We interviewed the Mozart of Gen Z

there's this funny myth that you you need to somehow know what you're doing but people who know what they're doing don't make interesting work it's just as simple as that it's not how many people have I reached it's of the people that I reached how many of those did I move this is Jacob Collier and in October 2013 he uploaded this YouTube video that would take him from making videos in his bedroom to selling out Arenas all over the world he's been referred to as the Mozart of gen Z and at the age of 29

has already won six Grammys it's a massive honor to be in this room such a tintinnabulum of musical uh Brilliance so thank you for having me so on this show we talk a lot about the business of being a Creator but you really can't get to the business unless you're making truly creative work that's impacting people and that's what this conversation with Jacob is all about this is one of those episodes where you're going to want to have a notebook out while you listen he says a lot of things that you don't want to forget

and that will likely spark ideas in your own creative work and I definitely would recommend checking out Jacob's music if you're unfamiliar with him we've linked some of our favorite songs in the description as well as his new album Jesse volume 4 all right now for our conversation with Jacob Collier [Music] Jacob ker welcome to the show how's it going good to see you both good see you too it's going great man I'm I'm really excited you're here I've been so excited for a long time for this um you're obviously here in LA because of

the Grammys and you won your sixth Grammy that's true that's crazy it's it's surreal that's wild thanks yeah yeah yeah yeah but but what's I think uh exceptionally interesting when we think about this conversation is that we actually met at a YouTube event we did brandcast brandcast and we had a great conversation backstage I remember just being like wow that guy is so great to talk to you I felt the same way and then you went on stage and you performed Somebody to Love and the crowd went nuts like it was like I was emotional

I felt like I had the chills I didn't know what to do with myself after this performance but I did know what to do with myself which was to go out on stage and deliver some data and insights about our Vibes were completely different but it was great though it worked out fine it was it was wonderful I'm so excited to have you on the show and talk about me too uh your journey because your your journey does start on YouTube true true I was watching a documentary about you oh no on the BBC cool

which is one of the first times we've had a guest on the show where I could actually sit and watch an hour and a half documentary about the guest and it was phenomenal but there were two quotes back to back in the documentary about you spoken about you that I thought were really interesting that sort of speak to your origin the first is from uh Chris Martin and he's talking about how he came across you for the first time that he puts on this playlist basically to go to sleep and all of a sudden he

hears this one track and he finds it amazing turns out is you and he thinks to himself he must be from the 16th century that's the first thought about hearing the music the next quote is from your mom he really was born at the right time and I found those to be so interesting that Chris Martin could say the sound felt old but that this was the right time for you to be born that is interesting yeah I'd forgotten that they they edited that back toback that that's clever editing um but I do often think

about the time I've been born into and I do think I'm I'm great well I am very grateful for being here now even I think five years in either direction would have certainly changed the the trajectory of my creativity so I think that and you mentioned YouTube I think there's a it was it was a particular um space I think at that time for Content creators who didn't necessarily want to or weren't interest weren't interested so much in the idea of sort of conforming to something like an algorithm or a or a particular format um

but were more interested in making stuff that they were thought was really cool and I I contributed to YouTube because I felt like it was the it was kind of the broadest um space for me to do things on my own terms I just thought well this is this is interesting to me this is so interesting that I want to share it and uh never really thought too much about having a career but that was the magic of YouTube at that time is that things could be on their own terms and and then fast forward

I suppose 10 years I've seen YouTube change a lot I've seen the music industry change a lot I've changed a lot and I'm sure you two feel the same way that the whole climate has changed and the way we we conceive of things has changed I think there's a far greater fatigue of bright packaging in a sense and competitive psychology um but there's also so it's also really fun and more irreverant I think than it's ever been in certain way so I don't know see yeah looking at the last well 29 years of my life

and the ways in which I valued and seed and perceived the opportunity to be creative and offer things into the world um it's been an extraordinary time to do that and and I do I do feel very lucky that I was around at that for that little Nook of well 94 I suppose to to enter the world and and and find myself in this place I think there's one word that you just used that I think is an important word you said uh decided to contribute to YouTube like I think that is um that felt

a lot like the energy 10 years ago I think that's actually something that has changed dramatically over the past decade is that there was a there's a time where it felt like we were all uh offering contributions of our creativity or self-expression to this platform and to this moment in time that was the democratization of of voice and I think um today you know just as all things progress there's more of a thought of what can I get from it oh yeah right then what can I give to it and I think that's one of

the challenges with young creatives today is there's too much awareness of what could happen if you post something that works and your mind gets wired into to that constantly you know yeah and it's even like in this situation there's three cameras here right yeah and it's so easy to be like oh so I'm going to come across like this to this so I'm just going to you know and and because we are beings that are sensitive to what's around us and we perceive actively and we're emotional and we you know I I I just think

it's a it's a dangerous time to be too spongy to to those forces um and it's it's wild about that era for you like a decade ago posting YouTube videos you know your first video is this iTunes visualizer which is fantastic huge fan ofun visualizer I mean that was that was an epic era of Youth like to put on a song and just let the iTune visualizer like era I'm surprised there's nothing quite like that right now I don't know if we have the I don't know if that's enough stimulation for the present moment yeah

right yeah um but you took a screenshot of your video this Acappella video um and you made a series of these Acappella videos but the uh the cover of don't you worry about a thing yeah yeah you took a screenshot when you first posted it to that said no views yeah and that's the video that you were discovered right why did you take that screenshot I don't know there been certain moments feel important and um I was just so proud of it i' made I so proud of it I thought this will hopefully not have

zero views in a few days and maybe have like 100 or a thousand or something so I I took the screenshot and it just felt like a moment of this is this is happening right now and and even just the layout of YouTube looks so different in the screenshot you know the the really oldfashioned kind of thumbnails and it's all kind of more straight lines there's less curves and flounces and all that kind of stuff um but you know it's a it's a funny thing to sit and make things by yourself for a long time

um and I did that when I was when I was a child I had had and still have this amazing room in London like a sort of cavernous um Nook you could say filled with like this infinite potential for ideas it's the room that I learned to walk in and I I made all those videos in that room and and when you make things by yourself there there is a moment when you the first time when you share that idea it does feel significant because because literally nobody I mean my mom came in brought me

some baked beans or something but like literally no one has heard this other than her and maybe my my two sisters and so that moment you press the button it does feel it does feel big especially when you're young and starting out and you don't know what's going to happen and you're not sure and you think well shift command three publish you know it just kind of felt right that's amazing were there other people other young musicians who were uploading to YouTube that gave you that framing that oh this could be something big to hit

publish means could mean something I think to me the the value of making something when I was young was like how how how deep it went like it's created proportions so I would see things and be like I can't believe you can do that you can do that you can put you can do that you can do that what you know and and so you know my heroes were people who I think for all of us your hero are people who make things possible for you they they they reveal that things are possible for and

um I I'm pretty sure I saw videos around that time of you know people splitting their own selves in different parts I know that Jack Cony I don't know if you guys have hung with Jack con I'm sure you have oh great amazing so so Jack was actually one of my earliest kind of um supporters on YouTube I think B 2014 he he reached out and and just offered to help me out he's such a giving guy you know he was kind of like you know if you ever need any help getting new gear getting

new microphones new you know I'm here I'm help you I'm just I'm just a huge fan and that was for Patron and everything for him it was just when he was a content creator but I remember seeing pom videos from 2009 where they were chopping up screens and just being interesting and and and to me I think when I was when I was young that was the epitome so of you know irrespective of any kind of reach like the the value was found and how much does this wake up my soul like how interested am

I in this you know so when I made something I was very interested by I felt like I was doing the right thing and I as I said before I think YouTube was uniquely it made that uniquely available for creators at that time psychologically somehow um and it's funny I've been thinking recently a lot about the difference between participating and contributing I was actually talking to to my friend Blake Mills about this the other day Blake was also playing with Joanie Mitchell at the Grammys which I was a couple days ago um and we went

to Joan's house to rehearse and it's it's an extraordinary thing to go to jany Mitchell's house anyway um let Alan with such incredible musicians and surrounded by such amazing for and each with our own perspective but the the first time we played both sides now we were all participating right but by the time we played it for the fifth or sixth time we were all contributing but it took that moment of time to to see a a space for yourself or or make a space for yourself and then and visualize how that would feel and

extend your limb into that space and at first you know you're you're you're put you're you're you're along for the ride you're you're paying attention and then gradually you you learn how to be like there I am that's me or or and I can pull and I can push and then it starts to flow it's a beautiful feeling and I actually think a little bit it was a bit it was a bit like that with YouTube at first for me it was kind of like the first the first my first kind of um offerings were

okay I can I can put droplets into the ocean and let's see how let's see how it goes and then eventually you you feel like okay so having presented these things and and feeling the way I do about the way that I've done it and watching the response and things I I now feel like I can more actively contribute something but I think there's a rush nowadays to feeling the need to contribute off the bat you know it's like hey find your voice and then make a record that's crazy to me because you have to

make a bunch of Records in order to find your voice at all and you don't have to you don't have to come in blazingly contributive you know you can come in blazingly open and and and um ready to be taken by surprise by yourself and if you do it right as I'm sure you both have found too if you if you do what you're doing right you you're constantly surprised not only by your your um surrounding you know collaborators and and guests in your case but by yourself you know and and I know if I'm

surprising myself I'm doing something right but it has taken a long time to feel like that Comfort has come and when when people say you know you have to just know what you're doing constantly and you have to come into the industry with a with a plan and all this stuff I didn't think about having a plan or the industry when I was starting I just thought about trying to find a way to make things that felt like they mattered to me I love that I think that's super important and what we were talking about

before we all do know what the final outcomes can be you know of putting our work out there and it is important to stay in that pocket I'm curious for you when you are young and you're putting out these videos on YouTube and you do start to get positive feedback whether it's viewership or an email from Quincy Jones how do you start to separate the response that you're getting the positive response from staying true to yourself in that room yeah well it's funny I think positive and negative feedback can be equally damaging SL helpful depending

on how you perceive it you know can you walk us through that moment though like the outcome of that video that you posted so well I've been I've been I've been making things for a while so this was sort of I suppose it was like two years into making videos and um I kept trying to like uh one up myself creatively you know so I started by as you say chopping up iTunes visualizer assembling it into a form which actually was a really helpful activity it made me realize I could edit videos and I enjoyed

doing it but I never thought of myself as a video editor before um so that helped me a great deal and then the next one I tried doing some um split screen stuff and this was this was when I had I iMovie and it was like old iMovie and it was really hard to do it you had to render the whole video out and put it back in and then R the whole video out and it was just this like gnarly process um and and as as the videos went on I I became more comfortable

in in creating them in fact a quick and funny story I was um I was at school and the the the reason I actually the reason I made my first video was because there was a concert in my school called The Sound image movement concert and in order to be in the concert which was like super cool and everyone want to be in the concert because it's just rad you had to have a video I had I had plenty of music but you had to have a video to play with your song so I thought

well I have to make something um to look at what's the most fun thing to look at that's the easily uh sourceable oh it's I's visualizer because you can just press the button and turn on the tap and out it comes so I printed out a bunch of that and then I um chopped up and organized it around my song and put the video up but I wanted to make split screen videos because I wanted to show the multitudes of what was going on in my head and in the process so I remember asking a

teacher hey do you have any ideas about like multi camera software and and he sort of said well well we have this this program called um Final Cut Express here at school and I said is there any way I could take it home because I really want to just go ahead and make stuff and he s said well unfortunately I can't do that for you Jacob because it's a school policy BL BL blah but you know I really hope that you figure out a way to to get your hands on it and fast forward a

few weeks I went into his office for something else I think just to ask a question about something different and um he answered my question and then and then as I was leaving he said you know I just want to say again Jacob I'm sorry that I couldn't help you out with final Express but you know once again I just I you know I hope that you find find a way to to make the things you want to make and he just dropped a little CD on the on the desk as he was walking out

the room unlabeled and I went home and put it in my computer and it was fut express it was such a moment it was such a moment that's such an important moment so based off of that rather unruly software at that time I went on to make a bunch of these videos and don't worry about a thing was yeah a few videos in it was after i' done a few different Acappella videos but I wanted to start playing instruments because that was a huge passion of mine and I I wanted to show people what was

going on I I figured it would help them kind of have an eye and an ear in it's like opening a window into the process because sometimes when you listen to music especially if it's multi-layered and complex it can maybe feel quite opaque to to to peer into you can be moved by it but not necessarily understand it so I wanted to say hey I'm not like I have nothing to lose by showing you everything I'm doing here so here's a guitar a castet a Shaker double b six vocals and this is just this is

what I'm doing yeah and um that whatever reason that video struck a cord um pun not intended and uh it was this this uh quite a transparent rendering in a sense of like what I was up to what I was doing and I've always loved that song by Stevie W it's just a total Timeless banger and yeah I released the video and it was quite an extraordinary week i' got to be honest you know because well whoever you are in music if you're growing up in in the 21st century or 20th century um Quincy Jones

would have been someone who contributed to something you care about it's just unavoidable so receiving an email from Quincy was a hoot it was totally nutly bizarre and uh wonderful I did think someone was pulling a ridiculously well executed prank they' gone to the length of getting a at Quincy Jones email and everything like how did you do this but um it was it was Quincy and we we jumped on Skype at 7:00 a.m. uh a few days after the video came out and and Quincy wanted to talk to me about the chords he was

like talk how where'd you get those chords from and I was like oh because I I thought he'd ask me questions like hey man you know Quincy music industry blah blah but he was just curious about about like like hey M can you explain like what's the second chord of the you know and I was like well it's actually a F7 with a shop n oh man I thought there was a sharp you know and it was just total like um kinship it was just like oh so you speak my language I speak your language

we can totally hang you know and then then he he flew me to Switzerland a few weeks later and we met in person the whole thing was just very surreal yeah it is surreal I think uh as like artists and creatives we talk about this quite a bit on the show but like the ultimate validation as you go throughout your career is typically um like you want to be respected by your peers or people that you look up to is like one of the greatest forms of encouragement and that to me when I hear that

story that's like the that's a pretty early shot of validation to receive right true like there were very many for us in in our career like you go a little bit and someone says like hey that was a pretty good video and you're like oh my God I guess I could keep going you know you need these like little boost has an impact it really has a massive impact yeah or that feeling just that you're not alone like you said speaking the same langage that was I felt do you know the feeling I felt with

