Poured Over: Jason Mraz on Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride

By Jenna Seery / July 1, 2023 at 6:00 am

“This whole life experience is just a ride, and occasionally we get to steer it” 

Jason Mraz’s new album Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride combines elements from his previous music with all new influences for this journey through sound. Mraz joins us to talk about writing new songs, his time on Broadway, his take on concert etiquette and more with Poured Over guest host, Allyson Gavaletz.

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Allyson Gavaletz and mixed by Harry Liang.    

New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.        

Featured Items (Episode):
Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride by Jason Mraz
The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

Full Episode Transcript

Allyson Gavaletz
Hi, I’m Allyson Gavaletz a bookseller for Barnes and Noble. And I’m here today talking to Jason Mraz, whose new album Mystical, Magical, Rhythmical Radical Ride is out now and you can get your exclusive signed copy at our stores. Jason, thank you so much for being here.

Jason Mraz
Thank you so much, very much for having me.

AG
It’s a true pleasure to talk to you, I have to tell you, my 2002 self is freaking out, my 2023 self is freaking out to be clear. But my 2002 self is very much freaking out that I’m talking to you right now. I went back to listen to your first albums recently. And it brought such a smile to my face. I was in college when those came out and it just brought me back, I can picture where I was in my apartment, I pictured who was around me. And it was such a lovely time. So I love when music does that. And thanks for that recent trip down memory lane. It was really wonderful.

JM
Hey, you’re very welcome. Happy I can connect the dots in some way. We’re time jumping here through music, you know, 2002 we can imprint memories, and then somehow, they stick with us forever. I have a memory to share and I don’t know if you know this, because we’ve only just started this conversation. But in 1996, I too, was a bookseller at Barnes and Noble. I was I worked at the fifth and Broadway branch and Upper West Side. I was in college, and it was my college job in the spring of 96. It’s a trip to to be here today.

I didn’t tell you this. But I’m in New York City above our offices or above our Union Square store. So it’s just right up the road.

I know that one very well.

That’s great. I don’t think we ever knew that about you. What a wonderful tribute.

You know, I was assigned rock and roll and New Age books. And I feel like that intersection really guided who I would become because I was in New York City for musical theater. And I knew I just wanted to be an entertainer of some kind. I love to use my voice. I love to entertain. Musical Theater seemed like a great route. However, in New York City is where I really fell in love with playing guitar, seeing street performers, seeing performers in the park and the freedom that a creator of original music, the freedom they had to not wait for an audition. But go just go outside and play. Just go sing your song. And so New York was a real shift for me there. And then as a songwriter, standing between New Age books, and rock and roll books, it really helped give me some insight and some guidance on how I could become a writer and who I could become with my words.

That’s really cool. That was when you weren’t AMDA. Right?

Yeah, correct.

My sister went there after you. But I think she had a similar experience where she went for musical theater and she had grown up doing that and we were very musical family. And then I think she got here and that is similar thing where she found success busking on the street and other people who weren’t there just for performing and it is it does open your eyes here to such a different world. If you came from a very musical theater, a very specific sort of music world. Yeah, New York has it all man.

It has it all. It has it all. I didn’t turn my back on musical theater. I got to go back and do it many years later. But I do credit my gig at Barnes and Noble for really helping give me some personal empowerment because that wasn’t a New Age book section. So of course, I was learning all about self-help for the first time and at 18. It’s a really potent aisle to stand in.

Yeah. Especially college. I mean, 18 in college, and like, that’s kind of when everybody’s experiencing all of that stuff. That’s awesome. Yeah. Well, I have to say, I absolutely love the way that your album opens and closes with almost a loop. I kept going back and playing the last part of the last song to hear how about so wonderfully fit into the beginning of the first song and I just really love that. You haven’t done that in other albums have you?

