Every year, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world flock to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, and they spend a week trying to sell each other on the weirdest gadgets you've ever seen in your entire life. This week on Vergast we're talking all about everything happening at CES, from the TVs to the AI gadgets to the humanoid robots that everybody is hoping might someday do your laundry and wash your dishes. All that and much more on the Vergast wherever you get podcasts. Welcome to Switching On Pop, I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.
Tonight we get to have an amazing conversation with Audrey Hobart. And the end is the sauce tonight. See me, I wanna be wanted. I wanna be so be, I wanna be with you.
Audrey grew up in Los Angeles. She was best friends with Gracie Abrams since middle school. She did theater as a kid, went to NYU for screenwriting. And upon graduation, she was a writer for Nickelodeon's The Really Loud House.
She started her songwriting career, working alongside her friend Gracie on Gracie's second album, The Secret of Us. Co-writing hits like, I Love You I'm Sorry, and that's so true. The album went number two on the Billboard 200, with songs starting as high as number six. Then she decided to go and do it on her own.
Audrey's debut album Who's the Clown came out in August 2025. It blends theatrical wit with indie pop production, and every song is written by Hobart. When my cousins and I all put together our best songs list for our big Thanksgiving get together, all of us chose a different Audrey song. We did not coordinate.
My NYU signheart songwriting students usually play it pretty cool, but when I told you all that I was bringing today's special guest, many students in my freshman class screened. Audrey Hobart went from writing at her bedroom to having a Billboard Top 10 hit, and then turned around and wrote a debut album about ugly feelings, anxiety, and 96 columns. And it feels totally singular. Please welcome Audrey Hobart.
Yay! Yay! Sorry. I'm overwhelmed.
Oh my gosh, hey guys. Thank you so much for being with us. Oh my God, thank you. I'm a comic hat.
My podcast voice. Oh, yeah. So you first started writing just four years ago with Gracie. Not even four.
Not even four years ago. No. When you were roommates after college. Yes, two years ago.
Oh my gosh. These were literally the first songs you've ever written, and they've been streamed billions of times. I need you to back up a bit. Like you saying you played it hard.
Where did music start for you? It kind of just started two years ago. Oh, no, no. There's this video from when I was a child, and my little brother Charlie.
I must have been five, and he must have been three. And in the home video, he hits his head, and we're listening to the radio. And in the moment he starts sobbing about his head, all star by Smash Mouth comes on the radio. Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me.
I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. And I started jumping and jumping and jumping, and totally left him for dead. Like I've always loved music more than anything. I've always thought that my taste is like objectively correct.
Like I've always been like, if I think a song is good, I've just like analyzed it to fill so much. I know why it's good and I'm right. And yet I never like tried writing a song. I don't know why.
But there was some music out. You did some theater growing up. And it was a singer. And it was a dancer.
That was a big music thing, I think really, because there would be certain teachers that I thought had better taste and would bring in songs that really moved me. And I remember there was a specific dance we did to Kiss You by One Direction. And I was like, I know I'm gonna be in the front line in the center because I feel a song in my bones. And when we all go in groups and we all show how well we know the choreography, if we do something in the front line.
And I was. But yeah, theater for sure. And then did you just pick up the guitar magically two years ago? Well, no, it was with Gracie that I collaborated with her.
That was my first time writing. You take us back there, how did that happen? Yes. Well, basically we had moved in together.
We were really good friends in middle school and went to different high schools. And then we were in New York for a year together during our college years. And we got really, really close then. And I sort of moved in with me on officially to my studio apartment.
And we shared a bed for a year and smoked cigarettes in the winter inside. And we sort of always felt like we were in this fresh, kind of Woody Allen movie. We just felt like characters. And we never wrote really then, but our relationship always felt very creative.
And then she moved back home to pursue music and I stayed and finished school. We sort of made a deal with each other that we would properly move in with each other one day. And then we did in April of 2023. And then it was six months into that where something we knew came over and was going through a breakup.
And she said, oh, loud, it's just pain these days. And Gracie and I looked at each other and sang it to each other. And then that person went home and I wrote an entire song based around it's just pain these days. And it was truly jokes, but we were like, oh, it was really fun.
And then very soon after we wrote a bunch of songs, she invited me to cut the songs I'd never like sung on a mic. I'd never been in a studio really. And it just totally changed my life and set my heart ablaze in a different way. And also it was so much to do with how I had observed her in this world that I was so fascinating and that I knew she loved so much.
And then I was suddenly in it. But I was comfortable because I was with her. And it was just like, I was never made to feel like green or inexperienced. And I was so respected the whole time.
