speaker 04

  So to go viral in 2021 for a, for a song-

• 17:08Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  -that I wrote. Was like completely shocking, but that was like, I kind of marked my careers like before and after that. Cause it was all these amazing people that I really admired were reaching out and telling me that they liked it. And um, my following grew a lot and it was like the first time that I ever felt like a lot of eyes on me.

• 17:24Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 17:25Speaker 04

  And it was, every viral experience since has been like much less overwhelming. I don't know if like you got scared the first time you went viral, but for me, I was definitely like, why are you look, there's like, 2 million people are looking at me? Like that SpongeBob thing where it's Patrick and he sees the eyes coming out of the rock.

• 17:38Drew Afualo?

  Who are you people? Yeah, you come back and what the hell?

• 17:42Speaker 04

  I literally was completely baffled, but that was, it was a good like test run for future times going viral, including for Massachusetts. Which like when that happened a couple of years later, it was much less intimidating.

• 17:52Drew Afualo?

  Well, that's good then.

• 17:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:54Drew Afualo?

  Especially dry running it on Twitter, cause Twitter is real, when you go viral there, it could go either way.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  And I was into, I was kind of waiting for the shoe to drop, honestly. Like the whole time I was like, when are the negative comments gonna start rolling in? When are people gonna try to dox me? When's the racism and the misogyny gonna come in? And it just didn't happen miraculously, like I got so lucky. Um, and now like, it wasn't until recently that I actually started getting any kind of negative comments in my videos.

• 18:17Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask you about hate and ask you how, how, how that goes for you on any platform, really.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  I, for the most part, I don't get a lot of hate.

• 18:24Drew Afualo?

  That's good.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  Which I don't really know.

• 18:26Drew Afualo?

  I love to hear that. Every guest I have, I ask, they tell me that. I'm like, that's so great.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  That's so cute.

• 18:30Drew Afualo?

  Hold on to that, hold on to that.

• 18:32Speaker 04

  But I did get my first, I had my first kind of hate moment when I did, um, I did like a paid promotion for a company. And um, I made the video for them, they posted it, it got, you know, whatever, like 10,000 views on TikTok or something, normal, small amount.

• 18:45Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 18:45Speaker 04

  And then they decided to push it and do promo.

• 18:47Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  And when that happened, I like opened the app and I just saw like all these comments on like this one video. And I was like, that's weird that I'm getting comments on this video that I posted like a month ago.

• 18:55Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 18:56Speaker 04

  And I, at first I couldn't even really like parse what they were saying. Cause it was all this like, it was just like all these disgusting sexual comments. Cause I was wearing like a low cut shirt in the video, which is like my favorite shirt that I don't wear anymore. And um, it was all these comments and I, I couldn't even tell what they were saying because I'd never, but then I started to realize like, oh, I've seen these comments on other girls' videos before.

• 19:14Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 19:15Speaker 04

  Oh, I know what that means.

• 19:16Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Speaker 04

  And it was like, it was like probably like a couple of hundred and I had never had that and it was in like the spin of an hour. Yeah.

• 19:21Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  All men, no profile picture.

• 19:23Drew Afualo?

  Men ruin everything.

• 19:25Speaker 04

  They literally ruined everything.

• 19:26Drew Afualo?

  Everything they touch turns to fucking bullshit, like everything.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  Fortunately, the company was so great about it. They're like, you can turn off the comments. We're so sorry. They sent me flowers to apologize. They were great.

• 19:34Drew Afualo?

  Sweet of them.

• 19:34Speaker 04

  But it was just like, that was the first time I ever felt like, really like, a lot of hostility from the internet. I was like, why are you, are you guys okay?

• 19:42Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, like on this ad, I'm talking about, like.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  I was just talking about like music streaming, like and they're like, like the stuff, I mean, I won't even repeat it. It was so gross.

• 19:51Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, it was great. You know what's funny is recently I was talking to my fiance about this, but I was telling him, my hate is like, I fucking hate you fat ugly bitch, which I'm like, I'm cool with. Like, that's fine. You can volley that at me all day, every day. I, I prefer that. Whenever I would get that kind of attention or hate, which is rare, rare that men ever objectify me, rare because they hate me. But like when they do come up and they objectify me, I've like seen a couple of videos of men making videos about me that are supposed to be compliments, but they're not. They're just, they're objectifying me. I literally was telling my fiance the other day, I was like, I'd rather get hate.

• 20:24Drew Afualo?

  I'd rather you dawdle me dog, like I'd rather you tweet me my address. I'd rather you fucking do that shit than, than talk about my tits. I'll kill you.

• 20:32Drew Afualo?

  In fact, give me your address. I'm gonna come and, I'm gonna come and take care of it. Uh, that's like, it, that kind of attention incites something in me that I have tried to bury for a very long time.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  It's just, there's something so weird about like, because you know that it's coming. Like you're like, I'm a woman on the internet. I know it's possible at any moment and I see it happening to other women every day.

• 20:49Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  But there's something about when it's really turned on you, like you ju, I, I feel like I forget sometimes that that's even possible because like.

• 20:55Drew Afualo?

  You me both.

• 20:56Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm moving through life. I'm having a good time. Like, I don't like, I don't even really get catcalled that much anymore. Like, I feel like I, I've been able to, I haven't had to deal with sexual harassment for the most part in my day to day life recently, for whatever reason. Very fortunate. And so then have it kind of come back around. I was like, oh man, I'm gonna have to think about this for a while. I forgot I, I forgot I had a body. I was like, I'm a brain in a jar. I'm a head floating around singing my songs. And then I looked down and I'm like, oh, right. Like men are gonna see this and they're gonna have opinions about it?

• 21:23Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 04

  Foul.

• 21:25Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, a bunch of, a bunch of, talk about unsolicited commentary.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  So, so bad.

• 21:30Drew Afualo?

  Well, that's good. I'm glad, I'm glad, that being said, that it's minimal.

• 21:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's pretty rare.

• 21:35Drew Afualo?

  I'm glad to hear that.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  I have really great fans and like great people like following me and like most of my interactions with people, especially in real life, are so great. Like I've, knock on wood, knock on whatever. I have never had a bad like I R L fan experience. Everyone that's come up to me has been so respectful, so kind. Like, I'm so lucky to have the fans that have. They're like in my YouTube comments doing like five paragraph essays, M L A format. Like, they're all nerds and I love them.

• 21:58Drew Afualo?

  Love it. I love it. That's so sweet. I think that's so wonderful. And I would love to know, obviously on here, which I already knew, another fun fact, that you've opened for Muna and Noah Khan on tour.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  My people.

• 22:09Drew Afualo?

  But I would love to know how that came about and how that was for you, the experience.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  I think the Muna thing, they also went to USC. So they were there like right, one of them, I think Josette was a senior when I was a freshman and then Katie and Naomi graduated the year before they got there.

• 22:22Drew Afualo?

  Hundred years old.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  They're all, they're all forty-nine, forty-nine B C, I think was the year Muna formed. Yes, absolutely. And, and in their, in their old age and their convalescence, they pass a lot of wisdom to me, yes. But I think that was kind of part of it. Cause like I've been, the first time I ever met them was when I was a freshman and I played in Fem Fest, which is like the USC Feminists Music Festival, and they were the headliners. At that point, their big claim to fame, I think, was that they'd been in a BuzzFeed listicle. That was how I found them.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  I was like, wait, they went to my school and they're on BuzzFeed? It's twenty sixteen, they're famous. That's fame.

• 22:53Drew Afualo?

  BuzzFeed was that girl. Yeah.

• 22:56Speaker 04

  I would, but I wanted to be millennial so bad.

• 22:58Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  I wanted to be millennial.

• 22:59Drew Afualo?

  When did you graduate from college?

• 23:00Speaker 04

  Twenty nineteen.

• 23:01Drew Afualo?

  Okay, I graduated twenty seventeen, so.

• 23:02Speaker 04

  I'm like, I'm, and I will claim my Gen Z status because I'm ninety-seven and I'm like right there. I'm with my, with my old claws.

• 23:09Drew Afualo?

