Latest / Mini Scroll / Touching Grass with musician Ben Lee

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Touching Grass with musician Ben Lee · Mini Scroll

0:00
Welcome to Touchgrass, a miniseries where I chat with
0:03
creatives about staying sane while being chronically online.
0:07
I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, and Touchgrass is a miniseries
0:11
brought to you by Britta, where we explore the implications of
0:14
being chronically online with the creatives who can't escape
0:17
it. One thing that keeps coming up
0:19
in these conversations is how important small grounding
0:22
routines are offline. And for me, one of those
0:26
routines is drinking enough water.
0:28
Whether I'm refilling my water bottle for a long walk or taking
0:31
a break from scrolling my For You page, Britta makes it easy
0:34
for me to stay hydrated and grounded with pure, fresh
0:37
tasting filtered water straight from any top.
0:40
Thank you to Britta for supporting independent media and
0:43
helping us take better care of ourselves, one refill at a time.
0:46
Today I'm chatting with my friend and musician, Ben Lee.
0:50
Ben and I chat about social media and the music industry,
0:53
how being chronically online helps him be a better parent,
0:57
and his philosophy behind his status as a public to do good.
1:01
Thank you so much. And this is Gus.
1:03
He's my personal handler. He's my favorite guest that
1:06
we've ever had. Recently cleared of any
1:09
involvement with the Epstein files.
1:11
There were rumors going around. But he is not.
1:14
It was not him. It was a different Gus.
1:16
Yeah, OK, I'm going to let him wonder.
1:17
I'm so excited to have you on Touch Grass.
1:20
You are well, you're the first musician that we've had.
1:23
You're also the first parent that we've had, but we have
1:27
known each other for maybe like a year now at this point.
1:30
Well, I've been aware of you for long.
1:31
I've been a fan. I, I, I've, I listen to Mini
1:35
Skull for probably like 2 years maybe.
1:37
And then I started following you.
1:39
And then we. Yeah.
1:40
When we. Yeah.
1:41
We met each other. Yeah, I love that.
1:43
OK, so we start every interview by asking guests the same
1:47
question. Do you consider yourself
1:49
chronically online? I suppose I do.
1:54
I suppose I do, but I also think of that as being within a larger
2:00
sort of construct of being involved in culture.
2:04
Right. So when culture moved online, we
2:09
went online. But we're not there because we
2:13
love being online. We're there because we love
2:15
culture. Yeah.
2:17
Yeah, no, I love that. That's a perfect way to put it.
2:20
Because I everyone that we've spoken to so far in this series
2:23
has to be chronically online for their job for one reason or
2:25
another, and all of them desperately wish they didn't
2:28
have to be. Yeah, I mean, it's quite funny
2:30
because I was thinking about, I was thinking about this subject
2:33
coming here today and I was thinking about how I used to be
2:36
obsessed with music magazines and particularly like the
2:40
British ones that were like they used to come really slowly.
2:44
So you'd get them like female, so like the news would be really
2:47
old, but. But I was obsessed with them and
2:51
St. Press, like, you know, like in
2:53
New York, the Village Voice, so the LA Weekly, like wherever
2:56
culture sort of located itself, I was always obsessed with.
3:00
So I, I think for me, obviously the online thing has gotten much
3:04
more immersive in the amount of time we spend on it, but I was
3:08
always thinking about it 24 hours a day, wherever it was.
3:12
Yeah, Yeah, that makes sense. OK.
3:14
So I wanted to talk to you about your career because you
3:17
obviously hit it really big when you were really young and pre
3:20
social media, correct? Yes, true.
3:22
True. So tell us a little bit about
3:24
that experience and I would love to hear how that's how your
3:28
experience, I suppose, with your career has evolved as social
3:31
media has come into the picture. Yeah, well, the whole model of
3:35
being a rock star or whatever success in music, it was all
3:39
very like otherworldly when I was growing up.
3:41
Like, so I was born in 78, so I sort of most of my sort of
3:46
formal, kind of like the the fantasy of what it meant to be
3:50
in music was formed in the 80s. Yeah.
