Latest / Kyle Meredith With... / Maya Hawke on Marriage, Stranger Things, and Learning How to “Give Up and Be Loved”

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Maya Hawke on Marriage, Stranger Things, and Learning How to “Give Up and Be Loved” · Kyle Meredith With...

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org from Louisville Public Media.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank goodness.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: and welcome to another edition of Kyle Meredith with it's the interview series presented by WFPK at WFPK dot org and lpm dot org slash music consequence and the consequence podcast network, thanks for making your way here, check it and sound
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do hit that subscribe button.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're not already you're going to get new interviews just like this one sit your way every single week You can grab a set Spotify Apple podcast NPR WFPK dot org and consequence YouTube for the video versions or anywhere you get your podcast from You can subscribe to Kyle Meredith with please to give us a rating and a review wherever you're listening from as well.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe just a comment
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've had some great guests that have dropped by lately, including Courtney Barnett, who is here.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's got a record called Creature of Habits, Natalie Allen-Lend, you can see her in the Yellowstone, spin-off, Dutton Ranch, Paul Betney, and Will Sharpe.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're starring as Amadeus and Salieri in the new Amadeus series on Stars, Jenna Malone, famed to actress also a musician.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's got a new record called Flowers for Men.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've also talked with Sean Colvin, Peter Capaldi and Chris Jumbo about criminal record on Apple TV, the cast of the audacity, Barbie Ferreira, Devon Bostick, Jason Muse, Joe Bonamasa, George Benson, Derek Trucks, just an example of what you get when you subscribe to the Kyle Meredith with podcast.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's me, Kyle, man.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today, catch him back up with my buddy, my a hawk.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's see, of course, she just came off of the final season of Stranger Things.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Last time we talked, we talked twice in the last time we talked to twice in that year, because she had released her record chaos angel and the movie Wildcats.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, she's back with a record called Metrea Corso that we're going to get deep into.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, this is the record, it accidentally became a love record, as she says, after falling deeper into her relationship and eventually marrying songwriting partner, Christian Lee Hudson.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the conversation really gets fascinating even from there.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about writing songs together while navigating a real relationship, the fear, being fully seen by another person, and how tracks like Dreamhouse and bring home my
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: My is also going to open up about finishing Stranger Things 5 while making the record and the depression that followed the end of that series How being more selective with acting role sense and is finally changed her confidence all that in more Let's get into it and discuss the album matria course.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's Kyle Meredith with my a hawk.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, it's Maya.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hi I'm so sorry that I'm late coming from the last press thing and I just Card whatever I'm here
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm starving.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've been holding my bladder.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've done the way I'm so sorry.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was just saying I'm working from a hotel in Philly today.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it looks like I'm having the same set up situation that you're having.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, similar.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're, are you sitting on a bed?
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sitting on a bed.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I didn't want to show the bed.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a hotel bed.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I, although I was saying it was funny because usually I'm on my set in my office and I have all these posters behind me and it's like, yeah, we in Prince and I'll just do.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you, I have the poster of you from your last album up.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, everybody always comments on her, like, oh, my, you know, and some people like, I didn't know my editing music and everything.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we get to talk about it.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And here I am finally talking to you.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And again, and you don't have to stare at yourself is what I'm doing.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank goodness.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just thinking as I once, I often when I go to LA, I stay with my friend, Jen K. Robinson, who was a director of a movie that I did.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in her office, she has a poster of me.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: because we, you know, we did this movie together and I always feel so embarrassed taking meetings in her office, like people think that I have this giant poster of myself behind me in my office.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just stay friends with my coworkers.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: But every now and then, like, there's an R.E.M.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: poster back there and any time I have those guys on, it's like, they never say anything but I was like, is this weird?
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Should I do I need to, you know,
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, it's great to see you again.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Great to see you too.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much for documenting and thanks for reading and I'm sorry.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, it's great.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's great.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm at a radio conference and that's why I was just telling Chloe is like, you're only keeping me from having to do small talk all day long.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I appreciate it.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Good.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love to avoid small talk myself and for other people at all cause any time.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's get into this.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Matray, a corso, my saying it, right?