Quincy was like a deep relief and and it wasn't relief cuz I was worried about Quincy being nasty something it was relief that there were people out there who who were hearing me who were seeing me the things I was making and and all the detail every detail cuz I it was so detail oriented you know it was it was color correcting 32 videos and making them absolutely symmetrical and it just everything was so um you know kind of thoughtful about those videos and and for someone like Quincy to say I I hear that note

I hear that chord I I I see it I feel it that to me is is always so magical you know the idea that I can I can see myself in you and then you see you see yourself in me and that feels like collaboration to me more than validation almost it was like we're meeting as people who make things we're meeting in a place that's what like life is about somehow and you're self-taught correct music yeah largely I I had a few teachers along the way a lot of them were just my heroes but

also I had a couple of piano teachers and and thoughtful teachers who explain Concepts but fundamentally yeah until I was about 17 I I was a lone Voyager uh and I I would say that nothing's ever really done in isolation especially now especially with the internet you know I was I when I when I when I talk about contributing something I was contributing something to to a conversation that was already happening M and and and you you learn and and you you gather and you share and it's it's a constant give and take but I

remember being 8 years old well I remember being two years old and my mom's saying hey here's a violin because my mom's incredible violinist and conductor and a few other things and um and I I played violin for two years from two to four and when I was four I said I'm giving up this is this isn't the right this isn't the right a for me and not giving up music but this violin is not like it wasn't it wasn't lighting me up I think it's because because I was maybe too impatient with a violin

you have to work for many years before you can make one note sound good but for me I wanted to poke up piano or hit a drum or and it have it go bang and and feel that feeling and and be able to sit and dig into something that was more tactile for me so um and my mom has always been totally chill with that kind of thing I remember being eight years old and saying and my mom saying you know would you like piano lessons and I said well no not really and that's fine

no worries it's fine I think that was one of my greatest blessings personally for me I think is that I wasn't pressurized into doing that stuff I think that makes you much more connected to the craft whether it's it's music or like Colin is fully selftaught when it comes to editing and I went to film school and I learned how to edit in a certain way but when I would watch Colin edit he would do things that were very intuitive in a way that was like only you could only learn it by feeling something in

your body like putting something on the screen and going that felt good yeah how do I do like I have a thought how do I do this and you don't actually get that through a way of learning you're actually taught something and then um you have this amazing quote actually that I want to read um let me pull it up I just thought about this it says I used to think your ears dictate everything if you heard it you could play it if you give yourself a capacity that is greater than your ears then your

ears sponge up all the technique and grow as well yeah right I thought that was kind of an interesting uh interplay of those that conversation I I totally totally agree and I think there is this constant conversation internally for all of us creatives who share and play and create and improvise um between what you know and what you feel and actually what you feel is always closer to the real world than what you know thoughts are a few steps removed from reality away from feeling which is which is interesting so if you if you're learning

from here um but then you're reinforcing from here there is like an amazing balance that you can find at certain moments that where we're both kind of catapult the other into this new place um I love that each of you have a different format in a sense of of that learning and you're able to combine and collage those those forces because I think that's that's the dream you know you can't you can't necessarily do something totally I mean you can't you can do whatever you want literally but if you if you were if you are

to create things um solely intuitively um or solely cerebrally then I think that there's some potential for cross-pollination that um is is it's potentially a shame to lose out on because that marriage is so important and fundamentally whether we like it or not we all have belief systems and Frameworks of understanding things it doesn't matter how intellectual you you think of them as being you know so I I know a lot of extraordinary positions Jony Mitchell being one of them who if you play Her Like A F major 7 sharp 11 cord she'd be like

oh yeah I know that chord but I couldn't tell you what that chord is what the name of it is and like there were no names to begin with it was just sounds right so and same thing is that it's true with editing there was no book there was no rule book there are no lines to stay within you just have to make a mark and see where it fits within the lines and I think when it comes to creating anything I really really think there a lot of the the paralysis for me and also

for many other people I've spoken to and worked with over the years the the the hardest thing to do is to make the first mark because think oh what if it's what if it's the wrong Mark or what if I mess it up or whatever and and it's natural and and we are programmed to think in that way but but there's something really beautiful about the the I suppose it's like the the confidence to make mistakes the courage to make mistakes and I I don't know what you'd say Colin about this in editing but it's

like you can't begin your journey as an editor by going in and thinking I have to do this right in the same way you can't begin songwriting thinking you have to write a great song it goes back to what we were saying earlier on about you can't contribute until you've learned a bit about who you are you have to just throw pain and see see what happens I started touring the world about eight years ago and um you know those those early shows were me figuring it out and I'm still fig out but having it

all figured out is overrated because not only is it is it impossible to know how you feel or who you are going into things but the more certain you are about who you are and what your brand is and what your plan is and what what matters to you the the the less opportunity there is for like happy accidents and things to come from the side and and for you to be surp like yeah surprised and confused and buff fuddled and some of my favorite moments of all time in life performance situations Studio collaborations songwriting

processes conversations are when you go off book you know and I learned that from many many years of not having a book and then someone says hey have you read the book and I'm like I don't know if there's a what book you know and I felt like that coming into learning the piano or the bass you know but I also learn that coming into the music industry you know and it's like so this is how you have to do it and I'm thinking well I don't know if I want to do that and think

well you know I I can only warn you from my experience you know this doesn't work and you can't do like this you can't do this and you can't do this and the number of people over the years that I've had to sort of sit quietly but surely say I'm not going to do the thing that you want me to do that's not why I'm here I'm not here to do the thing you want me to do I'm here to do the thing that I want to do it's so simple but it's like you don't

you're not told that necessarily when you're when you're coming up you're told there there's a way that you have to do things and that goes for everything releasing music writing songs and editing videos it's like we're constantly all learning none of us really know what's going on the best we can do is be really open um and and build a language out of the things that we like you know yeah I um I will often go back and watch some of my earliest edits and I will be surprised at what I did or what I

left in realizing that maybe now I have a vocabulary for some of those decisions yeah but back then there was nothing there was nothing but intuition yeah and I found that when I watch some things I edit today that they're further than I would like from some of those early edits that I that did not have vocabulary for yeah and I'm at a moment where I take inspiration from sometimes the earliest work that I've made I yeah I I can relate to that sometimes actually that the feeling that you had this like Lucidity or inability

to know what you were doing that that guided your North Star um and it's it is it's a shame when you feel like you lose touch I don't think you ever really lose the the that center pillar but going back to what you're talking about validation one of the one of the dangers with validation is that it it like it locks you in to yourself yes and and it's like oh so I it's like it deepens your ident your self identity which is great but also dangerous because the moment you know who you are you

stop learning you know if you say I'm definitely this and Jacob K means this and that that Colin Samir or we the people who do this one thing who are you to know what you're here to do you know and it it goes back to the thing you were saying earlier on about people um making things and and wanting to get things out of it in in a sense it's like I actually think you know a better a more interesting question to ask of say the universe say is uh rather than saying you know what

do I want from Life what do I want to get from My Life um it's you know what what could what what's the best way to put this like uh like yeah what does life want for me I suppose you know what what does the universe want for what could I contribute a value here it's completely different way of thinking you do have to be very open uh for that question and you also have to be comfortable with the time m you have which I think um today it's harder and harder to get comfortable with

the fact that things take time yeah the fear of making the wrong Mark creatively first is actually the fear of not having enough time it's the fear that if I don't do this now I'm behind or I I'm not going to get there when actually there's no there it's just the constant exploration uh but I think you know this the the there's some beautiful things to like the communal nature to how we all live digitally now but there's also challenges of us living in a world that is one big digital community that we are now

we don't allow as much time because you watch someone else where someone else is and you're like like I look back and this this journey to sit right here has taken 13 years right and at that time I thought it was going to take two years and as I look back at these last 13 years I'm like obviously it's taken 13 years and now I can have the a bit of patience but on a micro scale day-to-day I don't have as much patience when you have pressure when you're building a business when there's other people

involved all of a sudden the pressures now create a new there's new Stakes to your creativity um now I want to go back to something you said about you you know breaking I guess rules of of how things typically happen in the industry and also uh an exploration of of um fear or your lack thereof you go to Switzerland with uh to meet Quincy you also meet Herby hanock there that's right um and what what happens next like what was Quincy's I guess intent with with you because obviously this is a guy who's been a

pivotal figure in the music industry he can spot Talent he also you know if if I'm in your shoes I'm looking at this and going here's my career right I can work with Quincy Jones and now I can I can find myself to a career so what what happened there in Switzerland and what happens next it's funny I didn't think of it like that so much I I think I met Quincy and thought this is so cool cuz I get to ask you questions about life and music and isn't that amazing but I was I

was very suspicious of anyone who wanted to snap me up and make me into a star as they say I thought well that's not that's not true you know that's like that's not what's that's not real and I don't know why I had this inherent so you didn't have aspirations to be like a a star no no I didn't I didn't I didn't care about being a star but I did want to make beautiful work and I thought it's cool that I know now know Quincy Jones cuz te makes beautiful work that just feels cool

I feel so cool right now but I didn't think I'm going to leverage this for my own gain I just I I just there's nothing wrong with with with hustling and having that Vibe but I think I'm just not built like that that's not how I'm how my circuitry works I don't look at something and think right I can I can I can get something out of this I I I just thought this is this is so cool and so amazing and my my job is to be open to being present here and that's hard

enough because it's just so so overwhelming but you know Quincy and his team um wanted to to manage me to their management team um and I said no I said no with total utter adoration and respect for Quincy I knew I I knew I didn't want to do that um I wanted to do things my own way why why didn't you want to do it like what what was it about because I I I do find that to be um so interesting like I put myself in your shoes and it's like here's someone I look

up to uh who has a ton of respect in the industry I mean arguably the utmost respect in the industry and wants to manage me I'd be like absolutely let's do this yeah no I know what you mean I look back and it's like whoa that's you know that's a pretty gutsy move I guess I guess did you know what your own way even meant no but I knew that the only person I could ever know that is me and I think I knew that it would just be diluted if if it was someone else's

way I don't I say these things as though I I knew what I Wasing I didn't know what I was doing I just had a really strong intuition going back to what we were saying before and I don't I I'm very glad I did that and Quincy was like totally and what I what I really said was like let's be friend friends I said let's be friends to him and his and his team and they're all amazing fast forward two years I was making my first album in my room and I was making it by

myself self-produced and self mixed and all this stuff and I I did begin to work with his team slowly but surely and it was like hey actually I I don't know how to book a flight you know or like how do I get a gig you know and so Quincy's team um I mean partly just because Quincy is the person he is at the mono Jaz Festival in Switzerland he he got me my first gig and my first gig was opening for Hobe hanok and chick carea on the stage at montro and I didn't I

didn't have a show I didn't have any show um two weeks later I received a Facebook message from my really dear friend Ben Bloomberg who is just a Maverick technical minded um amazing guy and he was um currently at that time studying for PhD in MIT in Boston and he said if you ever want to make if you want to make stuff together um give me a cool I've made some stuff for bork and image and Heap and I thought that's that's cool that that's how that that's how you that's how you get me you

say hey you want to make something with me not hey I have an agenda come and be in part of my agenda which is not really what Quincy was saying but I think I I flew to Boston my first time in the states by myself and I went to to to Boston met Ben and we built this musical instrument called the vocal harmonizer there and then and it's this instrument where you well you sing a note and you play a chord and every note that you're playing is sung by your voice it's like a sort

of instantaneous real-time choir instrument which I still play on stage now and um in the process of making that instrument we just became like such close friends and we really felt like we kind of we our our mentali sort of um very compatible with each other and so we built a onean show which was me in the center of a circle of 12 musical instruments and um we built some Loopers we had a couple of connect 3D cameras on stage that um monitored and captured my skeleton and when I would make a loop I would

physically step out of my own body on stage and there' be multiple Jacobs on the stage when I played the harmonizer there were multiple heads on stage they were all captur in real time it's really janky Tech but it was it was really exciting um and that was the show that I I debuted at montro and so you speak about fear um you know here's a here's a a 20 20 yeah freshly 20-year-old kid who basically has never done a show before like never done a gig i' done small gigs in London like on piano

and with my friends but I'd never done a gig gig and I walked out on that stage in front of three and a half thousand people and uh played for 30 minutes and Quincy Herby chick were just sitting on the side of the stage watching me you know and it was it was it it's is like another one of those shift command three moments you think yeah okay here I go what's going to happen I don't know oh I was so excited to to to do the show and um it was it was a moment

and and sometimes people ask me you know what what was the moment you you feel like you made it you know what when did you really make it which is a very strange thing to say really and I don't think I've made it yet maybe but every moment feels like you you've made it in a sense like it feel like i' made it when I uploaded my first YouTube video feel like I'd made it when I played that first show Fel it felt like I'd made it when I met Quincy when I W my first

