Lady Gaga: The MAYHEM Interview with Zane Lowe

I'm like really trying to like get my energy up and be like be cool and funny but like when I come down here I have a huge feeling in my heart that is so like powerful. I felt like you were back there for a minute when you walked in and I've been in places like that. Yeah I really wanted to be here with you to have this conversation because this place was so like impactful to my life and this is where I like built my like artistic soul with the community that lived here. We all good? Cool. I know places like this. This is uh this is a real lower east side. It doesn't change. That's right. You never want it to change. No this is where all the cool kids hang out. This is where all the the names get chucked in the toilets and on the bathroom and somehow you'll find yourself in and amongst layer after layer of identity. That's right. That's right and I feel like it was here that I learned being uh different and being artistic and being you know what other people thought was weird. It was actually like a community that I could be a part of. Because you learned together. Yeah and we supported each other and all of our like you know creativity and our imaginations and um I mean I used to write songs at the bar over here with a PBR and a shot. Wow so you could literally come in here and start jotting down ideas. Yeah I mean I actually really liked writing on napkins. I just thought it was kind of romantic. Tell me you still got those. I do. I do. My mom kept them but this place was really special to me because it was just a few blocks from the house and it was open during the day and I would often uh write music during the day and I would work at night. So I spent a lot of time here and I made like lifelong friends. Do you used to play? I did used to play. I really sucked at ball. I mean I think you might have a go at that one and you might get. I don't know. No no. Look at my gloves. See this is exactly. It's perfect. Yeah it's perfect. It's perfect. Oh ----. I'm so bad. I was good at drinking and writing music and I loved having having drinks with friends and yeah we used to we used to part we used to party and we used to make music. What a simple time. It was an amazing time. I'm excited to sit down and get into where you are today though and this amazing album Mayhem. I know fans are so excited about this record. I feel very privileged to be able to have a conversation with you and we can all share that with everybody. Thank you. I mean I'm not here anymore but Mayhem definitely began here. You know what I'm like really reminded of being in here is that like nothing was more powerful than living down here and finding myself and becoming Gaga. Do you remember the moment when you became Lady Gaga? Like it was like okay I see it. I was working on some music and I was making all this like theatrical pop and some of which ended up on The Fame my first studio album and I just was I just really wanted to change my name. It didn't feel like it matched the person that I was becoming and I was in my apartment on Stanton Street and I just I just came up with it. I was listening a lot to Queen and I thought of the song Radio Gaga and then I thought what if I put Lady in front of it and you know that felt kind of like it was sort of inspired by all like the club kids around here and also all of the art that I would see that we would all make to throw parties. Like we had the coolest art to throw parties down here and seeing other people's personas like Lady Starlight, Darian Darling, Breedlove, Tommy London, Anna Copacabana, Justin Tranter and Semi Precious Weapons like who's now like a huge songwriter. He's incredibly talented. We were like all down here and watching them I was like oh I can I can be the artist of my own life so they really inspired me and you know it still does. I mean this is you can't you can't miss the vibe here and it's not just any dive bar and people that people that hung out down here when I was down here I know that they would say the same thing that there was like something special about this area and you know I bet there's like people down here now that like feel that way. You know you said recently something really great and reassuring for fans you said I love being Lady Gaga. Have there been times more recently I would say years within years where that hasn't always been the case where you had to rediscover that passion for the identity that you've built over the course of your music? Yeah it's definitely like can be complicated. I think that my earliest memories as Gaga were like so powerful because they were like formative and free and then my career was such a blessing but as it took off I think the way that like other people related to me as like a superstar like not that I didn't want to be one but like almost something outside of the artistry. I always think the objective it does because I always think when I talk to artists like yourselves who have such a strong artistic identity and come through the other side of that phase that the general perception is that objectification for lack of a better term one's star power is a frog in a pot of boiling water that you want it and then you realize do I actually have ownership over that anymore? Right and like what people love about you can kind of be different for everyone right maybe they love your music or they love your stage performances or it maybe it's your clothes or um and like the pressures of like combining my artistry with being a pop star was like really interesting and sometimes hard because people have opinions about how you should look and how you should like move through the world and that's like not what this was about at all like this was like you like you were you and what you who you were and what made you you was your superpower it wasn't like like telling each other what to do or you know you should do that do it do your art this way no it was like it was