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Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert I'm DAX Shepard, I'm a miniature mouse. Hi there. I'm here. How are you doing here? I'm doing good here.

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Or in your apartment or in my apartment. Your safe space? Yes. The air quality is poor in Los Angeles.

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It's not ideal air quality. And I've made the air quality in here worse with many trips to the bathroom. And you've been a real gentleman about rubbing my nose in it.

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And I just want to thank you and I want to thank the listeners.

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And I mostly I want to thank Keith Urban. Keith, of course, is an Australian singer songwriter and record producer. He has four Grammy awards and 19 Grammy nominations.

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Count them 19. So you count to 19 right now, Monica. I can't count that high, OK?

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He has a new album out September 18th, the speed of now part one. Again, that's the speed of now part one that's coming out on September 18th. So check it out and please enjoy the very charming Keith Urban.

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I love the blueberry flavor. All I do is I add a little hot water. I put in a little scoop of almond butter and then I let it set for about 30 seconds. And then I chow down and it sustains my energy for hours and hours and hours and it doesn't irritate my arthritis.

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OK, well, just when I thought Bob's Red Mill couldn't get better with that oatmeal, they also have Bob's bars, which are so dang easy and so often I'm in such a rush that I just run and grab a couple of bars. I put them in my pocket and then I come over to your house and now I have my morning breakfast all taken care of. The bars are delicious and they couldn't be more convenient and everything is gluten free and still easy to make and delicious.

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Bob's Red Mill is a delightful part of my routine and you should make it a part of your routine, too. It tastes delicious and I feel amazing afterwards. And it's gluten free.

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So to learn more about lots of awesome and delicious products and recipes at Bob's Red Mill dotcom stacks, and while you're there, be sure to enter for a chance to win an exclusive Bob's Red Mill Prize pack and an armchair expert T-shirt. That's Bob's read Malcolm X.

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He's an ultra. How are you doing, man? Good. It's good to see you're in Sydney, is it morning. It is morning, yeah. It's just after 11 o'clock. Do you live there? Well, we live in Nashville, but Nick is shooting a film here right now because they can shoot here.

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So we relocated for the duration of the shoot.

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And how do you enjoy that? Because I, too, am in that situation where I have to join my wife sometimes in a town and be a full time dad and all that. Do you dig it? Yeah.

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I mean, we've been together 15 years and I'm so used to it. I'm a touring musician anyway, so I'm used to just seeing it around and living in different places, set up camp wherever. And this is home for a week or six months, whatever it is, and just get into the groove of that being home, you know.

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Yeah. Do you have that thing where it's like by the end of a tour you're miserable and you want to be off of it and then like three weeks later you're like, I'm fucking miserable at home. I got to get back on tour.

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You find yourself in that cycle, of course, all the above. But I got to keep reminding myself, no whining on the yacht, no whining.

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Now, when you're back in Australia, do you have places you're excited to go back to?

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I love Sydney. It's a really beautiful city. I was raised up in Brisbane, Queensland, which is quite a ways north. I love it. There's a big harbour. But then you got the beaches and then you've got rainforest and then you've got city, suburb, a whole blend of everything. It's a really charming place.

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It is, I'm afraid to pronounce the town you were actually raised in. But Caboolture.

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Yes, but on Caboolture. Caboolture, yeah.

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What would you compare Caboolture to? Is there an American city that you could. It's funny because you my second butcher, you said you're on the verge. It's another word I can't really say.

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Well, when I was growing up there, it was just a small dairy town that had a big dairy co-op factory there. And that was its claim to fame. And it was a bit off the freeway. But over the years, it's become enmeshed and pulled into the great city of Brisbane and become a bit of a suburb, really, even though it's an hour away. But it was a good place to grow up. I mean, I moved around a lot in the city of Brisbane.

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I went to five different schools in the first five years of my life. So we were always moving around, finally moved to Caboolture when I was about 10 and was there from the age of 10 to 18 or so.

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Why were you born in New Zealand? Was that like a logistical er or. My mom was there here. I don't know if they're on holiday or something. She just gave birth there. Someone lived there.

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So my mum and dad were born in New Zealand. Oh OK. I was only just born there actually because my mum and dad went well we'd like to maybe go to Australia. More opportunity. Let's go to this big unknown place and see if we can start a new life there. They went over to Melbourne actually, and my mom got pregnant. Brother was born in Melbourne. And then they went, you know what? This is kind of great here in Australia, but maybe we want to move further north up to Queensland.

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Let's go back to New Zealand. We'll sell all of our stuff and we'll make this big permanent move that went back to New Zealand. I was born and then when I was two years old, they moved back to Australia.

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Now, I moved a bit as a kid as well. What was driving all that movement? Your dad, he owned a convenience store. Is that accurate?

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Yeah, a bunch of different places. He was a drummer, so sort of like was frustrated musician trying to find his artistic creative outlet, but also feed his family. And they'd all kinds of different jobs. And so we never owned a house. We're always renting and there were always pieces of crap. And a lot of the time it would be a corner store that he'd take over and there'd be a house attached in the back. Aha. With like two bedrooms kind of thing.

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And as basic as it comes and we just kept moving all the time. They'd sell that place, go to some other place, always moving.

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Starting school over and over again is not ideal. How did it go for you. I have a brother who's two years older than me, Shane. That was kind of good having a two year older brother going into these schools. But pretty quickly, the guitar became a great way for me to get accepted. Yeah. Do you play any instruments?

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I play the drums poorly. I would say I'm a four out of ten drummer. I've been playing the guitar for twenty years, never taken a lesson. And I play like someone who's been taking lessons for three months.

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So that's kind of where I'm at. I write instruction of any kind. I have a lot of similar authority issues.

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As I learned a little bit more about you today, I think we have a lot of parallels. My father was one of the great drinkers.

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He did die sober, which is amazing. Good for you. Good for him.

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Yeah, but he was a party animal and he caused a lot of those moves. I was wondering, do you have good Spidey senses better now? Are you good at reading when someone's about to turn.

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What kind of person and what kind of. Well, in addition to my father, I also had a string of stepfathers who also loved to imbibe. And I got good at predicting when the good time Charlie was about to turn into the maniac. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, I mean, because I kind of became that myself for a long time.

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Oh, me too. Yeah, it is what it is. Right. You're born with that or you're not. And if you are, good luck. Yeah, but yeah. I mean, I've gotten a lot better over the years, not questioning my instincts.

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Aha. So I was thinking about you and playing guitar. So you got into it pretty young, you started taking lessons and you had a great aptitude for it and you were even on TV as a young kid. So I was thinking with your looks and getting attention for being on TV, that can go one of two ways in school. Right. Every guy could hate your fucking guts or it could be embraced. So what did you have?

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A bit of both. But I tell you, one of the things I remember from high school in Queensland at that time, primary school was grade one to seven, seventh grade. And then you moved over to high school, eighth grade to 12th grade. That transition from I guess it would be middle school, right? Yeah.

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To high school is brutal because I go from, like, the coolest kid back of the bus running the show to like, nobody, nothing, just squatter.

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It was a rough transition to me, but they were doing a production of Oliver and they're like, we need a little blond haired kid who can sing. Not a lot of options. And so I can't act for shit, but I could sing. And so I got the gig that we did this picture of me holding the little bowl.

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Yeah, yeah. The poor little. And they stuck it on like a little baduel pin thing. Right. And handed them out to all the kids in school. So it was like my first taste of fame. Yeah. Was my face on all these kids wearing these things around and try to that now. I mean everything on my list is fantastic. About a week after the musical finished, it was right back to Shit Zero again.

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And I went, I got it. OK, I see.

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I got a lesson to learn right out of the game was an amazing lesson to learn at 13 was really important just to know that this is all bullshit and don't don't buy into it.

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Well, so similarly, junior high for me was the peak of my life. If I could relive it here in my life over and over again in seventh grade is the only only time in my life I touched what Brad Pitt experiences and then grew another foot, lost ten pounds, changed high schools.

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And I was at the back of the line, as you say. And for me it ended up defining who I was. And then I was like, OK, so you're not going to bet on your looks. You're going to have to really pick up the personality aspect and have to learn how to dance and get funny or you're fucked, right?

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Can you dance? Yeah. Monaca yeah. Yeah, right.

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It out of ten is seven really putting me on the spot. Yeah.

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One time he said he could dance as well as Bruno Mars.