Grammy you know but it also felt like I'd made it when I you know like was having a hard day but like still made something anyway you know or when I came back from a tour and like emptied the dishwasher yeah it's like I'm I'm a human I'm really I'm in my body I've made it back it's my body you know can I ask you just a quick tour question this is like bit of an aside you come back from a tour yeah do you unpack your bag that night no you let it hang how

definitely not oh anywhere between if I'm if I'm if I I'm super well slept maybe like under 24 hours but normally it's like four or five days okay good come back from tour is hard man I can imagine Ian I come back from like a weekend trip and my bag is sitting on the bed for a week it's a weird thing to come back from it really is but but you know surviving those kinds of changes of mental environment physical environment ego environment it it's it it's all part of it but it is it is

interesting so that first gig do you have an understanding of how different it is to play in your room versus playing for people because I look at you know your live show now yeah and you look like such a natural like you are so comfortable with the relationship you have with the audience with the way that you interact with them I'm sure we'll talk about that but I'm curious that first gig are you like oh who there's two sides to this there's me putting the music together yeah and there's me showcasing it absolutely and the

amazing thing about the montra jazz festival for anyone who ever plays there is that it's all filmed in 4k so I have the I have the video it's wild and it's me on stage kind of like in my just in my own world I'm just in my own world um and I have so much love for that Jacob I'm like you go ahead man World goad you go sing those songs you don't worry about those people you do it yeah but but it is amazing to watch how internal I am you know and it's not

internal in a sense of like closed because I've always been very open I think but it was internal in the way it's like the direction of my energy was different now my energy goes like this when I'm at my most comfortable and but back at that time the energy went into the music and I kind of I would pull people's attention into the music which is which is important part of my process for me because how would I know how to you know I one thing I I I I sort of thought as a child

and was was led to believe as a child um was that you know you have to go on stage and pretend you have to go on stage and be like you know which I've just never ever ever been that personal that that kid I was never a theater kid you know nothing wrong with theater kids but just again it's just not me and so I I had to forge my own relationship with the stage where it wasn't based in kind of forced extroversion or pseudo confidence or um or ex like exaggeration of self you know

uh it was just about being honest and so it's it's funny it's like because I was like my inherent energy has always been unwilling to be dishonest on stage I just can't do it I can't not be exactly who I am kind of ever maybe in a sense but I just I'm very me um and on stage it I tried sometimes to be like hey you guys what's up Toronto you know and it just doesn't to me it was just kind of like I look like an idiot I look like I'm pretending in the same

way I look like an idiot I sound like an idot when I'm trying to write a song that sounds like the r something on the radio I can write those songs but I was just like that's just not that's not my that's not me talking it's like looking at a photo and being like that's not me in the photo that's like a picture of someone else um so I had to kind of have patience with myself that was my main job is to have patience with myself and wait for myself for it to be natural

for me to be comfortable in this direction and sure enough within well I'm still expanding really but within about two or three years I'd gone from this kind of energy to kind of like this kind of energy you know and then within three years on from that it was like this kind of energy and then there was Co which was weird yeah and it was like and I came back from Co and it was like bang you know and it was just I think it's just very interesting to to watch like I'm as interested as

anyone else to see what happens to me you know it's like oh this is this feels natural to me right now that's interesting you know and I'm I'm I'm just I'm like my own audience member in a sense I don't I'm not controlling I'm not in control of who I am but my my job is to make space for who I am that's my job and it's a different job from that's that's beautiful how do you navigate nerves or do you have nerves do you have nerves I don't know if I have any nerves there's

no no nerves no no I know I know I I definitely I definitely feel nervous um I think I think I feel I think my relationship with it has changed I I don't think I it doesn't bother me anymore um like being like being on stage or being off stage is doesn't affect my nerves anymore for example but I am still nervous nonetheless for say you I mean it's the same thing as anyone if someone's in the room that I really respect you know you you really want to you know you want to make sure

that person has a good time you want to show that person you want to be seen by that person uh and so whether that's like me in a l little listening party or or me in you know in an auditorium or in interview whatever it's like there are there there are a certain amount of nerves that come from being a human but I I don't worry so much anymore about oh God what if they hate me you know I think this part of me that's kind of like that kind of like enjoy is it a

little bit of like maybe I'm really bad cool you know is exciting that's fine yeah it's fine like it's cool to not like being good is overrated as well you know it's like what if yeah it's like okay maybe you think I'm like maybe you really don't like the song or think I'm a kuty it's like maybe I am that's cool was there any added layer of pressure at that time because you were kind of positioned and still are but early in your career positioned as this like creative genius like prot kids yeah was their

added layer of pressure to perform in that show where Quincy and Herby are like here's here's the guy like here he is I think so I think there was I think there was an amount of that it's it's funny I've been sort of cited as a prodigy kid for like a lot of My Life um like from way earlier than YouTube and all that it was kind of like oh Jacob the kid who can blah blah blah I think I think it's a label that people it's quite a tidy way of people understanding you it's

in a sense it's actually it's quite an impersonal thing to tell someone like oh my God you're such a genius that like there's no Bridge there you can't meet a person if they're a genius it's like it's like kicking them up into the sky and being like you can just be up there I'm going to be here but it's it's it's far harder to meet someone where they are and say you are a flawed human being just like me and you also have this big world of yours and I respect that that's like if I

if I yeah to to say to call someone a genius is or a prodigy is to kind of write them off as outside your understanding beyond your understanding but the thing that a lot of creative people actually require to grow like any any good plant is to be really like seen and understood and to say so someone's a genius is to say I I refuse to try and understand you you're just outside my reach but I I've learned to translate that as I really you know I I I see you and I I respect what

you're doing um which is I think sometimes what people mean but I think there was pressure at that time I think there was been pressure for that all the time and there is still now a little bit but I I enjoy the I enjoy the process of gradually you know deconstructing the scaffolding around yeah this idea that I'm somehow Supernatural you know I'm like really natural I'm not that Supernatural and I I'm just a Mucky old human but I'm deeply interested in in certain things and I think it's important that it's like it doesn't feel

I feel very strongly whenever I speak about music or play music or or write it that people don't feel like it's this magic power that comes from from it's like only a few people have access to it like anyone can access that part of themselves whether it's in music or in other aspects of life it's it's a lot more about Comfort like so you know being feeling comfortable and confident and having permission to make mistakes and be be cool with yourself being weird and all that stuff it's much more about that than it is about

like discipline at least for me you know like I think my some of my greatest gifts come from that that side of things not actually from being technical so I think in the early days a lot of the the tide that I found myself kind of unconsciously or consciously pushing against was like this idea that I was like an intellectual feet when when I looked at the things I was making and I was like no you guys you you you haven't got it like this is an emotional presentation for me every single thing about this

has a has a purpose and it's it's proportioned everything about this is like coming from here but because I can also think quickly and I can solve problems in interesting ways and I like to talk about it think that was a a period where it was kind of like oh Jacob is the kid who wants to just think you know but um and and that's cool you can kind of think whatever you want in a sense about anyone but I think for me I I definitely knew that wasn't the underlying Truth for me and as

the years have got on I've I've enjoyed expanding both sides um but I I I do think of one of the one of the most like some of the happiest I ever feel some of the most present ever feel is when not when I'm all up on the on the pedestal and I'm looking great and I'm feeling you know what Grammys or whatever happens to be it's when I'm say conducting an audience of 5,000 and my voice is as big as everybody else's voice and they they come with me they lift me up I lift

them up that feels that feels balanced to me and this idea of me being this like Superior force or like whatever like I understand why it would it why that comes about but that just doesn't it's not helpful to me to to believe it I I don't know if you agree with this but I feel like one of your greatest superpowers as an artist is your enthusiasm for the craft and for music and I think to say prodigy or genius uh underscores how much you potentially like it like I I think the the contagious nature

uh of your art for me is what draws me in even though I don't understand when I hear you speak about music yeah but your interest in it how obsessed it seems like you are and how much you love it is what makes me drawn to it and I find that that's something for me across many artists like if someone truly loves it yeah I'm more likely uh to want to like it with them and be a part of it yeah there's a clip on the internet of a kid and I think it's from a

patreon live stream that you did what's your favorite cord oh that's a very very good question what's your favorite chord it's one of the cutest Clips ever but your interaction is like the most pure kind of um it feels like you guys are seeing each other other at ey level and you're experiencing the same childlike wonder that he is in like playing that chord like that that I don't know why I'm I'm so enamored by that clip but I've watch that clip so many times over that's so nice it's such a beautiful moment yeah children

are the wisest Among Us I and sometimes a a child will cut through with a question like that and it's just like oh yeah that's all that actually ex all that matters that's literally all that matters yeah it's amazing there's um there's one thing that you keep bringing up now these like the audience choirs which have become such a big part of what you do your your live performance where it it almost feels like it shouldn't work that all these people shouldn't be able to to sing um but you're you're conducting the audience in a

way that's uh making this like beautiful Melody um and I I want to come back to this concept that you brought up which was that contribution requires comfort that like your comfort on stage over years the repetition of that is what created this ability to recognize how can I think about this differently yeah and I think that's actually really important note for a lot of creatives to be like hey you can innovate and and do something really unique to yourself but first just get comfortable in the flow of it like get comfortable in the repetition

of it I think the key thing there is is being comfortable with not knowing what's going to happen next that's the thing it's not like have big plush cut cushions and live in a cloud you know it's like it's be cool with not knowing the next move and and like if if you can figure out how to how to get a kick out of that then you've like figured a lot of life out because no one knows what's going on right now at all and there are not solutions to some of the biggest problems in

the on the planet right now and everyone's everyone's uncertain and Afraid and no one knows what's going on and all this stuff so it's like if you if you can figure out how to be comfortable with that with all the friction and to alchemize that in your work and in your life then that's a beautiful thing I was actually I was hanging up with hobby hanok yesterday um and he was talking about Buddhism which is a huge part of his life and how in in Buddhism there one of the greatest teachings that he holds true

for him is like you know it's his his job his duty he could say is to find the lesson in everything you know so for example he was talking about Co and how he you know went into into into Co you know not knowing why this was happening and what there was to learn and he really realized well what I've learned from Co is that there's only one family he says there's only one family on the planet and it's all of us people it's where all of us all of us are affected no matter who

we are who we worship who we love Co is affecting us all and that hit him really hard and he was able to understand that and that's one example for him that was his words but I think that that happens constantly in life you know you you're presented with a challenge or a friction or whatever and if you're averse to those things then life can be really hard because you make a lot more suffering for yourself than is necessary that's another Buddhist principle which is that um all of life is suffering and all of suffering

is preference yeah but exactly ex an amazing concept the thing that people don't people don't tell you this but you you get to make the world mhm you make it yeah there's evidence for whatever you believe you get to make your own world and I mean I love that because I am a World Builder and I think of myself as that and it appeals to me greatly I love the idea that you make your own world but it's so true and you know like yes you're yes I'm a fraud yes I don't know what's going

to happen next yes I am everyone's lost right now yes the world is ending you know on the other side if you look for love in ev anything you'll find it and if you expect to see love in something then then it's there and every Everything grief fear anger despair um any any level of that it's all love in Disguise it's all people trying to love but they just can't quite get it out right you know and it's just you watch all these all these blundering world leaders right now being like and it's it's with

such devastating consequences and so many ways and you just think everyone is just trying to love that's the truth CU there's nothing else to to live for MH um sometimes you have to look really hard to to remember that you know in this behavior is somebody who's so in need of love and so looking for it's like they they they love a part of themselves that destroys or they they love the the feeling of power or lording over and all these things and it's happened since the dawn of time and and now is a very

prevalent time for all those forces but it's it's like you you honestly get to decide what the world is for and where you are in it you get to make those decisions and and as a creative person whether it's on the biggest levels on the smallest levels of of Life the minutia whatever it's like you you it's honestly up to you I I I totally agree with that and I think that that exploration of like um to like express love and also to receive love um you know a lot of creatives as they go through

their Journey their motivation is connected to some level of how they received or didn't receive receive love yeah right growing up and there's elements of self-worth and elements of controlling your environment that a creative can tap into where I can create this thing something that feels like the thing that I have or didn't have yeah I know you've spoken about your upbringing and I'm curious if there's elements of of any of that that tap into your motivation because as we're having this conversation it's very clear that your motivations were not necessarily connected to the traditional

path of I want to make it in the industry I want fame I want uh financial success I want you know status there was something else so I'm curious about your relationship with uh expressing love and receiving love as as a kid and how that connected to your yeah Charlie Charlie calman I think you say his name you know Charlie Cal the screenwriter he's one of my favorite thinkers and he talks about this idea and I saw a video of him talking he talks about like the ancient wound we all have like an ancient wound

y we we've all got one it's like we ancient wound is that we're alive in some ways sure oh my god um but yeah for for me growing up you know I had two very different parents from each other you know my mom is so creative tapped in um open-minded uh to me I think that yeah there was certainly an amount of validation I felt like I deeply received and then a part validation that I feel like I deeply didn't receive and that unique combination I think resulted in me feeling very free and open and

also having this fire to be like I want to I want to give I want to show I want to get I want to pull I want to push you know and all those forces so I think I think every person at certain point needs to come to an amount of a pieace with this is just who I am like I didn't decide how I was brought up it's it's it's not it's not up to me and my my job is to say well these are the cards I was dealt and you can either sit

and complain about it or you can you can realize that there there's a lot there's always it's kind of what Herby was saying there's always a way you can look at everything um and extract fire from it in in a sense and and so yeah some of the some of the pain of you know having parents that separate and and all the the layers of all of that and beinging you know like part part of you is being isolated part of you is is is holding on part of you is letting go and then you're

learning how to grow up and be a man in the world and you you're learning how to find your own voice and figuring out friendships and relationships all this stuff it all comes I think it all comes down to some of those foundational years for all of us and I'm really grateful for all of it because I think that the the combination of all those elements though very complicated especially at that time um has resulted in me being yeah having that having that having that fire and that desire and that that magnetism towards things that

feel like they're kind of you know they're they're wild I think a lot about wildness and tameness um and how important it is to cultivate wildness as opposed to tameness and um how do you do that yeah what does that mean well it's interesting for me because I a lot of my um a lot of my first creative experiments were done in solitude in in in in controlled environments you could say in sense that I built my own world and cultivated it but what I found over the last 10 years of having a career in

music and growing up as a human being and as a person in the world is that is that when things are are let to be more in the wild it's like you you take off the collar and you let it run um you don't lose those things they they they run back to you but they you gather fresh air and and you gather perspective and and you gather wisdom and I I really I I resent the idea that art is pure if it's in in any capacity the idea that oh that's not Pure or you

can't do it like that you know or um you know art must be made for this purpose or with this in mind whether it's commercial or art or whatever happens to be I really think that something is wild when it's let loose on the world and the last last 10 years of my life I think has been a lot of me figuring out how to be comfortable in in the wild because I was in my room for so many years making music and and I I love I've loved the process of unraveling myself and I'm

still in the process of of unraveling myself but going back to what you're saying before it's like finding that Comfort not just in the in the unknowing and in the in the in the question mark of the of the world but you know comfort with all the parts of me who I am the parts of me that are strange or complicated or tangled up you know we all have them and there's something about massaging them and being like I I get it I'm here all the proportions they all make sense and and and giving yourself

permissioned to be who you are you has to start there and and that does go back to you know for all of us the kinds of attention validation we received as children the kinds of things we we we desired the kinds of things that we we experimented with and then and then you find yourself in a situation where you're just you're the sum of all your parts and you have to accept that before you can you know before to to to yourself to grow I imagine um I mean I I know growing up as a

young boy like the approval of my father was a highly coveted yeah yeah that that that currency is is worth a lot it's worth a lot was that the same for you or was it uh was it the inverse of I'm G to find approval somewhere else well I think it's all of it all the external validation you seek I think is all the primary validation in disguise you know so yeah I would say there's certainly an amount of you could see validation that I didn't traditionally receive from my father um and I think that's

same is true for a lot of people I love and respect um and yeah that particular currency matters to a person and I think that the way in which you grow without that fundamental approval or what feels like approval results in a certain kind of desire to to find it elsewhere but at the end of the day you know you need to be you need to be everyone to yourself in a sense you know you you kind of need to be your own mother and father and best friend um in in in life and so