us supporting each other and what we did and also it was about like what records are you listening to like what art books are you reading what movies are you watching like like what bands are you going to see how often do you rehearse like what's your relationship with your craft and I think you know something I want my fans to know now which is why I said I love being Lady Gaga is I actually returned back to my artistry like recently and it's a huge way of making this album like I put so much of myself as a musician as a producer as a songwriter in everything and that is who Lady Gaga is like to me like maybe to someone else it might be you know the meat dress or you know something that I did that they they remember as me but for me I always want to be remembered for being a real artist and someone that cares so much about you know a life of art. You may not realize this let me just remind you that you you got the three like you have a hit now in your third decade yeah and that is an incredible achievement abracadabra is we got the message I mean these these fan posts like look at how your fans interact with your music is absolutely amazing you've probably seen this one yeah I love him and then real production like real commitment yep and then this one here makes me laugh as well thank you so much the internet your fans are really showing up yeah they agree they're hearing it right in abracadabra and in the music yeah I think you know like it's it's my job to make music that moves them and speaks to them and I you know all you can do is your best and work your hardest and I think I didn't want to make this kind of music for a long time even though I had it in me and I think abracadabra is very much my sound like something that I kind of honed in after many years and I wanted to do it again and I felt like being stagnant was just death in my artistry and I just really wanted to constantly be a student and not just reinvent myself but learn something new with every record and you know that wasn't always what people wanted from me but that's what I wanted from me and it's the thing that I'm the most probably proud of if I look back on my career is I I like know how much I like grew from record to record and how authentic it all was that the thing that was most important to me was putting being a student of music above everything else but like I was able to be a student of music with this album but in a new way where I was I was sort of asking myself hard questions like you know what really does define you and like what is um you know what is your personal mayhem what do you struggle with like what's the thing that you're always trying to live up to from your past question that's a hard question it is a hard question and you know what are your sounds and what is your you know what is the music of your soul like how can you go back to your earliest memories with music and put that into this album with everything you've learned along the way everything through the chromaticas and the joannes and the art pops all the things that were important steps I hear them all on this record thank you it feels to me how in a strange way you get to revisit some of those those artistic steps you took on an album like art pop and I play a little more experience and a little more life into them and say hey look I can breathe life into that me again yeah I mean art pop was a very special album to me um you know I I was just like on my previous records handpicking the producers that I was gonna co-produce with I was I was choosing like how to how to make the opera and you know it was not really happening in uh mainstream music that one track would change that much um the groove would sometimes change it would completely not be expected it was very disruptive it was not easy listening it was it was basically like me going I'll do what I want and and I'll I'll do it um you know I'll do it my way but what's so interesting is I always did that it's just for some reason that record was like viewed as more defiant I think because I was also fighting against some of the newer things in my life like um you know living up to my new image and wanting to break that so you know I like never dressed the same and my hair was always different and you know art pop was more of a kind of a concept and a philosophy more than it was an aesthetic and but it was definitely a statement and it's interesting you become successful and it's natural for anybody in business even with the best of intentions or not to want to templatize that to want to say hey look this is working you know yeah you know but it's not working for me yeah and then like it's it's like what it also just depends on what your goals are as an artist you know if for me my goal was always to be a student so that meant I had to do things I hadn't done before yeah because if you if I was always treading old ground I didn't feel like I was uh learning as much you wouldn't be here now like like this it would have run its course it was so cold like Madion was like a kid you know and I was like what are we gonna do and then we like like made all this amazing music together and Zedd was just like popping off and I was like how are we gonna do this and DJ White Shadow and we were listening to like you know Gustav Holstein who I worked with on this record and he knew that when I worked with him on Mayhem I said I've been trying to work with you for over 10 years and he was like here I am and like it was the music that you fall in love with the art and for me that is so me I'm not like um a fleeting music fan where I just like for the album go I'm gonna find new things only and then and then I'm gonna let all of those things inspire me but they'll you know be things I listen to for a month no like Mayhem was made off of inspiration of loving artists music producers and sound that I've been studying for like at least a decade so it's like that's all ruminating in me as a student