3:52
In which bands just seemed like gods, you know what I mean?
3:57
Like the idea that we went Mötley Crüe.
3:59
My first concert I really went to is Mötley Crüe, right?
4:01
Sydney Entertainment Center, 1988, probably.
4:05
I was 10 years old. The idea that there would be any
4:09
kind of acknowledgement from an artist would just be like, it
4:13
would give you heart palpitations.
4:15
It was like, whereas now it's so different because people, if you
4:19
don't respond to comments on Instagram, like access is an
4:22
assumed thing. So the inaccessibility was a
4:25
massive part of the fantasy actually.
4:28
And that's really, I guess, tied in with glamour, that things you
4:31
can't touch seem much more glamorous.
4:35
So there was a lot of escape in that fantasy of what it meant to
4:39
be in music or movies or media or whatever.
4:42
You felt like, oh, you were going to enter this other world
4:45
that was essentially like inaccessible to ordinary people,
4:49
you know? So it's very different.
4:50
I was always interested in the mechanics of how it all worked.
4:53
And when I started, it was like making demo tapes, making a bio,
5:02
having going to Kinko's, doing Flyers and making a package and
5:05
sending it to record labels and you know, all that kind of
5:07
stuff. It was very like DIY.
5:08
It was a lot of time at Kinko's, but in a sense, I think punk
5:12
rock and indie rock like prepared me for online life.
5:18
How so? Because it was all about it
5:22
being fast, cheap and out of control.
5:24
It was not about doing things perfectly.
5:28
Like in a sense, in indie rock, the fantasy was that you were
5:32
going to be constantly creative, have a constant stream of
5:36
output, and sort of bypass the gatekeepers of major labels that
5:40
would keep you on this sort of like formal schedule of release
5:44
and all that. So the indie rock fantasy was
5:46
like being in your friends bands and playing in lots of gigs and
5:49
doing like compilations and seven inches.
5:51
And in a way, what the Internet became is sort of the punk rock
5:56
fantasy. Take out the corporate overlords
5:59
to it. But the idea that you would have
6:01
a direct channel of communication with your audience
6:04
was sort of what we wanted through fanzines and tape
6:07
trading and all of that. Yeah.
6:08
Yeah. So it was kind of interesting
6:09
because I came up like, I started really young, so I got
6:13
signed when I was 14. And what was so wild about it
6:17
was that like my peers, the bands that I started playing
6:21
with, like Pavement and Sabado and Sonic Youth, the Beastie
6:24
Boys, they were in their late 20s.
6:26
So they were actually from a different generation, even
6:30
though we were musically in the same scene.
6:33
They grew up through, like, hardcore and college radio and
6:37
all this stuff where I think a lot of those artists have had a
6:39
harder time adapting to online life than people my age did.
6:45
There was almost closer to like, the streaming generation, you
6:48
know what I mean? So, yeah, so it's just a really
6:50
wild thing to live through that transition, I guess.
6:53
Yeah, that's really cool. First of all, I need to say that
6:56
you're only one year older than Jax Taylor.
6:58
Did you know that? I didn't know that, but I hope
7:01
that in my emotional maturity levels exceed more than 12
7:05
months. You know, it's like that's.
7:08
Wild, I know he's, but he really got.
7:10
It's funny because, yeah, he really got caught in that like,
7:13
arrested adolescence type thing, which I could have too.
7:16
A lot of musicians do too. But I guess his immature
7:20
behavior was lauded much more than mine was.
7:24
And that's one of the dangers of media persona, branding, all of
7:28
that is that what you get praised for gets sort of
7:31
validated and you can end up in a bit of a cycle of like forming
7:34
an identity around it. Some noise, some ways.
7:36
I think, like, I look at the kind of career, this is a bit
7:40
bit of a separate point, but I look at the kind of career I
7:42
sort of wanted and it would probably be more conservative
7:46
than the 1 I actually got. And then you look at someone
7:49
like John Mayer who probably got the kind of career I thought I
7:53
wanted, and even he got bored with that.
