“Eddie Vedder”

All right. Hey, check, check. Hello. This is Eddie Vedder.

The guys do not know that I'm doing this. They don't know I'm here early. I'm usually late, but, uh, you know, they want to start this thing early and then we're going to come on. Come on, fellas.

Let's do this. Welcome to Smarter. This is what I want to bring up. When we had dinner on Sunday, we started talking about words that we got mixed up.

Like I was, I never knew the difference between rife or ripe, like if something's rife or rife with, with, with information or rife, you know, what is the rest? And then Jason, didn't you have one? Um, yeah, my, my big question, uh, up until a couple of weeks ago, a couple of years ago, rather, uh, was making ends meet. Now I always thought that people would say that as a, uh, well, we're just trying to make ends meet, meaning we're just trying to buy the cheapest kind of meat.

You know, we're not, because we're poor. We're trying to make ends meet at the end of a cow. I thought that until a couple of years ago, but it's really about completing the circle. Make ends meet M-E-E-T.

Now if I'd been a reader, I would have seen this in print and known that it wasn't M-E-A-T. Now the more egregious one, Sean, before we move on here, Will. I can't wait. This is, all your guests are getting right to you.

Stay awake. So, but this is, uh, music related, so you'll enjoy this. Oh, you know what he's going to say, Sean. So Sean, Sean P.

Hayes. Yeah, that's me. Music fan and also music student, aren't we all? Student studied music.

This is, this is, uh, when we were watching the Beatles documentary together. Oh, that's right. This ding dong, uh, didn't understand that the Beatles, I spelled B-E-A-T. Right.

Like the beat, like one makes a beat. Wait, and you knew this? Jason, you knew this? Yeah, man.

I did not know that. The bug, the Beatle, is B-E-E. Right, but I never knew it was a pun on beat, like a rock beat, like a drum beat. So you did know that, that Beatles, the bug, is spelled with two E's?

I do. I just didn't put two together. I didn't put it together. But listen, I can't be the only person out there.

Well, no, most of those people are locked up. Um, you know what we're going to get, we're going to get online, we're going to get people responding to this, like on our social saying, like, I was today years old, which by the way, that expression, fuck off. But wait, don't you think, don't you think, if you, if you want to make a right comment on any one of our feeds or whatever, and admit that you didn't understand that the Beatles was a pun on the word beat and not the bug. Yes.

Please join me. It'll really help Sean out. It will help Sean out. And listen, it's good.

We've got Bennett and Rob. Uh, I want everybody to, we've got Bennett, Rob and Michael here. Can they contribute as well? Just to say, what did you guys know?

We've never done this before, but you guys knew about the pun. I knew that for sure. I knew about it. You did for real?

Are you serious, guys? You're not. Well, I admit it. Hang on.

We haven't heard from Robert or Muir. Yeah. It's like beatless with one S. Beatless.

Beatless. Beatless. It's like smartless. Beatless did not clear.

Oh my God. They, anyway, wait, I was about to accuse them of ripping us up, but I guess that was 67 years ago. So it's an homage. Oh, it's an homage.

Thank you. Thank you very much. So yeah. So we cleared that up.

So that's, so the Beatles, super inspiring though. Yeah. Right. Watching their, let me just say, I wasn't the only person in the room.

We were all watching that together. That didn't know that the Beatles was a pun on the word. Somebody else who's a big listener of the show. She also didn't know.

She was a kind host too. No, you know why we're not going to out her? Cause she's a friend. She's a friend.

Okay. And, uh, we'll give you initials at least. Right. No, no, no.

We don't need to. We just say that she's a friend. She's a friend. She's a friend.

She's a friend with a capital F. She's a friend with a capital F. 8 PM. Now we know.

Oh, Sean, we've said too much. On 2B. 2B. Listener.

Sorry for that. Um, mystery guest. Sorry for that. Here comes, here comes.

All right. After this, after our, after going on like this, they're going to be more like a misery guest. And I like the rock and roll. I love the rock and roll.

You like the sound of actual instruments being played, plugged in, played loud. This isn't dance music. Listener. This is heart pounding, headbanging, wash pitting, stage diving, rock and roll.

But his music is also melodic at times. It's rhythmic. It's complex. It's emotional.

The lyrics are often poetic and complex. In February, he will release his first solo album in more than a decade called Earthling. We know mostly from the group Pearl Jam. He's one of our most enduring rock stars.

One of my all time favorites, folks, Mr. Eddie Vedder. No way. Hello there.

It's so great to meet you. This is so cool. I mean, hey, Will. Now, Eddie, I have, by the way, how are you?

So nice to meet you. You too, Sean. Eddie, we met, we met once, uh, years ago at SNL. Do you remember that?

I do remember. Wait, wait, tell us about that. Why would you remember that? What happened?

We took a, he took a photo of us together, right, Ed? Yeah, it was the after, the after thing. Yeah. And it was that memorable.

Just, just one photo with Will Arnett will do it. It'll burn it in your brain. It was. No, I wish it would have went longer, but those things are sometimes crowded, but that was the highlight of the night.

