WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.700 make in order to 00:00:01.900 --> 00:00:03.900 progress at this point in my life. 00:00:03.900 --> 00:00:07.500 It's just as it's good to take stock and see what worked for 00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:09.800 didn't and how to move forward. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:21.100 Aramark is a very Seminole War before beauty mark II Britain 00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:24.600 this one song called Liberty cabbage which it which was originally 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:25.500 on the list. 00:00:25.500 --> 00:00:27.800 So I wrote that song and everybody kind of noticed. 00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:30.700 It was something is Right interesting and so forth and then 00:00:30.700 --> 00:00:33.900 my mother came to get her go she adored it and then so then 00:00:33.900 --> 00:00:35.300 I went with her in mind. 00:00:35.300 --> 00:00:38.900 I went back to the piano and Road and many other songs and I 00:00:38.900 --> 00:00:41.600 signed up for her one by one and and one by one. 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:43.000 She told me they were terrible. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:46.600 So I you know as a dutiful son, 00:00:46.600 --> 00:00:50.200 I immediately forgot them all and went back to the drawing 00:00:50.200 --> 00:00:54.200 board and wrote the song beauty mark as a kind of response 00:00:54.200 --> 00:00:58.000 to her criticism, you know the song as address to her in about 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:02.200 sort of her upbringing compared to mine and my muscles are referencing 00:01:02.200 --> 00:01:07.600 a little bit like my homosexuality, which she was not always 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:10.700 totally comfortable with so I kind of came back to her with 00:01:10.700 --> 00:01:12.800 this with beauty mark saying it and she was 00:01:13.700 --> 00:01:17.900 Reignited shall we say and subsequently loved every song I ever 00:01:17.900 --> 00:01:21.700 wrote afterwards. So is this is his kind of return to the spray 00:01:21.700 --> 00:01:24.200 in terms of my mother's the tensions. 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:28.800 I knew at the time that my mother was my greatest Ally my greatest 00:01:28.800 --> 00:01:32.100 musical fan and that she loves me you're probably more than 00:01:32.100 --> 00:01:32.900 anyone else in the world. 00:01:32.900 --> 00:01:36.400 But I also knew that my sexuality was somewhat inconvenient 00:01:36.400 --> 00:01:41.700 for her cuz she just I don't know she was imbued with a lot 00:01:41.700 --> 00:01:43.700 of homophobia what you that generation was. 00:01:48.300 --> 00:01:50.600 Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk an hour on to my addiction 00:01:50.600 --> 00:01:52.100 which was not heroin. 00:01:52.100 --> 00:01:54.400 Actually. I was never that that into heroin. 00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:58.200 I was more of an upper kind of person after I made my first 00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:02.600 record in La I return to New York before I was signed by I'd 00:02:02.600 --> 00:02:04.700 try to make it in Manhattan and failed. 00:02:04.700 --> 00:02:08.800 Miserably my whole aesthetic was really off in terms of what 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:09.400 was going on. 00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:10.600 I mean it was at that time. 00:02:10.600 --> 00:02:14.600 It was very much Jeff Buckley in kind of grinds in the sort of 00:02:14.600 --> 00:02:19.000 very hetersexual nihilistic rock-based and extensibility 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:24.800 where I was listening to Opera loving Dandy gay boy who played 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:25.700 the piano and stuff. 00:02:25.700 --> 00:02:28.600 So so it just it just kind of fell flat and then I ended 00:02:28.600 --> 00:02:32.000 up going to Hollywood and an Ender it made more sense made the 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:35.400 record their garnered quite a bit of success and then I came 00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:39.200 back to New York Adderall a triumphant and all the you know, 00:02:39.200 --> 00:02:43.400 naysayers and monsters just sort of being a bow down and wanted 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:45.400 to know everything so I do lie, 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:48.100 you know actually asked and answered right away. 00:02:48.300 --> 00:02:51.000 Next record and I wrote Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk which 00:02:51.000 --> 00:03:00.100 is still an Anthem for Rufus fights the last gasp of drugs 00:03:00.100 --> 00:03:02.900 and alcohol are so you know there there's a playful distill 00:03:02.900 --> 00:03:06.300 a playful quality to it all and I still sing it so I must 00:03:06.300 --> 00:03:06.700 have been fun. 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:20.400 That is when I'm really facing the hard truth of my decadent 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:25.300 behavior and realizing that I am completely lost and more like 00:03:25.300 --> 00:03:27.100 I'm on a lake or something in the end. 00:03:27.100 --> 00:03:30.200 It's the winter and the ice is Getting Thinner and thinner 00:03:30.200 --> 00:03:34.600 and I can sort of see the fish below the further. 00:03:34.600 --> 00:03:36.600 I I walk out towards the middle. 00:03:36.600 --> 00:03:39.400 Nothing poses when I just start to realize the gravity of the 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:42.200 situation and is interesting cuz I didn't write that song about 00:03:42.200 --> 00:03:45.200 myself. There was a friend of mine an acquaintance. I 00:03:45.200 --> 00:03:48.500 should say send someone who I was frantically obsessed 00:03:48.500 --> 00:03:53.300 with he was pretty much a prostitute and a drug addict and gorgeous 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:57.700 self for so I have started following him around and I and I wrote it 00:03:57.700 --> 00:04:01.400 about him but it's but it's it's fascinating how little 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:04.000 it really is about him at all and how how much it is about 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:07.500 myself and it's funny how it was songwriting you can 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:13.300 Write about some of the other things and then you really believe 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:17.200 that that is the case when you're in the process of of composing 00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:22.600 and then in a few years later your pee is ssss astonishing 00:04:22.600 --> 00:04:26.500 how exact you are about what's actually going on in your in your 00:04:26.500 --> 00:04:28.900 life and in your body and stuff. 