7:55
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He joined the Grateful Dead.
7:57
He must have been bored to tears, right?
8:00
So, so, so, so I mean, like it's kind of interesting to realize
8:04
that like you do get a more interest if you stick it out,
8:08
you get a more interesting and dynamic relationship to the
8:14
industry than the one you first seek.
8:17
I don't know how that's connected to Jax Taylor, but I'm
8:20
sure he was not trying to get sober and now he's going to
8:22
have. To, you know, exactly.
8:23
Well, he definitely just wanted to be famous.
8:25
That was like his one goal, I feel, you know?
8:27
Yeah, I mean that, that that I mean, we we don't have to go too
8:30
far off. That's the fun of talking to
8:32
you. But like, but I think like it
8:35
was so interesting because that right before he got fired from
8:38
Vanderpump, when he referred to Vanderpump Rules as his show.
8:41
Oh my God, that was actually a really interesting moment in
8:46
terms of media ego identity. Because he wasn't wrong.
8:52
Like, like we were tuning in primarily because of the
8:55
wreckage of his life. But there's a difference between
9:00
commanding people's attention as a freak show and actually having
9:05
power behind the scenes in an industry.
9:08
And I think that's what Lisa Vanderpump knew was like, no
9:12
matter how much you still focus through chaos, it's not your
9:15
show. Yeah.
9:16
Yeah. And I think that's very
9:17
interesting. I think we, a lot of people,
9:18
learn that in media and in the industry that chaotic people can
9:23
come and go, yeah, but the ability to leverage power and
9:27
make things happen, yeah, is a whole different skill.
9:30
OK, well I wanted to talk about Annabelle's favorite TikTok that
9:34
she found from you, OK, where somebody assumes that you were a
9:38
Tik Toker trying to make it as a.
9:40
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was flattering, wasn't it?
9:43
That's like, I know, just another Tik Toker trying to make
9:46
it in music. I'll tell you what I found
9:47
flattering about that. OK, so that was like some young
9:50
person who just discovered me on TikTok, and then I was talking
9:53
about a new single coming out, and they're like, oh, another
9:55
Tik Toker putting out a single. I think what's interesting about
9:57
that was it reflects how fully committed I am to whatever I'm
10:02
doing. Like, I generally don't wink at
10:06
my audience. Yeah, when me and Ionia are
10:09
doing our podcast, I don't, I don't wink at the audience to be
10:12
like, I'm a musician with a podcast, you know what I mean?
10:15
I'm like, hey, we're doing this, let's do it.
10:17
I think what people really want to connect with is just people
10:20
who are present in what they're doing.
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And that can be positive or negative, It can be creative or
10:25
destructive. But even if it's like, take the
10:28
most chaotic example, like Gabby Hannah, right?
10:31
I'm just. Because I talked about her.
10:32
Today, OK, because she's having a, you know, obviously like
10:34
you're like, I have a 16 year old.
10:36
So I'm on top of Gabby Hannah's comeback and they're the re, you
10:40
know, this taking it up with Trisha Paytas and all these.
10:43
But Trisha Paytas is another person who is fully present in
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the chaos of the exploration of who she is.
10:52
And I think that is something that the Internet very much
10:55
rewards. It rewards commitment to the
10:58
present moment. And I think that when you show
11:02
up doing Tik Toks and you're not, you don't have an agenda of
11:06
I'm actually trying to sell concert tickets or I'm actually,
11:08
but you're actually just being present and sharing.
11:10
Yeah. That I think that's I, I take
11:12
that as the most flattering thing on the on the downside of
11:15
it is it is kind of crazy how marginalized the parts of our
11:22
careers as musicians. Like the centerpiece used to be
11:27
the thing we were making the music and even touring was
11:32
essentially done to promote the album sales.
11:35
Whereas now album sales don't really have any, you know,
11:38
there's no real income from that.
11:39
So it's flipped and it's, you use albums to promote tours
11:43
basically. So, so the whole thing has been
11:45
inverted and that is kind of harrowing, I guess.