I haven’t. Although on the penultimate album, I did have an opportunity to bookend that album with the words look for the good that kind of unlocked that potential for me for this new album as well. We knew we wanted to start this album with a song called Getting Started. And it had been in the works for a while we carried that away. And we were making the album and then wondering what this thing was going to close with. I’d had a song that I’d been playing for about eight years called If You Think You’ve Seen it All. And I really didn’t know how that song ended and once I started recording it, it felt there was some real symmetry or, or something about if you think you see it at all stick around, we’re just getting started. Like, suddenly the lyric fell into that song as well. So it became very obvious to us that we could use that as a as a portal to enter and exit this record.

It’s interesting too, because I guess you have to listen to it in a very specific way, like in a streaming platform or something. Because if it’s a CD or a record or something, you wouldn’t get that. So you have to be kind of almost mindful of how you listen to music. And I guess you have to hope that the listener is streaming it or something or just like picks up on it.

Yeah, I mean, I’d be really surprised if, who like does dedicated album listen to these days? I try to every once in a while, when I fall in love with an artist but then usually that just immediately is followed by something else or, or Yeah, you got to flip the record or put the second disc back on. So there’s, there’s a lot of moving pieces to it. But when you’re in an album making process, it’s the only album in the world. You’re making the newest, greatest, bestest thing and all other music is going to stop after this. But no, that’s not true. But yeah, we do our best to just fill it with Easter eggs and purpose.

I did catch one of the Easter eggs. I don’t know how many exactly are on the album. But I in the Irony of Loneliness you put in there, you sing the comedy of the tragedy again in that line in that song. And I was like, that’s like, for some reason that’s a line that throughout the years of listening to albums that I find myself singing, like in the kitchen or something that’s like the line and so I noticed it when you listen to it.

Yeah, thanks, again, probably goes back to my theater days or working in Barnes and Noble. You know, I also have a remedy easter egg in getting started as well. Every journey begins the same and I won’t worry this life away. So I was kind of throwing back to okay, my journey began really with that song. Yeah. So here we are still going.

To that point, you have seven studio albums, five live albums, compilation albums, two Grammys, you’ve done Broadway. And yet the first song on your new record is Getting Started. Are you talking about how you feel like you’re doing just that I felt the passion that song I loved the strings, I loved the arrangement. How, after all of this two decades in your career, do feel like you’re just getting started.

Every time you write a journal entry, write a song, a poem, that page is blank. And sometimes that that emptiness can feel so overwhelming. And you have to muster up your own courage, energy, time, strength, and disregard and attachment and everything to start writing on that page. And even with all the experience I’ve had, it doesn’t necessarily make it easier. Sometimes with a lot of experience, it makes it harder because you want to try to live up to something you’ve done in the past. Or what could you possibly create, that’s going to add to any value to the rest of it. So there’s always some kind of struggle that gets that gets me on the page. And so a song like getting started is about is that plus anything else, you know, getting out of bed. And then in our case, myself and Raining Jane, who I made this album with in tandem. We’re all in our mid 40s You know, we’re at a pop category, pop music has changed a lot. And we can’t help every now and then to say like who do we think we are doing this? You know, but hey, guys, we’ve never done this before. In fact, we’re just getting started at this kind of project. So we used getting started as like the song that would be our cheerleaders for us, we would create this song to basically the mirror, you know, we create the song and this is gonna be a mirror for us to show that. Yes, you guys are going to be okay.

I really liked it. It was one that I kept putting on repeat and walking around my apartment while I was listening to the album. I really it was drawn to that song I like to fix your music video for I feel like dancing is out there. And you’re dancing in it. And it’s great. Did it feel good? Like I’m assuming growing up doing musical theater going to school for musical theater, you danced? Was it a muscle that you hadn’t stretched in a while that it feels good to do it? Are you going to dance more?

I want to dance more. It was a muscle that I hadn’t used in a while although I roller skate a lot. And there’s a lot of movement that happens in skating. But usually when I dance, it’s unrehearsed, not choreographed. And I just sort of wildly dance. Plus, I enjoy the comedy of trying to create dances that have never been done ever before in the existence of the universe. So every time I dance, it just looks completely ridiculous. But for this video for camera placement for blocking, we thought it might be best to hire a choreographer so that I could be in the exact spot I needed to be. Otherwise I would have just been all over that place. And I probably would have looked ridiculous. So yes, it was it was nice to be in a role where I had some direction. We had some choreography to remember that was actually quite nice. It felt comforting to know that I had some steps that were important to lock in with the other dancers. I very much enjoyed that. When I did Broadway a couple of years ago. There were no dance numbers I sang and I walked around the stage a bit so that was about it. So it was fun to finally like try to put a little more swing into it.