and and then and to me like abracadabra even though it has my DNA in it even though Mayhem has my DNA in it it also doesn't sound the way that the Fame Monster did or the way the Fame did so it's like my the my way of thinking of music as being a cross genre of being able to combine lots of different things at the same time that is that is who I am as a as a musician and I've always been that way and that is what Mayhem is all about it's like the mayhem of like being a non-linear artist and uh and with this album embracing that about myself instead of being like okay I got I have to like fit it into this one thing you know abracadabra is such a smash as of recording right now we're filming and it's it's unstoppable um does it feel different you've had like I said hits over three decades how does this one feel different you know it's just like I don't know it it's just it's its own thing you know it's every song is different it uh I think people were happy to um reconnect with my artistry through this song I think we wanted to see you dance yeah I think so yeah and I and for a while like that was not super easy for me so that was amazing too I I love dancing how did you get back to a place where it felt it felt good to dance and not like you had to work extra hard through paying to dance I got I just got much healthier I I have good people in my life I fell in love with Michael I um as a songwriter you need life to inspire your writing and if if everything is um like promotion yeah it kind of like then I'll write about promotion and I won't write about like I like that special moment I shared with you were like you know Michael asked me how I would want him to propose to me one day we were in our backyard and and I said just you know take a blade of grass and wrap it around my finger and then I wrote blade of grass because I remembered the way his face looked and I remembered the grass in the backyard and I remember thinking he should he should use that really long grass that's in the center of the backyard and it was but those moments to me at a certain point I was like into like the idea of fame and artifice and like being the you know the conductor of your own life when it came to like your own inner sense of fame I had to fight a lot harder to make music and dance a little bit later into my career because my life became so different that I was I didn't have as much life around me to inspire me it like all became this one other thing and then I think my fans were like why isn't she promoting things and like where is she but like I needed to go live life to have a full life and and also to give back to you know my true gift and that was that's my one of the sweetest things that I think Michael ever said to me as my partners he was like you know who you are is that you're an artist like that's the thing that makes you the most happy so like you know we need to like nurture that part of you and he reminded me that the other stuff was maybe sometimes hard for me and like and making it more difficult and so like keeping me away from what I love. It seems like the kind of thing you would say to someone as a friend or as a as a loved one or a partner that is so obvious to him and yet for you to hear that to your point it's so deep because your journey let's talk about Perfect Celebrity I mean you I mean I can't believe you brought that one up I mean second I knew you would well because like you attacked fame fame didn't have a chance like when you were coming out right you went in all in and you're out the other side so we're going to get there you're not going to get there in conversation but now that you're through are you any clearer in understanding what what the motivation was behind that desire to want to achieve that level of of success and you know I yes and no I'm not sure I think what I'm dealing with on Perfect Celebrity is like a lot of like anger that I feel towards myself right about like what is like what is this thing inside of you that you needed that like why are you this way and the song is almost like humorous in the way that I'm talking it's angry though as well but it's it's super angry and you know I've become a notorious being find my clone she's asleep on the ceiling it's almost like comical this idea that anytime I'm in the room with anyone there's me Stephanie and Lady Gaga asleep on the ceiling and I have to like figure out which body to be in it's like kind of intense but that song was that was an important song on this album because it didn't feel it didn't feel honest to me on Mayhem to exclude something that had that kind of anger in it because then it felt like I was like trying to be a good girl or whatever and be something that I'm not actually that that you know part of my personal Mayhem is that like I have joy and celebration but I'm also like sometimes angry or super sad or like really celebratory or completely insecure and have no confidence so like the album has all of that and I don't know that I've done that on a record actually I don't know like if I've ever I think I have in a way but Perfect Celebrity for example is probably the most angry song. I don't think you've ever done it in a song I mean it's all in a song. There's rage in my music for sure for a long time but like in a song where I'm just so implicitly calling out and and also like making a mockery out of this thing. That's an important part of it you know I think that there's been examples of people who've taken a step back from Celebrity and Fame and tried to find a with all the best of intentions a pathway through to expressing what that's like but what you're doing is still doing it from inside the room and the experience and it's a fox in the henhouse like you think that you're going to get away from it but it will get you yeah right absolutely it just will yeah it will and did I do it to myself you know like and I thought about the 90s too when I made that record there's a lot of 90s