11:49
And that is what that there's a gallows humor to that TikTok,
11:54
right, which is that we've all essentially been turned into
11:58
content creators. And I don't know, I've talked
12:01
to, I've talked to other musicians about this and there
12:04
are some musicians who they Rage Against it.
12:08
They Rage Against the term content.
12:11
They Rage Against the idea that we're all content creators.
12:13
They're like, they're nostalgic from another era.
12:15
Well, I mean, I think part of the reason I've survived and
12:19
that I have a career over 30 years into what I'm doing is
12:22
that like, I don't spend 2 seconds crying over what was
12:25
left behind because you're going to drown if you do that.
12:29
You have to keep agile, keep adapting, and step into the
12:32
world that you're really in. Yeah.
12:34
I was going to say, do you feel like in your industry, marketing
12:39
is the product now as opposed to music is the product?
12:42
Because I kind of feel that way in media.
12:44
And I mean, I guess media is slightly different because the
12:47
medium is usually the product. But even as a founder, like
12:50
trying to navigate my own founder content, same thing.
12:53
It's like trying to strike that balance between of course, I'm
12:56
trying to like raise awareness for Centennial, but I'm also
12:59
trying to build, I suppose, my own audience of what is it
13:03
founders that people that will listen to the podcast like.
13:06
Trying to navigate that has been really interesting and I often
13:09
feel like marketing is the product at the end of the day as
13:12
the founder. Yeah, I think that's probably
13:14
true. I mean, I, I don't think of it
13:16
in terms of marketing. I think of it in terms of like
13:19
the monetizable aspect of my career is highly unknown from
13:25
year to year. Like I think of it in terms of
13:28
the phones ringing or it's not like that's show business, you
13:32
know what I mean? That's Shirley MacLaine in
13:34
Postcards from the Edge. I'm still here.
13:36
You know what I mean? That that's like, like basically
13:40
I try and give and give generously and give
13:43
authentically about things that I care about and I find funny
13:47
and I'm interested in. And I believe that if I add
13:50
value to my smaller and wider community, the phone will ring
13:57
and someone will offer me money to do something.
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That's basically how I think about it.
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I think even in terms of marketing, it's like, I don't
14:05
know what the business is like we all have, you know, whatever
14:09
what's, we're all making God laugh with our plans.
14:11
You know, it's like we all have these ideas of how we're going
14:15
to essentially keep paying our rent or our mortgage or, you
14:18
know, whatever, you know, supporting ourselves.
14:22
The only way I can look at it is that we are involved in a
14:25
continual value exchange and we give and we give a lot for free.
14:32
And often the things we've put the hardest work into, they lose
14:36
money and then something we're not expecting connects and then
14:40
you get paid for something completely unrelated.
14:42
So that's why I kind of really ascribe to the idea that success
14:48
in media or show business is like hacking your way through a
14:52
jungle with a machete and as soon as you clear the path, it
14:56
closes behind you. So no one can follow you because
14:59
there are no two people that can take the same path.
15:02
It is not repeatable. It is not duplicatable.
15:05
You have to find your own way through the jungle and that's
15:09
that's the way it is. Oh my.
15:10
God I love that visualization. As somebody with really bad
15:13
imposter syndrome, I'm constantly like comparing myself
15:16
and I'm going to use that now. I'm you know who I stole that
15:18
from, not stole who I got it because I'm open about.
15:20
I actually heard the creator of Modern Family describe use that
15:25
description on a podcast about getting ATV show made.
15:28
He's like, there's no two people do it the same way.
15:31
Media arts, entertainment. They've always been highly risky
15:35
careers, right? But lo and behold, they were
15:39
also kind of prophetic in that every career seems risky.
15:42
Yeah. No, really, is there any career
15:46
that seems secure? I mean, honestly, like, tradies.
15:48
Yeah. Like when you meet like an
15:50
electrician or plumber and you go like, OK, you're good for a
15:54
decade. Yeah, yeah, you are good for a
15:55
decade. I don't.
