There's Something Free and like sexy about Florida and like the sun you know like tan lines and everyone's just like got barely any clothes on we're all running around screaming profanities that the world probably wouldn't be ready for [Music] I think the thing that got me through my teenage years was like the studio and the community that I found in music in this very small town a very small town and a very large state
Florida such a deep Place full of contrasts sunny beaches and hurricanes golf courses and swamps if a dumb FICA childhood filled with good times and dark times that's the balance on the brand new album and it's what brought us to Naples Florida to tour some really meaningful landmarks we start by knocking on the front door of this wild story but we end the day staring at the Horizon yeah [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] house
hello welcome hello what's going on how's it going hi hi Zane insane good to see you tonight how are you welcome to Florida dude thanks yeah I'm glad to be in an air-conditioned room what's lovely out there though it's very hot it's hot outside let's keep it cold inside this is the crib welcome to the crib this is where we keep all the photos of uh me I personally took all these and keep them here did you also personally put your
own plugs up on them we'll put these up here I made them myself designed them all myself and put them up there I have a lot more you know this wall could only fit four these are the ones that you manifested from an earlier it's just so professional looking it's incredible I mean yeah it does good work you could bootleg these kind of things for other artists who are also looking for silver records they're silver I thought it was black
I don't know if that's silver bud but thanks for inviting us in enjoy thanks wait where are you going I need you you've got to hang out we got a question oh my God oh my God you can't leave I've got more questions for you than I have for him right now um no this is cool it's really nice to um to be here and to and to meet you and to see you again do it on the eve of releasing this album which to me feels
like such an important record for your life you think so yeah there's a lot of like I feel like you've come home on this album with a different mindset than when you left on the last one you know what I mean like I don't know you tell me what it's like to kind of come back to Naples now versus what it was like to grow up here I mean growing up here it's not as difficult I have a lot more you know opportunities I can get into
the AC More Often I'm not outside trying to find a place to get a water but um it doesn't feel much different I don't know the album's cool man it's a collection of songs you know I didn't feel like it was like I'm not I'm not often like writing for a purpose when it comes to an album It's kind of just cathartic I mean it's crazy I look around this room and even just through the photos and stuff I'm like feel like
I'm in elements of the album I don't know like Alex's front teeth yeah he really was a series for a long time right in here yeah so many years when we spoke about Empire the other day like sometimes they're just like to write and
it doesn't necessarily need to have any kind of deeper meaning to your story or whatever but yeah I mean that was a different that was I don't know man I I all the time I write songs for many different purposes sometimes I do
have like thoughts in mind but I try not to and and I'm sorry I just started sitting down you guys want to sit down yeah I'll sit down sure um I try not to sorry Mom about my shoes you're good all right let's get a new couch after Keo graduates five or something because I found it really corny I think I was just on Instagram and like the way that we're kind of like putting out music nowadays you know how you have to
post it and you comment and you you have to like be in everyone's face all the time it kind of like artists were like well what do I have to talk about and then they're like oh well let me just talk about how I made this song and how emotional it was and how you know right but then the song will be like whatever trying to cheat a connection a little bit yeah it's I feel yeah super trying to cheat a connection that's a good way
to put it I feel like that was just really bothering me I was listening to an interview um with Julian Casablancas oh I was telling you about this when he's just like make songs to Just Dance to so that's what I'm trying to do and if people find some sort of deeper meaning in it that's cool too yeah well look it's it's your meaning and um how we take it as fans is that's the trade right and a lot of times we apply it to
our lives we search for the deep meaning because that actually helps us um yeah you know that's kind of does the unspoken relationship that's something that you know you probably shouldn't analyze but there are things that that definitely show up like staring at the photo albums on you know how much is weed wow did you bring this out mom I did a lot of this album reminds me of like the nostalgic days cute remember
when you had that pit polar bear yeah died of really brutal horrible death this looks like good times I mean photo albums always do you're not going to put the miserable ones in there right yeah right no you uh she would there's some pretty crusty ones in there yeah but you know I think already fans of your music know to some degree how unique a childhood you had yeah and that will probably come out of of course the day
because we'll go visit some of the spots and stories may come they may not but this looks like good times like I think it's important that's what photo albums are good for they remind us that it wasn't all tough right no but it really wasn't Alto it's a nice thing to bring it back to wherever you were whenever you heard that song I always felt like yeah when did you realize that Dom was showing an interest in music that was
that went beyond just like all kids where it's like listen dance move drum things and it became more they've had that odd Talent since they were really little and like I said Dom used to pick up anything and make music with it Dom was the the most passive quiet child growing up like never heard anything of Alex was always the one that's just Ruckus after chasing him around but Dom was always like The Observer soup like not yeah not
outgoing but very just like taking everything watch right always watching yeah it's funny I think that sometimes music shows up it shows up for people who who end up making their life out of it and every time in ways that you can never truly understand when you first fall in love with it it's almost like it finds you and it serves you and it gives you the opportunity to express yourself um but it also it's important you find