And I was like, hang out with my friend. It was like dramatic. It really was. I'm picturing a couple months long rocky montage of you like grinding it out.
Oh, yeah, but it didn't seem like a grind. And it was so interesting too because I was writing for Nickelodeon. And there were sort of rumblings that the show was going to get canceled. And then around the same time, it was very like charm life stuff.
But Gracie, she was never pushing me to do anything. But she was like, these songs are going to come out. You should be properly compensated. I'm going to introduce you to my publisher.
And you should at least sign some kind of deal that will get you paid for this. But by no means do you need to become a songwriter now. So I did sign a really small publishing deal that would basically ensure I would recoup for my music with Gracie and then be out of it. But then the show was running for a rock canceled.
And I was like, well, I guess I technically have a job. Even though I haven't spent, it feels a little silly at 24, 25 to now dive headfirst into a career that I had only just started doing. But then I started writing songs by myself. And I realized that there was much more to my love for it, I guess.
So my understanding was the first song you wrote on your own with a song, Wet Hair. Let's take a listen to that. Fair. Right.
Oh, great. We took us to the day that you wrote that song. How did you make this choice? I'm doing it on my own.
I'm going to write a song. Had this song happened. Oh, that was more like out of loneliness. This was a strange time where I was living with Gracie.
She's on the road at this point, in a massive crazy way that she has been for the last few years. And so my days became, instead of my Nickelodeon 9-5, I was going to the worst session of my entire life, not really knowing what the fuck was going on. You had a publisher, so you're probably setting up a session for right now. Yeah, my A&R's.
Yeah, I mean, that was harsh. Sometimes they were fine. And these were all nice people. But I had just come from this electric musical connection with someone who I know forever.
And then here I am, like, waltzing into these rooms with a producer who has a dinner at 6, and wants to get out of there, and an artist who has no idea who they are. I just was like, I think I could, if I wanted to, get really good at this. But I'm 25, and I know this is not what I want for my life. So I'm just going to ride this out until I feel like I've learned enough that I can say, I want to do my own thing.
But wet hair was like, in that first month where I started going on songwriting sessions. And I would just come home and be like, well, I didn't like that song around the session. And I've gotten nothing going on right now. So I'm just going to write for fun.
And that's what that was. And with that song, I just wrote on, which is something I often do, I will just write out either by hand or on my laptop exactly what's going on or what I want to say. And then from there, I will try and either make it rhyme or give it a melody. So that whole first part was just a free write.
I'm at a house I had to choose to check every next month. And then I picked Bitar and I sang a melody to it. And I think that's how I get my most interesting melodies. I can't really, I'm not much of a top liner.
I don't even know if I really believe in that. Just at least for me, I'm like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. And then let's put words to it. I have to have something to say in order to come up with an interesting melody.
And yeah, I wrote that first verse of chorus, and then wrote the bridge, and then put that song down for like three months. And then after I'd written, I don't want to jump ahead of you, you know? After I'd written Chateau, UJ as an ex, and then I like to touch people. And then I was like, oh my god, I think I want to do a notice project.
I was like, let me revisit what hair. Because I really just had to show proof to my publishers and my annas. And what hair with that second verse where I go, I'm going to get in there, and I start singing much faster. That was me being like, all right, so I've written like three more songs.
And I know I can go fast and so let me just go fast because it's more interesting than repeating melody. But it's okay. But you get a guest. It's gonna start.
At least you pick the ball. You know, to me, I have a hard time the second verse is because I'm so bored of the first personality already, that I feel so deeply that I need to make the second verse entirely different. And that's something, it says it doesn't do that, it's like second verse, necessarily every melody is different, but you can't ever forget where it goes or what happens next. It's like, she's a hero of mine in that way.
But yeah. So what here as a lyrical device? Yeah. Tell us about it.
Oh, well that was basically like, I just broken up with my ex and it, you know, I had been with him for a few years and aside from starting a new career, I sort of felt like the relationship was dwindling and I also knew like, okay, I'm about to step into a brand new career and I think I need to do this alone. And you know, I'm not naive or an idiot. So of course in the back of my head was maybe this will be something to write about. This breakup, a news flash, you can't preconceive something like that.
Like I really, the third two song on the album that I'm about him, what here was the first one I wrote, I just figured, okay, we just broke up. Like we had met up for the first time and I found that the most interesting part about the evening was the fact that I showed up with what hair. Like here I am seeing this person who I've been with for a few years and you know, I am noticing I'm thinking something might happen tonight but I'm not gonna put an ounce of effort into my appearance. I'm just gonna like walt in because I think that's how I feel actually most and beautiful and comfortable as you can see right now.