  You are. I'm, I'm like, I'm on the cusp of millennial, so I'm still millennial.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  But I wanted to be millennial so bad because of BuzzFeed. Cause they were making it look so cool.

• 23:17Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 23:17Speaker 04

  And they claimed Muna pretty early. And so that was how I found out about them. And then I continued to follow them, continued to be like truly their number one fan. Every time they played L A, I was there.

• 23:25Drew Afualo?

  They're so fantastic.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  And then when they announced at the beginning of twenty twenty-two that they're putting out their third album, I just immediately messaged my agent. I was like, you're making this happen. I'm getting on this tour.

• 23:34Drew Afualo?

  Manifest, manifest, manifest.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  It needs to happen.

• 23:35Drew Afualo?

  I love that.

• 23:36Speaker 04

  And, um, yeah, I was very fortunate to get to be a part of it. And then at like the third or fourth show, I think, we were backstage and Josette came up to me and was like, hey, do you want to sing Phoebe's verse on Silk Fun? And I was like, Oh, I've been preparing my whole life for this, actually.

• 23:47Drew Afualo?

  I'm so glad you asked.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  And they were like, do you know the words? And I was like, do I know the words?

• 23:52Drew Afualo?

  What if you were like, ah, I think I could like scrape up something and figure it out.

• 23:56Speaker 04

  I didn't play it cool at all. I was like, I've been singing this song every minute of my life since it came out.

• 24:01Drew Afualo?

  Boy, can I.

• 24:02Speaker 04

  And the, but the, of course, the first time I sang it, I was standing still, like arms locked, knees locked, like terrified. And then by the last time I sang it with them, because I think I sang it with the band like maybe six or seven times on that tour by the end. And by the last time I was loose, I was having a good time on stage, but the first time I was like absolutely of just a, a wooden doll. I could not move my limbs. Um, but that was.

• 24:23Drew Afualo?

  Dream come true, dream come true.

• 24:24Speaker 04

  It was so special. And then I was just, um, like a month ago, I was at, uh, Brandy Carlisle's music festival in Mexico and they were also playing. And they had me come up again and I, I was like, it was like riding a bike. Getting back up there with my boys. I literally, literally was, I was like, we needed this.

• 24:40Drew Afualo?

  We needed this so bad.

• 24:43Speaker 04

  But yeah, that was great. And then with Noah, he and I similar, like similar, we just like met through TikTok, I think. I actually, I heard him for the first time when I was in college because he had a song with Julia Michaels in like 2019.

• 24:52Drew Afualo?

  Love her.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  And that song slays. And, um, then I found more of his music kind of sporadically after that. And then I think when Styx season, like very first went viral on TikTok, that was when we started following each other.

• 25:03Drew Afualo?

  I love.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  And he, so he announced his tour, I think in like fall of 2023 and I DM'd him, we DM'd a little bit at that point. And I DM'd him and I was like, hey, like just so you know, like I'm so excited about this tour. If you need any openers, like even for just the LA show, like I would love to be a part of it. And even if I can't be a part of it, I'm so sad. Like just let me know. No response. And I was like, word, word, word, word, word.

• 25:21Drew Afualo?

  You said, heard, heard, heard.

• 25:23Speaker 04

  And then like a few months later, he swiped up on my story, like of like I had posted my little brother in the studio or something. And he swiped up and was like, oh, he's killing. And I was like, so you did see my message.

• 25:31Drew Afualo?

  Yeah. Oh, love you. Hey, Noah, hey, while, while I still have you.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  While I have you for a second, Mr. Mr. Khan. Any, but again, I, but I, I'm like, I'm very laid back when it comes to like asking for

• 25:41Drew Afualo?

  You're so me. And you know what's funny is I know you're a Virgo based off this.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  And that's the truth.

• 25:46Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 25:46Speaker 04

  That's the truth.

• 25:47Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  I like, I don't want to push it ever.

• 25:49Drew Afualo?

  Right. If it's meant to be, it'll be.

• 25:50Speaker 04

  Yes. And like, I was like, I was talking to someone, like another person who had like, who's grown a following because of TikTok and stuff. And they, they had some collabs coming out. And I was like, how'd you get that collab? They're like, oh, I just messaged them like immediately.

• 25:59Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Like as soon as they followed me, I messaged them asking to collab. And I was like, I could never in a million years. Like I'd be so embarrassed.

• 26:05Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  So even just sending that message, I was so stressed. And then we didn't respond. I was like, oh, I completely like, I ruined this.

• 26:10Drew Afualo?

  He hates me.

• 26:11Speaker 04

  And then like a week after that, my manager was like, by the way, you're opening for Noah Khan. And I was like, okay, so I didn't, I didn't ruin everything.

• 26:18Drew Afualo?

  Yeah. So he does love me.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  He does in fact still love me. That's still Bastiana. And um, I mean, that was like life changing, so exhilarating. When we were in, the first leg of the tour that I did with him was in Canada and we were playing arenas.

• 26:30Drew Afualo?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:30Speaker 04

  And I never played in an arena before. So that was like the most, walking out during sound check and seeing a room that's going to hold 20,000 people. I was like, this isn't real.

• 26:38Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  This is not real. This is a hallucination.

• 26:40Drew Afualo?

  I know.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  This is don't worry darling, and I'm hallucinating. Like I can't believe this is happening.

• 26:44Drew Afualo?

  And I'm gonna be pissed if someone rips me out of the simulation.

• 26:46Speaker 04

  No one take, no one wake me up. No one pinch me.

• 26:48Drew Afualo?

  Don't wake me up.

• 26:49Speaker 04

  And it was just like, it was so incredible. His entire team is so nice. Like every single member of his crew, like every member of his band and his crew, like unbelievably kind people and like so welcoming and like, he's so down to earth. Like he just seems like, I mean, he is just like a normal, normal ass man. Like he is not, he has no ego, like no agenda, like literally just wants to make great music and is so good at it.

• 27:10Drew Afualo?

  I love that.

• 27:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:11Drew Afualo?

  I was gonna ask about touring. How do you like touring?

• 27:13Speaker 04

  It's a mixed bag.

• 27:14Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  Cause the travel is, I mean, you do a lot of traveling. It's punishing.

• 27:18Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  When you're on planes all the time.

• 27:19Drew Afualo?

  Oh yeah. I, I frequently talk shit on tour and, and, and I'm just going up there and being a dickhead. Like I'm not, I'm not performing like you. I'm not exerting nearly as many muscles. And I'm like, oh.

• 27:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. The like, the hour, hour and a half you're on stage is incredible. And then you're like, and now I'm back to the Hampton Garden Inn.

• 27:35Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, the Hilton.

• 27:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:37Drew Afualo?

  Oh, I know a Hilton hated to see me coming in the tour.

• 27:39Speaker 04

  And you know what? Sometimes there's something, sometimes there are an oasis. Sometimes it's manna in the desert. When you see that, especially when it's like the home two, the apartment style.

• 27:47Drew Afualo?

  Right. Exactly. When you have the kitchenette.

• 27:50Speaker 04

  Me and a home two go together bad. I love a home two.

• 27:55Drew Afualo?

  That's so funny. I literally tell people, I was like, I feel like I'm living on the run.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  Coming on the run from the lot.

• 28:01Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I'm constantly packing and unpacking, I'm packing and unpacking. And I wake up in different cities every morning.

• 28:07Speaker 04

  I've heard too many horror stories of people being on stage, being like, hello Dallas, like you're in Portland. So I'm just like, I will just, I write the tour, I write the place that I'm in on the top of my setlist a lot of the time.

• 28:15Drew Afualo?

  Oh, that's good. So you can reference it.

• 28:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. I have one song, it's not like out like formally, but I did like a visual EP that I put on YouTube a couple of years ago. And the first line of the first song is waiting for you in New Orleans. And so when I'm in a city where like the syllables match up, I'll change it to like be, so like when I was in Toronto, I was like, waiting for you in Toronto. And everyone's like, oh my god, she's in Toronto.

• 28:35Drew Afualo?

  That's where we're at now.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  That's where we are, the Leonardo DiCaprio thing.