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've only heard it in my head so far.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I say my, I say, I say my tray of course so my tray of it, but, but I think it's, I've don't have any attachment to how it's said.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's an ancient word.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's great to hear it again.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I should also say, by the way, I know a lot's happened since the last, because the last time, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're last album and Wildcats and all that.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like just seeing by the way, you looked incredible at the met.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, I feel
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm right there.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're in pretty similar outfits right now.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I wouldn't worry about it.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and jeez.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how this works into the album if it does, but then you also got married since the last time we talked.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I certainly did.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like we worked all in.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, in some ways, like the album is the most about trying to bridge the gap between all those different things is kind of what it's about in a lot of ways.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So well, let's let's go on.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess what I mean is that I think a big part of the last couple years of my life have been trying to figure out where my ambition is healthy and where it's unhealthy and where it was standing in the way of me being able to have
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: a healthy, happy personal life.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that I really have been studying in the last couple of years, different artists I admire, or what their lives look like, how they work.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like what people seem to be able to thread the needle of having a healthy, professional and personal life, which people don't why not.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: What we know, and I think that these songs
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think they offer any answers about how to live a happy life, but I do think they offer a lot of good questions about the obstacles that one might face on the pathway to a happy life.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, some of these are probably right in that pocket, but, you know, and apologies if I take any of them out of context, I'm talking about your rights right here because three songs, particularly, that I, you know, love of my life, it says, what if I got what I wanted, what if I was who I want to be, then you have lying to us with tell me who I am and they'll, you know, that I make the most of what I made of.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, as you're saying, like, I don't get the sense that you answered it from the end of the album, but I also don't
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I think that the answer that I try to present in Dreamhouse is that it's not about getting everything you want, and then just being happy.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about learning how to enjoy the process of wanting, and that's kind of like, what I see as the love of my life to dreamhouse journey is that love of my life poses this question, could I hate, could I even handle getting what I want?
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: could I handle getting what I want romantically?
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Could I handle getting what I want professionally?
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or what I just figure out something else to want and what I be tortured by that?
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think that's a lot of how the beginning of my 20s went was like pointing myself in the direction of something running towards it.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: then getting it and being unsatisfied and wanting something else or, you know, like hating it and pendulum swinging.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that the, you know, the question being closed there is, I figured out what I want.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can I handle it?
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that by Dreamhouse, it's like that's a house, that's a song about, you know, aspiring towards building a beautiful life with someone.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I want, I want to live a beautiful life with you.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's a really different kind of wanting.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think you hear it in the celebratoryness of that melody.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: not to eradicate wanting from your life, but to live with it in a joyful way, where it has energy and joy and instead of, kind of, yeah, painful suffering and yearning, I'm obviously repeating myself.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we'll be right back right after this.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, back it's Kyle Meredith with my a hawk, but you know, and if you don't mind me asking like, what is that, what is it like writing through this in real time with a person who's both your partner in both senses musical and intense partner.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's intense, you know, we.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think we're a lot better at working together than we were only started this record.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously, we started off writing music together as friends.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that is different.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like in the dynamic changes and, you know, I think I cried a lot more during the process together.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: We were dating before we were getting for a variety of different reasons.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think we really learned a lot of
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's so much vulnerability in the writing process, there's so much sensitivity and sharing these kind of like fragile particles of your soul that is like an idea for this and idea for that and letting someone help you shape them is so vulnerable and it's hard to open up in that way and let someone in that way, you know, that knows you so well and
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I wouldn't want to do it with anybody else, and I, and it was, I think has made the writing richer in every possible way.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And by the end of it, we really got through a lot of and learned a lot about each other, through the little bumps in the road where we're made each other cry, you know?
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's so, it's so interesting.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, and I, and I really do mean this.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this in a corny cliche way, but brave is what comes to mind because so much of that part of a
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, or are you working with friends or something like that like to be in that that's sort of situation.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's it's in some ways When I knew I found my person was when I found someone who would sit down with me and help me write a song about somebody else.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, like there's not a lot of people out there who could do that who understand the creative process and the romantic process enough to know why you would want to do that, even though even though you're not in that relationship anymore with that person.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: like how to do it with you like you know where it doesn't make them feel too vulnerable or like you know like they're portraying themselves.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean I know so many young writers who have partners who are like you can't write about your exes or who like you know where you get sent one version of a song that they wrote and then the version after their partner edited it and took out you know and took out everything that hurt their feelings.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've seen that happen a lot and
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: The fact, not saying this would be right for everyone, but I made a joke on tour every night about how, like, no one, you know, don't marry someone unless they'll sing harmony for you on a song about somebody else.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: because if they won't do that, it means they don't really love all of you.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your whole history, every part of you that made you, you, which is everyone you've ever loved, you know?
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think finding someone who sees me so fully and is so able to see me in the present, see me as a part of the relationship, see me as an individual, not in the relationship, see me in my past, I'm very, very lucky.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: which is beautifully said at what parts of the process did you then realize that that's what this album is going to be?