that inspiration through other artists right like what we there's some of those artists I know you've got one on your hand but yeah John Frusciante but who really kind of helped you form your musical identity who are the people that you credit with that I kind of remember making some of the songs on the demos like there's a song called West Coast Collective that's kind of like power chords drums and I think I liked the song structure
of Weezer songs yeah how they're just like I mean it's not so straightforward as first course first course but there's always like a random guitar solo Oh I think Ruiz is striving for the pivot pop song every time he is but yeah so I like that kind of Pop kind of UK like sort of guitar crunch sound but I mean as far as like vocal tone I think I was always trying to like kind of get like a Strokes vocal tone
you know that's like really what I've always wanted I've always wanted to just sing like strictly for the sonics kind of like like a Damon Albarn like you know how it's kind of just you don't really need to hear what they're saying it's just a Sonic it's just another sound it's like a guitar solo yeah I think that both of those are great examples of that and they have recorded vocals at times when I'm not sure exactly what they're saying
yeah and you know Anthony keita says that a lot too so I mean I was really kind of focused on just trying to make my voice kind of a second like guitar I was listening to a um Sam Cooke Song it was a Sam Cooke Song and there was a trumpet in it like halfway through it was one of his popular ones I was like damn I would never fit because there's some days when I'm like why am I even making music it doesn't make sense my voice sucks it's
all nasally I can barely play a guitar that well I just I'm slowly losing sanity but then other days I was listening to that trumpet on the Sam Cooke Song and I was like well I could be the trumpet I was like I don't really there's no area that I could fit in this song like this is already a perfect song but then the trumpet came in I was like oh I could do that like kind of like yell a frequency that complements this
mix and and that's typically what I'm doing vocally on everything I'm just kind of like searching for the tone that glues it all together elevates the mix of instruments that I typically create I'd have to ask them but I I don't know if any of my favorite singers ever started out liking their voice oh and yeah right I think I think I think it comes from somewhere else it doesn't come from a place of like a conventional
value like oh I sound great or this tastes delicious you know those are things you can kind of like measure it's something else right it's like a need yeah yeah you know right when I hear your music on the demos I was shocked at how like melodically adventurous you were being even at that early stage I felt I I didn't feel like you were scared to sing oh yeah um yeah the early stages I think I mean I was already kind of rapping you know
yeah and I had this dude named Cappy who would kind of like whenever I would go off on like those like melodic tangents he would do his best to kind of like dial them back structure them sort of like auto-tune whatever needed to or let be whatever you know was kind of wrong and cool yep and I think I was just already kind of accustomed to to doing everything vocally because I was just a rapper kind of deal
and then when I started playing guitar I think it made it easier for me to be a little bit more adventurous melodically um but there was a constant struggle of like trying to be adventurous melodically and using your voice as like a frequency and then there's also like lyricism I feel like I had a lot to say at the time so it was like this constant battle between wanting to bury my vocal and wanting to scream and wanting to
actually be heard yeah you know it's funny I we've danced around the idea of doing interviews and family homes and things like that before and I've always been a bit like oh I don't want it to be an authentic right but as soon as we arrived today it felt really sort of like we were getting a genuine family experience and so thank you and also I think that's because um there's a lot of love in why this
home exists right there is this is your family base exactly I was asked earlier like do I have family here and all I could think of was like the family that I created like this is what this is our thing it's always been like that it's been like super close to one of the songs about how it's just it's always been just us and then Apple came along and it was just you know it's just very it's very organically crocheted together
and it's and it's small right now but I know the you know the family will grow but it is what we have what we made everyone goes through all kinds of traumas and challenges in their life what's cool about being here is I feel like uh this is all by choice like somehow you've been able to make it into something that has again has a purpose it's not just a reflection of the past it's like it feels like something that's
has a joy to it now you know yeah I tried to put into them that whoever you have with you or those are the people that you're going to have with you forever yeah you know and it's like there's a lot of chaos with the internet and all that stuff now but bringing it back to basics like we have each other and people are important emotions are important you know every day you can mold yourself on what you've been
through or you know you can keep it moving and just keep loving and like when you do good things like good things will keep happening it will all evolve [Music] mom's is nice man yeah she's the best dude yeah she's a nice lady she's a real neighborhood Mom oh yeah yeah everyone knows we're up down the street yeah they come over here for like food and shelter so we went to the store you know she spent time in prison you spent time in
prison you've both been incarcerated for things we have both been a car that's right and um when I see you together like that I I can't make sense of that right in the small amount of time I was seeing the chemistry just have someone who's so smart like your mum who seems just so cool and people instantly like her end up in a situation like that yeah I saw it a lot when I was a kid I feel like it's just really hard for her um
and the people here we're just always at odds like yesterday we were out on the beach and I was staying at this hotel down the street and we asked them to set up a picnic for us on the beach and you know we're on this private beach and and these people come over just like kind of you know old white people and they they're just like what are you guys doing here who like uh who set this up to you guys and it was it wasn't really
