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June 25, 2024 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von
01:37:39
E512 Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran is a Grammy award-winning singer and songwriter originally from West Yorkshire, England. He is currently on tour through the rest of the summer, and also celebrating the 10th anniversary of his popular album “X”. Theo is joined by Ed Sheeran at his bar in London to chat about all the big differences between England and America, Ed’s life in the spotlight and living up to the expectations of fans, and the eternal debate over gingers. Ed Sheeran: https://www.instagram.com/teddysphotos/?hl=en —---------------------------------------------- Special thanks to: Bertie Blossoms https://www.instagram.com/bertie_blossoms/?hl=en  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit  https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ  BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% off your first month. Shopify: Go to http://shopify.com/theo to sign up for a $1-per-month free trial. Tommy John: Go to http://tommyjohn.com/theo to save 20% off your first order.   ZocDoc: Go to http://zocdoc.com/theo to download the free Zocdoc app and book a top-rated doctor today. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Carl https://www.instagram.com/senseicarl_/?hl=en  Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Time Text
I have some new tour dates to tell you about.
I will be in Long Beach, California, July 10th.
Los Angeles, California, July 11th, Bethel, New York, July 31, Albany, New York on August 1. Get your tickets early with code RATKING starting Tuesday, June 25th at 10 a.m.
local time.
General on sale starts Wednesday, June 26th at 10 a.m.
local time.
As well, we have shows in Salt Lake City, June 30th, Las Vegas, July 5th and 6th, and Bangor, Maine, August 9th, as well as every other city that's on the tour.
Everything is still all good to go.
You can get tickets at theovon.com slash T-O-U-R.
And thank you guys so much for the support.
Today's guest is one of the biggest musicians in the world.
He's won all the awards.
He's set attendance records everywhere.
He's celebrating the 10th anniversary of his album, Multiply.
We get to catch up right here in London in his bar, Birdie Blossoms.
And I'm grateful for his time.
today's guest is Mr. Ed Sheeran.
Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Oh Shine on me.
I love you.
Who's been your least favorite guest?
Least favorite?
Oh, this guy.
He was like a money guy.
Oh, Wolf of Wall Street.
Oh, yeah.
Jordan Belfort.
Jordan Belfort, yeah.
I just didn't like his inner, like, I don't know.
He seemed like a con artist.
And he wouldn't kind of say yes.
Yeah.
He seemed like a cool con artist.
Like, certainly one of the better.
You're right.
That's a good point.
I guess he's kind of like Jesse James, maybe in a way, like one of those wild guys.
Yeah.
So what are you doing in London other than shows?
That's it, man.
Yeah.
Just came over to you guys' country to do shows, man.
I love that you flew from Manchester.
Oh, yeah.
It's like, because there's a train from central Manchester into central London.
So you would have driven out of central Manchester, flown to out of central London, and then gone.
It's such a long trip.
Could have just taken an hour and a half train.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, damn.
I didn't even know that.
I know.
Life hacks.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
I didn't.
Damn.
I probably would have been faster.
Way faster.
Yeah.
Way, way, way faster.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I'm actually genuinely feeling bad about that right now.
No, it's all right.
It's all right.
Planet's in crisis.
More flights.
Yeah.
That's true.
We'll do it that way.
Good to see you today, Ed.
Nice to be.
Nice to see you, man.
Nice to meet you.
Thanks for coming here as well.
Thanks for making the effort to come here.
You're welcome.
This is Birdie Bottoms.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
Birdie Bottoms.
Birdie Bottoms.
And how do you know if the bottoms are Birdie or not?
So it's Blossoms.
So my manager's wife is called Liberty.
My wife is called Cherry.
And me and my manager set this bar up and blossom for Cherry, Bertie for Liberty, Bertie Blossoms.
Oh, I love it.
Yeah.
Gives us an excuse to come drink it.
Oh, yeah, I bet.
Dude, but sometimes, like, so is this a place where people can meet their wife at?
Is that the kind of thing that we're?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or, you know, husband.
Or yeah, or husband, yeah.
But do you have like a wife-husband meeting night?
Like a night where it's like, hey, this is the like Tuesdays.
It's like spout, all you can spouse.
Yeah, they come in and they chuck the keys in and then it's just a massive orgy.
Well, huge.
That's, I mean, that went a little far, but yeah, I was just thinking like, yeah, do they at least just get to meet somebody?
Do you know what?
When I come here, I come in this back room and that's kind of it.
Yeah, I don't really, I don't really know.
Maybe.
Yeah, maybe.
You never know.
Just kind of relax.
Yeah.
This is where like if I'm having like a dinner or a meeting with someone, it will usually be back here.
You can sort of like drink what you want, smoke, stay as long as you want.
It's cool.
At Bertie Blossoms, yeah.
At Bertie Blossoms, yeah.
Yeah, sorry I got it wrong, man.
It's been a layout.
Some of the exchange rate on the language has been tough.
Yeah.
I liked that when I arrived, you kept calling.
We're like, cheers, mate.
Nice, mate.
I liked it.
Yeah.
It's good.
Yeah, I've been trying to get with it, man.
I lived in Nashville for a couple of years and I got the drool, I think.
Yeah.
Being there, yeah.
I owned a cowboy hat.
Oh, wow.
had a camouflage hoodie as well?
Yeah, you really...
Do you know, so I lived on a lake for the first year and I bought a fishing rod from Walmart because I was like, I'm going to go fishing.
I've never been fishing before.
And I sat, I threw it in.
And then after about an hour, my mate came up and was like, have you put bait on it?
And I was like, I didn't know you were going to do that.
So I just sat with a fishing rod really in the lake.
Yeah.
Like a fan of mine fishing.
I just assumed a fish would like swim past and catch the hook.
I don't know.
I'd never fished before, you know?
It wasn't something that I'd grown up doing.
You got to put something on.
I know that now.
Yeah, yeah.
I know that now.
Wow.
I've never heard of anybody doing that.
a child or something or a blind fella well i feel i feel like in some ways i am quite i So I think in some ways I am still a teenager.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, I think it's like, and I think some creative people just grow, they kind of grow up slow, I feel like, in a way.
Well, you sort of don't have the same, I don't know, brutal life lessons, I guess.
When I was like, I moved to London when I was like 17 and I was having regular brutal life lessons of just like, no, this is what the real world is.
And then I think when you, you know, started doing well about 20, about 19, 20, and then you sort of like, if you make a mistake, it's kind of all right.
You know, you don't have like the brutal real life lesson, I guess.
When you're doing when life is, when you have like a success and stuff going on, is that what you mean, kind of?
Well, yeah, I mean, you will know this with comedy, like a brutal life lesson of like it's not going to be easy is bombing or playing to an empty room or blah blah blah.
That kind of stops happening when you have success.
There's definitely you have peaks and troughs in your career where people are more interested or less interested, but you don't have the like.
I don't know.
I don't think you have as many normal life lessons.
You still get quite abnormal life lessons, I think, because in the sort of celebrity sphere, it can be quite abnormal, but you don't have the like regular stuff.
Yeah, does that make sense?
Yeah, I think it does, dude.
I am the worst person to ask if something makes sense or not, to be honest with you.
Yeah, every time people ask me.
My mates are so excited that I'm doing this today, by the way.
Who is?
All of my friends.
All of my friends.
Yeah, the guy that, there's a guy living at our house at the moment, and he was like trying to get off work to just come down and just say hi.
Oh, and just mill around?
Like a loitering, they call it.
Yeah, yeah.
I think you guys, loitering must be a British thing, huh?
Because we wouldn't say that.
Loitering.
What would you say?
We do like, oh, yeah, stalking.
Well, stalking is more like once you've loitered and you see something in the window, you know.
You see something, you see a bit of tits in the distance or something.
But yeah, that's stalking.
Yeah, yeah.
And then it's breaking and entering, you know.
And then it's marriage, usually.
If you have a way with words, I think.
But yeah, I think.
Are you married?
Loitering sounds very British.
No, no, I'm not married.
I would like to be, kind of.
I guess you have to loiter more for that to happen.
Yeah, I need a bit more loitering.
I need to bring the binoculars, you know?
Maybe bring a Red Bull.
That's the loiterer you got to really be aware of.
The Red Bull loiter.
Yeah, it's just standing there with the Red Bull.
Small sips.
Small sips.
I haven't had Red Bull in years, man.
Oh, probably good for you.
Yeah.
Yeah, there was a time when I was doing loads and loads of breakfast TVs and radios and stuff like that.
It used to be those massive monster drinks.
When you were touring, like to get your singles out there and stuff like that?
You used to kind of like have to turn up at like 3.30 a.m.
to a German weather program to play 30 seconds of your new single.
So like those, those stages, yeah.
Chance of rain, but chance of Ed Sheeran first.
I remember so clearly playing.
I got up at like, they were doing it in some like theme park in the middle of Germany and it was just obviously empty because it was like 4 a.m.
Yeah, they lost it.
And I start playing on this thing, on this weather program, and then I can see the credits rolling underneath me, like 10 seconds in, and I'm like, am I the fucking playout music?
And then they just stopped it.
So I played 10 seconds of my new single, basically.
Yeah.
God, love.
Germany was a tough market for me for a while.
And then the egg was cracked.
And now we're good.
You'd think they'd take a look at you and be like, oh, he could be one of us, you know?
I feel like you look like a closet German.
Is that fair to say to somebody?
I don't even know.
I'm just lawyers.
No, I think, I think, well, the red hair is more Celtic.
So I'd say the Scottish or Irish or like the Norwegians, I think, would look at me and be like, there's some Viking.
You've got a bit of Viking in you.
We'll take them.
Yeah, I might have a little bit.
Like, you'll see me in the frozen food area, kind of like in the store, you know?
Yeah.
I'll mill about in there, you know.
Lloyd.
You know.
What's your background heritage?
Have you got European?
I'm Polish, yeah, Nicaraguan.
Right.
My dad was from Nicaragua.
His parents met down there and he was born there.
And then my mother, I don't know, dude, but wherever she's from, they have some real one-of-a-kind type ladies.
Do you have rage in you?
Are you an angry guy?
You seem a very chill guy.