We had a little corner. Can I do, can I do a little thing about you, Eddie? So when I was in college, I was, uh, on the entertainment committee and we were in charge of getting bands to come. And at Illinois State University, greatest university in the country, you played.

And I don't know if it was the same ticket as the, um, Red Hot Chili Peppers or not. I think it was, right? And maybe you opened for them or was it just a double? Yeah, it was just in the pumpkins and the peppers.

And the pumpkins, right. And you all, and I remember seeing you, I was like, everybody in the audience was just blown away. You hadn't really become you yet. And the band was, was just kind of on the rise, right?

Do you remember when you weren't you? Yeah. What was that like, Eddie? Wait, Sean, you, you, Sean, you organized a night that had Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins.

Well, we, we, we, as a committee discussed other bands touring who we would go after, who we thought the student body would like. This was at your college. God, what a school? And, and, uh, yeah, it was wild to see you then.

How have you been? Do you remember that night, Eddie? What was the venue like? Was it kind of a hall?

It was called the Bone Center. We used to call it the Boner. How'd you guys come up with that? Was there a lot of love making happening at the center?

No. Um, boy, if, uh, Will Arnett was there, I bet I would remember. Um, Eddie, so Eddie, before you were Eddie, were there any, were you always doing music and, and, and wanting to, planning on dreaming of being a rock star? Were there like some regular jobs that, that, that kind of put some food in your mouth before you started successfully rocking and rolling?

Oh, for sure. Yeah. I ended up doing a lot of midnight shift work, which, uh, it's even handy because, because that's kind of the job now is that you kind of, you know, you're not supposed to peak to like nine or 10 at night and that kind of, uh, that lifestyle ended up working for the current occupation. But, um, yeah, no, a lot of waiting tables, a lot.

I, I really had like a passion or instinct and a drive and all these things to, to, if, if I was going to try to write songs, I was at least going to just give it my best shot and, um, you know, worked hard in little bands and then would do midnight shifts and do all the, you know, making the flyers. And I heard when you talk to Dave Grohl the other day, and he was talking about recording with cassette tube cassette players and going back and forth. I mean, it's the same thing that I did. And I think that comes from a desire, you know, that's not, that was before the advent of home multitrack recording, which was in the early mid eighties, which we finally got around to, I'm sure Dave did too.

But, um, before that it was, but it was really just wanting to be able to, to write a song yourself or, you know, have it sound like a drum machine or have it sound like a real, a real piece of music, even though you're doing it by yourself. And I think that came from listening to early Pete Townsend demos, which back then were on bootleg vinyls that I would acquire and, um, and hearing that one guy could kind of play everything. What about how Dave played every single instrument on that first album for Foo Fighters? That was pretty impressive, wasn't it?

Yeah, he gave me that tape long before it was out. I think it just said this side. Play here. Did you give any notes on it or was it pretty much done?

Oh, it was done. Yeah, it was done. And then their first tour, um, it was actually Dave and I, um, and Mike Watt, we were supporting Mike Watt, who just put out a great record with a lot of collaborations. And so when we took it on the road, it'd be me, Dave and Watt at the end of the night as a three piece.

And then Pat Simear would join us, and then Foo Fighters were playing. It was like their very first tour. I want to say it was something a little insane, like 28 shows in 30 days. Wow.

You know, I wanted to ask you, Eddie, about like you were saying, um, Jason touched on it. You touched on it when Dave was talking about, um, recording and trying to do like a, like a real patchwork sort of multitrack with cassette tapes and stuff and, and like using the home stereo folks, home stereo and stuff, which is so cool. And just that desire to like get it out. Cause he knew obviously he had like a song or an idea of something that he had to do it.

So he had to, and, and you probably heard us rambling on before you came on here about watching the Beatles talk together. And I was, Sean will attest to this. Jason was minding his own business, but I was obsessed with watching this documentary, watching that process, that creative process. It's one of the, I said to them the other night, it's one of the most inspiring things I've seen in years and years, watching that process and watching Paul work out songs and John and watching him go through, let it be, and trying to figure it out.

And then Ringo sitting next to him, blah, blah, blah. What I'm getting to is, I don't want, yeah, I don't want this to turn into one of those, like, Eddie Vedder says on the podcast that he puts them, you know, he's like the Beatles or like one, you know, because that's what people like to do. But what is, did you have that experience as a kid as well, where you were just like, had all these ideas for songs that you just knew had to come out or like you had a vision for it? Like, was that kind of coming out of you in that way, in the way that I imagined it would?

The one thing I have to say about the documentary was, which was enlightening, exciting for me to, to finally realize that I had something in common with John Lennon. And that is that I'm always the last guy to show up at practice. However, I was early today, I'll be late for practice, but see, I, you know, maybe I'm a little too comfortable with the fellows in the band, but you guys, I deeply respect, you know, no, I'm usually late. The guys would know this.

I'm usually late because I'm working on a last minute lyric or something. So we have some, I can make some progress from my side of the fence, but I think early on, I think it was just, you know, how to cross that bridge or how to build the bridge from playing somebody else's song to writing one yourself. And, and, you know, like our lead guitar player, Mike McGrady is just, you know, unbelievable. And, um, and I was never gonna be able to do that or, or my interest lied in just kind of communicating and getting lyrics and, and chords and momentum and beat, you know, rhythms and to, to, to communicate.

