The Highway Man - Adam Lopez part 2
Adam Lopez Part 2
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In the second half of This heartfelt & candid interview. Adam gets into the deep waters of philosophical Behavior. He is brutally honest on What his life was like growing up as well as how those life events helped him to become the man he is today. I hope you enjoy legendary singer/songwriter & my friend.
Adam Lopez
Transcript
https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/48488080
Speaker 0 (0s): That I've been able to just kind of keep building it up.
Speaker 1 (5s): Yeah. It seems like that part, I find really interesting. And it's something you would only know if you were in the business, there's so much rich history at clubs that you wouldn't even think or clubs are there. There's so much rich history. If you, if you, if you learn about it, like, you know, how many people have played the whiskey to go go, many people have played, you know, different rooms in San Diego. And it's just like, I had no idea that Juul played there or was like a resident there.
And it just, that's just the stuff you would only know if you were in a position like yourself.
Speaker 0 (39s): Yeah. And that, that was, that was, that was where it all started. Like the, we were talking about being self-educated for the purpose of furthering, you know, your life's goals. So if you're not going to do it via school or traditional routes, you still have to do it. Right. You still have to put the work in and not just the hands on work of your craft, but you have to know the history of the people that, that, that did it before you, so you know how to connect the dots and how it got to where you are.
Speaker 1 (1m 13s): Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting, like there's this book called tech technically, but in the book, the guy makes the argument much like you did that history to be part of every subject, whether you're going to talk about baseball, guitar playing, or surfing, every sport, every activity has a history behind it. And if you want to succeed in that passion, you're doing, you should know the history of the thing you're learning, right? Yeah. From people before you.
Speaker 0 (1m 43s): Yeah. Like I haven't been, this is my first time, like back in California in almost 20 years, like, like, you know, with some roots here. So, but you know, when we were kids, we were surfing and skateboarding. Yeah. I still, I still know my surf history and my skateboarding history and I never, I never really pursued doing any of those professionally. Right. But I love them so much. And I still do that. I couldn't sit here and tell you that I loved them, but then not be able to answer your questions about them.
Yeah. Yeah. I feel weird about that. Yeah. You know, so there's, there's things along the way that whether I try to do them professionally or not, if I, if I really truly love them or care about them, I need to learn about it. Right. And more than just the doing of them. Yeah. You know, I still know my baseball history pretty well. You know, when we were kids, we would nerd out on that stuff. Yeah. You know, baseball cards and, and, and reading or watching this week in baseball and learning our history.
Speaker 1 (2m 46s): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so amazed at like, if you look at where, like North County, San Diego at them, there is so many talented people that came out of there. Like, if you look at the skateboarding industry, the music industry, like just look at the people we went to school with. And like there's some real killers out there. You know what I mean? That just went on to be artists in their own. Right. You know, it's so mind blowing to look back and get up to, I can't believe I used to hang out with them with this guy, this guy's a pro skate or do this guy's a pro surfer or this girl's up.
This girl's like, Oh my God, it just naturals paintings. You know, it's like it's. So to me, I feel so inspired and thankful to have got to play a small role in all these people's lives that are so at least to me, important in artistic and it looking back on your life, I hope everyone can look back on their life. And if they don't see it now, I think they will when they're later. But I hope they can all find some inspiration from the people they have an outlet you think of, was there something in the water in San Diego? What was it?
Speaker 0 (3m 53s): I feel like it was just the right combination of time and place and, and souls like the right people were there. Yeah. You know? Cause it couldn't, I don't, maybe it could have, I don't know, but I feel like it was, it was meant to be that group of people. Like we were, we were really lucky in that there were cliques and there were groups and all that thing. But there was like this inner circle that was bigger than all those little cliques. Right. Where we all had one foot in one circle and one foot in the other circle.
But we were all in this bigger circle where we all had similar interests. And then we all had really different interests, but we were all friends. Yeah. You know, and that's it, wasn't a bunch of closed off small circles of people that didn't interact. We all, we all got along. We all, you know, even like we had a huge gang problem that people don't realize, and we had a huge drug problem that people don't realize. Like, I think it might still stand. Like we had the, like the biggest drug bust in American high school history happened at Rancho.
Yeah. Yeah. While we were there and we had, we had the biggest national gang crisis in junior high. Like we had more gang members per capita registered with like the Sheriff's department than anywhere in the country at the same time that we had the drug thing. But, but we, we were friends with some of those kids and those gangs and some of those kids selling drugs, they weren't all bad people. They were just doing stupid shit. Yeah. It's true. It's true. Yeah.
There was a lot of good people that came out of that.
Speaker 1 (5m 33s): Yeah. It's so weird to think about you haven't exploded. You have the worst drug crisis, but then also an explosion of creativity. You know what I mean? Yeah. Some of the like, like there was, I think a lot of people, maybe it was our circle of friends, but you know, a lot of people were so talented in a lot of ways. I remember. Do you remember Josh and Dylan more? They were like, dude, those guys, they, they were, they went to school with us since we were kids. And like, I remember those guys doing like the stairs at Rancho, the library stare for people yeah.
Was like 25 stairs. And like both of those guys were some of the most articulate men I've ever known. Those guys were like on another level when it came to intelligence level, when it came to skateboarding, like I just remember being like, always look at those guys, go and do they got these guys did it, man. How do they do those stairs? I just doing so good at math.
Speaker 0 (6m 27s): No, they were, they were, I used to go over to their house when I was, cause they were a couple of years younger that are older than me. Right. And I would, I would, I remember going over to their house, like on the weekends, like way too early, like seven in the morning and I live miles away and I would, I would hike my way down the railroad tracks with my skateboard and go knock on their door and like, let's go. Like I would, I would be raging and they would just be like half asleep and like trying to like, like, I was like a little kid to them. Like they couldn't believe that I would like, I would just be so, so amps to go hang out with them and scape, but they were always cool.
They never slammed the door in my face. They never were like, dude, what do you get out of here? They never did that. Yeah. And they're older. They're older brothers were musicians. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. It was like star and Ben and Ben. Ben's a really well-respected music producer and musician in San Diego still. Oh, he's a huge, huge part of the music scene. He's a, he's a hub. Yeah. Like he's, he's produced some pretty big albums and like some of them for like friends of mine, like bands that I I've been in or played in as a hired, as a hired gun, like he's done their records and stuff.
He's he's well respected. Yeah. And, and you were talking about like keeping it real and not, you know, like not selling out musically artistically. That's what, that's what Ben and Dylan did with skateboarding. That it is they, they were, they were at least in, in, in skateboarding five years is huge here. The progression, the progression happens so fast and skateboarding, you know, every, every three months they were, they were years ahead of most people and chose not to make it their profession.
Cause they, I guess, intuitively they knew the risk involved in making your love, your job. Yeah. And that's like, at the time I thought you guys are nuts. Like, you know, I was, I was young and like eager and they were like, they were wise old men when they were like 16. Yeah. They were super smart. It really well. And so like now I look back and just like just mad respect, you know, they, they, I mean, it helped that they were super smart.
They, they wasn't skateboarding. Wasn't their only way out. Right. Where some of our other friends, it kind of was, they had a head start compared to like myself and some of our friends that were able to make their art or their love, their job, you know, for me like, aye, aye, aye, aye. Unless I wanted to do something like dig ditches or, you know, put roofs on houses. I really didn't have a whole lot of other options.
Right. Like I said, it was a, it was a risk. But as far as I was concerned, it wasn't a big risk. Whereas to them, they didn't, I don't, I don't think I could be wrong, but like they were just smart enough and secure in their life and in their purse, personalities enough to know that they skateboarding. Wasn't their only option.
Speaker 1 (9m 42s): Yeah. Maybe that's good at it too is. Cause they just,
Speaker 0 (9m 45s): Yeah, it was all love. It was all passion. There was never any, there was never any hurry or, or rush to make it they're living. Right. It was. And that's why I think that's why it was so, and I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but that's why it came so easy to them. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I remember this, like we'd have skateboard sessions like out in front of when Alex assessment has lived behind you.
I was at his house all the time and we would all meet, meet up in front of your house, which action Dylan. And go, go down to the, like the shopping center in scapes. But it was just so effortless, man. It was so beautiful. It was watching those guys do what they did is a beautiful thing. Whether you're into skateboarding or not, because you don't, you don't get to see people do things on that level very often.
Speaker 1 (10m 41s): And it's so amazing to see people do something so effortlessly when like when you and I would watch them, you would agree that it was beautiful and effortlessly. And we were in awe, right?
Speaker 0 (10m 54s): Yeah. Because we knew how difficult what they were doing was, but it looks so easy.
Speaker 1 (10m 59s): That's how I feel when I watch you play guitar. Thank you. I think most people would. I, I it's, it's just weird how it works like that. You know, we can describe, we can see, I have this theory too. Like, you know, when you think about people, if you see something in somebody that bothers you that's because that quality, that bothers you in somebody is something you have in yourself or, or vice versa. If you see something beautiful, poetic, that's beautiful in somewhere else, isn't it.
It's a quality you have in yourself. You're seeing yourself in the other people.
Speaker 0 (11m 35s): Yeah. And, and yeah, because we're getting into, into more of the, like the, the, the deeper end and, and that's good. That's good. Because getting back again to the questions you were asking me before, about how, how I got to where I'm at. Like, I feel like I'm just getting started because I'm getting to the realization of what you're talking about when it comes to the spiritual side of it. Yeah. You know, I didn't come from the best home I didn't have, you know, and I, I hate to, I'm not putting anybody on blast, but like, I didn't have the best parenting.
You know, I, I was in a lot of ways I was on my own by the time I was seven or eight years old, you know, I was coming, I was coming home to an empty house and cooking my own food. And, you know, I, I was just independent because I had to be like, that's just how it worked out. And we didn't have a lot of means. So I couldn't, you know, I couldn't get to go to, to do things that a lot of the other kids got to go and do. I was stuck at home and just kind of making my own way.
So when I was, you know, in my late teens and I started, I started to realize like, I could, I could make, I could make my own way without needing, you know, anybody's financial backing. You know, I've been really lucky. Like my, my parents haven't really had to support me. They helped me out. They've helped me out here and there. But like, I've, I know of people with real so-called real jobs that have needed way more help than I, I have.
Like, I'm pretty, I'm pretty lucky that way. But my point, my point is not that I did it, my point is that I got, I got turned on very early to the educational part of the spiritual part. And knowing that there were a lot of scars in, in like, I guess these days we call it PTSD right.
Of the childhood that were, were showing signs. It was, it was already happening in high school where the signs were becoming apparent. Even to me as a teenager, that if I didn't get help or start helping myself, that end of things was going to prohibit that it was gonna, it was going to cancel out the talent end of things. Right. You know what I mean? Like that I could have all the talent in the world, but if the mental, emotional, spiritual part of stuff didn't get some work and some help, it was going to sink the ship because you can't, you can't be successful in it.
Anything if you're unhealthy, you know, emotionally or spiritually. Yeah. And I started to realize that I was, you know,
Speaker 1 (14m 38s): In some ways it seems to me that some of the people we think are the least fortunate, actually have the most opportunity. Let me try to unpack that. Like when you, when you're seven, yeah. I'm at home by yourself and your, you know, your, your father had an accident in a weird way. Life taught you at an early age that you're gonna need to make it on your own. And luckily you were mentally capable of understanding the lesson.
Life was trying to, you know what I mean by that, like, some people feel like they're abandoned. You may have felt deaf, but ultimately if you didn't grow up like that, you might get your mind that, Hey, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta get here. It's okay to be with me, but I didn't do it on my own since that. What, what was some people that have good people that they never, they don't, they're going to be on their own. Right. And, and, you know, by that time you are 13 years ahead of them independent, but you're still sticking the bar, the jungle.
Speaker 0 (15m 49s): Yeah. And you know, you say like mentally, I understood that. And I don't know that I did mentally. I it's almost like that same, that same part of me that writes songs where you're just compelled to do it. You, it's not even a mental thing that you think about. You just know that this is something you need to address or something you need to do or something you need to put work into. And this is where I hope you're, I hope your is listening because, because he was a big part of that because, because his, his presence at the time that it was in my life was really a crucial crossroads.