like asking who set it up because they know you know this is a private beach it was more like what are you guys doing here there was in it and she's always kind of dealt with that I mean long before I had to obviously and she was like I mean part of it's this chip on her shoulder that these these people have kind of put there through that kind of Confrontation and then another part of it is just
not having them the same amount of money as all these people and you're just constantly at odds with like the upper class here yeah there is no real middle class it's like low kind of upper so for someone like yourself who's gone away and become successful to other people's idea of what success is I don't know we'll get to what you know what you deem success but you know yeah money no but like that's it right you go you make your
money you come back you've been reinvesting it in into your neighborhood as well right helping your family out brings out absolutely yeah I want to talk a bit about that because that's a really interesting equation because on the one hand it makes sense you're going to make money you want to help the people out that you love but on the other hand especially for a young man because you know you were young when you started doing that
because I can I'd imagine there's a lot of pressure that comes with that as well you write about that at times on the records yeah it's not being super I mean in the beginning I felt like it was a lot of this pressure I just feel like none of this was certain this whole music thing I think I've always had a big problem with like security and safety because I've moved around so much as a kid and I never really felt like I
had a home you know that also explains why you would help others to find homes absolutely it's like my favorite thing in the world but yeah I think it comes from that just not feeling very safe yeah do you think you made decisions that were more rooted in the desire to to find security than perhaps because it was the right thing to do for your music do you think you've been trying to untangle that a little bit
Yeah a big part of it is read helps me do that sometimes I just like I'm I'm so I still have this mindset of like being here and having to get that next check or making sure that we're just like you know and it has influenced decisions but we're kind of dialing it back I feel safer now yeah yes that's what I hear on the new album man I hear it's like a lot of the thrash that was around you on the demos and then I think
a lot of fans have seen the nyt piece um and the kind of purpose behind why you were signed the deal you're really honest about all that because that's what I wanted to ask you like why why did you make another album you know like your last one kind of told a lot of the story you've gone on and become something else to people you can act now you can do other things but you've really put your heart and soul into this new record and I and I
just wanted to know what is this kind of it for you now you realize like you know what I am fully committed to music like yeah I mean I've been fully committed to music and and this album is like one of many uh compilations of just like dude I'm honestly always in the studio I'm always making like so much music you know um even now with this rollout I'm sitting here like pestering everybody like yo just let me put this one song
yeah I have this new song that I made let me just put it out I know they're gonna with it and everyone's like you gotta album that's not even out yet I'm like nah but this one you know I'm always like that so this is like I did definitely put my heart into like a lot of these songs but not not for the intention of it being like a whole album and I think I was kind of against like making albums for a little bit isn't it
really about being able to get get a collection of thoughts together and into the body of work that's how it is I think artists like making albums because it gives them an opportunity to to get yeah a whole idea out I did that I feel like I can do that in a in maybe four songs let's talk about the actual creation of this album it totally deserves some time the sound is awesome the tempo the feel this it's really
broad sounding there's a lot of different like it feels like there's a lot of different tones and feelings to it um how did you sort of put it together in one kind of like you say like an album form because some songs are vastly different to the other a lot of them are old songs like like more than half of them are are very old wow like three years old the first song is like was supposed to go on the first album
um wow that makes kind of sense actually and it makes sense today because I came in thinking that there was a body of work that was related to how you feel right now no and I could tell actually that even just in having some of the conversations about some of the subject matter you're a little bit like man you know like I'm past a lot of that I'm so past it and this this another thing with the the routine of the industry is like
waiting a year before you before the album comes out yeah I hate that yeah and and I don't think there should be some sort of Illusion about it like I'm psyched about the songs but realistically I made the songs like
three years ago so let's talk about I'm not trying to sit here and like you know pretend I didn't make these songs like three years ago no that actually really helps me today yeah because now I'm like all right let's talk about right now
yeah let's talk about life right now yeah like what's going on in life right now like what's important to you right now beyond music like how is your lifestyle changed and what's what's life like now I feel good routine working out looking out coffee what about therapy and things like that doing the work I like therapy I just recently stopped doing it though I gotta find a good therapist I'm always going to these like
really old white ladies that are great but uh we don't have a lot in common yeah I like it when I'm like I'm talking to a female therapist yeah just because they're just calm me down but there's also like we don't share a lot of the same life experiences so that's been tough I just quit therapy recently though because it's just like I wasn't getting anything out of it and it's so like I'm paying so much to go I
stopped for a while and then when I got back into it you know I'm I'm a Believer if you can you should it's good so sure to just give the mind I'm sure some support talking about like this kind of need for security and then you can't control life right so you're constantly in an insecure environment because how can you control it if what's going to happen and so that's where all that kind of outside stuff comes from but