And that started early on, you know, and it's still, it's still continues. It's still the, uh, ever moving gold line, you know, that you try to get across on a daily basis. Was it more of an excitement to get lyrics out or get music out, rhythm, melody, um, you know, sound, or, or was the initial draw, um, more writing poetry, you know? Well, I think it's to get them to match, you know, so that the song is, you know, the song is the lyrics and the lyrics.

Are just fit with the music that the music means, what the lyrics mean and the lyrics sound. So are you saying that rarely will there be a stack of lyrics on one side and a stack of cool sounding melodies and it's just arbitrary what set of lyrics go with what kind of song? In other words, are they written separately sometimes, um, in your process? And then you go, oh, these lyrics will go good with the sound or does it happen simultaneously?

You know, every once in a while, cause I will just sit and just write to write, just write to write and typewriters or calligraphy, whatever, just write to write. And then I'll bring those, uh, notebooks and pads of paper and then something comes up and then I might think that this song sounds like that one thing I might've been writing about. So, um, you might take the one line, you might take two and then you flesh it out. Rarely would you take a whole page and just have it match up.

So many of your lyrics are like just stuck with me and they always will be like, I just know so many of them off my heart. They're kind of part of my experience, uh, you know, especially in my sort of twenties and thirties, they were really just, they're so ingrained in my head. Like I, at any point I can't, this is not a joke. I can't tell you how many times out of the blue I will go alone, less, less like out of the blue.

Eddie is crazy. And what's nuts is, and Jason kind of said like, you know, your lyrics are, you are like a, I don't want to embarrass you. You're like a poet though. And your lyrics do have, and I know that your songs have so much meaning.

What was funny to us was a couple of weeks ago we had David Byrne on, on the podcast and I was asking him about like, you know, um, you know, the song, the lyrics were like, this is not your beautiful house. It's not your beautiful wife. It's like, what was that moment like? Like those lyrics are so important to so many people and they read into them.

He's like, oh, it didn't mean anything. He said, he said, I was trying to sound like a preacher from AM radio and I just kind of made it up and it has no meaning. We were like, what? So many people have like, you know, really ran into that shit.

I have, I have David Byrne lyrics that, you know, it's, it's their one step short of being tattooed on my forearm. I mean, I live, I've lived by them, you know, a little more selfish. It might do you some good. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. But to Will's point, do you ever like, do you ever like actually let it in the fact that, because music is such a psychological thing for people that when you grow up or what you listen to becomes a part of who you are. And do you ever just really soak that in and realize you're one of those people that have created music and lyrics that now live inside so many people?

It's kind of an unbelievable feat. He's shaking his head. No, he's shaking his head. It's more just, it's more thinking that if that opportunity still exists to, uh, still do something better or, you know, uh, current or, you know, I feel like these days or especially last couple of years, you know, I've leaned on music.

Our whole family's done music, whether it's been having dance parties or recording together or whatever, it's always been a positive thing. And, and, um, you know, I'm still looking, I need music to get me through and I'd like to have music that may, uh, you know, do the same for others. Maybe I'll try. Um, do you ever find that, I know that you, you have a love, hate relationship with, uh, with fame and success, like most people with, uh, with an admirable level of humility, but do you ever, do you ever, um, treat yourself to reaching into that bag of accomplishment, um, uh, to help you through some of the extraordinary levels of pressure or anxiety?

Like, you know, standing in front of a hundred thousand people, you're about to walk out and play it. Like I would imagine a normal person would need to reach into some sort of bag of something, uh, some sort of, um, pride so that you don't have an anxiety attack. So do you, do you at least use it for, for that? Um, if you won't pat yourself on the back when you don't need it?

No, but you bring up a good point. I should do that. Yeah. Like that's, that's okay to tap into it there.

Yeah. Jason, what's the bag you reach into? Can you talk about it on there? It's got, it's got a Ziploc.

Um, and, um, no, um, I want to say this, I want to say this, sorry, just wrap up the lyrics thing. Cause it's just killing me. I've always, to me, one of the most sort of heartbreaking lyrics of all time is from your song Black, which I know was many years ago, Eddie. So forgive me for again, embarrassing me, but that there's that lyric that says, I know, I know you'll have a beautiful life someday.

I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky, but why can't it be in mine? That to me speaks of somebody who understands pain and heartbreak and stuff in a way that's so profound. It's so honest and revealing. And, and, you know, no, it's, it's like, there's a, there's a vulnerability in that to be able to say that, to communicate that to somebody that, that, I don't know, man, it really speaks to, I don't know if you want to talk about that or that kind of writing a lyric like that, does it feel exposing or does it make you feel vulnerable at all?