Can you have an argument with someone?
Yeah, I don't know if I have an argument.
I like have kind of trouble processing my feelings.
So I'm like that, I'm always like the start and stop with, you know, I'm like the guy who like can't get like the gear shift to work or something.
You're watching that guy drive.
You know, I'm like a student driver.
Yeah, yeah.
When it comes to my feelings, do they have student drivers here?
Yeah, yeah.
I didn't learn to drive until I was 24. Because like, as I said, with the train thing, public transport here is actually really, really good.
So I never learned to drive.
And then, mate, on my first driving test, so I'd learned, I was learned to drive for like eight, eight months.
And on the first test, I failed because I was going around a roundabout and my mum called me to see if I passed the test.
And I just quickly took it and like canceled the call.
And then the driving instructor was just like, you've just failed the test for that.
And she was ringing to see if I'd passed.
Yeah.
Oh.
Yeah.
I failed.
God, dude, that's when you got to just, yeah, that's kind of the time I'm glad my mom didn't care that much.
Yeah.
You know, because yeah, I passed it.
But you probably, but Americans can drive from like 16, right?
But they shouldn't all be allowed to drive.
And they'll.
But do you think American drivers, man, like when I'm over there, I'm like, this is fucking sketchy.
They drive to sketchy.
Yeah.
They drive.
I sort of feel like here we have to learn how to like parallel park and do all these other things.
I think in America, it's like, can you reverse?
Good.
Yeah.
Past.
Yeah.
Well, which I think people are, America, just anything can be a weapon there.
You know, it's like.
So what have you got hidden under your bed?
What's your weapon?
Oh.
Weapon of choice.
I've probably a couple knives.
A lot of my kitchen knives are in my room.
Cool.
Kind of strategically placed or whatever.
You know, like, oh, I'll be here.
I need a knife.
And you have kids.
So they're not like reaching under the bed and finding a huge.
No, no, no.
And I go small blade kind of.
You know, I'm more of a, you know.
I think I'd be more terrified of you with a kitchen blade than a kitchen.
Yeah, I'm more of a chef than like a hatchet guy.
You know, I'm more like I'll Juliana burglar.
But have you got a meat cleaver in the bedroom?
That would be terrifying.
Seeing you running down a corridor fully naked with a meat cleaver.
Yeah, dude.
Especially if somebody thinks they want, somebody orders a small sausage, dude.
Because I'll friggin cut one up right there, dude.
It'll be out of business in a moment.
If you had a home invasion and you had a meat cleaver in that, that would be far more terrifying.
Oh, I would yell.
I have a meat cleaver.
That's the first thing I would yell at them.
Oh, my God.
I think that would be something else.
Dude, what was something I was going to tell you?
Oh, what was I thinking?
Yeah, dude, I don't know a ton.
I know some British music.
We've had a nice time over here.
We went to Ireland.
Not Britain, though.
And that's not Britain.
No.
And if you make that mistake in Ireland, they will boo you.
They don't, yeah.
If you say.
If you say it's good to be back in the UK, you will get booed there.
But if you say fuck England, they will cheer.
Yeah, I will.
Actually, if you say that in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
They'll cheer?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Especially now, like Scotland now in the Euros.
So I played the Euros launch, whatever, on Wednesday.
I was in Germany, and it's a.
It's the Euros launch, what is the football game?
Footballs, yeah.
Okay, soccer.
Footballs.
And I made the decision to wear an English shirt on stage in Germany, and it was mostly German and Scottish fans because that's the first game.
Didn't go down hugely well.
But then I was like, I'm not going to wear a German shirt on.
Right, because that's posing.
Yeah.
I got given like five German shirts before the show as well to like take pictures with and blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, I'm just not going to wear these.
Yeah.
Yeah.
People get so competitive about that kind of stuff, man.
Who's your football team?
Like, who's who are you supporting in the Euros?
You've got to subscribe to some of it.
Probably Scotland, probably.
Yeah.
They're playing today.
Playing Germany today.
Of course they are.
If they beat Germany, that's a big, big party in Scotland.
Oh, they don't have a chance, I don't think.
No, you would be surprised.
You'd be like, yeah, yeah, anything can happen.
I hope that they win.
We lost to Iceland the other day.
Oh, God.
And they don't even have green grass, do they?
That's fucking unbelievable, dude.
I mean, that's a bit of a sad thing.
I like it, though.
I like the unpredictableness of football.
I find like American sport, I find really, You just get given more money in first draft.
So you have your teams.
And then if someone's bad, they go to the bottom, they get first draft, they can get better again.
Here, if you're bad, you're out of the league.
You're just out.
And you go into a league that's not on television and you have to fight to get back up into the league that's on television.
And if you're bad in that league, you go to a lower league.
My football team, like for the past six years, have not been on television at all.
We were in the third division two years ago.
And we've just finally got back up to the Premier League.
But it's more exciting.
It's unpredictable.
Whereas I'm a big Tennessee Titans fan and they're kind of always here.
Yeah.
They're pretty mid.
Yeah.
But you know what?
Even in the game itself, I didn't realize that till you just said that.
It's more unpredictable in the game.
It's like with soccer, like you can get the ball back in a moment.
Yeah.
So you could suddenly be an offense.
But in the NFL, it's like it's very tactical.
Yeah, you know it's going to be a little while before you get the ball back, you know, and then there's going to be a lot of people.
And if you drop your guard in soccer for five minutes, your team can be like there was one World Cup that was in Brazil and Brazil were arguably the best team at that time.
And Germany ended up beating them 7-1 just because there was like 20 minutes of them letting their guard down.
Yeah, that was insane, bro.
I remember that.
I was in Vegas actually when I was watching it.
That's where I met you at in Vegas.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Man, that was a crazy night.
Dude, what was that?
Because like the change fuckers were just supposed to be performing, right?
I had gone, I was doing my final tour show.
So we basically were meant to play the Allegiance Stadium in August, and we'd set up our whole state.
I have an in-the-round stage, and we have these massive pylons that basically hang up all the speakers and screens and stuff like that.
And it's weighted.
So everything has to be exactly the same weight.
And in a regular stadium, it's a concrete floor.
You put them in, they stay there.
We didn't realize that Allegiance Stadium didn't have a concrete floor.
I don't know where that misalignment happened.
But anyways, we put it in.
It has a rubber floor and the stage was slowly slipping.
And these are like, you know, tons and tons and tons and tons of steel would have fallen on people.
So we had to cancel the gig 20 minutes before it started.
And Vegas isn't a place where like people, like 80,000 people that live in Vegas are going to go.
People had flown in.
They got hotels and so hot.
It was like one of the worst days on tour.
It was just, it was grim.
So we rescheduled the Allegiant Stadium gig for then.
So that was my final show of the tour.
And yeah, we got pretty fucking lit up afterwards.
And that's where I saw you.
I know the Chainsmokers, so I'd sort of turned up and then kind of turned into karaoke.
Yeah, because I was sort of thinking if you'd spent money on like a VIP table that night to see the Chainsmokers and then suddenly just there's drunk me on stage in a Avengers mask.
It was like, and here's the thing, man.
People knew it was you.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think at first people were.
I was very aware, but like I was just wearing the mask they were wearing it.
Okay, it was Halloween, remember?
It was Halloween.
Yeah, let's say that.
So do you know those guys?
Yeah, I just know them from like seeing them at different shows and being around them and stuff like that.
But their energy is always fun and good, you know, and like I just love getting to spend time with them.
Their shows are always fun.
Like I go to their shows sometimes.
I'll go to Diplo.
Would I go to Fred again recently?
I like going to see what some of the DJs are like, you know.
But then you got up and it seemed like you were going to maybe do one song.
And I was like, how are they going to get, are they going to go to like a little bit more ballad?
What are they going to do?
And then by the, by like four songs later, it's just, it's a, uh, it's your show, man.
That was it, dude.
Four songs later, and it's just a, it's an edge here, and people are just kissing and there's doves and stuff.
So I don't know, where the, where'd we get a bunch of fucking doves?
You know, there's like, it was very, it was very interesting, I felt.
Like people were making wishes and stuff and hugging their grandmothers.
Are you going to go to any of the World Cup games in 26 in America?
I probably will.
And that's soccer, yeah?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I'll probably get over to some of them.
Soccer's been pretty bad, man.
Our country's going through a lot.
I'll be honest with you.
It's one of the reasons why I'm over here.
Have you not noticed ours is too?
I feel like English people and Americans, they always are like, oh, do you know what?
the other place is better.
And then you go to the other place and you're like, Like, we travel a lot and it's like election time all around the world.
And everywhere I go, I'm like, oh, it's kind of the same here as well.
I feel like everyone is going through a shift of.
Oh, that's a good point.
You guys' elections are happening right now, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's pretty, pretty bonkers some of the shit that's coming out.
Like, it's like, you're sort of watching these interviews being like, does your like brain connect to your mouth?
Like, I sometimes feel like people don't want to get elected.
Yeah.
But they're saying stuff to just be like, now I'm done, man.
I'm done.
It's mad.
Well, I'm sure you probably, there's probably times you get halfway into something.
You're like, I don't know about this.
Like, people get stage-fried at the altar all the time sometimes.
Or sometimes you'll buy something at the market and you'll put it back on the, like, with the gums or the candies or something.
put like just a pack of like sausages back there or something.
So I think that there's- As long as it's not an indentured servant, I think we're good.
Just because Britain's had their history.
And I'm not saying America didn't polish it up a little, but we've all, you know, we've all sinned a little.
Or we didn't, but forefathers definitely, you know, had some crazy plans.
But yeah, dude, but yeah, it's nice to be over here.
I like some, like, I'll listen to James Blake.
I like his music a lot, you know?
So I'll listen to some James Blake.
And yeah, I'll listen to Fred again.
What other kind of, I'm trying to think of British music do I listen to?
Oh, nice day for a Wad Wedding.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
That guy, you know him?
No.
No, I don't.
I mean, I know the song.
I don't know him.
Start again.
Who's your Every Little Sister?
Maybe that's not the lyric.
I'm not sure NFL scene then.
Oh, sorry.