And in fact, I don't know if you probably don't know this and man, if I get emotional, I apologize. But he actually sat my mom down and talk to her because she was our team mom at the time that transition in that accident happened. I don't know if you remember that. Oh. And she told me later that George Monte sat me down and talk to me through the, the conflict that she had because she had an obligation to me and to you and to all our friends in the, in, in she was dealing with my dad.
Yeah. So that's, that's, you know, the older in, in the wiser, I get the bigger of a deal. I realized that that was like, that's, I don't even know how, how deep they went in the conversation or what was said, but it was enough that she told me about it. Yeah. And I know that it's enough, whether it was 10 seconds or 10 minutes or a couple hours that without it things might've been different, you know?
Cause like I didn't, I didn't have to quit baseball when everything happened. Like luckily my, my other, you know, family members stepped in, make sure I got where I needed to go. And if I couldn't be there or my mom couldn't be there, your dad knew what was up and understood. Right? Like that's, that's a huge thing.
Speaker 1 (18m 17s): Do you know my dad's going to call me,
Speaker 0 (18m 19s): See George. I told you, you look up, you are George
Speaker 1 (18m 24s): And do like a 30 minute phone call,
Speaker 0 (18m 27s): Prince respectful, George. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, there are, there are moments like that and there are just moments and you don't, if you're not paying attention, you don't realize that they could be pivotal, major, you know, moments where everything happens for a reason. I think. Yeah. Everything, everything happens for a reason, but you also have the ability to make things happen or to dictate where things go.
But there's also moments in time where opportunities present themselves for you to make those choices. And that's, that's one of them. Yeah. Like, you know, your dad, your dad was a really big role model during that year. Whether he knew it or not, you know, for me, that's heavy
Speaker 1 (19m 21s): Do that. That's it's mind blowing. I, I, I was lucky in that my parents got divorced
Speaker 0 (19m 29s): When I was younger, but they both were such, they both went out of their way
Speaker 1 (19m 35s): To, to help create an awesome life. My mom got remarried and she married this guy that was, he was equally impressive. And it had so much stuff. But my, my dad, he was, he was always the coach in this until you become older. But like he gave up, like, we, we had a lot of financial problems as well, but yeah. Made sure that he was at every practice who was the coach. And I like, I have so many friends that have, I remember being little and my friends were like, your dad's so often toward that.
So often it's are you gonna make me cry? But when you tell me that, you know what I mean? Like that is awesome. And I, I love him and I, I didn't know that he did that for you or your family. And I'm thankful to hear that. That's cool.
Speaker 0 (20m 24s): Yeah. It's, it's funny. Like I, I had for, I hadn't remembered that or thought about that until like, I think last night, when you, when you, when, when we finally set a time and said, you know, we've been talking about this for like a month or two. Right. But last night we were like, let's just, let's do it tomorrow. We're doing it. Yeah. And then I started thinking like last night I had that thought, wow, like not like I remember us. We would hang out in high school with our circle of friends.
Like every morning we'd meet up, but we all have breakfast together. Like there was a, there was like a third period break where we would all hang out and have breakfast. And we were like, we thought we were cool, like old people drinking coffee. And there was like, there was like a good 10 or 12 of us every morning. We'd hang out and meet up for breakfast. And that's the memory that like I have, when I see your name on Facebook or whatever, or you message me or I message you that's like the obvious memory. And then last night I thought about it.
I was like, wow. Like, wait a minute. Not only do I remember George from high school, like, you're one of my oldest friends. Like, we go, wait, wait, wait, further back. We go back to like first or second grade, I think. Right. Like, and then I thought, wow, wait, wait, wait, wait. We played baseball. Not, I mean, we all, all our friends played baseball together and we were on the same team. And then I've realized like, wait a minute, your dad was our coach. And like, all of this hit me last night, including including the, the story about him and my mom.
Yeah. Like, I don't know if you remember, but like I was, I was the only kid, I think whose parents were still together and still alive, but only one of my parents ever came to my baseball games and people don't know why. Right. That's why, because my dad was, my dad was in either in a hospital or in a rehab, you know, that's why at that time there were other times when he wasn't there. And that was a whole different thing.
Cause he was, you know, he was also an alcoholic. So, you know, but, but my mom was always there always, you know, and, and me and my dad are cool. Like we've, we've I, the work that I put in aloud and he's put in work to like for sure, but for me, the, I had to put in my own work to make peace with him. Yeah. Cause he he's a dad, like even at his worst, he, even if he didn't know how to show it, he still loved me.
Sure. Teenage me. I couldn't say that about him. I couldn't say that. I loved him and I didn't. I never, we were not that type of family. Anyway. We never said I loved you. We never hugged. You never did any of that stuff. But I, I'm not proud of this, but like I was well into my twenties before I ever said, I love you to my dad. So what we're talking about now in the past, I'm not here to like, you know, point the finger or anything.
It's, it's the truth, you know, that's all it is, but I have to point those things out so that hopefully I have to point those things out. So that hopefully through talking to friends like you or people that need to hear these things that maybe I have something to offer them that might help them get through their stuff. Yeah. You know, again, again, going full circle, talking about how we got to this point where I'm living the life that I want to live and, you know, telling you that I had to get through certain things that I started learning in my teenage years.
And now that's my life. My life is, is not music. Music is something I do, but my life is making life better for me and the people around me. Like my goal. Now I have music goals still. Like I haven't accomplished everything I wanna accomplish. But like my goal now is to do my best. That every person that I make eye contact with open a door for, at the grocery store or hang out with like somehow I want to make everybody's life a little easier or better at the moment that I'm in, in their vicinity.
That's beautiful. That's
Speaker 1 (25m 5s): But our world is the only way to make the world better is to make everyone around you better. That's that's the goal.
Speaker 0 (25m 11s): Yeah. And, and, and, and what you said about basically being a mirror, which we all are. Yeah. That's, that's what we all are. That's that's, that's my, that's where I'm putting more of my work. My work is on, on being that person, you know, I still spend plenty of hours, you know, making music and practicing and writing and recording, but I spend as many or more on the other stuff, you know,
Speaker 1 (25m 41s): You know, it's, it, it blows my mind as I'm sitting here and we're having this conversation. And previously we had talked about, you know, what you used to do as far as going on traveling and then the COVID kind of hit and then picking up this new style of music it's organic and when you're changing, and then, you know, with the last piece you just told me about your philosophy of making the world better, it seems like that's the direction your music is going in there.
Just because if that's your thought process about doing that, that's probably going to be reflected in the upcoming music that makes me excited to kind of hear it.
Speaker 0 (26m 20s): Yeah. You know, I've, I've always had it in there in the music. It's, it's been there all along, but I, I feel like I'm, I'm consciously being less guarded with how I wrap it in the poetry. Cause you can hide things in poetry. You can say some really heavy stuff, knowing that it's wrapped in this, this wording that it's it's, it's so not obvious that I don't have to be as self conscious about putting it out there, kind of kind of hiding behind it.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And I, and one of the, the only, the only thing I always said was if I'm in a, if I'm going to express a concern or a complaint in a song, there's going to be a resolution in the song somewhere.
Speaker 1 (27m 9s): Wow. That is awesome.
Speaker 0 (27m 12s): So, so cause I don't ever want to be a complainer about anything. Right. You know, and I don't ever want to be a naysayer or, or feel like, you know, we're doomed with whatever the situation or whatever. The, the, you know, I don't know what the I'm lost for words, but whatever the topic is, I don't want to just complain or write it off and then not offer a solution. So even in the older material, there's always a solution.
There's always some kind of resolution, but yeah, I think the new songs are a little more obvious as far as what, I'm, what I'm trying to convey. Less, less poetry in the turning of phrases and more poetry and saying plainly, but musically, what I want to say.
Speaker 1 (28m 5s): Yeah. It's such a powerful medium. And, and you know, when I think about communicating and I think about language, you know, so many of us and I'm guilty of this as well. So many of us, instead of listening to what someone says, we're thinking of what to say, well, you're the person's talking you're right. And you lose so much connection. You lose so much humanity. You lose so much potential to solve problems when you don't give the conversation. The, the attention that it needs, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's like a dance.
It's like, okay, this person goes and this person goes and they can move together. And
Speaker 0 (28m 46s): Here's one for you. Like getting away from music to explain to music, what, talking about people you've been reading. One of the people I've been reading and listening to is dr. Joe Dispenza. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's done a lot of work on the, the, the electrical system and the mind and body connection and understanding that if you correlate us to like a computer, our systems can, can, and are constantly being programmed by our environment.
Our thoughts, our brain, our brain is not us. Right? It's it's this other thing that, that we can choose to be controlled by or control. So there is, and there's side, Joe spends is, is the guy that's on the forefront of putting science to the theories. So he's, he's, he's showing through science that the mind body soul connection is absolutely true.
The things you say have chemical and electrical effects on your body immediately. And music being one of those. So we know that ourselves in our atoms and neuro, everything is constantly in motion. And in regeneration, you're not the same person you were yesterday or the day before, literally and figuratively. Right? So you're, your programming comes from like, you have your physical voice, you have that voice in your head.
It's usually the one that's like very, very self conscious. Then you have that other voice. That's like, I know that's not true. Even though I think it, you have like multiple voices and you have multiple consciousness, you know, levels of consciousness. And so what he's been doing is putting scientific proof to all those things. So, so we know that me having this conversation with you is going to make my day better than if I had this conversation with somebody where we were talking about things we didn't like, right.
Or didn't believe it. Right. Even if, even if we weren't angry or upset, we were just talking about things we don't like. Yeah. Our day is not, the rest of our day is not going to be as good as that. You and I are talking about the good old days. Yeah. Or talking about health and healing. Yeah. You know, like it might be on a minute level that you don't consciously recognize. You might just think, Oh, that's just, you know what that's that as out there it's BS or whatever, like, but it's there, it's real.
And so if, if you're not, if you're not feeling it, you're not recognizing it, then maybe you're not doing it in it. So if you want people to recognize it and you want people to understand it, then you've got to do it more and you've got to do it all the time. And so I have to do it through my art as well as through my conversation or my interactions with people. You know what, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not great at it. I don't, I don't nail it every day. Some days I make people's days worse than I'm sorry, but like, I don't try to write, you know?
And so the, the, the, the upside for me is that music. I, I'm lucky to have an audience. And I I'm really lucky to have a pretty good, good size audience. Like I I've sold records from Japan to Australia to the UK, like all over, like, I'm really lucky, but I feel like maybe on some level, even though the music has always been honest and from the heart and totally me, I feel like now I'm learning that there's still a lot more to give.
Not just more, not just more music, but more intent in the music. Yeah. Like more, more substance, you know? And so I'm, I'm way more conscious of it today than I was yesterday. And I'll be more conscious of it tomorrow. So it's not music necessarily with a message or I'm not preaching to anybody. I'm just trying to relate to people. You know, if the music is the food, it's getting more and more potent with nutrients and micronutrients and vitamins and minerals.
Right. You know, so that every bite doesn't have to be bigger for you to get more from it. Right. You can take, take the same size bites and you're gonna, you're gonna feel better and better hopefully, or relate more on a deeper level with, with what you're getting. So you're getting, you know, hopefully you're getting more for your, more for your dollar and that way, but yeah. I mean, like, again, just trying to answer your question and like come full circle with these long answers, but that's, that's my goal.
You know, the music is, is, is, is my voice. I'm lucky that I love to do it and that I have an audience. So thank you for, for giving me another one,
Speaker 1 (34m 10s): Man. I I'm learning a lot and I, you know, it's, that is it's, it's truly amazing to think about language that way. I've, I've been sharing some ideas about language and it's it's okay. So when, when I think about language and music and communicating, one part I don't like about language is like user agreements and contracts and like ambiguous language that pretends to get you out of.