• 28:38Drew Afualo?

  That's the title of the movie.

• 28:41Drew Afualo?

  I know when we were going out, because my sister and I were doing a tour together, like when we would go on stage, I'd be like, where are we again?

• 28:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:48Drew Afualo?

  And they'd say, okay, got it.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  Gut check moment. Just like re-centering.

• 28:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's hard, especially because like was on the Noah tour in particular, we were in Canada the whole time and like in the, I know all, most of the US cities. And not, not to flex, I know a lot of them, but Canadian cities, I'm not as locked in on. So I was definitely like, am I in Saskatoon or am I in Calgary? Like I didn't, I did not, also.

• 29:09Drew Afualo?

  And they have a bunch of crazy names.

• 29:10Speaker 04

  It was also so cold everywhere. Like it was just, everything was just covered in snow because we were there in like the end of winter, beginning of spring. And so it's like, I didn't, there were no landmarks. Like I was just like, I really had to just check the notes so that I would not say the wrong place. People, someone asked me like in a live the other day, like what was your favorite city? I'm like, all of, they're all, all the shows are so good.

• 29:26Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  All, it's very rare that there's like a crowd that I'm like, oh, that was a bad crowd.

• 29:31Drew Afualo?

  Right, that's true.

• 29:33Speaker 04

  There's definitely cities where I'm like, the weather was bad that day, or I just wasn't feeling myself that day. But the shows themselves, like for the most part, the crowds are so, especially, I hate to say it, in cities outside of LA. Because I'm an LA girl, LA's my hometown, I love it so much, I will ride for it forever. But I will accept the criticism that playing to LA crowds is tough.

• 29:49Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, tea, that's tea. Also too, when you go, like my, my manager was a tour manager for a really long time. So like, he's taught me a lot about tour and even he's told me when he was like setting up tours, he was like, outside of LA or like New York, they're really grateful. Like if you go to smaller cities, because no one ever goes there.

• 30:08Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:08Drew Afualo?

  So like when I was in Ohio.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  They're turning up.

• 30:11Drew Afualo?

  That bitch was packed.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  They're turning up.

• 30:12Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, all the bitches in Ohio were.

• 30:13Speaker 04

  That's the Met Gala.

• 30:14Drew Afualo?

  Exactly, because they were like, no fucking way you're coming to Ohio. So they're like, I think that's what you're talking about. It's like people in LA, like my manager said, they're spoiled. So they're used to having everybody come and do shows. So when you go to like those smaller ones, sometimes they're like the best crowds.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  It's really, really special to go to a place where like people aren't going a lot or like it's my first time being there. Like I have fans who like may have been listening to me for a while and like this is their first opportunity to see me play. Like that's always really, really awesome. And like, I still do love playing in LA though, because I'm a glutton for punishment. I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna win them over. It's like a man that wants to get back. I'm like, it's okay, that's fine. No, I'll just, I'll just come to you.

• 30:49Drew Afualo?

  It's a toxic relationship.

• 30:50Speaker 04

  It is, and I'm never leaving. I'm never like, that's my wife. LA is my wife. I love her so much.

• 30:55Drew Afualo?

  What would you say was your most memorable moments on the NoahCon tour?

• 30:59Speaker 04

  Honestly, the first show in Vancouver was, it was like a couple of months before I put Massachusetts out. And it was my first time playing it on tour with a band because I'd played it solo, I think maybe once or twice.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  Twice before that somewhere. All that people had was the snippet of the song, but as soon as I started playing it, people put their phone lights up. And it was like, it was also the last song in my set. So like, when I started playing, the venue's pretty full. By the end of my set, everyone knows Noah's about to come out. So the venue's now basically at capacity.

• 32:29Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  And so the entire arena, like 19,000 people, has their phone lights up for a song that I haven't even put out.

• 32:34Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  And that, I definitely started crying.

• 32:36Drew Afualo?

  Me getting butterflies.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  No.

• 32:38Drew Afualo?

  Be listening to you getting fired.

• 32:40Speaker 04

  Imagine, it's an imagine.

• 32:41Drew Afualo?

  Right, for real. Me putting myself in your shoes.

• 32:45Speaker 04

  So I, but that was like, it was definitely like a, it was a pinch me moment. And like, I'd had.

• 32:49Drew Afualo?

  Love that.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  Fans sing lyrics back to me before, like at my shows, like at smaller shows, but seeing that many flashlights up, like, cause I can't see anyone's face. Like, it's all darkness and just like the flares. And it's, it was really, really incredible. And that was like, I might've teared up on stage other times as well, but that was, that was the very first night. And the one I was most scared for. And so like having, being able to end that set, which by the way, kind of a rocky set. I had been sick the week before and so we didn't get to do like our final tour rehearsals.

• 33:14Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 04

  So I went in ice cold, like having not played the set in like a week. And also like, again, in front of 20,000 people for the biggest crowd I've ever played for in my life.

• 33:22Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 33:23Speaker 04

  And also my voice still not at 100%. And I'm just like, it's gonna be fine.

• 33:25Drew Afualo?

  This is you being a Virgo, cause you're over criticizing yourself.

• 33:28Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:29Drew Afualo?

  You're like, by the way, not my strongest set, here's why. Um, I'll go down the list.

• 33:32Speaker 04

  My manager's like, I will literally come off stage and they'll be like, great show. Like, how do you feel? I'm like, well, I was pitchy and like the third measure of this one. And they're like, that's not what we meant. That's not what we meant.

• 33:40Drew Afualo?

  No, I said, great show. I don't think you heard me. I said, great show. But that's why you're gonna keep rising, cause you're a perfectionist. Like, that's.

• 33:47Speaker 04

  Excellence only.

• 33:48Drew Afualo?

  The mark of a Virgo is perfectionism.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  Excellence only.

• 33:50Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I'm like, yeah, it was alright. When I'm like, ah, not my best.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  But you keep, you keep striving, you keep rising.

• 33:57Drew Afualo?

  What would you say it would surprise people about performing live? Like, either a part that's more difficult than it may seem, or maybe?

• 34:07Speaker 00

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Love the crown molding.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet?

• 34:22Speaker 00

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  No FiOS? Yeah... no thank you.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  Network freedom and flexibility, that's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to build Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  Be more interesting. Um, I mean, I don't know if this would be surprising, but like when you start playing in front of larger crowds, like I feel like it's become more of a thing of having like medical stuff in the crowds. And like, that's definitely one of the hardest things to know how to handle, I would say. Is like, especially at the Noah shows, because those were huge audiences. And like, you don't ever want to be like an artist who's like oblivious and doesn't notice the people that are suffering in the crowd. But you also don't want to be a person who's like stopping the show like every five seconds because like someone looks like they might be having a problem. Like you have to be able to like kind of discern, like, do I need to stop? Does someone need attention? Are they handling it? Because sometimes there's like commotion and they're handling it themselves. So like definitely one of the hardest things is like knowing like what you're... And like one time, uh, the only time I've ever had to like stop a song fully, because usually when I would see something like that happen, I would like finish a song and then as soon as I was done, I'd be like, hey, do you guys need help over here?

• 35:53Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 35:54Speaker 04

  But there was one show, I think it was maybe the second show in Denver or in Berkeley or something over the summer, and someone had an issue during Massachusetts, like in the middle of the song. And it was, again, it's my last song on set. So I stopped playing, got attention, got like medical attention over there, whatever. And then I was like, I was on the fence about like what I was supposed to do. And I like turned to, and my band is just my brother and my best friend, that's the whole crew. And I turned to them, I'm like, what am I supposed to do? And then the crowd was like, start over. Everyone started screaming, like, do it, just start over and do it again. And I really was like, I didn't want to, because I was like, is that like so cringe and like self-indulgent to like, I didn't get to finish my song!

• 36:27Drew Afualo?

  Sorry, someone passed out.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 36:29Drew Afualo?

  Anyways, as I was saying.

• 36:30Speaker 04

  And so I really didn't want to do it because I thought that that was like, I thought that was offensive. But then everyone in the crowd was like, start over again, again, again. So I did it one more time and um, and then I, and then I was done.