You did arrive with a fabulous workout. No, I did. I had a huge red. I thought about wearing it and then I decided I was gonna be normal.
Yeah. You talked about being inspired that songwriting does not have rules. Yeah. And this is one that sort of throws them all out.
Yes. It's kind of all narrative. It feels like first, first, first, first, first. Yeah, I like dislike when people describe my writing a stream of consciousness because it's so is not, the song is fully stream of consciousness because I didn't know really what I was doing.
Like I didn't, I didn't, I wouldn't, Gracie, but like it's very different when you're on a room alone and I was just like, is the melody moving me? I don't know. It is kind of says I like writing because the melodies are constantly evolving and changing. You repeat, you come back to certain melodies but it's like not actually clear that there is a chorus.
It's chorus, I know. Cause it's like, yeah, exactly. Like the outro sounds kind of chorus-y. No, no, no, no, no, no.
Can I play it over? Yeah. Yeah. Like now you can go back and do your version.
No, no, no, I chose not to repeat the chorus. I don't like a third time chorus repeat. I only do it on a chat, I think. I usually only like to repeat a chorus because I'm like, if you wanna hear it again, just replay the song.
Like that's what I think. Yeah. That's so fun. You talked about what Harris, this lyrical device and a lot of your music has, there's a lot of songs that have to do with self image, right?
A thirst trap. I'm taking first traps. Phoebe. Sex and the city.
This isn't Sex and the city. Nobody sees me, knows if I'll call them. Nobody sees me at all is the problem. Which is an amazing rhyme, call them.
I feel like you can only rhyme that when you've come from Southern California. Totally, totally. I didn't realize what kind of an accent I had until I cut all these songs. And it's California.
So you've experienced some exposure to fame as a pop star, co-writer first as a sort of best friend. You were, I believe the first songwriter ever to do the genius video. Gracie pulled you along. She happened.
There's a loss of self that happens to be coming to public figure. How did it feel to write about self image for public consumption? I did not feel like a public figure in the wake of like, Gracie's music coming out. I did not, I was watching her do that and she would bring me along stuff and I loved going along with her.
But I felt, that was like one of the loneliest times in my life, not because I felt like I was feeling the effects of whatever that was. I just was like actually physically alone a lot. And that's what all this music came out of. Like I would highly recommend, I know, I don't think you need to like go to the woods in a little bit of cabin, but being really alone, like maybe break up with the partner, you know, I not, you know, sometimes no, sometimes no.
But like it really helped me. It really helped me to like be so isolated. What about the opening song? Like, can I play it for a second?
Oh, yes. It's one of the most disarming opening verses to an album I've ever heard. Oh, I love it. I like that you think it's disturbing.
It's so funny. I had perceived this as like maybe you wrote this after you had released a few singles and there was sort of an awareness of because the verses go on to be like, people were like, I like your music. And how could that be? Oh, no, it's not it at all.
Oh, really? No, I wrote that after I watched the Steve Rotten document, it's on Apple TV. And I just was so like, I was just not those Friday nights where, you know, I was alone again. And I was like, this guy, you know, it really all clicked for him in like a mega famous, successful way when he was like as weird as he truly is in his soul.
And I mean, weird, like in an endearing great way. At the time I was writing a one-woman show for stage because I was like, I don't know what the fuck else I'm supposed to do. Well, if you're going to go to cafe in Los Angeles, you have to be one of the people. And I did like three times a week for two hours, no phone, and I would write, right, right.
And it was around that time I was writing this one when the show was all so certain music. And like, OK, you know, how would I open my one-woman show? And I wrote like to touch people like I think in one night. Oh, it's a short song though.
Yeah. And that whole second verse is about what it is like to be me, which is to be at a party with a bunch of people I don't know. And then I am like everyone's a good person. Sorry.
That's a great experience. Yeah, it is. And it was like, but I can see why you think it'd be about music. That I guess is like, maybe was happening now a little bit, like, hand to her heart.
Somebody will have never met completely loves me. Yeah. It felt so fulfilling in the same way that Lady Gaga's first album is all about how famous it is also. It went to NYU.
Yes, no, true. And you're like, but you weren't famous when you wrote the song. So how do you know? No, I never thought about that way.
I never even thought it would be perceived that way. But that's interesting. No, it was just about like how I'd crack one joke. And somebody would be like, I love you.
All right, well, speaking of being seen, I want to go to your biggest single, Sumi, which really dresses the topic of being seen directly. And being the same as exhausted. Sumi, I want to be wanted. Sumi, I want to be wanted.
