Laufey

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dak Shepard, I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi there. Hi, today we have Leve. Yes. We have Leve, she is a two-time Grammy award-winning singer and songwriter. And what was so special is we got her right between her two performances at Coachella. I know, we got her like right off the presses. So we got to hear about how that first experience went. Yes, and then added bonus, she brought her identical twin sister. Oh, it was so fun. We love twins. We love twins. We have twin expert just coming on. I mean, it's really in the zeitgeist. Her albums, Everything I Know About Love, Bewitched, A Matter of Time, and a new deluxe album out now, A Matter of Time, The Final Hour. She also has a children's book out now called May May the Bunny. Yes. Which we'll hear about. Yeah, May May gets a little nervous before a big performance. Of course she does. Please enjoy Leve. We get support from Quint. I have to say, I am so ready for fall. 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When I look at Steve McQueen, this man owned a couple of sweaters he wore all the time. And he looks iconic. It's a uniform. And Quint's isn't just about the clothes. They have hotel quality bedding, cookware, bath essentials, thoughtfully designed furniture. You can really go there and outfit your entire apartment or house. So if you're in need of any kind of fall refresh at home too, same quality, same attention to detail for every corner of your life. Find your next fall favorites at Quint's. Download the Quint's app for app exclusive offers or go to Quint's.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK. And when Quint's asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is presented by YouTube Premium. YouTube was already great, but Premium supercharges it. If you like YouTube, you'll love Premium. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. Now let's get into today's episode. We'll be right back. First of all, you should watch all 1,000 episodes. I've seen all 1,000 episodes. I've seen all 1, 1,000. 1, 1. No, there's all kinds of mind-boggling things. You know, twins separated at birth, identical twins separated at birth. Just studies about personalities. We don't get to do that with many people, but with twins. Yeah, you guys are really good experiments subjects. Oh, totally. You could cut like a scar on our knee. Track how we heal. Like, we could just do that. So we could put one of you in the Amazon with the same cut and one of you in Iceland and see where you healed better. Yeah. Or there was one in Brazil or Colombia where two identical twins were born in the same hospital and they accidentally switched one from each. And so a pair of twins went into the country, raised in a very rural environment. And then another pair of twins were raised in the city. Completely different kind of parents. One was wealthy. One was rural. But when this all got unveiled and they realized, oh, no, you're an identical twin and your twin is in rural Brazil. When they got together, despite being raised in those dramatically different environments, they were almost the exact same person. And same with the other two. Wow. I'm so pissed if I were the one who had been raised in foreign rural. I know. I know. I see those like studies where they show a twin that like drank more or smoked more. Oh, yeah. And like they look like twins. And they look worse for wear. And I always think that's going to be me. You're going to be the one that looks more haggard. I drink and Larry doesn't drink. Oh. So I'm going to look like ass. Okay. Just because I'm on like a continuous tour. Yeah. You're like, I just want to take care of my body. It's not like a choice to appease the above. Yeah. If you had your druthers, you would be drinking much more and smoking much more. You wouldn't smoke. You'd sing too much, right? Yeah, I think so. What about pranks? Have you guys done pranks on people? The pranks are super underwhelming because they haven't shocked anyone. One time on April Fool's Day, we were like, fuck it. We're going to swap. Yeah. And we swapped and we were in two different classes. So I went to her class and she went to mine. Oh, this is okay. Back in school. Yes. And her class watched a movie. So I watched a movie and my class had a pop quiz. Oh, no. Oh, so she got screwed. Yeah. But also you got screwed. No, she got screwed. You didn't get to watch a movie. I know, but your grade is now. But her shitty grade was my grade. She got the last laugh. Yeah, she did. But no one noticed. And then when we told people, people felt like a little embarrassed because they wanted to treat us like human beings, which is sweet. Yeah, yeah. So they couldn't laugh, right? Okay. They were also just like ashamed and embarrassed. So it wasn't like a gotcha moment. It was like a, oh. You heard their feelings. How do we react by treating them still like human beings? Oh, wow. Wow. Don't you agree? That's kind of how it read. Yeah. People were too woke to laugh about getting twins mixed up. Yeah. Oh, that's upsetting. Okay. We should always be able to laugh at twins mixed up. Yeah, just a giggle. Yeah, yeah. We put the effort in. Yeah. Just a giggle. Yeah. Okay. So I'm most curious right out of the gates, how mom and dad meet? Because mom's from China, dad's from Iceland. How do they meet? So my mom's a violinist and she got a place in the Iceland. Symphony Orchestra. Congrats, mom. So she, for some reason, was just ready for an adventure. Decided to move to Iceland and be the one Asian person in Iceland. How did they meet? I don't know the exact story, but Iceland is a very small community. I'm sure my dad just saw my mom around and was like, wow, she's so cute. Yeah. Yeah. I went a couple summers ago. Very, very small. Did you get good weather or bad weather? Great weather. Really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's on the chilly side. I take it really personally. Like, if people hated Iceland, I'm like, I will personally take them back and walk them around the country. Okay. But have you ever heard someone say they didn't like Iceland? Have you gotten that feedback? Yeah. You have? Well, Iceland's an unpredictable beast. You know, if you're going and you want to see a rainbow behind the waterfall or the northern lights, and there's just like an orange weather warning the whole time. Yeah. That sucks. What's an orange weather warning? I forget the exact levels of it. But there's like a yellow warning, orange warning. I think there's a red warning, too. Just different levels of how fucked you are and how much you cannot travel around the country. Because of snow, blizzard. Yeah. The second it hits any type of warning, it's like, get off the roads. Okay. Which doesn't stop anything. Now, here's something I could see someone complaining about. And we were blessed, privileged. We had great blackout drapes in our hotel. But you're there in the summer. Doesn't touch me. You're not going to sleep if you don't have blackout. I mean, because it's light out at 3 a.m. Well, yeah, it's so fun to go out at night during the summer because you leave the bar and it's past midnight and there's just this orange sunset slash sunrise because the sun just doesn't hit. Like, it just sits on the horizon. Yeah, it just kind of goes across the horizon. Yeah, and it's so beautiful. It's just electric. So just get drunk. I'm an ex-addict. I don't know if you know this about me, but the whole time there, I was like, man, I could have died so well here in this city with cocaine. I could have just. Yeah. That is also how people just thrive in the cold, chilly, odd climate that Iceland is. Heavy drinkers, right? Yeah. I didn't really think about it growing up. When I left Iceland for college, I noticed how weird Iceland was. Or not weird, but just different. I remember distinctly coming back from my first holiday for Christmas, coming back to Iceland and noticing how very dark it was. And you wake up and it's still dark in the winter. It's affected me a little more now. As I've spent more time in the States. California will mess you up. People get very pressed about like daylight savings and like, oh, no, like it's getting dark so early. And I'm like, you guys should go to Iceland and then come back and you'll be so thankful. Yeah. It's weird. You also spent time in D.C. So dad worked for the IMF. Yeah. He's Icelandic. What's the IMF? International Monetary Fund. Thank you. Yeah. You guys went to D.C. when you were seven to nine. Is that the ages? Yes. Seven to nine. And then also when I was like a teeny tiny baby, but I don't remember that. I sound very Americanized, but I really only lived there from a bit of first grade, second grade. But it was so formative, right? It's like when you learn to read and write. So I always had this kind of memory of living in America at that age. It's like you have McDonald's and you have American Girl dolls and you have Target. And that was like daily Disneyland. And then you went back to Iceland. Also, we moved back in the middle of the recession, the financial crisis, which hit Iceland really hard. So it was such a different atmosphere to land into. Yeah. Was your dad stressed beyond belief because that was the role he was taxed for the government? Yeah. Well, we lived in America when all the bad shit was going down. The 08 meltdown. Yeah, exactly. And then we moved back into America. And then we moved back into the 08 meltdown. And then we moved back into just like this absolute mess of a system. And I have the class, like, I don't really know what my dad does, but he was definitely working very hard to help fix things there. Is he 11 feet tall? How tall is he? I don't know. I don't think about my parents. Okay. What makes you think he might be 11 feet tall? Because the Icelandic men are really tall. Like all those Nordic folks, they tend to get up there. Viking like. Now, listen, I'm a father of daughters. And I'm going to be honest with you. If you didn't know how tall I was or what I did for a living, I think my feelings might be hurt. Well, it's all confusing because I still don't completely understand American height. Oh, because you're in meters. And then I've like lost a little bit side of meters too. So I'm kind of stuck in an in-between. It's the same with Fahrenheit and Celsius. I kind of never really know the temperature. Some people can be a person without a country. You're a person without measurements. I'm a person without measurements. Yeah. Well, numbers don't matter. Yeah. I like people don't know what their moms and dads do specifically. They know like the overarching. How tall is your dad? I don't know. Oh, God, you guys. I really don't know. Ashok is crying right now. No, he's not. Just to update you. No, he's not. He's like. That's your father. He doesn't know how tall I am. Yeah, he does. Yeah, I don't think my dad knows how tall I am either. Yeah. Like I'm girl height. I don't know. You're very rare. Oh, I love numbers. Also, I find that in the States, maybe this is because I went into the conversation of dating and then height became this I never thought about height until I started dating. Then that became a number like 5'11 meant nothing to me before the age of like 20. How tall are you? Do you know how tall you are? Uh-oh. 5'5, I think. Like 5'4 and a half. Okay, you're not 5'11. You just threw out 5'11 and I was like, I just hugged you. I don't think you're 5'11 for dating men. That's the height that men are scared of saying that they are. Oh, right. They'll say they're six feet. Exactly. Yeah. But I don't really know what any of that means. Yeah. You're like, who cares? Exactly. To you, 5'11 is bigger than six. It's 5'11. So it seems bigger. No, this makes no, I don't understand that system. What do you mean it caps out at 11, then it turns to like a new number? Yes. It's a terrible system, the English system. I agree. Okay. So mom was this concert violinist. What was her time commitment there? I know she practiced every single day, but what was the hours worked? Because I know how she was on you both. Learning music. And I'm curious how much free time she had for that. She's also a teacher. So taught a lot of violin students and we just kind of were her students as well. When we were born, she definitely prioritized our music education, but she was always in the orchestra as well. How was she doing in Iceland? That's a big change for her from China. Yeah. Huge. I ask her all the time because it's so, well, as somebody who's moved very far from my country to a different part of the world, I have all this modern technology. Like I can call her every single day. I can connect to Icelandic culture still. And even through the internet, finding like an Icelandic community in LA, like there's so many different ways that you can connect to a culture still. I don't want to say that she didn't think about it, but I think that was the option. So she just went with it. And what I really admire about my mom is she never saw being Chinese or being Asian in Iceland as some sort of drawback. She was different than everybody else. I think I do a whole lot more of that than my mother. She's never done any of that. She just moves forward, very entrepreneurial, and she just makes beauty out of everything. Don't you think that speaks volumes about when you decide something versus something's been decided for you? So she decided to leave China. So she's not going to go to Iceland and be like, boohoo, I'm Chinese in Iceland. She chose it. But you're just born in Iceland. You're like, what's up? Why am I the only person here? Yeah, it's true. I've been thinking so much actually about the choices we have and how confounded by choice I often am. I think about in contrast with my mother where she didn't have nearly as many options. You just take what you can get in a sense. And when you get a position in an orchestra, you just go. And whether that's in Iceland or Antarctica or Singapore, you know, in the States, you go where a door opens. And I think that there's kind of a beauty to that. And it's such a privilege to have so many options. You go to a restaurant and there's one plate on the menu. You just eat it and I'll be happy. But, you know, you go to the Cheesecake Factory, you're confounded by choice. And sometimes that is a whole lot more stressful experience. Yeah. It makes me realize that because she chose it, it's one thing. And if you didn't choose it and if you could trick