• 36:38Drew Afualo?

  I hate to keep bringing it back to you being a Virgo, but once again, you're, you're literally mothering from the stage. That's crazy.

• 36:44Speaker 04

  And I'm a Cancer rising too, so it's like.

• 36:46Drew Afualo?

  I'm a Cancer moon.

• 36:47Speaker 04

  Oh my.

• 36:48Drew Afualo?

  What do, what's your moon?

• 36:49Speaker 04

  Uh, Sagittarius.

• 36:50Drew Afualo?

  I'm a Sagittarius rising! Jensen, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw up.

• 36:53Speaker 04

  Chills.

• 36:53Drew Afualo?

  I just pooped in my pants a little bit. Sorry.

• 36:56Speaker 04

  Virgo, Sagittarius, Cancer, undefeated.

• 36:58Drew Afualo?

  I'm telling you, that's two pretty best friends right here.

• 37:01Speaker 04

  That's, it's literally, it's two Virgos, Sagittarius, Cancer's telling each other exactly.

• 37:05Drew Afualo?

  Exactly, exactly. Shit, that's crazy. Oh my god.

• 37:08Speaker 04

  Good combo, wow.

• 37:09Drew Afualo?

  Hell yeah. Us just jerking each other off.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  It was just like two beautiful girls with beautiful blonde hair.

• 37:14Drew Afualo?

  That's why we're beautiful, that's why we're successful, clearly.

• 37:16Speaker 04

  That's why we're tall.

• 37:17Drew Afualo?

  We're both tall. Jensen's tall as fuck. Girl, how tall are you?

• 37:20Speaker 04

  I'm 5'10".

• 37:21Drew Afualo?

  Okay, I'm 6 feet.

• 37:22Speaker 04

  Period. My brothers like to tell me I'm 6 feet because they're both, I think one of them's like 6'2" and one's 6'3", but they, they like to goose it, they like to add a couple inches. They're like, no, you're like 6 feet, we're like 6'4", 6'5". And I'm like, that's not true.

• 37:32Drew Afualo?

  They're like, well, because clearly you're 6 feet, so obviously I have to be 6'5".

• 37:36Speaker 04

  Don't put your issues on me. Also, stop lying. 6'2" is a great height. Why, why are you adding more?

• 37:41Drew Afualo?

  Be grateful for those inches.

• 37:42Speaker 04

  I remember like, they're both in relationships now, but when they were on dating apps, they would be like putting 6'4" in their dating. I'm like, who are you lying to? It's not necessary. You already, you're a big boy.

• 37:51Drew Afualo?

  So you're coming out the gate a liar.

• 37:52Speaker 04

  You're a tall black king. Like, just love yourself. That's crazy, bro.

• 37:57Drew Afualo?

  That's funny. My, my dad, my dad is 6'6", my mom is 5'3".

• 38:01Speaker 04

  Oh my god.

• 38:02Drew Afualo?

  So my older sister's 5'4", I'm 6 feet. My brother's like 6'1", 6'2" maybe. Uh, when I was in high school though, I was like, when I was 14, I was 5'9".

• 38:13Speaker 04

  Yup.

• 38:13Drew Afualo?

  5'9", 5'10".

• 38:14Speaker 04

  Yup.

• 38:14Drew Afualo?

  So big as fuck, really.

• 38:16Speaker 04

  A body.

• 38:17Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and I felt like my mom, anytime they'd be like, how tall are you? Which I got all the time. My mom would be like, oh, she's like 6'2". Hey, hey, hey, mom.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  Not too much, not too much.

• 38:27Drew Afualo?

  Hey, mom, not too much on me, okay? Yeah. And I'd be like, no, I'm 5'6". Right? Because I just hated being tall when I was younger.

• 38:32Speaker 04

  A doctor told me that I was gonna be 5'6" and I was sad. I like cried in the doctor's office. My mom was like, no, she's wrong, you're gonna be taller than that.

• 38:39Drew Afualo?

  That's so funny. A doctor told me I was gonna stop growing when I was a freshman in high school and I was like, do you promise? Do you promise? I'm bigger than everybody, doctor, please.

• 38:49Speaker 04

  It's, did you play sports?

• 38:50Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 38:51Speaker 04

  I see, I didn't do any sports. I was a disappointment to all those coaches. They looked at me with stars in their eyes and I said, not today.

• 38:57Drew Afualo?

  I'll tell you what, I didn't play any tall people's sports.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 39:01Drew Afualo?

  The ones you'd assume like basketball, volleyball, nope. I played soccer.

• 39:04Speaker 04

  You were just the tallest girl on the soccer.

• 39:06Drew Afualo?

  Girl, I was the biggest bitch alive. They were like, hey, assistant coaches not allowed on the field. I said, I'm fourteen two. Um, so sorry about that.

• 39:12Speaker 04

  Oh, were they birth certificate hitting you?

• 39:14Drew Afualo?

  Yes, all the time.

• 39:14Speaker 04

  Oh, my god.

• 39:15Drew Afualo?

  Cause I played travel ball, so my mom would have to carry my birth certificate everywhere because they never believed tall guys was.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  My little brother, so he was, so he, like I said, he's like six, three, but he played, both my brothers were athletes and he always played with guys that were bigger. Like one of his friends on his high school team was six, ten.

• 39:28Drew Afualo?

  Damn.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  Big.

• 39:29Drew Afualo?

  What'd they play?

• 39:30Speaker 04

  Uh, basketball?

• 39:31Drew Afualo?

  Oh, nice.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, they're like.

• 39:32Drew Afualo?

  You not remember?

• 39:33Speaker 04

  I was like, no, I was like, did I, I, I, I have my brain just shut down. They, yeah, they, I think it was those guys I know, pretty sure they're my brothers and I'm pretty sure they play basketball.

• 39:41Drew Afualo?

  I think I was there.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  But it was, they, those, those big kids, they really got, they had a tough run of it. Cause it was always people, especially when they were like in middle school, that like the parents were coming out from the opposing teams, like, there's no way, there's no way, he's too big.

• 39:54Drew Afualo?

  Exactly. When I was in middle school, I went, one year I was five, four, which is already ominous for a ten year old.

• 40:01Speaker 04

  Extremely sinister.

• 40:01Drew Afualo?

  And then when I, like in a year, I grew four inches, so I was five, eight.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  Did you have the knee thing, the Osgood Schlotter?

• 40:07Drew Afualo?

  What? Sorry?

• 40:09Speaker 04

  There's like, it's called Osgood Schlotter, look it up. There's this thing where when you grow really fast, you have like, just like a lot of knee pain. It's like a disorder that you can have. Both my brothers had it, cause they both grew like six inches in a summer. And it was like, your just knees are just messed up.

• 40:23Drew Afualo?

  Damn, no, I did, I grew four inches in a year, which is still scary as fuck. Like, that's a little frightening. Like, I came back five, eight. Like, I came back to school and they were like, oh!

• 40:34Speaker 04

  Built different.

• 40:35Drew Afualo?

  Who the hell is that?

• 40:36Speaker 04

  And like, it's, I was thinking about that the other day, cause like, so both my brothers, I think, were a size thirteen shoe, which is like the biggest size you can get in a normal store. And like, I was just remembering when they were kids, like, every year, their basketball shoes becoming worthless because their feet grew.

• 40:49Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, there's no point.

• 40:50Speaker 04

  That's crazy when you're a kid, like, you just wake up one day, you can't wear any of your old clothes. Like can you imagine if as an adult, one day you just woke up, your feet were bigger? You'd think you'd go to the hospital.

• 40:59Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 04

  But that's just normal.

• 41:00Drew Afualo?

  I'd join the circus.

• 41:02Speaker 04

  Just start cashing in.

• 41:03Drew Afualo?

  I'd start monetizing.

• 41:04Speaker 04

  I'm already, I'm already able to do this. I've already got the clownery.

• 41:07Drew Afualo?

  I know, my, my man is six-four, so he, he's a size thirteen shoe, uh, and then my dad is a size fourteen. So like anytime I buy shoes, if I shop for shoes in the store, I say, do you have any thirteens or fourteens that are not basketball shoes?