family really helps and I wanted kind of your relationship with your younger bro seems really important it's good yeah you know you've shared a lot of experiences when you were kids as well growing up how do you think it's affected him I mean do you keep an eye on him I do keep an eye on him I actually just sent him to damn rehab he's good now yeah we shared a lot of experience I mean that's like my best friend you know
since I was a little kid yeah that's like the one person that I that knows every single thing about me is my little brother and then I can always just be completely honest with there's no one on planet Earth that I can like be completely honest with except for that kid you know we grew up together two years apart best friends shared everything you know food beds um all that so that's my guy does he make music he does make
music he's really good he's got a better voice than I do Alex sounds good dude um he's just got a baby right now and you know I'm trying to move him out to California nice give him a real shot at this you know so it's crazy you're driving around Naples today and just looking around the last 24 hours and sort of realizing this is where he grew up and did yeah and it's just like figuring it out and and it seems really
kind of sleepy and quiet sleepy Beach Town yeah that's how I describe it should go for a drive I'd like that yeah let's do it [Music] hi Jess take care bye moms [Music] [Music] wow look at those clouds bro I guess you get used to the sunshine and but the clouds are doomed it's cool because it'll it'll be the best day ever for a second and then it'll suddenly rain which is nice because when you're at the beach getting drunk all day and
then this kind of washes it off of you right you know what I'm saying no seriously yeah that's like what we would do here I mean this is what you do in the town you get up that's like the only thing that people do here is go to the beach and drink hell yeah is that what what's the whole sunburn thing I mean album titles fascinating well because yeah we were just like really I don't know there's something free and
like sexy about Florida and like the sun you know like tan lines and everyone's just like got barely any clothes on we're all running around just like screaming profanities at the world probably wouldn't be ready for like a lot of the jokes in Florida you can't say in La so it's uncancelable yeah you're uncancelable here what's it like when you come back and and because as you said it's a small town so you still
know a lot of people here right the frame of reference is close and yet you've done all this traveling and moved around and stuff yeah how do you relate to your friends um we're still all cool man yeah yeah all of us are really good um I'm mad normal dude I I think I just I don't I'm not constantly walking around with like security and hopping out of black cars and like you know I'm still the same I just go talk
to my friends I still dress this it's not really that different has this place changed much since when you grew up in it it's changed a lot it's gotten a lot bigger and it's obviously like gentrified and yeah it's like like
I was saying the fastest growing place I mean it's shit's like popping out of the ground every day you know yeah yeah yeah what were your teenage years like teenage years were very hectic um I mean I obviously moved around a lot
that was more like it was like very unstable time for me eventually physically just kind of like all over the place a lot of music though and really like figuring out I think the thing that got me through my teenage years was like the studio and the community that I found in music in this very small town yeah maybe five or six kids were making music and I kind of like you know rounded them up and we kind of
created this movement I think you know because I was like homeless a lot of time and I think what got me through that was just my friends in music yeah so yeah teenage years here were kind of a dude no one wants to see you know what I'm saying all these people are enjoying their lunches and their Margaritas no one wants to see me with like face Taps like hungry as on the side you know it's like I was kind of an eyesore
it's awful to be in your hometown and and not feel like you fit in just something because the means aren't there yeah but the music the music kind of saves you yeah I feel like in music fans from all over the world kind of almost pluck us out of obscurity like their favorite characters from around the music world and and and typically there is like this up little you know story behind it all about how you got
picked how you made it to the to the you know Podium so to speak to like be able to speak your truth all these people yeah it's kind of like the Hunger Games but there's typically a little there's a typically a little sad story you know but like you were saying before your last album coming out it's probably good that it kind of put things in a more in a more rational context because how could you remember lived up to that level of hype that
level of expectation at the beginning yeah the whole expectation I think that's a big part of me kind of feeling away about like promoting the album and even talking about it it's just I don't like to build the expert you don't want to go back there I think it just it has such a bad taste in my mouth from the last time that it happened you know yeah do you have people like peers like other musicians or the artists that you can
relate to in that level honestly like me being trying to trying to get my life together and like be sober and kind of cut me off from a lot of those people and uh and we're very busy as artists you know yeah true we're always all over the world like bakar like Omar Apollo like these like I would love to go hang out with them but I'm in Florida Omar's probably in God Spain or some but cars in the UK like yeah yeah
it's tough I want like a mentor though I would like like an older Mentor that I could that's why I was talking about therapy I can't relate to my damn therapist I was like maybe if I was talking to someone that's been through a little bit of this but I don't even have that I don't you know I hang out with alone I'm alone in World Canyon and it's weird for me because like I'm just so codependent on human beings and I love
having them around and having them to talk to and I feel like everyone else is more accustomed to being on their own and like I feel like I'm the only one that's catching this learning curve I think that was a big thing of sobriety
like whenever I moved out and I was like so what the do I do when I'm by myself obviously like just get drunk and go talk to someone or go hang out with be anywhere else but in my body right no right that's a hard one but it's
