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so you teamed up with some interesting folks to get this one out of your system um and uh and i want to know all about all of them how did the song begin um well it started with me um and ricky reed i basically made my album with
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five people not all of them were in the room at the same time but um ricky and scott were kind of like my main collaborators in this um as well as um a man named che che um and so for this song it started off with me ricky
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and cheiche and we basically had this was written like the first idea of it was written a while ago um and so we had a verse with like different chords and we had this chorus and it basically came from the idea of a lot of like my favorite latin music that i listened to growing up has lyrically like they have this like life message in a song um and it's very like it is like mostly this theme of like i'm heartbroken and sometimes life sucks
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but kind of like having a sense of humor about it and being like that's life and i love the kind of like juxtaposition of that of it being like you're dancing but you're also like haha i got fired and divorced yeah well to your point that's the tapestry of life and at some point if you're lucky enough that happens to you because it's an experience that people should go through because it you know it means that you you lived a life you had
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a job you fell in love you had an experience but the only way you can come out of that is is if you can sort of look at it um as as just one of the numbered balls in the barrel of life right totally and you know and something that my mom has always said to me like i remember like my first like two heartbreaks like me just being like devastated and my mom being like you know you're devastated now and you're gonna be devastated the next time that
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this happens to you and you're always like oh my god like how am i gonna i'm never gonna you know experience something like this again and life kind of proves you wrong every time like you just never know what's around the corner
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and my mom has literally always multiple times i'm like this happened and then this happened she's like like that's just like the way life is um and so i wanted to make a song that had english words but gives me that same
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feeling that a lot of these latin songs uh give us and so basically we had this version of the song and then by the time that ed had heard it and been on board to do it i was like in a different place in my life i'd you know come out of this like long relationship and so and also ed was like okay i love it but i want to change the chords on the verse um and so he had like a morning yeah just like the busiest freaking guy in
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the world i don't know how he does it but he had like a morning off um and so me him ricky and scott harris uh went in the room and like wrote we all wrote my verse and his verse recorded it um and finished the song and i feel like throughout this process my writing style like i got really excited about writing again in the sense that i love reading and um i feel like my favorite poets and my favorite novelists write really really
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specifically and i feel like i started off as a writer kind of trying to capture these big emotions um i'm in love like you know all i do is dream of you and then i was like i feel like the most powerful thing is to zoom into like the super super details of it like basically saying it without saying it and so that first verse where it's like you know you were scared of the ocean and now you're surfing you know i you know thought we'd be together
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forever but i just sold like the house that we spent a lot of time at wherever yeah it's brutal it's brutal and it's in it the thing is right look here's the thing you and i know each other well enough for me to say this you know
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everyone's going to write about this talk about it it's going to be fight over people because you you had a very public relationship with somebody you know i know the two of you and i and i really like the two of you you know that
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and it does too it's got to write this with you and he knows sean so it's super complicated and weird and so everyone's going to write about this and whatnot but the reason why the song cuts through is because everyone has those
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experiences when you lose somebody and it could just even be a friendship when it's like hang on a minute we were best friends and used to talk about that person behind their back and now you're hanging out with them and i'm
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in the cold what the totally and that is really like i think what i was we were trying to get across in the verse it's just that things change and things take really unexpected turns um and just showing that through like the actual details of it you know and i think like it has a bigger message than because you know for me it's like i'm you know i i love sean and i feel like there is literally nothing but love for him and this song is
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mostly just about like okay how do i make a song that shows the cycles of love and life and gives people you know whatever it is that's going on in your life whether it is a breakup or um or a divorce or like you said a friend breakup or you've just gone through something that just is really like hopefully this can make you kind of be like it is that way now but things are always taking you know crazy trouble and nothing lasts forever
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nothing lasts forever and that is a brutal realization that when you become a parent you try to shield your kids from that reality as long as possible because forever seems like a magical place but eventually you realize like nothing lasts forever and what i really think is is a triumph of the song apart from it being so lyrically deft and light on its feet considering the subject matter it's you at your best um dealing with
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heavy dancing but i but i will say that you know it's a tribute to a moment in time you know i feel like i'm finally like before this album i feel like i was like just like early 20s were so hard like literally so hard i was just like what can i do what therapist can i see like what do i do to just like feel okay and feel stable and i'm finally at a place where i feel like i've had experiences i'm doing the therapy i've put in a lot of work
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um and i'm like really at a place where i'm like okay like i kind of it is true like that wisdom cannot really be gained through obviously like books and reading and podcasts and all the self-help like it's good but i do feel like they're they're just nothing beats like experience and just living it and i think i am at a point where i'm like you know what i'm okay like i'm actually i'm i'm good and i feel like i'm at a place where
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i don't need things to be perfect to enjoy my life and that's actually what the song is about too is like you don't need things to be perfect to give yourself those moments of joy on the dance floor and in your life in
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general you know i gotta ask one more question relation to the song that i want to talk to you about the future and this year and everything else but one of the things i really respected about the two of you knowing you both is that you