15:56
Think that is your job? Not for the moment, not for the
15:58
moment. So they seem like the most
15:59
secure jobs, but everyone else, it's like we're all just
16:03
surfing, dancing, scrambling, whatever we're doing, you know?
16:06
And I just don't think there's no two people doing it the same
16:09
way. OK, so I wanted to talk about
16:11
how you use your social media platform because obviously you
16:14
are pretty vocal about social commentary where you land in
16:18
politics. And I don't think that's super
16:21
common when it comes to public figures and even podcasters.
16:24
You know, like I try and be really open about where we fall
16:27
in my opinion on things because I think that's important.
16:29
I think it's important that people know who they're
16:31
following and what they're. Consuming.
16:32
I like how you do it though, because you, it's almost like to
16:37
a casual listener, they wouldn't be alienated by your politics.
16:42
You have to listen for a while to actually see the continuity
16:47
in your viewpoint. And I think that's, I think you
16:50
handle that quite subtly and quite delicately.
16:54
Thank you. Thank you.
16:55
Well, tell me about your approach to that.
16:56
Or do you have an approach to speaking out?
16:59
Social pressure is really interesting.
17:01
There are certain inflection points in social dialogue where
17:08
we hit a point where you do have to pick a side with things.
17:12
And I'm kind of, I'm becoming increasingly tolerant of
17:17
allowing that moment to come organically because I think
17:20
sometimes for things to change it's important to speak at the
17:23
right time. Just jumping in with your
17:27
opinion on every single thing is not necessarily the way to be
17:30
most useful, particularly as I've become more and more of an
17:36
advocate for the arts, particularly Australian music,
17:41
and not not in a nationalistic way.
17:43
This is a way that something some people really don't
17:45
understand this though, because there are people, there are kids
17:48
and young people who have grown up in an online world that go,
17:52
who cares where it came from? Why do we have to?
17:55
And I'm sympathetic to that viewpoint because in a utopian
17:59
sense, I agree with them. But I also believe in scenes
18:02
have power. I believe in scenes and I
18:06
believe in the mutual support that comes through scenes.
18:08
That's why I connected with you. I knew you were working in
18:10
Sydney and you were doing interesting work in media and I
18:13
was like, this is an ally of mine.
18:15
This is someone who I want to support what she's doing.
18:18
You know, in some ways I can just like put my money where my
18:21
mouth is and support artists that have interesting
18:26
viewpoints. It's not my place to say why
18:29
it's important, it just is important to me.
18:32
So I want to listen to music from people that have different
18:37
outlooks cuz I don't know that's that's why I enjoy art.
18:41
OK, So what is it like having a teenage daughter?
18:44
I imagine it's actually probably in some ways easier for you to
18:48
relate to her because you are so chronically online.
18:51
Yeah, well, in some ways I found that like I I kind of got on
18:56
TikTok because my daughter and my stepdaughter were on it.
19:00
And I really like being able to have commonality in our
19:05
dialogue. I like to know, I like to
19:09
understand the jokes. I like to know the references.
19:12
I think that yes, while I'm sure that sitting and reading
19:19
together would probably be in the grand scheme of things, a
19:23
healthier trait than sitting looking at Tik Toks together, I
19:27
think that there is when you look at the big picture of
19:31
connecting with your kids, you know, I'm a big fan of like punk
19:34
rock and Malcolm McLaren. And like, like there was this
19:38
whole idea that like you have to speak the language of your
19:41
generation if you want to be in media.
19:44
You can't put yourself in an ivory tower.
19:46
You know, you have to be in dialogue.
19:48
And I think for me, it's helped with not only my career but also
19:52
my parenting. Our friend Nomi Fry from The New
19:54
Yorker, she said she was talking about she's raising a teenager,
19:57
too. And she said, I don't know, Are
19:59
we just becoming addicts together?
20:01
Is that what parenting is now? And that may be true, but there
20:06
is something about the willingness to sit in hell if we
20:10
are in hell with your kids and go, I'm not abandoning you in
20:14
hell. I'm gonna sit next to you in
20:16
hell, and I'm not gonna say, oh, you're on your own in there.