I'm a Saints, New Orleans Saints fan.
Cool.
Are you from New Orleans then?
Yeah, that's where I'm from, out of Louisiana.
So why moved to Nashville?
Well, I lived in LA for a while, and then Nashville was open during the pandemic.
Yeah, yeah.
So you could do what you want.
You could like, you know, you could spit on people and they were still okay with it, you know?
The good criteria to move to a town because you're like, can I spit on people?
Or, you know, you could talk, you know, you could just, you know, I mean, you couldn't even, yeah, it just, that mask, when you think about what the mask, it just like you could, I will say this, though, you could look at somebody and kind of lick your lips in a way that you wouldn't normally be able to.
And that's something I miss.
You know, just being point blank.
I like the fact I can move.
I really love public transport and I can move around easier now since COVID because wearing a ski mask is not seen as creepy.
Yeah.
People just, you're just sort of in a ski mask.
Oh, that's a good point.
You're just still in one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Every now and then, yeah, if I go in the airport now and I'll just wear like one of those long neck ones, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
And I definitely feel like, oh, people are like, who's the weirdo still with the neck and the glasses and the hat?
And I'll even put a wig on sometimes and like, who the hell is this lady?
Which is a good idea.
Yeah, trying to get a lot of stuff.
I get some lady.
I considered dressing up as Santa Claus when I went to the supermarket at Christmas because I was like, I was like, I really need to go and get Christmas supplies.
But the supermarket's obviously really busy at Christmas.
And I'm not like, I don't blend in that well.
And I was like, if I dressed up as Santa Claus, maybe that'd be fine.
Walk in, get your Christmas supplies.
Everyone's like, Santa's here, you know.
Did I see?
There's no way I saw it here in a Santa Claus buying bagels.
Did you see that fighter that looked like you the other day?
It was like on a UFC fight or something.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I thought it was your brother.
Well, he is a look-alike.
he is.
Did you not see the thing where there was the Floyd Mayweather And I was like, I was ringsized, but it was this look-alike.
And some YouTubers had done a thing where they were like, let's try and fool them.
And they got this lookalike.
And Eddie Hearn essentially just gave my lookalike ringside tickets.
And he was only, the only way that he was found out was Justin Bieber turned up and was like, that's not Ed.
Wow.
But yeah, I did see it.
I did see it.
Did you see the Eddie Hall one?
No, I didn't see it.
What is it?
Can we watch it?
Can we get the Eddie Hall one up?
Because look, I just, the other night I was going through this on TikTok or something.
The other night.
So this is the same, the same thing.
Just go on the shorter one, like the real?
Oh, sorry, the shorts.
Just down there.
Yeah, one of them.
Just two on the replay.
Oh, my gosh, huh?
And are those the island boys?
Oh, what, Jedwards?
Who's he beating?
Oh, there who?
Oh, that guy's Irish for sure, the one he tossed.
Like, wow.
Oh, my God, huh?
Just sleeping pit.
So that was the same night, I think, that my lookalike was doing the fight.
Well, this is what it's coming to.
That's good, boys.
We get it.
I don't think.
This is what it's coming to.
No, Ed, I'm just going to let you know.
This is the kind of thing that it's coming to.
People are going to, you're going to have like freckled stepmother versus like, you know, gambling addict, Vietnamese or something.
You know, it's going to, it's getting, that's, we're all going to be bet.
It's just constant betting.
I think you can feel it coming up in the world.
It's like.
Would you do one of them?
Against a male or female, you think?
Against Caleb.
Oh, against Caleb Presley?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, man.
You and him both have the mischievous look in your eyes all the same time.
So you guys could be related.
I had a good night with Caleb.
Did you?
I was just with him in Lisbon yesterday.
My friend got married and we went to Lisbon.
I went over there to see him.
Caleb came to a show in Dublin and then we went over there.
It was really cool.
Lisbon's amazing.
Lisbon is amazing.
Lisbon's amazing.
Caleb's great though, dude.
He's very smart, mischievous.
He likes to like...
Between me and Caleb?
Yeah.
That's a great question.
You and him both get in a cage.
You put on those little gloves.
But how little the gloves?
Here's what I think you have to do.
Gloves that are way too small.
Not just gloves that are like weighted gloves, but like extra small.
Yeah.
And then your hands are like this, you know?
And then you have to fight.
Like, oh, dang.
Did you ever fight at school?
Did you do wrestling and stuff?
I've gotten beat.
I got beaten a decent amount as a lad, I remember.
I remember at our school, if you got in a fight during school, this is what they made you do.
You had to stand in the hall, whoever you fought, and you had to put your hands on each other's shoulders for the rest of the day and just be there and looking at each other and talking.
So by the end of the day, you were friends with whoever you fought, you know?
And all the kids would come down the hall between class and call you a wanker or whatever, you know, or, you know, That sounds actually quite a good way to solve problems.
I thought it was.
Yeah.
Because there was no, by the end of the day, you had to make each other laugh or figure out what went on.
And you realize that, like, yeah, you're probably similar people.
Similar enough.
Yeah.
Well, you certainly didn't hate like.
Didn't hate each other, but at the end of the day.
Yeah.
Or if you thought the guy was a bully, you got to kind of figure it out with him.
And you work out why he was being a bully or lashing out.
Right.
Yeah.
What was going on?
I thought, just kind of an interesting program, man.
Yeah, I don't have a wife, but I'm probably going to get one one of these days.
And so do you think it's hard?
Because you're like the love, like a lot of your songs have like a lot of love in them, you know?
And so is it hard to still be like, does your wife ever feel like, oh, you write all the good songs for the whole world?
No, I think, you know, we went to high school together.
So we've known each other 22 years now.
And all of our mates are the same friends.
So we're like, we have like a little Suffolk cohort.
And it's, she's very, she's very comfortable with, she's known me through everything.
So she's not like, there's not really any self-consciousness that comes through it, I guess.
And we are, I mean, we're with each other.
I'm going to see her after this to have a little break.
But like, yeah, we're with each other all the time.
So we talk a lot.
I find that small, lots of, lots of little, small, uncomfortable conversations save arguments.
So you just like, if anything ever comes up, and we'll just sort of nip it in the bud there rather than let like resentment build.
Yeah, I struggle with that sometimes, man.
Yeah, I'll just, I'll want to try and, yeah, I don't know.
Sometimes I can feel like right now you should probably say this.
That way everything will be smooth.
And there's a part of me that's like, and then you just have to be like, and just say it.
And then it's actually fine.
I kind of do that with like everyone.
I'm just trying, try to be like as honest as possible at all points.
And then there's not really, you kind of see it as like bricks in a backpack.
Like you've got loads of bricks in your backpack.
And if you can take a brick out quickly, it just lightens the load.
So it's just getting the bricks out.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, guys.
I wonder how many relationships for years, husbands and wives just sit on their words.
You know what I'm saying?
I think they go through every and just sitting on a fuck for a sentence, just one sentence.
Running at you with a meat cleaver.
Yeah, yeah.
And just serving the last sausage, brother, in the dark hallway.
Yeah.
Like a good man over there in Leeds or wherever.
What's the most dangerous place to be around here?
Here?
I'd say every area of London has a literally everywhere area is sketchy.
Like, I think that you cannot be anywhere.
I love that.
Yeah, it's not like a segregated city.
There's like, it's very...
No, I mean, the nice areas are sketchy, the bad areas are sketchy, but you just have to not do stupid shit.
Like, if you wander around with, I don't know, like a Louis Vuitton duffel bag and a 200 grand watch, you are going to get robbed.
But just don't do that.
Yeah, don't do it.
Yeah, I think, and y'all's robberies all have clues and stuff.
That's what I like about London.
Clues.
Or like, if, you know, if there's something that happens, it's like, oh, he has a clue, you know, and the detectives or whatever, then they're hot on your trail.
That's what I love.
That's one of like the, I think the things that, like, you guys.
I love that everything that you think about England is based on movies.
Because it's the way that I used to view America as well.
I remember going, I was, my wife went to Duke and we went back.
And my mother went to Duke.
Oh, good, good university.
But I remember we were in town for something and we were driving past the frat houses and I was like, I've never been to a frat party.
Should we just knock on the door of one of them and they'll be having a frat party like the movies?
And like, Cherry was like, yeah, I guess so.
They're a bit, it's not like that vibe.
And we went up, I knocked on the door.
One of them opened the door and was like, why are you knocking on our door?
And then we went in and it was just like three dudes and one guy who had his face super glued to the floor.
And it was like, not the vibe.
And I was like, this isn't like the movies.
You're like, this isn't.
He was just literally like this, face super glued down.
And they were just like, yeah, we don't really know.
Yeah, I think.
Well, it's hard to get that guy up, I bet.
And then, yeah, they're just in there manufacturing rehipanols or something like that, a GHB or whatever.
A lot of homemade GHB in those areas.
Yeah, it's not like the movies.
Yeah, it's not.
Yeah, nothing's kind of ever like, I don't know.
Like, even today, we pulled up in a Notting Hill and I was like, we're going to be in love or whatever.
Yeah.
Notting Hill is quite, this is quite, like, if you're talking about like nice areas, nothing else.
it just seemed romantic, you know, like you'd meet like, you know, Paddington bear is having a coffee with a woman or something over there, Yeah.
Caffeine-fueled BCLI, dude.
That's a new.
Have you ever done?
Have I ever fucked?
No, have you ever considered a collab with Paddington Bear?
Do you know what?
I would love to do a kids movie.
Now that I have children, I'd love to do some form of animated something with music.
I don't know if it's Paddington Bear or...
Because he's a famous British bear, isn't he?
Very famous.
Well, he's actually from...
Peru, yeah.
He's from...
He travels over to England.
He's obsessed with jam.
Is it jam sandwiches or peanut butter sandwich?
Jam.
And was he allowed to stay after Brexit or was he?
Well, this is me.
So I was like, I have the Irish passport.
I can tour more in Europe.
that like none of my crew can spend more than 90 days there.
And it used to be, And I think there will be a time where we will try and backtrack it a little bit and get back into Europe.
But yeah, it's it was one of the, it was such a divisive thing at the time.