Well, back, that was in the, that was the first record. So we didn't have anybody listening to us, you know? So there was no reason to, when we were recording, there was no reason to think that, you know, I was exposing any kind of vulnerable side. It was just really communicating what I was feeling or, or, or, or that to be.

honest again that was something that that music that the plaintiff chord changes and all that it sounded like heartbreak so you know i think some of it may be based in truth or experience but then you create a story around that or you create and then you witness some stuff going on over here and then you incorporate that and you kind of but in the end you had it wasn't just you know men singing that it was like men and women and actually it was so many you know back then our crowds were average age of 19 or something we will be right back and now back to the show you guys you know made incredible and still do rock and roll music and rock whatever you want to call it it was you know guitar driven it was hard it was a great sound and yet you weren't afraid you did bring this kind of um you know you guys kind of expose yourself in this way that was very um i don't know just really accessible to you guys because it was very kind of honest there was something i think that that's you know you connected with your audience like right from the get and for me i was connected to your music because of the way you guys were so open in that way i loved that you weren't just sort of musical oftentimes especially kind of hard rock music was very sort of felt very male-driven like you said it was much more inclusive it felt like you know i was always a little bit envious of um the singer and writer of lyrics and this band mudhoney uh mark harm because it was so acerbic and felt so his lyrics were pushing outward and galvanized and it felt to me like he was just protected you know it was like iggy pop or and kurt too his lyrics were cryptic and tough and weren't even sure sometimes what he was saying or michael stipe was like protected in some kind of shroud of mystery and i always i always wished i was better at that at the time but it was just the way that i was writing or feeling or you know i really to be honest i didn't know what i was doing as far as you know what would happen if anybody heard it because we just didn't think anybody really would not not not like as many people as ended up hearing it um which maybe probably made the second record a little tougher because then you did have the thing of of maybe people were listening and whether it would be heard and criticized and and that was probably the hardest one to get through lyrically and still have it be pure and not reacting to uh the future reaction yeah yeah all those albums are just so good and you've made so many of them and and now the the solo effort um getting that done in between uh what is there a dominant thing in your life now i'll bet it's family uh and just generally just us having the uh privilege of getting older because the only other alternative is death um and you're starting to absorb a lot of different things is that what's fueling your change in sound to the extent that that there is one i mean i know i'm sure it's vastly different to what you guys do with the band but what is what's the main thing that's driving what sounds good to you nowadays and what you're writing about you know i think i went down to los angeles to participate in something called uh vax live it was put on by global citizen and um a lot of great people coming together to encourage people to vaccinate right when the opportunity was being uh afforded and encouraging pharmaceutical companies etc to make the vaccinations available to third world countries etc so it was a great endeavor and um and then i just happened to bump into a guy that i'd come to know over the years a bit um andrew watt and uh kind of producer musician and we've been friends for a while or just kind of acquaintances and i just wanted to see a studio and we hung out for a couple days just immediately started writing so i think what was informing some of this new stuff was just a new collaborator a new studio and which is a little home kind of spun basement and just working with some uh another guy josh klinghoffer which has been working with uh our group um with the when we got live playing our new record which was two years ago which we haven't toured on yet um so josh was in the fold and we just started hanging out and then we actually it was going so well we had the rest of the guys come down and we started doing some real gem songs as well just in this new uh atmosphere and new feeling and that went really well too so i think coming out of covid it was it was um like an antidote to all the isolation um but what's affecting your taste nowadays is it is it your sensibilities are being adjusted mostly with your with your family dynamic and your tempo there or i think well certainly that's part of the fabric you know of you know nothing makes you feel more grown up and being a parent yeah and having kids now that are you know becoming young adults and it's not already there and it's a house of badass women so um you know i i think it comes from a place of humility yeah um and responsibility and and always looking out for you know their world um let me ask you something i was gonna say sorry just before you i know that you mentioned that you like your buddy had a little basement studio that i'm in my new little basement studio anytime i just know i don't want to embarrass you jason stay out of it yeah any anytime man i got like a little vocal area on my phone he's also got two microphones you know what well i'm gonna send you see that blank space right there yeah i'm gonna send you a nice ukulele with a holder just put it right there yes i think i should send you all the ukulele jason you got a space right there right there bring it jason will send you a headshot yeah i can sign up eight by ten for you right up there yeah you look like the dry cleaners over the oakwood corporate housing um but speaking about that you just pointed to your guitars on your wall do you i don't even know how many instruments do you play and what's the one instrument that you don't that you wish you did i wish i could play i mean i can make i can get sound out of a violin but i wish i can actually really play one or maybe a cello like a fretless stringed instrument with a bow would be is that because you love classical music no um but i don't mind it but i think you could sure you could do some i'm a big fan of this guy warren ellis who plays with nick cave and the bad seeds and just nick cave and warren had a band called uh the dirty three which was all instrumental back in the day and we almost called this podcast that that's amazing but they were incredible and it was all improvisational and um he's been a huge inspiration me all my life so um was there as as time went on you know pearl jam i think was formed around late 80s early 90s or something like that yeah and as time went on and technology improved around music did that help and that hinder did you embrace it were you like through that we're all we're all acoustic like did that influence you in any way i think that i think technology is great i still my goal has been or i think the group kind of agrees using the technology to do what we've always done but maybe do it more efficiently or quicker and to be honest probably doesn't sound quite as good if you don't do it right onto tape like two inch tape like we used to analog etc but um i just think you can get lost in the technology and so but if you can comb through it and distill the technology to do the simple things that you used to do with the old stuff i just feel like nothing can really make the music better than just playing well and writing well right and that you can do with anything so we don't need all the extra stuff but um you can use the technology just make it you know go a little quicker and maybe sound a little bit better sometimes so you guys don't feel any any pressure to sort of keep up with what i seem to see as a trend where this this integration of electronic sound with uh the more sort of traditional sort of amplifier you know music guitars you've never sounded older jason you've never sounded more out of touch than this moment and you've sounded out of touch a lot uh i'll name the