I think a lot of growing up and the pain of that and the the joy of that is finding ways to to source that for yourself and you know we all know the feeling all of us at this table know the feeling of oh my God my video got 10 million hits or 100 million whatever it happens to be and you think man I this feels pretty good man woo you know I feel validated right now this is I did good I did good and and and you know and yeah for some people it's like

I feel powerful for some people it's like I feel seen I think for me it's probably I feel seen that that for me that's a big one it's like what you really I I presented a thing to you and you saw it like well I feel beautiful right now yeah and and for other people it's I feel sexy or it's I feel like I have control or I feel destructive or whatever there's there lots of ways you can increase your scale but learning those proportions and how you respond is like a big part of learning

who you are figure out who you are I feel like you've done a really good job of caring about the process and the present rather than maybe what you could be waiting for like I'm thinking about even Samir bringing up earlier that you know 13 years ago we thought the career would take two years it took 13 but even then we didn't know what it would look like yeah well and in 13 years time you you'll be saying it's it's taken 26 years of course and we thought it would take 13 you know me but

we didn't even know we were waiting for this now I don't and you feel like you've released I feel like you really released that feeling of oh I'm waiting for something to happen right well I think I think when you when you get a taste of being in a creative process and being present in that in that feeling and being in an idea there is no better feeling than that so what am I going to chase besides that you know nothing feels better than that being in in the middle of of a tornado of presence

of your idea and like you know that feel when you're like I think this might work you know that feeling wow such a great feeling or being on stage and being like I'm gonna take a risk gonna do it just that feeling is so so great special and I'm sure you feel that as well why Chase anything else you know like anything that's not going to beget more of that feeling I'm not interested in you know I think that's when like a creative becomes a creative is when you recognize like you're you're very much unsure

of what's next like you you have a great quote I don't remember exactly what it is but about that you want life to surprise you like you want to leave space for life to surprise yeah yeah and uh I very much resonate with that like it's um it's just like you know you say that of like in 13 years we're going to say man it's taking 26 but I don't even know what 13 years from now looks like because I've lived this 13 years where I couldn't have imagined that this is what it looked like

so it's just like it's the daily practice leads you to these interesting places and these mro decisions yeah Quincy often says this thing he says if you want to make God laugh tell them your plans yeah it's a I think you know what's super overrated is having a dream I think I personally that's overrated you can you can dream but if you have one dream then you're going to then then you think that dream is is is is the end game how who are you to know you know you can set goals I agree with

that but I think that dreams and goals are required to Anchor you to the Daily practice I I would I would say the same is true I would say dreams and goals are are beautiful and great but don't take them too seriously like you have to Lo loosen your your grip on them an amount to be able to be surprised by life as you say I like them with the understanding that I will not land there I will land somewhere over there yeah but at least I'm going for that right you you you shoot for

the moon and land Among the Stars and I'm going to be comfortable with wherever yeah I touch down I think I think yeah I suppose to to rephrase what I just said I think that having I think being ambitious is wonderful and being unrelenting is super important and I think being um willing to extend yourself and as Jim Carry would say risk being seen in all of your glory you know you just go but I think to go with with very very specific narrow pointed lenses I can only speak from my own experience and I

I know that the narrower my aperture going into a process the less impactful the results to me emotionally course and actually sometimes to the people around me too um there are moments where you you you need to be exacting and you can slingshot you get bang Bullseye that's normally in the middle of a process where you're like I need to land this EXA feeling I need to land this exact moment what thing but in in an overarching sense I think it's I think the wisest of us don't really know what's going on but we do

know who we are and we know what matters to us and from those things you can pull goals you can say and dreams and North the the the north star becomes more pable and available and from that you just you literally just keep walking yeah knowing that you're going to find something I think values are very important to Define uh it's something that yeah uh I try and come back to and they can be evolving but I think like I completely agree values are very important to Define because then you have your day-to-day you're living

by a set of what are our values you whether you define them or not yeah yeah um have you seen the movie that thing you do no I haven't you haven't oh wow should should I unbelievable movie probably the movie that made me want to become a musician or some type of Storyteller or be on stage some oh wow but in this movie there's a there's a moment where they write this song um and it plays on the radio for the first time and you know two of them are in a car and it's in

the 1950s and they freak out and then they run and find their friends and they turn it on the all the radios in the suppliance shop that they work in and they're hugging and jumping up and down and um that moment of like having your work be discovered or or be put out into the world used to be this moment that that was reserved for you know the radio or the edsen show you know television and I think about your experience as the modern version of that of you publish your own work and then it

was discovered as this almost this democratized radio right that is YouTube or Tik Tok and I think like YouTube in the sense that the artists were putting themselves on Tik Tok now in the sense that other people are actually you know choosing and selecting the songs that they enjoy or the artists and the work that they enjoy I'm curious just what you think about the current landscape of Discovery and uh you know artist putting them putting their work out into this now this this uh incredibly abundant yeah you know world of of uh creativity yeah

it's a massive question man I I think the the I think a lot about this I think the primary currency that an artist has besides their perspective is trust building trust with an audience agreed that takes a different set of materials than engaging them and this is so crucial I think for for people to understand who make things you you can engage a lot of people very easily I think now you know you you kind of you you jump through hoops you notice a trend you hop on something you can get eyeballs on your on

your thing um if you really really want to I feel like it's it's possible to do that what is harder to come by is the is is the the relationships between you and the core people within your community I I I heard a stat the other day about the music industry right now which is that 50 % of your streams come from 10% of your fans right so wow it's so much about that core it's not about the radio anymore it's not it's not about labels anymore it's it's it's about you and your people and

you're like a magnet to your people and I do think that is it's never been more true um I'm excited and encouraged at the there she a variety of different types of content that are flying right now because I think that you can kind of the the the limit is what you can imagine right now especially with AI which we can talk about it's a whole another conversation but it once the limit becomes what you can imagine the job of a creative person is to find their People based on the things that are important to

them and you get to decide what matters that's the thing so I I often think in in life and your career you you kind of have two main currencies you have your time and your attention and with those two things you can create any world you want but the the myth I think is that there are these of distinct Hoops that you need to jump through in order to prove x y and Zed to get external thing it as you say used to be like that I'm on The Ed Sullivan Show I've literally made it

I've just reached a bunch of people but but now it's like it's you know the the challenge for creators right now is is is telling stories that that um expand over time you know and and building trust that lasts a long time and and as as as I say you can you can engage people or I can engage people by by reaching them but but the the the question that I find more interesting when it comes to you know success you know how successful am I or what's my how successful am I is it's not

how many people have I reached it's of the people that I reached how many of those did I move whether whether that's I reached 20 people two people two million people 20 million people 200 million people whatever that number is What proportion of those people did I move and then the question becomes for any artist what does it take to move a person what does that take and there's only one answer to that really and it's to be you the person who you are and to tell stories that are true to to tell the truth

you don't have to be honest all the time this is exactly how I see everything but you have you have to find a resonance in you of something that's true and that matters to you you will find your people it just happens it's it's it's magnetism and yeah I mean God the number of times in my career I could have gone you know it's like yeah I could have made a bunch of money or I could have um done this that the other and and made written a hit song or done XY you know there's

obviously luck involved in all these things you can never guarantee you can do these things but um I'm just I'm I'm proud of not having done that uh and I'm grateful for the forces outside my control that made me a person for whom those things don't actually just carry the same sign they don't turn me on and so what I've observed in my own career is is where I feel the most inspired I feel inspired when I am surrounded by my people and that your people whoever you are are out there they're in the world

and you just need to purvey your vibration to say what matters to you um and keep on expanding and pushing and deepening your craft and and your interest for your craft and you and and there are so many ways to do it you have so much access to tools and and um there are many outlets and it's it's a weird and Dangerous Time in in a sense to be a creative because there are so many things that lure you into a sense of oh this is what's important this is what's important you could be like

this and this and that the other but the fundamental truth is that there is no one way of doing anything there are literally no rules you just have to you just have to put yourself out there and and and start using that voice of yours you know and any and anyone can do that now more than ever which I'm really encouraged by that can be daunting though yeah the the the expanse Universe now and it's something that I've heard you call uh creative Infinity syndrome yeah yeah yeah I'm curious if you could Define that because

I think it's it's particularly relevant right now um to a lot of creativ you know say i' go back to what you were saying ear on about time and the currency of time and the psychology of time the biggest myth is is that you have to act now and there's a rush there is no rush there's just no rush you know Victoria mon won Best New Artist two days ago she's she's 34 years old awesome that's amazing she has so much life still to live yeah I love that I think it's I think it's amazing

that that people you know and there are these people on Tik Tok who were in their 80s killing it you know Herby 84 he's like just got the Apple Vision Pro yesterday and he's he's he's messing around with all the features you know you can start at any time there is no rush ever and not just to build on what you what you've created but to start over you can reinvent yourself any any any day you're always one decision away from changing your life forever I always love that quote can't remember who said it but

there there's there's there's no there's no rush to know who you are and what you want to do yet you you will find it and and you are finding it and as my good friend Steve V would say like there's no evidence to to to suggest that you're not right on time you know where you are everything's going to plan there's no evidence of support that there that's not the case for you and I can think of times in my life where I've been really disoriented or I've lost my my feeling like I know where

I'm going or I'm not feeling inspired and and and look back at those moments and saw what happened it felt like I it felt like the thing was going wrong it felt like I was losing the thing but actually what was happening is I was just halfway around this Loop the circuit to get back to this but from here you can't see this bit but you just need to have faith that you're moving in the right direction and and I think it's it's a very important thing to remember that and and you can't look at

anybody else who's making work and compare yourself to that person as though that person is you because that person doesn't have the privilege you have of being you they how could they ever know what your story is to tell and there are so many ways to tell stories now and you don't have to get it right first time you don't have to start a and win you don't have to write a song and write the best song in the world you don't have to do that you can you can write a song you can make

a video you can play a show you can collaborate you can you can change shape espe you know yeah especially when you when you're just beginning the process of of of curiosity about something it always begins with being curious you can't begin with being an expert it's like there's this funny myth that you yeah you need to somehow know what you're doing but people who know what they're doing don't make interesting work you know it's just as simple as that I want to ask you about the role of the audience in Creative work yeah you

mentioned that what matters is that you move people and that you need to be a magnet for your people we were speaking about it uh the first time we spoke about how Rick Rubin has that great sort of quote of the audience comes the audience comes last uh and when I read that I resonated with that at first I was like yeah that makes perfect sense I should be creating for me to be true to me yeah although many times in my career the audience does not come last yeah right and is a is a

high I had the same response to you the first time I saw that I thought like okay Rick yeah I get it go ahead and and then then I thought about it more and I did a lot of research about Rick um and to me the the the Crux of that is this is for everyone or this is for me right and my perspective of this is is a particular one because I made a lot of my first work for me so that's not novel to me the what's novel what was novel to me at

age 20 was to make something for others and with others that felt new and interesting and inspiring my trajectory of creativity has gone away from making things for me ands making things for others and I love it and so I I worry about this the the the the strong prevailance of an attitude like the audience comes last partly because I also believe that there's there just is no one way of doing anything um I feel as a as a deeply creative person I I would critique Rick in a sense that I don't believe he's I

don't think his audience is creative people I think his audience is people who aren't creative for whom creativity is novel and they're thinking gosh wow how that I never even thought that you could make something for yourself you know but but I feel like I feel like anybody who's inherently creative in some way knows that there's no one way to do anything you can make work for people you can make work for an audience you can conform to a to the algorithm you can make an engaging thumbnail that's cool you can also lock yourself up

in a room like I did for many years and make stuff that you just deeply deeply care about that has never been made before and will never be made again that's cool as well and for anyone to say there's only one way of being I think is is flawed and maybe unhelpful though I would say that if anyone who's watching this has watched a Rick Rubin video and felt inspired [ __ ] yeah like that's great you know like who am I to say Don't Be Inspired but I would just say that my yeah I've

learned so much I've learned there's so much more to the process than make work only for yourself Rick has this chapter in his book where he talks about Pitch yourself on the top of a mountain and at the top of the mountain is like a luxury um Haven with perfect plushy pillows and an amazing view and where no one's can ever disturb you and then he says this is the nature of good art great art I just disagree with that I disagree because I think great art is when you walk down the mountain from the