Yeah, it was like 50% of the country thought we should leave, 50% of the country thought we should stay.
It was a very, very, very small margin that we left.
And I feel like the people that voted leave now are like, actually, wasn't the best idea.
Maybe we should have stayed.
Yeah.
That's how we're feeling, I think, after the Mayflower and everything.
I think we might build another Mayflower.
What is the Mayflower?
The ship that we left on a long time ago.
Right.
And when you say we, a lot of people.
Yeah.
I think a lot of people are going to be coming back.
Yeah, yeah.
I really do.
Like, we might build a June flower, July flower.
I don't know.
We're going to build one month.
We're going to build a big boat.
And I think we're coming back.
Cool.
I just don't think it's panned out as well as we expected over there.
It's just gotten kind of like a lot of the tradition, I think, is disappearing in America.
And maybe that's good.
Like, sometimes you just don't.
I think that's the scary thing about when tradition goes away.
What is the, because I see America as like lots and lots and lots of traditions and cultures.
What is the one central tradition that Americans can agree on?
That's a good point.
I think, or maybe we're just in a phase where there isn't really that, right?
And so that feels like scary.
You'll still celebrate July 4th and stuff like that.
That's like everyone will celebrate that, right?
Some people now are seeing it as it's like a bad thing, you know, like, but then it's not like we, it's like.
I turned up to my first July 4th in a red coat.
They do?
Yeah.
Let's go.
Just to and a flag.
Because I was like.
And the UK flag.
We're coming back.
Yeah, yeah.
Captain Jack.
What is it?
Union Jack.
Union Jack.
The flags are weird over here as well because I don't think you can fly flags unless the football's on.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If somebody's flying without the football, like, oh, that guy's not doing as well.
He's Scottish.
And no offense if anybody's Scottish, dude.
A lot of people are saying it's not even real.
It's just a glitch on the map.
But that is...
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Did you get to go to like the highlands or anything or try where they make scotch?
No, we didn't.
We didn't get to yet.
We didn't get to do a lot of stuff like that, dude.
Uh-uh.
I don't drink right now.
Really?
Yeah, because I buy drugs.
Yeah, I'm mad.
A clue.
What's your drug of choice?
Are you like going mad prescription?
No, I think my, I guess I'm probably more pretty much a straight cocaine guy.
You know, I would guess, yeah.
I would just, I would definitely, oh yeah.
I will even, I remember even when I quit doing drugs, I would still, if my buddy of mine was doing a line of cocaine, which I don't recommend to anyone, but I've done it a lot, but I would hold the back of his neck while he did it.
Like, that's how close I still want him to be to the action.
And that's very, the back of your neck is a sentimental place.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's also like that's quite like, I felt if someone grabbed the back of my neck, I'd be like, what is about to happen?
Yeah, it feels, but if they casually just ride, just, you know, just ride shotgun.
Still quite, there's still a bit of predator in that, though.
I agree.
Okay.
It's a really gentle caress.
That's even worse, the gentle caress on the back of the neck.
Oh, yeah.
Just the loitering of the hand.
It's like riding a shotgun on a line of cocaine, really, in a way.
Yeah.
But yeah, so obviously I've, you know.
So how long have you been sober for?
Probably about two years right now.
Congrats, man.
Thanks, man.
Amazing.
Appreciate it.
I had a couple years and it's just, yeah, because I get all squirreled out, you know.
I'll be in your yard, boy.
You know what I'm saying?
I'll be in your fucking yard.
Oh, yeah.
I'll be Fucking out there.
So now you are looking like I'm making you are the guy with the Red Bull.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, I look like I'm making Bluetooth or something.
I start, you know, getting the jitters.
People like, oh my God, that guy's showing up as a router.
That guy's not doing well, you know.
So that's kind of the stuff.
What's like a, since you've had, you've been obviously very gifted and had a lot of success and worked very hard, all those things.
What are some stuff that you kind of wanted to do and you didn't?
Because touring and stuff takes a lot of time.
And touring and working and it's like when you're in.
I've never been to a water park in my life.
Yeah.
And that's something that I'm like, I'd love to do at some point, but I've never been ever.
And is it because like a sunshine thing?
It's like a.
No, it's, as I said, like I got, I left school before school finished.
And no, it's not.
That's not a, I just, I left.
I went to be a singer.
I became a singer.
And in that time, I was working just flat out to become a singer.
And then I became a singer.
And then because I, people knew who I was, it sort of limited things that I could do.
But I never really did it in that I was so focused on my career that, you know, there were TV shows that were like massive cultural phenomenons at the time in my age group that I only discovered like five years ago.
Or like I didn't watch any football.
I didn't pay attention to this.
It was just so, I'm going to, I want to do this.
So yeah, there were some things that I missed out on in that time, one of which being it's a silly thing, but it's something that I would love to do at some point.
Oh, you should get a bet.
you should get a bus full of, I don't want to say ginger men or whatever and take them to a water park.
or I think you should get a bus full of- The ginger thing, because it's like, it is the last bastion of race that you can.
No, no, no, no, it's things that you can make fun of.
Someone on a TV show picked up, they put a picture of a ginger cat on, and they were like, this cat kind of looks like you.
And in my head, I was like, if there was someone fat on this couch and you got up a picture of a fat cat, that would be really offensive.
So when does the line start?
It stops just right outside of ginger, I think.
I think so too.
Apparently.
Well, in America, it stops.
The only people you can still make fun of are like redneck white people.
And everybody else is kind of off limits.
So it's like, you know.
Yeah.
But I've always supported people that are really pale with red hair.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Until they come out with an SPF milkshake.
I think you definitely, the amount of sort of fun that's made out of you as a kid makes for a good personality.
I feel like I have more fun than the pretty kids that I grew up with.
Oh, yeah, dude.
My best friend was the good-looking kid, dude.
Oh.
Caleb.
No, not him.
He's pretty good-looking, too, dude.
He also looks like a really hot woman in some countries.
Okay.
I'm not going to name him, but a lot of Slavic areas.
He's a nine, female nine, dude.
And that's only if he partially shaves.
So, but know my buddy Scott when I was growing up.
That's whose wedding I was at.
He was like the handsomest guy.
And he's just got no chat.
And he just, he, but no, he was great.
He was just, but yeah, I always had to be the other guy.
Yeah.
You know, and.
But you probably, you feel like you've aged like a fine wine, right?
I've aged, I've aged.
I've aged like a decent provolone, I think.
Yeah.
I don't know if I'd say fine wine.
Provolone.
Yeah, maybe.
Provolone age?
Provolone, I'm sure it ages, huh?
Just get moldy, right?
Yeah.
It's got to get tested every now and then.
You know what I'm saying?
Keep your pH balance decent.
But I was going to say, are there things you started to do in your career that you started, like it was another thing you wanted to start to learn, like learn a language?
You know, like Joe Rogan told me one day, he's like, when I'm done with doing this job, I want to paint.
And I never thought I would hear him say.
I was like, huh?
Yeah.
Howard Stern paints really, really well.
Howard Stern does like amazing watercolors.
Like you see them and you're like, holy shit.
Yeah.
Dude, Silence of the Lambs paints, dude.
That guy.
What's his name?
Anthony Hopkins.
Anthony Hopkins, dude.
Bring him up.
Oh, wow.
He paints.
That's amazing.
Do the lambs stop painting?
I paint as well.
Oh, really?
I didn't paint.
Actually, at the front of the pub, there's a painting that I did, but it's less, it's more, it's more I just go into a studio with canvases on the floor and just splash loads of colour.
And when it's done, it's done.
But that's more like I started doing that when I finished, I did this tour that ended in 2019.
And when it finished, I was like, I don't want to do music for like a month, but also I want to carry on being creative and do stuff.
So I started painting then.
I learned Italian as well.
And that was like a thing.
I bought a place in Italy and no one speaks English there.
So I was like, I have to learn Italian.
But those are like the two things that if I wasn't doing music, I'd like to put more time into.
And honestly, like discover, I love movies, discovering new things.
Yeah.
Like movies, like different artists, albums.
Will you listen to something or watch something to sometimes put you in like a mood to like create your own music even?
Or write songs?
My creative process is just basically like do it.
Like just get in and do it.
And if it's bad, forget about it and move on.
So I've tried to be creative every single day.
Write a song every single day or two songs every single day and not worry about whether it's good or not.
Like not be like, I feel like some people think that like writer's block is a thing where you're like, oh, I can't write songs.
But you can write songs.
You just can't write good songs.
So just like keep writing.
Get the bad ones out.
Exactly, yeah.
So Shape of View was written on a day and we wrote four other songs that day that no one's really heard.
And Shape of View came out of that.
And if I hadn't written the four bad songs, I wouldn't have got the one good song.
So yeah, just a process of just constantly doing it, but I don't think I've ever really watched the only movie that I've watched to create something was I did a song for The Hobbit and they showed me the movie and then they went, This is the point where the song comes in, and your song has to convey this and bring the audience out of the movie.
And it was a point where Smaugs go into the big town at the end and he's going to destroy it and cover it in fire and flames and blah, blah, blah.
So they were like, We need this chaotic bit and then a calm bit and you basically taking the audience out of the cinema.
So that was the first time I've been like inspired by a movie, I guess.
Wow, that's a pretty cool task, huh?
Yeah, really cool.
And also in that process, you're essentially working in a creative medium that you don't really know anything about and you're so excited.
Like I was so geeked out to be working with like Peter and Fran and then getting to do the press tour with all of the actors and stuff and you're suddenly there in a world that you don't really belong in.
But it's like, it's like the reason musicians are obsessed with sports players and the sports players are obsessed with musicians and it's because each can do something that the other can't do.
But there's still like a level of dedication you have to do to get to that point.
And I love being on the other side of the coin.
I went to my like, went to one of the Celtics games the other day and being like.
Boston Celtics?
Yeah.
Oh yeah, you get in free over there, I'm sure, dude.
There's no way.
They're like, he made it.
Finally, dude.
And no judgment, dude.
It's all good, man.
If I show up, yeah.