two other groups i listen to uh radiohead and wilco where they they take sort of electronic sound and they infuse it into some of the is that is that something that you guys play around with you feel obligated to uh is it interesting to you i think i was better at it i think sometimes i'd be inspired to do that and then um and then and that entails reading like manuals and figuring out how to work these knobs and you know i'll buy this i'll read about a guitar pedal that ed o'brien from radiohead used and or i'd watch him use it and that's all i need and then realize that you need to spend a lot of time figuring out what to do and i i wanted i'd rather be writing right or doing something that i could write about yeah hey eddie i forgot to ask you can i just ask you really quick um i keep going back like oh man because these are things i've always wanted to talk to you about because we only talk to each other for like 90 seconds well i'm so happy to talk to you now yeah 15 years he's been waiting since i've got my list now i have a whole eddie smile but uh god bless you oh he's smoking he's smoking i don't smoke in my studio why not well if you're gonna have eddie over there you're gonna have to allow smoking of course you can so hang on so uh i don't know what year it was but you and uh a guy who i've known for a long time bill jenovitz from buffalo tom you know bill great guy great guy and great band and you guys played their song um day lights fade yeah oh my god you guys no i have not i want to say no can i youtube that that was cool right you were in boston doing that where everybody you know and you guys knew the song i mean did you and bill know each other for a while or what was the deal i think we played one show with them i think in boston um back in maybe 91 and um i already had their record for cd at that time and then that song used to hit me i remember the first time they ever had a tour bus and looking out the window and feeling very uh tragic amongst all the newfound uh success um and and having that song really hit me now and then years later i used the i used the word taillights in one of my songs and i next time i saw bill i said hey you know i was gonna call you but i used that i used taillights and um and i apologized he says oh don't worry about it he goes you know i got it from keith richards so uh what is the song about uh before they make me run i think either that or the wind whip comes down something about taillights but yeah wow um why do i remember you in a red sox cap is that a cap you wear often are you a red sox fan you're a baseball fan are you i have an affinity to the red sox and partly because the history and the glory of that old building which is fenway park and then i grew up at um wrigley field so the old buildings and baseball and the smaller feel are going to be my dna and then the third oldest ballpark is that's right my beloved uh so yeah so it's the cobs that are your that's your team yeah but i feel like i can like the red sox because it's american league you know yeah yeah i gotcha um talking about the difference between recording in the studio where you guys have multiple tracks and you can really dial in you can do your vocals a million times once the music is laid down or vice versa what the sequencing is there versus when uh you get together as a group and you play live and you know that you're there's no net under you guys and you're feeling and hearing the momentum and the sound of the music at the same time the audience is do you leave yourself open to a completely different experience there and allow the audience to to drive and inform the the mood there what songs what order you're going to play how you're going to play them um is it participatory like that or or is it pretty siloed no for sure i mean that's what makes our job harder but we've done it to ourselves and and that's why people like to apparently like to see us more than once or or more than once in a weekend or more uh or 10 times on a tour or something because uh all the shows are different and i think that comes we have our crew we've just been a big family for 30 years and you know if i were to do the same thing twice they would they would know it um and i like to entertain we like to keep them entertained on their toes and i think they respect that and um and that level of respect and feeling like we're all part of it and everyone's gonna have to be on point for the whole night is part of why we can make changes or or you know we do things i call audibles you know if we're feeling something's happening or or you know the other thing is being able to stop a show yeah yeah have you ever cut a show short because the audience wasn't as responsive as you or didn't come back for an encore because like you know what we're good you know what john i don't deserve it i shouldn't say this but we probably end up playing longer on those nights because we're gonna get them we're not leaving until we fucking get i get that vibe i get that is there a city that's tougher than others uh or a country that's tougher than others and and and the opposite as well is there is there is there easy lay somewhere well if i could take it out of that vernacular um please do yeah please save jason from himself the crowds in south america are just they will sing guitar solos they will sing in unison a hundred thousand people will sing the guitar solo you'll also there'll be five thousand people outside of your hotel room at one in the morning singing the song and singing the guitar solos and that's great la and new york are tough crowds they used to be yeah um i think they used to be and and i think back in the day we were more concerned about that or look we were spoiled at some point so if people weren't being riled up we want to rile them up even more something but i just don't think we we care about that as much anymore and we're there to just play well and i mean we're there you know communicate and the other thing is making a big room feel small and intimate and that's always kind of the goal and um you just never know what can happen and creating a space where other things can happen um it could be some kind of crowd interaction or some interaction within the band but just being open to that and grabbing it as opposed to having like a scripted out thing which would kind of be amazing you do longer tours if you just kind of knew that you got up at two you had a workout you went soundcheck you did the set you went home you did the same thing the next night i mean you could really fit in a lot of shows it would be easier opportunity that's the wake up at two in the afternoon well because you stay up until five in the morning you see good lord this is a tough question it's like do you have a show or experience or a festival like a moment that you felt like was kind of that kind of rose above there you just felt so connected and you're like you look back around and go like that a little bit that's the one i'm gonna chase i mean it kind of happens a lot you know yeah um same shut up will no we're artists you're a robot have you ever seen promises it was on broadway have you ever seen sean have you have you ever um gotten scared because you open your mouth and because you're getting sick nothing came out or you know you have a voice or whatever caused you to do a lesser performance than you hope for and what did you do and how to handle it well i used to stress out about that stuff more but um now i think it's just you know relax get through it you know there's things you can do but you would know you can change your breathing you can do certain things to to get it out or maybe you have to sing one certain line at a lower hour do a harmony octave or something just talk it or jeremy spoke up in class today point the microphone at the audience you do the you do the yeah let them do it hey you guys do it right yeah i was in um i went to i thought this like three four years ago i went to berlin with the with the guys from uh u2 and with bono and edge and those guys and i went to see them do a show whoa whoa whoa whoa what do you mean you went to berlin with you too you're on the right you're on the plane i wasn't on the plane i met them there but i was hanging with edge and bono in the south of france they live in the south i was working down there as you know and they were hanging out they're great guys and um they're great are they