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In my defense I had not seen Bruno Mars dance. Just for the record, I showed him a video and then he was like, oh, I can't, I cannot do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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A seven and a half. Oh wow. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Went up a half. That's great. Yeah.

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I always recommend to young men, you know, learn a couple of jokes, learn a dance and everything will just, you know, work out enough. Yeah.

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OK, so what was the country music scene in Australia. Obviously I don't associate Australia with country music all that much. Eh. Was there a thriving scene and B have there been an Australian musician that had become successful in the States by way of country music prior to you?

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Not one that I knew of that I'd use for inspiration or anything like that. My dad, being a drummer, grew up in the fifties, got infected by the rock and roll bug, and consequently America was everything. It was all my dad obsessed about. We're going to live in America one day. Never did. But I inherited all of that.

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And then through my dad's sixties and seventies, he moved from early rock and roll, which was very rockabilly, you know. Sure, he moved over towards country, particularly through the seventies, and became obsessed with American country music. Charley Pride and Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, the original outlaws.

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That was like the high watermark, right, of country. Yeah. The seventies is a great time for country music, I think, particularly because it was the start of individualism in a really big way. I mean, Waylon was the first guy to use his rubber band on a record that's never been done before. That was oh, you had to use session musicians. And he was like, no, I'm going to do it that way and really opened the doors for everybody.

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Sensa wanted to do it their way like me. But on the back of all these records, it used to say recorded in Nashville, Tennessee. And when I was seven, eight years old, I'm looking through all these credits and these records and I go, oh, if you want to make a record, you go to Nashville, Tennessee. That's where you go. So it was imprinted right from then that I would live there some time, some day now.

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Was there any moment where you were locked into that dream that you thought, well, wait, rock and roll is going to probably result in bigger shows, more backstage action? Were you at all allured? I noticed that one of your idols, guitarist. Was Lindsey Buckingham, which is a great idol to have, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Were you ever tempted to go down that path?

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Well, backstage action wasn't on my mind at the age of eight like it was for dachshunds. I mean, I guess. Yeah, that was the hype. Yeah. Yeah, that was it.

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Look, at the end of the day, I think I'm like a lot of boys are trying to get my dad's attention. Right. I just wanted my dad's attention. And so I was gravitating towards whatever it is that my dad seemed more interested in than me. And if he was more interested in these country artists, then that's what I would do. And so I sort of fell towards that style of music and learned those kinds of songs. And before I knew it, that's what I was doing.

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When I got to be sort of 14, 15, the music that was talking to me was Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and Whitesnake and Saxen. And I'm like, that's the stuff that's talking to me. Yeah.

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And so I joined this heavy metal band called Fractured Mirror when I got a title in perfect name taken from an Ice family record, which is kind of weird.

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Well, he also didn't have smashed mirrors on his vest. Paul Stanley did. May be. Yes, he did. I think I might have had him on his vest. You're able ended up putting on the guitar anyway, we're getting lost.

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But I joined this heavy metal band at the age of 15. But at the same time, a friend of mine had turned me on to this Ricky Skaggs records, which is sort of like bluegrass, pop fusion, whatever the country, whatever the heck Ricky was doing at that time. And he had this guy called Albert Lee playing guitar. And I was like obsessed with Albert Lee's chicken pickin. This chicken pickin thing was like, what the hell is that?

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You know, so I'm in this heavy metal band.

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I'm listening to Ricky Skaggs and I'm not quite sure which way I'm supposed to go. And I got fired from the band one night because we were playing a gig.

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I got the Fender Strat, I got the Marshall stack, I got the I looked the pot. I'm killing it. And they throw me a solo in the song and I just bust out this chick and pick a guitar.

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And the lead singer looks at me like, what the fuck is that?

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You know, I was fired and I realized I had a musical identity crisis right then and had come to terms with which way I was going to go.

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And in the end, it was about not choosing anything. It was just fusing all these things together and figuring out, well, I'm a bit of this, I'm a bit of that and a bit of that. I'll just figure out how to put all that together.

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It takes a while, though, doesn't it, to acquire that kind of confidence in yourself that your version of you is enough and can be a thing? I've had that experiences as an actor. I was trying to be this person and that person. And then just finally I was like, oh, I think I'm enough. I can just be me. But that takes a while, doesn't it, to have that kind of conviction?

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Oh, God, yeah, absolutely. Especially in moving to Nashville in the early 90s when I did, man, that was really rough because I wasn't doing anything remotely that made sense for me to be there as far as they saw. And they were right. I mean, I had a lot of stuff to figure out, but I wanted to figure it out there. I'd built up a really good career in Australia, but I watched enough people to know that whenever you decide to go and pursue things in America, which is all right, it's just the yellow brick road.

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And if you're one in a million, there's three hundred and twenty of you there. And so if I'm going to pursue this, it doesn't matter how successful I am in Australia, none of it translates when you get to America, you start at the back of the line. No matter who you are, they don't give a crap. And so I went, if I'm going to stop, let's get on with the starving. Yeah. Get to Nashville and start starving, you know?

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So I'm glad I went there early on.

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I'm particularly interested in your move to Nashville when I learn your story today, because I was going to Nashville often in the mid 90s for work.

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I worked for General Motors and now Nashville is like the greatest city in America. It's just so wonderful. I love going there. And it's changed so much in the 90s. Even just being from the north and being a Yankee was potentially dangerous or there was some attitude that you would get at the bars.

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And you being from Australia, I can't imagine it was very easy.

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It wasn't. But I got in with a good bunch of songwriters and the thing everybody loves to do is just pull out guitars and start passing them around and playing songs and just jam sessions, impromptu things, whatever. And it was apparent very early on that I knew my stuff as far as all the history of country music. And even though I didn't look like I fit in, I was there for the right reason. And it just took a long time.

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It's a small town, like any small town in Australia. They're really, really wary of the carpetbaggers coming in. They're like, what's your caper? What are you doing here? What's your story? You know? And I get that I'm from Australia, from the small town in Australia. We're exactly the same. Like, who are you? Let's go. Yes. What do you scamming here?

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You know, so I get it. Yeah, this is our thing. What are you doing? This is our thing.

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And I went there as a guest and I've never lost sight of that. I'm a guest there and even though I've been there twenty seven years, I've. Never lost sight of the feeling and remembering that I'm a guest and trying to build a life there, and I've been really fortunate to be able to build a really good life and good family in Nashville.

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Well, I came up with a theory, and this will be hard for you to confirm or negate because it'll require you to brag.

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But when I was thinking of your time in Nashville, I have to imagine what had to break through is that you're just a bad motherfucker on the guitar. Like once that was demonstrated, it must have cut through a lot of that xenophobia or what are you doing here?

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It helped and hurt in the sense like. Right. But what do we do with that, huh? I had a little three piece band and I used to play these shows all the time, the classic showcase for the record companies to come and see us. And God, I hope we get a record deal. You know, we did so many disastrous versions of those.

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There's a unique misery in it, isn't there? Oh, gosh.

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A unique misery, no question. But there was this guy from Sony Records used to come and see us play all the time, and he would be there till the bitter end of the beginning. And I just loved it.

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And I came up to him one night and I'm like, man, you're it all of our gigs. And he goes, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, Why do you come together? Because I love you guys. And I said, Why can't we get signed? You guys, I'm the only one that loves you.

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Oh, wow.

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So I'm like, what am I doing wrong? I don't know what to do. You know, people are always like, do your best. And I'm like, I'm doing my best. And that's not getting me anywhere. So what now? Yeah, what do I do? You said, Keith, you're really unique, man, and it will be your biggest curse until it becomes your greatest blessing.

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Oh, God, isn't that the truth? He just said stay the course and don't acquiesce. And he was spot on. It took a long, long time, but it eventually happened.

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Did you ever get to work with him professionally?

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No, I didn't. But sometimes it sounds like the most cornball cheesy advice like that, right? Some sort of like Hallmark card or something. Hang in there, Kitty. Yeah. And you tell people that they like that was the advice that made a big difference. But on that night when he said it to me, the way he said it to me, it went right to the core of my whole being because I was trying to fit in and I was compromising on things.

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And I went, well, compromising is not a good thing, but maybe adapting will be the right thing. So let's figure out, what do I do that makes sense right now and just focus on those and let go of the other stuff till later. I always use this example, right. Do you really present your real self when you go to meet your girlfriend's parents the first time? Nope.

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Well, not really. I never did. But when I met Kristen's parents, I was like, I'm thirty two. I own a home. I'm done with this.