If I show up like at a remedial reading center, I fucking get in immediately.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But my point is being on the watching it, and I've never really had an appreciation for basketball before because I've never really like, I've been to like a couple of games, but like something clicked on that game and I was like, this is so exciting and they're so skilled and it's so fast.
And like what I loved about it is in football, if you're losing 5-0 with 10 minutes to go, you've lost.
And in basketball, you could be losing like by 20 or 30 points with the last two minutes to go and it just could go bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, and then win.
It's like really exciting.
Yeah.
Who's your basketball team?
Basketball, very difficult.
I don't know.
I don't know, dude.
Actually, I like Caitlin Clark's team.
I started following her in college, and I'll watch her highlights and stuff, you know?
She plays for Indiana Fever now, but me and Caleb went to an Iowa Hawkeyes game where she broke the record.
Wow.
Which was pretty cool, dude.
I like Iowa a lot.
We were pretty high.
I like Iowa, too, man.
You know, in Iowa.
I played IndyCar in Iowa.
Really?
Yeah, I remember.
Did you race or no?
No, I was just playing the gig.
I waved the flag.
Not very well.
But I remember walking.
You bring the Union Jack to that and people will get a little TO'd, I think.
Someone there, as I was walking to stage, someone grabbed my arm and looked at me dead in the eyes.
I was like, welcome to God's Country, Ed.
Oh, my God.
I loved it.
Oh, yeah.
That sounds like the ghost of high cholesterol found you, dude, like in a Charles Dickens novel or something.
Damn, yeah.
I'm trying to think.
Oh, yeah.
I'm trying to think of, yeah, have you ever gotten asked to go play for like a chic or anything over there in like a castle or anything like that?
Where?
Like in the desert or anything?
No, probably, probably.
Yeah, we get private show requests.
My thing is like, I never want to feel owned.
Like, I don't want someone to be like, you do this, you do this, because I've paid you this.
So like, if I'm ever going to do a private show, it's usually for like, it's usually for like a company's end of year party or something.
And they're just like, just do a show.
Right.
You turn up and you play the show.
But I would feel weird if someone was like, you come and you sing this song at the time that we tell you to sing it.
And you just, I like touring.
I like playing shows.
So I do my shows.
And if I'm ever going to do a private gig, it's usually someone just saying, can you just do the show that you do there, but in a smaller place is what I would prefer to do.
Right.
Yeah.
Not like, yeah, come perform it in this wet cage at 6.4.
Yeah, come and play a cover of this song that isn't even your song to my daughter while she eats breakfast.
Like, I'm not, that ain't me.
Yeah, that's like kind of, that's almost very expensive ASMR, it sounds like as well.
But one time I got offered to go to this place in the Middle East somewhere, and it was like Luda Lajarda or somewhere, place you hadn't even heard of, right?
Dude, so it could have just been in New Jersey or whatever.
But they were, and it was like a, there was like a chic and you had to be behind a big plexiglass area.
You would come in, perform there.
He would be eating there with like 90 of his girlfriends or whatever.
You would perform and then.
And then you lie down and he shits on your chest.
There may have been an afters.
I'm not sure, brother.
I didn't know, but I didn't read the whole pamphlet either.
But I do know that they were allowed to ask a few questions at the end.
And then you got to eat, but you had to stay in this area by yourself through the plexiglass while they all had.
And you went.
You did it.
Well, they had a great time.
I didn't go.
What was the fee for that?
The fee was probably $1,500.
So what is it?
Like, do you have a private fee?
Like, if someone goes, come play at Bar Mitzvah.
Yeah.
You have a fee.
Yeah.
Now I would have a fee for sure because it's like, what else do you want to do with your time?
Are you already relaxing?
Are you going to be missing something that's important?
Because now I have to set up time where I'm relaxing.
It's like I had to set up time to watch Baby Reindeer.
I had to put it on my calendar.
Good show.
You know?
Good show.
I thought it was good.
I hope they do it again.
You know, I hate to, for them to have to go through it all again, especially the guy kind of with.
Oh, as in do like a sequel show.
Yeah, or just both of them.
Just figure it out.
Can they talk about they are doing a season two and it's like from the perspective, isn't it?
Like it's the court case or something?
Apparently she's going to get her side of the story.
Wow.
God, I can't wait.
Well, good.
Good.
It's balanced.
Oh, yeah.
It's very fair.
We need balanced news out there because, yeah, we, yeah, I love that lady.
That's the crazy thing.
You almost start to fall in love with the lady.
You didn't think?
No.
Piers?
The way she was talking to Piers Morgan?
Have you done the Piers Morgan show?
You know, he just asked me to do it.
You're going to do it?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know enough about...
Like some cultures, you can kind of get a read on them and you're like, What's going on?
I think Britain's very direct.
I think he'd ask you a lot of very direct questions, and you wouldn't, but you don't strike me as the sort of person that like needs to navigate direct questions.
So I think you'd be fine.
I did his show like 2013 when he was on CNN and I found it a great interview.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Enjoyed it.
Yeah, he's like a research guy and he doesn't like, he just asks you the questions that I feel like people would want to hear, I think.
Yeah, 100%, man.
Do you feel like you'll make different music since you have like a family and stuff now?
Does that start to like...
I guess it's kind of a silly question, but it's like...
And so the album didn't have much tension.
It was just I made a record.
But yeah, I feel like my, you know, just because I'm married with kids doesn't mean that like you don't have tension in your life.
I feel like even more so, there's been things in my life that have happened over the past two years.
So I think the music that I'm making at the moment is more like the music I was making in my early 20s when there was a lot of tension going on in my life.
But you definitely go through periods of time, don't you?
I'm sure you go through periods of time where you're like, things are good.
Yeah, I feel quite settled, quite happy.
And then suddenly a bombshell happens and then you have to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I feel like that's, for me, always creating music.
I can see like back on my albums, there's like a lineage of like, this is where I was at this point.
This is where I was at this point.
And I feel like if all of the albums sounded the same, it'd be boring.
Yeah, you have to evolve in some sort.
And it's good to have like, this is the album when I was like the album when I, I made an album in COVID, quite settled, quite happy.
We had our first child.
And yeah, I listen to that now and it's not, there's no like heartbreak songs on it or sad songs.
Well, it's just kind of, it is what it is.
Yeah, because a lot of times it's like rip my fucking heart out, Eddie.
Yeah.
I think I'm getting back on this one.
I think that's what we want, man.
But this is what you're saying about taking time off.
You have to take time off to actually live life.
Like if I'm on the road, I think this is another thing why people who get successful early have their age freeze because when I'm on the road, life does just pause.
Because you, like today, you wake up, get on a plane, you fly here.
We're doing an interview.
You might go out for dinner tonight.
There's no like actual real, real life interaction in your actual personal life being lived because you're constantly working.
So you'll go back.
I always found this, but you'll go back home and you'll press play on your life again.
And then you'll be like, holy fuck, so much has happened.
How do I keep up with this?
Your friend who was dating this person is now not dating this person.
You've missed that whole thing.
Your dad might be going through something.
You've missed that whole thing.
Like your brother's doing this.
It is weird.
That's a really great way to say it too.
Yeah.
It's like you just put it on pause and you go and do your thing and you come back and you press play on you, but it's like the whole world has been pressing play.
Yeah.
And I think everybody can even relate to that too.
I mean, going and touring and that kind of thing is a little separate, different because you kind of get taken out of your life almost and then go and then you just drop right back into your life.
Okay.
Well, like, yeah, even for me, it's like, well, was I dating somebody?
Oh, shit, I never responded.
My sister invited me to this and that thing's over now.
And it's like, why?
Oh, yeah, it's just like, and then you look at old emails or sometimes like your thoughts processes will have changed and things you wanted to do and move forward with three months ago, you're like, that's not the thing I need now.
Some things you're glad you didn't move forward with.
Some things you're like, oh, dang, I missed out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But some of that's kind of fascinating.
When I started podcasting, an online store was one of the furthest things from my imagination, having a place to sell things or sell t-shirts or this or that.
And it started off.
My buddy Ken was making our t-shirts in his basement and things started to grow.
And as the business started to grow, we had to grow.
And so did our store.
And that's where Shopify showed up to help.
From the launch your online shop stage to the first real life store stage, all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage?
Shopify is there to help you grow.
And now, thanks to Shopify, our website is able to fulfill the desires of things that people want.
If they want a shirt, they want a hoodie, or they want this and that.
We're able to meet them where their wants are.
And I'm thankful for that.
You can sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash Theo, all lowercase.
Just go to Shopify, S-H-O-P-I-F-Y dot com slash T-H-E-O now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in, shopify.com slash Theo.
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp.
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Did you ever like, dude, I'll notice sometimes like I get scared to like see people in person because I feel like I'm not going to be able to like live up to whoever they think I am.
Does that make sense or is that like really egotistical thing to think?
Do you think?
No, I think especially like the position that you're in and the kind of like cultural significance of who you are and what people perceive you to be.
I definitely get that because you might be having an off day and people are like, hey, be the guy.
And you're like, right, fuck off.
Like, I just want to like chill out.
So, yeah, definitely.
But I think that my way of moving through life is always just be like, always be completely honest of what it is at that point.
So I remember being, I like, I will usually say yes to photographs.
If I'm with my kids, I'm like, look, I'm with my kids.
I'm trying to be a dad.
But like sometimes if I'm feeling off, like my aunt died and I was at a train station and someone was like being really, you know, like a fan and like, come on.
And I was like, my aunt has just died.
Please, I just need a fucking moment.
And if you are honest like that, people get it.
Like no one's, but if I'd have just been like, fuck off, like, suddenly it's a thing.
But I think honesty throughout, this is what I was saying earlier about just like saying truthful things when they come into your brain.
It's people get people appreciate honesty, I think.
Yeah.
That's a good point.
And maybe they can feel it too.
That's always the thing I think that gets weird as you get older.
If you even think about telling a lie, sometimes even a small lie, I'm like, it just feels like it's- And who did I do this?
So that's, if you go through life and you're like, who did I tell I was a mime?
And then you're fucking everybody you meet, you're like.
Now that's it.
That should be something that in your spare time, when you're training to do something, if Joe's going to be an artist, you should train to be a mime.