20:20
Yeah. So I kind of think of it like
20:22
that, Like maybe we are in hell, but you know what I'm gonna
20:25
stand by you for? It I'm interested to hear a
20:27
little bit more. I know you already touched on
20:29
it, but a little bit more about your work within Australian
20:33
music. Can you talk about, I suppose,
20:36
why you're so passionate about that and the work that you've
20:39
been doing? Well, I guess it stems from the
20:41
idea like my first opportunities came from other artists.
20:47
So I got signed my band. We had like a, you know, lofi
20:51
band in the 90s and we got signed to Sonic Youth's label
20:55
and the Beastie Boys label. They were artists, run labels.
20:57
So I came into the industry with a belief and a lived experience
21:07
that the end goal of getting a platform was using it to share
21:13
it with young artists you believed in.
21:15
I just was like, that's the point.
21:18
Yeah. And then I don't know.
21:20
That's just like a punk thing. And it's, it's like, and but
21:23
it's not just punk. Like even like, you know, it
21:26
came from folk music, like Joan Baez bringing up Bob Dylan and
21:29
like, and Bob Dylan turning people onto Woody Guthrie.
21:32
And you know, just like the whole there was just like a
21:35
constant idea of like, let me show you like Nirvana going.
21:39
But do you know the Pixies? Do you know Daniel Johnston?
21:41
Do you know Shannon Knife? The idea was that all culture
21:46
could be any, any particular point of culture could be an
21:49
entry point to a life changing exploration.
21:53
That's how I've always viewed the music industry and culture.
21:58
I started this kind of like when I was young, like I would like,
22:00
we'd have a show and I'd always be like, wow, who were the cool
22:03
bands I can get to open? Who can I share on my Myspace in
22:08
my top 8 or whatever it was on Myspace.
22:10
Like that. That idea of like having a
22:12
platform and using it to turn people on to cool shit was
22:16
always the dream. But yeah, I just always assumed
22:19
that that was the point. And as I've gotten to meet more
22:23
people that like, Oh no, they actually want to gatekeep their
22:26
own success and their audiences. And like, I look at artists and
22:31
how little they share other people's work on their social
22:34
media. Like, OK, I get it.
22:36
Not the main grid. I get it.
22:37
I get it. That's why you have a story.
22:40
Share singles that come out by your friends, share their tour
22:44
dates. Like, why wouldn't you like
22:46
share the wealth? The more it's like, you know, a
22:49
rising tide type thing. It's like we really can.
22:52
Like, I mean, this is like just a punk thing.
22:54
It's like you rise together. So anyway, as I've gotten older,
22:57
I sort of started to realize that my platform is like a real
23:01
thing now. It's not the biggest in the
23:03
world, but to be honest with you, I've never tried to make my
23:07
platform the biggest in the world.
23:09
I've just tried to make it really cool.
23:11
Like, I've always cared more about how cool my audience were
23:15
and how like, like who they were rather than how many they were.
23:18
And so it just very organically happened.
23:22
And then when we were living in LA, around the early 2000s in LA
23:26
was a really interesting time because Aussies, we, I don't
23:31
know, we, it's sort of like everyone started like this
23:35
network of people supporting each other really banded
23:37
together. So every weekend there would be
23:40
barbecues and it would be like Keith Ledger and Rose Byrne and
23:44
Joel Edgerton and then Missy Higgins and like all the bands
23:47
and Sarah Blasco and everyone was coming through.
23:50
And it really was like, you had a few people's numbers.
23:53
You called when you got to LA and you were brought into the
23:56
fold. It was assumed that if you were
23:58
there, you needed community. And then online almost like
24:04
dissipated that like it stopped being as much a thing because
24:06
you didn't have people's numbers anymore.
24:08
You were just like D Ming and all that kind of stuff.