But you know, if you get insurance, they have all these things. We're going to protect you from all this stuff. Unless there's an act of job, there's Virgin, all these words to wiggle your way out of stuff. But wouldn't it be a better world. If user agreements and contracts were written in poetry or in songs you had to sing the user agreement, you would have to make a structure so that it flowed together. You know what I mean? Like the, what place?
Speaker 0 (35m 9s): Well, if nothing else, people would actually read them, right? Like how many of us are just like, we don't have time for this. This is ridiculous. And it's, the print is too small anyway, you know? So at least people would at least probably give them more attention. Could you
Speaker 1 (35m 26s): There agreement, if you, if someone, if you had an artist perform the user agreement for Google or Facebook, Hey, this is our new, you, people would tune in to listen to the user agreement. You know what I mean? You could get,
Speaker 0 (35m 39s): You know, it's funny is yesterday evening, we're sitting on the beach in Morro Bay, in California, and I'm sitting there picking my guitar and this guy comes up and he goes, Hey, can I join you? And that's always like a sketchy situation. You're like, you know, I don't know if it's like drunk, homeless harmonica guy or like, and that's cool too. It's, it's always entertaining, but like, you never know what you're getting into. And so the guy sits down and we play it and he's pretty good and we're hanging out and he turns out to be a super cool dude. And, but just to connect it to what you're talking about, he, he works for Snapchat.
So maybe, maybe we could get your idea, like bring it to life. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36m 20s): I'm telling ya, tell, talk to that guy, make it, and do you guys will be famous? You know what I mean? Yeah. You'll be playing parties like, and think about it. Like if you could make this part of life that no one likes into something that people do like you now, you're really making the world a better place. You've taken some high and weak and no one reads, not only would it make it more interesting, but you would probably make it better because if you could put some sarcastic lyrics and kind of sign this thing, sign your life away, or however you would word it, you know what I mean?
And then that would make people actually think about what they're signing or you could, you could fundamentally change the way people see contracts by changing the way in which they were, they were weighed.
Speaker 0 (37m 12s): Right. You know what I mean? Like perceived. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Well that guy make that happen. Yeah. We should start a band called the contracts and we'll make an album called user agreements.
Speaker 1 (37m 28s): You would start, you're like there's country music, rap music. And then there's there's contract music. There you go. <inaudible> the own genre. Yeah, that'd be awesome. It's on a, on a related story I saw, I saw, I listened to it a while back and that guy is, so I really liked that guy. He made this what seemed like an outrageous claim. So I'll say the claim and then I'll tell you how he explained it. Cause the claim on its face sounds crazy, but he says, you know, rap music and country music.
And this goes back to what you said about folk goes, he's like hardcore rap music and country music, or like the exact same thing.
Speaker 0 (38m 8s): Yeah. I've heard that. I've heard that quote.
Speaker 1 (38m 11s): Yeah. You're like, what are you talking about? He's like, listen, man, they're talking about their dogs talking about their trucks, you know? And I was like, when you, when you step back and you look at it, both genres of music are talking about their love, their life. They're the things in that. What, you know, what you have where you're at the place to be like, it's the same substance put just in a different dialogue. If that kinda makes sense, you know, what's hilarious.
Speaker 0 (38m 36s): Is I just like, within the last month, read a quote from Bob Dylan, or I think I saw an interview with him and you know, he was always heralded as the voice of his generation. Right. And they asked him, well, like you're still here, but is there, is there a new you? And you know what he said, you know, he said something like, it was somebody, he was like, yeah. It's like the guys in the routine clan. Or like he named, he named some hip hop artists. But he named like the real, the real shit.
Not like, you know, it wasn't like, I don't know whoever's on the radio or whatever. Like he went deep and he knew what he was talking about. And he's like, that's, that's, that's the new me. He's like, it's not, it's not an another kid with a guitar and harmonica. It's those dudes.
Speaker 1 (39m 24s): It's so true. I mean, it's, that's someone, who's an artist who can see himself in another artist, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 0 (39m 30s): And that's like an 83 year old man. That's, that's in tune with what's happening. That's cool.
Speaker 1 (39m 37s): Like that, that interview should be, be played all over TV. Like we need more of that right now. Like here's this old guy that is an artist in one way and he's staying, Hey, here's these other guys like that, that's the wisdom of our fathers that were missing in the community. That is, I liked that interview. I'm gonna have to look that up, make sure I'm sharing that
Speaker 0 (39m 59s): In. Dylan's just released an album like two weeks ago. That's great. He's still, he's still that good. So he's not out of touch or he's not like over the Hill or like any of that stuff. And now that I think about it, he wrote a memoir called I think the Chronicles. Okay. And actually he may have written what I just told you in that book. It might not, it might not have been from a live interview. So it might actually be in print in that book.
So I'd recommend reading it. Yeah. I'm going to write it down. Yeah. There's, there's tons of cool stuff out there that, that helps, you know, helps me kind of direct whatever course I'm on. Whether it's music, whether it's musical or not, it still helps the music, you know? Absolutely. I that's one of the things that I try to, I try to make everything count. Like even if I, if I go, if I go run 10 miles in the mountains, which is something I love to do, I love the trail run. So, you know, if I go do that, it's not just cause I want to look better or get skinnier.
Or th that running helps me be the better person that helps me make the music. Like it's all connected. Right. And I do that with the conscious purpose of it. It has to, for me, it has to cover all those bases or it's not worth doing, you know, I could be doing something better with my time. So like, if I go, like I'm probably going to do it after this, I'm probably going to go eat and then I'm to go probably go skateboard somewhere. Nice. My skateboarding has intention that it's, it's adding to.
I need that to get to where I need to be here or in the heart or wherever so that I treat my girlfriend better or that I write a good song or, or I make a stranger's day better. Like I don't do it. I don't do anything just to do it. I just make what I do count and have substance, especially skateboarding. Cause like, as a kid, we were told how we shouldn't do it, how it was a waste of time. Like, you know, w w like my skateboards would disappear from the house.
Cause they didn't want me doing it. At least my, at least my dad didn't my mom was cool, but they did. My, my mom understood that it was part of the whole, you know, I wasn't outbreak, even, even when I got arrested for doing it, I didn't get in trouble from her. I carried that with me, where I'm not going to waste my time, doing things that don't make the whole better or more productive, even if somebody thinks that what I'm doing is silly.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42m 44s): It, it, I think it's a great philosophy to live your life by. And I think it drives home the point what you do, sometimes you do all the time. And one thing that I, one way I have seen the exact same thing in my life, is that like, am I work? If there's a lot of guys, if I cared about everybody, to me, the people that I quite with, that I care about him and want him to be better. And there's some people that need food sometimes in life.
There's a lot of argument. And what I try to tell people is, let's say you're at work and you, you get into an art when you got to remember that the purpose, you know, what's the purpose of an art. The purpose of an argument is to spell them. Not, you know, we're still worried about being, well, you don't want to get in trouble. You don't want to lose. If one wants to help you develop strategies to win getting his balding, ponders, winning the argument.
So if you get real good at winning and all of a sudden you're not working anymore, how's family, kids, your friends, right. You're distancing yourself from falling problems, you know? So I, I would agree that you should have intent and kind of be mindful on your daily routine, what you're doing. That's perfect. And then it is part of the holes.
Speaker 0 (44m 11s): Yeah. I was reading a book last night, but are you familiar with Wayne Dyer? Yeah. Yeah. I am. He was there in Hawaii until he passed away. But I read basically what you just said, like you, you need to just associate or detach yourself from the need to be. Right. If you want to connect with the source. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44m 33s): You know? Yeah. It's phenomenal.
Speaker 0 (44m 36s): It's, it's impossible to, to, to get to that point where you feel centered and present, if you have attachments to things like being right.
Speaker 1 (44m 48s): Yeah. That's a fundamental tenant of Buddhism is attachment. Right. Like you're right. But yeah,
Speaker 0 (44m 55s): That's one of the things like, that's the, one of the things I picked up, like I said, when I started this as a teenager, because I would just grab books on all this stuff that I could find. And it started, it started with like, you know, the Dow and Buddhism and Eastern philosophies. Yeah. And, and you know, that's not to say those are the answers, but everybody needs to start somewhere. And, and the answer is not one thing or from one source, it's from all the sources that you can absorb in and kind of mold in your being and then put back out into the world.
So if one doesn't work, try another one. You know, if, if one doesn't resonate with you, try another one. And what, what I've found is once I found one, I would find the next one. And then I find the next one. And then sometimes, sometimes the next one was one that I, I tried years ago and wrote off is not the one. All I, all that really happened was I realized at the time that I found it originally, I just wasn't ready for it. Yeah. So you just, you just find your way in, you find that first step and then you just keep taking steps.
Speaker 1 (46m 5s): Yeah. I know. Poetry, emotion, man. Yeah.
Speaker 0 (46m 9s): I hope so. I like it. It works for me and it works for, I see it work for the people around me in the sense that when I'm present and focused and aware my relationships with the people around me on any given day are better,
Speaker 1 (46m 31s): You know? Yeah. The people, the people around me are better moods. There they're more care
Speaker 0 (46m 37s): Free. They're more focused, you know? And it's not because I made them that way. It's just, I didn't, I know that I didn't, I did my part to not detract from their presence or their energy. Yeah. You know, I can't give anybody my energy, but I can certainly take from theirs. Great. That's easy to do, you know, just go and just go into work in a shitty mood. Yeah. And you can, the whole room, you can just suck the energy right. Out of a room easy.
Yeah. But try to make one person's day better. It's a little more complicated,
Speaker 1 (47m 13s): But way more rewarding, way more rewarding and, and way more addictive. Yeah.
Speaker 0 (47m 20s): Well maybe, maybe not addictive way more. What's the word I'm looking for. The, where, like, you know, it becomes a domino effect. Like you, you reach that one person and they reach somebody and it multiplies exponential. I think there you go. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Like it, it becomes exponential and it's because you're doing it together with the other people. It's not, it can't be one person, you know, one person can ruin it, but one person can't fix it.
Yeah. But they can fix themselves. Yeah. You know, and, and that's what that's, what has to happen, you know? Like, you know, people are really vulnerable and very concerned and on edge right now with the way that like the world is. Yeah. But it really, the world hasn't changed all that much. Only like, yeah, like the, the, the current events of the day are no more or less intense or scary than they were all along.
Right. Like I still, like, I still feel in my, when I close my eyes, but I don't look in a mirror or look at myself on the, on the camera staring back at me right now. I still think I'm like 17 years old. My body feels better than it did when I was 17. Even though I was an athlete as a kid and in good shape, I'm way healthier now in a way better shape. And when I go ride my skateboard, I have way less aches and pains. I have none.
I have none anymore. I have better range of motion. Like everything about me feels better and younger at 44 than it did at 17, including my, my mental state, emotional state. But I guess the point is with regards to what we're talking about is that is there for everybody, like the source, the creator, the creation, whatever this life is, all of that is available to all of us all the time.
And there's always more it's infinite source. And when we look at like things that are going on in the world, whether whatever side of the coin you're on, or if there's many sides, none of it matters. None of it. And it's always been there. Think of all the, the, the moments like our parents grew up with, you know, the Vietnam war in JFK and Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, we've grown up with just as many or more major current events than they did in a shorter time.
Yeah. We've got, we've lived through some shit. Yeah. A lot like, so what's going on now is, is it's only different, but it's all it's been there all along. So there's no, for me, there's no excuse to not continue the work to make myself better so that I can make somebody else's day better because now as a perfect now's the perfect time to say, screw it and just go hide the cave. And, and most people would go with, would understand and say, you know what?
I get it. I would I'll do. I would do that too, if I could. Right. So if you look at it, you know, objectively, you just, you realize like for me, that's not an option. That's not an excuse because nothing's really changed. It really hasn't, you know, it's just, there's, there's just different faces to the problems. And, and, and I don't know, this is one of those intuitive things, but as a kid, like, I always knew, like the answer wasn't in religion, it wasn't in politics.