I would love to see you be a mime.
Fully painted, just be fucking great.
And they're always stuck in the smallest apartment.
It's like, first of all, get a better job, you know, and fucking get out of that rat trap.
That's what I always think about those guys.
But that's a lost art, isn't it?
Miming.
Yeah.
What else is a lost art?
Dude, there used to be a lot of mimes, Ed.
Yeah.
Pull that up, dude.
How many mimes were there probably in 2010?
Or 2005?
Let's fucking go back since we have access to all this online.
And mimes were some of the first mixed people as well.
Nobody wanted to kind of see it like that.
I'm not sure there's much records of mimes.
Yeah, it's quite a niche subject, Theo.
It's quite like.
This is another thing.
When you are trained to be a mime, you've got to make the mime archives.
Because then we can rely on you to go.
When we Google, we're like, Theo's got us.
That's kind of perfect, dude.
Yeah, wild damn.
First of all, I'll say this about mimes.
They're lazy, dude.
I'll straight up say that right now, bro.
And mimes, well, magicians are comedians, arch nemesis, right?
And that's been since like the beginning of time, dude.
But I'll say this also, mimes can suck it.
I'll go ahead and say that right now, bro.
If you're a mime, dude, bring it, bro.
I think the day that you learn to be a mime, you'll actually learn a bit of appreciation for it.
You'll be like, actually, this is way harder than I thought.
And then you'll be making, you make the mime archive.
Yeah.
That can be your side hustle.
There should be.
Who was the most famous mime?
Oh, well, there was Charlie Chaplin, wasn't there?
He's British.
Marcel Marceau.
Marcel Marceau, is he British?
No, I think he's French.
Yeah, sure.
I'm sure the Brits commandeered him.
I'm sure they put a flag on his back at some point and said he was British.
Biff the Clown, his name was.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Who, Marcel Marceau?
Yeah.
Let me look a little bit about him.
Marcel Marceau, can you zoom in on that so I can read that there, brother?
You go up to the top.
Marcel Marceau, 22nd of March, he was born.
Oh, he lived for a long time.
2007 was a French mime artist, actor, and most famous for his stage persona, Bip the Clown.
He referred to mime as the art of silence.
You know, Mr. Bean was kind of like that, wasn't he, the artist?
Mr. Bean, I think.
Fascinating.
Well, it's fascinating because he essentially every country understands Mr. Bean because there's no talking in it.
I heard a rumor that he, when he did the show, got them to agree to never show it in Italy because he liked holidaying in Italy.
So that's the one place that, I think they had the movie, but they didn't have the TV show.
So you wouldn't remember him as much.
Did you ever get to meet him?
There was a period of, we were actually in touch on email and it was, I think the, the, the idea I had was very vague.
It wasn't like, this is what it is.
This is when it's happening.
And it was basically that I was kind of like, would you be interested in this?
It might be this.
And he was just like, it needs to be more solid than that.
But we had a good exchange.
The guy who, did you watch the movie yesterday?
Yesterday?
No.
No.
Anyway, the guy that made that movie, I'm in the movie.
I play myself in the movie.
but the guy that made that movie who wrote Notting Hill and Love Actually and Four Weddings and The Funeral he wrote Mr. Bean so he's very close with It wasn't just that guy made it up?
No.
Well, they did it together, I think.
think it was a stage show to begin with so they did uh a show called black adder which was i i think it's the best british comedy ever it's basically Black Adder.
And it's set in, it's the same characters, but set in different periods of time.
So there would be some where they're in the, is it the Tudor time with...
There's one in World War.
Black Adder.
Oh, Mr. Bean's in it.
Yeah, he's the main guy.
So they did that at first, and then they did Mr. Bean.
I need to go back and watch this then.
Black Adder is like an all-time classic.
Really, really good.
I watched, they do a Christmas carol, and that's my like Christmas routine, as I always watch Black Adder Christmas Carol.
Oh, yeah.
I watch Family Man.
Have you seen that?
With Nicolas Cage?
Cool.
You and the wife should watch it this year.
I've got a massive cardboard cast out of Nicolas Cage in my house.
Really?
Oh, then you'll love it.
You should watch it.
I watched Mandy and was just like, I'm sold.
I got to have some of that.
Have you seen Mandy?
It's fucking bonk.
Can you pull up the scene of him?
Just type in Nicholas Cage, Mandy, toilet scene.
Mr. Bean, what a great man.
I wonder if his children are loud and he's like, Oh, this isn't what I wanted.
Ugh.
Wow.
It's a great movie.
Yeah.
God, that alone, that even just that much of a moment of something that feels so real, that is our political system right now in America.
Somebody said that you used to do like open, go to comedy mics.
Did you ever?
Not for me to do comedy, but I used to do it to...
I used to, uh, play with this, um, they're an improvisational rap group called the banderman.
And he was a comedian who rapped and made, So I played with them for a bit, but no, for me, it was more the scene that I was a part of was very cliquey and very like the cool kids over here.
And I was always part of the misfits.
And you would go and play these gigs where everyone on the lineup would have an acoustic guitar and they'd all be singing love songs.
And I'd just be another one of them, just not as good.
I wasn't, I was 17, not 25. I had my songs were very like rudimentary and like not great.
And I found like this guy actually, my best mate, Jamal, ran a YouTube channel that was primarily rap.
And he put me on that channel.
And then suddenly there was a whole group of people that were like, oh, we actually quite like this acoustic music.
So I would turn up at hip-hop nights first and grime nights and soul nights.
And I would play and I would get a better reaction because it was just different.
It was something that would stand out.
Whereas I did not stand out in the acoustic scene because it was just the same as everyone else.
Oh, that's interesting.
And so, and then I started playing comedy nights, poetry nights.
I would turn up at different things.
I used to get roasted whilst the toughest gig I ever, ever played.
It was an all-black comedy night in central London called The Sunday Show.
And I was booked for this show.
And as I was setting up my guitar, the guy on stage was roasting me, being like, what the fuck is this white kid doing with this tiny guitar and blah, blah, blah.
And it was probably one of the best gigs of my life.
I got on stage.
I instantly went into a rap tune.
I dropped this song and this song and this song.
And the reaction was better than anywhere because I think people were expecting me to fail.
And because I didn't, it was even better.
And yeah.
And those, I think that is what gave me my first bit of success, my first buzz, the buzz within the kind of grime and rap community in the UK.
think that was the first place I felt welcomed and accepted and celebrated and still, and still is like, I still feel more love and appreciation from...
No, from the grime and rap community.
Yeah.
In the UK.
Interesting.
Yeah, you know, that's such a good idea, dude.
Like to take whatever your thing is and put it into go to the space that's different because then you're the different person.
It wasn't, to be honest, it wasn't like an idea.
It wasn't like a light bulb moment where I was like, even when you say it, though, it makes me think like that's, it really is like, there's no way you can't help but stand out, right?
So like.
I think it has to happen organically, though, because I feel like if Jamal hadn't put me on his channel and he put me on his channel, the Sunday show booked me for their comedy night.
I did that.
And then whilst at the comedy night, it's a very organic thing.
I think had I just turned up at the Sunday show, they'd be like, yeah.
And maybe it wouldn't have gone the same way.
Right.
Oh, that's a good point.
That's a good point.
But yeah, to change up the environment that you're in and really challenge yourself, that's pretty brave.
Yeah, I used to do some black shows, like predominantly black shows in the States, dude.
It was hard sometimes.
But when you killed it, you killed it.
Oh, you killed it, dude.
Yeah, and people would stop.
Basically, but I bet it's either like you kill it or you bomb up.
There's no impain.
There's no like all right shows.
And when you don't do good in front of a black audience as a white guy, you feel the pain of hundreds of years.
You feel, I mean, my pain traveled all the way back to England in a boat and then got off and experienced more pain.
I was like, how much pain is inside of me?
Dude, I remember tears coming out of like the inside of my throat.
And I was like, I didn't know I had tear ducts in my throat.
Well, is that the worst that you've bumped?
No, I've fucking bumped pretty good over the years, Eddie.
Yeah, I've had some bad ones.
I've had one where you came out.
It was like the battle of the bands at a school.
You had to come out between all the bands.
They didn't know.
They just thought you had to come out in the beginning.
They boo me offstage.
They don't have to go out six more times, dude.
And every time it just...
My eyebrows started interrupting, but one time the sh the I was so shocked.
One of my fucking eyebrows fell out of my head from like it's called So it makes you appreciate it though.
I feel like anyone that has like had success on stage has had to have been booed have things chucked at them have have moments where the shock the trauma some girl's like something's on your shirt and it was my fucking eyebrow dude like I was like oh shit that's bad yeah so that kind of stuff to not be able to protect your tear ducts from the wind just because you had a bad set dude that's the kind of shit that people do that we do not need to be going through um
yeah I think sometimes the tough parts are like sometimes I'll drift out of what I'm actually doing when I'm on stage I don't even know what it is it's not like I'm daydreaming but sometimes you'll just I don't know I'll kind of go on autopilot not because I want to it just sort of happens and you have to drop back in you know I do that sometimes I did that I do it quite regularly on perfect because it's just because I'm not having to think about what I'm doing with with with my feet and occasionally I just drop the second verse by accident and I'll just kind of come to and I'm like oh I've just just not sung the second verse and
the song's now like minute and a half long.
But you do, you get in a there's certain things.
I'm sure there's certain routines that you just know so well that your mind just sort of wanders.
Yeah.
And then how do you make them feel new and a surprise yourself too?
Yeah.
I think it's good every now and then to completely rip up the rulebook of what your performance is and just happen as well.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Do you was being a father something that really kind of like people talk about it all the time that it does so much for him?
Was it as much of a surprise for you?
it seemed like you had a lot of love in your life with your spouse.
So it wasn't like a...
And that sort of simplifies life in a way because you, you, there's not as many questions.
It's just like, well, what's what's right for these guys?
And then cool, done.
But yeah, I think, you know, I was a real party boy, like real, like I loved getting on it in all aspects.
Like on the gear.
I think probably like five years ago, me and you would have had a lot of fun together.
Yeah.
But I think having kids really, really dialed that down.