energy in that song I think that was the most I think it was one of the most brutal eras for that we lost incredible people because of the pressures of that incredible people amazing artists powerful music I mean the 90s is how I fell in love with music as a teenager you know and it was like and you know in the studio we you know we all kind of shared that in common as well like a love of that that time and so the album also like has you know Perfect Celebrity is sort of an electro grunge song yeah and it was also inspired by The Cure and this song Never Enough that I used to play in my apartment like a million times before I walked into this bar and so it had that influence as well so that was sort of the like electro influence that came into it but so to give you idea of how I made this album is that the after I made that song then I was like we need to change all the production like I wanted to change everything you landed on something yeah I was like we have to change everything and and then I went back and I said no we shouldn't change everything because if I was to simply decide I was going to now make an entire electro grunge album it would be just to like try to saint myself as randomly cool in the middle of my project and I actually thought that that was boring and not at all what Mayhem is all about and that like the true chaos of who I am is that I actually am a lot more than just these concepts I'm like so many concepts at once when I'm working. Because wasn't Perfect Celebrity at one point a working title for the album? Yes. And so yeah that makes total sense because coming back to Mayhem frees you from that right from from being from that controlled expression and it's like no no no the more chaotic and free form. The more it feels like like me and you know art pop was a vibe Joanne was a sound you know Chromatica had a sound all different the the fame monster was more chaotic the fame was theatrical pop Born This Way to me had more of like a you know like metal electro New York vibe to it so I actually made the effort making Mayhem to not do that and not try to give my music an outfit you know what I mean but instead to like allow myself to be influenced by everything and that that was how I discovered my songwriting and production abilities as a as a kid so that was a special experience and then like still some of that influence though the electro grunge influence made it still on to other songs that were some were like industrial some were like 2000s throwbacks like Garden of Eden and then there was there's a song called Can't Stop the High that you haven't heard that's on the version of the album that's on my website only and that is like a pure electro grunge record that like goes even harder than Perfect Celebrity does. How many songs do you think over the course of that period of time? Did I did we make? Yeah for the album. I mean probably 50 I mean like so much music and I didn't we didn't use it all but it's it's my favorite record in a long time I feel like it has some teeth. It has some teeth. You know it has some teeth it's it is real. I mean the Beast is a revenge record I don't know who it's revenge against and I know that the lyrics don't necessarily reflect that but the energy of that performance and the arrangement and sound design on that song is coming from something unresolved that's what I hear. Yeah you know so the album is a series of gothic dreams I say it's like images of the past that haunt me and they somehow find their way into like who I am today in that record it is you know me or like a you know someone singing to their lover who's a werewolf but I actually like what I believe about this is this record is also about Michael and I and that this this song is also about me and being Lady Gaga like what the Beast is who I become when I'm on stage and who I am when I make my art and you know the the pre-chorus of that song is um you can't hide who you are 11.59 your hearts race in your ground and we both know why and it's like somebody that is saying to the Beast like I know that I know you're a monster but like but like I can handle you and I love you. Is there a relationship with that lyric and the lyric that follows in Blade of Grass where it's really a really poignant observation you make from his point of view how can a man like me love a woman like you? Yeah. Are they related right they know each other? 100% yeah I mean Michael's like an incredibly warm-hearted kind non non like entertainment or you know fame oriented person um we we have completely different respective backgrounds um although he's very creative and very artistically minded um you know I don't know that he ever thought that like he would like ever be with someone like me we're like so different in that way um but we've really um built a friendship and a bond over how to like each share each other's mayhem with each other and and like we're like doing it together now. I love how the fans have embraced him as well look it's when you have such a personal relationship with your fan base like you do I think it's important everybody knows that that is you commenting on those posts and you it's not somebody else. Yeah I I love talking to my fans I mean I used to backstage after the Born This Way ball hang out backstage with with fans that I would pull from the monster pit which was like you know like the air like I made this like special area that if you showed up early to the gates for the show people would like sleep you know for like a week sometimes to get in early like the first monster got a monster key and then I would choose like 20 to 30 fans to come backstage and I'd hang out with everyone and ask them about their lives and it helped me get to know who I was singing to um and they feel like they know you and that's I think why you know this relationship that you have having the courage to make it normal there's no private there is normal yeah and I think it's really beautiful