Yeah, and speaking of Broadway, you were in Waitress as Dr. Pomatter, with Sara Bareilles. I know and it was at a dream to have been on Broadway and how is that different from performing your own music and your own, you know, concerts every night.

When you’re Dr. Pomatter or you’re in a in a cast. There’s no setlist, Jason Mraz does not have to make a setlist, I don’t have to think about what I’m going to wear, what hat am I going to wear? My gig is to show up, put on that costume and read the script and sing those words. And as it sounds like, to me, I thought, oh, no, this is this might be, this might get old doing the same thing every day. But I tell you, it didn’t‚— every day felt different. Everyday felt brand new, everyday felt like the first time. It may have been because the audience does change daily. So they’re always laughing and they’re always getting it for the first time. And that makes you feel amazing. But then also, your actors in your cast are constantly changing. You don’t always play against the same people every day. And everyone delivers their line a slightly different way. It’s through their breath, how their intention is in the moment. And so then we react differently and that was a thrill. That was a thrill. By the end, I actually didn’t want to leave, I felt like I was home. It felt like I was on a paid vacation from my life. Because I didn’t have to worry about the narcissistic ego version of myself as art. And I could instead just be artists being someone else.

Is there a level of pressure or stress, though, because especially you are friends with Sara Bareilles as I believe so like you’re bringing her words to a musical, all of that cast is, is depending on you in a way that’s different. If you’re at your concert, I would imagine you make a mistake, you laugh it off, you’re like, Oh. But that cast is depending on you. Is that a relief? Is that stressful? Is it fun?

All of the above. It’s a relief because they’re holding you accountable. And you have this incredible team around you supporting you to get it right. It was a little stressful because I didn’t want to let anybody down. And then they allow you one or two like they know, hey, you might flub but just keep going and that makes it fun and real. And everybody kind of goes along with you if you know, but they also remind you at the end of the show are like, yeah, it’s not those words. So you can’t change anything. It was incredible. I revere Sara and everything she’s created. And so I went into it, like, just knowing I’m not gonna let her down. You know, I have one job here. And that is to make her and that cast proud. And make keep the show ahead. So really blessed I got to do it.

And you got to play opposite her, which must have been so fun to play opposite of friend.

Absolutely. Yeah. And then our characters in that show are just basically adults behaving badly. What a fun couple of weeks that was as well.

And I know speaking of friends, you are on tour in New York recording and writing with Raining Jane, who you’ve known for ever. What is it like to perform your songs like it must just be so fun to jam with your friends every night and get to go on tour with your friends and just what a dream.