It wasn't in any of that stuff that we, as, as humans, that stuff's all fake. We created that stuff. It's real to people. And I respect that. But in the grand scheme of things, when this earth and us, and animals and ecosystems were created, those things weren't, those were created by us. Right. Right. I mean, yeah. So, so to get involved in those things and choose sides is really unhealthy.
The answers don't lie there to me, the answers lie and, you know, making your day better. If I can't go into the grocery store and maybe opening a door for somebody, like something as simple as that, like, I don't have to give, I don't have to give up a homeless person money to make their day better. You know? And, and I, and if I have some, maybe I'll give it to them. Most cases are probably don't and I'm not lying to them when I tell them I don't.
Yeah. But I can still make their day, at least a little better. Yeah. And, and people that live in, in a neighborhood with neighbors on both sides of them, which I, you know, I don't live. Like I don't live like that, but people that do, and most people do just think about how disconnected most people are from their neighbors. Yeah. I know that they are, because when I go to visit friends or family that have that lifestyle, people live next, you know, it was next door, next door to the same people for years or decades.
And they don't know anything about him. It's tragic. Yeah. So like how, how has that, how has that issue not more important then a political issue that involves a few chosen people in a different world that don't listen to us anyway. Right? Like we would be way more effective in my opinion, as a society, if we just treated everybody that we come in contact with better. Right.
So, you know, none of what's going on outside of my bubble, it doesn't affect me until it affects me. And so worrying about it puts, puts, puts the concept of time to it, which puts, it, puts it basically in the future, which means I, you know, stress comes from worrying about the future, right. If I just sit here now with you and look around and what, there's no worries, there's no, there's no stress, there's no sickness.
You know? And if, I think if we go back and talk about the past in the context that you and I are talking about, it, that's one thing. But if I go back to the past and all I do is think about it in the sense of remembering those emotions and those feelings from, from growing up at that time in those circumstances, then I'd be really miserable right now. Yeah. You know, time, time, time goes with religion in politics.
For me, it's made up, it's not real. Right. You know, months, weeks, days, you know, days of the month, that's not real. There's not, there's not a calendar on the sun or the moon that was created with us that was arguing. And so that, that concept of time is unhealthy for me. You know, if it's, if it's, if it's something that other people need or crave or whatever, that's cool. Like, I can still be their friend if somebody is a, as a political supporter or on any side and I don't associate or GRI or any, or whatever, or even if I disagree with him, I can still be their friend.
I can still make their day better. Right. I can still be a source of something productive or, you know, nutritious, you know, to their life. So I guess, you know, that's, that's my focus right now in life. And, and I, I foresee it being only, I perceive that only becoming more important to me and, and, you know, and if I can help somebody along the way, then, then you know, I feel like I'm doing something, I'm doing something.
Right. Because I feel that I am not because there's a scoreboard somewhere, you know? Yeah. I heard a story one time about a gosh, this was the, I forgot his name. He's like the winningest basketball coach of all time and college, John wooden, John wooden. So I played, I played basketball. So I learned my history about that too. Okay. So John Woods, you know, he, he, I read his biography and in biography, he says,
Speaker 1 (56m 25s): They talk about winning and life and stuff. And they asked John wooden, like, what, what is it like, what do you teach these kids? You've, you've won, you know, 11 out of 13, seven in a row. The next closest person has one like three or four. What, what is it? And he, he gave the speech. And when he says, it's, here's what I tell the kids. There's a real simple thing. I want all your kids to know at the end of the day only you will truly know whether you won or lost out there. It's based on the points on the board, because you can go out there and you can play the best game of your life.
You know? And if, if you have less points on the scoreboard, but you gave your wall, then you get to walk away the winner because you out of yourself, you know, and on the flip side of that, if you go out there and you just kind of lolly gag, and you don't play your best and you still win, well, then you're a loser. You know what I mean? You, you gave up, you didn't get out of yourself. You, you failed to get out of yourself. And then the hook was what in life, what you give you get to keep what you've failed to give you lose.
Speaker 0 (57m 33s): Yep. Yeah. It's profound. Yeah. And it go back to your old man. Like he was one of the few that didn't, it wasn't a big deal. How good? Yeah,
Speaker 1 (57m 49s): We were,
Speaker 0 (57m 52s): Right. Like, it didn't matter if we were good baseball players or a good baseball player, a good baseball team. If we want our loss, he treated us with respect and care, no matter what. And he and I played baseball from, from T-ball like four years old, all the way up to high school and your dad and one other coach. I, those are the only two I can say that about out of, you know, what, between coaches and assistant coaches, right?
15, 15, 20 dudes, easy. There were plenty of episodes where you saw parents and coaches cursing and throwing fits in front of the kids and the parents. Yeah. Or a lot. Do you ever, do you ever remember seeing kids get pulled off the field by their angry parents? Cause they hated the coach during, during games. Yeah. I remember in front of everybody and the shame that those kids had to go through and they were good kids. They didn't, you know, and their parents were just so misguided.
So yeah. Credit credit again, your old man.
Speaker 1 (58m 57s): Yeah. He really preached mental toughness. You know, he all the time, it was like, listen, you can't, he's a, it's all in here, George, you know what you put in, what you put in life, you gotta get out of it, whatever it is you do do what your style. Don't worry about that stuff. And he's like, you can't lose. All you can do is get better, you know? Right. You know, the, the goal of life is to be defeated by bigger thing. Right. But yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's an interesting relationship. And I, you know, as, as two young men having similar, you know, having similar things, I think all young men, you get to a point where you have to fight your dad not fighting, but you have to mentally that guess why you challenge your dad.
That's why you're you don't want, why you hate him. Like you get to this point where you gotta beat him so that when you get older, you learn that you were fighting, but your dad was never, you know what I know he was eat you and like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause you don't realize till you get older and hopefully your parents are still around when you get older and then you can actually get to meet your parents on a level that is not no other son. Yeah. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 0 (1h 0m 13s): Yeah. Yeah. Like, like I said earlier, like, you know, if you want to talk on a parenting level at a child's level, I don't have a lot of nice things to say, but, but having made peace and in getting to where I am now, like the things that I've learned about how, how my appearance grew up, especially my dad. Yeah. He had it way worse than he ever gave it to me. And I got it pretty bad. Right. And so now that we're cool at work, like we're buddies, like I love him.
He's awesome. But like now, like the things he here, like here's one before I say this, here's, here's something I'll put out there. And I hope not to, if he's watching, I hope not to embarrass him, but he grew up as an alcoholic. I mean, and he, he, he, he is admitted to me, like he was already full blown, you know, when we were in like sixth, seventh grade and we were skateboarding and we were probably doing some stuff that adults do.
Right. I mean, I was guaranteed. Yeah. But, but we, we, at least me, I know some of our friends aren't, weren't so lucky, but I never had a problem with it. I never got in trouble for it. Right. It was something, it was fun. I know that my old man, by the time he was in seventh grade, somewhere in that age, like 11, 12 years old was already a full blown alcoholic, like a habitual alcoholic. So I also know now that they say that people that lived through alcoholism, it kinda, it kind of stunts their growth.
It's true. So if you're an alcoholic by 12, 13 years old and you're 50 years old or 60 years old on some or many levels, you're still only 12 or 13 years old. Yeah. So when I say my dad, in some ways it's still like a 12 or 13 year old at like 64, 65 years old. I don't mean that in a derogatory way. What I'm saying is I've gotten to the point where I can recognize and have empathy and also relate to him because we've gotten past the problem stage he's sober.
And so we can, we can actually communicate. And we never could communicate when I was young. Cause we were fighting. Right. You know, so what's, you're saying about like, you know, fighting your parents and going through that whole thing. Everybody pretty much does. I know now I know now that, well, I know now that you, you actually don't have to, but you, but chances are you probably going to right. Unless, unless you're lucky enough to find the path that, you know, I started finding it when I was like 16, 17, and I'm still learning how to follow it and stay on it.
So it's not an overnight thing for me. It was not overnight. It wasn't easy, but there's some people out there that they might find it when they're eight or nine years old and they might never have to veer off of it and God bless them. Good for them. And so if you're one of the people that, that doesn't find it early, or you find it early in, you feel like you feel like you found it and we're on it and you failed get back on it. It's it's don't if you find that you fail, you're not a failure.
Yeah. So, you know, there was a point where I went from being like a young, happy, talkative kid to somebody that didn't like, people that wouldn't talk to anybody for a long time. And so I'm getting, I feel like I'm getting back to being that kid where I can be anybody and everybody's friend, right. And somewhere in those high school years and all through, you know, through a good portion of my early twenties and thirties, that wasn't true anymore.
Even as a, a person in the public eye of some sort as a musician, I was, I was never dishonest on stage or in my music, but I also didn't give any more than I had to when I, when it came time to get off stage and interact with people, you know, I, I really short changed a lot of people on a level where I wasn't mean, or, you know, rude or any, maybe to some people they thought I was, but I was really just not connecting and not, you know, making, not making that, that personal contact with people.
Right. And, and, and that was just, that was just, you know, the scars or the, the pre-programming that happened that as I figured it out, I started to address it. And now I'm getting back to where, like, I can just walk up to any old stranger and in, in may conversation and not feel weird. Right. And feel, and feel like even after spending just 30 seconds with somebody, like being able to sense who they are and I can call them a friend.
Yeah. Even if I don't ever talk to them again, you know, so like coming to, to come full circle with the interview and talking with you. Yeah. I'm trying, I'm trying to be my five-year-old self with regards to like how I handle the world around me and the people around me. Cause when I was that age, you know, I used to get in trouble in school for being too friendly and talking too much. Whereas later in, in my, in my school years, I used to get in trouble for not engaging enough and not interacting enough and not participating.
Right. Because a lot of that was just like, you know, it was beaten out of me and in one way or another, whether it was whether it was verbally or physically or whatever, like it was just, it was just, you know, it got to the point where I was starting to break and look, luckily I don't think I ever fully broke, but I got close enough in my mom recognized it soon enough that I was able to, you know, cause intuitively we all knew if, if we're not giving our best, we all know here.
If we are not truly happy. Right. We all knew. Yeah. That's why, that's why people turn to drugs and alcohol and, and the people that are on it talk all that noise about, Oh, you're just a square. You're not, you're not having fun. They know the truth. Right. They know that they're doing it cause they're not having to put it plain and simple. I'm trying to be my five year old self and be childlike at 44 where I want to be a shining light to people I know and love and to strangers.
And that's it, it's simple. It's once you figure it out, you realize how simple it was and how it was only difficult to get there. Cause I made it difficult. Right?
Speaker 1 (1h 7m 19s): Yeah. It seems like on some level you'd have to be broken that you can be built.
Speaker 0 (1h 7m 25s): Yeah. And the trick is to, you know, one of the things I had to learn was forgiveness. And one of the things I didn't know that I had to learn was forgiving myself.
Speaker 1 (1h 7m 37s): Wow.
Speaker 0 (1h 7m 38s): Because at the time I was like, I have every right to be angry. I didn't do anything wrong. And I was right. But all that anger only hurt me. It didn't hurt anybody else. Yeah. You know, unless, unless I acted on it, then it did.
Speaker 1 (1h 7m 51s): Yeah. It's like, what did they say about like anger? It's like swallowing a poison pill. Like you, you, you're going to take the poison when you want to hurt somebody else. I forgot how the quote goes. It's way more elegant.
Speaker 0 (1h 8m 3s): Yeah. There's a comedian. There's a comedian that made good light of it too. That's hilarious. And I'll try to find that and send it to you. Yeah. But yeah. So I feel like we could, we could do a few verses or a few volumes of these. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (1h 8m 18s): Absolutely. Absolutely. Next maybe at some point in time, we'll have you bring your guitar down and you can bang out a song or something.
Speaker 0 (1h 8m 25s): Yeah. I, my battery's about to die, so I don't even think I'll have time to do that now, but let's do some more. If people are absent, people are digging it.
Speaker 1 (1h 8m 35s): Yeah. You know what, man, I love you, buddy. It's super awesome to talk to you. Thank you for spending time with all of us today and we'll do it again soon, man. And I'll touch base with a little bit later today and go over some editing and stuff right on. I love you too, man.