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I'm going to present the real me. And guess what? It backfired. It took me about two years to win back over my father in law because I was just like, dude, I'm just a fucking dude, you know, I'm not going to Eddie Haskell, you like, this is me. I'm a recovering addict. You know, I'm an ex scumbag, but I'll treat your daughter well. And, yeah, I probably could have done a better job, but I so agree with what you're saying.

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I have a couple of different actor friends who are so unique and as they will audition for things, maybe they'll ask me to go over it with them. And I will often urge people like, dude, it's so much better to not get hired for eighty five jobs to finally get hired to do the thing you can do. It's worth losing those 85. Right.

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To just stay the course and then get hired to do what you do. That's your only real shot of breaking out. There's really only one way to do it, which is just you got to keep doubling down on what you are.

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Another thing, when I got to town and somebody said, you know, what's your goal? And I said, what? To get a record deal. And they're like, no, that's not the goal. I said, what's the goal? And they get to get the right record deal. And I said, What do you mean by that? And I go, the one that lets you make the record that you want to make. It's your voice.

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It's your music. Wait out for that one. Like you said, that's possible. The other ones and wait for that one. Because once you get it, I saw some artists have a lot of success acquiescing everything. Yeah. Being given the song, being given the band, the musicians being given the producer or court appointed attorney kind of thing. Right. And they would have success. And their attitude was soon as I get success, I'll pull the reins over to my thing and I'm going to do it my way.

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But what they found was the record company did want to change anything. If they had success based on that formula, they did want to change the formula. And then I was stuck. And so I thought, all right, well, I'll wait till we get a deal where I can be the producer and I can choose the musicians in the songs and everything else. And it was really good advice.

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Now, you played Grand Old Opry for the first time in 93. You moved to Nashville in 92, right. Date sounds semirural.

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Yeah, well, OK. So this again, where I feel like I maybe had a shared experience with you, which is I moved to L.A. and I was ten years of auditioning before I got employment.

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And you were here seven years before you release Keith Urban yourself titled album, right? Yeah, that's a long time in your 20s, isn't it?

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For me, it was I needed comfort.

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I mean, I think I would have been an addict anyways because of the genetics and some childhood trauma, but I certainly needed relief from that decade battle of like failing that, something I loved.

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Yes.

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Yes. I got asked a lot. Did you think about going back to Australia? No, not once. I literally never once thought about it. That just wasn't an option. Yeah. It always felt like success was just around the corner. It was just right around the corner. Except they kept moving the fucking corner.

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Yeah. And you must have had friends as well. Like you were seen probably peers find success.

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Yeah, I was on the fringes for a long time it felt like and trying to move closer to those kinds of people. I didn't know those kinds of people really. And it's I mean, when you look back, you must have that feeling of like, I can't believe I got out of that alive. I cannot believe that I stumbled into this whole thing.

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Oh, if you look at the odds of an American moving to Nashville with tons of talent, the odds of them succeeding, I don't know what the number is. One in a million, one in two million. You add on coming from Australia, I hope you've had the moments where you could take that in and go, oh, my God, man, good on you. You fucking you know, it's true. It's an incredible an odds makers not betting on Keith Urban from Australia.

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I don't think I know.

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Now, are you the type of person who you're forward looking or you're so goal oriented that it's hard for you to take stock of that? Or maybe even you feel like by acknowledging that you'll jinx yourself? Or have you been able to enjoy that accomplishment?

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Probably a bit of all the above. I know when I got my first house in Nashville and I got to buy my first house, which would have been mid 2000s, you know, somewhere around there, two thousand four or something. And I got to buy my first house ever. It was a pretty decent house, pretty bad ass place. And I remember driving up the driveway one time, looking at it and seeing, you know, you look at a brick house is thousands and thousands of bricks in a brick house.

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And I remember looking at it going, every brick is a gig, every single brick is a gig.

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And every time I saw that place, that's what I thought about. So it certainly makes it sweeter that it takes so long.

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That is the weird, unique thing, though, about our profession, right, is I went from one bedroom apartment for ten years. I had been in to same thing Brick Ranch. And I'm like, oh wow, this is an enormous change.

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Like there was the thousand square foot house and the fifteen hundred square foot house and the three dozen is just nothing. And then room to park eight cars is wild.

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Yeah. It was from rented dilapidated. Krakow's is pretty much and that was the case to me to that was very strange. But at the same time you've also worked thirty odd years to get to that place or whatever. It's been 20 plus years to get to that place. And man, it's just a huge amount of luck and perseverance and timing. And you know, the first time I went to Nashville, I took this really terrible demo. I thought it was a great demo and I took it around to the record company.

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This is on a very, very early trip. I went back to Australia.

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I was waiting for all the office to come in crickets and already negotiating in your head. I'm going to hold out on this point.

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I'm going to hold and I look back and I just go, oh, my God, it was the worst demo you ever. Just horrible. And I got one letter back from a woman called Mary Martin, who was head of the NRA, RCA Records. She was so kind to take the time to write this letter back to me. And what I remember is she said, I enjoyed your tender thoughts or something about it. She's missing as you guys.

[00:27:41]

But country radio is in a traditional period right now, and your music is a little out of step. I hope you can come back here and find a good home. And it was really great advice in hindsight because she was basically just saying the timing is everything and your music, this isn't what's happening, but it may be one day. Who knows? So just come back here, stop paying your dues and see if the pendulum swings to what you're doing.

[00:28:07]

And it did a little bit ten, fifteen years later.

[00:28:09]

Ultimately, what was the turning point that leads to your first album? What happened?

[00:28:15]

I had a little three piece band and we got signed to Warner Brothers Records and we got dropped from that label, went over to Capitol Records, put out that album. It kind of went band, broke up. And I was trying to figure out how to capture who I was in a studio and not sound like a karaoke singer. And every time I went in with session players and sang, I just sounded like a karaoke singer. I used to say I.

[00:28:41]

Sitting on the track instead of in the track, so I was working with all the sort of famous producers and nothing was working, and I said to the guy that's running my record company, can I just pick someone? And he's like, yeah. I mean, what have we got to lose? Nothing. Right. And I chose this guy who was a session keyboard player called Matt Rolling's. And I went, why don't you and I do it?

[00:29:03]

We'll put a band together and pick the songs that would just go out as musicians. And we went in and recorded five songs, took him to the label, and then when they sang this email, so we did some more and finished the album, turned it in and we didn't think that much of it, but they put the songs out in. The first one did pretty good and the second one did a little bit better. The third one went to number one and then yeah, we're off and running.

[00:29:24]

But to the point earlier that I was saying the beautiful thing that happened because of all of that was the label then said, whatever you did last time, do that again for the next record. Oh, what a dream. And so I got to then choose my own producer, my own band, my own session, just take the reins. And I'd been very, very fortunate to be able to do it with every album. And I'm still at the same label all these years later.

[00:29:45]

Well, in the second album then you produced seven of the tracks yourself. Do I have that right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:51]

So the second album, that's when I kind of get aware of you musically and somebody like you. And it's mostly just because you played the shit out of the banjo and it's so cool to see someone fuckin reall the banjo. That's a that's a hard instrument to learn, isn't it? Do you like The Avett Brothers?

[00:30:08]

I like I'm obsessed. I love those guys. Look, it's a six string banjo, so it's total cheating, OK? I didn't know.

[00:30:16]

I wish I could play a proper five string proper banjo, but it's all weird tuning and there's a tea halfway up the back. I don't know what's going on, but when I was making the record with my band in nineteen ninety five, I had a song and I wanted this banjo part on this banjo player came in and he was playing and I'm like, no, no, no.

[00:30:34]

Like and he keeps handing me the banjo, played me what you got in your head.

[00:30:38]

And I'm like I can't play the bloody thing but I can hear it was driving me nuts and I left the studio.

[00:30:44]

I remember it so vividly. I'm like, gonna wish they made a six string banjo tune like a guitar because then I'd know what to do. So I went to this guitar store and I walk in and I kid you not is six string banjo sitting there. I sort of six tuning pegs in no way. And I pick it up and I strum it and it's like a tune. Like a guitar.

[00:31:01]

Yes. It was like nine hundred bucks which is like a grand more than I had.

[00:31:06]

So I put it on layaway, went back to the studio the next day and I put this thing on this track and it was crazy. It was like it was the missing sound of that bit. And, you know, in the back in the future is like this is your sound, you know, puts the phone up right to.

[00:31:22]

Oh, yeah, yeah. It was like that. It was like the missing link had been found. Then I put it on that song and then I put it on another song, ended up being on most of that record. And then it's just been on most things I've done since in some way.