yourself into going like, oh, I chose this experience at all times, you would experience it much differently if you could just fool yourself into that. Oftentimes, I think about my mother's journey and how a door would open and she would just walk through it. She wouldn't look around like, is there another door around me? Is there racism there? Oh, yeah. Everywhere, I guess. Absolutely. And it's something that whispers in Iceland, too, because there are so few people of color. Right. I guess that was my question. That it's like people in Iceland oftentimes love to pretend that it doesn't exist because it is a very progressive society. And we are very forward thinking in many ways. Like we had the first democratically voted female head of state, the who was a single mom and she was voted. And currently we have a female president, female prime minister, a lot more female ministers as well. It's truly like a country that is run by women, which I'm so proud of. So progressive in so many ways, but I still think there's so much work to be done when it comes to diversity. But there's so little diversity that the conversation doesn't come up as often. But I think it's something that's increasing and I'm happy that people are talking about it. Yeah. I don't want to excuse racism, but I also want to acknowledge people when they have no experience with other groups, they are left only with stereotypes. The way I like to describe it, even for myself, and I'm only half Asian, I am white passing in many instances. But in a class of 250 blonde haired, blue eyed people, you walk in and you have different features and you're eating different food at home. Immediately, everybody will turn around and be like, oh, what's this? Sometimes. But it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be like a negative thing. But I often felt so different growing up by the nature of being a part of a very homogenous society. Yes. Okay. But you're also saved by the fact that you're bouncing around everywhere, right? So you're in Iceland until seven, then you're in D.C. for a couple of years and you're with international students where you go to school. By nature of being in D.C., I went to a public school, but everyone was from a different country. Yeah. Which was really cool, which I think is why I loved being in D.C. so much. And then summer's in China. Yeah. And when you go to China, are you also feeling exotic and other? Yeah, but I never really thought of it. For some reason in China, I was always so excited to go to China and excited to be with my grandparents and excited to speak Chinese and eat the food. When I speak Chinese in China, people are so warm about it. They love speaking Chinese and they love when Westerners are trying to claim their language or speak it or something like that. And you speak Mandarin, right? Mandarin. Whereas Iceland. Icelanders, I often find if you try to speak Icelandic to them and you even have a lick of an accent, they'll switch to English. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, don't even try. Exactly. That's kind of the difference. It's fun to try to be a part of China because the culture, the food, they love when you embrace it, whereas like in Iceland, there's all these kind of weird social rules. But they're both music professors. So obviously this comes very natural for you to be in this situation. But when I'm looking at your life, I have a lot of, and I could be totally wrong, but I see like moving around a lot. That leads to crazy loneliness, Ken. The level of dedication to learn cello, to learn piano, to end up yourself playing cello at the symphony orchestra at 15. These are lonely endeavors. And until I read you had an identical twin, I have like one whole thought of your childhood, but then when I think you have an identical twin, that must help buffet all of those things. Absolutely. Yeah. Can you imagine having done this whole same life of yours, but by yourself? No. You know, it's funny you say the word lonely and, the whole time I'm thinking, I really don't know, like lonely in a sense, but different is always the word I use because I felt different, but I was never alone. Like I always had, you knew, my sister with me. And especially classical music education can be quite a lonely endeavor. When I started playing in chamber groups and orchestra, I started loving it so much more because it became a social thing. And you'd hang out with your other friends that were doing this really odd thing as well, which is like studying. Yeah. Yeah. Basically Olympians. Well, it's a solo sport until it becomes a group sport. But also just the amount of practice required is all consumed. Yeah. I mean, it takes up your whole life in a way and that becomes your identity. And I never questioned it. I don't want to say that I didn't have the freedom to do other things, but I just came from a family of classical musicians and knew that that's what I was meant to do. When I was younger, I saw it as just like a part of school. It's cool. And then I went home and I cello for an hour. You're like, this is part of the routine. This is a part of the routine. This is just what I do. Yeah. And then as I grew older and it became more of like a choice of, are you really going to want to pursue this? That's when my mom was like, this is in your hands now. If you want to continue on this journey, you continue. And if you don't, you don't have to. What age was that? 14, like high school age. Did your sister also play? Yes, but she played violin and I played cello. We both played piano. Okay. But we had our kind of separate things there, but we could often play together, which was lovely. And what does that do to the dynamic between mother and daughter when mom is the teacher and mom's overseeing? And I heard you in an interview on Fresh Air saying like, yeah, if she hears you not play the right note from the other room while she's working with her on the violin, she's screaming to you. I went to, again, another stereotype, but like the Chinese immigrant American child in America has very specific and it's going to be like fucking math by row. This really interesting. Intense. You've got to get the skill because you must be safe. I want to know what that dynamic was. Was there tension or was that easy? Instilling this level of discipline, healthy discipline in me. I think a lot of kids get it through sports and I got it through music. It's funny how much of a taboo. I don't even know if taboo is the right word, but I think sometimes when people talk about immigrant parents and how hard they are on their children, they love to, especially when it comes to like music or school, they love to make it sound like this really oppressive music. And sometimes it totally is. Do not get me wrong. I had a really healthy relationship with my mother and discipline. So many kids get this through sports. And I feel like it's okay with sports somehow in the eye of, you hear about kids who push really hard to become Olympians or football players or basketball players and they grind and they spend all their time with their coaches and their coaches push them hard. And I find that the conversation around that, it's like, okay. Well, I have opinions about the sports thing. So yes, it's great when you turn out to be Tiger Woods, but for every Tiger Woods, there were a couple thousand kids whose relationships with their father was completely destroyed for something that didn't amount to anything because the dad had fucking dreams of being on the PGA. So definitely it happens. And yes, when I'm talking to you, it works out. Like here, here you have two Grammys, of course here. But I think unfortunately a lot of people end up modeling that. Again, if the payoff is there, then yeah, if you end up at the Olympics, yeah. But if you also, you know, if you end up at the Olympics, you end up at the Olympics, you end up at the Olympics. If you also just rode your kid for 12 years and they weren't destined to be an Olympian, then no, I don't think that's cool. I've definitely seen mean examples of it. I mean, of course, in classical music. Are you kidding me? But this is where I think it was really healthy. My mom's goal with making sure I practiced every day was not to make me the best solo cellist in the world. It was only about teaching good habits and discipline, being able to stick to something that I was good at. Seeing it through, dedicate yourself to something. And that's something I'm so grateful for. Because even as I've left classical music, I've been able to transfer that to school or life or work. I think I'm really fortunate that it was just about good habits and not just about winning. She didn't care about me winning. And I think that's where it gets really unhealthy. Yes. When parents just want their kids to win. Miss the spelling bee and get yelled at the whole ride home. Yeah, like my mom would never ever do that. But societally, I do think you're right. This is interesting. I'm even thinking just personally, I do that. Like if I hear that a coach or something is pushing their protege very hard, I'm like, yeah, that's what you have to do. That's how you do to get a gold medal. I don't have any judgment of that. But yes, if I hear someone's like, oh my God, they made me do so many math problems, wouldn't let me get out of my seat. I'd be like, oh no, that's a problem. Yeah, exactly. Also, there's a different dynamic. If you have a coach and you've told your parent, I really want to be a gymnast. Okay, great. Here's the best coach. And then when you disappoint the coach, you understand they're not disappointed. They're teaching me this thing. But I think where it gets blurry is when your parent is your teacher and you fail. I do think there's an extra layer. Yeah. I mean, my mom always made sure we had teachers. Oh, okay. She was never our primary teacher. Oh, cute. That's good. And I think that's really important. Yeah. Yes, yes. It was more for my sister because she's a violinist. So she taught my sister who played violin. I literally chose cello because I was like, I don't want my mom to teach me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's smart. And I don't want to have to be measured by her either. Like, here's an example of perfection in the house. Do I want that? My grandfather was a violin professor in China, and he taught all of these amazing Chinese prodigies. And I just saw those kids. I was like, all right, I'm not going to match up. But I love the sound of cello. It sings more. I think cello is my favorite instrument. It's my favorite instrument of all of the traditional ones because it goes more places. It's like, I don't know, is it a bass sometimes? It can go a bit high. Like, it just feels very versatile. It can be all over the place. You're playing with a bow. Sometimes they're not. It feels more of a flexible and improv-friendly instrument than some others. But maybe that's completely rubbish. I don't know. I think what it is, is it's just when people listen to violin, they think a lot more about technique, fast passages, runs, if you will, like to compare it to singing. Whereas if you think about cello, it's about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's about tone. It's about heart. It's about how it touches you. It's a lot more melodic in that way. Do you love watching Wednesday play the cello? Are you stoked that, like, it looks so cool? I'm stoked that there is any type of cello in the world. In pop culture? In pop culture. That always makes me feel so seen, whether it's School of Rock or Wednesday or anything. I always celebrate it. Whenever a character plays the cello, I'm like, yes! She's also such a badass. Yeah, and I love how Wednesday gets her anger out by playing cello. And I feel like that's actually really cool because cello is known to be this melodic, like, sad instrument. I love it. I always think string playing in movies and TV is so funny because it's almost never synced correctly. Sure, sure. And you know too much. I know too much, yeah. And it always looks kind of silly, but I can tell that Jenna Ortega put in the time to, like. Learn the instrument, and I think that's so cool. Yeah. I want to acknowledge how you and I are almost like, if there was a spectrum of this, we'd be on opposite ends of the spectrum, which is like, I'm not a master of anything. I did one million things as a kid. I mean, you're a master of something. I don't know if I am, but my childhood was completely undisciplined. My mom was at work all day, single mom. By the way, despite all of this, I'm extremely jealous of. Okay, great. Because when I'm looking at your life, and of course, my life got me here, and I like where I'm at. I've got you here, and you like where you're at. Right. We could make cases for either, but when I look at your childhood, I go, oh no, well, where was the childhood? Because when you weren't doing those things, which are already very time-consuming and repetitive and so much practice, you're doing ballet. Highly disciplined. Yeah, like the. I know, but I was terrible at it. Even the outlet was disciplined. It was just dancing. So for me, discipline's like, ugh. But I'm just curious, do you think you paid any price or you gave anything up for that to end up as skilled as you were? No, I don't think so. Okay, great. On the spectrum of classical music, I was still pretty lax. Like, when you look at the kids that are really out there performing, they're on a different level. I still had a childhood. Like, I still had fun. I think I didn't start being a teenager early enough, but that came a lot more from my personality. I was really scared of growing up. I really didn't want to be an adult. I really wanted to be a child. I had this weird complex about. Wanting to be a child always? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I can't explain it. I was, like, scared of drinking and scared of going to parties and scared of going on dates. Super scared of boys. I was a very insecure child. I didn't feel great about how I looked or my body. And I just didn't feel confident enough to go do that. And how similar are your personalities? Like, what was your twin experience? We were both like that. You both, okay. And I think we both, like, spiraled into it together. I felt weird and. Times two. Yeah. Imagine feeling like you take up a lot of space and are super annoying and you're in your head about that and you feel like you dress differently and you look bad and you look ugly. Times two. I felt like I was walking around being extra weird, extra different. This is tough because she's here, but yes, I was insecure. And then any family member of mine also made me insecure, right? Like, I might not have, like, what was going on with me, but also it's like, then you bring other family members and I'm embarrassed on their behalf. Oh, yeah. So if you didn't like yourself and then there's an identical version of you cruising around, that's just more embarrassment in a sense for me. Absolutely. And we were referred to as the twins. We didn't have our own names. There was like this two-year period where the teacher would be like, oh, and twins. And we would scream back, it's Le'Veon Junior. We genuinely, that was like my one act of rebellion ever in high school. I hated being called the twins because I wanted to have my own identity. I'm sorry we're so introverted. No, honestly, I love talking about it. It's a weird thing. And I feel like I've overcome it so much. So I do love talking about it because I think when you're in high school, you can feel so trapped in your identity and think that that's the only way. way you're ever going to be. But to your earlier point on where was the opposite of discipline, right? I wouldn't be where I am now if I didn't leave home for college, leave my twin sister. She went to University of Scotland. I went to University in Boston and start living life. How scary was that first year? It was really scary until it was really fun. Oh, can I back up though? Because I want to know how this girl with this personality means very understandable insecurities that we all have. How did you deal with being on stage at 15 for the orchestra, symphony orchestra, and then TV twice? Like you were on Island Got Talent. Why isn't it Iceland Got Talent? It's Island Got Talent? It is Iceland Got Talent, but Iceland and Icelandics, Eastland. Oh, Eastland Got Talent. Okay. I mean, Iceland is an island. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then also the voice. I competed in every single singing competition or talent competition I could find. So how did you deal with those when you were feeling insecure as a young woman, and then you're also having to get on TV? And perform on stage? Did you disassociate and have a different persona? How did you manage that? I was insecure as a girl, but I was not insecure as a musician. Oh, great. That's great. Maybe that's part of the reason you loved it so much is like it was your superpower. I loved going on stage. I've always felt so comfortable on stage. And I think that's where I found my confidence. So you were a finalist in one and then a semifinalist in the other. Yeah. Were kids at school not intrigued by this? Were you like popular for it? I don't know if popular is the right word. People definitely knew that I was doing all that, but it didn't mean I was cool by any means. Were you getting any credit for that? Were people like, hey, I saw you on Iceland Got Talent. You were great. And you're like, thank you. It was like, however little credit she got, I got less because when I got it, it was kind of like, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I think your twin's like the Wednesday version of you. Would you say that? I mean, we need to talk more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, you guys are great. A really fun, complimentary vibe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We fill into each other's sentences. Is he the naughtier twin? Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was that always the case? Or is that when you said when you guys went to college and you kind of separated? We went in and out of naughty and now I'm touring a lot and needing to make sure I'm sleeping. Discipline comes back into play. Nine hours a night. And both of our lives are quite crazy. I've literally dragged Yunia into all of this with me, which is so lovely because it's such a weird thing to do. It's such a weird thing to go through and to go through it together. Again, I'm still not lonely. Yeah, it's wonderful. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking the pockets of your jeans before doing laundry. Classic oversight. That mystery clunking in the dryer. 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I'm someone who wants to do big, meaningful work, but the small stuff eats up my day before I even get to it. The endless emails, docs. Scheduling follow-ups that pile up. By the time all that's cleared, there's no energy left for the ambitious stuff. Most AI tools promise to fix that. But they require opening a new tab, re-explaining everything from scratch every single time. A week later, it's just another thing collecting dust in the browser. Superhuman, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already embedded inside the tools people are using. Email, docs, browser. It's not waiting to be found. It's already there. Working alongside. Clearing what's in the way. So the focus stays on what's actually worth doing. A thought partner that's already up to speed. No catching it up. It knows the style, the workflows, and it backs people up without getting in the way. At your service, not after your job. That's the difference. Give it a try for yourself. Start streamlining your workflows with Superhuman. Try today at superhuman.com. We get support from Instagram teen accounts. So, we talk a lot on this show about how the world is different. Now, than when we were growing up. And one of the biggest differences is obviously social media. And I think a lot of people wonder, okay, what's actually being done to make it safer for teenagers? Which is a fair question. Yeah. So, Instagram has got something called teen accounts. And they come with automatic protections built in by default. So, anyone between 13 and 17 is automatically placed into this experience. They get age-appropriate content settings, contact limits, so that by default, only people they're already connected to can message them. And time management tools, daily time limit reminders, and also sleep mode that mutes notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Sleep mode is genius. Right? And here's the thing. For anyone under 16, a parent has to give permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. The guardrails are on. And Instagram keeps building new safety features to create age-appropriate experiences for teens. I am really glad Instagram's helping to give parents peace of mind with teen accounts. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram. Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. Okay. So, was the decision, though, to go to Boston and go to Berkeley hard? It was really tough because despite taking every opportunity I could, I was really, really scared of jumping into becoming a singer. I was like, this is not going to go anywhere. I don't want to say I'd given up, but I felt that I had enough proof. I had competed in every single singing competition. I had all these producers in Iceland promise that they were going to work with me or listen to me, and nobody really responded or gave me the time of day. And I would see them work with other girls who were more like down-the-middle pop. I think I also truly hadn't found my sound yet. I was going to say, you probably didn't have an identity yet. I absolutely did not. I was a classical cellist, a jazz singer, and I loved pop music. And a terrible ballerina. And I don't even know if I knew if I could find my sound. Yeah, that's scary, right? Nobody was making the kind of music I wanted to make, and I didn't even know what kind of music I wanted to make. If you would have asked me back then, I would have told you, in my dream world, I'm mixing all the things I am, which is a songwriter. Like, I had not written any songs. I'd written maybe one song. I wouldn't call myself a writer when I had gone to Berkeley. I'd written a song reluctantly for a class or something. So, I didn't have songwriting experience. I didn't have life experience. I didn't have anything to write about. I was a classical cellist and a jazz singer. I hadn't really experienced heartbreak. Maybe I'd had some secret crushes. But my biggest fear when I was in high school was admitting to having a crush. I don't know why I thought that there was absolutely nothing more embarrassing than that. Well, don't you think because then rejection might be on the other side of that? I was genuinely scared that if I so much as admitted I had a crush on, like, a movie character, that the world or that my friends or. Something would be like, oh, my God, do you think you can get that? I don't know why I thought it was that deep. Monica did the same thing, but her crushes were like, oh, I'm going to go so outside of what's possible to prevent that. Yeah, but I was happy to talk about it. I like to talk about it, actually, because it was like, everyone's doing this. So, maybe that's the difference, though. Everyone had crushes and had boyfriends and stuff. My friends did, too. I don't know what it was. You thought you'd be made fun of. That's so interesting. I think I was judging myself. Yeah. I think it came from, like, deep inner judgment. And that's something that I completely worked out of when I got to college. And I was known as just Loewe when I went to Berkeley. Yeah, so I was very afraid to jump into the deep end. And it was my mom who was like, you have to go. She was like, you have this beautiful opportunity. And she believed so much in me. And I did so much unworking of my kind of childhood, although I just had so many walls up. And I broke them. I broke them all down, but barrier by barrier, as I got to Berkeley. And then in the last eight years, I've just been knocking it down. And now I feel so free. Yeah. So walk me through the steps of arriving in Boston and how do they start eroding and what's it like to be in Boston and how are those things falling away? Because yes, by your junior year, you're now like writing and making music. And by your senior year, you have songs that are on the radio in Iceland. What really changed for me is I kind of had my first touch with depression, I think. Your safety blanket wasn't there. My safety blanket wasn't there. And I didn't really know who I was. I was really confused when I got to Berkeley. So I went as a cello student because they offered me a full scholarship as a cellist. The presidential scholarship. I can only guess it's just due to lack of string players. I was very fortunate to get to go for free. And that was one of the reasons I decided to go because my parents were like, we're not going to pay for college. This shit is free here. If you want to go, you pay for it. So of course, that kind of felt like this golden ticket to go. And so I went and I was there playing cello and singing a bit, but I couldn't fathom why they had invested that much in me. I really didn't understand. I kept telling myself they just need cellists. They need string players. They need people in the orchestra. That was what I kept saying to myself. So I was just trying to figure out who I was. in the tapestry of Berkeley at the time. And it took me a couple months to realize that a lot of people were doing a lot of different things. People had majors, people had principal instruments, but most of them were mixing everything together. Yeah. We just interviewed Charlie Puth, who was there at Berkeley and he was doing like sound engineering or something. Yeah. But he plays every instrument and could have probably done any major there. It was so healthy for me to be around these kids who didn't have as much of a classical upbringing and their relationship to music came from a true place of love. People were willing to do anything and they were really down to collaborate and mix different genres together. And a lot of people had this honest, blind faith in themselves, which I needed to instill in myself. You cannot do this job without having that blind faith and thinking that you're not going to be able to do it. And so you are going to make it. You cannot reluctantly jump into this. And that's where things started to change. Am I right or wrong in that? To me, classical, it's in so many ways the opposite. There's so many rules. It's already been there. You're trying to reach perfection. It's rote. It's hitting the exact note and all these things. It's rules based. Very rules based. And this other thing, creating new music that's novel and not been made is the antithesis of that. It's breaking everything. And experimenting. The way I saw it was I'd come from a system where we were training to be the best players of the music. The best musician at the school was the musician that could play the best. Literally the best musicality, best technique, the combination of everything. Whereas at Berkeley, I was all of a sudden in this environment where the best musician was the best creator, not necessarily the best player. I mean, of course, you know, good players, everything. I thought the coolest was the person creating the music. Everyone has a different voice. Everyone plays differently. It wasn't necessarily about who had the best technique. I was so in awe of the storytellers and the people that could make me feel something and the ones who had found their own lane. And I was like, I need to do this. So I think I realized quickly that I should just lean into what I'm good at and what I love, which is I loved singing songs from the great American songbook. I love classical music. String arrangements can totally be transferred into that. And then I just needed to live a bit of life to write. And I started dating for the first time and I was so heartbroken. I was talking to this guy who did not give a shit about me. And he's also much older, which in hindsight, I'm like, ew. Are we talking like five years older or 15, 20? He's like six years older. Okay. Okay. Okay. But when you're that young. Yeah. I'm like, with like a 19 year old. Yeah. Anyways, it was my first brush with rejection. Which is so hard. You had been avoiding that your whole life. I had been avoiding that my whole life. And I think I was so scared of it. And then it came and it was worse than I could have imagined. But then you have something to write about. Genuinely for three months, I could barely get out of bed. And it was also a couple of different things that played into it, like being away from home and not being sure who I was as a musician. As you're saying this, I just got to say, that's unavoidable part of a human