In the second half of This heartfelt & candid interview. Adam gets into the deep waters of philosophical Behavior. He is brutally honest on What his life was like growing up as well as how those life events helped him to become the man he is today. I hope you enjoy legendary singer/songwriter & my friend.
Adam Lopez
Transcript
https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/48488080
Speaker 0 (0s): That I've been able to just kind of keep building it up.
Speaker 1 (5s): Yeah. It seems like that part, I find really interesting. And it's something you would only know if you were in the business, there's so much rich history at clubs that you wouldn't even think or clubs are there. There's so much rich history. If you, if you, if you learn about it, like, you know, how many people have played the whiskey to go go, many people have played, you know, different rooms in San Diego. And it's just like, I had no idea that Juul played there or was like a resident there.
And it just, that's just the stuff you would only know if you were in a position like yourself.
Speaker 0 (39s): Yeah. And that, that was, that was, that was where it all started. Like the, we were talking about being self-educated for the purpose of furthering, you know, your life's goals. So if you're not going to do it via school or traditional routes, you still have to do it. Right. You still have to put the work in and not just the hands on work of your craft, but you have to know the history of the people that, that, that did it before you, so you know how to connect the dots and how it got to where you are.
Speaker 1 (1m 13s): Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting, like there's this book called tech technically, but in the book, the guy makes the argument much like you did that history to be part of every subject, whether you're going to talk about baseball, guitar playing, or surfing, every sport, every activity has a history behind it. And if you want to succeed in that passion, you're doing, you should know the history of the thing you're learning, right? Yeah. From people before you.
Speaker 0 (1m 43s): Yeah. Like I haven't been, this is my first time, like back in California in almost 20 years, like, like, you know, with some roots here. So, but you know, when we were kids, we were surfing and skateboarding. Yeah. I still, I still know my surf history and my skateboarding history and I never, I never really pursued doing any of those professionally. Right. But I love them so much. And I still do that. I couldn't sit here and tell you that I loved them, but then not be able to answer your questions about them.
Yeah. Yeah. I feel weird about that. Yeah. You know, so there's, there's things along the way that whether I try to do them professionally or not, if I, if I really truly love them or care about them, I need to learn about it. Right. And more than just the doing of them. Yeah. You know, I still know my baseball history pretty well. You know, when we were kids, we would nerd out on that stuff. Yeah. You know, baseball cards and, and, and reading or watching this week in baseball and learning our history.
Speaker 1 (2m 46s): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so amazed at like, if you look at where, like North County, San Diego at them, there is so many talented people that came out of there. Like, if you look at the skateboarding industry, the music industry, like just look at the people we went to school with. And like there's some real killers out there. You know what I mean? That just went on to be artists in their own. Right. You know, it's so mind blowing to look back and get up to, I can't believe I used to hang out with them with this guy, this guy's a pro skate or do this guy's a pro surfer or this girl's up.
This girl's like, Oh my God, it just naturals paintings. You know, it's like it's. So to me, I feel so inspired and thankful to have got to play a small role in all these people's lives that are so at least to me, important in artistic and it looking back on your life, I hope everyone can look back on their life. And if they don't see it now, I think they will when they're later. But I hope they can all find some inspiration from the people they have an outlet you think of, was there something in the water in San Diego? What was it?
Speaker 0 (3m 53s): I feel like it was just the right combination of time and place and, and souls like the right people were there. Yeah. You know? Cause it couldn't, I don't, maybe it could have, I don't know, but I feel like it was, it was meant to be that group of people. Like we were, we were really lucky in that there were cliques and there were groups and all that thing. But there was like this inner circle that was bigger than all those little cliques. Right. Where we all had one foot in one circle and one foot in the other circle.
But we were all in this bigger circle where we all had similar interests. And then we all had really different interests, but we were all friends. Yeah. You know, and that's it, wasn't a bunch of closed off small circles of people that didn't interact. We all, we all got along. We all, you know, even like we had a huge gang problem that people don't realize, and we had a huge drug problem that people don't realize. Like, I think it might still stand. Like we had the, like the biggest drug bust in American high school history happened at Rancho.
Yeah. Yeah. While we were there and we had, we had the biggest national gang crisis in junior high. Like we had more gang members per capita registered with like the Sheriff's department than anywhere in the country at the same time that we had the drug thing. But, but we, we were friends with some of those kids and those gangs and some of those kids selling drugs, they weren't all bad people. They were just doing stupid shit. Yeah. It's true. It's true. Yeah.
There was a lot of good people that came out of that.
Speaker 1 (5m 33s): Yeah. It's so weird to think about you haven't exploded. You have the worst drug crisis, but then also an explosion of creativity. You know what I mean? Yeah. Some of the like, like there was, I think a lot of people, maybe it was our circle of friends, but you know, a lot of people were so talented in a lot of ways. I remember. Do you remember Josh and Dylan more? They were like, dude, those guys, they, they were, they went to school with us since we were kids. And like, I remember those guys doing like the stairs at Rancho, the library stare for people yeah.
Was like 25 stairs. And like both of those guys were some of the most articulate men I've ever known. Those guys were like on another level when it came to intelligence level, when it came to skateboarding, like I just remember being like, always look at those guys, go and do they got these guys did it, man. How do they do those stairs? I just doing so good at math.
Speaker 0 (6m 27s): No, they were, they were, I used to go over to their house when I was, cause they were a couple of years younger that are older than me. Right. And I would, I would, I remember going over to their house, like on the weekends, like way too early, like seven in the morning and I live miles away and I would, I would hike my way down the railroad tracks with my skateboard and go knock on their door and like, let's go. Like I would, I would be raging and they would just be like half asleep and like trying to like, like, I was like a little kid to them. Like they couldn't believe that I would like, I would just be so, so amps to go hang out with them and scape, but they were always cool.
They never slammed the door in my face. They never were like, dude, what do you get out of here? They never did that. Yeah. And they're older. They're older brothers were musicians. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. It was like star and Ben and Ben. Ben's a really well-respected music producer and musician in San Diego still. Oh, he's a huge, huge part of the music scene. He's a, he's a hub. Yeah. Like he's, he's produced some pretty big albums and like some of them for like friends of mine, like bands that I I've been in or played in as a hired, as a hired gun, like he's done their records and stuff.
He's he's well respected. Yeah. And, and you were talking about like keeping it real and not, you know, like not selling out musically artistically. That's what, that's what Ben and Dylan did with skateboarding. That it is they, they were, they were at least in, in, in skateboarding five years is huge here. The progression, the progression happens so fast and skateboarding, you know, every, every three months they were, they were years ahead of most people and chose not to make it their profession.
Cause they, I guess, intuitively they knew the risk involved in making your love, your job. Yeah. And that's like, at the time I thought you guys are nuts. Like, you know, I was, I was young and like eager and they were like, they were wise old men when they were like 16. Yeah. They were super smart. It really well. And so like now I look back and just like just mad respect, you know, they, they, I mean, it helped that they were super smart.
They, they wasn't skateboarding. Wasn't their only way out. Right. Where some of our other friends, it kind of was, they had a head start compared to like myself and some of our friends that were able to make their art or their love, their job, you know, for me like, aye, aye, aye, aye. Unless I wanted to do something like dig ditches or, you know, put roofs on houses. I really didn't have a whole lot of other options.
Right. Like I said, it was a, it was a risk. But as far as I was concerned, it wasn't a big risk. Whereas to them, they didn't, I don't, I don't think I could be wrong, but like they were just smart enough and secure in their life and in their purse, personalities enough to know that they skateboarding. Wasn't their only option.
Speaker 1 (9m 42s): Yeah. Maybe that's good at it too is. Cause they just,
Speaker 0 (9m 45s): Yeah, it was all love. It was all passion. There was never any, there was never any hurry or, or rush to make it they're living. Right. It was. And that's why I think that's why it was so, and I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but that's why it came so easy to them. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I remember this, like we'd have skateboard sessions like out in front of when Alex assessment has lived behind you.
I was at his house all the time and we would all meet, meet up in front of your house, which action Dylan. And go, go down to the, like the shopping center in scapes. But it was just so effortless, man. It was so beautiful. It was watching those guys do what they did is a beautiful thing. Whether you're into skateboarding or not, because you don't, you don't get to see people do things on that level very often.
Speaker 1 (10m 41s): And it's so amazing to see people do something so effortlessly when like when you and I would watch them, you would agree that it was beautiful and effortlessly. And we were in awe, right?
Speaker 0 (10m 54s): Yeah. Because we knew how difficult what they were doing was, but it looks so easy.
Speaker 1 (10m 59s): That's how I feel when I watch you play guitar. Thank you. I think most people would. I, I it's, it's just weird how it works like that. You know, we can describe, we can see, I have this theory too. Like, you know, when you think about people, if you see something in somebody that bothers you that's because that quality, that bothers you in somebody is something you have in yourself or, or vice versa. If you see something beautiful, poetic, that's beautiful in somewhere else, isn't it.
It's a quality you have in yourself. You're seeing yourself in the other people.
Speaker 0 (11m 35s): Yeah. And, and yeah, because we're getting into, into more of the, like the, the, the deeper end and, and that's good. That's good. Because getting back again to the questions you were asking me before, about how, how I got to where I'm at. Like, I feel like I'm just getting started because I'm getting to the realization of what you're talking about when it comes to the spiritual side of it. Yeah. You know, I didn't come from the best home I didn't have, you know, and I, I hate to, I'm not putting anybody on blast, but like, I didn't have the best parenting.
You know, I, I was in a lot of ways I was on my own by the time I was seven or eight years old, you know, I was coming, I was coming home to an empty house and cooking my own food. And, you know, I, I was just independent because I had to be like, that's just how it worked out. And we didn't have a lot of means. So I couldn't, you know, I couldn't get to go to, to do things that a lot of the other kids got to go and do. I was stuck at home and just kind of making my own way.
So when I was, you know, in my late teens and I started, I started to realize like, I could, I could make, I could make my own way without needing, you know, anybody's financial backing. You know, I've been really lucky. Like my, my parents haven't really had to support me. They helped me out. They've helped me out here and there. But like, I've, I know of people with real so-called real jobs that have needed way more help than I, I have.
Like, I'm pretty, I'm pretty lucky that way. But my point, my point is not that I did it, my point is that I got, I got turned on very early to the educational part of the spiritual part. And knowing that there were a lot of scars in, in like, I guess these days we call it PTSD right.
Of the childhood that were, were showing signs. It was, it was already happening in high school where the signs were becoming apparent. Even to me as a teenager, that if I didn't get help or start helping myself, that end of things was going to prohibit that it was gonna, it was going to cancel out the talent end of things. Right. You know what I mean? Like that I could have all the talent in the world, but if the mental, emotional, spiritual part of stuff didn't get some work and some help, it was going to sink the ship because you can't, you can't be successful in it.
Anything if you're unhealthy, you know, emotionally or spiritually. Yeah. And I started to realize that I was, you know,
Speaker 1 (14m 38s): In some ways it seems to me that some of the people we think are the least fortunate, actually have the most opportunity. Let me try to unpack that. Like when you, when you're seven, yeah. I'm at home by yourself and your, you know, your, your father had an accident in a weird way. Life taught you at an early age that you're gonna need to make it on your own. And luckily you were mentally capable of understanding the lesson.
Life was trying to, you know what I mean by that, like, some people feel like they're abandoned. You may have felt deaf, but ultimately if you didn't grow up like that, you might get your mind that, Hey, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta get here. It's okay to be with me, but I didn't do it on my own since that. What, what was some people that have good people that they never, they don't, they're going to be on their own. Right. And, and, you know, by that time you are 13 years ahead of them independent, but you're still sticking the bar, the jungle.
Speaker 0 (15m 49s): Yeah. And you know, you say like mentally, I understood that. And I don't know that I did mentally. I it's almost like that same, that same part of me that writes songs where you're just compelled to do it. You, it's not even a mental thing that you think about. You just know that this is something you need to address or something you need to do or something you need to put work into. And this is where I hope you're, I hope your is listening because, because he was a big part of that because, because his, his presence at the time that it was in my life was really a crucial crossroads.