24:11
And so I really like when bands started coming, I started being
24:14
like, oh, you know what, let's have some people over Cub sport
24:17
are coming to town. Let's throw a little pool party
24:19
for them. And then it became like, oh,
24:22
this young producer Nina Jirachi's coming.
24:24
Let's let's throw a little party in her house and she can DJ and
24:28
Amel and the sniffers are coming.
24:29
And we, we just started doing it and it started having these
24:32
really like tangible effects where like Amal and the
24:36
sniffers, it was like their first tour of America.
24:38
And like Beck came to our house and Reggie Watts and Nick Zenner
24:42
from the airs and everyone watched them play.
24:44
And you kind of went like, oh, this is like actually helpful.
24:48
And so I just started realizing like this is a thing, you know,
24:52
and, and honestly, like the last Aria awards for people
24:56
internationally, I know we have a, we have a big international
24:59
audience and that's our Grammys type thing.
25:01
But the Arias are like a, it's like a traditional kind of
25:04
thing. So there's like the old world
25:06
and then there's all the young bucks, you know, coming in.
25:08
And I was like the only artist standing between the two worlds.
25:12
And it was the year of Amel and the sniffers and in a Gerachi,
25:15
who were both artists that I put a lot of energy and love into
25:18
supporting and sharing and I experienced it.
25:21
It's so funny. There's a Yiddish word, Nachus,
25:24
And it's like, I actually got like the joy of other people's
25:28
success. Like, really.
25:30
Like Nina said to me, you know, after she won all her awards,
25:33
we're having a little moment on the side.
25:35
And she said, Ben, you know that session because we did a little
25:37
recording session. She's like the session at your
25:40
house where we write the song All I Am.
25:41
She's like, that was the start of my album.
25:43
And that session made me feel ready to make my album.
25:46
And this is the album that did so well.
25:48
And she's like, thank you. I genuinely mean that.
25:50
And I said, listen, I have never been tangentially involved with
25:55
a project that had this much undeniable momentum.
25:59
Thank you for letting me bear witness to this because it has
26:01
blown my mind. Like, once you see that happen
26:04
and it's real and you realize how much hype there is in, like,
26:08
you're trying, like, a lot of show business is like talking up
26:11
success and like pretending it's happening when it's not.
26:14
And then you see it really happening.
26:15
You're like, oh, and so that you'd, like changed my life.
26:18
But that night of the Arias, I realized like, oh, this isn't in
26:22
my imagination. Like I can be part of.
26:24
And I don't want this to sound like, I don't want to be like A
26:27
and I'm not trying to be like a king maker where I'm like
26:30
selecting, Oh, you're good, You're not you're.
26:33
But the stuff I like, I want to throw my weight behind it
26:36
because it's meaningful. And so anyway, in a broad sense,
26:40
that's really all I'm doing. But some of that is also now
26:45
starting to look at the functioning of the industry
26:47
because I don't know how much you know about all the
26:51
conversations going on about Spotify.
26:54
Spotify has had a very interesting effect on
26:58
international markets. Non-english speaking markets
27:02
have seen their music, domestic music skyrocket because to the
27:08
ear of people in that country, it's identifiable on their
27:12
streaming services. So they go, if you're in Sweden,
27:15
you want to hear a Swedish language music and you'd be
27:17
like, I'm going to listen to Sweden.
27:19
And then one artist leads to another.
27:20
If you're in Australia or England, you don't know whether
27:23
you're being fed Australian music, American Music, or
27:26
British music. And basically in Australia and
27:28
in England, our music industries are being completely
27:32
marginalized as we are being bombarded with American Music.
27:36
I love American Music. Obviously, American Music is
27:40
like the best music has ever been made.
27:42
But we don't realize what we're losing, right?
27:45
So I've gotten a little bit more involved in that.
27:48
And again, to come back to that Gen.
27:50
Z argument of, well, what's the difference?
27:53
Yes, when you're listening to Spotify, what's the difference?
27:56
Who cares? But when you're 16 and want to
27:59
go and jump in a mosh pit for the first time and want to like
28:03
get all your aggression out and want to go buy AT shirt from a
28:06
band that has to be a local artist.