So fun. This is such a smash pop song. I feel like this is like, if M83 made like a glam rock beat. Oh my god.
It's a song that where you feel like you're saying the quiet part out loud. Yeah. Like, there's 30 times Sumi I want to be wanted. I feel like this is the thing that fundamentally, probably half of pop songs are about that.
Yes. But it's very rarely so direct or so litigious. Yeah. How did this song come to happen, and in particular this course line?
Yeah. This was an early one. This was the first time I made when I teamed up with Ricky Gourmet Noelle Miff. So all, you know, I'd written, touch people, shut up, wet hair, and sex and city on my own guitar.
And then Sumi was the first time that we made together. And so we made that beat, one of the first beats we made, and I was like so damn sure about it. I was like, this beat is great. And this I also was around this time learning that I was unable to write in front of anybody.
So that was tough because there would be days where I was like, and also he lived in the studio apartment. So I was like, what am I going to do? Drive half hour to his place and make him sit in the kitchen while I sit in the living room and try and write a song and not include him at all unless we're like making the actual music. So that's when I learned like I could take a beat.
We could spend all day making a beat. I could take it home and then write to it there at home. But with the chorus, that was like, and I swear I thought it only happened to the movies. I was like talking to Ricky about it, not even thinking I would write a song about it necessarily, but I said, Sumi, I want to be one, and I said it out loud, and then I started and I said, Sumi, I want to be one.
It was like a movie. That is the part in the movie where like, oh, they said the title line, that's so cheesy. Exactly, exactly. And I sang it to that exact melody, and then it worked with the beat, and then I took it home and actually finally enough, I wrote that whole bridge at a coffee shop, just like within the beat in my ears, because also with Ricky, like he would do hot yoga, and sometimes we would get our timing messed up, and so I would arrive like an hour early, he would still be in hot yoga, and I would like have to sit at a cafe and wait for him, so I was like, let me just get some work done.
I'm kind of stunned by this writing process. Every creative person has a different way in, because your songs clearly never sacrifice stories, like narrative all the way through, yet also really creative rhyme schemes. Rhyming has this problem, and that it makes things more memorable, but it also makes things a little less real. So we have to be careful with how we rhyme, and you have these, what are the wonderful rhyme schemes here?
Look up a deal in November, sorry I know you remember. Feeling better, because you're looking like it's... It's sort of like gentle, slant rhyme. It's not like totally true, but it's enough.
Yeah. I really love the rhyme of chismet and business. Yeah, yeah. So you say that you sort of write stream of consciousness, but yet you have a really strong grasp of the meter, of the rhyme scheme within that stream of conscious writing.
Yes. So can you just like, when you're writing in that cafe, how are you doing that? It is stream of consciousness to the point where I can understand what I'm trying to say, and then from there it is making it go like this, it's in my head already, and I think that is the scientific mathematical part of it, that I perhaps have possessed and just now discovered. So you're hearing the melody as you're writing the words?
Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes it is simultaneous. Sometimes I would think more so. It is, okay, that's what I want to say.
And this is a melody that's in my head, and how do I make that fit into the melody a little bit, but then usually, if I surprise myself with a lyric, I need to make it work melodically, and I think it's lyric-first then melody. Like lyric informs melody. But that is like the queen's gambit, chest on the ceiling thing. That is like the thing that keeps me coming back and the thing that makes me have to sit there for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours because it's there, I know it's there, but I have to like, I have to get it and it takes me a long time.
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Thank you. Why do you embrace the language of pop music and what does it do for you? What do you want to do within that? Because I think it's the hardest kind of music to read.
Ooh. I think it's, well, okay, that's like an absolute statement, but I just think like, I think about artists who write, you know, more avant, garard, I guess, like, I think about like Adrian Linker as a songwriter and I'm like, one of my gods. And I would be so mortified to sit down and try and write a song like her. Like that is what she does.
And I think pop, it's like, it's harder to do because there is sort of an inherent structure. And you have to fit into it. And you have to fit into it. But then obviously, like when I started, there are no rules, you know?
Like as long as it's catchy and as long as there's a story and a sentiment and you can follow, then I am doing what a pop song do. I think. You're kind of, I sometimes think about it as like, you're building a game, like a board game, your own sort of board game that has its own rules. Each song is sort of that way.
But you also seem to start, I'm already hearing you have some of your own rules. Like, you don't second versus you're like, I need something new. Not too many courses. No.
Narrative is essential. Yeah. Let's find some more. I think that's pretty much it.