C the chilly cold lack of oxygen to the warmth of the village and you exchange stories and food and energy and you meet people and you meet people where they are and you say this is for you not this is for me I also think more than ever before we live in a world where it's unhealthy and irresponsible to say things in Silo and not to be challenged and I think that Rick describes his beliefs and writes his book like he's he's not starting a conversation he's stating things as though they're true and I get

it like I do that sometimes too as a creative person in order to iterate your ideas it helps just to write them down as gospel truth and as fact and whatever but I think all the wisest and greatest and most important creatives and producers I mean Rick is a producers even more important for him than anyone else is to ask the right questions not give the right answers or any answers questions last way longer than answers they're more important they're deeper they're more crucial and in the age of AI creators are going to be more

and more asked to prompt with the right question than no with the right answer like I'm excited about this idea of a question culture rather than answer answer culture so I look at Rick and I it's like has anyone ever debated him on this stuff because there are ways of approaching creativity as someone who solves a lot of problems myself and has my own particular angle on things I'm not the ultimate angle I'm me I'm Jacob I've see the world the way I see it but I'd love to sit with Rick at one point and

just talk to him and and chew the card and push him and I also welcome to be pushed because all of us need to be examined our opinions need to be examined and squeezed and broken and I just think that anyone who sits there saying this is the one way to do it you know Rick says things like you know art is only pure if it's made for only art sake absolutely false you can make totally pure art anywhere you want including reaching a ton of people for that purpose it's okay to be ambitious it's

okay to want to reach people and move people I also last thing I'll say about Rick before you move on is I don't trust him because he started his career making this commercial music which is beautiful and we all love it and it's amazing and I'm sure he has his own opinions of that work but I think to say art is only pure you know or or meaningful if you make it only for yourself is hypocritical of him because I think that he's made a lot of not just popular but actually beautiful and meaningful work

for many people um I think what he maybe is trying to say is that he wasn't fulfilled by the work which is totally valid and I think that all of us seek our own fulfillment in different parts of our life existence but you I I I absolutely love your perspective and would listen to however long that conversation was that was hours and listen I'd love to talk to him and I do think I do I'm glad that he's on the planet um and I'm I'm grateful that he's he is prompting some of these conversations I

will say that my understanding of that was not that it was a hard and fast rule about art was but just that as you look at creative work there's different elements of creative work yeah like there what I took away from that was that I want to have a space where I create stuff that's not meant to be shared and I have a space where I create stuff that is meant to be are actually two and that is what I interpreted from you know and I think think that's also like the amazing thing about you

know someone who who I took Rick's book as a uh a question to myself and I think also like timing like when something hits you at the right time it's a completely different thing you know like I wholeheartedly agree with everything you just said and I think there I think there were some off offerings in that book that can be interpreted in so many however you received them you know like I I agree with that and in a sense I think that was maybe that was kind of what he wanted as well which I really

respect it's kind of like you know in a sense you offer yourself up to say here's something and then and react to it and I a lot of the book I really totally agree with as well I think you have to be you have to read it with an openness that we've been talking about this entire time curi you know the three of us are creative people I think and so we know about the openness I I worry about people who don't know about the openness who read it and think it's and who are looking

for guidelines you know I mean I think though to kick off creativity you need some level of constraint yeah right I agree and and I'm curious about to make make friction against because your your openness is like I've I've watched some of your videos um you have two tiny desk concerts yeah one is at the NPR like tiny desk set the second one is at home and I have to tell you that the first time I watched it because like we we put these on in our office I didn't recog that you were all the

people I know that sounds ridiculous but it was just playing in the background you know and then I watched it intentionally and I was like how the hell did he do this and like you can kind of see there's a little bit of like imperfection in The Mask like your head your hair and it gets lost in the symbol Sy that was the hottest the symbol I was watching that and I was just like there's a moment and I know it's ridiculous to not know it was all you because you do a bit after the

first song after uh all I need you do a bit where you you're joking around that everyone's yeah that video to me is like this um it's amazing like I I tried my whole life to explore and Define creativity and what it means to me but there's certain pieces of work that just hit me and go God I want to do something like that you know and that was the first one the second one is is somewhat similar but the All I Need video you did during the pandemic on Jimmy Kim in the bathroom in

the bathroom is like there's moments where I don't know if you ever feel like this but you feel creatively jealous of something I I I I know the feeling yeah where you're just like and it's not even like it's not jealousy in like you could have even done it it's just like that person found something inside of themselves that is so them and they were able to express it yeah yeah I I do know this feeling and I was like I just want to find that thing and be able to express that version of myself

in a form like that uhhuh uh-huh yeah oh thanks for saying that yeah that was deep dark quarantine and that was two I mean those two videos were made like one week after the other you can kind of feel the influence which one was first the the tius was first that was you feel the influence it's it's it's a crazy thing to put together because so that video took um well I shot it in I did I did um no more than two takes for each instrument but I planned it all in my head and

and the thing that was crazy about it was well there were a few things were hard about it one is one is the thing of like you know when you see those videos of multiple people and you look the screen next to you and it looks like you're just looking like away but like and it looks really weird um that's even more heightened in a space like that so there's an art to being like you're actually there I'm going to look at you like you're actually there but from a sheer logistical perspective it was like

I I the other instruments weren't playing and there was no click track which one did you do first which I did the piano first piano first yeah I did the piano first and I had a little a machine uh under underneath me where I was able to start and stop um I think I did like counting for each song so I knew like the tempo of the song did you do that all by yourself like there's no one else and you're editing that by yourself yeah I did I did everything myself the reason I asked

that question is because I think that creative courage is a lot easier alone interesting when you're in charge of the edit yeah yeah I would say that's I would say that is true in some respects I think I I actually find sometimes find creative courage much easier when there's an audience because I'm because there it's easy to make friction against something that is not me um the only judgment you ever really fear is your own right and so if you're by yourself and the only opinion available to you is your own I personally can find

that quite paralyzing sometimes especially when it comes to starting an idea which we discussed earlier on yeah but I do think that you can take Liberties to be whatever weird vers of yourself on camera knowing that it's in your hands to edit at the end of the day is a very reassuring feeling um I I loved that process so much it was such an exciting moment to be like okay wide angle lens in the furthest corner of this tiny room my room is probably slightly smaller than than than this room it's like it's it's small

and it's packed for with instruments so I had to like imagine like if like if the elbow you know what it's like if the elbow goes over the line you're screwed yeah so you have to like screwed yeah and there was that thing you mentioned with the symbol where I was the lead Jacob was sitting on the floor across like this playing the the hang drum and and there melodic of solo but I knew if I like put my head up then my little hair my hair would go across the symbol there were a couple

I had to Edge feather it but I I really I deeply enjoy editing like video editing I it's I edit all my own social media Clips um like every one of them like converting landscape to to Vertical then making cut downs and doing and I just I've always done it so I don't question it I also think that a lot of artists do it as well and um there's a huge gap in the in the world of creative the creative Industries for people who want to edit videos and be creative and artists who desperately need

that support it's actually crazy like at some point someone's going to have to make a company that provides an amount of that for for artists that that everyone can be that everyone can be a part of it's almost like you need like a like a dating app for video editors and and artists because labels have a hard time providing that's a vulnerable uh relationship it is and that's one of the reasons it's so hard um and I've worked with a lot of really great editors over the years but a lot of the we mentioned trust

before like trust between artist and you must feel the same thing is if someone else edited this podcast other than you guys yeah it's like not going to feel like Colin and Samir and that that relationship is very it's like all the intangibles make such an impact um it's about humor it's about detail it's about Sparkle and and controlling energy and it's about you know in the same it feels to me very similar to like you know say writing an orchestration like yeah writing in the flute part and the the puron part and all this

stuff and making sure that like the energy goes down there's something that keeps the energy up you know or um you know you're you're referring to previous things like previous Concepts covered you know you're you're looping back you're you're telling a story like that kind of to storytelling is totally available as as a video editor in the same way that it's available as a mixing engineer you know or as a producer you know I I produce on my own albums as well and it's it's the same kinds of Storytelling of like I love controlling those

arcs and and and all the kinds of thing but I think what I have realized come back to what you were saying is that you can sometimes find more a different kind of creative courage that can be extracted from you by a a what what what Steve I would call a a corporative component or a collaborator basically someone who comes in and says you know and it can get things out of you you know um I remember when we sat down to to to plan this conversation um one of the first things you said which

I loved was we would to have a conversation with did that no one else would ever have with you and that reminds me of something that my dear friend Chris Martin often says which is you know make music that only you could make and that's when you know that you're doing the right thing and I I think that I think that's I think that's really that's really really important and it's hard um with all these different Outlets that are expected of us as artists these days whether it's video editing you know mixing production life performance

style interviews all this stuff it's like it's you know and songwriting and playing an instrument whatever happens to be it's like all these different hats that you wear and the kind of expectation that you that you are literate and fluid in all these different areas feel like uniquely um lucky as to be self-sufficient um which I don't think is necessary to be creative but I just happen to very be very self-sufficient and I I'm grateful I was intensely grateful of that in covid man I got to say and I I think that for for creators

around the world it was it was either a very productive and lucrative time or it was a very very hard time and for me I think it was both but I'm grateful for my skills in a variety of areas and I I don't take them for granted yeah I can't imagine it's common that an artist will edit their own video and then submit it to Kimmel yeah right that they will handle that collaboration well it was the same thing with Fallon I did I did this video for Fallon and that was actually that was a

that was a crazy shoot because they were moving cameras um you know it's one thing if there's a locked off shot and you everything's in a in a mask Zone not the most recent yeah not the not the most recent F performance there was one from 2020 okay that was like a pandemic one M got it and it was we did all I need and and so Mahalia sang the lead and I played all the instruments but we had to do a a a moving camera shot of Mah with me in the background on each

instrument and then a few wide shots where I would like automate a little bit of motion where there were the four Jacobs in The Mask Zone editing that was just it's so it's so much fun but is it's a lot of time you know it's and and then it helps to be able to mix as well because then you mix a little bit to the thing you're hearing which helps you believe it and all those little nuances I I love it I love climbing into that part of the process I really do I love so

much that you're editing these videos like I would enfor and inspiring like someone with six Grammys yeah is sitting there in a timeline like I am oh yeah Premier timeline I mean you know every day I'm in Premier editing editing something you know I just did a Jimmy Kimmel for for real this time in person and you know I posted a clip on my social media which was a a square crop of the landscape video and I'm sitting there going through and cutting the shots when they change which are outside of my control because it

was the broadcast Mak counting those shots automating what's in the frame and you know like the video starts with there's like a a clip of the first thing you see is me being like like this and I found a head nod from a different part of the song which I felt thought would people would feel like that I I trust that's Jacob and then there was a bit of Tori doing this but I timed it so it was like she had just sung the phrase and because I know that's how you start the video you

know I I love all that stuff I I love the art form of it but it there are moments where I'm just like man there are so many things I need to do right now and I'm editing in premere you know just but I know a lot of artists that feel like that whether they are in Premiere or whether they're just in reals or stories there's a lot of pressure to make content right now and it's there there are gaps in the industry to support that so with any creative Endeavor you know you've talked a

lot about uh collaboration and I want to get into collaboration um but before we get there like your personal experience with creativity if we if you can take us into your room you know that's like a that feels like a very iconic room at this point it is the room that you grew up in it's the room that when we had our our Zoom call to talk about the show you're in that room and that room is like just so iconic to me um but if you take into that room when you're about to embark

on a creative Endeavor whether it's writing a song or or coming up with something what is what is that process like for you like what is step one for your creative process yeah well I well I think that room knows me so well sometimes it's hard to hide from hide from it it's like I can't pretend in there at all it's like it that room is see me in every state you know total total flow and like total despair you know um so so having a a space safe as that is is really a privilege

because you're able I'm able to go in there and I remember going there when I was 10 years old and closing the door and being like this room has no walls I can go anywhere from here this is my spaceship you know I get to command the order all right where do we go today you know and that feeling that it goes back to the thing of like that's what you live for I love that feeling so much of just being like I'm here in this chair what what what matters today where do we go

today you know so in a sense my job becomes well wherever I've created Music whether it's in that room or more recently I've created in various corners of the world and on stage and all sorts of things but it's like my job is actually to to tune in to I I think about um internal weather something I think about a lot kind of like you know when you look out the window at the beginning of a day and you say oh today it's cloudy and there's kind of a breeze but it's not it's not too

cold but but it's like a bit it's a bit like looming um and there's just a feeling out here there's a feeling out here um and and it it impacts you and and you you make decisions it's a bit like the surf you think oh the surf is in this in these conditions today how how best do I approach this how best do I catch a wave are there waves to catch today or do I just need to have a rest you know are the waves so big that I got to I got to buckle

up or I got to I got to take more risks today to survive you know out there or I going have to work pretty hard to catch wave their waves are pretty like the ties pretty low or whatever I'm not really a surfer but like one of my good friends is and and the way he talks about it is is as such but to me when I create something it's a bit like that you have to court your state first what's going on here all right so today I'm like easily I you know but in

a sense it's it's kind of like like what turns you on today like what because that that's always going to be the your primary flow like what's your turn what's turning me on today and sometimes it's like stuff that makes you laugh or stuff that's super irreverent stuff that's really angry stuff that's like super super quiet or something that's so emotionally charged in the same way that that we diagnosed you know how when you're you know you were saying when you when you you're young you used to take long fights to India 30 hour trips

to India on planes and you'd listen to CDs on those plane Journeys it's like the way you you you diagnose what do I feel like listening to today I'm oh man Bonnie ve you know or sfan stevens or like earthw of fire you know or like Metallica whatever like that process um we all do it and it's a creative process it's a process of looking him and and diagnosing how you feel and what's going to Target out of you and you know we all know the feeling of being so well a lot of us know

the thing of being really like in your in your feels emotional and then you listen to like car and L by sopian stevens or Bonnie V's first record and you're like there it is I got it and it unravels oh oh that is exactly the same feeling as creating but it's the opposite direction so you're like oh my god there it is there it is let me get it out let me get it out and that that process is one of self-awareness essentially it's like knowing what's going to tickle you oh oh I got it