28:09
Yeah, That's not going to be Chapel Rd.
28:11
Yeah, yeah. That's going to be a band called
28:13
a gang called Speed playing the like the local hardcore show or
28:17
RMFC or like one of these younger bands.
28:19
So like, so I just, I feel that we are in danger of losing a
28:24
very hands on tangible cultural touchstone if we don't support
28:30
our local scenes. Also for the artists themselves,
28:34
they need to be able to see, you know, that they can make it and
28:37
not have to move to the US, right?
28:38
That's. Right.
28:39
Yeah, yeah. And and also there's so many
28:41
industries like, look, what we're doing right now is
28:47
theoretically trickle down effect from people spending a
28:50
lot of money at corporations that give you content to talk
28:54
about, right? You know, so like there's from
28:57
nightlife leads to like restaurants and bars and buskers
29:02
and Uber drivers. And like there's to keep a city
29:05
vibrant, which, you know, Sydney has really had like the
29:09
nightlife beaten out of it over the last two decades.
29:12
And now there's a real effort to bring it back.
29:15
And you know, I'm hearing a lot of people saying like Sydney's
29:19
coming back, like they're investing a lot of money in
29:22
nightlife, but you got to have local, local passion, local
29:27
talent, local opportunity and all the local industries that
29:29
come along with it. Yeah, I love that.
29:31
OK. Well the last question that I
29:33
have for you is tell me how you touch grass.
29:36
How do I touch grass I feel? Like you're always touching
29:38
grass. Yeah.
29:39
I mean, OK. So I guess I'm going to be a
29:41
little more macro and say that when I was younger, I was really
29:47
obsessed with spiritual practices like meditation and
29:51
psychedelics and retreats and all this stuff.
29:54
Because I used to believe that like you had to touch grass in a
29:59
very literal way in order to counteract the very literal way
30:04
we lose ourselves to modern stress and everything and
30:08
whatever. And I think my personal belief
30:12
is that nowadays the way I think about spirituality, say, is that
30:17
the practice is life. There's no separate thing,
30:21
right? I'm not sure if thinking about
30:25
touching grass as something that happens outside of our
30:28
relationship to technology or anything is that useful anymore.
30:33
Because in a way, all aspects of our life are part of the same
30:38
dance. So for me, it's more a moment to
30:40
moment thing. Like I saw a really, you might
30:45
have seen I put on my Instagram story the other day that I got.
30:47
So it's great TikTok, you know, that one going around of like
30:49
the girl saying hi, hi to people, like liking their
30:53
Instagram stories. Like that's touching grass to
30:56
me. Yeah, OK.
30:57
Touching grass is actual connection.
31:01
And that can happen in the digital world.
31:02
It can happen in the analog world, it can happen in nature,
31:05
it can happen in the city. It's saying that like, I see
31:09
you, do you see me? I see you, hi, you know, and
31:13
just the very simple human to human thing of saying hi to each
31:17
other, to ourselves, making that fundamental to the way I use the
31:23
Internet. That is kind of what it's all
31:26
about for me. And then a separate thing is I
31:29
play live music generally two or three nights a week.
31:33
My phone is my clock. So it is down there on the floor
31:35
next to my sailors, but I'm not picking it up.
31:37
I am sweating. I am singing.
31:41
I am in an athletic, transcendent moment with an
31:45
audience who want to be together in a room.
31:48
They don't want to fucking live stream it through beeps.
31:50
No shade on beeps. Good on beeps.
31:52
But I don't think that can replace live music.
31:56
Something that happens in a room.
31:58
I love that. And those things like live
32:00
music, sex, food, laughter, these things are like they're
32:06
innate to who we are. And I think that realness of
32:09
feeling, of being a human who feels, just remembering, that's
32:13
who we are. And that's the name of the game.
32:16
That's an amazing place to live. All right.
32:20
Thank you so much. Thank you.
32:22
Centennial World Podcast Network operates on Gadigal land.
32:25
We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the
32:28
traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to
32:31
elders both past and present.