[00:31:35]

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[00:32:57]

Now having to have some opportunities and then some heartbreak after the first album so successful and you get nominated for awards, you sell a ton of albums, you have no one's on the next album. Are you apprehensive or are you like, I don't know, man. There's been so much heartbreak or did you know, like, oh, I found my thing and it's going to work.

[00:33:17]

And what happened was, you know, because I'm a live guy, because I grew up playing in the clubs, I just wanted to get out and play because the record was fairly produced intentionally. I was trying to get on country radio, but make no apologies about it. I was trying to get on the radio. So I was had a particular sound and everything in mind for that made the record. But then when we hit the road, it got looser and wilder and stretched out more.

[00:33:43]

And so when it came time to make the second record, I wanted to bring some of that back into the studio. Just a little more stubble, basically. Yeah. And so that's how the second record got just a little looser and they really continued on from there.

[00:33:56]

Yeah, I love people who have paid their dues. And the fact that you would regularly play at a water slide in Australia just makes me so happy.

[00:34:04]

What's that from Play the Water Slide.

[00:34:06]

Did you play it like an amusement park when you were younger? Would you do like. No, no. I'm going to sue the Internet.

[00:34:15]

I was in like a theatre group when I was like seven, eight years old and we would play shopping centers.

[00:34:21]

So there was no outdoor live shows at an amusement park. No fuck. OK, well, then you didn't pay your dues and you don't deserve any of this. And I'm going to call the people to OK.

[00:34:30]

So yeah. Yeah I'd be well be well. OK.

[00:34:35]

Now I want to share my personal discovery of you is really from American Idol. I knew who you were musically. I think I vaguely knew you were Australian. But then when you started hosting that show, I kind of just fell in love with you as a personality. I thought you were so kind and you were so knowledgeable about music and it just kind of blew my mind. What an interesting person you are. Did you enjoy that experience getting to kind of just show your personality like that?

[00:35:02]

Hey, I did enjoy that because I've been on the other side of the desk a few times. I'm singing competition in TV things in Australia, and I know what it's like to be completely crushed and humiliated by a judge. And it's horrible. I, I was in a I was on a show called Pot of Gold in Australia when I was about nine, and they had a really scathing judge named Bernard King. And he was just me and that's why they had him on the show.

[00:35:29]

It's just brutal.

[00:35:30]

And I sang a song and he said, I desperately encourage you to escape the mediocrity, get out of country and Western and get into some real music. And he said otherwise you'll end up sounding like Dolly Parton and being absolutely useless. Kindly learn to sing in tune.

[00:35:47]

Oh, and the reason I remember all of that is because my mum and dad recorded it with little cassette player next to the TV speaker so I could hear that critiquing over and over again.

[00:35:58]

Oh, but what I remember from it was I paid no mind to everything that preceded the bit where you went. You're intrinsically a good musician. And I said to my mom, what does intrinsically mean?

[00:36:09]

And she said, she goes, well, he says that you sort of inherently sort of a good musician in a way, cool is a good thing to do is ignore the rest, you know.

[00:36:22]

OK, now explain this to me. This has always been something that I've always found very curious. So growing up here and listening to the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and all these British bands who, when I hear them sing, they sound American. There's something about singing, they sound American.

[00:36:39]

And it's always kind of like a reveal when I hear their British accent when they're talking.

[00:36:44]

Explain that to me. And then, of course, it gets even more interesting that you're Australian. And then when you sing, you have a very country and Western kind of flow. And it you sound southern to me.

[00:36:56]

Well, I mean, it's all to do with the music. We grew up being indoctrinated by for sure. I mean, all the blues cats in America influencing all the English guys. I used to get that question a lot. They like, you know, how come you don't sing the way you taught me?

[00:37:12]

And, you know, the only example I could always give was I said, well, you know, the Beatles would say, here's a song called God Bobby Love.

[00:37:18]

And then they go, Campobello. Yeah.

[00:37:22]

And you go, what happened to the cult? How did that become? Can't you know? And it's just the heroes. You sort of you assimilate all of that and sing the way you sing. And it's not conscious. I mean, when I sing, that's how it comes out.

[00:37:35]

Well, I do think in country in particular, there's like a musicality to that accent. I guess it's a singsongy kind of accent.

[00:37:44]

Yeah, it's almost like a part of the music itself, that Southern accent, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting. Now, I want to talk about your new album, which comes out September 18th. This. Now, part one, right, am I led to believe they'll be a part two, is part two already in the can?

[00:38:03]

Not in the can, but I've got a few songs for that one. I just ended up recording too many songs when you're making a record sometimes because way too many songs and I'm not a fan of twenty five song albums and I was struggling to figure out which ones should be on this record, kind of like who gets to be in the lifeboat and who doesn't. Yeah, and I felt bad for the songs that didn't get to go in a lifeboat, so I just had to lifeboats.

[00:38:28]

So that's how that came about.

[00:38:31]

Now you've been really prolific. I'm curious about your process. Like, how do you stay hungry? How do you stay motivated to keep creating? You have, I'm sure, a comfortable lifestyle and you've got a family and a wife and all these things. So there's there's certainly a lot of temptation to just probably hang. So what keeps you on fire to create?

[00:38:53]

Here's a weird thing. I don't feel really that much different to when I moved to Nashville. I really don't. I was talking to a guy here in town the other day about that, and I said, you know, I don't have any awards in my studio. It's completely blank. Every time I go in, I'm like, what the hell? How do we do this again? What you know, it just feels every time I walk in literally zero sense that I've ever done anything.

[00:39:14]

None of that factors in it doesn't come in with me. I don't think about it. Consequently, I don't feel any pressure, no expectation, nothing. I just come in blank slate. And he said, Oh, you've got beginner's mind. And I said, What? And he goes, You got beginner's mind. That's how you approach things. And I've never heard that term before, but that's what I have a beginner's mind. I come at things just completely fresh every single time with total curiosity.

[00:39:38]

What does this button do? What happens if I put that over there? There's this work that doesn't work. And it's just I think it's really one of the fact that and people forget this word. We play music. We play music is the first word.

[00:39:51]

Whether you play drums, you play guitar, you play keyboards, you go and play a gig, you play it's fun.

[00:39:58]

And if you lose that first word, you're just dead in the water. You just you know, and yes, there's times that it's work, no question. But, you know, maybe get a blister on your little finger.

[00:40:10]

They work on you. So I think I just I don't lose sight of the playfulness of it and have fun in the sandbox.

[00:40:19]

I think about this. I have a few different British friends who have families here in the US. So I'm imagining that your daughters, we both have two daughters. Your daughters have American accents, right? I mean, they are civilians. Right.

[00:40:33]

And raised naturally in jail. Is that a trip? I try to imagine my daughter's having a British accent, and I feel like it would be really a trip.

[00:40:41]

I'm not aware of it. It's just how they sound. They've sounded like that since they could talk. So I couldn't picture them any other way. And probably from living in Nashville for twenty seven years now, they sound like everybody else. They blend right in.

[00:40:55]

You're the only one that doesn't sound right. Yeah, exactly. So I am surrounded by Manickam, my wife, two daughters. We have a female dog.

[00:41:06]

What's it, a dog. They have dogs. Who fucking knows what that thing is. Rescue rat. It looks like a you know, I don't golf, but I've been enough times to see the rag that's on a golf bag that people clean their clubs with over and over again. She deeply resembles that golf rag.

[00:41:22]

She's not the cutest. She's got one eye. She's a Cyclops. Gosh, what's her name?

[00:41:28]

Barb. Barbara Biscuit's Barbara Taffy was her original name.

[00:41:32]

Taffe Idil. She's got a lot of names. We describe her spine as curvy.

[00:41:38]

That tells you how she's shaped like a camel with scoliosis and she's a Cyclops. Do you love being around that much? Femininity and female energy?

[00:41:48]

Apparently, right. I grew up me and my brother, mom and dad, no sisters, but somehow I just fit right in to this family. And, yeah, it's it's all all female. It's crazy. We have a male dog, so that's that's Yangzi and a little bit balance things out. But I think because have a band get out on the road with the boys and the scientism, I got that covered.

[00:42:12]

It's like my team, a football team, you know, and and there's a good balance and coming home and I love it.

[00:42:18]

I love it. Yeah. I deeply love it. And yet I go to work on a car show I'm on and it's all dudes and it's all cars all the time. And I'm like, oh yeah. This also feels quite nice. I can be very reckless with how I communicate and it doesn't seem to offend anyone.