I mean I was talking to a friend of mine who's a big big fan and he sees this kind of relationship that makes you happy and builds it through and that must just give you so much fulfillment knowing that both can be true. Yeah I have both now I have like my home used to only be the stage. How lonely. It was so lonely and also it is so much more fun to like take somebody up there with you know like someone that loves you that um that that knows um knows what you're capable of in all all the various aspects of life you know I think that there's nothing that could like bring a tear to my eye I think more on a daily basis than knowing that I mean also so much to somebody in a way that um isn't about like what I'm doing on stage or what I'm like my song or what I'm wearing like it's like he's so like grateful if I make him a double decaf espresso over ice because that's his favorite you know and then and that's like a huge part of who I am and you know mattering to somebody just for being a you know a me like a girl like that that means a lot but also like to be embraced also and that he will say to me like the thing you have to do to get yourself ready to go do that is like so intense like I just want he just wants me to be okay and he wants to um he's my real friend I mean that's what I would say like if my if my fans are like wondering anything about my relationship that they could like keep with them it's that like I made a real friend and also that he teaches me so much yeah like what give us an example if you wouldn't mind about something that you know you could never have learned or from anyone but him I mean he re-inspired me in my life um to know that like living in as an independent woman would make me happy like uh doing things for myself uh having my day on my terms he taught me a lot about my own business and helped me um he like helped me to stay like balanced and grounded at home to when I'm like working as we were making the album together I didn't like I didn't fall completely into an abyss of fantasy I was like able to always ground and come back to home and that makes it makes the work better and it makes me happier I mean honestly he's taught me a lot must have been so healing as well too um I love that quote when Ed Vedder and that I mentioned this before when in a Pearl Jam documentary talks about meeting Neil Young and saying it was so great to finally meet a grown-up I could count on yeah it's so true being able to count on somebody is something we all need you know being able to have like someone that always has your back no matter what I think is yeah I'm I'm I just I feel super grateful. Shadow of a Man is a powerful record. Thank you. What would you like to share about that song? I mean that song is like uh so much a response to my career yeah you know and what it always felt like to be the only girl in the room a lot of the time yeah and to always be like standing in the shadow of a man because there were so many around me yeah that I learned how to dance in that shadow and now you have a male friend in your life that you can count on I guess you have the perspective to be able to see it for what it was even well I don't feel like I don't feel um controlled or oppressed I feel free yeah when I made that song I was imagining actually that I was singing walking down these streets like it I still am so inspired by this town and that feeling like if I could if I could give anyone you know a feeling or a memory or an experience of mine that I've had um the first would be um the power of learning other people's stories and being available to like understand another person um in the world like that's been the most like the most giving beautiful thing that I've experienced um and then I would say your own artistic energy and the fight and the like your own ability to persevere and to like dance through life knowing that like you might not win sometimes it's such a powerful image the idea of dancing through that kind of adversity because through artists like yourself and your peers who've come before you and since we're getting a much clearer picture about how challenging it it has been and remains to be a woman in the music industry in any industry in any walk of life and I think it's really powerful when songs like that get made because we get a step closer to understanding what could have been better thank you I don't think I've ever made a song like that you know it's yeah it's it's defiant and it's it's it's also fun it's powerful um yeah but women in music are a force people love women in music and also for as many people love women in music I also think women in music are um heavily criticized and I wish I wish so much for no one in the world to be living life where they're heavily criticized every day and I'm really grateful for what I do and I'm um I don't mean that in a way to like complain about this incredible life that I have but I do feel like you know uh a sense of uh love for people that um you know like misogyny is real too and wanting women to you know be good little girls all the time is uh super damaging and I the more that we can support each other in speaking our truth and protecting ourselves and saying what we need and what we you know what we what we all deserve I think that I think women deserve to be loved in that way and I think you know that also I can say you know being a woman in this world that like cares about you know the artistry of my outward facing persona that um we also deserve to be able to wear what we want and express ourselves how we want to in a free and happy space. It feels kind of hard to express yourself it just goes for anybody right now who feels strongly about something because it doesn't feel as free or happy as this space at the moment. Yeah and I'm I face that on Mayhem too I will say like I'm 38 years old and I was like well you know I'm not 20 anymore and you know I don't know if I'll be accepted as I grow up and get