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, like I can't imagine you said I'll say, and oh, I'm going to, I want to work from point A to point Z. I think no, it didn't, it started.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I started offline to make a record about work.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: was like there are enough records about love.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to write a record that's about relationship to career and work and what that means and I thought that would be kind of like a cool original thing especially from a female artist to have like an album that's solely about relationship to ambition.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: and you hear songs that are like that, like Lianas, Devil, you know, last living loss caused slack or in the rye.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even great minds, there's like a lot of songs that are evidence of that effort.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I just was madly in love.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: and am and ended up feeling compelled and creatively inspired to write about this love because it was a kind of love that I didn't know existed and that I never thought was waiting for me.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I really expected my greatest aspiration for myself was to have sort of like a French marriage with someone that I like deeply which I think I read about French marriages and some David
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I imagine myself being in a relationship with someone that I deeply respected, but didn't really know.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and we kind of both had sort of a mutual respect, but like intense boundaries, and we would come and go and maybe live separately, and you know, I have dinner as everyone's day.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of what I imagined for myself.
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I did not imagine this level of intimacy and knowing that I found.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So then songs like Love of My Life.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: songs like, bring home my man and songs like Dreamhouse, um, started to come out of me.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then it's like, okay, how do I make sense of these and connect these to these other songs?
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, oh, well, there's kind of a journey, right, of like how,
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: How did I get here to be able to accept this kind of love?
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I didn't use to be able to do that.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even, I mean, Christian and I dated two times separated by a period of being broken up.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the reason we broke up the first time was because I I mean, for me, the reason was that I really didn't know how to accept being seen so fully.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I knew that I wanted to accept it, but that I couldn't.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was kind of like, okay, maybe this record is about how to get to the place of allowing yourself to be seen.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so maybe we need some songs like last thoughts on Morningstar in terms of a Strangement to talk about the romantic experiences that I had to have.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, both of those songs are about relationships long past, like somewhere between five to seven years ago, past.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, but they were important ones and stops on the journey of becoming myself and figuring out how to let myself be loved.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think, you know, I guess I posed a question on chaos angel, which is like, you know,
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I hadn't done it then, and I think that I tried to provide an answer to that question in this record.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't do that on purpose.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that's the connective tissue that I see between the albums is that it's kind of wants to be a little guidebook on how to give up and be loved.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so interesting, as a side note, by the way, of how almost parallel mine and my wife's story is to so much of what you just said.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Really?
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because we also dated twice with a period in between.
• 16:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was, I was fresh out of a first marriage and, and she had.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, so was Christian?
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and she had, she had said, I don't think you're quite ready to be.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: She didn't want to be that, the base would probably have been a rebound, right?
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because you're crazy when you come out of a relationship sometimes like that.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, you need to go be appreciated for a little while.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we got back together.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: But right before we go back together, she said, why can't we just be European about this?
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which is so funny when you're talking about a French marriage, you know, because... Yeah.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: But when it works, and now we've been married for 13 years, 12 years, is something.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I bet there's nothing French about it.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing French about it.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are going France in a few weeks, but nothing French.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that's the only French thing about it, yeah.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we'll be right back, right?
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, back, it's Kyle, man, it's with Myahawk.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I always love getting into your lyrics and personalize them as the great thing about music, but I also feel like when we've talked about this before a little bit, but like, I almost think that like, there's a complete story.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: in any random lyric on your entire album, in ways that I don't get from most artists.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's why you're one of my favorite lyricists.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't always know the backstory, you know, on what you're talking about.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I know that that's probably an entire, it could be a short episode.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, how do you, what, what is your process these days?
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, how, how do you pair that down so much to get so much into a single line?
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, even just to loop it into what we're talking before, if you take a sunlight bring home my man, like, I think that song is sort of like my declaration of of my non-french marriage, you know, of like what what can I realistically promise another person and how much
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: of their humanity can I continue to hold because I think something that happens a lot of the time in relationships is you become this unit of two and these aspects of our individuality get worn away and you fall so in love and you're so happy that you wanted to not the possibility for sadness in the future and maybe my favorite lyric on the whole record is there will be pain
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, because that's just true right as bad as you felt before it's coming it's ahead of you and I think that there is, you know, every song has a different process of rolling it.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I always start from some moment of random inspiration that is associated with some larger idea that I usually put on the random moment later.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, bring all my mans first started to be written by like sometimes when Christian and I are a part from long periods of time, we make it better by writing each other little poems and they don't have to be good.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes they're good and sometimes they're bad.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: that I'd written him, like, on the middle of a night shoot on Stranger Things when he was in Europe.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I was like, what's this poem really about?