And in fact, I don't know if you probably don't know this and man, if I get emotional, I apologize. But he actually sat my mom down and talk to her because she was our team mom at the time that transition in that accident happened. I don't know if you remember that. Oh. And she told me later that George Monte sat me down and talk to me through the, the conflict that she had because she had an obligation to me and to you and to all our friends in the, in, in she was dealing with my dad.
Yeah. So that's, that's, you know, the older in, in the wiser, I get the bigger of a deal. I realized that that was like, that's, I don't even know how, how deep they went in the conversation or what was said, but it was enough that she told me about it. Yeah. And I know that it's enough, whether it was 10 seconds or 10 minutes or a couple hours that without it things might've been different, you know?
Cause like I didn't, I didn't have to quit baseball when everything happened. Like luckily my, my other, you know, family members stepped in, make sure I got where I needed to go. And if I couldn't be there or my mom couldn't be there, your dad knew what was up and understood. Right? Like that's, that's a huge thing.
Speaker 1 (18m 17s): Do you know my dad's going to call me,
Speaker 0 (18m 19s): See George. I told you, you look up, you are George
Speaker 1 (18m 24s): And do like a 30 minute phone call,
Speaker 0 (18m 27s): Prince respectful, George. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, there are, there are moments like that and there are just moments and you don't, if you're not paying attention, you don't realize that they could be pivotal, major, you know, moments where everything happens for a reason. I think. Yeah. Everything, everything happens for a reason, but you also have the ability to make things happen or to dictate where things go.
But there's also moments in time where opportunities present themselves for you to make those choices. And that's, that's one of them. Yeah. Like, you know, your dad, your dad was a really big role model during that year. Whether he knew it or not, you know, for me, that's heavy
Speaker 1 (19m 21s): Do that. That's it's mind blowing. I, I, I was lucky in that my parents got divorced
Speaker 0 (19m 29s): When I was younger, but they both were such, they both went out of their way
Speaker 1 (19m 35s): To, to help create an awesome life. My mom got remarried and she married this guy that was, he was equally impressive. And it had so much stuff. But my, my dad, he was, he was always the coach in this until you become older. But like he gave up, like, we, we had a lot of financial problems as well, but yeah. Made sure that he was at every practice who was the coach. And I like, I have so many friends that have, I remember being little and my friends were like, your dad's so often toward that.
So often it's are you gonna make me cry? But when you tell me that, you know what I mean? Like that is awesome. And I, I love him and I, I didn't know that he did that for you or your family. And I'm thankful to hear that. That's cool.
Speaker 0 (20m 24s): Yeah. It's, it's funny. Like I, I had for, I hadn't remembered that or thought about that until like, I think last night, when you, when you, when, when we finally set a time and said, you know, we've been talking about this for like a month or two. Right. But last night we were like, let's just, let's do it tomorrow. We're doing it. Yeah. And then I started thinking like last night I had that thought, wow, like not like I remember us. We would hang out in high school with our circle of friends.
Like every morning we'd meet up, but we all have breakfast together. Like there was a, there was like a third period break where we would all hang out and have breakfast. And we were like, we thought we were cool, like old people drinking coffee. And there was like, there was like a good 10 or 12 of us every morning. We'd hang out and meet up for breakfast. And that's the memory that like I have, when I see your name on Facebook or whatever, or you message me or I message you that's like the obvious memory. And then last night I thought about it.
I was like, wow. Like, wait a minute. Not only do I remember George from high school, like, you're one of my oldest friends. Like, we go, wait, wait, wait, further back. We go back to like first or second grade, I think. Right. Like, and then I thought, wow, wait, wait, wait, wait. We played baseball. Not, I mean, we all, all our friends played baseball together and we were on the same team. And then I've realized like, wait a minute, your dad was our coach. And like, all of this hit me last night, including including the, the story about him and my mom.
Yeah. Like, I don't know if you remember, but like I was, I was the only kid, I think whose parents were still together and still alive, but only one of my parents ever came to my baseball games and people don't know why. Right. That's why, because my dad was, my dad was in either in a hospital or in a rehab, you know, that's why at that time there were other times when he wasn't there. And that was a whole different thing.
Cause he was, you know, he was also an alcoholic. So, you know, but, but my mom was always there always, you know, and, and me and my dad are cool. Like we've, we've I, the work that I put in aloud and he's put in work to like for sure, but for me, the, I had to put in my own work to make peace with him. Yeah. Cause he he's a dad, like even at his worst, he, even if he didn't know how to show it, he still loved me.
Sure. Teenage me. I couldn't say that about him. I couldn't say that. I loved him and I didn't. I never, we were not that type of family. Anyway. We never said I loved you. We never hugged. You never did any of that stuff. But I, I'm not proud of this, but like I was well into my twenties before I ever said, I love you to my dad. So what we're talking about now in the past, I'm not here to like, you know, point the finger or anything.
It's, it's the truth, you know, that's all it is, but I have to point those things out so that hopefully I have to point those things out. So that hopefully through talking to friends like you or people that need to hear these things that maybe I have something to offer them that might help them get through their stuff. Yeah. You know, again, again, going full circle, talking about how we got to this point where I'm living the life that I want to live and, you know, telling you that I had to get through certain things that I started learning in my teenage years.
And now that's my life. My life is, is not music. Music is something I do, but my life is making life better for me and the people around me. Like my goal. Now I have music goals still. Like I haven't accomplished everything I wanna accomplish. But like my goal now is to do my best. That every person that I make eye contact with open a door for, at the grocery store or hang out with like somehow I want to make everybody's life a little easier or better at the moment that I'm in, in their vicinity.
That's beautiful. That's
Speaker 1 (25m 5s): But our world is the only way to make the world better is to make everyone around you better. That's that's the goal.
Speaker 0 (25m 11s): Yeah. And, and, and, and what you said about basically being a mirror, which we all are. Yeah. That's, that's what we all are. That's that's, that's my, that's where I'm putting more of my work. My work is on, on being that person, you know, I still spend plenty of hours, you know, making music and practicing and writing and recording, but I spend as many or more on the other stuff, you know,
Speaker 1 (25m 41s): You know, it's, it, it blows my mind as I'm sitting here and we're having this conversation. And previously we had talked about, you know, what you used to do as far as going on traveling and then the COVID kind of hit and then picking up this new style of music it's organic and when you're changing, and then, you know, with the last piece you just told me about your philosophy of making the world better, it seems like that's the direction your music is going in there.
Just because if that's your thought process about doing that, that's probably going to be reflected in the upcoming music that makes me excited to kind of hear it.
Speaker 0 (26m 20s): Yeah. You know, I've, I've always had it in there in the music. It's, it's been there all along, but I, I feel like I'm, I'm consciously being less guarded with how I wrap it in the poetry. Cause you can hide things in poetry. You can say some really heavy stuff, knowing that it's wrapped in this, this wording that it's it's, it's so not obvious that I don't have to be as self conscious about putting it out there, kind of kind of hiding behind it.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And I, and one of the, the only, the only thing I always said was if I'm in a, if I'm going to express a concern or a complaint in a song, there's going to be a resolution in the song somewhere.
Speaker 1 (27m 9s): Wow. That is awesome.
Speaker 0 (27m 12s): So, so cause I don't ever want to be a complainer about anything. Right. You know, and I don't ever want to be a naysayer or, or feel like, you know, we're doomed with whatever the situation or whatever. The, the, you know, I don't know what the I'm lost for words, but whatever the topic is, I don't want to just complain or write it off and then not offer a solution. So even in the older material, there's always a solution.
There's always some kind of resolution, but yeah, I think the new songs are a little more obvious as far as what, I'm, what I'm trying to convey. Less, less poetry in the turning of phrases and more poetry and saying plainly, but musically, what I want to say.
Speaker 1 (28m 5s): Yeah. It's such a powerful medium. And, and you know, when I think about communicating and I think about language, you know, so many of us and I'm guilty of this as well. So many of us, instead of listening to what someone says, we're thinking of what to say, well, you're the person's talking you're right. And you lose so much connection. You lose so much humanity. You lose so much potential to solve problems when you don't give the conversation. The, the attention that it needs, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's like a dance.
It's like, okay, this person goes and this person goes and they can move together. And
Speaker 0 (28m 46s): Here's one for you. Like getting away from music to explain to music, what, talking about people you've been reading. One of the people I've been reading and listening to is dr. Joe Dispenza. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's done a lot of work on the, the, the electrical system and the mind and body connection and understanding that if you correlate us to like a computer, our systems can, can, and are constantly being programmed by our environment.
Our thoughts, our brain, our brain is not us. Right? It's it's this other thing that, that we can choose to be controlled by or control. So there is, and there's side, Joe spends is, is the guy that's on the forefront of putting science to the theories. So he's, he's, he's showing through science that the mind body soul connection is absolutely true.
The things you say have chemical and electrical effects on your body immediately. And music being one of those. So we know that ourselves in our atoms and neuro, everything is constantly in motion. And in regeneration, you're not the same person you were yesterday or the day before, literally and figuratively. Right? So you're, your programming comes from like, you have your physical voice, you have that voice in your head.
It's usually the one that's like very, very self conscious. Then you have that other voice. That's like, I know that's not true. Even though I think it, you have like multiple voices and you have multiple consciousness, you know, levels of consciousness. And so what he's been doing is putting scientific proof to all those things. So, so we know that me having this conversation with you is going to make my day better than if I had this conversation with somebody where we were talking about things we didn't like, right.
Or didn't believe it. Right. Even if, even if we weren't angry or upset, we were just talking about things we don't like. Yeah. Our day is not, the rest of our day is not going to be as good as that. You and I are talking about the good old days. Yeah. Or talking about health and healing. Yeah. You know, like it might be on a minute level that you don't consciously recognize. You might just think, Oh, that's just, you know what that's that as out there it's BS or whatever, like, but it's there, it's real.
And so if, if you're not, if you're not feeling it, you're not recognizing it, then maybe you're not doing it in it. So if you want people to recognize it and you want people to understand it, then you've got to do it more and you've got to do it all the time. And so I have to do it through my art as well as through my conversation or my interactions with people. You know what, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not great at it. I don't, I don't nail it every day. Some days I make people's days worse than I'm sorry, but like, I don't try to write, you know?
And so the, the, the, the upside for me is that music. I, I'm lucky to have an audience. And I I'm really lucky to have a pretty good, good size audience. Like I I've sold records from Japan to Australia to the UK, like all over, like, I'm really lucky, but I feel like maybe on some level, even though the music has always been honest and from the heart and totally me, I feel like now I'm learning that there's still a lot more to give.
Not just more, not just more music, but more intent in the music. Yeah. Like more, more substance, you know? And so I'm, I'm way more conscious of it today than I was yesterday. And I'll be more conscious of it tomorrow. So it's not music necessarily with a message or I'm not preaching to anybody. I'm just trying to relate to people. You know, if the music is the food, it's getting more and more potent with nutrients and micronutrients and vitamins and minerals.
Right. You know, so that every bite doesn't have to be bigger for you to get more from it. Right. You can take, take the same size bites and you're gonna, you're gonna feel better and better hopefully, or relate more on a deeper level with, with what you're getting. So you're getting, you know, hopefully you're getting more for your, more for your dollar and that way, but yeah. I mean, like, again, just trying to answer your question and like come full circle with these long answers, but that's, that's my goal.
You know, the music is, is, is, is my voice. I'm lucky that I love to do it and that I have an audience. So thank you for, for giving me another one,
Speaker 1 (34m 10s): Man. I I'm learning a lot and I, you know, it's, that is it's, it's truly amazing to think about language that way. I've, I've been sharing some ideas about language and it's it's okay. So when, when I think about language and music and communicating, one part I don't like about language is like user agreements and contracts and like ambiguous language that pretends to get you out of.