older it's yeah I still feel young um but that was a part of this album as well was a lot of fear of what that will be like and I ultimately decided that a woman can be powerful at any age. You've never shied away yeah and I've never I've never had a chance to ask you that when you're standing on a stage like you do at the Grammys and you take an opportunity to to be an ally and to stand up and say something about a community that probably feels very misunderstood and if I'm really honest under attack at the moment. Yeah. What that also feels like for you it's a feeling you have before it's words that you say. I mean what I would say first and foremost is what trans people are being faced with in this world is completely unfair um wrong and there's this like violence that's taking place on a daily basis in their lives and I think that we all need to support trans people and each other to know that they deserve to be supported and loved and protected and lifted up and you know what I go through in my life is very different from that um and you know what every community that is oppressed goes through is different it's all a unique experience and then there's individual people and everyone's individual experience is different so I would just say it's like the most important time ever I think also but when I said um learning people's stories yeah it was a great gift I think for me I've learned that it's not all one thing and that you know every group of people and every individual person uh their unique experience is um valuable and deserves to um be upheld as their own. You're making your best music that sounds like the most complete version of you and you still created the space to be able to support through your process but also through words that idea of mentorship did you have mentorship when you were growing up as a young artist? I mean Lady Starlight was my greatest mentor I think I don't think I would be here without her um she just taught me so much about life and art and music and fashion and um and and I had you know a vocal teacher Don Lawrence who was a mentor all my piano teachers um but then like in a whole other way like Bruce Springsteen's voice when I when I like sit in this bar I like remember thinking about Bruce Springsteen and sitting at that bar and just being like how can I be as soulful as as he is you know Stevie Wonder's voice and his music putting me in an absolute trance as a child I mean Prince and having someone that had an imagination like Prince did um making music like there's and that's I'm just naming three people there's like thousands of artists. And then there were the collaborators as well the people that have become mentors throughout your life I love that they're seemingly at least as far as I can tell only one collaboration on this record and that we already know what that is. Yeah. That's Die With a Smile. Yeah. Which is a perfect way to end the record too. And also you know so Bruno is a feature on Die With a Smile or me and Bruno made Die With a Smile together then Gustav Holstein is on Killa. Yeah. Um and we made that record together and then I mean I have to say it has nothing to do with this album but when you ask me about mentors I have to say like probably one of the more even more meaningful mentors I ever had was Tony Bennett. Yeah. And I wanted to ask you just a few things that or a few observations about these key collaborative relationships that I feel have kind of given you something really valuable at certain points in your life starting with Tony you know because we spoke at length about that relationship um on the last project that you were able to release together. Now with a little bit of hindsight and a little bit of perspective you know what's really stayed with you from that experience and and what the conversations and time you spent with him? He used to just say stick with quality kid you know and he was right that's what that was his north star all the time. Tony was just worried about different things like and that inspired me what his focus was and that's you know it has stayed with me and as I grow up I'm like well I'm just gonna keep being a musician and I'm gonna keep working hard at my music and working hard at my songwriting and working hard at my producing and you know the other things matter but your gift and your talent is what matters to me what matters the most. I mean honestly I think he could have been singing until he was 110 like he was. Because he knew what was important. It was the music. Yeah. Like and the music brought him back to life when he couldn't you know remember anymore. I've seen it with my own eyes we talked about this but off camera I mean the power of the frequency of music and the way that it attaches to our memories and I've spoken on camera about this only when relevant and important to the conversation I think but watching my mother go through cognitive deterioration with her dementia diagnosis and realizing that music brings her back into the room was one of the most powerful realizations of my life. It's and I'm so sorry that you have gone through that it is super painful. You've been kind to me already and I appreciate that. It's very painful but isn't it amazing. Amazing. Music is such a powerful force and it gives people life and it changes the ether in the room it's there's nothing like it and I will say that I'm I feel so much gratitude that I get to have the feeling of like music is the medicine of my mayhem because when I feel like I don't have any clue what I'm doing I don't have my bearings on what I'm good at what I'm what I suck at what's the right answer what's the wrong answer it is music and the real relationships in my life that center me because music is it's this thing that I do that I'm so sure when I'm doing it that it's exactly where I'm supposed to be so it's it's like a totem you know when I get disorientated disoriented yeah and like and that's like that's some of