Greetings, all. This is another little look behind the scenes of our new Happy Place album, words. I still can't believe I'm saying, but it is true. It's out there and you are listening to it. Today's chat is with someone very special to me, which makes this whole chat wonderfully awkward as your hair is with one of my oldest and dearest friends, Keystones, who has written the beautiful track, My Mind and Me. It couldn't be more perfect for a happy place.

Let's go meet him now.

Right, Pongo, this is a way. Yeah.

So we've we've been friends since we were out twelve. Yeah. I've never I think I've ever interviewed you have I. No, no.

Never. No, no.

It's too slightly offended but I don't think I did take in a thousand years to get to this point is every time we meet up it is an interview.

I am is slightly an interview because I can't help but go into interview technique and interview wide shots of a friend.

Before we start talking, let's just take a little bit of your song. So let's have a listen.

Right there is so low. It's just me, my so for now, nobody else around, so. I gotta let you go on, meet the fire star, somehow fill my glass up with my son, gets cold. So there is a feeling good, some days I'm feeling bad, so, so beautiful, that's my mind and me, your go to song that you have given us for the Happy Place album. Thank you so much for lending us your beautiful art.

Cassagnes.

Thank you for getting me involved. So gorgeous. So you wrote that song this year.

Yes. What was it the that made you sit at the piano and dream those lyrics up the melody? What what took you to that place?

It was it wasn't you know, it wasn't a case of. Really sitting at the piano and writing like I was going to write a song, it was more I was just having a really bad time and with myself.

And I think that's a common thing that a lot of people can relate to is often our worst adversary is our own self and our own minds. And I just wasn't really getting along with myself and with my thoughts and with my feelings.

You know, you just kind of you agree one day. One day you don't agree. Like, why did I say that? Did I mean and, you know, it's a it's a constant you know, I don't think anyone will ever master that. Are you always going to be in conflict with yourself?

And I was just I think I just sat in my car. I was like my mind and me. We did not get along. Yeah.

And then obviously the songwriter and me goes, oh, that's a that's an idea for a song. And then the more I sat down, I was just like, OK, let's just do this is therapy rather than writing a song.

So it was kind of like my therapy really. And and then it's like it's essentially a song about loneliness, you know, it doesn't matter.

Like, I'm lucky I've got some amazing friends, including yourself, obviously.

But obviously the best part, you can still feel lonely. Absolutely.

I think it's one of the worst feelings out there. And like you said, you could be in a room full of people that, you know, absolutely love you, but you still feel mentally horrendous. And that is really isolating feeling. And and a lot of people will feel exactly like that.

What do you do to help remedy when you when you feel in conflict with your own mind? It's a really funny thing to talk about, because, like I say, I listen to a lot of Eckhart Tolle stuff like that.

You like a car as well. And he always talks about, well, they can't be two of you. There's not you and your mind. There is one person, one thing, but it feels in that moment like your mind is, you know, doing its own thing and you're battling against it. How do you get realigned with just being this is me. I've found peace and acceptance with what's going on in my head and I'm okay.

Well, I guess you have like an internal debate going on, but I walk a lot. Yeah, I'll go for a walk. I'll listen to a podcast. There's a there's this podcast that's all right. Called Happy Place. I've heard of it.

Well, you're on it now, you big Plunker. But I know so. And I listen to you know, I used to read a lot of autobiographies of artists.

We used to talk about it a lot like guns and things.

And often the journey is the same, you know, and then I find I find comfort in that somebody else's felt like that and that somebody else has gone through that.

And that's kind of I read a quote the other day from Nina Simone and she said, Our job is to show the times that we're in.

And I think that's what an artist or creator like yourself with the podcast or me writing songs is. That's that's our job.

And if one person can listen to that and go, oh, I feel like that, I'm OK then. And that's the thing that other people feel. We've had a lot of good walks over the years.

Someone we like, that's been one of our main ways of of connecting outside of, you know, being in a group of people or whatever is for you and I to take a long walk in the park and just chill around different subjects that we're struggling with or ideas that we've had. And I think we both take a lot of comfort in that. And it's it's a really important part of friendship is knowing that you can be entirely vulnerable in front of someone without judgment or anything and just and also get honest feedback of things really important as well.