definitely worth doing the work on I had a really hard time sitting still in my skin for a long time yeah you know and I had my own distractions for sure I had my own things drinking and whatnot and I think the codependency thing is like really interesting because I'm like bad with that it's super built out of trauma yeah you know you're bonded by trauma absolutely this idea of um separation from your parents that are
really really important important age the love is attached to this idea of needing one another right whereas love shouldn't be a a need that has bled into my relationships actually which is crazy like my my you know romantic relationships yeah that kind of dynamic bleeds into the line and it is often the cause of like the end of my relationships you know yeah I'm gonna get in this late that's a loop that'll
keep you'll keep going around until you figure that one out I'm getting better at it that's why I was saying earlier about renouncing my I'm just done being you know in relationships right now and I've always been in these public relationships dude have you noticed that Jesus Christ yeah I mean people don't give it a break yeah but it's not that hard to like not date a another famous person can I help who you've fallen in love with I know I'm
just saying like my you know I'm always folding on that because every time I go through a breakup now it's like I gotta see somebody on a damn billboard or like God it's a brother yeah yeah there's no use no there's no clean separation there ah dude and even if there is you know these people it twist it and make it whatever they want it to be was the euphor experience kind of acting's a whole other skill set but
yeah I feel like there was a lot wrapped up in that role that you could identify with yeah I mean I was a drug addict and coming onto a show you know mainly about drugs was very difficult Sam the director and writer was like he got me a sober coach somebody to be there you know all the time did not work because I was you know so you were doing the scenes high oh my God yeah dude yeah so up doing a lot of that show yeah it was really bad
uh but you know I was reprimanded for it I almost you know got kicked off the show they took you aside hell yeah they were like bro you cannot be doing this but did they use any of the scenes that you were hired in your show they had a bit of a double standard though in a weird way right it's like we want you to be sober we don't want you to like sit at a standard for yourself or others on set but it's a great scene yeah that's
Entertainment dude you know they give you a bunch of money and they're just like yeah figure it out but sing or Swim are you excited about going back on the shot especially now you saw that yeah so you're sick you know I think I'm just I have a better Dynamic with everybody I mean well almost everybody almost everybody they're gonna make it is that going to make it weird on set you think uh no I think it'll be fine we're all adults
kind of I'm trying well you know you're not the first actor to fall in love with the coast with the co-star man I know it's pretty common yeah it's a real thing dude you're in this very sped up form of intimacy like you know these just things move so much faster I was saying like it's like getting naked in front of somebody acting you know you're just doing this very silly thing and you're just forced
to be like the your silliest and like most vulnerable in front of somebody and obviously that accelerates any sort of intimacy that there might already be and so relationships or or flings are put on a fast track you know what I mean so it's a false Foundation it could be in a sense Yeah because sometimes whenever that slows down or the show's not happening you're like what the do we talk about yeah like did you actually
know who I am we pulled up to the next stop the Gulf Coast Motel this was Dom's idea to visit a room where he and his family had lived for more than six months trying to make ends meet on the wrong side of the law so I knew it was going to bring up a lot of really intense emotions and memories for him but as soon as we got out of the car his whole energy changed thank you yeah buddy all right when's the last
time you're back here uh it's been a long time I was banned from here I took a piss over there and the guy kicked me out a while ago I haven't been back here since kind of wow definitely not in this room I know people always talk about coming back to places that are formative in your life so what was going on when you were in here like where was the money coming from why were you in here um you know it's like Paper Trails and
I feel like it's harder to trace um where money's coming from I think they were just trying to keep it unpredictable like funnel it into different businesses in Florida and I think that my step dad was probably very connected with just like the older people that kind of run the town and uh yeah they own a lot of these businesses and yeah you know he's grown up with these people and kind of like you know he knew about their demons and
kind of took advantage of it all right so you know the money that's coming in is is is narcotics it's drugs yeah yeah do you remember that as a kid do you do you have strong memories at that time um yeah I mean as far as the the drug use you mean or just yeah just the same yeah I mean man uh I I'm kind of like desensitized to it because I grew up you know around my family um just kind of they were just all drug
dealers you know what I mean so I'm I was used to it it didn't really it wasn't so shocking to me and I knew to keep it a secret when at school as well but it didn't bother me it didn't like Tear Me Apart inside you know it was just something that I'd grown up with drugs were never really that um scary to me three nights right is the song that everybody's sang back at you first slake are you lucky to get one of those songs
in your life where everyone just takes it to heart I know and a good one and that happens you know when people start to kind of when they apply it to their life in ways that it's not necessarily relevant to the song it's kind of got to travel into people's lives in a billion different ways I know people hit me up about the meaning of that or certain lines about it and I'm like yeah I guess sure whatever it means for you yeah yeah
but now I've been spending time with you here and I realized that you know three nights in a motel on the street lights it's quite literal it's literally about being stranded in these hotels and and you know yeah I grew up in themselves always writing about them yeah and there were times you spent in the motel on your own with your brother too right yeah man crazy a life man it's like we were talking just as we pulled up about