I got one I got one you know but but you can't necessarily sit in silence and do that you kind of have to do that in in a in a process of flow so sometimes it's about getting yourself moving you know you might start making something and then see what tickles you so right you know some days like as someone who plays a few different instruments what interests me sometimes is that there are just instruments in certain days that that get me going and others that don't so I might play piano one day and it's

like this isn't happen happening but I might play bass it's like oh I'm in the Bas today or um I want to be physical play drums today but like the guitar is not working at all or whatever happens to be and and that can also guide your process um but at the end of the day like the process where you talk about the F the gestation of an idea that is about it's about like making that Mark and and being comfortable with it and sometimes and often I would say that the best thing you can

do for yourself is to is to get yourself out of your own way so like one thing I sometimes do or recommend people to do is to like make the worst song in the world like make the worst song in the world make something filthy bad that you would hate and and surprise yourself in the process of doing that and how interesting your song is because you weren't afraid of making a bad song like you've opened the doors to all your unconscious ideas to wake up and contribute something because you're not afraid of making a

bad song and that's amazing that's like an amazing feeling if I sit down like I got to make a I got to make a good song I Really I've got to I'm running out of time ah you know like as you were describing that's not that's not for me personally that's not where the best ideas come from and I think that there's just this kind of there's like an openness that I cherish deeply when I'm able to find it about letting myself you know so that that's where that's where it starts if I can be

open in that process and I'm also like I I also think about water table I think I think a lot about like weather I don't know why I've just realized but like you know you know water table like the idea of like the the average level of water so it's like the emotional water table is interesting to me because or creative water table some days you like you get turned on easily yeah like you know or like you know you you get the giggles like the tiniest thing will make you laugh or um one one

scene in a like if you're on a plane like one scene in a film and you're just flood of Tears you know some days you're just up here and you're brimming up and some days it's way down here and you're just like I'm not easily simulated today and that's cool too but it's it's always interesting and and the challeng is where do I meet myself today without trying to change myself I I don't have to bully myself into blah blah blah where do I meet myself today and no matter who I am today there will

be something of value that I have to say I think there would you say would you say lyrics fit into that same process and methodology because I would imagine you have to be a little bit more deliberate about words that go down on a page I don't know I don't know if I agree with that I would I would almost say that the same is true with lyrics if I overthink what my song is about before I've written it it never ever comes out you know um so like one one thing I always recommend to

any creative per person who is making something is like you've got to embrace the nonsense right you've got to embrace things that make no sense nonsense is super underrated and like David burn is one of my favorite musicians in the world a lot of his songs make an abstract sense stop making sense literally like he he stands for that or like Spike Milligan who's amazing poet from from England um you know he kind of he wrote amazing like nonsense poetry you know and it's like this idea that you combine words together that don't go together

but they they're still meaningful I just that that's like a huge part of my of my language is is things that don't make sense and so if I'm too deliberate about trying to make sense or have a have a reason or if I'm too deliberate about trying to trying to make no sense like agendas don't help me with with lyrics and but lyrics is another instrument to play it's in the same way that you might play the piano or you might play the guitar sometimes you might start I might start writing and I write averly

I write all the time constantly writing it's one of the greatest ways for me to process and create with my life and collage my life but um sometimes I'm right and I'm like and the wheel starts turning and you flow oh it's an amazing feeling sometimes you right and you think now I'm just pissing myself off you know I'm going to do something else today and another thing I think is underrated is not is not pushing yourself to make something if you're not in the mood you know like sometimes sometimes you're not in the mood

it's okay to say I'm giving up today I'll come back tomorrow staying there and trying to make it work when you're not in the mood it doesn't always doesn't always work sure sometimes you can persevere and you know push through it and whatever but I think that's that's that's more helpful for me in life when it comes to things that aren't about creativity when it's about like routine or you know like I always forget to eat you know so it's like I got to eat man you got to eat always constantly like I'm getting hungry

I got to eat and my mom was always like eat Jacob you know so like there are some things in life where routine and being unbending is like really helpful but in creativity again many many ways of doing everything there's no one state discipline and stuff works for some people creativity it's never worked for me like my my the art of it is finding my way into being deeply interested by something so it seizes me and once it's once it's got me and I've got it then you just then you just roll and it's glorious

feeling I actually think your your connection to the weather is what I think makes you a great collaborator like you're what you just brought up with the weather because I think um the weather is um you have no control over it that's the that's his magic that's his magic you you look at it and you walk outside and it is what it is that is the reality but you are now forced to work within those new confs that new reality and everything you've talked about in the last couple hours that we've been sitting here is

uh has to do with your openness and your uh willingness to be curious and then work within the the new form that has emerged right and I think I love what you said about courting yourself as the first thing because you're essentially curious how do I feel today yeah what is that okay now I'll work within those those bounds well in the same way that every great conversation I mean you must have so many thoughts on this but comes about in in that way um it starts with being curious you know and and not not

necessarily having a a plan but sort of thinking like there are there are there there are places that we can meet today um but I think one of the greatest things as we said ear about about the creative process is is the this is outside my control but let's rock with it yeah and let's find a way to something that feels yeah that feels good the rigidity is what can create uh discomfort and and uh sometimes unnecessary friction like yeah you know we we found this relationship with conversation and collaboration to be um us having

to develop a relationship with control and preparation yeah where it's we can come in really prepared we're like this is what would make the flow of this conversation really great yeah but then we have to sit here and experience it and you might say something that takes us off that track and then we have to go is that okay now we're over here that's F let's go there right but in the beginning when we started the show it was like you would be saying that but all I would be thinking would be how how I

get you back to the point and that rigidity my my wife brought it up to me she's a therapist so she's like someone who has to do like experience conversation in a very uh open way yeah but she was like you're not listening she listen to the show M you're not listening you're thinking and trying to control it which is natural is the Natural State uh uh but I think like I would assume you know I listened to you I mentioned you I listened to the new album three times through right like uh uh Jesse

volume for it's fantastic thing that sticks out is like the types of collaborations on there yeah some of which are unexpected some of which are you know genre changes some of which are uh completely different from the song previous and that to me you know where when it's when he goes you know John marage John Legend Chris Martin Shawn Mendes stormy like these people who want to come in and collaborate with you I'd imagine it's that experience of they get to show up as they are and you accept them like the weather I love that

I love that that's beautifully put and I think that's my job that is my job as the as the producer as the songwriter and as and as their friend at the end of the day um and I I think one thing I'm very grateful for with this album there are well there 150,000 people on the album if you count all the audience members but in terms of collaborations like what there were 30 30 collaborations 40 collaborations or so and they're all a fresh start and um I've gradually learned exactly what you've learned over the years

with collaboration where my first attempts were kind of like hey how you doing I've got really clear idea of what I want to get from this session and then you listen to the results and it's like yeah kind of and then you know then there are sessions like for example you mentioned the John Mayor song I wrote the song with my good friend Lizzie macine and uh we didn't really have a plan I had a little seed that be we began the song with and and it follows itself and it follows itself into where where

where it needs to go I I have a little Mantra sometimes which I say to myself which is don't try to understand it follow it right love that and and and that's it's a fun thing to cultivate in a collaborative session because your job is to follow each other and exactly as you say it's like there are it's it's it's like the weather in the sense that there are there's like unconditional elements to this that will exist no matter what you do for them and kind of your only job is to show for what's already

there and make space for that and there there's something that I think Michelangelo used to say which is about about sculpting it's about you you you remove what's not the sculpture from from the from the Block see there's a block you remove what's not the sculpture and reveal what was already there as the sculpture love that which reminds me a lot of um that there's this philosophy in in in traditional Chinese medicine about um well there's a lot about yin and yang right and we we have a lot of Yang in our culture right now

it's like like you add the thing you know Yang being sort of like the the out the outward the masculine whatever um Yin being the inner the thing that is within um so Yang is white and Yin is black you could say because Yang is the presence of and and Yin is the is the absence of but there's this idea about when language first came to be in the world the first like way of the way the first um evidence of language was was people sculpting out of out of stone and the light would shine

and the shadow of the Chalice that you created would be that that's that's what that's what's there that's the text you've removed something to reveal something so it's like the absence of something is itself the meaning and I think that's so beautiful and so amazing to remember and I often think about it with within collaboration in the sense that this all everything we need is already here it's like this idea of abundance you know everything we need is already here our job is to remove the things that aren't helpful so we can see the thing

that's here and then and and get find that find that that sense of flow but I think it's a it's a it's an amazing thing to remember we think of it as like I writing with black ink on my white page and adding the meaning but that's all that is is a visual imitation of what used to be removing something from the page to to reveal the meaning I think that's beautiful that is beautiful I love that I'm uh I'm curious what Jessie volume 4 represents for you in your career because there was an interesting

quote I read from you that reads by the end of four volumes I could start my career properly yeah yeah that was my that was my original intention with Jesse Yeah Yeah so that was before even beginning series I wanted to learn I wanted to learn from one my favorite musicians I wanted to work with them and see what happened and I knew that by the end I would have I would have learned some stuff and I and I have learned so much but I think with volume four I left it open I I kind

of planned one two and three kind of I I knew the worlds they were going to live in I knew that volume one was going to be this big orchestral space like a big acoustic world like the morning the sun rising the feeling of it I knew volume two I knew it would be like a Cozier more folky sort of acoustic smallest acoustic space a more intimate you know um I knew that volume 3 would be like the nighttime you know if it kind of goes around kind of kind almost like it goes around a

day it's kind of like the volume one is the morning opening volume two is the evening quieting volume three is the fever dream of the night and volume four is like question mark question mark question mark what am I going to feel like doing then and it was a hard album to make it was so hard to make volume 4 it was the hardest album I've ever had to make but because there were no constraints as you were say it was it was you do every you do everything and anything all at once you know

kind of and so my was there a time constraint does the that was the other thing label doesn't pressure you to no they can't they can't tell me [ __ ] you know so so it was literally you do whatever you do whatever you want to do Jacob and it was like I was sitting in my own kind of like dream SL nightmare of like how does it feel now do whatever you want you got what you want exactly and and so that process for me was was tough and I wrote a lot of songs

I wrote so many songs that were me trying to find the songs on the album that eventually made the album um and it took it took a it took a long time to to come to fruit but I think at this point well it there was a moment where I realized what the album was about and um the thing that did it for me the thing that made me realize what it was about was going on tour after covid which I think was a huge moment for a lot of artists who hadn't been a to

tour for a long time and I learned a lot of things over Co one of them was how much I freaking love touring and I had realized it um until until that happened I was like this is a huge part of my life that I'm I'm lacking in right now when I came back to touring this idea of the audience choir the idea of you know a venue of people singing as one animal it just kind of took it just from the first show of the tour it just exploded for me like explod my the

my ideas for it were so massive and i' thought a bit about it over over Co but I hadn't really you you can only practice that skill when you're on stage with an audience you can't warm up or plan you have to just do it 100 times which I did 100 times in 2022 and we recorded every single show because the audience qu were getting so moving and so profound and so good that I it my whole like the rudder of my of my boat was turning in a direction of like not just musically but

philosophically for me why am I here what what's the what's me at my best what's me at my biggest and most giving at my most connected and it was like a lot of it was changing with the idea that the audience choir was was happening and and it was and it was happening by itself I I wasn't trying to drive it I wasn't I didn't have an agenda for it I was just like I love this so much and what happens if you you know like all the best ideas what happens if you whoa you

just all went up and now you went down again I know you went down so okay so if I whoa whoa and then you know you build these sequences of cord and you move through so I I developed a lot of techniques over that year that that helped be really clear about what I wanted like with all of us we were saying about fam earlier on my first musical memories were of watching my mother conduct an orchestra right I would sit sometimes on her lap but also in the audience and watch her go and then

the music would go you know and it's a feeling you that you remember in your body you remember the feeling of being in that room and how it's it it's like casting a spell watching my mom conduct and he goes and then the the room wakes up and and she's commanding not just notes and time but she's commanding permission she's saying pull push she's commanding energy she's commanding humor she's Comm all these different things and sure enough you know I I was like I'm not going to be a conductor I don't know what conduct and

then I and I'm I I accidentally become this this conductor of audiences and I just love it so much so so much so that I I went home and I was like I want all my album I want the record to feel like this I want the album to feel like I'm on stage conducting an audience because because I always knew I wanted to collaborate but I just I I didn't I didn't this coming I I knew I wanted to work with all my heroes but I didn't think I'd have a choir of 100,000 on

the record until suddenly it was like obviously I'm going to put acquire 100,000 people on this record this is what this record is for um and it became just crystalline at that moment it became clear so um once I figured that out I realized well what's so what's this album about fundamentally it's like almost it's almost like what's my thesis what have I learned in my in my extending of it's like I asked a question of the universe I want to learn how to I want to learn about music I want to learn about life