Yeah.

And I think for me, it's one of my great blessings of my life that I've had. So you as a friend because as a man we're told. Yeah, you can't talk about feelings, can't talk about your emotions. It's weak. It's, you know, all this stuff we're literally hardwired from birth that we can't do that. Things are changing now, which is fantastic.

But like so for me to have a female to confide in, there's a friend like yourself or and then that's why I probably the songwriter in me came out because I felt like I couldn't necessarily talk about my emotions if I was heartbroken or if I was some in my career wasn't happening. I would like really, really wanted and stuff, you know, so that was kind of my outlet.

But I've been lucky to have you and a few other female friends as well to to kind of be a bit more honest and open and exposed with which I think is important and hopefully changing.

Has that led you to sort of want to be more open and honest with your with your male friends as well?

I think I have a I have I have some mates that I will talk a bit more like that with. Definitely. And. They confide in me a lot more because they know, you know, I'm I'm a very emotional guy. And again, that's probably the creative side of me. You know, as I've got older, I don't really care anymore. I'm quite happy to be exposed and honest about feelings. And, you know, I'm always there for friends or anyone, really, that that feels like they want to talk.

If I'm not creating something or achieving something, then I feel terrible.

I feel like I wasted the day and I'm not progressing in life. And that's something I now know from this whole year that I need to work on and be a bit kinder to myself. And it was one of my friends actually said, like, you're too hard on yourself.

You need to be kinder to yourself and you need to be nicer to yourself, because I'm always so goal driven and so, you know, I love last year I was really lucky.

I had amazing year, did lots of touring and festivals, and it was like the best time of my life. Absolutely.

I was living my dream. And so for this year, for its all to be stopped and like the rug pulled out from under your feet, it's, you know, it's hard to deal with and then but I just.

You just have to be kinder to yourself, Russell, I think and also you've you know, we talked about this the other night when we went out for a bite to eat. You know, you've been dealing with a lot of grief and really complicated grief this year as well. Do you feel comfortable talking about that today?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just around covid kick it off. I lost my dad and we had a. Difficult, no, it wasn't difficult, we had we had a weird relationship the last 10 years where he's not really been around and he's obviously dealing with his own situation. And so it's kind of having to deal with that and then him passing away. There's obviously a lot of unresolved questions that I have. And but again, I don't think his generation could really feel like they could talk about stuff in our wishe talk to me about stuff.

But I didn't. So you don't really know.

So there's a lot of questions, though, sort of coming to terms of that. And then I had a relationship that ended, not that kind of thing that was all at the same time. So it was a very.

Very stressful. Yeah, and then covid and then obviously not being distracted by Tauren and Travellin, which was what I was kind of praying for because that is such a distraction.

So it kind of it's been a very tough year. This kind of song is like it kind of sums it all up, really. So there is a feel good.

Some days I feel bad, some days I just feel I'm going mad on my own. Why am I sleeping here alone? Once you understand that and you realize that there isn't going to be a day when you wake up and you go, oh, you know what, if it's why now grief is not Anastasi in the song, like the pre pre chorus in the song is some days I'm feeling good, some days I'm feeling bad. Some days I just feel like I'm going mad.

Yeah. Like on my own like and it feels and it feels like that one day, like you'll be fantastic and the next day will be bad and next day you feel like you're going crazy.

And that's, that's kind of you know what I think once you eventually through reading, through speaking to people for listening to great podcasts and things like that, you realize, oh, actually there is no like there's not a magic pill you take or a magic moment where you wake up and you go, oh, everything's absolutely fantastic. And everything that's ever been in my past is all resolved now. And I'm fine. Like and again, that's about being kinder to yourself.

And that's something that everybody needs to do. Just be a little bit nicer to yourself and a little bit more easier to yourself and and other people as well.

We're usually our worst enemy, aren't we, where our worst critic, our worst enemy and and not many would think badly about us as we do, which is quite liberating to us to realize, like, oh my gosh, I am actually coming up with the worst case scenarios about how awful I am over the mistakes I've made in the past. And no one else really even it is quite liberating. If you said the things that you say to yourself, to somebody else, you would not have any friends.