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were able to live your life together privately you really did you set a bar that most people either run into or they set it so low they can step over it whenever they want and you set the bar high for everybody right
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and and and i wondered what you learned about that tricky relationship between achieving your dreams that require performance and attention and quite unquote fame and living a normal life because i feel like for a while there and i feel like you
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lived a normal life and then you and then you came to a normal end and it felt normal it didn't feel like all the other that goes on that we read about you know that's why i think well i think also like my priorities have fluctuated and my focus has changed throughout my life like those years that we were dating i don't even feel like even while i was writing this album and even still now i guess like my focus is really on
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how can i be a well-rounded person and how can i apart from my career my focus like wasn't even on my career like this album literally was a tool of me becoming a more well-rounded person and acquiring like you know intimacy with my collaborators that was my number one intention was not even how do i make the best album and the best music my number one intention was how can i just like make music with people that i want to have dinner with
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afterwards yeah and how can i like you know how can me talking about these things help me build trust with people how can i talk about the icky things that i haven't talked about with anybody and then get it to a place where these people because they're like oh yeah i totally relate can validate my own experience and same thing with those years that we were together like my focus was just like how can i be live a happy life and be in a healthy
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happy relationship how can i like i was doing therapy a lot like my focus really has like shifted a lot and even now while i'm in promo mode like i'm like honestly like if i'm not having fun what's the point you know like so i think as i get older like yeah the priorities shift and i feel like that was that way for both of us it was always just like because we because we both started so young too it's like we're really
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learning how to be healthy adults and like that sometimes means not having that your number one focus be your career and like that's okay you know without a doubt and you seem so much more like you know i i'll get to know you over the course of all this and stuff but i'll make this i'll make this observation or be it maybe it's a little step too far but you just seem balanced you just seem like there's equilibrium and you're clear of mind
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and you can hear it in the music as well so it sounds really focused what did you learn from ed working with ed just to turn a phrase or the way that he approaches his writing because few people can turn the tap on and off and i use that analogy very deliberately because he does as effectively as he can you know what i mean totally um well and thanks by the way for saying that because i do feel like that is so true like i feel
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the most balanced and the least um like i feel like i have like the least mental suffering that i've had like in my my in my like late adolescent years and my early 20s like there was a lot of that and i feel like
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i feel like it does show in the music that i'm like i really did not have anxiety in the studio at all like it really was like super fun and me just like i was reading a lot of sally rooney and me honing into what is exciting to me about writing
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what's exciting to me melodically what's exciting to me lyrically um and i feel like ed and i and now i finally like i've always been such a huge fan of his but i feel like we really consciously i understood like why i love what he does which is i think we both like the same things like he loves the specific details um he was just like what's like we were all like what is just some real that happened you know um we threw out a million different
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examples like what are the things that have changed from the beginning to now i didn't know how to drive i just got my license you know all the the examples of how we both have changed he has it just quickly it has this um
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deep love and curiosity for the the the romance of almost of banality what other people would call banana exactly you could sit there and you could have a conversation like i just got my license or i sold my house and honestly unless
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it was someone that loved you or cared about you to that degree where they're interested it would sort of be in one ear and out the other whereas ed will take that and he'll find how how is that a really important moment in life totally and he's always loves love stuff like that like in that song tenerife c where he's like i love the way that like i forgot the line but it's like uh well whatever like i know you love shrek
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because we've watched it 12 times or like when you put your hair on the side or like you know he loves like that and i think as i get older and learn more as a writer like i'm like oh that's what really excites me instead of being like
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wow things change being like you know you know you said you hated the ocean but you're surfing now it's just like a lot a lot cooler more gut-wrenching way writing-wise like to say that and so yeah it felt it was really
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it was really sick to like be able to get in the studio and like bounce off of him and i also feel like he treats every song like a conversation like i feel like he could go really detailed and then be like you know but get excited about like what you would say to your friend like not everything works out like it sucks you know um so yeah it was really it was really inspiring and fun to work with him because i also feel like he doesn't get
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he doesn't allow himself to get stuck like it's just like very fast paced like just like okay try that put that in then we'll change it you know so yeah it was fun i want to know before you say goodbye where we're at with with
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an overall body of work because that's the thing what people are excited about familiar this album as a whole and um and how you sort of feel about putting putting it out and the subject matter on it and just to kind of put a placeholder
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into this until we catch up next time well um the album date is official it's coming out april 8th um and i mean like you said i feel like this has been a journey for me in terms of really using um relationships and and other people and interconnection um an inter being to really get myself to my most stable honest um like true self and that's why this album is called familia because i just feel like those relationships and
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that intimacy between my collaborators and the friends that i made along the way um really got me from like a place to a great place um and i'm just like i couldn't like be more proud of this album i really i mean i feel like everybody says this but i really do think it's like my best album so far and i had like the most fun making it so far so i don't even you might like another album better but i had the most fun making this one [Music] bye