But you know, if you get insurance, they have all these things. We're going to protect you from all this stuff. Unless there's an act of job, there's Virgin, all these words to wiggle your way out of stuff. But wouldn't it be a better world. If user agreements and contracts were written in poetry or in songs you had to sing the user agreement, you would have to make a structure so that it flowed together. You know what I mean? Like the, what place?
Speaker 0 (35m 9s): Well, if nothing else, people would actually read them, right? Like how many of us are just like, we don't have time for this. This is ridiculous. And it's, the print is too small anyway, you know? So at least people would at least probably give them more attention. Could you
Speaker 1 (35m 26s): There agreement, if you, if someone, if you had an artist perform the user agreement for Google or Facebook, Hey, this is our new, you, people would tune in to listen to the user agreement. You know what I mean? You could get,
Speaker 0 (35m 39s): You know, it's funny is yesterday evening, we're sitting on the beach in Morro Bay, in California, and I'm sitting there picking my guitar and this guy comes up and he goes, Hey, can I join you? And that's always like a sketchy situation. You're like, you know, I don't know if it's like drunk, homeless harmonica guy or like, and that's cool too. It's, it's always entertaining, but like, you never know what you're getting into. And so the guy sits down and we play it and he's pretty good and we're hanging out and he turns out to be a super cool dude. And, but just to connect it to what you're talking about, he, he works for Snapchat.
So maybe, maybe we could get your idea, like bring it to life. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36m 20s): I'm telling ya, tell, talk to that guy, make it, and do you guys will be famous? You know what I mean? Yeah. You'll be playing parties like, and think about it. Like if you could make this part of life that no one likes into something that people do like you now, you're really making the world a better place. You've taken some high and weak and no one reads, not only would it make it more interesting, but you would probably make it better because if you could put some sarcastic lyrics and kind of sign this thing, sign your life away, or however you would word it, you know what I mean?
And then that would make people actually think about what they're signing or you could, you could fundamentally change the way people see contracts by changing the way in which they were, they were weighed.
Speaker 0 (37m 12s): Right. You know what I mean? Like perceived. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Well that guy make that happen. Yeah. We should start a band called the contracts and we'll make an album called user agreements.
Speaker 1 (37m 28s): You would start, you're like there's country music, rap music. And then there's there's contract music. There you go. <inaudible> the own genre. Yeah, that'd be awesome. It's on a, on a related story I saw, I saw, I listened to it a while back and that guy is, so I really liked that guy. He made this what seemed like an outrageous claim. So I'll say the claim and then I'll tell you how he explained it. Cause the claim on its face sounds crazy, but he says, you know, rap music and country music.
And this goes back to what you said about folk goes, he's like hardcore rap music and country music, or like the exact same thing.
Speaker 0 (38m 8s): Yeah. I've heard that. I've heard that quote.
Speaker 1 (38m 11s): Yeah. You're like, what are you talking about? He's like, listen, man, they're talking about their dogs talking about their trucks, you know? And I was like, when you, when you step back and you look at it, both genres of music are talking about their love, their life. They're the things in that. What, you know, what you have where you're at the place to be like, it's the same substance put just in a different dialogue. If that kinda makes sense, you know, what's hilarious.
Speaker 0 (38m 36s): Is I just like, within the last month, read a quote from Bob Dylan, or I think I saw an interview with him and you know, he was always heralded as the voice of his generation. Right. And they asked him, well, like you're still here, but is there, is there a new you? And you know what he said, you know, he said something like, it was somebody, he was like, yeah. It's like the guys in the routine clan. Or like he named, he named some hip hop artists. But he named like the real, the real shit.
Not like, you know, it wasn't like, I don't know whoever's on the radio or whatever. Like he went deep and he knew what he was talking about. And he's like, that's, that's, that's the new me. He's like, it's not, it's not an another kid with a guitar and harmonica. It's those dudes.
Speaker 1 (39m 24s): It's so true. I mean, it's, that's someone, who's an artist who can see himself in another artist, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 0 (39m 30s): And that's like an 83 year old man. That's, that's in tune with what's happening. That's cool.
Speaker 1 (39m 37s): Like that, that interview should be, be played all over TV. Like we need more of that right now. Like here's this old guy that is an artist in one way and he's staying, Hey, here's these other guys like that, that's the wisdom of our fathers that were missing in the community. That is, I liked that interview. I'm gonna have to look that up, make sure I'm sharing that
Speaker 0 (39m 59s): In. Dylan's just released an album like two weeks ago. That's great. He's still, he's still that good. So he's not out of touch or he's not like over the Hill or like any of that stuff. And now that I think about it, he wrote a memoir called I think the Chronicles. Okay. And actually he may have written what I just told you in that book. It might not, it might not have been from a live interview. So it might actually be in print in that book.
So I'd recommend reading it. Yeah. I'm going to write it down. Yeah. There's, there's tons of cool stuff out there that, that helps, you know, helps me kind of direct whatever course I'm on. Whether it's music, whether it's musical or not, it still helps the music, you know? Absolutely. I that's one of the things that I try to, I try to make everything count. Like even if I, if I go, if I go run 10 miles in the mountains, which is something I love to do, I love the trail run. So, you know, if I go do that, it's not just cause I want to look better or get skinnier.
Or th that running helps me be the better person that helps me make the music. Like it's all connected. Right. And I do that with the conscious purpose of it. It has to, for me, it has to cover all those bases or it's not worth doing, you know, I could be doing something better with my time. So like, if I go, like I'm probably going to do it after this, I'm probably going to go eat and then I'm to go probably go skateboard somewhere. Nice. My skateboarding has intention that it's, it's adding to.
I need that to get to where I need to be here or in the heart or wherever so that I treat my girlfriend better or that I write a good song or, or I make a stranger's day better. Like I don't do it. I don't do anything just to do it. I just make what I do count and have substance, especially skateboarding. Cause like, as a kid, we were told how we shouldn't do it, how it was a waste of time. Like, you know, w w like my skateboards would disappear from the house.
Cause they didn't want me doing it. At least my, at least my dad didn't my mom was cool, but they did. My, my mom understood that it was part of the whole, you know, I wasn't outbreak, even, even when I got arrested for doing it, I didn't get in trouble from her. I carried that with me, where I'm not going to waste my time, doing things that don't make the whole better or more productive, even if somebody thinks that what I'm doing is silly.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42m 44s): It, it, I think it's a great philosophy to live your life by. And I think it drives home the point what you do, sometimes you do all the time. And one thing that I, one way I have seen the exact same thing in my life, is that like, am I work? If there's a lot of guys, if I cared about everybody, to me, the people that I quite with, that I care about him and want him to be better. And there's some people that need food sometimes in life.
There's a lot of argument. And what I try to tell people is, let's say you're at work and you, you get into an art when you got to remember that the purpose, you know, what's the purpose of an art. The purpose of an argument is to spell them. Not, you know, we're still worried about being, well, you don't want to get in trouble. You don't want to lose. If one wants to help you develop strategies to win getting his balding, ponders, winning the argument.
So if you get real good at winning and all of a sudden you're not working anymore, how's family, kids, your friends, right. You're distancing yourself from falling problems, you know? So I, I would agree that you should have intent and kind of be mindful on your daily routine, what you're doing. That's perfect. And then it is part of the holes.
Speaker 0 (44m 11s): Yeah. I was reading a book last night, but are you familiar with Wayne Dyer? Yeah. Yeah. I am. He was there in Hawaii until he passed away. But I read basically what you just said, like you, you need to just associate or detach yourself from the need to be. Right. If you want to connect with the source. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44m 33s): You know? Yeah. It's phenomenal.
Speaker 0 (44m 36s): It's, it's impossible to, to, to get to that point where you feel centered and present, if you have attachments to things like being right.
Speaker 1 (44m 48s): Yeah. That's a fundamental tenant of Buddhism is attachment. Right. Like you're right. But yeah,
Speaker 0 (44m 55s): That's one of the things like, that's the, one of the things I picked up, like I said, when I started this as a teenager, because I would just grab books on all this stuff that I could find. And it started, it started with like, you know, the Dow and Buddhism and Eastern philosophies. Yeah. And, and you know, that's not to say those are the answers, but everybody needs to start somewhere. And, and the answer is not one thing or from one source, it's from all the sources that you can absorb in and kind of mold in your being and then put back out into the world.
So if one doesn't work, try another one. You know, if, if one doesn't resonate with you, try another one. And what, what I've found is once I found one, I would find the next one. And then I find the next one. And then sometimes, sometimes the next one was one that I, I tried years ago and wrote off is not the one. All I, all that really happened was I realized at the time that I found it originally, I just wasn't ready for it. Yeah. So you just, you just find your way in, you find that first step and then you just keep taking steps.
Speaker 1 (46m 5s): Yeah. I know. Poetry, emotion, man. Yeah.
Speaker 0 (46m 9s): I hope so. I like it. It works for me and it works for, I see it work for the people around me in the sense that when I'm present and focused and aware my relationships with the people around me on any given day are better,
Speaker 1 (46m 31s): You know? Yeah. The people, the people around me are better moods. There they're more care
Speaker 0 (46m 37s): Free. They're more focused, you know? And it's not because I made them that way. It's just, I didn't, I know that I didn't, I did my part to not detract from their presence or their energy. Yeah. You know, I can't give anybody my energy, but I can certainly take from theirs. Great. That's easy to do, you know, just go and just go into work in a shitty mood. Yeah. And you can, the whole room, you can just suck the energy right. Out of a room easy.
Yeah. But try to make one person's day better. It's a little more complicated,
Speaker 1 (47m 13s): But way more rewarding, way more rewarding and, and way more addictive. Yeah.
Speaker 0 (47m 20s): Well maybe, maybe not addictive way more. What's the word I'm looking for. The, where, like, you know, it becomes a domino effect. Like you, you reach that one person and they reach somebody and it multiplies exponential. I think there you go. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Like it, it becomes exponential and it's because you're doing it together with the other people. It's not, it can't be one person, you know, one person can ruin it, but one person can't fix it.
Yeah. But they can fix themselves. Yeah. You know, and, and that's what that's, what has to happen, you know? Like, you know, people are really vulnerable and very concerned and on edge right now with the way that like the world is. Yeah. But it really, the world hasn't changed all that much. Only like, yeah, like the, the, the current events of the day are no more or less intense or scary than they were all along.
Right. Like I still, like, I still feel in my, when I close my eyes, but I don't look in a mirror or look at myself on the, on the camera staring back at me right now. I still think I'm like 17 years old. My body feels better than it did when I was 17. Even though I was an athlete as a kid and in good shape, I'm way healthier now in a way better shape. And when I go ride my skateboard, I have way less aches and pains. I have none.
I have none anymore. I have better range of motion. Like everything about me feels better and younger at 44 than it did at 17, including my, my mental state, emotional state. But I guess the point is with regards to what we're talking about is that is there for everybody, like the source, the creator, the creation, whatever this life is, all of that is available to all of us all the time.
And there's always more it's infinite source. And when we look at like things that are going on in the world, whether whatever side of the coin you're on, or if there's many sides, none of it matters. None of it. And it's always been there. Think of all the, the, the moments like our parents grew up with, you know, the Vietnam war in JFK and Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, we've grown up with just as many or more major current events than they did in a shorter time.
Yeah. We've got, we've lived through some shit. Yeah. A lot like, so what's going on now is, is it's only different, but it's all it's been there all along. So there's no, for me, there's no excuse to not continue the work to make myself better so that I can make somebody else's day better because now as a perfect now's the perfect time to say, screw it and just go hide the cave. And, and most people would go with, would understand and say, you know what?
I get it. I would I'll do. I would do that too, if I could. Right. So if you look at it, you know, objectively, you just, you realize like for me, that's not an option. That's not an excuse because nothing's really changed. It really hasn't, you know, it's just, there's, there's just different faces to the problems. And, and, and I don't know, this is one of those intuitive things, but as a kid, like, I always knew, like the answer wasn't in religion, it wasn't in politics.
It wasn't in any of that stuff that we, as, as humans, that stuff's all fake. We created that stuff. It's real to people. And I respect that. But in the grand scheme of things, when this earth and us, and animals and ecosystems were created, those things weren't, those were created by us. Right. Right. I mean, yeah. So, so to get involved in those things and choose sides is really unhealthy.