[00:42:33]

Yeah. No, go too deep. I can be very direct and no one's crying.

[00:42:38]

I be talking to somebody about something. One of my friends has got some medical issue or something and Nick could be like, oh what's wrong with him.

[00:42:45]

I'm like, I don't know because I know he's going to hospital. What's he going to what's he going to hospital for? Like, I didn't ask him. I don't like. Yeah. He's in the hospital, you know, he's not going there because it's his birthday, that's enough another. I know he gets out next Thursday. That's all I know. So it's all good. Yeah.

[00:43:06]

But I'm often grateful that I have two daughters because I don't have to be involved in that father son thing. That was very complicated for me and my dad in the notion of like having to toughen a kid up or make all these things. I just feel this great sense of relief that I don't have to do any of that. I love having little girls and just being sweet with them and, you know, playing dolls and imagination and all this stuff.

[00:43:32]

Right. Would it be hard for you to have a son?

[00:43:35]

I guess I'll never know. I think I would have been OK with a boy. I mean, you get what you meant to get right. But I think I would have been all right with boy, I learned a lot. We all do right from that. Parents of what to do, what not to do, all the rest of it. There was a documentary recently that came out. It was two fathers and two sons from two different backgrounds who had boxing sons that they raised the kids up in the boxing ring and the two different styles of fathering and the outcomes of those two I can remember the name of it was a really good documentary.

[00:44:06]

One of the kids kind of went the way of dad who had been convicted of selling drugs the whole bit. You sort of dad had gotten his life together and then the kid went the same route back in prison thing. And there was a great moment when the dad was like, what the hell's wrong with you? And he goes, I want to be like you. You guys don't be like me better than me. You're meant to be better than I am.

[00:44:28]

And I was like, oh, my God, I've never heard a father say that. It was relatively like you are literally meant to be better than me if you're not. I haven't done my job right.

[00:44:37]

And I was like and hit me like a ton of bricks. Yeah. Yeah, that's heartbreaking.

[00:44:43]

Well, if you remember the name of that, we are documentary junkies and I got a boner just hearing there was one we had not seen yet. Yeah.

[00:44:50]

Yeah. Ringside. That's it. Yeah. Ringside. You got to watch that.

[00:44:54]

It just occurred to me that Rob listens. I felt kind of like someone was eavesdropping. Thank you, Rob. But also I felt a little bit like, oh, there's someone listening ringside.

[00:45:02]

OK, we're going to check that out. Yeah. Can I ask for. I'll I'll start. I'll say. I met Kristen in for the first time in my life. I think I approached it with a different set of criteria I was looking for. I think I ledwith I want someone that's going to be a great mom. You know, I had different priorities at that time, for whatever reason my age are being three years sober or whatever it was.

[00:45:25]

But what is it about Nick that worked one of the more successful relationships in show business at fifteen years? So I'm curious what it was about her that you rose to the occasion for.

[00:45:39]

That's what happened. Definitely. She's just the one that was there. She's the one that I was searching for my whole life. And everything not only changed, but had the change in me. If I was going to go that road, it felt like an ultimate fork in the road moment in my life. And it was literally like, easy to get this right now. You are never, ever going to get it right. This is your one shot was really it felt so obvious.

[00:46:04]

And I knew where I was going. I was going into the light. Finally, it was everything I was looking for. And then some I mean, beyond just beyond, you know, I've had my, you know, over thirteen years now.

[00:46:16]

I've gotten really comfortable with certain aspects. But some of them were challenging for me as like a generic dude from the Midwest who had ideas of what things were supposed to be like in one of them being, well, I should make more money than my wife. I should be the provider. And I felt emasculated for some years that that she made more money than me or that we go to a party and more people remember her or, you know, there's certainly some potential ego traps with being married to someone as successful as our wives are.

[00:46:48]

Is that been easy for you to navigate? Yeah.

[00:46:51]

Yeah, because it's only one of the things that is being brought home to contribute to the family. It's a big one. But there is so many other things that I can bring that help and blossom the family and protect it and take care of it and grow it, not just Fiscalis. So I bring everything I can most of the time, right?

[00:47:12]

I mean, yeah, I have to be brutally honest.

[00:47:15]

It's like, you know, as someone said, you know, I mean, in recovery, it's like people go, I work this program to the best of my ability. You're like, probably not. You probably work this program the best of your willingness.

[00:47:26]

Yeah. Or the one percent more than I have. Two or zero percent more than I have two.

[00:47:32]

There's a song on my album called Better Than I Am, which touches upon a lot of these things. And there's a line in there in the second verse that talks about it's more a truce, less a surrender, it's more a giving giving more than I want to give. And that's what it takes. It takes me giving more than I want to give to actually live this life that I was trying to find. I just was never giving enough, ever.

[00:47:54]

Yeah. I'm the epitome of the softer kind of. The way I was looking for, like, OK, I like eight of these steps, I'm totally in eight of these steps. But the thing I don't know if I can go down that road and and I certainly tried incrementally, like, OK, this time I'm going to try nine of the steps. This time I'm going to try ten of the steps.

[00:48:13]

And I had probably twenty five spectacular relapses and each time going back going, all right, I'm going to do a little bit more and then fucking lucky somehow. The last time through I did what I would argue is probably point zero one percent more than was required of me and it works.

[00:48:34]

I always had an issue with people saying, oh, you're doing the same thing, expecting different results. I said, oh, it's not quite the same. It's just a sliver, a bit different.

[00:48:42]

And I'd be like, well, you're splitting hairs here. And I go, Yeah, but it's not the same, you know?

[00:48:47]

And that's the absurdity of it. I used to say it's like a trillion number combination lock. And I'm saying if it unlocks. Nope.

[00:48:54]

And I move one number out of a trillion and then try it again. I see. It's different.

[00:48:58]

You know, I said I have great gratitude that my using got me into recovery.

[00:49:07]

It was worth it for me. It ended up changing some things.

[00:49:11]

My life would be half his joy filled. I'd be half present for people. Learning to be honest with myself is it was almost unimaginable for a long, long time. If you come to be grateful that you ended up on the path you're on.

[00:49:24]

Oh, every day. That's not hyperbole. That is legit. And literally every day I may not act it sometimes because I'm just human. Yeah, but I make amends really quick. That's changed my life in a big way. I was on the phone with somebody yesterday and I'd had a long day. It's a bit stressed and I was a bit edgy and I got off the phone a bit abruptly and I'm like, what an asshole. I shouldn't have done that.

[00:49:48]

And I called the person right back and I just said, I'm so I'm sorry for that. I just had a crap. I wasn't you. I'm sorry that I spoke that way. I just had to say that I did have fun, you know? And I went, Oh, thank you. And I felt better and I felt better. And it's like that wasn't so hard to do that in my life. But what I will say about recovery for me in the guitar world, certain guitars, there's so much stress on the headstock with the strings.

[00:50:13]

There are a lot of the times that headstock snaps off. You drop the guitar and that thing snaps off and you go to glue it back on. And more often than not, those guitars that have had that thing glued back on a stronger and sound better than they did before they got broken. And that is the metaphor for recovery.

[00:50:33]

Uh huh.

[00:50:34]

It's really true. I really think a person in recovery has a strength that they didn't have, that they were naturally born without it. And they're actually stronger for the break. Yeah.

[00:50:44]

Now, speaking of a man, because I will say there are things I do shitty in this program and there are things that I'm good at. And one is I do make a lot of those phone calls you're talking about.

[00:50:54]

And I'm curious what is occurred to me over the years of making those phone calls is people are often so shocked. And what I realized while I'm apologizing is they haven't been apologized to for maybe a decade. And I start realizing, well, this is something that people just generally aren't doing. This person's real. I can tell they're receiving their first apology in a long, long time.

[00:51:17]

Right. And you kind of get aware of like, oh, man. Yeah, that's one aspect I kind of wish everyone got to participate in, you know, without having to become a drunk to do it.

[00:51:26]

It's just cleaning up your side of the street before you go to bed as best as you can.

[00:51:31]

Yeah, it's a better way to be. I know that much. And you're right. I think some people are shocked. What apology? What the hell? There's a song on my new album called Say Something, which is on one level about speaking up about things you believe in and not staying silent. And there's plenty of those kinds of causes and situations. But this also touches upon things I wished I'd said to maybe my family, my dad, people I didn't get to say sorry to before they drifted out of my life or someone I didn't say I love you, too, and then they died or whatever.

