Latest / Kyle Meredith With... / Renée Elise Goldsberry Talks Debut Album Who I Really Am, Hamilton, and Girls5Eva

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Renée Elise Goldsberry Talks Debut Album Who I Really Am, Hamilton, and Girls5Eva · Kyle Meredith With...

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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's me Kyle Meredith today, my guest Renee Elise Goldsbury, before she was harmonizing with Lynn Menwell Miranda in Hamilton.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Renee had already racked up a resume that reads like a random IMDB shuffle soap operas, Allie McBeal, the good wife.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And a little something called one life to live that earned her a daytime Emmy, but of course it was Broadway that turned her into a household name.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She played Angelica Skyler, like she had a PhD in Grace and her pressure and a minor in vocal gymnastics, stealing hearts and Tony Awards attention.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Since then, she's flexed her comedic timing in Girls Five Ever, joined the Marvel Universe in She-Hulk, and now she's adding debut solo album to her career that's already included Grammys, Emmys, and singing backup for Patty Label.
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[SPEAKER_01]: René's the rare kind of performer who can belt a showstopper, deliver a monologue and still out shine the CGI and a Disney Plus finale.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And now she's finally doing the thing that everyone's been waiting for, putting her name on the front of an album.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's called Who I Really Am.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And Renee is going to open up about why it took this long to release a solo LP.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why now is the moment to bet on herself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She's going to discuss the freedom of genre hopping across pop, musical theater and soul.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And how she came to reinterpret satisfied for this new chapter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And how girls five ever in Sarah Burrellist helped spark her confidence to record original material, including a Burrellist pin track.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So let's get into it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about all of that and more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's Kyle Meredith with Renee Elise Goldsbury.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, how are you?
3:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first off the compliments who are really.
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
3:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So this, this is a fantastic record.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There is so many different like sub genres going on here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was surprised with every single song.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, oh, my God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is there nothing she can't do?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is there no?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing she can't tackle right here.
3:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, but on here is the question.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But it's seriously, I mean, this is a big thing.
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a great accomplishment for anybody.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But for this to be, I mean, you've been a part of albums before, but this is what you call your debut album, right?
3:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it feels that way, specifically because the platform has changed.
4:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Lord knows my family and friends have gotten albums for me in the past.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But you know, on the larger stage, I had the privilege of being a part of wonderful collaborations with many different artists, many different genius songwriters.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And this is, this is all me with some really brilliant people that I went into the studio with.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So was it always part of the plan?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Did you, I mean, was this something kind of always meant to get to or was there a kind of a light bulb moment?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I need to do this record.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I've always wanted to.
4:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I just sometimes you say you're going to do something and all the other things come first.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I think what's a miracle is the fact that Broadway and some success and on television and film led to an opportunity to do this.
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[SPEAKER_04]: That really is a miracle to me because when I started my career, I didn't think that you could be known for anything other than being a reporting artist and have anyone take you seriously as a reporting artist.
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[SPEAKER_04]: It works the other way around.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone loves to see recording artists transition into film and television and go see them.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Nicole Sharersinger just won a Tony.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So people love to see that.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But for people to embrace this in the way that they have is really a miracle and wonderful.
5:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And to call it who I really am.
5:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
5:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just want to point this out to be getting that I just saw you as Mrs. T on Malay, and if that's, this is who you really are, well times.
5:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So funny, it's so funny.
5:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I wear some different hats, and I, and the making of this album has helped me to embrace that as, as my power, as opposed to something that is somehow another diminishes.
5:57
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, for so long, you know, I've been staring at, you know, my love of songwriting and my love of singing in recording and thinking it was hard to do because I was told that really had, you had to really be in a very narrow lane to be legitimate.
6:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's really not who I am and I don't think that's who we are.
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[SPEAKER_04]: as a people, especially not in the way that we ingest content anymore.
6:24
[SPEAKER_04]: That's just not who we are.
6:25
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't tell us who we are.
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[SPEAKER_04]: We really can be everything.
6:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that was probably always the story, right?
6:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But we had this idea that the t-shirt we wore, especially growing up in the eighties and nineties, you know, the t-shirt you wore defined the only thing you could listen to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I remember being
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[SPEAKER_01]: a teenager and mid nineties whatever that was and and and not telling my friends that I liked genuine or something like that because you know he's like we weren't allowed to or whatever that was you know and why are you you know but we were all listening to everything all the time so why can't that be reflected in what the artist does to i mean i i i keep my my two my greatest idols over my shoulder there you know with with prints and boi and and they were
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they defined it from the beginning.
7:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So to what you're saying to finally make that jump to go into this, usually there's no plan.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But as I mentioned at the beginning of the interview, I mean, we hear so many different sounds from you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, does that come naturally?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or do you make a point of it going?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I really am going to show everything that I can do or a lot of that I can do.
7:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it took four albums to write the four albums for, it feels like four albums because there's a lot more music I just chose thirteen tracks.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But it took four years because I had, because I really don't, there's no like kind of master strategy of it's going to sound like this one thing.
7:50
[SPEAKER_04]: But that is definitely a concept, you know.
7:53
[SPEAKER_04]: But for me, it was really, let's just express.
7:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it was twenty, twenty.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And I think anything that came out, we wanted to, wanted to explore.
8:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I looked back in twenty-twenty-two when it was time to release the album and I thought, oh my gosh, there's so many outliers here.
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[SPEAKER_04]: How can I put this song staring next to the song who I really am next to this next to satisfied next to, you know, next to this other like power ballad?
8:19
[SPEAKER_04]: How do I, how do I do that?
8:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I can't because people don't do that.
8:23
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I didn't, I didn't remember my friend Bowie over there.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And so I thought, well, maybe I need to revisit all of these songs and make them sound like one thing because I'm introducing an artist.
8:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And a friend of mine came to see one of my shows because I've been performing the whole time.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And he said, what are you doing?
8:43
[SPEAKER_04]: No one that shows up for you expects to see one thing.
8:47
[SPEAKER_04]: If I go on Spotify, if I go anywhere right now and look for you, I'm going to find so many different versions of who you are.
8:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And that was even before millennie.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, and you know, we have license to do whatever we give ourselves a license to do.
9:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think we underestimate audiences when we think that they only want a box.
9:08
[SPEAKER_04]: That's not who anybody is.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And so this has been a this has been a wonderful lesson for me.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Just to embrace embrace the outlier.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll be right back right after this.
9:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back.
9:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Kyle Meredith with Renee at least Goalsbury.
9:25
[SPEAKER_01]: What I do like, and of course, knowing your background, Broadway, etc.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We feel that they're throughout the record.
9:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, you know, on one hand, it can be a pop album for people who loves musicals because I fuel that in these.
9:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially, I mean, you start with introducing
9:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's, I mean, you set this up like it's a bigger piece, which I mean, as, you know, just, that's something I look for.
9:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I love one, you know, it's because the album, right?
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It's where in a single's world, but if you can still put an album together and you set it up, I mean, that's some Sergeant Pepper stuff right there.
10:01
[SPEAKER_04]: can I tell you that I have a twelve year old daughter and a couple years ago actually when I was working on it she she said mommy what's an album and I said what she said what's an album and she was just like in her own world like in the back of the car thinking and then she started to answer it she'd like to formulate an answer is that like when an artist decides to put out a bunch of songs at the same time and I said yeah and she said why but they do that
10:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just was like, you know, and it was so freeing for me.
10:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Because, you know, that's exactly what I was doing and I knew I still wanted to do it.
10:38
[SPEAKER_04]: But it made me realize, there are no rules.
10:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, she's freeer than I am, because she's new.
10:45
[SPEAKER_04]: But the world that she knows, like you said, it's whatever it is.
10:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And she didn't think it was wrong to have an album.
10:52
[SPEAKER_04]: She just had never conceived of it, because she listens to radio.
10:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, they long, that's what she loves, you know?
11:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And I guess, and I think she understands what a playlist is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Which, and how that's different than an album.
11:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And how that's different, but that's something that she curates.
11:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's been a wonderful journey in opening my own mind.
11:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And even, as I look at the track list here, I mean, love returned.
11:21
[SPEAKER_01]: What a great example.
11:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Never thought in a million years anybody would let me put that on an album.
11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because, like, first of all, here's like a little on-e-to-franco happening here, you know, and, but you're, this is talking about storytelling, as you're a storyteller.
11:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how did this song happen?
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're, you are, I don't want to say you're talking, because you're definitely, it's more than that, but this is, this is kind of a version of that style of emotion.
11:47
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it's a it is storytelling I just started I you know I had this great loop track from my guitar player Jordan Peters from my band who was you know in the middle of twenty twenty just sending me riffs all the time just throwing riffs my way because he was probably you know stuck in an apartment in New York City riffing
12:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just start, I remembered this moment in college where I got my heart broken.
12:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remembered becoming every cliche, every cliche of a heart broken person running through the rain.
12:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just started telling the story and it just kind of came out of me that way.
12:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was right.
12:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just thought, well, maybe, you know, I don't know who's ever going to hear this.
12:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know that it could go on my album because I'm certainly not going to do thirteen tracks of that.
12:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Because because the moment
12:41
[SPEAKER_04]: doesn't need to be told in that way.
12:42
[SPEAKER_04]: But every moment needs to be told in its own way.
12:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And that one came out like that.
12:47
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a story.
12:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And sometimes you start singing.
12:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And then there's this theme.
12:51
[SPEAKER_04]: My life is a scene from a movie.
12:56
[SPEAKER_04]: This is almost a joke.
12:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm in a movie.
12:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And it just came out in this metaphor.
13:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And as like I'm in a coffee shop telling a story, but sometimes I have to sing.
13:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And I at some point I realized, if I don't put it on the album, then I can't call it who I really am.
13:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so happy that song exists.
13:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of my favorite moments of that record.
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Which happens a lot.
13:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You hear artists talk about that, the song that, like, there's always that governor in your head, right?
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That, uh, it's said, can I do this?
13:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
13:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this, is this how a song supposed to sound like?
13:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and, and if you can push through that, it ends up being one of the more special moments, a lot of times, for a lot of people.
13:36
[SPEAKER_04]: So glad to hear it.
13:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, at some point I realized I can't, I can't not.
13:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So let's hope the world gets there.
13:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And if they don't, somebody will.
13:45
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the beauty of musical music.
13:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Somebody, you know, somebody will find it.
13:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Somebody will get it.
13:52
[SPEAKER_04]: You just hope it's more people.
13:56
[SPEAKER_04]: But as me and my heart is long as long as it finds somebody who's, who's, because there's like,
14:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Another potential title for the album was the moral to the story.
14:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's what it is at this point in my life if I'm telling a story about heartbreak.
14:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not just sitting in the moment of the heartbreak, it's still looking back on it.
14:24
[SPEAKER_04]: If I'm doing, if I'm telling something about breaking someone's heart, I know what ended up happening in the end.
14:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, as that story, if I met someone, I know that in the end the best thing I ever did for the person who's hard I broke was get out of the way.
14:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's just a wonderful vantage point as a storyteller to have lived a number of years to know the moral of the story.
14:47
[SPEAKER_01]: and hearing that up against the other ones because you know that for that to be such a specific type of song i mean staring you know this incredible single bombastic almost yeah my god i wish you would have told me that i wish you would have given me that adjective before i had to write my bio about this that's the best what i've heard i didn't come up with that
15:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is, I mean, that's a big song.
15:07
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a big song.
15:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you have these, these very tiny personal moments in there, and then you have something like that.
15:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, talk about swinging for the fences.
15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope you don't mind just the general question again, but I'd love to know how that one came about.
15:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my goodness, how you know what?
15:21
[SPEAKER_04]: A great baseline that I actually, I tried to re-record that song at several times because I just thought this is just too out for the rest of the album.
15:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Who is she?
15:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I'm even singing in a different part of my voice.
15:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like if I'm debuting myself as a singer, they're gonna be like, who is that?
15:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you do that?
15:40
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a butt effect on my voice.
15:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm singing in a different part of my register.
15:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I took the music.
15:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I took the song to Nashville.
15:48
[SPEAKER_04]: greatest players in the world and had them, you know, kind of, let's put it through this band so that it sounds like the same artist.
15:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And one of the greatest bass players I've ever known in my life said, whatever that guy's doing from LA, it's something I don't even know what it is.
16:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Leave it alone.
16:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't touch it.
16:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, it started with this amazing
16:06
[SPEAKER_04]: like out baseline.
16:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it blues?
16:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it like some modern?
16:10
[SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of just, it's kind of off-killed, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't,
16:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You try and objectify him because what's obvious is that he's a great person.
16:38
[SPEAKER_04]: What's obvious is a great person, but I just loved the idea of like reducing him to parts.
16:45
[SPEAKER_04]: You know?
16:45
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel about it?
16:48
[SPEAKER_03]: He loves it!
16:52
[SPEAKER_01]: who wouldn't get a song like that.
16:56
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
16:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And God, smiling is so fun.
16:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's summer time.
17:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're so close.
17:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I hear a little bit of even Gaga style in there.
17:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I talk about.
17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: these points, you know, that you can, it doesn't sound like you're ever emulating someone.
17:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And you could have, I mean, you're an actress, right?
17:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You could go into those characters if you want to.
17:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of hear just these little DNAs of people, but it never sounds like you're trying to be that person.
17:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so glad.
17:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't know how to.
17:29
[SPEAKER_04]: But I, but you know, you're right, I am an actress and, and the value that my value as an actor is really finding myself in things.
17:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm glad that you said that because I do feel like it is one hundred percent who I am, even as it morphs into different things throughout the thirteen track.
17:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll be right back right after this.
17:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back.
17:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Kyle Meredith with Renee Elise Goldsberry, which of course is an easy set to satisfied.
17:59
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that song get to say in the context of this story, in the context of who I really am?
18:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, what's really beautiful, and it was not intentional, most things are not my world, especially when they work out.
18:13
[SPEAKER_04]: But is that, you know, what is satisfied?
18:17
[SPEAKER_04]: What genre is that?
18:18
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not, it's not.
18:19
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a, it's a, it's literally about capturing a moment.
18:24
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, that's all, that's the only allegiance it has.
18:28
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't have an allegiance to a genre and so how could I put it on an album and it fit and less all of the rest of the songs are doing that in some way, shape, or form.
18:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So it actually ended up being the best thing.
18:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I can include this song because there are all of these other moments happening that are just about capturing a moment.
18:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Why does it exist?
18:50
[SPEAKER_04]: It exists because I had to find a way to sing that song in concert and I couldn't bring the cast with me.
18:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, I like had was this badass band and these amazing singers and so we arranged it in a way that was for give me satisfying for an audience of people.
19:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I always joke at the beginning of my concert.
19:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going to be able to make it out of your life if I don't sing that song.
19:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So how can we, how can we share it in this space in a way that is satisfying to you?
19:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And so we invented that.
19:21
[SPEAKER_04]: It always works.
19:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It always kills.
19:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It is not the same thing.
19:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And it is the same thing.
19:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And we recorded it.
19:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And I love it.
19:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you will allow me to continue to elaborate.
19:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Ironically, in twenty twenty when I started this, I've always wanted to do an album, but in twenty twenty when everybody else was making cooking shows.
19:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
19:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's got their bread.
19:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
19:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Podcasts and I couldn't pull that together.
19:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I had an opportunity to make an album for this label and their thought was, can you do covers?
19:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And you do like standards and covers because you're the singer and that's what people will want from you.
20:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And as a debut artist, you should come in singing other people's music with covers.
20:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And I thought, kill me now.
20:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Please, there's nothing harder for a songwriter than to have to look through songs other people have written to find out how to tell who they are.
20:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a bit of an nightmare.
20:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And then they said, oh, and the expiration, I think there's a period of time when you cannot record a song that you've done on a show.
20:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And that had just expired.
20:27
[SPEAKER_04]: So they were like, oh, and you can now re-record satisfied.
20:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you do a cover of that?
20:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And I thought, no, I've already done it.
20:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It's perfect.
20:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I love it the way that it is.
20:37
[SPEAKER_04]: But then I thought, if I'm going to put satisfied on an album, then why do I have to do any other cover?
20:43
[SPEAKER_04]: No one else cares if I sing my funny Valentine, but satisfied, maybe they'll care about.
20:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, that give me license to do my own songs.
20:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And they said, yes, I didn't end up putting out the album through them, but it stayed because it was just a good idea.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really happy you didn't put the album on through that.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I do love.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I love how it works because, um, of course, of course, I know the song, but I didn't need to know the song.
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that song stands and it feels like it's a part of it.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't feel like it's
21:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what was it, uh, twelve tracks and that one or what?
21:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's great.
21:23
[SPEAKER_04]: That's when we put it like right in the middle.
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Just like it's it's a part of it's a part of who she is.
21:29
[SPEAKER_04]: How could I say who I am without including that song when I'm when we really that's the song that sets me up to have an album.
21:35
[SPEAKER_01]: and returning to the scene of the crime like that.
21:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So well-timed, of course, with the tenth anniversary, and how was the reunion?
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: What was that like at the Tony's?
21:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Because watching you all do that, felt just as mind-blowing as the first time.
21:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I just, Lynn, Manuel Miranda, I love to drop his name whenever I can.
21:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Just set me a text this morning with the TikTok of somebody
22:01
[SPEAKER_04]: recording their face while watching the Tony performance, like going through all the emotions when different ones of us came out, like just laughing like it because it was just such a joy for us.
22:10
[SPEAKER_04]: We're still also high from it and missing each other already and it was only two days ago.
22:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, my response was, you know, just we're just mind blown that the world would celebrate with us.
22:28
[SPEAKER_04]: The thing that is our greatest joy and that's reuniting as a family, that the world would recognize that they're a part of the family and celebrate it with us and allow us to have that moment and it was over too quick.
22:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course.
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course.
22:43
[SPEAKER_04]: It was awesome and it'll live with me forever and it's really just kind of explains how this whole show feels and that is how can there be something more to receive from this?
22:54
[SPEAKER_04]: It's mind blowing.
22:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know the show has always been around whether you're in it or out of it, but when you get everybody to get the like that, I mean, is it like, is it like, you know,
23:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You go hang out with friends that you haven't known in twenty years and everybody just becomes the person they were in that moment.
23:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
23:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
23:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It is, it is like that.
23:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a lot of, you know, it's love all over the room.
23:19
[SPEAKER_04]: We just keep saying it over and over and over again.
23:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And also we're ridiculously silly.
23:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, you know, all in every group of friends, you have you kind of have a language.
23:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
23:29
[SPEAKER_04]: You have ways to start talking.
23:30
[SPEAKER_04]: You have, you know,
23:32
[SPEAKER_04]: You have your inside jokes, you have, yeah.
23:34
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's all of those things that come just rushing back in a lot of laughing and a lot of our phones up all the time, trying to save it, trying to capture the moment.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Which thank you for the content, by the way, have enjoyed that as well.
23:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I know a lot of us have.
23:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I have so much content.
23:51
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I have whole documentary of Hamilton content.
23:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And I totally, I have a documentary that we, we premiered in a bunch of film festivals last year.
24:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And I went to my cast and I said, please download all of your content and send it to me.
24:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And one of the cast members Andrew Shappelle said, should we just license all this to you now or nay?
24:16
[SPEAKER_04]: because clearly you're going to try to make something of this.
24:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we we love each other.
24:22
[SPEAKER_04]: We're in heaven when we're together.
24:24
[SPEAKER_04]: We're sad it's already over, but it's not over because this whole ten year celebration
24:29
[SPEAKER_04]: is going to continue.
24:30
[SPEAKER_04]: We have some other things in store.
24:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
24:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
24:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I want to bring up the other family that you've been a part of for the last few years, which girls five ever.
24:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Yay.
24:39
[SPEAKER_01]: For Sarah's been on the show a handful of times.
24:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And we love having her around here.
24:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But of course, then, God, listen, okay, the show is not, it doesn't exist right now.
24:50
[SPEAKER_01]: New episodes, right?
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It got canceled.
24:52
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
24:53
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it?
24:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so glad you asked.
24:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Let me clarify.
24:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Please.
24:57
[SPEAKER_04]: We're afraid of the narrative.
24:58
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we're glad that anybody's talking about us in months to talk about us at all, but I'll tell you.
25:05
[SPEAKER_04]: The show was picked up by Netflix for a third season and they only picked up one season.
25:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So we did the one season and it was spectacular.
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It was spectacular.
25:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely spectacular.
25:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And then they also love the show so much that they bought the right to air the first two seasons that were on peacock.
25:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So you can see the first two some peacock you can see all three seasons on Netflix because they went out of their way to be able to provide that.
25:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And now we're just kind of you know in a holding pattern waiting to see if we would ever make more.
25:38
[SPEAKER_04]: But there was no canceling because there was no like, oh, we had planned to do something more in my heart.
25:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I love the show so much and the show is so loved even by even by the executives at Netflix that I know and love.
25:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I have this dream that in like ten years.
25:56
[SPEAKER_04]: We're gonna be back.
25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all what happened, right?
25:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
25:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I think it'll be even funnier in about ten years when we're, you know, when we're dressing alike and doing harmony and like, you know, trying to take over malls that I'm sure won't exist by that point.
26:13
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's my dream for the show.
26:15
[SPEAKER_04]: But what it's given me, other than this the opportunity to create this character wiki Roy, that is my Sasha fierce.
26:25
[SPEAKER_04]: is my sister fear.
26:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's the why I've been able to, I'm sure that all of the things we've already talked about might not have been as easy for me to discover if it had not been for this wiki-roy character from girls five ever who's so unapologetically ambitious.
26:41
[SPEAKER_04]: End of noxious, but we kind of lever for that.
26:44
[SPEAKER_04]: But the other thing that's a gift to me is knowing Sarah Burrellis and Paula Pell and busy fill-ups.
26:50
[SPEAKER_04]: knowing these women who are just their just bosses.
26:56
[SPEAKER_04]: They have so much to say and they are always, always, always just changing the world with what, with the art that comes out of them.
27:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Sarah, this is a segue.
27:07
[SPEAKER_04]: When we were shooting girls by the time I told her, I, you know, sheepishly, that I was recording an original album and she said, oh, I have a song.
27:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I have a great song that I, you know, wrote and I think you would sing it great.
27:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll set it to you.
27:23
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, maybe you want to, maybe you want to use it.
27:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was like, okay, like, what is my life?
27:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And I've just written a song called I met someone and she sent me this song called I don't want to love you.
27:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I met someone is about this moment where I tell somebody that has loved me and that I love very much that I met someone else and have to figure out how to make words to break someone's heart.
27:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't want to love you.
27:48
[SPEAKER_04]: It feels like the other side of the coin.
27:50
[SPEAKER_04]: It feels like hearing those words.
27:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It is so perfect because everything she writes is perfect.
27:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And I thought it was such a wonderful companion to both sides of that conversation.
28:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I recorded it and I loved it and I finally had the courage to send it to her and she gave me your stamp of approval.
28:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's one of my favorite songs on the album.
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I love about this is in my notes right here.
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I have those two songs together.
28:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Not because I put it together thematically, which I'm always a little late on picking up all the cues, right?
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But, but that's what when I heard those two, I hadn't read the line or notes.
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know that Sarah had co-written on it or anything like that.
28:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I first heard met someone, as I was talking about like you hear these little sort of things, I was like, I can hear little Sarah.
28:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:35
[SPEAKER_01]: In her, you know, the way she phrases vocals or something like that, and meds them one, and then to read the notes and see, but, but don't want to love you is actually the song that she is like, I mean, those songs literally were meant for each other.