like what you're born into and how you translated into maturity and and use it for your adult experience yeah you know I can see you're still doing that how important is music for you to understand it even subliminally the way you write um it's becoming more important um as I go on I try not to think about it too technically but I try to use it as like an extension of you know just to be honest through it but I find that to
be honest through it you need to have a little bit of understanding and Technical know-how so yeah each and every day it kind of becomes a little bit more important to me understanding the creation processes what about the way that people respond to music what about Applause you know um Fame success people telling you people coming up to you at festivals or after concerts and telling you I love you've been in your life okay I don't
really I can figure out what that means right because your version of Love is different yeah I'm always thinking of it like they just don't know me well enough to see that this is all just kind of like I don't know because people were telling me that I kind of sort of look relaxed on stage I'm not really that relaxed I was more of like kind of I don't know if it's an act or it's just like something that I've
learned how to do I I don't know I'm always thinking that eventually people are going to figure out this like ruse this like fake you know wow you think like you're worried getting called out yeah yeah that imposter syndrome is Mega Coleman that's yeah I'm actually artists at least I've spoken to throughout my life at some point in your journey I think when things are really good you worry I agree a lot man a lot I don't
know I feel like a lot of my favorite artists have that problem though they're like they're always thinking like I find it funny when my favorite artists have that imposter syndrome yeah you know because I'm like what are you talking about I mean it's really common I think yeah I need sort of doing it for a period of time and becoming aware of that no one can take it away from me you know like no one can stop you picking up
a guitar and writing a song Deal or No Deal that's true right you're an audience now is it weird being back in this room it's really weird I feel like tense should we leave I'm done thank you so much because that was this is too much should we go to beach yeah should get the out of here we're going to the beach growing up in Auckland New Zealand that was our solution for a lot of rough times just go to the beach it's
cleansing washed it off and that's exactly what Dom did after that really intense five six minutes in the motel he had to swim and when he came back it was really clear to me that the story we were there to tell was not where he comes from but more where he is now and where he's going some of us didn't think to bring swimming trunks bro it's painful watching you get in that ocean are you guys going to put this in slow motion
um how was the water oh it's so nice so jealous it's like bath water every time I love the ocean I kind of grew up on the ocean in fact that's some of my favorite places to go you know just just kind of clear clear head and get over things and that's kind of what I'm realizing like as we were driving over here I suddenly thought like man I've been listening to this album searching for the themes and the feelings and the emotions of this album
and I suddenly realized like over the course of the day that you've moved on yeah I have moved on I made that album three years ago like really you know like I was saying um I made it when I was kind of in active addiction and I was in no place to make music so I had to spend a couple years like in rehabs and and things like that but then um when I came back I was able to finish it and it was such like a it was exhausting and it was like really
I had to take a look inside myself and there were so many emotional talks with producers with people that was kind of sort of mentors or people I work with and like it was just a heavy load on my shoulders that I'm grateful to be done with and I understand that now that it is being released that I am that you should promote I am excited I'm a hook to the subject matter a little bit Yeah but it's but it's it's nice I think to
be able to come to this a place like this finish here yeah it's been an awesome day by the way I mean I know it's been tough for you at times the motel I know was tough it was tough yeah yeah I'm sure letting us get out now of course man I don't want you to stay anywhere that's hard but at the same time it's kind of nice to think that maybe this can be an opportunity for you to sort of say once and for all like
that would those were the circumstances that I was raised in that was the horse I brought in on that's not what my life is about anymore yeah I'm done talking about it I'm down to close that chapter of my life yeah you know I feel like when I first kind of got here it was all about where I came from how I emerged from a jail cell or whatever and made it into this foreign you know industry and then and now I'm talking about how the
growing up here has affected my life now and I'm kind of just ready to to move on with life I think it's like clashing because I'm sort of trying to transition into adulthood yeah I'm here at like 27 but I'm still talking about when I was like 16. yeah yeah yeah you know and I think that's my my whole thing with it yeah so how does life feel now it's going forward more questions than us moving faster and a lot of questions yeah more questions
and answers for sure it's moving a lot faster and I find myself having to readjust and I find that if I really take too long and and sit on a decision it affects other people and then there's a chain reaction you know so I find that I have to be a little bit on my feet but also you know all the things I've been through are have kind of prepared me for for this sort of Lifestyle you were saying you've already got
another song you want to shoot a video for so you're in a hurry or or writing them and every time I make a song it's like I feel like it's my best song so it's hard not to like want to put it out you know as soon as you make it yeah yeah I think a lot of artists will feel me when I say that how are you about collaborations going forward because you've kept it pretty pretty tight I mean Ariel's on this
record you I think Kenny's on this records yeah yeah Kenny's on the record but these are people that Remy's on the record Remy's on the record that's about it yeah yeah you do a lot of it yourself right yes you prefer it that way uh yeah now I do for sure I think it's I need to be reaching out to these people I don't need other people to have yeah other people to do it for me or even that artist reaching out to me I think it's