so so we go baby that is drippiest oh are they so um anyway so you're on tour with you too go ahead i met them at the show but you know whatever we were so anyway i go to the show bono loses his voice like three songs oh that show i was at that show oh and you took over over yeah i took over and you know and people didn't notice um wait what happened to bono did he say they canceled the show man it was almost like he inhaled just like a chemical or a smoke thing and it just shut down his vocal cords it just that's what i heard again that's exactly right there's new smoke the people who bring up whatever does that fall under pyro i guess or whatever but scary though right i mean those i've had that moment too like as because we all perform where you go like oh shit is this the thing yeah is this the moment you know what i mean um eddie what is the guns to your head you can only do one thing for the rest of your life between the two making music or surfing uh making music but you do love the surfing i've you know look i'm i'm in an age where i can't serve as big waves as i used to and so i've had my fill and i've got a couple nice pictures of me on big waves you get up there with larry hamilton at all i used to yeah um i haven't seen him in a while but um yeah he you know he invented so many of the things that people now do on the water you know he'd invent something i'll stand up he'd invent toe and surfing with his friends and then move on to something else and invent stand up paddle and move on something else now he's foiling where he's you know three feet off the water and yeah foiling through that so we i've been lucky enough to be with him and and be taught by him um what is it if the waves are x amount of feet high that's too high for you to paddle out what is it well nowadays i would say you know i'm not gonna buy a 12 foot wave is a lot of water good god but you know charlie jixon charlie have you surfed no look at me no no no no jack johnson is the best surfing musician oh really i mean he grew up right there pipeline he's incredible and great great person great family now have you have you done the larry hamilton workout with him in the pool there i have yeah can you explain to our listener what that is what is that well it's just a series of exercises that you do underwater thinking that you know you're getting used to your body under duress underwater so when you you know it applies to surfing and so you have a major wipeout you're used to like battling underwater and it might just be you know you have a swim mask on you're carrying some weights and you hold your breath and then you just do laps under the pool you know you see if you do a couple laps or be under for 90 seconds then come up and get another breath and then do more or you just you go to the deep end you push yourself up get a breath go down push yourself up get a breath go down um the cool thing is the heavier the weights the faster you go down so that's kind of nice um and that's just you know they used to do it years ago that the hawaiians would go uh swim down pick up a big rock you know run for 30 yards and then come up and get a breath and then do laps just to train themselves so larry's probably the closest thing to a human fish we have today would you say that him and kelly slater yeah yeah they're kelly slater great golfer great golfer do you play golf i do not you know what i mean were you doing were you doing the cold fun stuff too he's he's an expert at that i've got a pew to sound so i can jump into that that's that's fairly cold um i might someday i feel like i haven't needed it quite yet i'm certainly getting a cool job i love it man i do that cold thing too i'm super innovative and we will be right back all right back to the show i want to know you've worked with so many people legendary huge names uh too many to list is there anybody you haven't worked with that's on your dream list um outside of you um you've got an appointment with will at the studio you know it's just this life and music um grow with daily the same thing if you guys already it's just been such a such a huge incredible blessing and growing up loving music just about more than anything and and then knowing the music and then getting to know the people that made it and inspired you to begin with and and then when you're then when you become you know close friends that's that's just a whole another level of uh then it kind of changes and then you're just friends and and now you don't even think that that's you kind of remind yourself that oh that's that's the guy that kind of raised you music that's what jason didn't well think of me can you talk about your uh your co your co bandmate on uh mrs mills yeah i sent i sent jason a song yesterday um it'll be out in february with the rest of the collection of this new stuff let's listen to a clip um but you had a special special guest star there on mrs mills well the song asked for it and it was a song about a piano and and um there's a song a piano and it resides at abbey road and it was interesting to hear that um paul mccartney tried to purchase it to have it because i think it was like a lady madonna piano a lot of songs were and they called it mrs mills because it was left behind by a woman uh gladys mills who used to write kind of english pub songs and sing-alongs and her piano was left and they call it mrs mills and and it's still there because they they refused to sell it to paul and and we had our own mrs mills in california the same model signway and the guy i was working with andrew he had elton john in there playing mrs mills paul came in and played mrs mills because they recorded a song together elton we did a couple songs and he played the shit mrs mills and stevie wonder came in stevie was playing mrs mills and i started thinking about how this piano preferred not to be owned she just wanted to be there with all the all these fantastic men were laying her their hands all over her and she liked it that way and so that's what the song's about and um it did have kind of a be less feel to it a feel and we thought speaking of fills we thought about you'd kind of go for a ringo type sound on the drums and then um we're able to reach him and he was joyfully contributed and made it into something really really special so we got to uh sit and record and play with ringo and it was just a real it's a great song education you liked it oh yeah all three of those you sent were just i genuinely meant what i said i could listen to these on a loop for a week straight no no no wait you know what um i wanted to finish we started the whole thing with me recounting the time that um i worked at ellen state university yeah let's go back to that no wait because i want to finish because you grew up in chicago yeah i grew up in clenellan illinois that's west of chicago yes correct yeah you were in ebbson i was north yeah you were yeah anyway i was at this concert it was again it was you it was pearl jam red actually peppers and and so and you i was i weighed i weighed like 70 pounds and i began they let us in the front row and i worked with the security so when you did the body surfing and jumped into the crowd i am the one how to keep everybody off the stage so they wouldn't rush it i was 19 years old thinking i could hold back a crowd rushing the stage to get to any better and let's not forget super super gay oh my god i wore a cape i was okay a cape was a security oh god the question is did you feel safer knowing that sean was there exactly did you feel safer i do remember you buy you jumped into the crowd didn't you used to do that yeah yeah that would be a nightly occurrence and then the chili peppers would play and then i'd do it a bunch more just for yeah are you still doing that when you guys are going out playing those huge venues when's the last time you jumped into the pit trying to think joe would not be happy but it was fun in the 20 movie or whatever the cameron crow uh protein documentary it was a maybe a four minute thing of just all the montage of me done and watching my young kids react that was really fun did i have to just grab your junk one time i mean sean this isn't like the bushes behind the pit you've done i mean i had to have actually maybe that explains the calluses but yeah so maybe yes are you close to rescheduling your your dates that you owe us uh on the domestic court i think i saw there were two there