[00:52:01]

And so there's other times in my life I wish I'd said something because, I mean, we didn't have any intimacy in our family when we were growing up, like, not zero. So we didn't say anything. Nobody said anything. And you have to you have to say that we say stuff in our family all the time. Now with Nick and the girls, we talk about things and it makes for a way better life because of it.

[00:52:23]

Were you nervous at all, having not had that once you had kids of like, oh, man, I'm going to have to try to break this cycle or did it just come easy for you?

[00:52:32]

My mom was all of that. Oh, very affectionate, really. Just divine from that standpoint, from a fiction standpoint, telling us she loves us and all that. And the classic story my dad did, too, in his own way.

[00:52:45]

Well, he clearly showed up for you, right? I mean, that's one aspect. He helped make your costumes and stuff. Yeah.

[00:52:51]

And just alcoholic. It wasn't a bad guy. You just alcoholic. It was. Dealing with the way he was raised like we all are, you can't teach what you don't know. We haven't been told, you haven't learned, you can't teach it to your kids. But between the two of them, we ended up with a decent life and they stayed married all the way until my father passed away. And we always had a roof over our head.

[00:53:13]

Might have been a piece of shit, but always had a roof over.

[00:53:16]

Well done. Might have been sharing a roof with the convenience store, but it was roof nonetheless.

[00:53:22]

Now, when you say you have beginner's mind knowing that you have that when you do the speed of now, are you trying to head somewhere? Is there goal in mind?

[00:53:31]

There's a connection between pretty much everything. And certainly in music there's a through line and threads that connect everything together. And I'm really driven by those kinds of things. You know, you hear something over here and Nico, right. That that actually connects with that. And there's something about continuing to seek out those things that go together. I always use analogy and it's probably a terrible one, but I can't cook. I suck at cooking is something I wish I was really good at.

[00:53:59]

One of the many things I could have learned in lockdown didn't do jack shit. Yeah, but like a great chef will bring all these ingredients from exotic, faraway places into the kitchen and then start tinkering and seeing what works, what doesn't and getting combinations right. That's what I do in the studio. I just bring all these unusual ingredients in and see what works, what doesn't tinker and mess around with mixtures and combinations. That's what I do. That's what keeps me eternally interested because it's infinite.

[00:54:26]

There's so much stuff out there to fuse together and see what works and what doesn't work. You have an alchemist's approach to it?

[00:54:34]

Very much, yeah.

[00:54:36]

Do you keep like voice memos like as you're moving through the world you like, here's something or how do you keep track of your inspiration. Yeah.

[00:54:44]

Voice memos. I shazam all the time. I'm the annoying guy standing on a table at a restaurant trying to get a little bit closer to the speaker on the ceiling because there's something in this ambient music that's interesting. And I want to know who the artist is. And I'm sure it'll be some French person I can't even pronounce. They always are. And I got this obscure playlist because of Shazam and all the time. Oh, really? You bring all these things in to a writing session and they're like, where the hell did you find that song?

[00:55:12]

I'm like, Oh, I was in a cab and like Paris and you know, yeah.

[00:55:16]

Let's try and ask the driver who the artist was and he only spoke French. You shazam it, you tag all this shit and change my life. Fantastic.

[00:55:22]

Yeah, that's a great tool. Who do you find currently? Very inspirational.

[00:55:27]

Musically, it's sometimes a mix of things like there's some really cool stuff on the weekends record that I love, really cool things on Dolphus record that I love the way they sort of she filters all the stuff the way he does it too, but sort of makes it modern, futuristic, even though it's obviously filtering all that stuff. It's really cool. Destines tracks on the chick's record that Jack Antonoff did. And I love him as a producer. He's just got a great sonic talk to him is very, very cool.

[00:55:56]

Braylon, a guy who I collaborated with on my record, is a really interesting artist doing some really cool fusing of things. That's really interesting.

[00:56:04]

Have you come across Jack White down there? Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.

[00:56:08]

He seems like a really interesting synthesizer of weird different inputs.

[00:56:16]

I mean, a genuine, eccentric renaissance man and incredibly talented in multiple directions. Crazy. Did you watch it may get loud that document. Yeah.

[00:56:27]

Oh yeah. Yeah. When he's building the little slide thing it's fantastic. Yeah.

[00:56:31]

And then when he goes and plays with Jimmy Page, I was like, oh, this guy's a force of nature. He's sitting with two people that are legendary and he is a just fucking volcano of ideas and passion.

[00:56:44]

Yeah, we went to his house for dinner one night and he had all these photo booths from the 20s and 30s, like several of them. And I'm like, the hell. And they're all just sort of dismantled. And I'm like, What? What are these niggas? Rebuilders.

[00:56:58]

Of course you do. Yeah, of course. That's what you would do.

[00:57:02]

Yeah, well, he's not refurbishing covered bridges on his property or something when he has his whole upholstery thing out in the backyard.

[00:57:09]

It's got a whole shed where he does upholstery work. He's done that for years and years. But rebuilding these things are complicated.

[00:57:16]

They're complicated, complex mechanisms in these photo booths and it's insane. He's crazy, gifted, great guitar player.

[00:57:24]

Well, I listen to the speed of now today. And I really, really, really liked it. And I will say that it's funny now to talk to you and hear about the process, because I was hearing all this different stuff. It's so alive. There's so many different things happening and it's not straight up the middle. And I really appreciate that. I enjoy trying to figure out what that connective tissue is. It makes you participate in a way that I really like.

[00:57:50]

I think it's wonderful. So fantastic job.

[00:57:53]

Thank you. I think it's good when you can shed some. Those labels and prejudices and expectations for anything and just let it find you old art, really movies, photography, sculptors, everything, just let it find you without any preconceived labeling. It's a much better way to make a connection with art.

[00:58:11]

Yeah, well, listen, you're a joy. I really appreciate you. Finally, it draws really appreciate you being on the show. And I pray I'll bump into you in Nashville. By God, do I love it down there? And yeah, I'd love to go work on some photo booths over at Jack's house.

[00:58:25]

Three of us do some types. Yes, that would be fun. All right.

[00:58:31]

We'll be well, enjoy your time down there in Australia and love to your family.

[00:58:35]

And likewise, I'm glad we're on the same path, brother.

[00:58:38]

Indeed we are. A day at a time. And you got it. Thank you, guys. Okay, bye now. Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare. We are supported by ring.

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[01:01:01]

And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman. You're in charge. I'm in charge. You're the boss.

[01:01:11]

Two days in a row, you and I have had some symmetry in our outfits, which is yesterday I was wearing a pink top and you are wearing pink bottoms and pink top.

[01:01:20]

I was all pink.

[01:01:20]

Yes, you are all pink. But that doesn't serve my point very much to say you were all pink. But but certainly I had a pink top and you did have pink bottoms. You also had a pink dump. And then today you have yellow bottoms. Yeah. And I have a yellow top. That's true.

[01:01:34]

And that just feels fortuitous.

[01:01:35]

Color coordinated. We might win the lottery is. Should we play.

[01:01:39]

Yeah. Powerball. Yeah. Will you buy me some tickets. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll buy you some tickets. Oh that's good. Yeah. You can't win if you buy your own. Exactly. Everyone knows that. Yeah. Right. That's true.

[01:01:50]

It now what would you do if you want. How much. Four hundred million. Four hundred times. Our ball is in the like hundreds and hundreds of millions. All right.

[01:01:59]

It's regularly at like four hundred million y. Yeah. OK if I won. Yeah. I would make my house spectacular. OK, you'd stay in the same house though. The one I just bought. Yeah. Yeah I think you should. I just don't get mad.

[01:02:15]

Mad you could live anywhere on the planet with four hundred million.

[01:02:19]

That's all I know. I'm going to stay in the house I bought. I'm just going to make it spectacular. Yeah. And then I'm maybe going to buy a new car or any of my Mercedes. So like a white person of color. Oh white guy. And then I'm going to do this already all sucks because you could already do all this but continue.

[01:02:45]

Then I'm going to buy my parents a house. OK, here. Oh good. Yeah. Well how about Santa Barbara actually.

[01:02:52]

Yeah. Wouldn't make sense for them to have a house here because they'll stay in my house. Yeah, so let's let's put them up in Santa Barbara because it reminds them so much of India for obvious reasons, I won't even go into why it's too obvious.