Yeah. I’ll add this Raining Jane and Sara Bareilles were all roommates in college. And that’s how I met Sara Bareilles was through my relationship with Raining Jane. And so thank you, Raining Jane because of them, I got the call to go to Broadway. RJ I call them RJ, Raining Jane we met very early in my career, I was getting ready to make my third album. And I had two prior bands, the first one I put together with the help of people in the industry to help me get a band to hit the road. And that was okay. It was a great sounding band. But it was hired guns. The next round was a little bit more fine tuned, the round, more friends in the band. And that was great. But I also felt like I don’t know, for whatever reason. It just still wasn’t like a perfect, perfect match. And when I met Raining Jane there was something quite special about where they were in their career where they were in their minds, what they wanted to achieve with songs, how they wanted to entertain the audience. And we all just fell in love. We had some similarities and trying to really make the best of the 90 minutes to two hours that are on stage to take an audience member through a transformational experience of some kind. And so we became fast friends started writing songs in 2013. And it took us that long to finally lock in enough of our own songs to become a band of our own. And we haven’t stopped since then since 2013. And we did the yes album than we did have it all than we did. They join me on the reggae album. And this album we went all in together to create these the songs for this album, you know, we’re all the same age. So the musical tastes, the pop culture, history and everything inside the universe seems to align for us, which is wonderful. It makes me feel like I relate to everyone in the room. And likewise, we relate to each other and then we as a fivesome can take an idea and try to you know, make it the best possible idea. And then try to put it in my mouth and see if it’s the best possibility for me to sing or say, you know, but I also love in addition to the writing their multi-instrumentalist, you’ve got cello, sitar. Mona’s, an incredible drummer and percussionist. They all sing, it’s just a wonderful collection of sounds and souls when we get together. So we wanted to make this album for a very, very long time. And we worked on it for probably three years before we went into the studio and threw everything away. And realized, we, we might be starting over when we get into the studio, we have a saying that says no wasted effort. So it doesn’t matter if we write 10 songs that no one ever hears, it’s no wasted effort, because we needed to get those songs out to get these other ideas to come to fruition. As writing partners, I could go on, we could turn this entire podcast into the wisdom gleaned from your writing partners, you know, and how we all support each other to, to make art and to show up.

There must just be such trust, I mean, from knowing people for so long, and to perform with them every night. I mean, that’s it to be able to share art with someone in that way is such a vulnerable thing. And so to have people that are, there’s just no judgement, it’s safe. And it’s like anybody can come and bring whatever. And then to your point, like we created all of this scrapped, it created something new. Like that’s such an amazing thing. And I think that always comes through in music when you can when people are just in synergy, and they just are, you know, united in that way. It’s so cool. And it makes music that much better.

Yeah, it does. When you’re in a room with others, and you’re writing songs, you’re all musical midwives, and you’re all bringing forth something in the world that that could potentially outlive us. And it’s a really special feeling when you have these little moments of clarity when everyone agrees, like yes, that’s the thing. And then they become your precious babies as well. So we’ve got, we’ve got dozens and dozens and dozens of songs that no one’s ever heard. And when we got into the studio this round, and we realized we’re kind of throwing out our folk album idea that we were starting with and realized we were making a dance album, we had a few songs still, in our old playlists that no one had ever heard that that ended up becoming the perfect fit for this album. While this album is new for many. For us. It’s a long time coming because we’ve been collecting these songs for years.

When you’re writing songs, do you listen to other music? Or do you have to like tune it all out?

No, we listen to other music. Yeah, it’s the same as if you’re writing songs. You want to read books, writers are in love with other writers. I think musicians are in love with other musicians and so on. Same with films you can get a lot of with information and inspiration from film. So yeah, we try to go everywhere with it and definitely listen will listen to other music. We were trying to find the right groove for a song and it ended up being this sort of tribute to Bjork, which her grooves are cosmic. They’re intergalactic grooves. So we would stop in play some Bjork, you know, and really study like, what is going on here? This is outrageous. And then how can we then do our version of that, you know.

Your music is all pretty upbeat and happy. And I would imagine you’re human, like the rest of us, and you are not happy every minute does that people are people do come and people are like, Oh, he’s grumpy today, is that hard for people to accept?

Hopefully, I keep my grumpiness to myself. I’m sure there are a few in my life that are very close to me that do experience it. And it’s rare. I will say that a lot of my positivity in music is almost like an it’s the medicine and it’s my practice. First of all, it’s my practice of gratitude. It’s my practice of presence and mindfulness that then ends up on the page where I can see it back where I can sing it back, and I can continue to remind myself that I won’t give up or that I won’t worry my life away. Or that I’m, you know, living in the moment, you know, the songs that are mantras are mantras for a reason. And that’s because we’re Without music and without writing, my very creative mind will start to get creative and play tricks on me. And make me think that I’m not worthy of, of all the fun that I get to have to combat that sort of unhappiness that could potentially arise from a very creative mind. I’ve been very lucky that I’ve had a practice of journaling, practice of songwriting, a practice of gratitude, and those things definitely are my sort of daily maintenance in the war against unhappiness,

You have a few songs that are just really struggling, angry, and but you don’t just keep them in your closet.