28:49
[SPEAKER_04]: They, oh, can I still, I'm gonna take some notes here.
28:52
[SPEAKER_04]: All the things that you've said.
28:55
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what you're doing.
28:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I absolutely feel like they were meant for each other.
29:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so glad you said it.
29:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Especially because she is, I think maybe one of the greatest singer songwriters that's ever lived.
29:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't believe I get to live in the same time as her and actually feel that she's my sister and actually have her
29:18
[SPEAKER_04]: kind of, you know, calling me and checking in from time to time saying, how's it going?
29:21
[SPEAKER_04]: What are you doing?
29:22
[SPEAKER_04]: What support do you need?
29:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it really is a very pinch pinch me to have a support of someone who does it better than anybody.
29:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And, and it's I think pretty brave, perhaps a little, a little reckless to put a Sarah Borella song and a Lynn Manuel Miranda's song.
29:43
[SPEAKER_04]: on an album, a debut original music album.
29:46
[SPEAKER_04]: That's pretty brave because what's most likely is everyone's gonna hear it.
29:52
[SPEAKER_04]: They're gonna pick those two songs off and be like, these are my favorite and move on with their life.
29:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And so the fact that other ones here have stood next to them bravely and confidently makes me very happy.
30:09
[SPEAKER_01]: When you've got songs like Staring and Love Returns, you get no problem standing up next to those.
30:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And come on, you're an absolute legend with what you've done in your career.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, putting those two on a pedestal higher than you.
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You're all you're all standing there.
30:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's it.
30:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I actually need to hear it.
30:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to write that down too.
30:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It's helpful to hear because because you know, you you what one thing when you do something and that's why that's why I want to take notes on what you're saying, when you do something, you're one of the greatest gifts is recognizing.
30:48
[SPEAKER_04]: what other people are doing when they do something well.
30:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, not only, like, oh, that's great, but knowing why it's great, knowing what was hard about it, knowing what kind of mind-blowing thing that maybe no one else might get is happening.
31:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, that's kind of my perspective when I watch some of my heroes work.
31:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it could be daunting, but really what it is is inspiring, because one thing they all do is that they take great risks.
31:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, well done on the risk that you've taken all over this album.
31:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And in your career, I mean, she's there's so many things.
31:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what, what, what do you, what do you, what's going on next?
31:27
[SPEAKER_04]: What's next?
31:28
[SPEAKER_04]: That's really great.
31:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, in the moment it is, is it is learning how to promote this album, actually, that that's actually
31:36
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the trickiest things I've found because I'm so used to promoting other people's work.
31:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And I feel like I'm good at it.
31:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I love to do it because I believe in it.
31:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I know who I am at it.
31:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And what's what's been a little trickier is standing up for myself.
31:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And answering the question, who are you really Renee?
31:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that's actually the only reason I regret.
31:58
[SPEAKER_04]: You met the title track is because I've had to find an answer for it.
32:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And even that is growing because I, because the answer keeps changing and that's good.
32:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Right now, the answer is simply me in all of its forms.
32:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's also not about the answer, but about the search, the search to figure it out.
32:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I hope you keep searching.
32:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether you arrive there or not, if it means albums like this, and I hope it doesn't take too long for you to do your sophomore album.
32:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you got your whole life to do your first album, right?
32:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So, and then you got to be ready.
32:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I've heard, I've heard people say I've heard artists say you better have a lot of music stored up for your sophomore album and write behind my computer screen.
32:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm looking at a wall of song titles for for album number two and I'm glad that you said that because I'm ready.
32:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right on.
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I can't wait.
32:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I love this album so much.
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so happy you made it.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you so much for taking the time to talk about it.
33:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for giving me a better way to talk about it.
33:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And most importantly, thank you for celebrating it.
33:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't, you don't, you can't imagine how helpful it is in figuring out who I am and what this is to hear people that you respect affirm you.
33:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
33:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And my thanks to Renee, who I really am, is the new album.
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks to you for checking out the episode.
33:28
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