for the forum uh in los angeles are we close to resetting those yeah yeah i think we're going back to europe in the summer and um i think there's been some that's being announced for in the states hopefully before that i'm not sure if they've been announced but that's the plan okay don't make like you don't know us when let's come out come on guys i like you as well well we're gonna be all over you when you're so all over it uh let's let's speak about your uh i'm gonna body surf over are you gonna um where there's t-shirts that please grab here and an arrow do your job um what uh talk to me about um uh scoring uh movies uh briefly or longly however you want um your work with uh sean penn uh is fantastic is that something that you enjoy doing i mean you're mostly writing songs for those films as opposed to scoring uh to picture yes question yeah i think you know sean is really the driving force behind all that i feel like the ones that uh meant the most were anything really just the sean ones and you know working with sean is great uh as you know because you know he can be a as much as he's my older brother and and you know we're so close but uh he's still a terrifying individual and and it will really bring out the best in you and and even lyrically you know if you've ever been out with sean you know he might at three in the morning kind of recite a dylan song with nine verses and do it perfectly or you know so when you write you want to give him something that's worthy of you know reciting at some point um you know he's just been a great collaborator and um this last one we did uh flat day that came out just a few months ago it's just another great experience and his daughter's just incredible and he's incredible in it yeah your daughter participated as well well yeah it was i love the story because it was just she was just a stand-in vocalist we needed a you know we were writing songs glenn hansard and i the great um i love that guy irish singer person irish human irish earthling but um he he uh we we came up with this song we really wanted sean to hear and but we didn't have our female vocalist for another week or so and so i just asked my daughter to come down and give it a whirl and she doesn't spend a lot of time so you know she's shy about it and very humble and just kind of you know enjoys it but but she came in and i played with sean and something about her voice and the vulnerability of it and that it was just kind of perfect for the song so he said not only do i i like the song but this is this version and it was also great symmetry because it was him and his daughter and olivia as well so it it was a great experience and then the craziest coolest thing which we could have never predicted and even a week before i had no idea what happened or three days before but olivia came up and sang on stage when we played the ohana festival with all her uncles you know in the band you know from glenn to chad smith to josh and andrew and those great players so it was kind of like she had the perfect wave and and she served the shit out of it she sang great and that was a big thing to be in front of people so that's very okay speak eddie speak a little bit because you just talked about glenn hanser who i'm such a fan of his music i'm so happy that you guys that the idea of you guys working together for whatever reason makes me really really happy tell me about your relationship with glenn and how that came to be you know i'll tell it quick the crazy thing or i mean it came from such a tragedy in a way because um he was playing in somewhere in oregon and um i read about it the next day that that during the set some young man who obviously had some deep deep issues uh walked away from his girlfriend left her in the crowd next thing you know he was jumping from the back of the stage onto the stage and killed himself it happened behind glenn glenn thought maybe an amp had fallen over um it got even more hectic because the one two lane burrowed into the venue like a winery or something and he was there with his group swell season and all the crowd had to stay put so they could get emergency vehicles in and out so everyone was kind of watching this thing happen anyway i was able to get his number and reach out that next day just to see how he was because we had gone through some stuff with um the ross gilda thing uh the concert room we had our own extra large dose of tragedy so um that's how we met on the phone and i called the next day and checked back in on him and they decided to keep playing which i think for them was a great idea and um and that's how we our friendship started and now we're again just brothers and i just love the guy and that's all right every day i get to see glenn is a good day let me uh let me ask you a final question we will let you go you've been very generous with your time this is the dumbest question uh of the morning um do you want me to ask it uh sean texted me and asked me to ask you this question um the and it's a final question does the title of the band mean what i think it means no no don't put it on that tell us what you think it means first no i can wait until he uh gives a little color there's a slight grin on his face listener well the thing is i don't really know what it means so you could be right i think you do okay there it is can you explain grin it's just a ridiculous question it's a ridiculous question i think it means whatever he wants you know first of all how any better just clowned you dude he's got clowned by any better i think it means can i say what i think it means i think it means when a couple who's deeply in love with each other this is very nice way to start have uh an intimate relationship okay and they they they have a leave behind oh during a an intimate encounter there's an organ scream there's an organ scream an organ scream and what you get is and then you write music to it yeah you're talking about a dick barf whoa bro well i don't know which was the other option for the original kind of fucking dick barf it's in clear it was already taken oh my god did you did you guys hear about the guar show you know guar speaking a great man did you see that they they were playing a theater and they had somebody crowd surfing and by the time he got pushed up on the stage he'd lost his prosthetic leg no so everyone had to scramble and then they stopped the show see this is a good thing any singer should be able to stop the show anybody running the show any promoter should have a kill switch and be able to stop the show it's just something you need to do and i tell you when the leg comes up from the back of the crowd it's just like it gets passed up just the leg it's just fantastic filled with perfume at that point by the time he gets to the front do you think that eddie and i could play brothers do you think i've had that yeah i was thinking about that yeah early on that's a compliment to me by the way that's it is yeah are you guys resisting the urge to just sing uh yeah i've been trying to work out for a solid hour now i keep wanting to go like keep it together no don't do it we're about to get away with it okay but it's on the table sorry i just can't fucking man i love you eddie dude i love you you're a beast um and uh until we see you in inglewood um please be well thank you thank you thank you for doing this such a pleasure and honor to meet you i really love you guys thank you you are the man likewise thank you all right be well thank you thank you thank you and uh hopefully we see you soon bye bye you guys are welcome okay you're welcome i just walked on today there's about a half a dozen true rock stars in this world i agree there goes one of them wait how do you know him what do you i just you know he doesn't he doesn't know me i don't but i i requested and he was nice enough to say yes that's fine i met him at snl like like 15 years ago maybe longer and um longer it was like yeah 15 16 years ago this is the photo that you remember so clearly yeah he took it and it was like the first you have a nice job uh do you have a nice job that's the main swim model because it's like it didn't give up but i certainly want to start at nüt you have a nice job Rhoden It was before the iPhone, and he had an actual camera. And I was on 8H right after the show. We hung out after it, but we were in that thing. And I was just waiting on 8H to talk to somebody, and Eddie comes over.