life. I remember graduating. I was going to do one thing. I was in Detroit and then I woke up there. I'm like, what am I doing? Like, just that panic of like, what am I doing? Where am I going to end up from like 18 to 24? And you can't sidestep it. Fast forward. You gotta just go through it. You gotta walk through the storm and it's a storm for almost everybody. Yes. People think going to Berkeley is some sort of magical button or highway to Hollywood. And it's absolutely not. The best thing I think you can get from Berkeley is it's a nest to discover who you are as a musician, to try out different things, to collaborate with the people around you. Like the real wealth, I think, is the other students there who are coming from all corners of the world and bringing different lessons with them. It's like a safe place to walk through that crazy. I think it's a safe place. It's a really expensive place too. You know, so it's really scary for a lot of people being at Berkeley and trying to figure it out. When I think about the artists who have really succeeded from Berkeley, it's really social media. You know, you can collaborate with the people around you and then you use social media. That's what happened to me. Tell me how in your senior year, you write this song that ends up being number one on Icelandic radio. Number one on Icelandic radio is so much more impressive than it is. It is. You're right there. What are you advocating? I want you to take on how cool you are. No, you guys, the population of Iceland is so small. Who cares? It's still awesome. I wrote this song called Street by Street. It was one of the first songs, if not the first song I wrote while at Berkeley, where I was working through this heartbreak. And it was the first heartbreak song I wrote. It was a movie moment of healing. I wrote many of the lyrics in a bus. And I was leaving Boston because I was escaping to New York because I couldn't do it anymore. I was like, the whole city's tainted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I love it. It ghosted me. And looking back, it wasn't that dramatic, but it felt so painful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote down the lyrics like street by street. I'm going to take back my life kind of because it had taken over my whole life. I was so depressed for this very small, I'm not going to call it a small reason. I was feeling so terrible, but it was ruining an entire city for me. So I wrote these lyrics down and it was the most healing. And then I ran to get a guitar. When I got back to Boston, I was in this dorm room that had a view of the city and I wrote the first lyrics. And it was like this view used to bring a smile to my face. And now it makes me disgusted. That's not the exact lyric. You're paraphrasing yourself. And then the chorus is like street by street, like brick by brick. I'm going to take back my life from the back bay to the sky. I just wanted to claim ownership of this thing that this guy had kind of ruined for me. And it was like, I snapped out of my depression. I mean, it probably took a couple of days, but in hindsight, it felt like I snapped out. I was so excited. I was like, oh my God, I found my sound. Wow. It took something that you were powerless in, which was the relationship. And then you turned it into something you had total power over, which was the output. This song. So it transferred from powerlessness to powerful. Yes. And I was so excited because not only had I lyrically found that it helped me, but I had found a way to use the chordal language that I was used to from the Great American Songbook and put it into a song that still felt modern, like it still felt new. So maybe more impressive to you than the Icelandic number one is that Billie Eilish noticed this song. She didn't. She didn't? I did a cover of her song. I did a cover of her song called My Future a couple of months into the pandemic. Okay. And I did all these harmonies because it's such a beautiful song. It's one of my favorite songs. Have you worked with Phineas? I'm just a fan from afar and they're both so sweet and they have done wonders for pop music. I genuinely feel like what they did for pop music helped me even be able to have a moment. Oh yeah, yeah. I think so. Absolutely. One of those musicians that created that space so that me and many other musicians could come in. Be melancholy and pop. Be melancholy and pop and dissonant and have these jazz chords and my future totally had that. So I did a cover of that and she posted it on her story. Oh, okay, okay. It wasn't street by street. No, no, no. I think that got lost in translation somewhere and that was just me being a true fan. Okay. And then so on the back of that, you put together everything I know about love. No, you have an EP first. I have an EP called Typical of Me. And this is where everything got really soupy with the pandemic. So I'm like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to So, I recorded the song "Street by Street" the day that we had to leave campus, March, 2020. And that's a week or two into the pandemic is when my social media started blowing up. So it was all this kind of magical timing. Where did you retreat to? To Washington, DC. So my parents moved to Washington, DC, January of 2020. Oh, what a blessing. Great timing. But I went back to DC into this house that I did not recognize, never been there before. I thought it was going to be a two week break from school. And I said to myself, I was like, okay, I'm going to use these two weeks to just post videos of myself singing, playing cello. I would play cello and sing jazz standards. And then I'd also in between post songs that I'd written. I did it almost every day, every other day. And I think people were like, why is this young woman singing these songs from the forties or the thirties? With a cello. With a cello. Yeah. And it was one of the very few moments I've said, I'm going to do something and it actually works. And I just kind of stuck to it. I figured out that if I stayed consistent and communicated with the people who were following me, it became this community really quick. I would do weekly live streams as well. I called them my Sunday lullaby series. Every Sunday I would sit down and I would just sing. And there was like a chat going on and people were from all over the world. And we'd be talking about like, oh, like what's COVID like there? And it was such a beautiful community that it started. And I think that's the reason it's flourished into the community that it is today. I feel so close to my fans and I, I hope that they feel close to me too, because it's been this kind of continuous conversation from the beginning. And I literally would write a song that day and I'd play a little bit of it. And then that song would end up on my EP and people remember it when I'd written it. They probably felt a lot of ownership over that first EP. Yeah. And they should because so much of the information that they were giving me, whether they liked it or not, was going, it was some weird version of performing live in a way. Cause you're getting feedback, which is rare. I am struck by the fact that there's so many overlaps in a lot of these musical stories. Like I'm thinking of Anderson Paak, who was saying he drummed in church. He wanted to be a rapper. Well, first he wanted to be a DJ. Then he wanted to be a rapper. And then out of like not having a drummer decided to play the drums while he was also performing. Then he does tiny desk and never anticipating, oh, the drumming and singing. Is what people are like, oh, wow. Okay. And it's not just that it's a gimmick. I think there's something we can detect that we know that's Anderson. Like he's always been a drummer. He's supposed to be drumming and singing. And I think like this cello thing is very similar to that, which is like, it gets your attention, but it gets your attention for a lot of ways. I think there's something we can detect in that. That's authentic as fuck. I think it's because nobody would ever consider picking up a cello and singing at the same time as something that would. Result in any type of virality is, but it's you. It's very, it's you to your core. You can believe in everything. It comes from a very honest place and it comes from true love for the instrument. So then it happens pretty quick. Then you do everything I know about you, your debut album in 2022. So two years into the pandemic and then 2023 bewitched comes about. And from the start is on that album, which is enormous. I was listening to it today and it has over a billion streams on Spotify alone. How does one experience going from college two years before to a Grammy winning album? How are you keeping up with it ratcheting so quickly? I think I'm still playing catch up. Yeah, I bet. What was your sister saying about all this? Because you guys have diverged. She went to Scotland, you went to Boston, and now all of a sudden you're winning a Grammy. Is she like, hold on a second, should I have gone to Berkeley? We've gone through the whole thing together. She's amazing. Immediately became my creative director for free and for fun first. And then it actually became a need of mine and she fulfills it so well. So she's extremely involved in everything. Anything that goes out into the world, she's touched except for the music. But even the music, she plays violin on it sometimes. So the biggest blessing is I've felt like I've gone through it with my sister and we share a face in a sense. So even the really new kind of weird parts of getting recognized. The first question people ask me is almost always, are you Unia or Leve? Yeah. And which twin are you? Or they'll go, are you? Although I think that's maybe because my name's hard to pronounce. Well, the spelling, I don't know how we get Leve from A-U-F-E. Quite the spectacle it's become. I'm sure. Oh my. A-U is just A in Icelandic. And that's the, I don't know. I've been seeing people on the internet making fun of my name. And I'm kind of like, at the end of the day, it's my government. It's my government name. It's your name. And it's my great-grandma's name. And it's funny because it's such a normal name in Iceland. It's a little weird here. But interestingly, this is my question for later, but we're here. I'm going to ask it now. So she is the mother of Loki, the Nordic mythology god of mischief. But you don't seem very mischievous. And this goes back to the childhood. Is there some mischievousness? For sure. There is. Yeah. What's secretly going on? Also, how are you updating your self-esteem and thinking, well, I don't know. No boys liked you. And now, obviously, probably tons of boys are liking you. No. You still don't think they are? No. Okay. So we haven't caught up yet. We're still not there. I was going to ask that too. Like, what's your current relationship with dating, with how people see you? I'm very happy and in love right now. Oh, great. Oh, wonderful. Working out. It's all fine. So we've updated ourselves. We've updated ourselves. Yeah, for sure. I feel so. So much more confident. To your point earlier with the mischievous, I think people read from the world that I'm this very kind of like poised, type A, even-toned person. And I'm not. I'm a Taurus, first of all. Monica, what's that mean? Tell us what that means. A little stubborn, right? A little stubborn, but I guess more so I'm just very calm. Oh. I have a very calm demeanor. Because I whipped up this whole thing, right? I don't know you. I've never met you. I'm like, to get to this level of. musicianship, the amount of work, and perhaps the loneliness. And then I hear you, yeah, and you're so even-tempered in all these interviews. And my thought is, is there a rascal in you that is trying to claw out? And do you love being inebriated? Do you love. An escape. Yes, you have an escape. Do you seek an escape? But I think I might just be entirely wrong about the original assessment. I don't think you're as type A as I thought maybe you were. I'm so not type A. I have a lot of problem focusing. I do think that is short-form content. But I'm not as type A as people think. I'm really chronically late. You were late today, I think. That's true. Do you like to get fucked up? I do. I do care so much about my tour, my career. Both can be true. Both can be true. I care about showing up for people. So I'm not going to get wasted and not show up to a concert. That's kind of what that part is. But I'm like an anxious mess. And that's something I really wanted to show with my album, A Matter of Time. There were a lot of moments in that album where people were quite shocked because I was writing a little more honestly about things. Like the end of the album is just noise. We were just throwing instruments, like sounds and then pounding on instruments for the end because I wanted to kind of break out of this perception. But my demeanor reads quite differently. Yes. How did you take to, because right after Bewitched, you start your first, I would imagine, world tour. Yes. And how do you take to that? I feel like you were built for it because you were bouncing all around the whole world already. But again, Lonely's, what was the tour experience like? I love playing concerts. I love going on stage. I make music so I can go on stage. That is what fulfills me. I know my purpose when I'm on stage. The stage is you're getting fucked up. So I was also noticing like you're so even-tempered, but your wardrobe is incredibly flamboyant and exuberant. And I was like, okay. I love fashion. That's one of the releases is like I'm Steady Eddie, but then I have this really flashy and exuberant wardrobe and I'm on stage doing this thing. So it sounds like maybe the stage is where you get to let it rip. Absolutely. I feel like I am the prime version of myself on stage. Yeah, your truest self. My truest self, my most honest self on stage. And I can let go of a lot of the shackles around me. It's funny. It's almost counterintuitive. It sounds like when you're on stage, you feel no judgment. Yeah. And in life, you're a little more. Exactly. In life, you might be afraid of judgment. Not really. I've let go of the fear of judgment. I genuinely don't care what people say about me. I get so much, especially recently, people are like, who the fuck is this girl that's singing jazz and they like can't stand it or something like that. It doesn't touch me because I know I'm being my most honest self. That would only touch me if I weren't being honest. Yeah. And I