I stopped drinking spirits.
I stopped like smoking and doing all these, you know, having wild nights.
Like I don't think I've seen the sunrise since having kids.
But obviously you're sober when you see the sunrise with kids.
But I don't, you know, I go to bed at like midnight now, even if I'm having, I drink wine and I drink like one or two beers.
And that's my advice, I guess.
Well, you have to be a proper parent.
You have to be a parent.
You have to be a leader or whatever.
Or you have to feed this when it wakes up.
Yeah.
You know?
Exactly.
I think.
it's like being in college, I bet with like a roommate that can't cook or whatever.
It's your drunk mate at college that you need to get home from the bar and you're feeding them bread constantly and water.
It's kind of that.
And they sort of fall asleep.
It's kind of like that.
You sort of waking them up to like feed them bread and stuff like that.
And then they're sort of falling asleep in their chair.
It's kind of like that.
Dude, one time I got in a taxi to leave a bar when I was in Charleston.
I used to live in Charleston.
And I forgot to, I guess I was drunk.
I just passed out.
The guy drove around, dude.
He drove like $190 worth.
I finally fucking wake up, dude.
He's just driving, bro.
And we're still like about 12 minutes from my house.
So I get home.
I owed him like $220, dude.
It took me like two weeks to pay that guy.
Jesus.
God, man.
Just things like that that I just don't miss about.
Sometimes just being wasted, dude, or hiding out and stuff like that.
Do you find you have better conversations now?
Like, if you're having a conversation with your mate and you're sober, it's more like.
Yeah, I find I don't waste time in bullshit.
Like I'm not at it, you know, like in the wee out, but shit doesn't get as weird either.
You're not, you know.
I feel like I say it in one of my songs, but I feel like past 2 a.m., it's like nothing's happening.
You're like all sitting around a screen watching YouTube videos and like chatting about the YouTube videos.
Whereas I think like, I feel like my friends call me the sparkler because I shine bright for a very short period of time.
So I'll go out at 8 and I'll be home at 11. But in those three hours, like I'll have fun.
Yeah.
Oh, that's a good guy to be.
Yeah.
I'm going to start working on that.
I'm going to save up all my good stuff for 8 to 11. 8 to 11 is a great time as well.
And then you're in bed by midnight.
I usually get up at like 5 a.m.
anyway.
So you're like in bed by midnight and then you're fresh-ish in the morning.
You're a workout guy?
Yeah, I like to work out, man.
It's fun.
Nothing too crazy, but I do like it.
But like every morning, you'll do a bit of exercise.
Yeah, four days a week I'll work out.
Cool.
Pretty swell.
I like doing a sauna.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ice bath.
And I like doing the ice bath, man.
I don't know if they work or not, but they tricked me into believing they do.
For me, it's less, I like, I don't mind if they work or not, but it gets my core body temperature down.
I'm a big sweater.
Are you really?
Yeah, yeah.
I sweat.
Like, if I'm on stage, I just drip, drip.
Dude, it's leaking, huh?
Yeah, well, I think it's because I think there's something in the Irish blood where I heat just does not agree with me, you know?
And you brought your own heat.
Of course, a son would be like, who the fuck is this?
You know what I'm saying?
I'm stepping on my turf, right?
But if I go in a sauna, I'll usually be sweating for like three, four hours after.
So getting in an ice bath almost, it's kind of like cauterizing a wound.
You just dump.
Yeah, I like, dude, Ireland was so, I never had seen, I didn't, I grew up in New Orleans, right?
In that area in Louisiana, like Mardi Gras, people being drunk, right?
I never said it's a different thing of drunkenness.
It's just in the, it's like people, we went into a bar, it's people in there.
There's no furniture, right?
Just people holding each other up.
Drinking.
It's like you can't even let the guy stop drinking.
They won't fucking let me.
Dude, I remember we're in the bar outside of the bar.
They built another bar around the exit door.
You open the exit to the bar, you're in another fucking bar, dude.
But drinking culture here is different than America.
Like we would, like I found when I lived in Nashville, it was like sports bars.
You go to a sports bar to watch a game, to drink, and you would see people there on their own drinking a huge vodka tonic, just like, I'm here to get fucking drunk.
There's Irish bars on the motorway in America.
I'm like, who the fuck is driving to an Irish bar?
But here, if I'm like, for instance, I saw my best mate, Nick, yesterday, and I was like, oh, let's go out for a couple of pints.
And we would go out and we caught up and we had three pints of beer and then that was it.
And that it's our culture here is very much built around, you know, I'm generalizing, not, not everyone loves drinking, but I would say like 80% of the people in England love a beer every now and then.
And you would go out and instead of getting shit canned every time you go out, you know, like I would go to these sports bars and it would basically be like everyone in the sports bar in America would be going with the sole purpose to be dribbly drunk by the end of the night, taken home in an Uber.
Whereas in England, it's very much, and Ireland, and Scotland, and Wales, it's a regular, with my friendship group anyway, a regular thing to have maybe like one or two pints at the end of a workday.
And then maybe on a Friday, you'll have like six pints and a bottle of wine.
You'll go out and do the shots and blah, blah, blah.
But it's far more just part of the culture to do it regularly.
Yeah.
Yeah, it seems like they wear it better here.
It's not alcoholism to drink every day here.
Whereas in America, if you drunk every day, it'd be alcoholism.
Alcoholism.
Because obviously people take it too far here as well, but the general thing, I think, is...
Am I right in saying that, lads?
Like, you would go out for a couple of pints after this Oh, are you sad?
Have a beer.
Are you happy?
Have a beer.
Is it a wedding?
Have a beer.
Is it a funeral?
Have a beer.
Yeah.
Everything.
But it's not alcoholism.
It's the culture.
It's just the culture.
It's not like I wake up every morning and I'm like, I need a beer tonight.
It's like you get to the end of the day and your mate will be like, oh, I'm in central London.
Do you want to go for a beer?
Rather than like, I need a beer.
It just, right.
Yeah, that's interesting, dude, because a lot, like by the definition of alcoholism, everybody decides for themselves if they're an alcoholic.
That's one thing I know about that program.
Like you have to decide.
Like there can be like the rules that kind of help you decide, but it's a personal decision, right?
But yeah, people would look at a lot of people in Ireland and be like, oh, everybody here is an alcoholic.
Nine out of ten people, even some people in comas or whatever, drinking.
And you're like, that's new.
But yeah, but it's not the same because I think it's a miscarriage of the culture.
I agree.
When you say that, It's like, it's not.
They, you know, we can have a good time, but it's not like a- It's the same in England.
It's just the culture.
Yeah, I agree.
But they're good at it.
Germany's the same.
It surprises me how good at it they are.
I think that's what surprised me.
Just that, like, also, we drink from a very young age, irresponsibly or responsibly, but like I had my first beer when I was like 12, 13. And you learn how to manage your alcohol by the age of 16. You know, if I drink this many cans of Strongbow, I'm probably going to throw up.
So I'll drink this many cans of Strongbow.
Whereas I think in America, it's very much like 17, 18, 19. Maybe it's even just getting to college for the first time where you're then finding out what your boundaries are.
France, they start drinking wine from like five.
Oh, God.
They give tiny glasses of wine to their kids, and it makes them respect alcohol.
I'd watch that online if they had that.
To be honest, no judgment or anything.
And I don't know any of the children, and I wouldn't want to know any of them.
But I would watch them drink a little bit of wine, dude.
And just, especially you can't, you know, do it on the screen or whatever.
There's a YouTube video.
I actually wanted to do it for one of my songs, Bloodstream, was to have a video of compilations of babies trying lemons.
Get up, get up, babies trying lemons for the first time.
Here we go.
This is so good.
Oh, my God.
I didn't see it.
Oh, whoa.
Whoa, he couldn't handle it.
Anyway, we're good, we're good, we're good.
Do you think about like, like, what else you want to do in life?
Yeah, or just like, yeah.
Do you start thinking about like, oh, what's something new you want to do?
Getting to do that movie thing sounded really cool to me.
I'm going to segue into, I've been doing probably for the last seven years stuff with music in high schools because in my area, so basically when I, in like 2017, 2018, my old music teacher came to me and he was like, look, the government that's currently in charge do not value art at all, like arts, drama, music.
And they cut all the funding for comprehensive high schools.
So my music teacher came to me and he was like, look, we're going, I think they had to share like between art, music and drama, like £700 per year, like for all three subjects.
So I started funding that at my local high school.
And then you see a like massive uptick in like kids doing production, kids doing songwriting, kids doing this.
So then I just started keep putting it.
I built a recording studio there.
There's like loads of like proper instruments that aren't broken.
And you just see the school getting better at music.
So then I started doing that in the county that I'm from.
And we've just now changed it to do it nationwide.
And I'm now visiting more high schools and places that really need music funding.
And you see what a difference it makes to, because I'm not an academic person.
And in the real world, I would be viewed as stupid, but I excelled at music.
And therefore, people think that I'm good at something.
And so I found it massively helpful to be in a state-funded school that really encouraged that.
And they've basically cut funding in England for it.
So I'm doing what I can to get funding for it.
But I think getting the new government will be better at it, I think.
That's remarkable.
But the thing that like, that's kind of what I want to segue into is music education because it worked so well for me.
And I know it can work so well for other kids.
I'm kind of like proof that normal kids can just pick up guitars, work hard, and do it.
And our country as well, like what we're famous for is our art.
We're famous for music.
We're the Beatles.
We're famous for painting, Damien Hurst, we're famous for movies.
You've got like Danny Ball coming out of here, Christopher Nolan.
And the government is just putting importance on maths and banking.
And, you know, we make arms.
But no one is proud that we make arms.
And No one is proud that our banking is really good, but they are proud of our art.
And so, for a government to be like, the art doesn't matter, where do you think the art's going to come from?
So, I think that for me is the next part of my career is getting proper, proper, proper funding in art, music, drama back into schools.
And actually, Ireland do a very good job of it.
Ireland are very, very pro their arts because they know that that's their cultural currency.
You know, you two travel the world and they see that Banshees of Inashirin comes out.
Everyone goes to watch that movie.