I want to leave my room I want to explore the big wide world I want to be challenged I want to take risks I want to stretch myself I want to learn I want to build Bridges between genres I want to build Bridges between fan bases I want to travel the globe I want to absorb all this stuff and you know like all the best answers the universe gives it came in a way I wasn't expecting and it was like here is a language that I get to build and and and evolve based in group

psychology and and and and musicality and permission but fundamentally based on the human voice so I would say the album is about the human voice which is where I began my journey and again I realized this it's like my first YouTube video was me four of me and then it became six of me trying to trying to do that thing you know trying to be a quiet trying to be the world singing In Harmony but it was just me and I sang the Bose and the alto and the you all this stuff and build up

these harmonies and I was I was get the same thing I was pulling on the same thread but it took 10 years for me to realize this is my voice it's it's the voice of others it's when I can offer whatever courage I have to you to use your voice that's that's me that's me speaking that's that's me singing you know and so now I feel like I'm playing the whole world as a musical instrument and that feels so amazing and that's what the album is about for me it's about the way I've learned to

absorb and be challenged by and and it's like it's like surfing it's like going back to the surfing the wave it's like you ride the you pull from the world you ride the world and it's it's a beautiful thing to feel like I like that moment of the show for me is I'm at my mest in a sense like I'm not singing I'm I'm in silence I never say a word that's the one rule with audience choir I never explain it I never say you guys sing this okay so when I go my hands up

then you guys go no I just stand there on stage and I go o and it goes and it's it's an amazing feeling and um it's it's it's extraordinary for that to feel like the moment for me honestly where my voice is at its loudest is when I'm not not saying a word and I think there's just a lot of ways in which that's impacted My Life as a person and the way I think about purpose the way I think about collaboration Everything's changed I do think the that's beautiful I think the uh the gift

of permission is beautiful gift for a creative to give yes yes and I think it's the gift that I crave to give the most um and I think what what we try and find through this show is like you know you hear Jacob Collier's Story and there's something that you connect with and it gives you permission to pursue the thing that to to press publish on the video that you did 10 years ago what what is that version for you what is posting that for you what is you know like I think that uh the

gift of permission it's amazing how much we require it as hum right it is is it is it's astonishing and how far it can go when you give it it's probably the conditioning of just we were always in permission-based environments right you have something to say you raise your hand oh yeah yeah you have to yeah like it's like the default is that you're unqualified before you become qualified and then as you grow up those environments don't exist anymore I guess they do in like traditional jobs where you do need permission to do things but

I guess that's like our relationship with permission is very fascinating as it's it's it's extraordinary you talk about wild and tame permission is what tames us right yeah and I mean sorry the the the need for it yeah well I would almost say permission is what is what allows us to feel truly wild and safe right that's the thing I think I I feel tame when I have the when I feel like I have the least permission because I get I get all I get in and I and I get into my thing of like

know I need to I need to control this I need to control this I need to have my lines and I need to have my systems and all the kind of stuff and I get smaller and smaller and smaller um and there's a version of you know control and the things it's actually healthy and is about s ing like your materials but but a lot of the the access of wild to tame for me permission is about saying it's okay to be wild that's what I needed to hear as a child people require that permission

I think so you need to put yourself in environments that that is possible I think and the best way of cult cultivating those environments is to give permission to others yes I agree because you get it straight back beautiful gift I think that's why audience choir is such an emotional experience even just watching I get the chills and I'm on the verge sometimes of Tears watching ITF free of moment yeah and trust each other yeah and I assume that's what it is because I I I watch the videos and I hope to experience it in

person one day but I watch the videos and I do get emotional and I've been asking myself why yeah what is it about this thing it is it's a very very emotional experience is not language it's not like I'm watching a movie and seeing a scene on an airplane that connects with me it's just this thing that's happening and yet I'm on the verge of tears yeah I think some of the most beautiful things in life are when there when when there aren't the words for it the more words you use to explain something sometimes

the the further you get away from it um but the audience choir is beautiful from from my perspective I have the best seat in the house every night I'm in front of the whole I can hear everyone like this and I I get to sit and and design a journey through these things and and it's it is it is about it's about Mass permission and I feel I remember a really good friend of mine came to a show in Norway and and it was it was a crazy show we played a show in Oslo in

2022 and my friend San who came to play a couple songs on the show he said I could have walked out that venue and anyone I could have given anyone a hug in that in that audience hey man we just did that together that makes me emotional those communal experiences yeah yeah we've talked a lot about um collaboration uh on the show and and where you are today with with Jesse volume 4 and and the um the a choir and where your career is today it's interesting is your career started in this space of um

you know kind of uh rearranging or uh covering other people's work yeah and I find that to be really interesting like your relationship with remixing and collaborating with previous work um and I'm curious if you could speak a bit to that that the nature of you know what what what was it about hearing someone else's work and then wanting to play with that and I ask that because I think today there's a lot of curiosity from creatives around originality yeah especially you come to a YouTube or a Tik Tok and it's like here's a trend

or here's a thing that's happening I'm essentially going to like cover that thing right like I'm going to do that thing put my own spin on it and sometimes put your own spin on it sometimes do it you know pretty closely uh and that's looked down upon obviously in creativity but uh you know putting a spin on it and and making it your own and remixing it that is often times the way that the most talented creatives get started well think about how how we learn language as kids right we learn language by being surrounded

by masters of it having total permission to play around have our mistakes celebrated or even enjoyed you know like uh oh my God you said um and then fashioning uh you know fashion together like the all these different ways of using language that help us express how we how we feel um I I think you in that environment It's You Know You Begin by imitating others and then you begin by interpretating others and then eventually you get to the point where you think I have something to say here that no one else has said and

that it kind of must be that order you can't come at something necessarily and just cut to the bit where you you know like I mean you can you can do whatever you want but but in in my experience and many people's experience I think that it's important to kind of go through that trajectory so in terms of music learning other people's songs is a great great first step for getting started you think I love this song how does it work and you pose the question you sit down you figure out how it works and

it's a joy and then the second phase of that um is well well well like how how would I say it if I if I were to say this how would I would I how would I play this what's the what's my spin on this I think that's inherently for me that's always been that's always been there for me is I can't not do it in my own way you know even if I really try and do it like someone else I always up slightly doing it in my own twist whether it's like music or

elsewhere but um it's a safe place to explore someone else's song because you don't have to it's a bit like carving into a stone you know you don't have to build a stone yourself and then start carving it's like oh I built the stone it's like here's a stone that that is so safe and like and I would I would gravitate toward songs that felt really solid and in their identity and really um kind of resilient because my my interpretations were very um hardcore like I would stretch songs into like Oblivion of like what what

put them together like total reharmonization total Recon recontextualization in terms of time sound um everything structure and so you know a song like don't worry about a thing or fascinating Rhythm or these songs I covered back in the day like they're really repetitive and strong and everyone knows them the other thing I loved about about ranging which I still love about ranging is that you get to more directly um attend to somebody's expectation if you know the song Twinkle twink Little Star and I play twink little star but at the last minute I I I

switch out the core and I do something unexpected you get tickled by it in a way that I can't tickle you if it's an original song yeah that's so true you know so I was able to like safely experiment with surprise and pulling around like designing um these these Journeys and I and I I tickled a lot of people because people were like whoa I whoa you know and it's it's like you know it's like when you look at a painting or a piece of art by someone like eer right where it's about modulation of

perspective you can look at it from here or here or like that OBS illusion where you see the old woman and the young girl at the same time you know that one um it's like it's it's pivoting someone's psychology it's like here's something you know and here's another thing that you know and I'm going to change the first thing to be this uh this is maybe a it's like there needs to be a a crossover point where you know um like say I'm doing uh three if I say I'm doing three if I'm doing three

left hand for my right hand right or maybe it's better if I do this um so one two 3 one two three four right the first thing I might do is I might go three okay one two three okay I can get into that yeah one okay saying one two three four one two I'm still kind of feeling three two three four one two three four one two four right and then this if I stop the three then suddenly like there was a bridge to get to the FL and I'm here now right so essentially

it's like it's like building a bridge from one kind of time to another kind of time you can do this in many many ways I was not ready for that to stop sorry sorry yeah so but but essentially what you do is you you you state you state something you state another thing that has overlap and then you remove the first thing and you can build to another thing that's what happens with expectation when you arrange a song is you say here's a Melody that you know and I'm going to do it three times and

the fourth time I do it I'm going to change the direction but it's not going to feel like a smack in the face because because there an expectation of because of familiar yeah because it's familiar but but without setting up what is first familiar you can't do something that's unexpected and you can't create that like inner laugh of like you know which I just love that feeling so much and I would constantly seek it in my own experiments and and actually I had a hard time writing songs for a while um at the beginning of

my career because I felt so deeply safe in arranging other people's music that it was like if I have to write the song as well that's like then then what am I going to apply my skill set to you know I feel like I'm an arranger I feel like I'm someone who can take apart something put it back together and it's it takes a completely different set of skills to write a song um than it does to to arrange a song but then the joy is when you write a song then you get to arrange

it and you get to use all of your powers to build things and it's it's it's an interesting way in you yeah you do have these magical powers though with the way that you put together sound that today I'm sitting in a in a coffee shop um this morning doing some writing and listening to Jesse volume 4 and I was listening to it intently and then I I I could not help but move and bounce sitting in this crowded coffee shop I was just like cool I was like oh my God I just can't help

it there's something about the way that you put together sound that I don't know what it is but it's it feels um it feels very different you know I don't know what it is it it almost speaks more to um the inuitive nature of like movement yeah you know well I have if I'm moving making it then I'm I'm doing something right you follow what what makes you jiggle they're like yeah okay I'll do more of that oh oh oh I'm doing more of that you know what I mean and I think we feels like

you're like crossing a river jumping on ston but like to a rhythm of like there there there now I'm there there there and I'm across yeah for sure for sure exactly I think we resist the fluidity of that though as humans and like sometimes there's things that are unexplainable I think the best art and the best creativity cannot be explained it's like I hear this thing and it makes me want to move why knows I don't know I don't know why does that sound that way yeah yeah exactly and the best art reflects life and

art and life always takes us by surprise it will always come come at a sideways and when I hear a song it's like that's how it feels when I'm crossing a river or that's how it feels when I'm doing whatever it's like I know that feeling I'm going to follow that feeling and as artists we get we do get to draw these these amazing lines of intention and remind people how it feels to be alive yes and yeah and know that when I do something when I make something that is Meaningful to me I'm reminded

of feeling the most alive it makes me feel the most alive I ever feel you know what about how does how does the world change now as um you know we briefly touched on it but as um AI becomes a collaborator to creatives uh obviously in music it feels like it's become mo more significant than in other places it's shown up a lot in music um more of an antagonist I think in music yeah it's it's not it's it's it's all it's all in how we perceive it going back to what we were saying before

you you make you make the world you know yes AI is terrifying yes AI is beautiful you like you you you figure it out you know I I I understand why people are afraid I understand that I think that there are there are you look at it from from a distance and you you see this is threatening this and threatening this and threatening this but my but my first my first intuition as a creative person whenever I see anything in life whether it's good bad ugly big small whatever it's like whoa interesting you know and

I think that I that's like that's my true nature speaking so I'm I'm deeply fascinated by by all of what AI is is offering the creative space um I I think what I think there are there are ways in which we can we can create things that we had could never have imagined possible using it that excites me a huge amount say for example if there was a way to prompt a sound that you couldn't build by by hand so like like the sound of like um you know what's what's an interesting sound like a

like a like an ice like an ice ore shattering on by hitting it at the bottom of a lake like that's a sound I would crave hearing or like you know reverse paint you know or or um you know kind of like a a horse doing a back flip on on soil you know like these are the kinds of sounds that I dream up and I'm like how do I make that I don't know I I'm so excited for the a world where you get to you get to make your you get to design the

the world you get to build you get to build a world and and I've seen some tech I've seen some tech that Thrills me every musician says this like I feel like you guys have access musicians have access to musicians like yeah we talked to some musicians who are like listen the things I've seeno it's like what about us video creators why don't we get access to seeing these things it does feel like the music industry is treating AI very differently right now it's funny it's funny and there are The Gatekeepers and all I think

a lot of a lot of the challeng is actually how it's communicated in the world if it's communicated is like hey here's Ai and it's a huge threat to all of you like be very afraid which is a lot of the media around it then people are very afraid but fear is a little bit has more tension and attention to it than yeah well fear fear is more magnetic get the brain moving and stuff but but yeah I I think um one one thing I think is very important um is that we remember the the

the the cruciality of like um irreverence I suppose you could say or even Disobedience like what what terrifies me about AI is its obedience um and I spend a lot of hours I spent a lot of hours whether it's generating images or or trying to generate sounds or whatever or stories text of trying to get it to misbehave trying to get it to and I think a lot of us have it's like bullying it to being interesting basically I'm just thinking about your Tik Tok where it like zooms out and fil you're like jacked I

love that yeah so many comments like bro I had no idea bro that's crazy bro Bros hit the like wow this is the world we live in now believe you believe whatever you see yeah but um but yeah the the the art of of I mean maybe bullying is the wrong word but like bullying something into being interesting or or being being strange it was much easier in the early days of image generation for example Dar 1 and two and stuff were like so weird yeah and you would ask it to make things that it

would make a weird like version of a thing and it's I remember asking it to to do you know like you you like draw me a picture of the feeling of escaping a garden by torch light right that's the most Jacob Coler I've ever and then and then it would draw me like this weird smeared image of like torch it it was like it didn't draw me a picture of a torch it drew me a picture of torness you know yeah that thrilled me so much and I the first time I used darly I used

it for like hours and hours and hours and then I had like the craziest dreams I've ever had because my brain was able to access it was like there's no gap between your idea and then the actualization of your idea and we we're going to have to get used to that because it's a bit of a whiplash moment for creatives to be like what if you remove any need for you to execute this and all you have to care about is the idea what does that environment look like what does that creative wow you know

and not only that but what happens when spectacular becomes ordinary and everything is spectacular and you can be spectacular with ease you know Scenic image of wow amazing superb clean ordinary becomes spectacular right I would say so I would say the parts of the human condition that we're going to lean into and that are going to give us the most um connective force in the world are all those are things like this strange bangs that you can't explain um and and and like and imperfect imperfect things that that happen and the things that keep us

up at night and the things that turn us on I I I think about that a lot it's like AI can't do that stuff for us I think about the premise of like how AI has become this almost like efficient way to to operate in in some ways right like when we think about uh brainstorming and we come up with a YouTube title you know and we want 10 variations of that title the most efficient way to get 10 variations is actually to pop it into chat gbt yeah um and I thought about this when