weren't being authentic. This is a part of the. I'm going to do an interview where I psychoanalyze you really quick. Please. I love being psychoanalyzed. One lyric. Yeah. Okay. So in Madwoman, which the music video just came out. It's fantastic. It's very 60s. It's very bewitched. It is. Yeah. One of the lyrics is, called me stupid as a mindless joke. This is what the guy said. Yes. And so I went, he was nagging you, this guy that the song's about. Back to the feeling insecure, feeling ridiculous to even have a crush. Do you think initially, especially when you're finding your confidence in dating, you were susceptible to that someone confirming your story about yourself i'm insecure in love i'll put it that way i'm very secure everywhere else very insecure in love yeah and i would imagine you're very vulnerable to someone identifying that and leveraging that against you confirming your fears whether they even think it's true or not yeah i always think guys are thinking much deeper than they are but they are called me stupid as a mindless joke it was probably a mindless joke but i was like oh my god yeah you took it he recognized a part of me that is not good who's the hunk in the video he looks like an asian glenn powell yeah hudson williams hudson williams oh my god dax did i just offend everyone yes he's a huge huge huge star does he not look like glenn powell a little bit i don't know if he looks like glenn powell okay i'm wrong about that he's in heated rivalry like the biggest show on television yeah yeah i'm so sorry really upset i haven't watched you it's a big deal he's so great he is a hunk the body looks great the wink is on point the perfect madman for the music video and i gathered three of my friends who are all wajan as they say half white and half asian oh that's the term wajan wajan is the term okay yeah i thought it'd be funny because i sometimes get mistaken as other girls who are half asian and half white sometimes i'll literally like get tagged and like so oh my god instagram it was kind of a joke i went to the golden globes and for some reason halfway through the car was a really long carpet and it was like an obstacle course it like went up and down and up and i was up at the last part and they start going megan megan i don't know what i think people were screaming like levy and maybe one photographer heard megan or something like that i don't know or maybe there was a megan coming after me or something like that i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know either way or they maybe thought that there's a girl in this group cat's eye called megan who's also half chinese and she's wajan she's wajan and we could pass the sisters she is a beautiful young woman and does not want to be compared to a 26 year old and i will not compare to that how dare you we just died both of us just died inside she's enjoying this bitch turns 27 in a week so she's like relishing i'm relishing in my 26 yeah she is like this incredible dancer singer but i'm also friends with her and her name is megan it kind of became this joke that they're like oh my god they're mixing us up and it became this internet joke people started commenting megan so i was like i have to have megan in a music video with me and then i had alissa liu gold medalist amazing her short program was to my song did you tell her you were a figure skater when you were a child i did that was the fourth endeavor also too much i did everything i had so much fun she is an incredible person an incredible artist and her message to the world is so beautiful and she came back to skating and after being away from it for a bit and she used my song that i wrote about a boy oh really but interpreted it as the song is about needing distance from something but you love it and she interpreted the song her relationship was skating she came back and she won the gold medal with it oh my god did you feel so were you like this is i would love that i sat there like oh my god she'd been skating to promise for a couple months and so i reached out to her connected months ago and she came to my concert in oakland and so i've known her for a bit so i of course had to have her too because she's also half chinese yeah and lola tongue who plays belly on the summer i turn pretty oh yes i've been friends with her for like four years and i love her so much and even before she did the summer i turned pretty the first year i was releasing music and nobody was listening to her and i was like oh my god she's so pretty and nobody knew who i was she had messaged me she was like oh we kind of look the same and she sings so beautifully too she said that she liked my music she's just like sent me a dm oh and i didn't notice it which is weird because back then i saw everything and then a year or two later the summer i turn pretty came out and i was of course stalking her instagram and it was growing so fast i saw that she followed me and i was like oh my god i gotta dm her like and it opened up this message that she had sent me prior and i was like wow this is kismet and she is genuinely one of my favorite people that i have met in this industry and is one of the most elegant poised kind people that i have met a true gold of human being stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare thank you to our presenting sponsor hp for supporting this episode their hp smart tank printer is the last printer you'll ever need oh here we go monica with a refillable ink tank and up to three years of ink included so you get thousands of pages of cartridge free printing hallelujah to learn more search for hp smart tank we get support from ag1 fall is that time when your body and mind are getting ready for the winter you're settling in bracing for the cold your body's already running a deficit from the shorter days and broken sleep patterns you don't want a nutrient deficit stacked on top of that too that's where your ag1 routine earns its spot it's not fixing your sleep or your alarm time it's giving your body what it needs so the dark mornings don't tank you before you even start one scoop cold water every morning before anything else ag1 next gen has 75 plus ingredients vitamins minerals pre and probiotics superfoods backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials key nutrient levels improved with three months of consistent use that's the part it's not a one-day fix it's what happens when you stay consistent it's an easy everyday thing i've added it to my morning routine 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onepeloton.com all these girls that i know i was like it's just fine you just answered my question because i was going to ask you how it has been falling in hollywood to young hot everyone's got style lifestyle of la given the previous security level in high school like has it been easy for you to drop in and be a part of it it's like going back to high school yeah right every red carpet i'm like oh my god oh my god oh my god you just played coachella and i was looking at a lot of pictures of people who were in high school and i was like oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god and i was looking i was like i'm just not young and hot enough and i don't dress well enough i think to attend coachella as much as i would like to go everyone is looking peak and i was thinking how are you in that environment i think style is all about who you are and how you carry yourself the coolest girl i know who has the best confidence and aura that is style to me she could wear a t-shirt and cutoffs and i'd be like wow i'm gonna copy that yeah so that and coachella really showed that to me no matter what if you are a shitty person your outfit's gonna suck yeah that's so true yeah but if you are a really kind and lovely energy person you can wear whatever you want and you will have the best outfit okay that's encouraging right so you go and you carry your confidence okay but as a musician i'm currently in between the two weekends so this is raw yeah it's very raw i know i feel like we're getting a hot take i was sunday night so i'd seen sabrina carpenter i'd seen cat's eye i saw bieber what did you think of that i saw clips of it and i was like i really wish i would have seen that it was awesome also just being a part of that i've never oh my god i couldn't you know there's like a artist pit and a vip they're always different it rung everything completely like you couldn't get in my takeaway from coachella is my first coachella is ga is the way to do it general admission general admission oh okay tell me more the screens are huge and the music is carrying if you can just be in the back with your friends dance around with a little space you can take outfit photos you can take outfit photos you can take outfit photos you can go run to the bathroom you won't lose your place you can go get a taco and not lose your place that is i think the move okay also the toilet situation is shitty no matter who you are so you may as well be in ga yeah so you were in the way back i was in the way back for bieber and it was amazing and then i had to go check out my stage and i went all the way around and i was by the outdoor stage which is kind of further away from main stage and there was no one there and i watched bieber from so far away just the end when he started like going through the stage through all these old hits yeah i had the time of my life the time of my life but i was vocal resting and wearing a mask so i was kind of like just emoting okay yeah you let your body do the talking i let my body do the talking yeah but i love it as a concert goer i admittedly don't get nervous when i go on stage at all especially when it's my own concerts because it's such a unique thing i think people are confused about what the experience of a concert is like do we stand do we sit do we sing do we sit in silence is this a theater show is this an arena show what makes sense i feel like i've really balanced it out and it makes a lot of sense in my show my very cohesive your arena you've got ballerinas you've got the jazz yes but we're in an arena and we can move around there's a pop portion of the show there's the jazz portion there's a more classical bit and an arena you can kind of morph into whatever you want and then obviously i feel a theater is always lovely so after seeing all of these incredible oh yeah i would not want to see that before scary first of all i was like i gotta lock in because they were all so incredible but also i kind of got in my head i was like is this a place for me i would too i was like are people going to be okay that this isn't necessarily going to be a mosh pit well also just acknowledge what it is you're with the best of the best yeah and the audience is there for everybody somebody nobody you're not your audience you walk out in the arena these people love you there's a lot of discovery going on which is super exciting and i got a little nervous completely melted away after the second or third song but when i came out first also it was a little cold and windy there's all these natural elements that you're all day they were like we don't know if we can do the pyro which i had pyro in the end oh fine all day they were like we don't know we have to chain up the castle because i have a castle on stage they're like we've got to chain it up it's windy so i was like i'm no clue what this stage is going to be like and i don't play many festivals for that reason of i really like creating a community that fans get to come into and feel safe yeah and on tour i have so much control over that control yeah whereas like at coachella but i want to play coachella my whole goal as an artist is to introduce people to my music to my sound and as many people as possible and coachella is absolutely the place to do it and i want to be on those stages i want to be in front of those people and i want to be in front of those people and i want to be in front of people so it was daunting but after the second song i was like okay this is fine i know what to do yeah and i love performing so i really settled into it and it was so cool to get to hopefully turn some new fans onto the music and there was a k-pop group on after me called big bang they're like legends and all of their fans were in the front which was also daunting because i kept actually like looking at them being like oh no are they disappointed right now yeah yeah yeah and when they're super young am i crazy to think the k-pop audience is going to be pretty young yes and no but big bang's been around for a while they're kind of like the og k-pop okay group that has really like made it in the west as well so they were a little older than i thought but my audience is very young if anything my coachella audience was older oh really yeah are you gonna do anything different next weekend what's next weekend also next week is coachella it's still going oh i'm in between coachella's that's why it's so raw yeah and is it the same performers yeah you'll play again that's the whole point is like this is a big moment we're getting you right now yeah my head's spinning it goes on for two weekends two weekends but people come home i guess yeah i mean how else was i supposed to do i'm chair expert well i know exactly we got we got it was so lovely but so anything you're gonna make any changes are you happy you want to just do it again i'm just gonna do it again and see if it blows away see if it blows away i have a swing on the top of the castle oh my i had to chain the swing down i loved it so much so i don't think i'm gonna change much i'm gonna have a different outfit oh fun i'm really excited to just go knowing how it feels you can't sound check at coachella you don't get to feel the stage i got to see the stage before but other than that i didn't get to move on it or try the instruments or anything so you're really going into a completely new environment but now i'll recognize it yeah what a cool thing to check off the list that's a huge thing as an artist okay now i do not mean musically when i ask this i more mean just trajectory is there an artist that you're like that's the road i hope i'm on is there someone that you idolize in this space that you kind of want their trajectory i don't think so because the second i stopped playing that game with myself i started to succeed meaning stop trying to get somewhere trying to figure out whose road i was gonna walk if that makes sense yeah i want longevity i think that's my main goal i love doing this i don't