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this poem is really about how much I see you as a full person separate from your love of me.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: and how much I feel seen by you as a full person separate from my love of you and how rare that is and like and so I think I like I then take the little poem and cut out all the bad parts of it saved my favorite parts.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: figure out kind of a rhythmic structure that the favorite parts fit into.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then kind of a broader idea that they apply to and then work on expanding the idea.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say I've never explained my writing process that way and it's different every time but that's pretty much the most consistent thing.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: A song like Heavy Rain started from a chunk of an idea that then got the badge
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's the idea really about that it gets expanded?
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Pretty much every song is sort of that way.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a lightning bolt hits Then you cut the garbage out of the lightning bolt and then expand upon whatever is the most beautiful core of that lightning bolt heavy rain by the way It's I'm going back and forth.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's that's in the running for favorite.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's mine.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's my favorite.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh really
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just, I mean, just the idea of that, you know, heavy enough that you could wash your hair and, and, and again, and you could pick out so many lines through the verses too, but, uh, it's, it's so well done.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: To me, it's my favorite just because it's kind of continually mysterious to me.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what does that even mean?
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Heavy heavy rain, you can wash your hair.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't really know what it means, but every time I think that I feel something really deep in my body and like, it means something.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, I, and I don't really know what it is, and that's probably why I love it the most.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It means something different to me
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I'll tie in the dual career that we were talking about earlier, like with so many projects that you've had going on, and you know, I'm looking even at the list right now, wishful thinking one night only, hunger games.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: You did the audible original the summer oath.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, are you writing all of this in between?
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And is there ever overlap?
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, do you hear ever hear certain projects within the songs?
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: totally really I mean just absolutely I will say try to think of this record started being written before I started filming Stranger Things 5 it started and I wrote a lot of it I wrote some of it in the strike I basically I finished chaos angel in the strike with hang in there I was the last song I wrote for chaos angel we recorded at the very end and threw it added it onto the record
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then still within the strike, I wrote double you know.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was not going to go on chaos, Andrew, that was a part of this record.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was kind of the first beginning of like, I'm going to write a workout of them, you know.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I think, if I remember correctly, basically all of it, like, I think the whole record was mostly written during the filming of Stranger Things Five.
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Other than double you know, I'm trying to think if there's anything else
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so.
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was like a little bit after it.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: With the play, I might have finished some songs while I was doing the play.
• 23:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, I was.
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hear that in heavy rain.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, yeah, but yes, but this one in particular, due to the strike and the length of filming happened mostly during straight-to-things five.
• 23:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I was thinking how lucky you are to have that in two ways to like, you know, as people talk about albums being kind of like, um, picture albums or earbooks or whatever that you're going to look totally, that's why I was right then.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: But also as you're saying about that line about, you know, the pain that we'll go through again, like because they're tough times and it's so easy to forget.
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know the best moments it's so easy to forget what you felt like in the best moments when you're in the tough times and to actually have that laid out for you.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like all you need to do is listen to this song again, you know.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that that's really important and as part of why I wrote it and it's like,
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: these records of how you felt and I think it's kind of the significance of, you know, in anyone's life like vows, you know, promises you make to someone ideas, the point of them is to remind you of a way you felt and that there is a way to find not ever your way back to that exactly, but back to the version of it that is applicable now.
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that's what, you know, all relationships, whether it's friendships, romantic relationships, familial relationships, go through evolutions and changing.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think with your family, I mean, unless the extreme things can undo this, but there's like, uh,
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I promise to give you the benefit of the doubt.
• 24:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I promise to remember that I love you and to try to figure out how to work through what's happened.
• 24:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And usually, I think the way that people lose each other is it starts with a little tiny lies.
• 25:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: about things that make you uncomfortable, or unhappy, or a secret you have that you think the other person wouldn't be able to accept about you.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: It starts with these little lies.
• 25:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that don't seem like that big a deal.
• 25:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: They seem little, why would the person need to know this?
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're so small.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: They don't need to know, just annoy them or make them feel insecure, they don't need to know.
• 25:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then those accumulate and become a secret self.
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: that is not shared with that person.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then sometimes you find other people and you show them your secret self because you've been dying to show someone your secret self.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then this new person who doesn't know you love is and receives your secret self in a way that you feel.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: your family member or partner or friend would not be able to hold, and then there's new persons seem so exciting.