So you would I. Often we think, oh, you know, well, I've got that dream partner or when I've got that dream home or whatever goal is, that seems really far off in the future, but then you're going to feel complete and perfect. And we know we intellectually know deep down that that isn't the case, that we need to just feel okay as we all now and then all the rest will unfold as it unfolds.

Absolutely.

Because if you spin it if you pin it all on a relationship or a goal or something like that, when that relationship ends, you're like, oh, shit.

Like, yeah, what's going on? They've gone.

And I pinned all my happiness on that person or or that that dream job, you know, might want to have a no no.

One or I want to perform on this the Royal Albert Hall and did it. And then once either once that happens, you're left feeling like, oh shit, what do I do now?

Or if it gets taken away from you for whatever reason, you're completely lost.

So it is that whole thing that we hear a million times is you gotta be happy, go be happy for yourself and you got to love yourself before you can give yourself to somebody else or to something else in life, you know, and usually you attain that goal or what ever level of finding the perfect partner or place or whatever.

Then you go, oh, I still feel the same.

Nothing's changed. I've just still got all those worries. I've still got all the same old shit going on in my head.

And it's, again, quite liberating to realize that and go right. Well, actually, I just have to find peace and acceptance, all the stuff that's bugging me about myself or whatever it might be. And it's a lesson I have to literally learn every day because I usually spend a lot of my stuff on work related things like, you know, maybe if I just got better at doing this or did the perfect interview or whatever, and then that moment passes and you get back to feeling like me again with all this stuff in my head about how awful I am, you know, you have to just sort that out first, of course, because.

Yeah, like you say, then then you do that perfect interview and then you go, oh well, I. No, yeah, no. And then you left back with yourself again. This is so you have to kind of get to a place where you're like like or you know, like, I mean like this whole thing, we're not perfect. We'll do things and silly things. And that's kind of what the song had to be about. And the song wasn't even meant to be for anything in particular.

It was just I just sat there, the piano in my little room I've got here.

And and then I was like, oh, this feels a bit too raw and honest for me. Like, I'm a bit worried about it. Maybe I should pitch it to somebody else. I was like, oh, maybe I'll pitch it to Sam Smith because he'd sound amazing singing it. And then I was like, Oh, maybe I'll give it to Dave the rapper, because he's incredible about like speaking about things. So maybe he could take the hook and do something amazing with it.

And then I was like, Oh boy, I know it's good songs. I want to sit on it.

And then you said my house and I'm like, Yeah, songs you can give me for this album I'm doing. I know. And you said about the album, I was like kind of got this song that's but it's nervous for me because it's the most honest thing.

I always try and write something that has at least 50 percent or more of something I've experienced. I can't, you know, go into a room and write a song about this today. And I've never experienced it. But this was something that was like one hundred percent honest.

So it felt very, very I felt very exposed. But I also feel like it again, it's important because if it can make one person relate to it and feel like that they're not alone, then it's it's it's done.

It's it's done its job. And how are you on your mind today? I my mind and me today is is good. It's good. I'm talking to my best friend and I've been to the gym boom. I'm in my little studio room. I feel inspired. It's it's good. And I'm about to listen to a podcast with Mr. Chef. Oh, nice. Enjoy it. Not so much as I'd what to do. I've just finished his book so that's on my to do list now.

Oh it's a great. Well thank you so much. Thank you again for your brilliant song is so beautiful and just exactly what this album needed. So thank you and so weird to interview you. Yes. Many with us together. You and me. And us together. How long were you with me and us together? Oh. I want to get along with you and me and us to get our. Thanks again to promise not to put you through again, my love, but what a wonderful track.

I hope that you agree. You can hear my mind to me as part of the Happy Place album available to stream right now.

Do it. It's from wherever you get your music. We'll have one more special for you tomorrow. Find out who it is when you subscribe. Do that now on your podcast app of choice. Until then, have a great day. Stay safe. You laugh a lot and I'll see you tomorrow.

My mom to me, we got some talking to do. No, wait. That's all we do. That's why I'm laying there on my own. I just really want to get along with. With us together, you. Together, I want to get along with you and me and us together. Oh, I get along with you and me and us together.