The answers don't lie there to me, the answers lie and, you know, making your day better. If I can't go into the grocery store and maybe opening a door for somebody, like something as simple as that, like, I don't have to give, I don't have to give up a homeless person money to make their day better. You know? And, and I, and if I have some, maybe I'll give it to them. Most cases are probably don't and I'm not lying to them when I tell them I don't.
Yeah. But I can still make their day, at least a little better. Yeah. And, and people that live in, in a neighborhood with neighbors on both sides of them, which I, you know, I don't live. Like I don't live like that, but people that do, and most people do just think about how disconnected most people are from their neighbors. Yeah. I know that they are, because when I go to visit friends or family that have that lifestyle, people live next, you know, it was next door, next door to the same people for years or decades.
And they don't know anything about him. It's tragic. Yeah. So like how, how has that, how has that issue not more important then a political issue that involves a few chosen people in a different world that don't listen to us anyway. Right? Like we would be way more effective in my opinion, as a society, if we just treated everybody that we come in contact with better. Right.
So, you know, none of what's going on outside of my bubble, it doesn't affect me until it affects me. And so worrying about it puts, puts, puts the concept of time to it, which puts, it, puts it basically in the future, which means I, you know, stress comes from worrying about the future, right. If I just sit here now with you and look around and what, there's no worries, there's no, there's no stress, there's no sickness.
You know? And if, I think if we go back and talk about the past in the context that you and I are talking about, it, that's one thing. But if I go back to the past and all I do is think about it in the sense of remembering those emotions and those feelings from, from growing up at that time in those circumstances, then I'd be really miserable right now. Yeah. You know, time, time, time goes with religion in politics.
For me, it's made up, it's not real. Right. You know, months, weeks, days, you know, days of the month, that's not real. There's not, there's not a calendar on the sun or the moon that was created with us that was arguing. And so that, that concept of time is unhealthy for me. You know, if it's, if it's, if it's something that other people need or crave or whatever, that's cool. Like, I can still be their friend if somebody is a, as a political supporter or on any side and I don't associate or GRI or any, or whatever, or even if I disagree with him, I can still be their friend.
I can still make their day better. Right. I can still be a source of something productive or, you know, nutritious, you know, to their life. So I guess, you know, that's, that's my focus right now in life. And, and I, I foresee it being only, I perceive that only becoming more important to me and, and, you know, and if I can help somebody along the way, then, then you know, I feel like I'm doing something, I'm doing something.
Right. Because I feel that I am not because there's a scoreboard somewhere, you know? Yeah. I heard a story one time about a gosh, this was the, I forgot his name. He's like the winningest basketball coach of all time and college, John wooden, John wooden. So I played, I played basketball. So I learned my history about that too. Okay. So John Woods, you know, he, he, I read his biography and in biography, he says,
Speaker 1 (56m 25s): They talk about winning and life and stuff. And they asked John wooden, like, what, what is it like, what do you teach these kids? You've, you've won, you know, 11 out of 13, seven in a row. The next closest person has one like three or four. What, what is it? And he, he gave the speech. And when he says, it's, here's what I tell the kids. There's a real simple thing. I want all your kids to know at the end of the day only you will truly know whether you won or lost out there. It's based on the points on the board, because you can go out there and you can play the best game of your life.
You know? And if, if you have less points on the scoreboard, but you gave your wall, then you get to walk away the winner because you out of yourself, you know, and on the flip side of that, if you go out there and you just kind of lolly gag, and you don't play your best and you still win, well, then you're a loser. You know what I mean? You, you gave up, you didn't get out of yourself. You, you failed to get out of yourself. And then the hook was what in life, what you give you get to keep what you've failed to give you lose.
Speaker 0 (57m 33s): Yep. Yeah. It's profound. Yeah. And it go back to your old man. Like he was one of the few that didn't, it wasn't a big deal. How good? Yeah,
Speaker 1 (57m 49s): We were,
Speaker 0 (57m 52s): Right. Like, it didn't matter if we were good baseball players or a good baseball player, a good baseball team. If we want our loss, he treated us with respect and care, no matter what. And he and I played baseball from, from T-ball like four years old, all the way up to high school and your dad and one other coach. I, those are the only two I can say that about out of, you know, what, between coaches and assistant coaches, right?
15, 15, 20 dudes, easy. There were plenty of episodes where you saw parents and coaches cursing and throwing fits in front of the kids and the parents. Yeah. Or a lot. Do you ever, do you ever remember seeing kids get pulled off the field by their angry parents? Cause they hated the coach during, during games. Yeah. I remember in front of everybody and the shame that those kids had to go through and they were good kids. They didn't, you know, and their parents were just so misguided.
So yeah. Credit credit again, your old man.
Speaker 1 (58m 57s): Yeah. He really preached mental toughness. You know, he all the time, it was like, listen, you can't, he's a, it's all in here, George, you know what you put in, what you put in life, you gotta get out of it, whatever it is you do do what your style. Don't worry about that stuff. And he's like, you can't lose. All you can do is get better, you know? Right. You know, the, the goal of life is to be defeated by bigger thing. Right. But yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's an interesting relationship. And I, you know, as, as two young men having similar, you know, having similar things, I think all young men, you get to a point where you have to fight your dad not fighting, but you have to mentally that guess why you challenge your dad.
That's why you're you don't want, why you hate him. Like you get to this point where you gotta beat him so that when you get older, you learn that you were fighting, but your dad was never, you know what I know he was eat you and like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause you don't realize till you get older and hopefully your parents are still around when you get older and then you can actually get to meet your parents on a level that is not no other son. Yeah. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 0 (1h 0m 13s): Yeah. Yeah. Like, like I said earlier, like, you know, if you want to talk on a parenting level at a child's level, I don't have a lot of nice things to say, but, but having made peace and in getting to where I am now, like the things that I've learned about how, how my appearance grew up, especially my dad. Yeah. He had it way worse than he ever gave it to me. And I got it pretty bad. Right. And so now that we're cool at work, like we're buddies, like I love him.
He's awesome. But like now, like the things he here, like here's one before I say this, here's, here's something I'll put out there. And I hope not to, if he's watching, I hope not to embarrass him, but he grew up as an alcoholic. I mean, and he, he, he, he is admitted to me, like he was already full blown, you know, when we were in like sixth, seventh grade and we were skateboarding and we were probably doing some stuff that adults do.
Right. I mean, I was guaranteed. Yeah. But, but we, we, at least me, I know some of our friends aren't, weren't so lucky, but I never had a problem with it. I never got in trouble for it. Right. It was something, it was fun. I know that my old man, by the time he was in seventh grade, somewhere in that age, like 11, 12 years old was already a full blown alcoholic, like a habitual alcoholic. So I also know now that they say that people that lived through alcoholism, it kinda, it kind of stunts their growth.
It's true. So if you're an alcoholic by 12, 13 years old and you're 50 years old or 60 years old on some or many levels, you're still only 12 or 13 years old. Yeah. So when I say my dad, in some ways it's still like a 12 or 13 year old at like 64, 65 years old. I don't mean that in a derogatory way. What I'm saying is I've gotten to the point where I can recognize and have empathy and also relate to him because we've gotten past the problem stage he's sober.
And so we can, we can actually communicate. And we never could communicate when I was young. Cause we were fighting. Right. You know, so what's, you're saying about like, you know, fighting your parents and going through that whole thing. Everybody pretty much does. I know now I know now that, well, I know now that you, you actually don't have to, but you, but chances are you probably going to right. Unless, unless you're lucky enough to find the path that, you know, I started finding it when I was like 16, 17, and I'm still learning how to follow it and stay on it.
So it's not an overnight thing for me. It was not overnight. It wasn't easy, but there's some people out there that they might find it when they're eight or nine years old and they might never have to veer off of it and God bless them. Good for them. And so if you're one of the people that, that doesn't find it early, or you find it early in, you feel like you feel like you found it and we're on it and you failed get back on it. It's it's don't if you find that you fail, you're not a failure.
Yeah. So, you know, there was a point where I went from being like a young, happy, talkative kid to somebody that didn't like, people that wouldn't talk to anybody for a long time. And so I'm getting, I feel like I'm getting back to being that kid where I can be anybody and everybody's friend, right. And somewhere in those high school years and all through, you know, through a good portion of my early twenties and thirties, that wasn't true anymore.
Even as a, a person in the public eye of some sort as a musician, I was, I was never dishonest on stage or in my music, but I also didn't give any more than I had to when I, when it came time to get off stage and interact with people, you know, I, I really short changed a lot of people on a level where I wasn't mean, or, you know, rude or any, maybe to some people they thought I was, but I was really just not connecting and not, you know, making, not making that, that personal contact with people.
Right. And, and, and that was just, that was just, you know, the scars or the, the pre-programming that happened that as I figured it out, I started to address it. And now I'm getting back to where, like, I can just walk up to any old stranger and in, in may conversation and not feel weird. Right. And feel, and feel like even after spending just 30 seconds with somebody, like being able to sense who they are and I can call them a friend.
Yeah. Even if I don't ever talk to them again, you know, so like coming to, to come full circle with the interview and talking with you. Yeah. I'm trying, I'm trying to be my five-year-old self with regards to like how I handle the world around me and the people around me. Cause when I was that age, you know, I used to get in trouble in school for being too friendly and talking too much. Whereas later in, in my, in my school years, I used to get in trouble for not engaging enough and not interacting enough and not participating.
Right. Because a lot of that was just like, you know, it was beaten out of me and in one way or another, whether it was whether it was verbally or physically or whatever, like it was just, it was just, you know, it got to the point where I was starting to break and look, luckily I don't think I ever fully broke, but I got close enough in my mom recognized it soon enough that I was able to, you know, cause intuitively we all knew if, if we're not giving our best, we all know here.
If we are not truly happy. Right. We all knew. Yeah. That's why, that's why people turn to drugs and alcohol and, and the people that are on it talk all that noise about, Oh, you're just a square. You're not, you're not having fun. They know the truth. Right. They know that they're doing it cause they're not having to put it plain and simple. I'm trying to be my five year old self and be childlike at 44 where I want to be a shining light to people I know and love and to strangers.
And that's it, it's simple. It's once you figure it out, you realize how simple it was and how it was only difficult to get there. Cause I made it difficult. Right?
Speaker 1 (1h 7m 19s): Yeah. It seems like on some level you'd have to be broken that you can be built.
Speaker 0 (1h 7m 25s): Yeah. And the trick is to, you know, one of the things I had to learn was forgiveness. And one of the things I didn't know that I had to learn was forgiving myself.
Speaker 1 (1h 7m 37s): Wow.
Speaker 0 (1h 7m 38s): Because at the time I was like, I have every right to be angry. I didn't do anything wrong. And I was right. But all that anger only hurt me. It didn't hurt anybody else. Yeah. You know, unless, unless I acted on it, then it did.
Speaker 1 (1h 7m 51s): Yeah. It's like, what did they say about like anger? It's like swallowing a poison pill. Like you, you, you're going to take the poison when you want to hurt somebody else. I forgot how the quote goes. It's way more elegant.
Speaker 0 (1h 8m 3s): Yeah. There's a comedian. There's a comedian that made good light of it too. That's hilarious. And I'll try to find that and send it to you. Yeah. But yeah. So I feel like we could, we could do a few verses or a few volumes of these. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (1h 8m 18s): Absolutely. Absolutely. Next maybe at some point in time, we'll have you bring your guitar down and you can bang out a song or something.
Speaker 0 (1h 8m 25s): Yeah. I, my battery's about to die, so I don't even think I'll have time to do that now, but let's do some more. If people are absent, people are digging it.
Speaker 1 (1h 8m 35s): Yeah. You know what, man, I love you, buddy. It's super awesome to talk to you. Thank you for spending time with all of us today and we'll do it again soon, man. And I'll touch base with a little bit later today and go over some editing and stuff right on. I love you too, man.
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