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then eventually, let's say you do blow up your life and go that way.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, you're just going to build a new secret self for a new person and have new problems, and it's like, you know, an endless cycle, and I think that with a promise that I try to make in bring home my man and the record broadly, it's like, to not do that.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: like I promise to let you reject me by which I mean to show you who I am and trust that if you reject that then that's what's supposed to happen to not protect myself from rejection by keeping myself a secret and so I don't know if that makes any sense.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It makes so much like I'm sitting here going.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's almost like everybody knows this, but I've never heard it verbalized.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like, oh my God, if people just said this, you know, so much the heartbreak would probably be avoided.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, I think so, because I think it's like, if someone rejects the authentic you, great, right?
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Move in through life a little faster.
• 27:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: like no problems there.
• 27:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've told you who I am.
• 27:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've said I don't like that.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: We should probably part ways.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what's so often creates division and pain is the fear that someone will reject the authentic you.
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you present them in authentic self, then you get caught in the lie and then everything explodes because everyone feels betrayed.
• 27:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think what I'm trying to be in the
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I mean, I've talked about this maybe for the last six years, it's because I just every time I'm in any kind of Lies by I roll and you know what a Lies by I'll you tell one and then at least another.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just the most unhappy I've ever been or could be I'm I fully I'm in the vomatorium like I cannot keep my food down when I have a Lies cycle and so I'm just trying to keep them out of my life and when they're out of my life, I'm really happy
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fuckin' love the way you put this in a music anyway.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Every single time, seriously.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know I think I, well, why would I not compliment you on your album's anyway, but... No, I'll take them off.
• 28:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, seriously.
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: How does that talk into you about this?
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really do.
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I get so much out of our interviews more than I ever expected.
• 28:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I feel the same way I looked, how do you...
• 28:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I appreciate your conversations.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And on the other side, I mentioned a few of the movies.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know you've got lots of coming out.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm looking forward to everything or one of those by the way.
• 28:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: They all look great.
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel really good.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like what a great moment this is in your career.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: What looks like it from the outside anyway.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: it feels like from the inside it's from being honest.
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've never felt like I had so much work that I was proud of in the can and ready to come out and it's crazy because a year ago, truly the depression that I was in when strained for things ended, like lasted about a year, of just like fear of never working again,
• 28:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: fear of not being a good actor, like of just kind of having been well cast in this one big thing that knew how to use me, right?
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that I then was going to lose the, that I did not do anything else.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I like sucked and that I was just really scared and lonely and I was really worried about all of it.
• 29:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so to be now a year past that year of sad,
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: and feeling like there's so much stuff in the can and I'm really grateful and feeling really proud and happy and I think a lot of it has to do with what I'm was talking about on this record which is like really starting to try to make choices for me.
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think for a long time I was making choices.
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: trying to play the system right, you know, like trying to be like, well, this could lead to this and this could do this and this could that and I think or just like taking whatever I got, you know, came to me and I, in the last year I've really started being more selective about what I do and really wanting to only do things that moved me.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as soon as I started doing that, things started to go better.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like maybe like even thinking back to Wildcat was a little part of that.
• 30:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just like totally because you were so hands-on with something like that.
• 30:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was the beginning of learning that that was possible.
• 30:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, which by the way, still holds up still a beautiful movie.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's that a few times.
• 30:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, right on, it's so great to talk to you again.
• 30:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: The pleasure to talk to you and thank you so much.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully we'll get to do that with one of these films coming out.
• 30:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'd love that.
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'd love that.
• 30:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to any day.
• 30:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we'll catch you soon.
• 30:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Catch you soon.
• 30:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And my thanks to Maya Metrea Corso, is the new album.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks to you for checking out the episode, do hit that subscribe button before you get out of here to keep up with all the interviews that we put out every single week at Spotify, Apple Podcast, NPR, WFPK.org, consequence, YouTube for the video versions or again anywhere.
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: You get your podcast from, you can subscribe to Kyle Meredith with.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Please do give this series a rating and leave a review wherever you're listening or watching from after that You can head over to wfpk dot org where I do a show Monday through Friday.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: It starts at 6 p.m. Eastern You get four hours of classic alternative the best in new music bonus interviews lots of music news as well And film news as well One of my recent shows features in classics and favorites from Lucy Davis, Pearl Jam, Meat Puppets, thin Lizzy
• 31:23
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• 31:49
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• 31:51
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• 31:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot of fun And that does it for another edition of Kyle Meredith.
• 32:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll see you next time Consequence podcast network
• 32:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Take care.
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are.
• 32:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org from Louisville Public Media.