[01:03:03]

OK, so I'll buy them a house in Santa Barbara. I'm not going to give my brother any money. OK. Harsh, harsh.

[01:03:11]

And I think that's all. That's OK. OK, great.

[01:03:16]

Then I just save and then I'll feel comfy the rest of my life. Yeah I would love that.

[01:03:21]

That's all I want is to stop working and hang know also work. OK, good. Oh of course. All you want, you just want to buy your parents house.

[01:03:29]

No, I just want to feel safe. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:31]

So I would like to have like two hundred now if I had two hundred. If I had a hundred will escape.

[01:03:36]

Two hundred million. Two hundred million's gone from taxes.

[01:03:40]

OK, ok, so it's not a very fun fantasy that we're taking taxes out, but I know this is the reality.

[01:03:45]

OK, two hundred million goes out for taxes to buy one twentieth of those stupid fucking airplanes. What airplanes. There is a fighter jet that's like a billion dollars per thing and it has no power.

[01:03:56]

I wish I could tell them my 200 can go to that. That's what bums me out is you got my two hundred goes to education.

[01:04:03]

OK, good. So then two hundred left and then the house. The parents house.

[01:04:10]

So no money for my brother. So one hundred and ninety left. Yeah, yeah. Yeah that's great. And then I could just invest it. I would just keep a hundred. OK, it's like really safe like in a CD. Yeah. And then 9d I could play with a little.

[01:04:27]

OK, see if you can't turn into ninety nine. Yeah but if I knew that I always had one hundred million dollars I would feel great.

[01:04:35]

So I agree with you but I do promise you that you'll live long enough for one hundred million is going to seem like four million bucks.

[01:04:43]

I just know because I watch all these thirty four thirty so it's like you hear the biggest athletes in the world in the early 80s made a million a year.

[01:04:52]

Yeah.

[01:04:53]

Which was the equivalent. These football players are sounding like hundred million dollar contracts. Yeah. And so what you have to say is like what happened to them is going to happen to us. You think about making a million last from cents from a nineteen eighty two to twenty, twenty forty journalists were OK, I'm going to work and make money.

[01:05:11]

I'm just going to have that there. Yeah. In case I need it. I'm just saying that work I probably won't live long enough but you will live long enough to see a moment where one hundred millions like a good amount of money which is crazy.

[01:05:25]

It depends on how you spend I mean and who you are. Like Bill Gates. I didn't ask him but I should have like one hundred million dollars is like, sure. Yeah that's great. Yeah. But nice try. But to most people on earth. Yeah.

[01:05:40]

That's insane. That's not my point today. It's an obscene amount of money to everybody. My point is, is that when you're 90 in 60 years, it's going to be shocking how much it's changed. That's all I'm saying that one hundred million dollars and sixty years from now is probably going to be the equivalent of like three million dollars today, which is is the crazy aspect of inflation.

[01:06:01]

Yeah, that's true.

[01:06:03]

That's how long it's going to be a big enough number that most people won't have it.

[01:06:08]

I agree. But I just know that even growing up, people talked about millionaires, like people want to grow up and be a millionaire.

[01:06:14]

They still do. I I'm not out to lunch. I know that. OK, but what I'm saying is that's not what's in the news now. What's in the news? You're not in the news for any money unless you have a billion.

[01:06:25]

That changed in my lifetime. That's all I'm saying. Like in the eighties, they talk about someone having ninety million dollars and it was the same as us talking about Bezos having like a hundred billion.

[01:06:37]

And it's just crazy to me that in my own lifetime that's changed so much that makes sense that like unless you have a billion, you're not even newsworthy. That's crazy. Right. Right. You're not newsworthy at a billion.

[01:06:47]

To be honest, I hate to break it to everyone out there with a billion.

[01:06:50]

That's not true.

[01:06:51]

No, I know somebody if I hear somebody has a billion dollars, I'm I can't wrap my head around a billion dollars. Well, it's ten one hundred millions. OK, thanks.

[01:07:02]

What would you do with it? I would buy your parents a house in Santa Barbara. I'd redo your house spectacularly. Thank you.

[01:07:09]

I'd give your brother two million dollars to steal mine aren't good. And this just came up in someone we interviewed yesterday. This weird predicament where if you grew up in the eighties, you bought into a promise and the promise now has changed.

[01:07:28]

And it's a little bit of a bummer.

[01:07:29]

Not that anyone don't feel bad for myself, but I grew up in an era before global warming one morning and the entire reason I entered the workforce was to get cars.

[01:07:41]

Yeah, it's the only reason I got a job. I want to get a Mustang and I got one for working my ass off. And I largely work currently to buy cars in there, all killing the planet.

[01:07:51]

And that really pissed me up because what I would like to the truth, what I really want to. With 400 million dollars is buy an airplane and I want to zip around the goddamn world all the time, I want to be like I'm in the mood to get a baguette in Paris and then I'm there. And then I'm like, because that's to me feels like teleporting like a magic, like sushi tonight.

[01:08:11]

You with me, Monica? Hop on the jet. And it's just a drag that that's the thing I dreamed about.

[01:08:17]

It just really ethically can't even do that. Yeah. And I'm feel a little betrayed by that.

[01:08:21]

Well, why don't you put your money into teleport invention. OK, OK. So that you could still maybe get what you want there. Teleportation. That's not bad for the planet or flu powder. That's a way to travel in Harry Potter. Oh OK.

[01:08:39]

Yeah. What if I think more possible than teleporting being a reality in my lifetime. What if I invent a bag you put over the engines on the airplane. OK, and then the bag catches all of the bad stuff.

[01:08:52]

OK, and then when you land in Paris before you have your bag at. Yeah. You take the bag off and then you put it in this thing that makes a lot of pressure and it turns it into diamonds.

[01:09:00]

Oh my. It takes all the carbon and approaches it into diamonds. That's good. That'll be good. OK then I could guilt free zip all over the place.

[01:09:08]

Yeah but what about like just small planes. Like they're kind of scary.

[01:09:13]

They're safer, they're all safe as fuck. Well no, not the single engine ones but the dual engine jets like a G five, a G 650.

[01:09:20]

Those things are as safe as a commercial airliner because they have an extra engine. So if one blows, they can still stay in the air. They also fly at a much higher altitude and it's much smoother up there, less turbulence. Another reason I should have a jet with my make megabucks millions.

[01:09:33]

OK, just put you're just going to put money into inventions. OK, ok. All right. Maybe a jet pack. OK, engine as well. OK, I forgot a big part. I'm going to give a lot to charity. Oh I forgot to say that. Yeah. I don't want to say how much because I don't want to sound you dropping yourself into a corner. I don't want to virtuous signal. Oh yeah. Don't vertue.

[01:09:57]

Yeah but I will, I will be giving up a large proportion.

[01:10:00]

OK let's let's role play one more time. Tell me. I've just wanted to make a million. Congratulations.

[01:10:05]

You've just won the mega million. Four hundred million. Four hundred million. That's right. How much is that after taxes. Two hundred. Oh my God. Do you know what I'm going to do. What? I'm going to give two hundred and ten million to charity. Oh what a good person you are.

[01:10:22]

So winning the mega million climate change. Yeah, I had to go into debt. Oh boy.

[01:10:30]

OK, we got to talk about something. So Keith, so you had a snafu in this episode. Oh I big, big time. It's cut out. OK, we'll explain it. OK, great.

[01:10:40]

And hopefully he's listening to the Ingamells phone number and I'd love to apologize to him, but he said something.

[01:10:46]

He said like no whining on the yacht, which is a great thing. He's basically saying, like, I'm not going to bitch about being stuck in a nice house during Colvert or something like that, like he was acknowledging his his great privilege.

[01:10:58]

It was a really nice thing he did. And then I said, yeah, that's kind of like Tom Cruise. He's smart and that he's always in public walks the walk like everyone thinks he has the best life in the world.

[01:11:08]

So by God, every interview he is smiling ear to ear and he lets you believe he is. Well, Tom Cruise has diarrhea like everyone else.

[01:11:17]

He gets food poisoning, his fucking feet hurt. He's had a bunch of stones. He's in pain a bunch. You know, his life sucks sometimes, but he's smart enough to never let anyone in on that. Right.

[01:11:27]

And so I brought all that up.

[01:11:30]

Not at all remembering that he was married to his current wife, Nicole Kidman. Yes, very public marriage.

[01:11:38]

Incredibly obvious.