But we'll see. My favorite song of the year is Sex and the City. Thank you. Oh, thank you guys.
Let's take a listen to this one. Oh. This isn't Sex and the City. Nobody sees me, knows if I call them.
Nobody sees me at all. It's the problem. But of course, when I do, I'm not the one that I want to go to the bar. I'm a boo-boo.
Giver, so if it's not in the stars, then I don't want it either. I say goodbye and take the bottle. Wow. No, stop it.
Oh. This song feels effortless. Like a walk through one night in someone's life that just came out of a page, like a Carrie Bratcha column. Like, how did this song happen?
Oh, this took me like two weeks. Like a week and a half. And I little locked myself. Well, and this is also around the time where I'd written a few songs for fun.
And then it was this song that made me go, OK, I'm going to make an album or, you know, try to do this. I started writing this after one of them New York nights where, you know, just like the subject matter of the song, I felt sort of invisible, which was pretty normal thing for me to feel romantically. And yeah, I had like been at the bar with my friends in Ritongos, Texas, and the city. And then I went to a party and I ran to this guy that I knew.
And then we ended up like hang out until five in the morning. Nothing happened. I didn't even necessarily want anything to, but I was just like, why didn't something happen? Like what is written on me that says don't approach me or pursue me?
It was May of last year. And I was like, you know, had done the session circuit. I was like, I have no sessions on it for two weeks. My brother had this apartment in New York that was vacant.
I knew I could go stay there for free and like go see theater, which usually makes me want to like write or do anything in my life. And truly. And so yeah, I like within my first few days in New York, I saw a ring song. It took me a really long time.
And I would start in the morning and finish at night. And some days I can't stress this. And I feel like I'm sure you all know, but like I would sit there for eight hours and I'd get two lines that felt good and I'd be like, great day. Like, you know, it took so much mind power.
Earlier, we were talking about some very literal songwriting here. There's sort of like an event. Then there's like, I'm in New York City. Yeah.
You've been talking about sex in the city. Sort of like more different ideas coming together to build a narrative. You are hyper specific in your lyrics. Is that a tool for diaristic truth?
Or is it a narrative device to bring us closer into the song? I don't know what it is. I just it's how my head works and it's how I observe the world. And it's like it reminds me of watching something as a kid.
And so I guess I wanted to bring that to my music, that feeling of like being young and feeling like some character in this story just said a line that is about me and makes me feel so comfortable in my own skin. Like I'm just thinking of there's this movie. I don't know if you guys have seen it. Mr.
America, it's like a no-bombback movie. And there's this line where this younger female character is talking about this older female character that she looks up to and she says she has the kind of beauty that doesn't make me want to be more like her. It makes me want to be more like myself. And it's most beautiful one ever.
And I just was like, how can I even embellish a little bit these feelings so that people feel liberated? Like it was like that is an active thought that then most of the thought is like story, story, story, story, story. And like if it's specific, great, but I think that there's it would be such a shame if like the chorus was as specific as the verses like I think it's about balance and then it courses. So you studied screenwriting at NYU.
It works for Nickelodeon. How do you think about narrative structure from screenwriting affecting your songwriting? It's very potent like in song like Sex and the City and Bully Alley specifically are they're like, you know, I mean, not to to my own horn, but it's like the react structure like it is. And I adored the education I got at NYU and also I think when I stepped into the building on my first day, I had the understanding of a story.
And then I got to foster it and like make friends and take amazing classes. But I don't feel like there's some phrases that have stuck with me that some professors have said like a story should always be surprising yet inevitable. And like, you know, random little things like that that have stuck with me. But also when I think about like a song like this, I'm like, I was not taught this at school.
You know, like that story has been inside me since I became like, since I went to put it or something. And thank God I got to write it. One of my favorite little thing that I don't know if it's about breaking rules or something just unexpected is it just has the most kicker punchline at the very end. Yeah.
Oh my God. Yeah, I remember I remember because I didn't write that song for so long. Yeah. And I also by the way, like something I do a lot was call my mom or my sister, just like kind of every time I wrote a line or like enough to show them, I would show them immediately my mom, my sister who were not songwriters.
Well, my mom is a little bit, I'm just a singer. But when I got, I guess I'm swearing by, but I guess never known until you go and try. I was like, you almost done, you almost done, you almost done. And then I wasn't convinced by bringing it back to the first line, the hot undesired.
I went first. It's a verse line. Yeah. It ends the first verse.
Yeah. Or it's like kind of like, what's it like to be admired? And I say, what it is like to be admired. And I was not convinced by that.
But now I like it. Now I was more stoked about the guessing never known until you go and try it. Okay. So that kind of like sticks the landing.