• 41:23Speaker 04

  And do they ever?

• 41:24Drew Afualo?

  No, if they do, they're like, oh, I have like two. And then they'll show them to me and I'm like, those are ugly. Nevermind. Thank you though. Thank you though, I appreciate it.

• 41:31Speaker 04

  And maybe that's the next business venture.

• 41:33Drew Afualo?

  Right. You and I.

• 41:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:34Drew Afualo?

  We opened a big, big body clothing store.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  Big body, big money.

• 41:39Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, big body, big money.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  There's a market for it. All about the laughs.

• 41:43Drew Afualo?

  I love, I, I think that's beautiful though, that you play music with your brothers. Both of them or just one?

• 41:47Speaker 04

  Just the little one. My older brother unfortunately cannot sing or play instruments. Um, he's not, he's not a loser.

• 41:53Drew Afualo?

  I can't do it either.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  It's funny because he's literally the smartest person in the entire world. Like he went to Harvard undergrad, Stanford Law, like just literally like beautiful mind, genius.

• 42:00Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  And I'm not to say that me and my little brother are also not smart. My little brother actually had the highest GPA of all of us and he'd want me to mention it, so you're welcome. Um, but we, uh, me and, yeah, me and my little brother became, we were both musical from an early age. My little brother actually, he also, so he played basketball because our older brother did. He did music because I did, like very typical youngest child, like just copying what the older siblings were doing and better than both of us at it. Um, but yeah, it's really fun having my little brother on the road with me. Like when I first started touring, I played solo and it was, you know, it got isolating, like being on stage by yourself, like night after night. And like now that I have my brother and my best friend up there with me, like I look to my left and my right and like they're just, they're usually laughing, like we're all, we're holding in laughter at some inside joke that's like

• 42:41Drew Afualo?

  No, that's so great.

• 42:42Speaker 04

  Like one of the funniest performances we ever had was on the Noah tour. We were in Wheatland, California, which is I guess Sacramento, basically. It was a hundred and fourteen degrees.

• 42:53Drew Afualo?

  Nice, love it.

• 42:54Speaker 04

  And so we were all wearing our sunglasses on stage, which I've never done before. I was like, that's so corny. You can't wear sunglasses. But I was like, I can't see. So that's gonna be necessary. And midway through the set, I start noticing bugs. Like little tiny bugs kind of flying around and I'm like, I hope none of these fly in my mouth while I'm singing.

• 43:08Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 04

  And my little brother, by the way, deathly afraid of bugs. His biggest thing. He hates bugs. He only now is like starting to be able to kill them when he sees them like in the house, but terrified of bugs. A lady bug landed on him once, he screamed.

• 43:19Drew Afualo?

  That's me with butterflies, to be honest.

• 43:21Speaker 04

  No way, you're scared of butterflies?

• 43:22Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I'm scared of most insects, anything that flies, I'm like, I'm good.

• 43:25Speaker 04

  I kinda, I mean, I get where you're coming from, I do, I do love a butterfly moment. But, I mean, there's something, there's something a little scary about it, especially in like, a large group, a bunch of bugs.

• 43:33Drew Afualo?

  I'm like, I wanna admire from afar.

• 43:35Speaker 04

  And so like, we're playing these songs, we get to the end of the set, my little brother Holden is motioning to me repeatedly, like, he's trying to get my attention, and every time I look over, and I'm like, did your keyboard stop working, like, what's the problem? He's gesturing at the keyboard, it's on, and I'm like, then we're just gonna keep going. And then by the, we get to the last song, and I like, run over to him, like, what are you keep motioning about? He looked, he gestured on the keyboard, covered in bug corpses, like, maybe thousands.

• 43:56Drew Afualo?

  He's like, he has tears in his eyes while he's playing?

• 43:58Speaker 04

  Literally tears in his eyes, and I was like, we gotta power, we're powering through, we're powering through.

• 44:03Drew Afualo?

  Oh my god.

• 44:05Speaker 04

  You're fucking fine, you're fine, Jesus Christ.

• 44:08Drew Afualo?

  You're like, you were waving me over, I thought you had a medical emergency.

• 44:11Speaker 04

  And it, but, we, uh, we get to the la, the last la, said, the last song is Massachusetts, which we've been playing, I don't play to a click when I'm playing with, um, with just them, because we didn't have drones.

• 44:19Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 44:19Speaker 04

  And so, we were playing, kind of at whatever tempo, I just decided in the moment, and that night, I decided to play it very fast, so that we could get offstage and away from the bugs. So we're going, la na na na na.

• 44:28Drew Afualo?

  Sounds like it's on 2X.

• 44:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, literally sped up, it was a sped up edit, and we get offstage, and he's just like, in champ, he's like, he, he looks like he's got back from NOM.

• 44:36Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, he has a thunder blanket on. There were so many bugs, so many bugs out there.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  We used to do that to our dog, we used to have a German shepherd, and she barked at our dad every single time he came in the room. And so, we would put, we had a bark collar that we would put on her, and it would just like, spray like, something that smelled bad on her every time she barked, and she would just like, freeze, and that was what he looked like, like, he just got, he had his bark collar on. Now, like, whenever we're on stage together, like, at any given moment, we're gonna be thinking about one of those incidents, and just like, unable to hold back laughter in a serious moment, which is crucial.

• 45:05Drew Afualo?

  And now you guys are like, you're literally like Billie Eilish and Phineas.

• 45:08Speaker 04

  It's so, so much so.

• 45:09Drew Afualo?

  I love that.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  I mean, I, I kinda know Phineas, we, he started following me in like, 2020, he found my music really early, and so, we've met a few times, and I'm still waiting for, uh, the moment when we can have our sibling collab. I think that the, the Phineas X.

• 45:21Drew Afualo?

  The Spider-Man meme.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, the Phineas X Billie X Holden X Jensen, it'll come one day, I don't know when that'll be, but...

• 45:26Drew Afualo?

  I'm rooting for it, I also just realized you're also a middle child, so am I, and there's only three of us.

• 45:31Speaker 04

  Exactly, right.

• 45:32Drew Afualo?

  That's why I said, twins.

• 45:34Speaker 04

  Twin, where have you been? Also, I'm obsessed with twins.

• 45:39Drew Afualo?

  Are you?

• 45:39Speaker 04

  Me, my so.

• 45:40Drew Afualo?

  In a weird way, or?

• 45:42Speaker 04

  Me and my, so my guitar player Kevin, my bestie, for some reason, we've just become, that's like one of our early inside jokes was like, we just are fascinated by specifically adult identical twins.

• 45:52Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  There's something about it that's like, what do you mean you're still identical?

• 45:54Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, like, grow up.

• 45:56Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 45:56Drew Afualo?

  You don't need to be a twin anymore, we get it.

• 45:58Speaker 04

  I just, it's like, how did that happen? Like, how did you guys not kind of branch off and kind of find your own thing? Like, you're still kind of, like, playing the hits. Kind of still.

• 46:06Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, we get it, I noticed, you're a twin.

• 46:08Speaker 04

  But we love, we love a twin very much, and my, um, my, and one of my other friends put us on to the, there's a twin convention that happens every year, I guess.

• 46:14Drew Afualo?

  I saw where they dress the same.

• 46:16Speaker 04

  Oh, I didn't even know about that component.

• 46:17Drew Afualo?

  Oh, girl, like, the twins, they have to dress, they dress identical to each other.

• 46:20Speaker 04

  That just gave me chills. That's beautiful.

• 46:23Drew Afualo?

  Girl, my nipples are hard. Twins matching.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  I love, I love, I'm making adult, and the, the reason it came about, so my friend telling you about the twin convention, she was playing a show in a town, in the town where the twin convention was happening.

• 46:34Drew Afualo?

  Okay.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  She had a relative who was a twin attending the convention, and he goes, "Oh, like, I want to come to your show, can I bring, uh, a plus one?" Actually, a plus two.

• 46:42Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  And she's, she's like, "Bring, like, his twin and then another set of twins."