just like I have to be genuinely excited about it yeah and I typically am not about we're just collaborating yeah like I love like you know Dijon but I'm just like I'd rather I don't want to be on a Dijon record they're too good you know I'd just rather just listen to it yeah I know what you mean I mean I think that as we've seen the kind of collaboration era really pick up momentum um and and there's a lot of really valid
personal reasons for people who want to work together yeah I think collaboration is is a beautiful part of art but um there's definitely a little bit of a kind of a culture of like your followers plus my followers it's like a agenda yeah yeah you know when it was good in the 2000s also when Drake was doing that run yeah that's when everyone that's when it was cool and also the remix era like the Ignition Remix yep that's when
it was good now you're right it feels like my followers plus your followers it will make sense will make a song it's not all that way but some of it feels like that you like Drake I love Drake same favorite same he's like my favorite artist same yeah which Drake though there's a lot of drinks I know I mean I like if you're reading this is too late Drake I like so good I like chip on your shoulders yeah like oh you oh you're counting me
out take care of you thank you Drake yo take care of Drake's obviously I listened to take care the other day on a plane ride and I was like dude yeah it's amazing it's so good uh he said some nice things about your Coachella he did That's My Boy low-key isn't that weird you guys know each other a bit uh yeah I went to his house in Toronto wow dude he's not even seen pictures and videos of it looks insane yeah it is crazy dude
no it's it's so they got it figured out he's a real example of you can get money with this you know obviously just like the way he carries himself you know he he he doesn't take himself too seriously he doesn't take himself too seriously you know he absolutely defends his patch and and is loyal to his team yeah but he's he's willing to laugh at himself he's the best yeah who else hasn't disappointed you that you met on
the way wait can you do something with Paul McCartney yeah he didn't disappoint me man he's still with it he's still here all the way you've talked about I bet I love Paul yeah he's still like I don't know some of the older stars that we with and looked up to kind of like their opinions haven't really stood the test of time and certain things that they did and said he's one of those guys that's just squeaky clean too yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah except for the whole Paul is dead thing yeah but he didn't really have nothing to do with that um what's really interesting about Paul is the way that he um he's found a way to be a beetle but live a normal life like how many people can come out of excessive levels of Fame and not a righty at a point when the world was so small if you were massive back then you were the biggest thing on the planet now
there's lots of big yeah and Big's always changing yeah like back then it was now big is like subjected it's like you know because I can walk down any like to some kids I'm like famous and a lot of people I'm just like yeah I'm not even when I would go out to clubs and like some guy would have to be next to me like yo it's he's famous it's all good and then the dude be like I don't know this kid like this kid because it's like
did the Euphoria thing change that though Euphoria definitely definitely changed it but still I still yeah I've been broken into the a B list um which is cool that's a good thing I don't want to go much further though right I don't think you do I mean people say you don't want to but I think you somewhere deep down like I dated this girl that was like I don't know I'm fine with where I'm at I'm like then why are
you working so hard yeah yeah why are we all working so hard if Fame sucks so bad yeah fame's tight dude I like getting my meals for free you know what I'm saying I like being except for that whole bathroom thing like people come up to me while I'm like taking a and I'm like yo dumb it did happen at a movie theater in L.A what the I was taking a and this guy was like yo Dom Pike and I was like oh no and I didn't move and then he
was like I heard that like talking about just me moving around in there I hope that person is watching this right now do you think that person is watching this right now is like yeah dude that was me yeah if he is he's a legend I mean if he is he's doubling down if he high five to tell me then I'm like okay that was me okay now social etiquette's a weird thing I think um I think it's the one one byproduct I've
learned from talking to a lot of people who are very recognizable now is that we just lose our etiquette around them we think like there's almost an ownership there that allows us to treat people a certain way just because they put themselves in front of us through their passion yeah and I think it's really up oh you know because I wouldn't even typically when I have like a negative view on some of that things of Fame it's
things that have risen from the internet right but that seems like it's always been a thing like people kind of just lose their mind when they're around famous people you know what I mean like they probably had no boundaries with Paul back then and like that I mean absolutely you know their stories yeah that's why they're out that's why they were like no more touring I think that's one of the things you sign up for and
Drake you know what's funny speaking back to Drake it always comes back to Drake but he raps about these themes that are just consistent throughout Fame and life and every time I listen to a Drake song I'm like oh yeah this is what we signed up this is what we signed up for yeah but you're at a different level so okay so you're at Coachella and I know that I saw you guys hanging out you're hanging out with a lot of people
who are there on the bill blackpink one of the most successful bands on the planet they are famous now no they're like out of control into cellophane some other yeah doesn't doesn't being around that and you see the way that they have to move with the greatest respect to them they have to move with security they have to move the layers right doesn't that make you go I don't know if I do want that I'm down as long as no one's trying to shoot me
because you can't Dodge that but uh I don't know no you're right that does sound horrible security I'm so bad with security when we have security I'm always like trying to leave them like they'll be like they'll be like handling something yeah and I'll have like a girlfriend or something I'll be like go uh yo Alex go protect her and then I just like we'll slide off to the side yeah I'm bad with security like my