Yeah, yeah, that happens. And what a great thing, you know, there’s an old Mr. Rogers clip. In fact, it might even be in the movie that Tom Hanks portrayed of him, where he talks about don’t bang on those keys, if you’re angry banging on the keys, you know. And that’s a real thing. And it’s what a great thing, and who knows, maybe music arrived from that.

I certainly think we all have that. I know, I am a very moody music listener. So whatever mood I’m in, I’m playing rock and roll, I’m playing pop and playing classical and playing Rage Against the Machine, you know, it’s just kind of like, it’s all loud. And it just, you know, it’s such a great outlet. So I can imagine through songwriter and musician, it’s exactly that for you, whatever mood you’re in, or you’re working through, that’s what comes out.

Yeah, that’s wonderful. Yeah, you know, and I’ll add to that, if I do create a moody or sad song, it rarely sees the light of day, because as a live performer, that’s a hard mood to bring to the stage. So I’ve tried to keep things very up uplifting, so that that, you know, 90 minutes to two hours can be real uplifting. I will acknowledge that there is darkness in the world for sure, but I won’t spend too much time there. But I do have those songs. There’s a new song on this album called the irony of loneliness that that briefly touches on that feeling. And I will add, because we’re in the bookstore, that line the irony of loneliness is derived from a poem by I have the book right here, by our dear friend, Rupi Kaur in The Sun and Her Flowers in in this book is a poem called The Irony of Loneliness, in which she says, the irony of loneliness is that we all feel it at the same time together. And I read that during the pandemic when I’m locked in my house. And I thought, wow, who is this woman? And how did she arrive at such a potent thought? And it went in alignment with some other songs that I was writing, and suddenly it kind of became the tag of the song. So luckily, track I reached out and she was flattered that we want to consider her words in our in our songs. So she’s one of the songwriters on that song, when you read the fine print, and it’s a real thrill to get to have some, you know, communication with her we never met, but we had some lovely communication. And so anyway, yeah, that’s our moody song on the album. And thanks to the potent words of Rupi Kaur, it has some sunshine in it.

That’s cool. That’s got to be a dream for any writer to have someone with whom their words resonated, that they reached out and are like, hey, I want to, you know, further these words, to mean a lot to me, and I’m going to include them in this and I’m sure she must have been anybody would be thrilled that it struck a chord with someone. That must be cool.

Yeah. Thanks. That’s how that’s how it felt.

Yeah. And to that point, actually, writing songs can be so personal, because they’re so personal. Do you like it when people put their own meaning to the songs? Or are you like, Oh, that was actually about this. And it’s weird that you think about it like that? Because it’s really this? Or do you like it?

Yeah, I’ll take any, any interpretation. That’s fine. And sometimes I don’t even like to tell my own interpretation of it, because it might spoil it for others. I have that trouble with music videos because I don’t want to make a music video. This song has so much potential for someone in someone’s imagination, that when we make a video for it, it’s almost like saying, No, this is what it is. And that’s not It’s not this is just one version of what it could be, you know?

Because remember, on one of your live albums, you’re like, this is about my cat. Little You and I, yeah, and you were like, sorry if that ruins it for all the lovers.

That’s great.

I think that’s funny. That is like, I know there’s another song by Colin Hay, if you know him, I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You. And I believe that it’s about his addiction to alcohol. And to me, it’s like the most heartbreaking love Song. And I listened to him like, man, this is so sad. And then I learned that it was actually about his addiction. I was like, that’s so interesting, because if you now I hear it is that I’m sure there’s so many people who just have so many different interpretations of songs. Yeah. How do you discover music these days? I mean, we used to have the listening centers, the Virgin Megastore in Union Square used to be there, and now everything’s on an algorithm. How do you like a listen to everything I imagine, genre you don’t listen to?