Well, it's like, could have guessed. It just it's references that like I don't have not had a lot of escapades because I already know. Like I don't need to, I wish I were someone who needed to make more mistakes to learn. Because I think I'd have maybe more to write about more funny stories at dinner.
Um, but I already know how something's going to make me feel usually. Um, so I've had like few relationships that have all been like very successful, mostly. Um, but to bring it to like, you know, I could have guessed, I'm swearing by it. But I guess you never know until you go and try it.
Like that is true sometimes with life. I think a lot of times with life and I felt good about that line. I liked that that's coming back to this very ending, what it's like to be admired, hot and desired is a resonated theme that we heard in sumi earlier. And again, it's sort of, it's saying something that so many popsongs are fundamentally saying, but sort of looking a little deeper.
Yeah. And saying they're, they're, they're all under like, it's like, you went like five layers deep of why, why, why, oh, I just want to be like, I just want something hot. Yeah. Like seriously.
Oh my God. I can remember like it was yesterday. Now everyone thinks I'm hot, obviously, but like, but also like I'm so hot. And it's like, I want to feel like I'm hot.
Oh my God. Yeah. Cause I was always, and I'm not even trying to be a pick me, but I was literally always the person standing directly next to the whole person. Like I swear.
Um, I was like right next to you and I'd have to like make myself known with my wit or like, you know, so that people would look at me, even though that's a horrible quality, but yeah, it, I was sort of fed up at like 24 or 25. I'm like, all right. You know, when I going to be the one that looked at, I will say though, now more people are looking at me. It's not as interesting.
It's not. It's really not. It's the thing I'm struggling with the most with this whole thing, even though I'm quite comfortable in like a career conversation and this observing, I'm observing much less and so shit, I got to get back to observing. I want to go to another song, which I think continues from the themes that we, we hear throughout the album.
Um, I'm just going to be like home is like a character in, in so many of your songs, almost like I feel like I'm there watching you write the song because it starts at home. Home is lonely. The walls are creaking and talking. Gotta go out and do something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And so another song that does this, like we heard in Sex and the City is Bowling Alley. Yeah.
We're at home. We're going to go to a mediocre party. We're going to have the experience where it's like to be seen by other people. This one is unbelievably funny.
And at the same time, it's a lot of deeper truths. But I got my greens on and my gown on and I'm planning for cares. So I'm not. But doesn't need to be.
It's so fun. I don't like this song and so many others feel inspired by the very first moment of the first episode of Seinfeld. My dad's hair show that I haven't washed enough. You know what this is all about?
You know why we're here to be out. This is out and out is one of the single most enjoyable experiences of life. People can have people talk about we should go out. This is what they're talking about.
This whole thing we're all out now. No one is home. We're at a comedy club. One person here is home.
We're all out. People trying to find us there. No, where we are. There's no phones.
You know they play the soundtrack is live every time. No, my dad will probably know this. He'd be ashamed that I don't know this. But I just I was like, oh my gosh, I feel like this is like a better commentary on a number of songs of the bowling alley.
Oh my god. No, it's yeah. Well, and also comedy you said it's important as inspiration. What is writing from humor allowed you to do in your songs?
Well, it's just way for me to stay interested in what I'm doing. The most powerful thing is humor. Oh, yeah. I think it is like you always love that funny person.
You always do. And when you make yourself, I make myself laugh a lot, like, especially in those lonely times, like, you know, I had to. It's lighthearted. If I'm going to sing about it, I guess I could connect it to like I sort of wanted the rules actually that I had for myself as I couldn't like aimlessly complain ever in a song, like because it's just also not who I am by nature.
It's like I can have a grievance or a gripe, but you've got to make it okay. Like, so I think humor is a way to do that to make things okay. And I am funny. So I'm able to throw that in like sprinkle it in.
It's one of my personality traits. It is who I am. What one of my gripes is in film. It's like a three hour long drama with no humor because it is actually the there's this feeling like it's supposed to be life like.
Yeah, actually. No, no, no, no. No, this director thinks he's the whole shit ever. Like in the greatest moments of fear, terror, upset in life is like humor.
It's another thing that's like underlying, constantly laughing. Yeah. And like almost inappropriate way and terrible things are happening as the only way to get through that moment. Oh my God.
Don't ever tell me bad news. I'm going to start laughing. Unfortunately, even if I'm feeling it in my heart, I'm so sorry. Like, I don't know.
I don't know, but I don't feel really sorry. This is not like a joke song by any means. There's a much deeper, there's a really heavy stuff going on here. This was a song that I was like, so is my favorite song on my own?