[01:11:42]

Yeah. To avoid. And I didn't even think about that. And he was very chill and just rolled right through it. And then after we hung up with Keith was like pretty big swing there, bringing up Tom Cruise in such a fashion.

[01:11:55]

And I was like, why?

[01:11:57]

So he was married. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's right.

[01:12:00]

That's textbook me. In the middle of the interview, I had to text Rob and I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe you text right behind my back when I step in it.

[01:12:12]

Actually, I don't think I've ever done it until now because I, I had to communicate with someone immediately that that was crazy. Yeah. You had to share in the embarrassment. Well, God bless him.

[01:12:22]

He did not indicate in any way that had made him uncomfortable. So I didn't even notice anything. But in retrospect, if I were him and I assumed I did know exactly what I was doing, I would be on guard. The rest of the interview like, what is this guy's fucking with me? So the fact that he was open and everything, I just want to applaud him and publicly apologize that I didn't even think of that or remember that I don't I'm not super hip to who's married to who, shockingly.

[01:12:48]

I mean, I've never bought, like, tabloid stuff. Of course, I'm not dumb. I know who's right.

[01:12:52]

Once you said it, I was like, oh, does. All right, I mean, it was like just such a big public marriage. Yeah, yeah.

[01:13:02]

Anyway, that was it.

[01:13:04]

It is, to be honest, it's pretty shocking. It took that many episodes for me to do something like that, because that's kind of what I specialize in for sure. Yeah.

[01:13:14]

And as anyone who's attended any kind of Hollywood function, it comes at great risk because I see stuff like that all the time.

[01:13:22]

Oh man. Oops. Oops.

[01:13:26]

These scenes.

[01:13:28]

OK, so we don't have very many facts today. OK, but Keith asked his mom what the word intrinsically means after a judge at the singing competition told him that he was intrinsically a good musician. And what does it mean?

[01:13:42]

It means in an essential or natural way, you're intrinsically athletic. No, I'm not. Not at all.

[01:13:49]

It's a story you like to tell yourself. It is because it makes your accomplishments that much bigger, if only Muslims. Well, I have a Muslim and I do not have an intrinsic athletic ability.

[01:14:00]

And that's what I told myself. What I'm telling you, it's not true.

[01:14:05]

Well, it could be more intrinsic than having it in your DNA. Well, that's the apex of intrinsic.

[01:14:09]

I don't want to admit this, but I don't think I have a muscle mass, even though it was told to me by genetic tests that I do. I'm skeptical. OK, look at my muscles.

[01:14:28]

They're so small now.

[01:14:29]

They're strong, they're elite and their muscle in their mass. OK, in that case, I do have it. You thought that Keith played at a water slide when he was a kid in Australian Water Park? Yeah, and he said he didn't. And then he said you were going to sue the Internet. It does say on Wikipedia, I say I use Wikipedia.

[01:14:49]

Well, you right. You do. No, no. I use Google. It's that I don't use Wikipedia. I know. I see.

[01:14:56]

Whoever got so mad at me for using Wikipedia. Why don't you get mad at Daks? He uses Wikipedia too. I use that shit out of it. Yeah. Your technique or I go to Wikipedia because I always get to find out their early childhood.

[01:15:09]

That's the thing I'm most interested in is this many other places. So that's what I love about Wikipedia. I also pay for Wikipedia. I want to pat myself on the back.

[01:15:16]

That is good. And then I look for interviews with them. That's probably my favorite way to research, I guess. Yeah. See how they respond to certain kind of questions, see what makes them uncomfortable or they're happy to talk about. And then I like if I can I like to watch a bunch of interviews. Yeah.

[01:15:32]

But on Wikipedia it says Urban performed regularly on stage at the Northern Suburbs, County Music Club and Bald Hills, where he was a member. He was in a band called Kids Country that performed during school holidays at various venues. They made appearances on the Rag Lindsy Show and Conway Country. He also teamed up with Angie Marky, Tony Black, Peter Black and Tina Ruen in a teen rock band that performed during the summer holidays at the local water slide in theme park.

[01:16:02]

And it does say that Wikipedia lawyer up. Yeah, maybe you should just stop paying. No, I'm still going to pay and I'm going to sue. I'm only going to sue for the amount of money I've given them.

[01:16:13]

OK, that's my or you know, you could use some of your two hundred million to, like, really take them to the cleaners.

[01:16:21]

We'll need to give them ten million in debt for my charitable contribution. You're right. You're right. My philanthropic endeavors. What's your cause. Well, of course I believe in treatment centers.

[01:16:31]

Yeah, I believe in Planned Parenthood. I think teens with really restrictive parents need a safe place to go make plans for being sexual. Yeah, I know that's a polarizing one, but I do think people need that. Yeah.

[01:16:44]

And maybe the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Yeah. You already give to that color of change. Yeah. So I'm a little cheder.

[01:16:52]

Yeah. I just spread it around you know. Yeah. That's, that's good.

[01:16:55]

Well and you know, for years I've been attending and even hosting the Gallas for Ferraris for all Americans, which is a really important cause I believe in F.A.A..

[01:17:06]

What is it. Well, it's the it's the belief that all people are entitled to a Ferrari.

[01:17:12]

Oh my God.

[01:17:13]

That is powerful. Yeah. Can you imagine what the mood everyone would be in if they drove a Ferrari everywhere.

[01:17:19]

So lovely. I'm so glad you're devoting some time and energy and money to that.

[01:17:25]

Well, a lot of people think I'm just supporting the Federal Aviation Committee or whatever FAA. Yeah, but it's free for all FAA. So please contribute to the FAA.

[01:17:39]

Whoa, whoa.

[01:17:40]

Batur Minoff. Because my emails up and I see in my email Planned Parenthood. No kidding. Yeah.

[01:17:46]

What's it saying you're due on what day is it. Tracking your pregnancy. Another baby on the way.

[01:17:51]

Oh baby, I don't know.

[01:17:53]

You tell me the baby takes both. All of us, by the way, a second great joke came out, did you ready to say, you know, we have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, let me find it. God, the people with their pee baby jokes are just killing it. They're onepoint.

[01:18:07]

We also are in litigation right now with Pee Wee football because we brought Pee Baby to Pee Wee football and they said she couldn't play.

[01:18:15]

Yeah. And we're like it's called Pee Wee football. Like no one else should be more babies.

[01:18:21]

We the babies of the United States of America. OK, this was from Leon Van Link and he said DACs Monica, are you guys jealous that Monica's baby already has a Peabody?

[01:18:37]

It's so funny, that's a Peabody reference, a Peabody Award reference, yes, because we said it's kind of for a second was hoping that we'd get one.

[01:18:48]

Yeah, I try to self nominate us for a Peabody. I don't even know what it is or how it works, but self nominated.

[01:18:53]

Oh, my gosh. In college, I don't know why Georgia is connected to this, but you could audition, try out for being like a Peabody voter voter.

[01:19:05]

OK, judge, voter. Panelist. Yes, pianist. And I audition. Try it out. And I didn't get it. Really? Yes. And I'm still pissed. And Anthony got it. Oh he did. Yeah.

[01:19:18]

So he has a hand in whatever year that was Peabody. Yeah. Oh my God. He must feel so proud.

[01:19:23]

He does. I want to make clear the PBB is our baby. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:19:28]

Because it's not the virgin birth. It's not the Christ baby.

[01:19:33]

No it's not. It took two. It took my pee. And you're paying a good deal of fermenting. Yeah exactly.

[01:19:39]

That's just the natural world, you know, in there is is probably the answer of how it went from inorganic to organic.

[01:19:47]

The big question. Yeah. The cradle of civilization.

[01:19:50]

Should I have a scientist to visit our baby to play with her and I hope hold him.

[01:19:56]

I don't know what he identifies. It's a she. Well, we identify her that way. I'm just not.

[01:20:00]

Oh, you're right. We should decide. No, you're right. Yeah. We don't see a penis. I can tell you that much. Or a vagina. Wow.

[01:20:08]

But at times you could.

[01:20:14]

Oh my goodness. OK, well that's all for.

[01:20:16]

And I pee babies. What are they.

[01:20:20]

Militant faction of armed Jerry started. They called themselves the oh. Oh no.

[01:20:25]

Why do they have to be militant.

[01:20:27]

Because every subgroup of any group becomes militant.

[01:20:31]

There's not like less strict subgroups, so they always get stricter. Don't make the baby the face of some militant group that is not fair to her. Him, us as a family.

[01:20:40]

As a family. Yeah, certainly not their love you.

[01:20:45]

Love you.