And Ireland are very, very good at recognizing that and funding.
There's lots of Irish because people travel around the world as Irish superstars in all aspects and they spread.
People are like, oh, Ireland's awesome because so-and-so comes from Ireland, so-and-so comes from Ireland.
And it's the same in England.
Like, British musicians, there's a Dell, there's Harry Starles, there's Stormsey, there's me.
There's like that musicians travel the world and people are like, oh, that's a British musician, or that's a British artist or a British actor or actress.
And that's what we as a country are proud of.
We're proud of our football as well, but in terms of like art.
And it's so weird that no importance is being put on it.
It's not even that importance isn't being put on it.
It's like completely stripping the importance of it and just being like, this doesn't matter.
Sorry to get all of that.
No, but when you kill that in a culture, it's horrible, man.
Even like you said, like when you said earlier about going to that NBA game, right?
You don't realize till you sit there at the front row or until you get close to something how important it is or what are you, if you could even be good at it.
Like I remember stand-up comedy, I'd seen it, like videos people had, like DVDs would get passed around the neighborhood of like Chris Rock and stuff like that.
And I'm like, oh, this is cool.
But until I was in college and actually went to a show, not then until that moment did it hit me like, this is what I could do.
Oh, yeah.
That this is even a thing that you could do.
Like just seeing it on a screen, it just didn't, it didn't really tabulate.
Am I right to assume that in school you would probably be like, I don't know what I want to do.
What am I good at?
I'm not very good at history.
I'm not very good at English.
I'm not very good at this.
And then suddenly you find comedy and you go, this is something that I can really excel in.
And I think unless you give kids that opportunity, and also I feel like you can destroy a kid's confidence at age 12 by just being like, yeah, you're not very good at that.
And if you give a kid, I was given confidence by my music teacher, by my dad, by my friends, when I wasn't very good at all.
I listened back to the music that I was making when I was like 14. Yeah, my friends were nice.
Yeah.
I listen back and I go, fucking hell.
My dad was not honest at all.
Because he was just like, this is great.
And my confidence was built.
And it's got to a point where I then was like, I'm going to release my first single and I'm going to make a music video.
And then that was the song that got successful.
And had I been like, oh, I don't know what people are going to think about that.
I think that's also like changing the culture of that.
I went up to Sheffield the other day to do a couple of school and music course visits.
And they were amazing, like way better than I was at 14. And I feel like all it takes is for someone to be like, you're really, really good at this.
And then they go, oh, well, then I should carry it on.
Well, having the equipment, like you're saying, like putting that equipment in their schools, dude, that's so cool because if you have a camera and you have like a podcast set up or something, you can record something and you can do any hours.
The second you do that one step, now you're in a whole new person or whatever.
Yeah.
And then like now what's possible.
It's like, but in the first place.
Well, you do your first show as well.
You do your first show.
You go, right, well, I've done one.
Wasn't that good.
I'll go and do it again.
I'll make it better.
And then it just improves.
And you don't know what part of you wants to do until you like, it's almost like a metal detector.
You're like a metal detector.
And until you kind of go over that little, whatever that is, and something inside you kind of goes off, you know, it does.
Well, because all you need to do, that's the thing as well that I say to kids.
I'm like, you only need one thing that you're good at.
You just find the one thing that you enjoy that you're good at and you just work really hard at that.
And then it will work.
You go like the music industry is, if you want to work in the music industry, you can.
Like I was the day that I made it in my mind was I was gigging around, gigging around, not getting paid.
I got booked for a wedding and I played this wedding for like 200 pounds.
And I remember getting that 200 pounds cash and being like, oh my God, this is half my rent for playing a gig.
Looks like we made it.
Exactly.
And in my mind then, I was like, I could just play weddings for the rest of my life and I'm fine.
I can do music.
And it's about finding the, you know, me getting £200 for playing covers at a wedding isn't me playing Wembley Stadium and making my albums and stuff like that.
So it's not necessarily the dream, but it is doing music as a career.
So you can find, if you said tomorrow, like, right, I want to be a chocolate taster and I'm going to be the best fucking chocolate taster.
You could potentially make that a career if you just worked harder than other chocolate tasters or gamer or, I don't know.
Especially in the UK.
Willy Wonka's from here.
He is.
Did you ever meet him?
Willy Wonka?
No.
Did I meet...
Did Tim...
I think I might have met Timothy Chalamet.
I'm sure someone's met him eventually.
Fuck lucky.
That's the kind of people that you eat as some people you don't get to meet.
You know, some people the government hides them.
What about the queen or anything?
Can you text her or whatever?
Well, she's dead.
Well.
Oh, the new queen.
Oh, is there a new one?
Sorry.
I didn't know, and I'm sorry that she's deceased too.
I didn't know.
Yeah, she died in 2022.
Oh, yeah.
And then King Charles is now at the King.
I did like her Jubilee.
I played her gig, and there's an amazing picture of her shaking my hand and smiling.
Oh, and people are like, oh, she was pleased to meet you.
And actually, a comedian had just told her a joke.
So it looks like she's really happy to meet me, but she had no idea who I was at all.
But the picture says a thousand words.
There you go.
do the royal people, what do they do?
What is it really like over there when you go over there?
I don't think it's, I don't envy it at all.
I wouldn't want to live that lifestyle.
I remember being in Japan once for the Rugby World Cup, and I met one of them, and he was like, you know, he's six, seven years older than me.
And he was like, this is my first time in Japan.
And in my mind, I'm like, I would have just assumed that you go everywhere all the time.
But I think it's very much like it's a working job.
They go and open hospitals, open care centers, go and do this, go and do this.
And I wouldn't envy the lifestyle at all.
I think it is quite restrictive.
I don't think you can just be like, I'm going to go do this.
I think like, have you seen The Crown the show?
Because like, even when they go on holiday, they go on holiday and they have to do like a press shoot before the holiday.
And then people just take photos of them for the whole holiday.
Because it's kind of like you allow, because you are funded by the public, the public own your life.
Yeah, it's kind of a we are, didn't it?
Yeah.
So it's not something that I would necessarily envy.
It's something that it's a big debate in this country whether people agree with it or not.
I personally like think it gives a certain like grounding for the there's like a historical aspect of it and when things happen it's like Americans love seeing the ceremony that's that's that's over here like when the queen passed away the the funeral is like very impressive and it very much uh um i don't know represents england for the world you know england look at it yeah because i think england there's something there there are a lot of great things that's like very proper and it's like there's a lot of things that i would not agree with as well i think
it is very like it's rigid almost it's a very polarizing subject um but yeah but i i definitely wouldn't envy the lifestyle yeah oh yeah it seems like it would be tough like you're such a con and you have to be a concierge to the your own country and you have to be such a representative never talk about anything negative look their their thing they say never complain never explain so anything that happens they just right you're just a middleman yeah you can't show any emotion like even at like funerals and
stuff like you're not meant to cry and stuff it's like really quite hardcore oh yeah gosh i remember my first funeral dude not fun are we i was not good at funerals no i was the i feel like they then then needed to mark it though i missed my grandmother's funeral i was doing did you see that court case last year that i was in you know about that i was in a court case last year and she all my friends are criminals to be honest with you she um she died
at the start of the court case and the and the um funeral was like midway through it because she had to be buried um and you couldn't go i couldn't and i still feel weird about it that there was no marking of the like you know seeing a coffin be put into a grave and covered and i don't know there's something in me that's like even like visiting her grave now there's not it still feels like an open book yeah open door i guess i think funerals are important for the ceremony of like marking it it's kind of like the
first day of grief as well because before you go to a funeral there's like a weird month or whatever where everything's like really fucking intense and grief stricken and then kind of the funeral is the day that you go now we start processing it yeah yeah it is kind of wild dude does any of your music get played at funerals too or not yeah i've got a song that i wrote about my grandmother called supermarket flowers which um is a popular funeral song if if that's like a thing to be proud of like i've got a popular funeral song but
yeah it's such an important it's a song that it's a it's a moment that people don't think of that much that needs a song kind of in a way maybe or i don't know as a songwriter maybe people do think about specific moments that need songs but i definitely do like i definitely know what i would have at my funeral same as i would have at my wedding you know you'd know you'd know what what tunes you want there's a uh irish folk song which is like always the final song that is sung on a folk night which is called the parting glass where it's like uh the pogues
or no no it's like traditional it's like uh it's uh of all the money that eer i had i spent it in good company and all the harm that e'er i done alas it was to none but me and it's basically like all of the things i did um and all i've done for want of wit to memory now i can't recall so fill to me the parting glass good night
and joy be with you all it's basically the last drink of the night this is uh sort of weird that i just sung on no but there's a farewell but yeah it's a um the last drink of the night and it's basically everything that's happened it's happened and let's have this final drink and then get on with our lives and i think that's quite a nice way to like go out of this world of basically being like of all the of all the comrades that ever i've had i uh i'm i'm sorry that i'm going away you know like it's like a it's
just a message to people i like it no man i appreciate you sharing that too yeah it's nice it's nice man that you from everyone that's ever spoken about you i've heard you always seem like a person that just shares the gift of who you are with the world as clearly as you know how to and navigate that the best you can man so i appreciate you singing that's nice dude and and yeah and i appreciate you spending time with me man thanks for spin yeah thanks for coming as well man i really really have enjoyed i feel bad that i call that i referenced the term ginger and i feel bad that i mispronounced the name of this place man oh that's all
i i thought you were doing it on uh purpose okay i was all good no no the ginger and i wasn't the ginger thing i'm actually like i'm i have a good sense of humor so i'm fun with being uh me i just shouldn't have said it though no but i'm like my my point is if if it's if this is on limits then you know other things should be too yeah you know it shouldn't be the only thing that's on limits oh i agree brother and let me tell you this we're turning on all the limits one time we'll
get you out to a live show and turn on all the limits um i hope you make a million more wonderful songs and um and just uh keep blessing us with your gifts uh thank you so much and sharing nice one thank you cheers man now i'm just floating on the breeze and i feel i'm falling like these leaves i must be cornerstone oh but when i reach that ground i'll share this piece of mind i found i can feel it in my bones
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