I don't I don't know I'm I'm I think people can relate to that feeling may mayhem for me is you know when life feels really hard um yeah and I'm so lucky to have such an amazing life but like we all like have our moments and you know there's things I don't share with my fans too and like some things I'm not ready to share yet but like just when life throws things at you and you know you just get so turned around and how do you get back and like for me I get back with music and that's how I like I get back and so and all I wanted to do with this record was create music that from start to finish someone could listen and get get back to themselves in some kind of way and um I wanted it to be fun that's the other thing like it's mad fun zombie boy is crazy fun I mean that's that sounds the most like this area to me than almost any other record yeah on the album way thank you I feel like this place is going up when I'm hearing that song like everyone's already here it's packed it's going off and that's this on the on the system yeah and it's it's like what I love about being in this bar with you and talking about this is when we hung out in this bar yeah winning in life was like knowing what to play when the jukebox used to be over there what did you used to play oh my god I would play Motorhead and I would play David Bowie and I would play ACDC and I would play Black Sabbath it was like we were all having a conversation in here with the music and it it wasn't about like global domination when you walked in and you were here and I wondered like in that moment whether your life since then has felt like the blink of an eye or a river it definitely feels like I just had like no idea what was gonna happen yeah and I'm really grateful that it did but I um what I value when I think about this time is not what it thank you not what it gave to me um in my career but the endless uh the endless memories yeah they're hard sometimes aren't they the memories were so powerful here and I that will just be in my heart forever it's you know I am so grateful for and I you hear me say it a million times when I talk about this because I you know obviously feel like I need to qualify that piece of myself and it's true it's but it is like I do feel so happy to be in a place now in my life when I I just the thing that I um valued the most in all of this was the the community and I I left that behind oh that's the sacrifice that's what we that's a really powerful observation in my life too I mean and everyone I've ever spoken to who's lucky enough to still be here and we talk about what we what we go through the highs and the lows the thing that we really center on we when we wonder what what it cost yeah is the people yeah and I think part of the abracadabra video that made it special honestly was I spent like real time learning that choreography working with Paris and and working with those dancers and I I got to be you know in their community while we made it and I felt like I belonged and that feeling made me so happy and I think it like really translated in the video that I was like with my people you might have to get oh my gosh this is the Blues Brothers it's time to get the band back I know it's so you know I still talk to to um so many people from that time and it's but it is like um I don't think they'll ever know how much I valued I think they just found out I hope yeah I try to tell them but you know where the community really comes alive tour oh my god I the fans are so special and you know I I'm just like completely wowed when I see them wake up in this magical way it's almost like the words in abracadabra like like it woke up um all all my old friends people want to see you and and look life life is different than when you start and things like tours have to be really worked into into what real life is that's the beautiful balance of growth right yeah but if I had done a poll of all the fans and said one question this would have been it you know do you have a desire to to tour different or the same but tour and bring mayhem to the road yeah of course I do yeah I mean I love I love being on and I I enjoy it again and at this time in my life so for sure I'm so excited for Coachella and it's all I like ruminate on constantly like all my ideas and what to do and how to do it and what does mayhem mean you know how do we bring mayhem to the desert I'm really excited you know I just feel you know I feel like I'm like firing on all my cylinders again and that it's super rad I can't wait to see my fans yeah you know and I also can't wait to do it with uh with Michael you know where I feel is lonely right I suppose the way you were describing before felt to me at least like that was the great distraction from all the things you were missing as much as it was enjoyment it was like hey I'm here because I don't know what's over there waiting for me is that after my career took off I didn't have a sense of home in the same way yeah obviously I have an amazing family that I love so so much and they were always wonderful like I just was away you know and I was kind of untethered and I loved that for a long time and then I just like imploded and was like that and felt like I didn't have gravity so now I have now I have gravity and gravity's good and like sometimes I joke now and I just will say like I'm boring now and thank god you know and it's like no but like but seriously like maybe I'm not boring in my art for sure boring maybe was what I was doing before where it was like so predictably um you know predictably chaotic all the time I enjoy being able to reflect on all of my dreams and then make them and yeah that's why I say that mayhem is also all these gothic dreams it's like all all of my dark all of my dark dreams and all of the different things they mean and how they come they come alive and it's all in one place and it's total mayhem and it's like completely it's completely me and it's it's my gift to my fans