00:04:28.900 --> 00:04:31.800 So it's that to me is one of the one of the Prime examples 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:35.400 of that at that time exercise after I wrote that song I kind 00:04:35.400 --> 00:04:36.400 of went on tour and then I, 00:04:36.400 --> 00:04:38.400 you know, I had to go to rehab and stuff and I have to 00:04:38.400 --> 00:04:42.600 can I get my act together he had the drugstore to get harder 00:04:42.600 --> 00:04:46.300 and I did find you know my kind of drug of choice, 00:04:46.300 --> 00:04:50.700 which was crystal meth and there was a definite revelatory. 00:04:50.700 --> 00:04:54.900 Where I finally discovered, you know, this deep hole I could 00:04:54.900 --> 00:04:59.100 crawl into if I wanted to be fine with that and then it became 00:04:59.100 --> 00:05:00.300 the battle between you know, 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:03.900 That's actually good and evil, and I think I chose good. 00:05:14.500 --> 00:05:18.800 Dinner at 8 but that's a very interesting song because it doesn't 00:05:18.800 --> 00:05:21.500 serve mystical story attached to it. 00:05:21.500 --> 00:05:22.600 But it happen is that you know, 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:24.400 my dad and I allowed and Wainwright. 00:05:24.400 --> 00:05:30.200 We've always had a very tempestuous relationship with my first 00:05:30.200 --> 00:05:34.200 record came out this shit kind of hit the fan while I was very 00:05:34.200 --> 00:05:37.500 very cocky very very arrogant, which I had to be, 00:05:37.500 --> 00:05:40.800 you know in order to survive and so we were kind of going at 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:43.800 it at that point and there was one evening and I think it involves 00:05:43.800 --> 00:05:49.000 it actually involved Rolling Stone magazine photoshoot 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:50.800 together and it just didn't feel good. 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:54.200 And I was just didn't I think I think he felt very conflicted, 00:05:54.200 --> 00:05:56.600 you know, cuz it was I want any was very proud of me, 00:05:56.600 --> 00:05:59.600 but he was also afraid of me at the same time and then after 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:02.700 that shoot, you know, we just we are our relationship 00:06:02.700 --> 00:06:06.000 Humboldt Norwegian speed for a long time and I went and I wrote 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:08.700 dinner date so we had dinner after the shoot and 00:06:09.900 --> 00:06:14.700 And Kevin Wendt at it and then it miraculously I totally 00:06:14.700 --> 00:06:18.600 forgot the song then years later when it came time to do want 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:21.400 one. It just kind of miraculously returned. 00:06:21.400 --> 00:06:25.400 I think I think I wrote this song about my dad and to this 00:06:25.400 --> 00:06:29.400 day it is it remains one of the more pieces that I created 00:06:29.400 --> 00:06:32.200 a very special piece for me cuz I think Billy at the time I 00:06:32.200 --> 00:06:35.800 wrote it it was done in a vindictive why I let the song have 00:06:35.800 --> 00:06:38.800 disappeared in the simmered and then was ready to present 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:41.800 itself in it and it and it kind of came out of love songs. 00:06:42.300 --> 00:06:47.100 What time does the follow the rules I don't think there's 00:06:47.100 --> 00:06:50.800 another song I've written that encompasses so many octaves 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:54.100 the title itself on follow the rules damage from our daughter 00:06:54.100 --> 00:06:57.700 leave. I just you know, one day I walked into the room inside 00:06:57.700 --> 00:06:58.400 and her daddy. 00:06:58.400 --> 00:07:01.800 Sometimes I just want to unfollow the rules and mediately. 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:05.400 I knew that it had this and see to it on one hand. 00:07:05.400 --> 00:07:07.600 It's very playing in the sand tickets. 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:09.700 It makes complete sense. 00:07:09.700 --> 00:07:13.100 It's it is also incredibly modern with, 00:07:13.100 --> 00:07:16.000 you know on following people on Facebook and stuff like that 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:17.100 it kind of hesitant. 00:07:18.300 --> 00:07:20.100 Digital quality is well. 00:07:20.100 --> 00:07:23.000 It totally expresses my hasn't 00:07:24.100 --> 00:07:30.000 State which is one of of reflection going back in time and and 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:33.300 observing all of this these decisions that I've made and all 00:07:33.300 --> 00:07:37.500 these relationships that I'm in now through in the past having 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:40.200 experienced, you know death and loss and then also, 00:07:40.200 --> 00:07:44.600 you know incredible joy and incredible birth and and trying 00:07:44.600 --> 00:07:47.300 to figure out what is it that I need to go forward. 00:07:47.300 --> 00:07:49.800 What is the S7 says out of my existence, 00:07:49.800 --> 00:07:51.900 you know, it's not an easy. 00:07:51.900 --> 00:07:53.800 But none the less. 00:07:53.800 --> 00:07:57.000 I think it's a very rewarding one for that song. 00:07:57.000 --> 00:07:59.800 I think the dress is that that exercise 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:05.100 I think where it hasn't changed and where I do feel dedicated 00:08:05.100 --> 00:08:09.000 as is to the quality of songwriting and production. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:14.100 I want to be part of the solution to what ails the world and 00:08:14.100 --> 00:08:16.700 that has always been there just creating something that's 00:08:16.700 --> 00:08:20.400 meaningful and and deep and that last I thought It's So Glamorous 00:08:20.400 --> 00:08:22.800 as it was in the Sense Psychics is very real, 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:23.400 but now 00:08:24.400 --> 00:08:25.900 I made it to be surprised to.