• 46:45Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  And she goes, "Sure," and then he's like, "Can I actually get another plus two?" Just starts trying to add on, she's like, "How many sets of twins?"

• 46:52Drew Afualo?

  What, are you building an army?

• 46:52Speaker 04

  Like, why?

• 46:53Drew Afualo?

  Are you bringing so many twins to my show?

• 46:55Speaker 04

  You cannot be bringing that many sets of twi- the audience cannot just be rows of twins.

• 46:59Drew Afualo?

  You're gonna freak everyone out.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  Especially if you all dress in the same outfit. Not you and your little twin uniform.

• 47:05Drew Afualo?

  Right. One of my, uh, really good friends from college, she's a twin, like, an identical twin, and like, uh, she comes, like, her, I think her mom is a twin, and her, like, aunt is a twin, so they have twins that run like crazy.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 47:18Drew Afualo?

  And one time she posted a family reunion picture. Oh, that picture almost made me go insane. I feel like, I, I felt like, I was like, I'm gonna be committed to the hospital.

• 47:27Speaker 04

  It's like a Rorschach test, it's like, whatever you see.

• 47:28Drew Afualo?

  It's really like, find the difference between these two pictures. They're the same picture. Like, I, I messaged her and I was like, "This is an insane pict- like, there's like fifty sets of twins in there, it's crazy."

• 47:36Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 47:37Drew Afualo?

  Right. I, I was like, "So, your fascination with twins? Maybe you should look into her."

• 47:42Speaker 04

  And I will. And I'll be locked in on Reddit friends.

• 47:44Drew Afualo?

  Tell you about my random friend from college.

• 47:47Drew Afualo?

  Okay, I'm gonna read some fun facts about you. Um, let's see. Uh, it says you have Back to the Future listed as one of your top four on Letterboxd.

• 47:55Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:56Drew Afualo?

  What are the other three?

• 47:58Speaker 04

  Um, I don't, I don't know if I finished filling out the whole thing. I know Before Sunrise is on there.

• 48:02Drew Afualo?

  Okay.

• 48:02Speaker 04

  I love, so the Back to the Future trilogy and the Before trilogy, which don't go together thematically at all, other than they're both trilogies.

• 48:07Drew Afualo?

  That's all four?

• 48:08Speaker 04

  Um, I just, yeah, I have six movies in my top four, it's two trilogies. I think I have Obvious Child, the Jenny Slate movie, which I don't see enough people talking about. It's this movie, Jenny Slate is like, she's playing a struggling stand-up comedian who gets pregnant and decides to have an abortion.

• 48:20Drew Afualo?

  Okay.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  And it's like, a great dark comedy, like, quiet little film. I watched it like, when I was visiting my brother in college at like, 2:00 in the morning, I was sleeping on his couch, and I was like, this is a perfect movie.

• 48:31Speaker 04

  But, yeah, I'm like, not good at cin- this is the first time anyone's ever asked me about Letterboxd. Cause I'm like, not good about cinema. Like, I keep seeing people on red carpets getting asked their Letterboxd top four, and I'm like, I won't be prepared. I haven't seen enough movies. I definitely haven't seen enough good movies.

• 48:43Drew Afualo?

  Once again, Jensen, you are me. Because I don't watch anything. So when people ask me like, oh, have you watched this? Like, and they're all new movies, I'm like, oh, you know for a fact I haven't watched that.

• 48:51Speaker 04

  I have.

• 48:51Drew Afualo?

  I just don't watch new things.

• 48:53Speaker 04

  I don't watch prestige. I love watching stuff over and over again that's gonna bring me comfort, which is why I've seen the Back to the Future trilogy so many times. I've seen New Girl so many times.

• 49:00Drew Afualo?

  Me too.

• 49:00Speaker 04

  I just, so, I, I, Criminal Minds is one of my comfort shows.

• 49:03Drew Afualo?

  Okay, too.

• 49:04Speaker 04

  And there's, I just, only like, last week finished watching the two new seasons of it. I was re-watching the first 15 seasons over and over and over. I knew every criminal, I knew every unsub's name.

• 49:15Drew Afualo?

  Me as fuck.

• 49:16Speaker 04

  I was on the case.

• 49:17Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I could, I could recite them from memory. Like, that was me with like, The Office, with New Girl. What if, what were the, Modern Family?

• 49:23Speaker 04

  Anyone who slanders New Girl, I'm immediately like, untrustworthy.

• 49:26Drew Afualo?

  I swear to god, me too. I'm like, you don't get it. You don't get the art form.

• 49:31Speaker 04

  And I still, I was talking to someone yesterday in a session, like, we were talking about like, I said, I said one of my dork facts about how like, laughing's mostly socially performative and it's not actually about something funny. And he was like, do you, so do you laugh when you're alone? And I was like, actually, yes. I laugh out loud alone by myself all the time, especially when I'm watching New Girl. I will laugh, even though I've seen every episode seven times, I will laugh.

• 49:49Drew Afualo?

  I've seen some where I was laughing so hard at a deposit, cause I can't hear.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:53Drew Afualo?

  Cause I'm fucking laughing out loud.

• 49:55Speaker 04

  The episode, towards, it was like, towards the end of the series when, uh, Winston's accusing Nick of being, uh, procrastinator, and he's like, "You drove across the country to see me at college to ask me if I had seen a bug's life."

• 50:07Speaker 04

  And every time I hear that line, I have to pause it. Cause I'm like, a fuck's life.

• 50:11Drew Afualo?

  That's how I feel about the Prince episode. That's like one of my favorite ones.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  Oh my god, it's so good.

• 50:15Drew Afualo?

  But the cold open, when he's like, what are you, just hanging around the dryer like some sort of pantyhose? That's comedic genius. You're out of your fucking mind. That's me with like, are you ever like pitching movies and you're like, I promise it's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen in my life? And then sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn't.

• 50:29Speaker 04

  I can always, I, when I feel it, when I feel myself losing it, I feel really, I'm like, I panic and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Cause I'm like, if you're not laughing already, you need to be laughing already. If you're not laughing already, it's over for me.

• 50:39Drew Afualo?

  You don't get it. You don't get it.

• 50:40Speaker 04

  It's curtains for me.

• 50:41Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, it's curtains. Yeah. I take my recommendations very seriously.

• 50:44Speaker 04

  But I don't, honestly, I'm not a person who's, because I don't listen when people recommend stuff to me, I honestly don't try to recommend stuff that often.

• 50:50Drew Afualo?

  No, me too. Um, I never listen when people recommend to me, but if they do say like, what's a funny movie you know? And I tell them and I'm like, let's watch it. And they're not laughing, I get mad.

• 51:00Speaker 04

  It's, it's, well, it's rude. It's offensive. It's mean and it's, it's an indictment of my character.

• 51:03Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I'm acting like I'm in that movie.

• 51:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I made that movie. It's my life's work.

• 51:07Drew Afualo?

  Like, one of the movies I pitch all the time that I think is one of the funniest movies ever made is The Heat with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. Highly recommend, highly recommend that fucking movie to the room. Anyone should watch that movie. I laugh my, every time I watch it, I laugh my fucking ass off. And so many people have never seen that. It's just sort of stupid, like buddy cop.

• 51:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:26Drew Afualo?

  Slapstick comedy. I'm LMAOing the whole time.

• 51:30Speaker 04

  But that's the best, that's the stuff that's actually funny. Like, honestly, the, one of the movies I laughed out loud in the theater, Into the Spider-Verse.

• 51:36Drew Afualo?

  Tea.

• 51:37Speaker 04

  I also cried. I laughed and I cried. That, that movie took me on a journey and I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

• 51:45Drew Afualo?

  Girl, it's actually beautiful.

• 51:46Speaker 04

  I will watch The Heat because I trust a recommendation from someone who doesn't listen to other people's recommendations. I really do.

• 51:51Drew Afualo?

  And watches the same things thousands of times?

• 51:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:53Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 04

  Cause that, that means you're locked in. You've, you've studied that. You have a PhD in that film and I trust it.

• 51:58Drew Afualo?