Just because I was like, oh my God, I finally got to like sing about the feeling that is when you've decided like, okay, nothing has come up for me tonight. So I'm going to like do my whole nighttime routine and get fully into bed. And then something's going to happen and I have to make the decision. Like do I take off the night oils, put back on the day oils, even though it's night and go, even though I think no one's going to care for show up and it's not self-deprecating.
Like it's I think like that's an easy thing to call it. It's not self-deprecating at all. I'm like, because then in the second course, I'm like, I know everyone's going to be excited. I'm there.
Yeah. Person in the song sees themselves as both like, oh, no, it's going to want me. I'm the son of everything, but also it's not always about me. Yes, that's what it's like.
A lot of interior, like the constantly second guessing. I think it's being young right now. I really do. There's a moment in the song, which I don't know if it has taken on greater meaning, but this question of like, you hit a strike.
Everyone's like, dang, you're amazing. Yeah. And then I'm a lucky beginner. Yeah, that was a direct reference to like, because I'd known one of music industry people prior to like my entry into it.
And so I was like, you know, I was at the birthday party. I was like everybody for their 20th birthday party ever. And then like, you know, would meet them 10 more times. And I'm like, you know, you meet a lot of people.
Now I'm in that position. I meet a lot of people and then I feel like an asshole, but I was on the receiving end of it for so long. And then, yeah, then everyone all of a sudden turned to look at me when I like wrote a few songs and like I was so like by certain people who are not very nice, you know, or not, you know, kind of assholes, you know, it's like, don't look at me now. You know, I'm a lucky beginner.
Who's to say like, I just don't think I'm such hot shit. Let's go out of a banger. Let's go to the end. Yes.
Silver jubilee. Yeah. Yeah, my cousins are here who it's about. So that's what we have, so we shout out Jackie.
So it's so rigid to me. Sounds like almost like a sister song to closing time. It's the song is played before closing time, and they both share so being calm as well, which is that not just that they're like a bar rage or song, but that closing time was about Dan Wilson becoming a father and the sort of loss of innocence of being like an individual in the world and not having to do. Yeah, it's like the bar closing is like his young, but yeah.
you out into the world. Your song, Celebrate Jubilee, is celebrating Quarter Life, is the Celebrate Jubilee. Yeah. But it's also sort of fear of that moment ending.
It feels like it's a bar rager, but it's actually, I'm going to tell my sister, I love her, celebrating your cousins. Was this written from a place of joy or from a place of anxiety over loss of that young adulthood moment? It was joy. It was mostly joy.
But I did not intend for any of it to be about like fear of loss of anonymity. But that is partly what it's about, too. Truthfully, I had one song left to write, so I wanted my album to be 10 tracks. And then I signed my deal and they were like 12.
And I was like, okay. And I had like, don't go back to his ass of the song. I'd written that chorus in June and then picked it back up in September and like, we'll finish it because I was like, okay, two more songs. You were 12 for 12 songs.
All 12 of you wrote became real cool. Yes, yes. And then Silver Jubilee was like, I had one song left to write. My cousin Savannah was turning 25 and her and her friend Allison were doing a joint birthday party called the Silver Jubilee into the celebration of the 25th year of a special event.
And so the dress code was head to toe silver. All the cousins were there. It was in Philly. And I had signed my record deal the day before I flew out.
And I'd like, you know, put that, you know, pen to paper and I signed my contract in my childhood bedroom because of course I had to. And then my label was like, really? Like, they want to be like coming in and pop champagne. And I was like, no, I need to do this in my childhood bedroom.
And then I flew to Philly. And I remember Emma Savannah picking up from the airport. And I got in the car and I was like, if this weekend is amazing enough, I'll write my last song about it. And then it was, but really that it was just so much fun.
My sister was there and she was like, I'm gonna tell my sister, she's perfect. I just kept crying every time I look. We were so trash the entire weekend. Like trash and every time I looked at her, I would start crying because I thought she was so pretty.
And then yeah, I also was in this weird thing where I'm like, okay, written all these songs. Oh my God, if I am lucky enough, I will be in a bar one day, this trash in my own song will come on and I won't be embarrassed. I will be so filled with glee. And I just remember wrestling with like, I love my anonymity.
I love being out in the world more than I love doing anything. And I wish my son were playing right now. So that is like, I don't know what that is, but that's what the song ended up being about. Even though what I was trying to do was write, I got a feeling.
I got a feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night. That tonight's gonna be a good night. That tonight's gonna be a good night. Which is crazy.