want it to go away music is something that can follow you forever i'm not a football player that has to retire there's so much beauty to that so as long as i love it i'm gonna keep doing it okay really quick you wrote a children's book i wish you would have brought it or someone would have sent it to me brought it yeah is it may may the bunny may may the bunny tell me about may may the bunny why are we encouraged to tell her story bunny is a little bunny who is playing violin learning the violin and she has her first concert and she's nervous yeah lots of butterflies in the tummy yeah and she has like a anxiety dream the night before her concert where it all goes horribly wrong as we've all had and she learns that making mistakes are not always bad that you can redirect it into something beautiful we love that for may may and for all of us what's the japanese word i'm never gonna get it so and then of course a matter of time there's a special version that just came out there is the final hour the final hour and you just finished your world arena tour how many cities did you go to i've done the u.s and europe i think we're over 50 now wow levy this has been incredible i'm really glad that we got to meet you especially that you took time in between these two shows i didn't realize it was double weekend i'm so excited i didn't know about hudson the only thing i'm bummed about is are you gonna play on sunday again yeah okay because i'm mad because you can't party yes okay nobody talks about this and i've discovered the absolute horror no not the horror the sadness of playing on sunday night yeah it's beautiful because you get to send people off into the night and for me that is my perfect slot in the evening in the dark as one of the final little shows it's cozy it's a little more like romantic everyone's ears drums are out they're all hung over like it's a good place to be you can stand with a glass of water and not get moshed on right yeah but i had to vocal rest friday saturday i didn't go to the festival saturday say for bieber and going to see the stage but i was like wow this sucks like if i played friday you could party all saturday sunday you have a whole week to recover outfit pics is that what yeah i was not doing that i was so stressed a little bit because i was like oh my god i'm gonna get sick yeah or also you get to the desert it's new conditions you're super dry i was wearing a mask do you blow in the bottle with the straw that we saw yes marcus mumford do yeah yeah we love oh this vocal straw is very important yeah i want to go in just for fun i know me too it looks cool and it sounds cool yeah yeah okay my only regret is that i did not make your sister bring her violin and you the cello i would have loved to see these sisters play the strings you do not want to hear us play in our current state i bet we wouldn't know you would know we would have no idea if you guys could play like uptown girl by billy joel on it we would be like oh she's like that's the hardest song in the whole world that was a callback because she played with billy joe at the grammys yeah yeah that's awesome it was very funny i did play cello with him all right well good luck on everything thank you look for maymay the bunny get the new re-release of a matter of time go on that youtube watch the coachella sets are those all on youtube they are i think right just skip the first song Keep it moving. Go with you when you're in a saddle. Once you got in a saddle. Look, we can all relate to that. Sometimes it takes a second. I'm sorry it was cold. I'm sure it was amazing. It's a desert. It's a hostile environment. All right. Well, good luck with everything. It was lovely meeting you. You too. You too. I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong. We were sent this. Oh. And this is super cute. Oh. These are chocolate-covered Oreos. Oh. There's- That's so cute. The Lincoln peeling out on a s'more. Oh. Yeah, Utopia Sweets. And here's one, Monica. Can you see? You can't see either. I definitely can't see. This is you and I holding microphones somewhere. Oh. There you go. Rice Krispie Treat. We're at a restaurant. Restaurant. We won a real award, and we were accepting it, and we were answering questions. Yeah. Look at this one. This is us back in the saddle, upstairs. Good catch. Oh. This is the good old days from upstairs. Yeah. Wow. Cute. Very cute. Thank you, Utopia Sweets. Yes. It's so adorable. This guy. That's really cute. You can't see that. I can see it's a chair, I think. It's a microphone. Here you go. Catch. One, two, three. Another great catch. I'm so good at catching. Ding, ding, ding. I saw some video where they were saying for your brain, a good exercise is this trainer makes the people bounce a ball off a wall, but with one eye covered with an eye patch. Oh, never. And I mean, this is now a brag. I didn't see it going this way. But I was like, oh, I got to start doing that. I want to make sure. Both sides of my brain are working. Yeah, yeah. So I brought two eye patches up to the gym today, and I ordered white tennis balls so they wouldn't leave a mark on the wall. Oh, smart. And I didn't. It wasn't. It wasn't hard. Really? I don't know if that's a good. That must be a good sign. I must be doing something else. Huh. Because the person that was being trained was like, they had to get there. All right. Once you're one eye is covered. But it went really well. Okay, but this is tricky because like, okay, you might just not be good at catching a ball even with two eyes open. Well, again, you could set your base. You could set your baseline with your eyes, both eyes. Uh-huh. Okay. Can I do this a lot? Can I do four? Can I throw with one hand, catch with the other, back and forth? That would give you a sense of how good you are at it. Right. But let's say you could do it six times in a row with your eyes, both eyes, and then you couldn't do it with one eye. Wow. I don't know. I'm into shutting one eye down. Great. I think that's fun. I recommend it, I guess. Crazy update. What? I had it again last night. Uh-oh. So I was like, okay. I think you're sick. No, it's not that. Because it was so. Specific. Really? And then I reverse engineered. We're talking about Hannes. People are going to love this. People who hate peptides are going to love this. Oh, no. Hold on. Let's go back in time. Let's tell people what happened. Yeah. We went to a screening of a movie, the three of us. Yes. And Rob and I ate popcorn. Uh-huh. And then I also, you described the milk duds I ate. Okay. So, yeah. We went to a cool screening where there's like treats, not like these treats, worse treats. None of us, no pictures of us on any of it. And Dax likes milk. He had milk duds in his popcorn and they had milk duds. And it was like, are you going to get milk duds? I just might get milk duds today. How exciting. I might be naughty, I said. Yeah. I might be naughty. And then he opens the milk duds, plural, and turns out it's just one enormous milk dud congealed together, but with like a dust on it. Like this has been there since the 70s. When chocolate gets really old, you know, it gets that dust. But it congealed. And I. I have to, because you got to brag a second ago. I want to brag right now. Okay. You started to pull one off and put it in your mouth and the restraint. Oh, good job. I know. Yeah. Thank you. I wasn't even going to tell you. Okay, great. But here we are. Yeah. Where I wanted to say, no, do not eat that. Please don't eat that. This is clearly. It's clearly very old. Or has been through some weird heat cycle. Exactly. Exactly. And I just want for the listener to know if the box of chocolate. Milk duds is like six inches long. The congealed mass was only like three inches. Like it was only making a small brick, maybe even a third of the box. And it was a brick, but I could see fissures in there where the old duds had. So I broke one off and you ate it. Yeah, I did have very few. I think I probably had like seven. Okay. Just enough to give me a little sugar pop to make the popcorn even better. So it was a great movie. We loved it. You'll hear about it. I mean, really great movie. I love it. it and then um got home did my nighttime routine which involves peptides uh-huh and um now here's something i i i i kind of just ignored in my analysis so yeah when i came in yesterday i had to report to rob and monica that at about 2 a.m i woke up i was like oh my god i gotta go to the bathroom right now i never have to go number two in the middle of the night ever that's not my yeah and then when i did do that it was uh it was an event right and then there were a few events and it was it was miserable so i came in and i admitted to you guys well first i said rob did you get sick he said no i said it wasn't the popcorn i was convinced it was the pop i know when you said that i was like it's like a communal handle and communal everything it's just like it's so simple though it's popcorn and oil i know but it's it's the handle it's like peanuts on a bar it's like you're handling this handle that everyone's dipping their hands and they don't clean the inside of that all right okay it was just so we all said it's the it's obviously the brick you ate yeah yeah and it made total sense and i was like yeah that's it so then last night i do my peptides again and now when i'm laying in bed i'm having like an excessive amount of saliva and it's like driving me nuts because i'm trying to fall asleep and when i was experiencing that i did go oh yeah i had this last night when i went to bed right i'm like what's going on i'm allergic to something i'm doing fall asleep fucking 1 a.m i gotta run over to the commode and i do i repeat the whole experience and now i go and you didn't have this issue at all during the day yesterday so it's 100 either the barrage of vitamins i take right at night yeah or one of my peptides okay and then i'm like oh my god i'm and here's my deduction it's easy to make the case for the pills because i'm i'm doing omega-3 fish oil and then i'm like oh is has the some of these fish oil pills gone bad that kind of makes sense uh-huh but then i'm like but that's a really quick reaction so then i go oh i started a new vial of a peptide on monday night oh fuck well and i'm like that's what it is there's something in that one vial but it's one you've been on for a while and then you're it's a peptide i've used from my doctor for a long long time so it's not the peptide just you know there's you go through a bunch of vial i was saying this morning to kristen it's like you eat enough lettuce you're gonna get listeria on some of the lettuce it's just like a numbers game you just gotta wash it yeah yeah yeah but bacon you know anything you eat you're gonna like it happens okay so that's most certainly what it is so i guess tonight will be the trial i will take all my pills but i will not touch okay and then see if i have any issues so it's that now the problem is there's two that i started so i just threw them both away okay yeah and then we'll start a start a new interesting yeah i don't love the idea of peptides going rancid you know yeah and i don't know that that would be what happened i don't think the peptide goes rancid i think some contaminate was either on the rubber you know i don't know you clean it i clean it but it's a big chunk of rubber you've put a needle all the way through i can't clean the inside of the rubber i can't clean the underside of the rubber where it's uh inside the bottle so just like when i got my shoulder surgery they sterilized everything and also they left a bacteria in me that became a huge infection so anyways that'll make people happy that hate peptides okay probably i think wow okay well now we have to apologize to the milk duds we do i know this is like kind of my favorite part of my life i don't know if i'm okay milk dud i i guess that milk dud was not a dud like we thought no it was just fine i wish i still had that brick i might get into it right now yeah oh man yeah so a lot's been going on at night oh well hopefully tonight new night new night fresh start fresh new day now if you have it tonight we're gonna have to say it's the vitamins correct okay and then the following night i own what i don't believe is that i have a virus that only strikes at one i agree 1 a.m if you had had it all day immediately after i take all this yeah no yeah yeah yeah that doesn't make a ton of sense to me and then i feel completely fine and i don't have the saliva thing and i don't have anything yeah throughout the day interesting weird it's interesting um speaking of that movie which we're not going to talk about but because we're going to talk about it later i was saying this to you the other day but i think it's worth putting out in the world i just think in the air right now, storytelling wise. - Okay. marriage stories. They're everywhere. It's in the zeitgeist. It's like all the things I'm consuming are about marriage, drama, beef, strangers. This book that I read, that's like everyone's reading this movie we saw. It's it's like people are really commenting on marriage right now. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I guess sometimes mostly all negative. Is that? Well, I don't I wouldn't say it's all negative. It's it's just like examining the union, what it means to be married. Uh huh. Yeah. And I don't know. It's kind of wild out there. What do you think is what do you think set this ball in motion? Exactly. Like what? I guess sometimes these things just happen. It's like when Armageddon and Deep Impact came out at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wyatt Earp and Tombstone. Yeah. I know what those. Are. So. So, yeah, I just because it's funny because the movie that we saw, I actually thought you during the beginning, I was like, oh, he's he doesn't like this. Oh, really? I thought you didn't like it because it was kind of at first like kind of a negative portrayal. It starts with an Oscar Wilde quote, which is like everyone deserves love. Something like that. Yeah. That's why you shouldn't. That's why you should never get married or something. Yes. Yeah. I'm not triggered by that. Like if people hate marriage. Yeah. Or they had a bad marriage. Yeah. Again, probably because I don't have any insecurity on the topic. It's like, yeah, some people, some people have terrible friendships. Some people have terrible parent child relationships. Some people have terrible marriages. We have terrible boyfriend girlfriend situations. Yeah. That's par for the course. I know. I just because the portrayal was pretty like like at first. I thought you were thinking that, oh, this like isn't a good portrayal of marriage, but then you loved it. So then that was interesting. Yeah. I mean, what's kind of inherent is story is driven by conflict. There is no version of a story of a happy marriage. That story can't really be told. There's nothing there. You can tell the story of two people falling in love, them being challenged, and then the end is marriage. Or you can tell the story of two people falling in love. But you know, a movie about a good job, it's not a movie. You need Devil Wears Prada. You need conflict. So you're never going to get the other version. I mean, there's always going to be conflict, but like rom-coms historically end happily, you know? Yeah. But the marriage is the end. Right. You're not and you never live in the marriage. You live in the story part, which is like getting to marriage. Yeah. Great. Marriage can be in the background and it can be portrayed as very happy. Yeah. And it can be portrayed as very happy. Yeah. And nourishing. Yeah. But it can't be the storyline. Right. Unless something happens to it. So my assumption is anyone who's going to tell a marriage story, it's going to be one filled with conflict. Sure. Or it's going to be boring as hell. Right. It's just, it's very, it's in the ether. And as someone not married, I find it kind of fascinating that all of a sudden, all these stories are popping up all at once. Does it feel like confirmation to you? Like, I wouldn't want to do that. No, it doesn't. Yeah. It doesn't feel like, oh, I dodged a bullet or something at all. I can see why that some people would take that away from some of these things. Absolutely. I think if you've decided you don't want to get married, any, any portrayal of it being terrible is confirmation for why you don't want to get married. I know. I also, interestingly, I don't give a fuck who gets married. I think, you know, like a lot of different countries have transitioned still into lifetime pair bonding, but not the title married. Now there is, a reality. There's a statistical reality to the outcomes of being married, which are also very true and kind of undeniable, like these bizarre health ones, you know? Yeah. Like I just read one, like the cancer rate for unmarried people versus married is dramatically different. And it's even higher for women. I wonder if that has, but I wonder if pair, like if that's in the United States, because most people who are partnered for a long time, get married, like the majority. So I wonder if in these other countries where they don't, what the stats would be. Yeah. I imagine they need a category on these surveys that are like long-term pair bonding couples. What are their health outcomes? But I think like, look, we have, you know, Vivek Murthy, there's so much great data about just being communal. Oh yeah. Loneliness is death. Yeah. It's worse than smoking cigarettes. So it's like, okay, so that's, we don't know what that is, but we also can't deny the really stark data. And then the marriage thing, I don't know, like you, I think you'd be inclined to go like, oh, cause you tell each other to go to the hospital. And I think that's a component of it. And you have another outside observer that might notice that your energy level has been low for three weeks when you're, it didn't even occur to you. So you have a co-pilot, but that's the, that's the mechanical tangible part that I definitely think is part of it. But also there's another thing. We don't even know what it is. Well, I think I know what it is. I think if you are happy, then you care about your health. So like, if you're happy and you're noticing like, oh, like I'm really tired, you're incentivized to go get that figured out because you want to live. You want to return to happiness. Yes, exactly. You notice when you're not happy. Yes, exactly. But I, you know, I think, I think loneliness can be fulfilled, can be handled in a lot of ways. You know, but I also think like people can find purpose in it as well. Yeah. And that's like a huge driver of your life. Yes. And you can certainly find purpose in other things, but that's one sitting on the table in that situation. A hundred percent. Yes. I mean, look on it, on a very, just very fundamental level. Of course I've thought, okay, so last night we won't talk about it because I know everyone hates dreams, but I just had like a series of horrible dreams. Horrible dreams. Okay. Throughout the entire night. Okay. And I just like kept waking up after them and being like, oh, it's like still night. Like I, this is horrible. I have those. It's so bad. And I have this weird thing happens to me sometimes where, tell me if you've experienced this or if the audience has, they can comment. I won't read it. Where I'm like stuck in this pattern in a dream. So like, and then I'll wake up. I'll wake up from the dream, but I'll still be in the dream. And I'm, but I've like woken up and then the whole thing happens again. But I think I've woken up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's weird because when I lived in the apartment and this would happen, the, um, the dream, the being stuck was about my house. Okay. Like I would wake up at my house and then things would happen. And then, but I, and I'd be like, no, I think this is a dream. Like I got to wake up and then I would wake up and I'm still in that house. Um, and it's like this bizarre thing that just keeps happening until I finally actually wake up. Right. But my dream last night was that, but it was in my apartment. Oh, geez. Okay. Now we're going. It was so weird, but it kept happening over and over and over again. And it's like horrifying because you, you think you're awake and you're not. Yeah. And I don't know what it is. And so I did wake up and think, I wonder what's happening with my body and, or my voice. Or anything during these things. Like, I wonder if I'm doing anything. Uh, in real life. In real life. Someone's observing you in your bed. Are you talking? Are you? Exactly. Or if like something was happening, could I be woken up? And I was like, well, I won't ever, for now, I won't know that because no one shares a bed with me. And that's like an example, even with the epilepsy, like the first seizure. Yeah. I didn't know. Yeah. Your back hurt. Yeah. And I peed. Yeah. And yeah, everything hurt, but like no one saw. So even those things, because, because when I was at a hotel with, remember, I was at a hotel with Callie and she said that you called someone a stupid bitch in the middle of the night. I was like, oh my God, how often am I doing that? There's just moments. I mean, I think there's moments for both. I think when you're married, there's moments where you want to be not married. And when you're single, there's moments you want to be married. It's a give and take. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by HP. My mental to-do list is already full. Fix something around the house, refill prescriptions. Remember to text someone back. Keep track of a million little life things. The last thing I want on that list is, oh, don't forget printer ink. No, it's horrible. It's the bane of everyone's existence. What if you could just take that off your list for years? The dream. The dream. That's the idea behind the HP Smart Tank Printer from America's most trusted printer brand. Instead of those tiny cartridges that always seem to run out at the worst time, the HP Smart Tank uses a refillable ink tank and it comes with up to three years of ink included. It's built to be simple. The easiest tank printer you'll ever use with the best print quality, period. It's the last printer you'll ever need. I've definitely been in this situation where something that should take two minutes turns into a whole thing. Like I need to print tickets and get out the door, but then I realize I'm out of ink and have to deal with it right then. With the HP Smart Tank, that's just nuts. something you're dealing with all the time. It's one of those things that just works when you need it to. If you want to take one more thing off your mental to-do list, search for HP Smart Tank. The problem with our current culture is things can be in the zeitgeist so much easier. So it's like you read that book. I don't know, you ordered that book. There's a paper trail on the internet of you having ordered that book. People buy that information. Then you see a post that's this, and now it's feeding you everything that's about marriage right now. And then it has the illusion that everyone's talking about it or making art about it, but it's like, also you're missing all this other stuff. This is for everyone. All of our interests are driven to us. Yeah. This feels a little different because it's like- It feels objective, right? Well, no, it's just, there are a lot of movies and shows right now that are about it. Even DTF St. Louis, I would say, is a relationship. But then there's also some 60-year-old woman right now that is like, she's being fed the four different projects that are about child trafficking. Right. And for her, it feels like child trafficking's the big thing. I'm really noticing it because my mom's here and I'm really, really learning how much she's on her phone following links on this trip. Oh, yeah. And the amount of stuff that she knows about that's going on in the government. Yeah. It's an older person. I think moms and dads, they're doing that. We keep talking about the youth, and I don't know that that's the right focus. We live in an era where you can fill your entire day. There's one thing that comes out about the courts, then there's a few things that are happening in Congress, then the Senate, then the president's doing stuff, then there's the DA. And the ICE. It's just like, never in history have people been receiving more updates on what's happening with the government. And I think, although it's bad, but the onslaught of knowing of every little thing, everything a congressman said to another congressman in a hallway is at your disposal. And it's just, it's a lot, man. But I do think, yeah, the older people, also you're retired. Like, if you don't have a job to go to all day long and kids to take care of or whatever, like, you may not have as much of a social life the older you get. Like, yeah, it's there. It's a very convenient, easy source of engagement. Exactly. But I think it gets you, I mean, I know. Well, yeah, it gets everyone riled up. It gets you, it's profiting on your. Outrage. The impact it has on your emotions. Yeah. And I just think you're turning over a ton. You're turning over a ton of your emotional agency. Yeah, definitely. Oh, and it really worries me. But I just do think, I just wonder if there's any changing people once they hit a certain age. Yeah, it's just hard for me to accept. It's hard, but it. In the same way, if I was watching my children go down a rabbit hole, I would feel very inclined to somehow try to intervene. I know. Because I hold, as a family member, and I was really realizing this this week, you have a very unique role in that you really do tell each other. You tell each other the truth. There's no protecting of the relationship in the way an interpersonal friendship. Right. There's boundaries, and a lot of shit's none of your business, and you got to let people be who they are. But your family will tell you. Your family, my mom will just, you know, she's here and she's looking at me. Your hair is getting so curly and back. I would have never thought it was curly. I never thought it would have gone curly. It was so straight when you're a kid. You know, and then it's on to the next thing, and she's just scanning me. Yeah, I know. They love to scan. Yeah. That's what family members do. Right. And of course, I'm reading so much Sedaris, and so I'm hearing how they talk to each other. And so it's a gift in a lot of ways, because they're just telling you the, like, wow, I've noticed you're this way now. Right. Which is different from how I've known you to be. Right or wrong, maybe that's a good change or a bad change. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we'll, family members tell each other. I know. I tell people sometimes it gets me in trouble. Yeah. It doesn't really go well with friends. Well, I guess it depends on the friendship and the closeness and the trust. But. Like, you're paranoid to go, you're gaining, you've gained weight. I know. Why do they do that? You've lost weight. You've gained weight, right? Why are they always doing that? It's so, it is annoying. Sure, but I also think it's an important mechanism in our life, because it's someone, it's not a yes man, it's not a friend that's. No, God, no. Yeah, and it's not bad to have some people in your life that are just like, hey, man, here's what I see that's different. Yeah. Yeah. I think, well, I definitely think it's not good to have, like, yes men. I. I very much believe that. But, like, I don't know that anyone needs to just be, anyone, whether it's your family or not, needs to be like, oh, like, what's on your, like, you, what, so you got a little, like, wrinkles now here. Like, it's like, no, I don't, like, it does not, you can just keep your mouth shut about that. You got a little wrinkles here. Like. Yeah, the physical. Like, I'm noticing your chin. The physical narration, I don't know, is helpful, because what can you do? Exactly. But big shifts in personality, or I know you, or I notice you're sad. Sure. You're sad lately more than you have been. Like, that's what family will tell you. Yeah. And friends don't always do that. Yeah. I think they should, though. So it has an enormous value. Right. I think. Well, sure, yeah. Yeah, even though it's, it's uncomfortable to hear. But we've talked about this before. It's like telling people they shouldn't do something, whether they're family or not, it doesn't work. Like, if it's like, well, we even just had someone on, and we were talking about, and it's coming up, so we won't spoil it, but a kid who got himself into. a very bad situation, and the parents were, like, noticing, but they can't be like, hey, don't do that, because that just makes the kid be like, fuck you. Well, they were, they hadn't thrown up their arms in the air either. They were trying to ride the line. Sure. And they knew more than anyone that he had changed. Well, of course, but the point is just saying, like, hey, what you're doing is wrong, or