  A, a silly ass movie. Like, sometimes I'll, I won't watch anything new that's popular, but then sometimes I'll watch the silliest one-off terrible movies. Cause I'm like, well, obviously.

• 52:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:07Drew Afualo?

  Uh, like, my sister was like, we should watch Ricky Stanicki. You ever heard of that movie? Yeah, exactly. It's on Prime, starring John Cena.

• 52:15Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 52:16Drew Afualo?

  And a bunch of other comedians, but like, I was laughing my fucking ass off. I was like telling people, you gotta watch it. You fucking gotta see it. And then everybody I told outside of me and my family were like, yeah, I mean, I think I need to watch it with you. Cause like, I just like, didn't really get it. I was like, forget it.

• 52:33Speaker 04

  But you know what? That's actually a part of it. It's like who you're watching it with. Like, there's some movies that are gonna hit alone, and like, they're just that good. But then there's some movies that like, and like, TV shows, whatever, like, things that I've experienced, I know it was funny because of who I was watching it with, or like, consuming it with. Cause like, it's their commentary. It's us going back and forth. Like, during the, I'll give you an example. The Olympics? Summer Olympics? Not a comedy routine, but watching the Olympics with my family, very funny.

• 52:53Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 52:54Speaker 04

  They've got notes. They've got jokes. They've got it running.

• 52:56Drew Afualo?

  I got a lot of criticisms.

• 52:57Speaker 04

  They got a lot to say. And that's, and that's what makes, like, I was talking, one of my friends was like, I don't really get the Olympics. I don't like watching them. Like, I like watching it because my family is staying on the side.

• 53:06Drew Afualo?

  That's how I feel about the Super Bowl. I'm like, I don't give a damn, but if, like, when I'm watching with funny people like my family, I'm having a blast.

• 53:12Speaker 04

  It's gonna be good.

• 53:13Drew Afualo?

  I'm enjoying it. Are you a big crier at movies?

• 53:16Speaker 04

  I cry about everything.

• 53:17Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 53:17Speaker 04

  I cry about everything all the time. Um, I was on a date one time, I've told the story before, but I was on a date one time with this guy, and I said I was a big crier, and he was like, oh yeah, I cry a lot too. And I was like, oh, what makes you cry? And he was like, movies and situations.

• 53:30Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 53:30Speaker 04

  And that was kind of where I was at, the kind of the silence. And I was like, I said, buddy, everything's a situation.

• 53:34Drew Afualo?

  So, so like, just general things?

• 53:36Speaker 04

  But honestly, and I think about it every day, and it rings so true, because I also be crying in situations.

• 53:40Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, movies and situations.

• 53:41Speaker 04

  Movies and situations.

• 53:42Drew Afualo?

  That tends to do it for me.

• 53:43Speaker 04

  I literally cry about everything. I cry, yeah, I cry, I think I cried watching Back to the Future, probably, like.

• 53:47Drew Afualo?

  You think?

• 53:48Speaker 04

  I'll, at this point, I mean, the second one, when he, when he goes to the grave, no spoilers, 40 year old film. Um, when he goes to the graveyard, I definitely cried about that. The Before trilogy will make me cry. That's like, those are like beautiful, it's like a beautiful romantic drama, but like.

• 54:02Drew Afualo?

  This is just an ad for the Back to the Future.

• 54:04Speaker 04

  Well.

• 54:06Speaker 04

  But I, um, but yeah, I cry, I cry at music too. One time I cried so hard to a song while I was driving that I couldn't see, I had to pull over.

• 54:13Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 54:13Speaker 04

  It was The Cause by Tommy LaFroy, by the way. Great song.

• 54:16Drew Afualo?

  Tea.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  And it's not even that sad of a song.

• 54:20Drew Afualo?

  There are just certain songs though that move you to tears. Like, even, and I feel like you're a big. Would you say you're more of a lyrics person or like a melody person?

• 54:29Speaker 04

  Definitely more lyrics.

• 54:30Drew Afualo?

  I think so, because you're a poet.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, when Folklore, the Taylor Swift album, came out, like I listened to it, obviously, the second it dropped. And the whole time I was texting one of my friends, like, we were doing live reactions, and I was like, can you believe this line? Can you believe this line? And she's only a melody person. So she's like, I don't even know what song you're talking about. Like, she had heard none of it. She was only hearing, like, the melody and the music and stuff. And I, like, barely noticed that.

• 54:50Drew Afualo?

  And I loved Folklore for the same reason.

• 54:52Speaker 04

  I love just sitting and like letting it-

• 54:53Drew Afualo?

  Her lyricism is really good.

• 54:54Speaker 04

  She, I mean, listen, I love Miss Tayla Swift. And I, when her lyrics are hitting, they're really hitting.

• 55:01Drew Afualo?

  I, I agree.

• 55:02Speaker 04

  And I, especially on first listen to, like, to new Taylor Swift, I'm blocking everything else out, and I am just focused on the writing. Because I wanna get the, like, you only get to hear it first, you only get to hear it for the first time once. And I, like, really wanna soak it in.

• 55:14Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, and, well, and like I said, you're a poet at heart, so, like, you really enjoy, uh, really well put together lyrics. Like, I think that's beautiful. And symbolism. And you know what? I say this all the time, I talk about Ed Sheeran, people are mean to him, he's a good writer.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  He is a good writer.

• 55:28Drew Afualo?

  I, I love his, like, the way he writes his songs, like, the shit he writes, I think it's beautiful.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  He is a good writer, and he, I think the reason that people love to hate on him is because he got, he was so good and became so successful. He's a meme. It's like, he's not even a person anymore. He's like a stand-in and a symbol for a certain kind of music.

• 55:44Drew Afualo?

  Right.

• 55:45Speaker 04

  But it's like, you don't get that successful without putting in the work.

• 55:47Drew Afualo?

  And I was saying, he was behind the scenes for fucking years, writing hits for everybody else.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  He's really, I mean, I saw him at Staples Center when I was, like, sixteen or something, I guess, and he was up there by himself in an arena with a loop pedal.

• 56:00Drew Afualo?

  That's what I'm saying, you know what, I should've known that my twin's gonna be a Sheerhead like me. I should've known that you were gonna be a Sheerhead like me. I am constantly fighting his battles. I'm like, you be nice to him.

• 56:09Speaker 04

  You are God's strongest soldier.

• 56:10Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, I was like, you be nice to him, he's nice.

• 56:13Speaker 04

  He, no, he's, I mean, he also seems like a great guy. Like, I'm friends with this, um, English singer-songwriter named Maisie Peters, she's amazing, if you guys don't know her. Yeah, Maisie's amazing. And she's like his protege, like, she's open for him on a bunch of tours, and like, I think they wrote together for a couple of her albums, and like, she just says he's the nicest guy. And like, I've only heard good things about this man.

• 56:29Drew Afualo?

  And talented as fuck.

• 56:30Speaker 04

  So talented.

• 56:31Drew Afualo?

  Okay. I was like, that one lyric where he talks about laying together in bed, just like, a drawer of cutlery, and he's talking about spooning? Yeah, fuck all you.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  No, that's genius.

• 56:39Drew Afualo?

  None of you bitches could write that shit. None of you could, except maybe Jensen.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  I wish. No, he's playing four-dimensional chess. I'm, I'm playing checkers. I'm playing, I'm playing Go Fish.

• 56:48Drew Afualo?

  I'm so glad you're a sheerhead like me. Okay, on to more facts, let's see. Oh, it says you have a poetry account on Instagram.

• 56:55Speaker 04

  I do, Jensen McRae writes. Yeah, I love poetry, I just love words, like, I just love, I, I, I'm always really impressed by people who are able to say things in a new way. Cause like, so much stuff is cliche, so much stuff is like, overdone and oversaturated, and when I see something that I've never seen before, I'm really blown away. Although, I looked back at, um, like, a bunch of screenshots I'd saved right after I went through like, a really brutal breakup, and I was like, the things I thought were profound when I was in the trenches, not that profound. Not that profound.

• 57:22Drew Afualo?

  Said, actually, it's a pretty superficial take.