He had a briefcase with him, which is funny. No joke. And then they just performed on the show, and then he goes, hey, do you mind if we take a photo? And I was like, what?

And then he produced, he's got a camera. He's just been taking photos. He asked you to take a photo with him. Yeah.

Good Lord. And then I went and talked to him and the rest of the guys at the after party, like Mike McCready and those dudes. And Mike McCready was a big Arrested fan. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And we were still on the original Fox version. You know, the more guys that are like rockers, the more... Because, you know, growing up, you just assume they're like testosterone-filled, tough guys are going to kick my ass.

And then you meet them, they're like the heart of gold, gentle giants, like the sweetest... That's what I meant about Eddie's music, about his vulnerability to his music and the way... It's so interesting. There was power and emotion that matched the weight of their musical sound, too.

And it's okay, Sean, what you were saying. It's okay for men to be vulnerable in that way and express themselves in that way. That's what a real man is. I couldn't agree more.

And I don't know about you guys. I mean, he just said it, and I said it to him. And I say it to you guys all the time. Oh, it's too scary to say that.

No, it's not. It only makes you evolve. Sure, and I mean... Fuck you, Jason.

Well, I'm just saying, in the past, you know, it used to be like, if you said I love you to a man, people would think that you're gay, or maybe even... Bye! Bye! Old school, bye!

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