friend like Leroy always rolls around with security all the time you think he needs it yeah kids are annoying to him right yeah right and I mean he grew up in the suburbs of Sydney man like way out that guy's I mean uh think about kid Leroy people forget where he grew up in fact when I first met him I mean he was a proper rugged little Australians a little yeah I met him at like 15 too a little isn't he the best God I
love my peers I think that's the best part about this job and yeah releasing albums is that I get to keep hanging around these people and learning from these it does feel like a generation right I do think about like quitting music and and being like well what else would I go do and there's a million things I would go do but I would miss this community and these group of people that understand me more than anyone
right just my artist friends and just the community of young artists that I hang around even though I don't get to spend as much time with them it's always meaningful meaningful to link up with them and see where they're at how they're handling it like even Omar recently with his hole Yeah with his you know finally the Renaissance oh finally fact I don't know when that was coming but I was like that's got to happen soon
yeah I think about artists within your generational spectrum and I I think like uh you know the access to the internet and the relationship you have through social media with fans that you can or cannot engage with but is expected nonetheless that's never been seen before on this level like I wonder how you deal with that like social media you're born into social media yeah shit's whack honestly um me and Reed fight over that
every day he's trying to get you to do stuff yeah but for a good reason because like if it were up to just me you would never see me on that you know I mean I would use it just for like drunk posts at 3am like killed
this boy in Smash like dumb because I never think to make a post about a song that I released like that's just not in my DNA I don't know I'm never like oh got a post about this that I made last night but for some people that's like a
real that's the math as I'm getting to know you I realize there's a part of you that just is it has you have a serious coin radar like you don't want to be corny you don't want things to look I think I'm just too conscious about being corny I think that's corny I think I'm corny for like not wanting to be corny well obviously think a lot I do think a lot I overthink a lot in the stupid internet has caused that
and all these you know all the I do that's why I'm just trying to get back to making music and then more albums should we go for a walk to the beach I'd love to what's this mean to you how much time do you spend on that as a kid a lot of time as a kid man I used to come down here and like get popsicles with my mom and kind of like watch her drink 80 pina coladas while we just ran around that's honestly really sad to me
yeah yeah a lot of childhood memories just kind of demolished there we used to jump off the end of that too wow it looks a lot crazier when you're at the tip of it it looks crazy from here it does kind of right that's really sad I'm not gonna lie to you what happened uh the last hurricane that came through here just knocked it down and they had actually reinforced it for the purpose of uh withstanding hurricanes
and then you know obviously can you ever withstand a hurricane I mean in full force it's like we do our best right Florida does it a lot you'd be surprised but this is beautiful man and uh it's my first time being in what I consider sort of real Florida yeah you know it is it's lovely I mean I never thought I'd be walking on a beach this beautiful down here off the coast of Florida I don't know why I know it's Beach town but yeah
no it's pristine man I just feel like this is the side of it that you really pay attention to you know the side that you kind of hear about from other people and word of mouth is always kind of the politics and all the violence that happens but no one ever talks about look at this yeah yeah I love how attached to it you still are I mean you've been open about that I love it yeah I love it space would you ever
settle here were you ever settle anywhere yeah I'll settle here I'll settle in uh um I want to put my feet in here um there's a place called royal Harbor where the houses are huge and you just got it like O.J Simpson lives there and oh it's warm it's so nice yeah this is not the day to have left my swimming trunks back in Los Angeles that's the busiest I've ever said it is dude yeah what about the idea of like slowing
down I mean it's it's a strange question for a 27 year old but you live such a fast life already and if we're talking about the future balance has to be something that you've got to Crave at some point right or no no I do I do crave that but I don't know I feel like you got to push it all the way you kind of gotta ride this out until the wheels fall off kind of deal or else I feel like I didn't do it right but um I have like
my reservations about continuing in music and I really sometimes just want to find a nice girl that's like a doctor or a lawyer or something or a nurse I'm just like hang out with her for the rest of my life and have a kid that's the idea of stability again right that is my idea of stability and it's always in another person so maybe I need to rethink that yeah that's that codependency we talked about bad codependent I love that you're putting
into the music because it really helps other people better understand themselves too all right man so the next few months is touring touring you're excited about that you said that's good about touring the new album that everyone gets to listen to touring soba touring sober yeah I did that the last tour oh good that's great so you've covered that yeah that's good it was difficult that's a big learning curve not that not that
it's something that I really did a lot on tour because you know every tour has been this me playing catch up to all the other live artists so I wasn't like getting super up yep it was maybe a little Point like a stretch of months where I would drink a little bit but I don't know so the sunburn era bro calling time on all of that stuff man it's been a crazy day I'm really grateful that you brought us out here or invited us at least to
come and spend some time in Naples I'm I'm not sure I would have had a reason to come no you would not have come but I'm glad that I did and uh I know some of it's been a bit challenging for you to relive but um hopefully it I guess you're a step closer to letting it go I am yeah thank you I feel like this has helped a lot thanks man congrats on the out thank you so much see you down the road [Music] foreign