Like no one should try to do that. But I meant like, anthemic. Like I just was like, I don't want to get too specific about this weekend because honestly shouldn't. And I want obviously to include my cousins names, I don't shout out my sister, but I want it to be like general.
I want to be a, I wrote it as a closer. It was definitely closer. And yeah. Shut up.
You leave us with a little bit of doubt, though. Yeah. If you're being honest, you don't really party. You don't really go out.
Most of sitting at home in your apartment writing songs. Well, yeah. No, that was Silver Jubilee and like shooting Star were two songs that like gave me how? Because I was like trying to channel this party.
And I was so not really partying. But I feel so, it's so visible for me to party. And when I do party, it's like life changing almost every time. And so I want to obviously write songs about it.
But I was on like, again, week two of writing fucking Silver Jubilee. And I was like, I'm sick of this shit. I want this to be over. And it was my last song, you know, eight months straight of writing and like basically seeing nobody.
And I was like trying to write about whatever this is like, and I was just again, can't stress enough, looked like shit in my apartment. Like, if I'm being honest, I don't really party at a certain home. And I also, I think my very potent feeling of college for me was like, I just didn't ever feel like I got invited to enough parties. And I was, and I, that was my first like experience with FOMO, which is the worst feeling on the planet.
And I wanted to sing directly to a girl who was like at home alone on a Friday night in Hodoram, like who, you know, felt awful about herself. But if you know, I'm this cool pop singer and I'm like, that's me too. Like that would have made my life back in college. Because there was so, it was truly my first experience with FOMO.
It was during college. And oh, this is the worst. I haven't had it every one time. I don't get that anymore, obviously.
No. No, I really don't. But yeah, I wanted to like sing directly to that person. You also think about you just want to know a life earlier.
That's getting weirder. Yeah, it's not all it's correct to be. I'm telling you. No, it is.
But it's like, like it is in many ways. I can't express like I have from the time I popped out, wanted to be regarded and respected for being a writer. It's all that I wanted. And so now it's like, this is like the biggest dream of my life is this evening.
I'm telling you, this is what I fantasized about as I was writing, like just getting to talk about the songs. And so thank you guys for listening. Like, thank you and thank you for having me. But I don't feel like famous or anything.
Sometimes people notice me on the street and I get some strange looks, but like, I don't feel like I'm Lady Gaga. Like I'm not like, my life is completely flipped upside its head. Things are a little different. But obviously I'm going with this career.
I'm going to like keep pushing. I'm going to keep performing live. So who knows what will happen? And I obviously all I want more than anything is to keep writing music because that's the most interesting thing I can do.
But I miss, yeah, observing a little bit. It's like, I actually, yeah, I wrote like a chorus once about like the grass is always greener. I'm just a new concept. Like, it's true.
It's like, like the years between like 21 and 24 were like the most confusing years of my entire life. Like, truly, truly, truly, I was living in an apartment for three months next to the 10 East in Los Angeles. I was house sitting in the palisades. I was working around a job.
I had bald spots from my OCD. I had trick toillomania. I felt like, you know, disgusting. I felt amazing.
And I was always wishing for this. And I totally like made this happen. I'm very happy to be here. And also I look back on that time and I was like, that's an interesting person.
That is a very interesting person. And you don't feel as interesting when you're like doing stuff like this all the time. I think I'm like in a good spot because I, you know, I stay also, I charge staff social media. Like I've been badly labeled.
Like, I make a concerted effort to not like waste my brain, waste my brain, waste my brain. And so yeah, I'm like always combating parts of this that are supposed to like ruin you. Maybe I haven't even scratched the surface, but I'm incredibly concerned with like preserving my normal life and the people in my life. And you get very busy.
And anyway, I'm really glad that your Nickelodeon show got canceled. I mean, me too. No, not on behalf of them. On behalf of we got this great outlet.
You have been working in this that jobs, right? So you do have a screenwriting experience. If this is starts as too heavy handed to the metaphor. But if album one is like pilot, what's the log line of what happens next in your music career?
What season two look like? Oh, I think what was something I've been thinking about recently is how opposed I and scared I am to write about like any glimmering anything of fame. Because I don't know if it's relatable. And I would rather be that and just normal.
And I think something snapped immediately where I'm like, I'm just gonna write about it. It's probably, you know, I'd hope that anyone who's invested in me as a songwriter is not looking for me to like be anything that I'm not actually, you know? So if I'm gonna write about the black cars, gear up and I hope you like it. Oh, you're getting better at this time.
Yeah, exactly. No, truly. Audience super fun. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. And wonderful. Thank you guys.