No, I listened to everything. In fact, yesterday, I took a peloton class and it was all country music. And I rarely, rarely listen to country music. But I do go to the country dial every once in a while just to see what the heck’s going on over here, because they’re always mixing it up. It’s like, crazy, I listen to everything. But I’m also an avid record collector. And I use a number of websites and read reviews on and I look for instruments that are written on the liner notes. Because to me, I want to know what that sound the sonic textures are going to be on the records. I love music from the 1970s. There’s just something about the combination of the instruments and the recording process, that it just was so yummy, so warm, so good, the quality of the amps and the electric pianos and the microphones, the guitars, the acoustic guitars still weren’t yet plugged in. So they still had a nice, warm resonance when they’re being strong. So that’s where I tend to live. That’s where it when I really have some time, I love to do some digging. But when I’m on the go, I’ll go to a streaming app and just you know, and I’ll dig. I may start with something that I like. But then those apps will say, Well, if you like this, you might like this when you might like this. And then I’m, you know, down the rabbit hole. And I just I love it and then I love saving those songs so that I can either find it on vinyl, or I can at least you know, have a great DJ set next time I have friends over so music is a big part of my time.

Yeah. So when you aren’t, we’re on tour or recording. What do you like? Do you just sit around listen to music all day? I imagine that musicians just do that. I mean, I mean they have personal lives. I know there there’s other things that you do. But is there something that you really dig in your downtime.

So I dig in my downtime, I garden and I have a lot of houseplants so I’m always digging in and on that. And what I’ve done is I’ve wired up speakers to be just about everywhere. No Bluetooth, no wireless music, it’s all hardwired. And it all goes back to a turntable. And so when the music stops, I’ll run in or my roommate will go she’ll go “Is it a new one or a flip?” A flip and that means you know just turn the record over. And so we’re going through records and records and I’m always getting records from my parents or finding records here and there. And you know, we still live in— even if you only listen to music from the 1970s you could live in discovery your entire life there is so much music out there to get your ears on so. So yes, there’s there is almost constant music listening happening when we’re just in our downtime, because even if I’m in the garden, I’ve got speakers pointed out there that I can hear the music.

Do you have a best loved crop in your garden?

Right now it’s broccoli and it was best loved. And now I’ve had so much broccoli, I no longer love broccoli, but we got some cauliflower coming up now which also looks very beautiful. And it’s exciting potatoes soon it’s you know, it’s ever rotating. It’s been avocado season here we have some avo trees and I’m very blessed in San Diego to have almost a year-round growing season.

I love talking to people about their gardens because I live in a studio in Brooklyn, and I have a fire escape that I’m not allowed on. Tell me about your broccoli. That’s nice. So I truly that’s a genuine question. When I asked about your garden, it’s so lovely to have that outdoor space. Yeah. Do you have an all time favorite song to perform?

I’m gonna say no. I mean, there are songs that end up in the show every night. You know, songs like I’m Yours are always in the show. You can’t play a show without it. And what a great feeling it is to have a song that everyone sings along to and I feel like I’m doing a cover of it every time I play it. But usually, my all time favorite song is like what might whatever I’m working on, or like the most recent song that I’ve got that like oh, I really love this and I’ve just finally memorized the words and I’ve got like a new trick. So that’s usually where I’m at.

Do you have an all-time favorite song in general— that’s not yours. Or your first concert?

There’s a couple of ways I could answer this. My parents took me to see Kenny Loggins and the Beach Boys. Which I think is a great— whenever you hear people’s first concerts are it so sums up who that person is in a way. Like I have a buddy whose first concert was The Monkees and Weird Al Yankovic. And he is The Monkees like the the child of The Monkees and Weird Al Yankovic. And so mine was Kenny Loggins and the Beach Boys. And I feel like my music is kind of the child of Kenny Loggins into Beach Boys. So wild, but when I was in seventh grade, the first concert that my parents dropped me off where I had my own ticket, and no chaperones was Milli Vanilli.

Oh, good one.

It wasn’t the concert, but it was a concert with young MC and young MC. He was great.

I mean, that’s like a historic group to have seen in concert.

Yeah, that’s how I feel. Yeah, was a little letdown because I was so like, banking on them. And those harmonies like these guys are the best.