• 57:24Speaker 04

  It was like, pretty dumb. And I would say it's thousands of them.

• 57:28Drew Afualo?

  And you see it and you're like, this was meant for me.

• 57:30Speaker 04

  Like, every time I was like, they're speaking directly to me, and I look back, you know, two years later, and I'm like, girl, it wasn't that serious. Like, my hands were covered in blood, was it yours or mine, who's to say? And I was like, what?

• 57:45Drew Afualo?

  It's like, she, she lied, you know that one where he lied?

• 57:49Speaker 04

  She believed he lied. And I was like, like a stoner, I was like, oh my god.

• 57:54Drew Afualo?

  Damn, that's so true. Retweet, retweet, repost.

• 57:57Speaker 04

  And I was just, I like, shuddered to think about what my reposts from that era looked like, like, it was just not, it was not good. But, some stuff stands up, some stuff stands up to the test of time, not all.

• 58:06Drew Afualo?

  Where would you say you pull most of your inspiration when you are writing?

• 58:10Speaker 04

  I mean, I write a lot about my life, and I, I like to write about things kind of like, out of time, like, I, when, when I'm writing a song, like, even if I'm writing about a specific situation, it's not going to be like, it's not the news, I think that's important for people to know. Like, for, I think for a lot of songwriters, like, we're not the news, it's not facts, it's like, I'm taking the seed of a personal experience that definitely happened, and then I'm adding in moments from other experiences, I'm adding in moments from things that other people have told me about their lives, and I'm trying to tell us, like, the big thing that I always say is, I'm trying to tell something, it's not factual, but it is true. Like, I want the feeling to be true, and I want the, the principle and the premise to be true, even if like, the facts of the story are not like, exactly as they happened.

• 58:47Drew Afualo?

  Yeah.

• 58:47Speaker 04

  Because ultimately, like, I think because of how, like, popular, like, diaristic songwriting has become, I think people have come to expect, like, That they can go on like a scavenger hunt and like find out exactly what happened in someone's life by listening to their songs. And I think for most people, even the people who claim to be doing that, like they're writing fiction. Like it is a form, it is a form of like kind of crea- creative nonfiction or like autofiction. Where it's like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I am the character in this story. But this isn't exactly what happened. So I like, I like combining things and like combining events from different periods of my life. Especially because like, I feel like we all have experiences where like, we're experiencing the same thing over and over again. Like you get taught the same lesson in different ways and different fonts.

• 59:28Speaker 04

  And so when I come to a point where I am writing a song about something, it's me reflecting on all the different times the universe has tried to teach me a lesson. And it's not just ever about the one thing. It's about all the repeated times that I've been exposed to it.

• 59:40Drew Afualo?

  Well, and also because you're such a talented songwriter, it's like, it's making it more applicable to everyone. Like your, your, your unique experience cannot always apply, but the feeling can most times apply to most people. Just to kind of wrap us here, like any advice, like what your best piece of advice would be for any upcoming like singer songwriters? Slash improv experts, all of the above, um, any advice you may have for them if they really want to get into the music industry? Maybe want to start writing, maybe want to start playing, maybe want to start posting their songs, any advice you may have for them?

• 1:00:13Speaker 04

  I mean, one of the biggest things is to keep a journal. Like it's really good to be an observer of the world and like write down the things that are happening to you. And like just start paying attention. Like that's one of, like, I think one of the things that disrupts people in their writing process is that if they feel like they don't have ideas is because they're not paying attention. There's stuff happening everywhere in your own life and other people's lives you can latch on to. And then with regards to like posting and stuff, like we have to, one, one of the things that helped me a lot was no longer viewing my social media as like an extension of myself. Like I no longer felt like it was like an appendage, like it's a business card. And it's a, it's a, it's a factory frankly, that I clock into and I clock out of every day. It's my nine to five. And like people will not post stuff because like, well, I don't want to be annoying and post all the time or what if it flops and people don't like it? And it's like, who cares? You'll post another one tomorrow.

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  And like that was how I got to the point of growing a following was I was flopping for days and weeks and months. And then one day something got a hundred thousand views and then one day something got a million views and suddenly people were asking me for advice about how to do well on social media. I'm like, we could have started at the same time and you just like, we were both flopping and you gave up and I didn't. Cause I wasn't embarrassed. I have no shame.

• 1:01:13Drew Afualo?

  Exactly. You're so mean. I've literally told, like whenever people would say things like, Well, why does she have a leasing? I, I get hate and I delete my stuff. Well, it sounds like you have no follow through.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  It's not for everyone.

• 1:01:25Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, that's right. Trust me. And I've told people before, I'm like, if you care at all about what people think about you, if you're worried about hate, don't do it.

• 1:01:32Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:32Drew Afualo?

  That's not the place to do it, like at all.

• 1:01:34Speaker 04

  If you're worried people are gonna think you're annoying, if you're worried people are gonna think you're embarrassing, if you think it's embarrassing to post on social media, guess what? You shouldn't be, have a social media.

• 1:01:40Drew Afualo?

  Yeah, you shouldn't do it at all.

• 1:01:42Speaker 04

  And also, like, I know that there's a lot of artists out there who want to be above social media, and I get it. I get that you're like, it cheapens the work, it cheapens the art. But I think that the two things can coexist. I don't think that my art is cheapened because I'm able to be funny on TikTok. I don't think that my art is cheapened because I'm able to get more people to listen to it by doing like a stupid gimmick. Like, you're not a, a social person turned artist.

• 1:02:03Drew Afualo?

  You're an artist that is utilizing social media.

• 1:02:05Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:02:05Drew Afualo?

  And like you said, it's like, it really is how you look at it, like how you perceive it and how you utilize it. And like, use it to your advantage. And the same way that you said, like, I was a flop too, is that's not the point of it. I, I think the same way about, it negates the point of making art. If the only reason you're putting out is to go viral.

• 1:02:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22Drew Afualo?

  Well, I think you're fucking amazing.

• 1:02:23Speaker 04

  I am obsessed with you. This was lovely.

• 1:02:24Drew Afualo?

  And we're literally a paper doll. Look at us. We're fucking twins.

• 1:02:27Speaker 04

  It's not the difference.

• 1:02:28Drew Afualo?

  Literally, you're literally freaking me out. And I also wear glasses too. I should have worn my today. I should have worn my fucking glasses. Damn. Well, thank you so much.

• 1:02:37Speaker 04

  For your Jensen McRae Halloween costume.

• 1:02:38Drew Afualo?

  That's right. I'll wear this exact, and, and if you think I'm playing, it's on camera.

• 1:02:44Drew Afualo?

  So, you watch me run this back, this October, this coming October. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I fucking love you.

• 1:02:50Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. You're the best.

• 1:02:51Drew Afualo?

  I can't wait. I do wanna say really quick, I do wanna give you your flowers. I think you're so fucking talented, and I can't wait to see how far you keep going. I've been a fan since day one. Where the fuck were y'all at? Exactly. Not with me. I've been in the trenches for a while with Jensen. Yeah, you and I, moots, moots.

• 1:03:06Speaker 04

  Oomphs.

• 1:03:07Drew Afualo?

  Oomphs, for real. Well, thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Comments Section Show. Thank you to my amazing guest, Jensen McRae. Where can everybody find you?

• 1:03:16Speaker 04

  Um, I'm at Jensen McRae most places, I think. Um, and I think when this episode's coming out, you can listen to my new song, Praying for Your Downfall, everywhere. And watch the music video.

• 1:03:25Drew Afualo?

  And I, once again, I'm gonna say I was on the ground floor, uh, of Jensen McRae's fandom. Okay, anyways, thank you so much to my amazing guests. Thank you so much, Talavie, for tuning in. And don't forget, new episodes of the comment section drop every Wednesday. You can stream the audio on all streaming platforms, but the video list for free and exclusively on our favorite platform, Spotify, which is perfect, because then you can go stream Jensen's entire catalog and her new single, and you can go and follow her on everything, obviously. Do it, because I said so! Anyways, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you to my amazing guests, and I'll see you next week. Bye!

• 1:04:06Speaker 03

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to build Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.