this is bad, just straight up calling something out like that doesn't work always. Might not be the best approach. Like, doesn't work. Yeah. Which is interesting. I mean, there's times it's bad, and times it's good. Right. And certainly, I have heard when my parents have made observations about me, and I have had to think about it one way or another. I might conclude I don't agree with them, or there's no value to what they're saying. Yeah. But it forced me to take a minute to do a little inventory and examine if there's any merit to what they're saying. Right. And most friends aren't even going to say this. That's not the thing that would get me thinking that. They should. Not you, in general. Yeah. There's a tactful way to do it. There's a kind way to tell people, like, I'm noticing this about you. I'm concerned. Yeah. I love you, so that's why I'm saying it. Yeah. Like, I think that's, again, maybe because, like, I invest a lot in friendship. That is, like, extremely important to me, to be able to do and to receive it. Yeah. And again, like you said, like, sometimes I'm like, well, I disagree. Yeah, it goes right and it goes wrong. Yeah. I'm just saying, like, sisters will look at each other and go, holy shit, you should never get bangs again. It looks like shit. Right. Now, no friend is going to say that. But your sister's going to just tell you the goddamn truth. That's true, yeah. About that. And so that might be, you might go like, you know, yeah. Yeah. My brother's coming. What the fuck are you thinking with blank? Like, just siblings do that to each other. Sure. Sure. Sure. They do. They do. Yeah, my brother's coming to visit tomorrow. Tomorrow? Mm-hmm. What fun. I'm excited. With his lady? Yes. Lovely. I know, I'm really excited. Have you planned a bunch of things? No, everyone keeps asking me that. And then I say no, and everyone's like, you know, doing the side eye. Oh, I think that's fine. I just, I'm going to Nashville. Yeah. To have a guy's trip with Aaron and Erin. Oh, nice. Yeah. And so I've planned a bunch of stuff that we may or may not do, right? I normally am such a planner. Yeah. We've got a horse. I've fucking scheduled us for horseback riding. Oh, my God. Simply because none of us would want to do that. And I think it'll be so funny. Oh, it will. There'll just be something so funny about us all doing something that we don't want to do. Yeah. And also, Aaron went horseback riding over spring break in Kentucky, and he liked it. Did you? So there's an untold, I watched yesterday about a horseback rider. Oh, the one that just came out. Yeah. I don't know that for the plane. I love untold. It's a great series. All blessings untold. They do such a good job. They really do. But yeah, it made me, I'm like, okay, people are going to be mad at me for saying this, but like the horse world is- It's an interesting world. Specific. It's, yeah. Yeah. You've not watched the chess. You must watch the chess world. I'm going to. I'm going to. I love that. I love chess. I love not knowing how to play. I do want to learn how to play chess. It's a fun game. I want someone to teach me. The only bummer with chess is unlike most other games, or at least minimally for your ego, you can go, I got bad cards. Why? Or I got a bad tile deck. Like sometimes it's just luck. It is a battle of your brain. Yeah. And when you lose, you're like, oh, I'm dumber than this. It's hard. You don't go like, oh, experience has a lot to do with this game. Right. But I used, I had a spell and it was one of my favorite zones of life. Me and my friend Kareem, who's not with us anymore, we used to- Play chess, listen to Fiona Atwood. apple and drink fun and can you drink while playing because don't you have to like think a lot you're probably not getting better at the game but and probably he didn't drink as much as i did but i think he did other things that i wasn't doing the point is it was so lovely and we were so beautifully matched that it went back and forth like no one left going like yeah every time yeah yeah yeah yeah i think that's what you're hoping for a partner that's like once in a while you're winning yeah i mean you got it you're supposed to play with someone better than you if you want to get better yeah but if you want to have fun in this life yeah um okay let's do a little fact okay this is for leve i'm very impressed by classical musicians yeah i really am it's interesting i wish i was one i can see what that you would be impressed by them yeah i think discipline is yeah you love well it's hard the gymnast i'm impressed with the gymnast i'm impressed by uh ventures that have a level of talent obviously but what separates the good from the best are is discipline yeah i'm i love that i know yeah a lot of people do a lot of people do yeah yeah when i look at oh i can't even really say my opinion of all of it it kind of came out in the interview but it's like yeah the whole goal is to ultimately play this thing like play that every single note perfectly on perfect pitch there's a math to it the music already exists you're not so that to me versus jazz improv right to me this one's like wow you this is great this parallels so many of our debates it's like neil patrick harris that he would watch a woodworking video on youtube and replicate the steps and you were like yes that's great yeah and i was like why even woodwork if you're not i know being creative what are you saying yeah yeah and then the reward of figuring it out for me yeah without instruction so wonderful yeah um but yeah the notion that like you're going to replicate something perfectly is the goal well here's okay i have a little bit of a of a difference okay i think that like i like being taught i like knowing the rules i like knowing how to execute i want to be perfect but i also want all of that so that i can't we a little mischief you can yeah you can play a little on top of it you can be a little like fun and playful on top of like the bedrock of perfection yeah like the the classic like jazz to me is that they still know like they know oh yeah music in and out and they could never play in a symphony orchestra right like as great as coltrane is was i don't know if they can be first chair in the boston symphony orchestra for the saxophone that's true probably maybe not yeah i don't think one's right or wrong i just think it's funny which one you're drawn to and for me yeah i can't imagine being proud of myself that i replicated something through lots of rote and that in its best version i played as good as this violinist from the 1960s everyone thought was perfect versus i'm bob dylan i kind of sound like but i like push an entire genre somewhere right i don't know i guess yeah different but i don't think i'm trying to replicate anything but i am trying to be good yeah at what i'm doing like yeah like objectively good right and subjectively good i want it all you want it all don't we all yeah okay what are the levels of weather warnings red is the highest alert level synonyms extreme danger warning signaling imminent risk to life and widespread damage orange is the second level synonyms severe preparedness watch indicating severe weather that may cause significant localized damage looks like there's a yellow as well moderate localized short term good look for those colors i'm not even aware of this system i've never seen the weather i know we live in l.a but even in michigan i don't remember them saying like there's an orange warning for a blizzard yeah well this is in iceland it's only in iceland well i don't know it might be other places too but all that weather talk gave me a moment to really take in all the many things that are on your sweater and it's a real hodgepodge it totally works but it's like i i'm looking at first i see the the deer in the corner i'm like oh this is kind of an autumnal deal uh-huh but then i see what looks like a snowflake but then i realize no that's like a spring tree yeah and then i mean there's and then there's some flowers it's really anything the artist there's a sheep it's it's pretty gorgeous i really like that thank you yeah thank you but it's a real hodgepodge of different images what do we think this one is um a javelina what's that a wild pig yeah yeah okay well i think or or a pumba the um warthog it also looks a little bit i think technically yeah what's the theme there these are like um biblical images oh biblical okay this is part of your conversion yeah i just i'm trying to just sneak it in no i just loved the sweater but i think it's like uh biblical animals okay i guess all animals i guess yeah um don't get me started on noah's ark i want that to be real in a sense but i want there to also be a discovery documentary about what absolute pandemonium and chaos there oh what it would be yeah i know i know i know i know you know what and then the genetic diversity i don't know where the genetic diversity came from from the animals if there's only two where's all they're mixing and matching oh jesus interspecies yeah in the bird why'd this bird stay put oh like feet on the boat yeah maybe they flew above so just the boat was cruising just like every known bird was hovering above listen okay and these birds that have to live no maybe not every no maybe all the birds weren't invented just a bold of all the stories and i understand they're all allegory or whatnot and they're parables and they're right they're metaphors too hard about it but it's a bold one to even pitch it's like go go with me on this allegory pick two so they could reproduce they needed a male and female all right to repot the whole goal was to repopulate the planet after god murdered every single person on the planet other than adam and no um no one is bride and his kids who's noah's bride i don't know but also we're all descendants of just no incest because only their kids were here even though that doesn't even make sense because we're supposed to be there are so many i'm just saying it's a tough one yeah noah's wife from the bible apparently doesn't get a name she's just been referred to as noah's wife so all of our women are women are useless our mom doesn't even have a name no jesus christ they identify her as nama or emzara and how many kids did they have i want to know how many of these kids were making love to reproduce the whole planet i think every modern christian would go like hey man it's not three sons three oh fuck so they all have sex with the mom where did the fucking kids come from i don't think i don't think i think there were some other people like like moses no no that's before oh right yeah so this this was explaining to me the humans were having sex with the angels and they were creating fucked up creatures and so god had to flood the entire planet and kill every single person and animal other than what was on noah's ark okay okay okay and then those remaining animals repopulated the earth we now live on all right so either noah and the wife had many more kids after they the the waters subsided and those kids had sex or the three sons had sex with the mom the three sons had their wives apparently oh they had their wives yes well where did the wives come from they were invited they were adults yeah they were allowed to come on the boat son so noah's noah was tasked with believe in me start building this ark i'm gonna flood it everyone you're crazy get all the animals good luck he gathered them all people he's crazy and then the flood came and killed everybody except for the people he had on the boat so apparently his sons had wives that helps with the genetic genetic i guess so i guess just cousins were making love in the second round year-long catastrophic deluge sent by god to destroy humanity due to widespread wickedness only noah his family and pairs of every animal survived on a large ark it is considered a global event by believers and is historically linked to regional mesopotamia and floods um who are that's why that's a terrible noah's son's wives the tigress and euphrates constantly flooded that's why it was a really relevant story oh eight people survived the flood okay so we're all the product of eight we have the three sons we've got the wife of them that's six and then i guess no and the mom i guess the cousins took care of the rest i want to learn more about the wives me too i thought they were hot I'm not so sure. Okay. Okay. What's the average height of an Icelandic man? Five feet, 11.7 inches. Just shy of six feet. What's the average height of an American? Average height of an American man. Ooh, do Indian. Okay. Five foot nine is American. Okay. So they're two and a half inches taller on average. Okay. Indian is going to be lower. Yeah. Five, five. Five, five. So they're six and a half inches taller on average. Yeah. Than Indian. Let's do. Chinese, five, 6.8. Taller than the Indians. Yeah. Okay. That sounds right to you. Yeah, probably. What about Philippines? Filipinos. Just so Rob feels seen. Five, four. Five, four. That's lower. That's our lowest so far. Should I look up? What's the low? Shortest national average. For men? Yeah. Timor-Leste. east okay island in the pacific and that's five three five three yeah oh yemen is also low laos liberia not low uh uh yeah liberia let's do tallest okay oh i also typed in hortus instead of shortest figure in you so those are actually the shortest yeah netherlands six feet point four inches then we got montenegro i'm still above the average in in the netherlands yep montenegro and estonia also top topsies stretch limos okay okay now was charlie pooth doing sound engineering at berkeley production and engineering yes okay population of iceland four hundred and two thousand to four hundred and two thousand three hundred that's a small city in the u.s a small place and then the presidential scholarship u.s presidential scholars program is a prestigious invitation only non-monetary award recognizing up to 161 top graduating high school seniors annually for exceptional talent in academics arts or technical education i know someone who got one it was a big deal um all right well that's it okay do you know when i told lincoln that i interviewed i had a hunch she might like her yep and she's like oh my god i'm not going to do that i'm going to do it i love her she has an identical twin and i'm like i know she came she's like she did yeah and this was good sim because the twin episode just came out oh yeah yeah i'm sure anonymous so that was perfect perfect timing as if we scripted it all right love you love you