Is it weird to think that you’re someone’s first concert?

Yes. Yeah. And I meet a lot of those. While I meet a lot of little kids that come to the shows like this is her first concert. Sometimes I see babies out there. They’re like, this is her first concert. I’m like, too young.

Yeah, that’s weird. I mean, people probably travel and you’re like a Dream Concert for some people?

Yeah, there are a lot of people that some travel from internationally to come to a show. You know, we haven’t been doing as many shows as I used to. And so I noticed a lot more people travel in to see the shows that we do. And we’ll be out on the road this summer for about a month. And that’s about it for the year. So I think people will be traveling again.

Yeah, I know. I’ll be at your concert here in Forest Hills Queens.

That’s going to be extra special. I’m really excited for that. That’ll be unlike the usual concert.

My friend and I are going and we’re both super stoked. So

I’m wonderful. Thank you so much.

Does it bother you when people are not up dancing at your concerts?

No, doesn’t bother me. You know what it’s sometimes they actually if they jump right up and they dance right away, sometimes that makes me nervous. Because I know that my setlist isn’t going to be filled with these songs. You know, this is their time. You know, it’s, they drove, they parked, they got a babysitter, they had to do whatever they had to do. You know, they had to battle the Ticketmaster queues and all that stuff. If they want to sit for those two hours and fall asleep. That’s their time, you know, because I see that I see like the occasional dad or somebody out there snoozing in his chair, or the husband or boyfriend that might have been dragged there. So no, it’s your time. You can dance shout, twist and shout, you can stand on your head. Sit down, lay down. Doesn’t matter.

That’s very gracious of you. If I saw someone asleep at my concert, I don’t know that I would come to it with that attitude. But that makes sense. That’s very nice.

Yeah, yeah.

There’s a running joke with my friends and I because I do love concert dancing. But I want everyone around me to be having as much fun as I’m having. So it bothers me when people actually doesn’t mean people aren’t dancing, but I get yelled at a lot for dancing. That’s what bothers me.

The sitters behind you say we’re trying to watch.

Yeah, I’m quite tall. But I’m also like, you. You came to a concert. You’re allowed to sit. I’m allowed to stand and dance.

Right? Yeah, I usually say something at the beginning of the show. A little disclaimer, that’s like, Look, if you want to dance, you’re gonna dance. And if people if they’re dancing, they’re dancing. You know? If you’re sitting you’re sitting.

Yeah, they need to say that at every concert ever. Is there more Broadway in your future?

I hope so. No, there’s no Broadway in my immediate future. My phone has not rung. I have been asked to write occasionally. And I think I would be up for that task. I’ve just not yet met the story that really grabs me that, that I want to spend seven years devouring, poring over if you will.

Yeah, you’ll receive it if it comes to its right. Kind of how Waitress came to be I would imagine.

Yeah, exactly. I like I like it like that. I’ve got broccoli to attend.

Do you have a favorite musical?

Book of Mormon is coming back to my town. I saw it years ago. I loved it. Saw that. It’s coming again as like I will see that again. Not to say that’s my favorite musical, but I just I love a good comedy. And Waitress was a great comedy.

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Yeah, that was a very good one. Do you have a dream collaborator? I know you’ve collaborated with a lot of people you’ve been very lucky to do that. Is there someone who’s like next level that you’re like, Man, that’s my holy grail.

Over the years I’ve stolen away to have little moments with some real legends, some that aren’t even with us anymore. And these are works that could potentially be saved for like a mentors album or sort of personal heroes album. And every now and then I think I remember that, and I think who out there would I want to work with and this sounds ridiculous. But I started playing guitar because a local guy in my near my hometown of Richmond, Virginia was making a scene. It was Dave Matthews. And I say it’s ridiculous because he’s a little ridiculous, not your straight ahead singer songwriter. And over the years, the songs have gotten dark and a little weird. But there’s still something about that weirdness that I’ve that I would still like to sit down and have lunch with, and maybe write a song together. He became one of the founders of barmaid, the youngest of all those cats and I had the pleasure of working with Willie Nelson numerous times, and he and I recorded a song together. I’ve met Neil and John Mellencamp I didn’t work with those guys musically, but I feel like the founding fathers made would be a great would be a great family of songwriters that I would love to get some wisdom from as songwriters and the quality of life they’ve chosen as songwriters, how they have support for the small American farm and their communities, etc. That’d be a good vibe of those guys.