I went to the John may show here in La where he played acoustic and I was there and I was like the most efficient way for me to listen to these John May songs is by selecting them myself in a Spotify playlist and listening to them yeah but what I'm here for is the inefficiency of it the friction of showing up and having to park and walking in with a crowd of people and the collectiv sming the venue smelling the venue and also like the fact that he's GNA start playing neon by riffing for you

know 35 seconds or or 60 seconds before he starts the Riff and that's an inefficient way to listen to Neon well I think I think yeah I think I I love I love the your use of the word efficiency and I think there's a huge myth that efficiently is better than yeah but I also think that you you can be efficient I guess it just depends on what your priorities are because it it could be more creatively efficient to go around the houses sure um if your priority is to gather more materials for example um

but I I do think I I Lament The Psychology that the fastest way is best um because I just know so I know it so deeply in me that that sometimes the the the long way like you know the the the long way home is is is more efficient or more you know more meaningful than the than the short but it's so tempting to yeah pull the fruit that's hanging really low and say I'm just going to I'm just going to do this but but I think I think these are the questions that will need

to purvey our creative processes but also our education and I think that I was talking to a friend about this last night actually it's like what happens when we remove the need to you know like what what if if if information is so accessible to us that we can find it anywhere in the world at all times then what then what do we train for do we train to memorize a bunch of information or do we train to have empathy you know or do we train to be irreverent do we train to surprise each other

do we train to to to um give each other permission to Have Courage you know do we do we train to be resilient to life and the unpredictability of Life yes is my answer to that I think those are those are the lessons that we need to that that we need to learn because then you know the information that is r and only getting rifer in the world and our access to information which is only growing that all becomes part and parcel with who we are as people and The Human Condition is about is about

that it's about listening it's about observing it's funny I was talking to Herby about AI for a long time yesterday he's so interesting on it obviously and he was saying how you know whenever he asks Alexa for something he always says like please and thank you and how how we need to treat AI like it's like a a stroppy teenager it's like figuring it out it's figuring out how to be a good person yeah but if we are not kind and gentle to it then we are failing as as parents like it's looking to us

it's like what do we do yeah yeah it'll give us what we give them literally it's like a supercharged kid who's learning at you know accelerated so approaching Quantum speeds you know and but it's the same principles it's like I I I was just really touched when he said that it's like you know I always say thank youex if you wouldn't mind please you know could you play this whatever but but I think it is it is about that and I think I think it does it does reproduce the forces that are given to it

um and I think that I mean what Herby said is that's going to save humankind us realizing that AI will remove the parts of our learning that that are not empathy and focusing on empathy and and deepening our understanding of each other and our connections with each other that's what's going to save us and because otherwise what is there to live for you know it does force us to reconcile with what is uniquely human yeah and and what matters and what matters and you know being perfect is not interesting yeah and that that's that's my

that's the thing with AI it's not that I'm threatened oh my God AI is going to going to take away my my job personally but I but I I am I I worry about a world where things aren't interesting but but I am excited the thought going back to what I was saying before where creators and artists are going to want to and need to ask the right questions to get results and that skill of asking a good question is a really great skill to have no matter who you are and what you make it's

the skill of saying um it's the skill of you know knowing what you want really and knowing what you like and and it's it's just it's a it's a new frontier for people with taste because when you can prompt a world into existence it's just an accelerated version of what you do over the course of your life which is you manifest things that matter to you and then the questions are even more important which is so what does matter to you you know if you if you remove if you remove any obstacles what matters to

you and in in a weird way I would almost say like my career feels a bit like that right now because a lot of the obstacles have been removed um I feel like there's so much that's possible in every direction that the question doesn't become what if I could do this because the answer is yes the answer is what it matters to do what matters to make with the time I have on this planet what matters and so in in a weird synchronicity I feel like the the creative process and my personal um area is

is is becoming it's it like that that keeps that that's the question that keeps coming up to me it's kind of like I you you literally get to decide nothing matters unless you decide it matters you can anything can matter to you but you you should sit down and look within and as Michelangelo would say sculpt away the parts of yourself that you don't need to reveal what matters and um making a life not a living in in the words of Quincy is a beautiful way to to carve a purpose um and sourcing that feels

like especially for someone in a position like yours and like a lot of artists find them when they have opportunity overload when you're fortunate to get to that space yeah where you can go any direction yeah exactly and and yeah exactly the question becomes you know what what's important and and how do I keep learning you know the the the thing that would the worst the worst um result is that I stop is is that is that I believe I'm in is I believe I'm one thing and that stops changing is that I believe it's

like this is what I am and I Define it too clearly that I don't I stop evolving you know that that's the that's the that would be the only shame everything else is just me progressing and figuring it out like like like we all are doing you know can I ask your current relationship with like YouTube Tik Tok like are you what are you consuming like what are your inputs uh it's a great question um I I would say I watch a lot of YouTube part because I'm YouTube gen you know like that was my

home and and I trust it in a sense um I would say I I think of my primary output as a combination of of Instagram and YouTube I I think of YouTube as the kind of like um the sort of archive of of the most of of the like the the catalog of content um though I'm enjoying the kind of like the ER of YouTube shorts and like roughing that up a bit and being like just throw something on YouTube it's fine you know I actually think dsps are moving that direction too Spotify and things

like that just release it it's fine you know yeah and and we're we're removing the the cobwebs of kind of like oh it has to be perfect it has to be and if I'm going to put on Spotify like just put it up but I think of YouTube as the kind of like the primary Archive of like you know the pieces of work I've really worked hard on like my albums my videos and things like that and Instagram feels like the place where I have the yeah the highest engagement of people who are interested in

my Antics for whatever reason um and so yeah I I consume both of those two I think it's because it's where I find the most I find my people the easiest um is it like music stuff or is it like do you like watch like a enchilada recipe or something like what do you get into you get into all sorts of weird and wacko like you go down like a fractals YouTube rabbit hole and then you start watching about of Fu a transform and then you watch then it's the harmonic series and I don't know

I think as someone who's interested in stuff it's it's cool it's cool to be at a deep dive and I felt like this when I was 13 you know YouTube was brand new and I was able to dig up some some Treasure of like whoa I've never seen that before um I but I I I treat YouTube as a search engine more than I click all the all the algorithmic video personally but just because I I'm quite Discerning about what I want to what I want to see and obviously everyone goes down the thing and

you you you learn but I I I love throwing something at YouTube and seeing what seeing what comes back and and yeah I mean Instagram's Instagram is cool I mean they all have their they all have their shortcomings um yeah do you have a perspective on what took place with umg and Tik Tok and sort of what that does to either the artist um or the so interesting just an interesting moment I'm always going to side with with creatives and I don't necessarily think that's a that's that's a separate conversation from something with Tik Tok

or umg I think they they both are trying to do the right thing and failing in some ways yeah like I I don't think it really helps artists to remove music from uh but I I get that they're trying you know I get they're trying to help and I I don't know to to me I I just think that it's important that creators can always feel like they have access to to their fans and if you put heart and soul and work into something that should a be available for your fans to find and B

renumerated in a way that is sound and makes a lot of sense and so yeah people people got to figure it out I'm glad there's a conversation happening I would I'm saying you know in a world where there's a lot of opacity between these big organizations I'm glad that someone's gone out on a limb and said I don't know about this and then now people are figuring it out and like that's healthy that's good um and I yeah I I do hope that there are I hope that I hope that artists don't who for whom

there are already so many roadblocks I hope that there aren't artists for whom um access is removed like that's just that's not going to help that's not going to help anybody um and you know I think I my personal um relationship with value is different from other artists I don't value money as more important than than um impact in a sense like kind of like sharing my ideas I'd much rather share ideas have someone take an idea of mine and run with it that that feels like that feels expensive you know that feels like that

feels like currency to me like if I make a bunch of money like great what am I going to do with it like make cool stuff I suppose you know I'm and I'm fortunate to be in a position where I I tend to have enough money to make the things I want to make and it's taken a decade of into my creative but I've never made decisions based on money and I could have if I want to make money I would have had a different career it's just that's the truth I could have done it

but I don't measure just yeah from for myself I don't measure money as important in the in the equation as long as I can make the work I want I want to make and I I acknowledge that I'm in a privileged position on that and part of that like living at home always having living at home and I can always make things without having to pay a bunch of rent and things but but I look at the equation and I just think like yes R right artists of course like 100% but also don't remove the

the the artist ability to to communicate which is their primary function in this world for for the good of the world don't remove that for for some kind of financial gain and be honest when you when you state things like this because you also want to make a bunch of money umg from this you know so it's just like come on let's let's all like grow up and just look at what's going on here and acknowledge that there's there's a lot of moving parts and but but overarching I'd say i s with the creatives always

and and that I'm glad there's conversation happening where does your sense of style come from oh no it's it's a disaster um I I don't think it that much about style I I think I it's not deliberate I I genuinely just I'm extremely drawn to color and pattern I love it it makes me happy and I've always been like that and so um and I also like I like Comfort like this is super comfy yeah I I'm a bendy agile human who likes to run around a lot and change shape and so I like wearing

clothes that I can do that in um yeah you wear certain pattern so what I'm wearing right now is actually my family's clothing line my father has been designer since the 7s but uh the first time I I met you I was just like man my dad would love you like my dad would just like my dad is so deeply connected to colors and patterns yeah uh and like he just can't help himself you know like when he shows up in the world he just can't help himself yeah and there's something too like my brother

and I always talk about it it's just like he has this like visceral reaction if we're traveling through Mexico or something and he sees a pattern just it's like he just has to go towards it such a fascinating know createa it is it is it's it's an interesting one I feel the same way it's like you know if I see a building or a person or a yeah piece of clothing or anything I'm like what that's oh I love that I love that so much and in in a sense it's like those things that you

can't control that end up end up driving you right I can't control I just love it so much you know I I love it I just it's just me man there there's just so many takeaways from this conversation um I think it's always it's very refreshing for us to to speak to like a true creative and I think everything that I was looking forward to in this conversation uh really came to life in a in a really cool way and I try my best not to have too much expectation when we sit in the chairs

because you just never know where it can go but like you know there's certain things of like courting yourself or even the conversation around the weather and uh one thing that maybe you know or don't know that has really struck me is the can we just be friends com Quincy because I think that is creatives who you surround yourself with the energy you surround yourself with and the nature of that energy in different times is so incredibly important and the right energy of hey actually right now the energy of this relationship should be just friendship

yeah and that's what I need to incubate and grow rather than if you if you change the nature of that relationship it would change the nature of the space and the energy and all of a sudden your creativity is different yeah and it's also about saying we have time yeah we have time we have time let's let's start where we are we have time yeah you know can I was going to ask Jacob to help us solve a a creative problem no yeah yeah go for it yeah can you help us solve a a creative

problem uh and a musical problem which one is it bottom okay so we are crafting a new graphic intro for the show oh yeah and we have sent this animation to a few friends to here hold on come in the I'll come in the show hello we've sent this animation to a few friends to see if they can create a uh sound okay and we want to sound that brings you into this conversation it's short and that can sustain and kind of stand for what what this spaces it's good graphic I love that what would

you like what what does anything hit you is there any direction that you could give us here because we've we've heard a lot and we've we're just we were like we should ask Jacob what he thinks about this okay so so circles is the first thing um and then a so okay so so well so circles are circles are about like round simple sounds so like a sine wave is a is a circle that that's what it looks like like a like a so I I wouldn't do something too edgy or or brassy or like

Jagged I would do something that goes you know and then you got like combining circles so I almost feel like it's about using a very small set of sounds um that are very identifiable and like emotionally resonant like oh oh that's that's that sound I know that sound and it kind of tickles around a little bit and then I love this bit the EM so it goes like this and I feel like that to me is like it's like one becomes three so you kind of go something like that so it yeah so yeah that's

beautiful I love that that's cool that's great that was really helpful I can I can I can see it yeah I'm I'm I'm down to help anytime yeah H cool that's great that was helpful yeah those those three coming apart is kind of like you know sitting down with with you know Jacob Coler and spending two hours kind of yeah pulling pulling I love I love that that's cool yeah yeah that's beautiful and seeing the different layers that's very that's very good that's very good man I would love to come see you play Live uh

perform live like Jesse volume 4 is is absolutely fantastic I don't know what my favorite song is on the album but I will say the most pleasant surprise is when um well comes on oh yeah right because you kind of don't expect it you know and it's like this rock song that that you're listening and it just it emerges and you're like wow that's powerful cool and I love that and then um Bridge Over Troubled Waters as you go through the album and you kind of come out on that side of it it's like this

I don't know euphoric feeling it's an important moment in the album it's an important moment yeah it's uh again I mentioned this to you I don't remember if recording or not but um intentionally sitting down and listening to the album you know top to bottom is a really beautiful experience and just one that I don't feel like I get uh as much anymore and this album is is meant to be listened to it definitely crafted for that for that exact purpose and and crafted in a way where there's there's things to discover each time yeah

you I'm I'm I'm glad that you that you like it it's awesome yeah thank you uh so much for coming and sitting down with us we don't get to speak with that many musicians and and it's really enjoyable we had AJR on the show we had tyus on the show a long time ago and there's something really nice about interviewing musicians for us because I'll be in the car and a song comes on the radio I'm like oh that's that's Ty that's AJR like oh now I'm thinking about Jacob yeah ex it's a really nice

thing about having musicians on this show very happy to add you to the list of musicians that have been here my total my total pleasure honestly guys thanks so much for having me thanks yeah I feel like you've you've really brought your bedroom to the world which is oh that's cool which is something that's like very YouTube you know what I mean yeah in a sense in a sense like here's what I do in my bedroom and I'm going to bring it to the world like whether it's on stage or on yeah it's just it's

just such a cool thing I think a lot about this is the last thing I'll say I think a lot about the idea of home and what home means and I think home used to mean those those four walls that was my home in London in a space where I learned to walk and speak and sing play and now the idea that that room is not a room anymore that room is the world in a sense it's like we are all in the room we are all at home home is where you are you know

I think that's that's a nice thing to have found myself learning uh yeah over the course of time amazing thank you for bringing your home to us thanks you guys cheers [Music]