That’d be a good vibe album for sure. Yeah. Do you have any preshow rituals, superstitions? What do you do right before you go on stage, are you allowed to share with us?

You know, I don’t have anything that’s pre-show, because we are all running around to try to coordinate our outfits and get our ear monitors in and then we huddle up. And the huddle has no daily routine, we all just sort of try to make each other laugh, surprise each other, remember what’s going to happen in the set because we try not to play the same set every night. But the show day will be filled with sort of show day musts and I always do yoga on a show day, I call it my “showga”. For full range of motion for that, you know, for tuning up the instrument, if you will, if it doesn’t happen in the morning, I put a sign on my door in the dressing room, I shut down for an hour. I’m also a fan of the 26-minute nap. Something about taking a short nap on a show day. It’s like I wake up in a dream state, or I wake up really refreshed and like able to, you know, tap into some creative joy. So those are those are the big ones. I’d say the yoga and the 26 minute nap.

I like it. I have my last question for you. After all these years in the public, all these interviews you’ve done, is there anything that you want people to know about you that they don’t?

Well, I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. After all of these albums, I still have no idea what’s next, still putting the show together for the summer, that’s probably obvious. But just in general, like I still feel like the same kid, I was at the beginning of all this, that I’m just making it up. And I got very, very lucky that I that I made it up in the right rooms, to where the right agents and managers saw me and said, Look at this kid, he has a magic trick that he does. And I was able to go out and do that magic trick over and over and over again. And here I am now in a in a studio in San Diego that I get to live in all because I just make stuff up. And because I make stuff up, I really can’t take credit for it. I don’t really know what it is, I just have to stay tuned to be able to produce that magic again and again and again. So I think that’s the thing. It’s like, it’s not that I’ve got any special training or skill or key or special secret, I think it’s more that I am just as excited as everyone else is to see this unfolding. And I have no idea where it’s going.

I mean, when someone goes to AMDA, or any sort of musical performance performing school, I imagine that there is a dream there that like I could do this for a living I could be I could be the one. So I’m not going to say that you had no idea that you might be doing this for a living but can you believe it? Can that kid from Virginia from AMDA believe that that is what you’re doing?

I occasionally have those moments where I’m like walking in it, you know, where the vision that I had the dream that I had is very real. And I was like, like, especially when I was doing Waitress, it would impact me the most when I would walk in and out of the stage door, more than anything. It was the stage door. And that’s because as a student at AMDA I would go to shows and I’d go around the corner and I’d see the stage door, you wait for the cast to come out. And I remember seeing Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker come out after one of his performances in maybe How to Succeed in Business or The Producers or something like that. And I don’t know, it just seemed like this special door that only the few could enter. And being in Waitress, I get to go in and out of that door all the time. And that’s when it felt like, I can’t believe I’m doing this, I can’t believe I get to be this person. So yeah, I do have moments that are filled with being backstage before a show. Whenever I put my ear monitors in, and I walked backstage, it’s dark, and you can feel the audience just around the curtain. You know, there’s a moment where I’m like, I can’t believe this is my life, you know, and, and while I do have a setlist before me, I have no idea what’s going to happen when I walk out on the stage, like, Let’s go for a ride. And that’s partly why this album is called Mystical Magical Rhythmic Radical Ride because this whole thing, this whole life experience is just a ride. And occasionally, we get to great, we get to steer it and take it take directions, but most of the time, we’re just sort of guided by the wind beneath our wings, or we’re guided by others around us that are, you know, pulling us this way and that I’m enjoying the ride.

Well, good luck on tour this summer. The album is out now, go grab your copy. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. It’s been wonderful to talk to you.

It was wonderful talking to you too. Thanks so much.