everything you drop is a Banger I mean where's the lie all packs [Music] congratulations the album is out that's smash that's the smash that was a smash that one's a smash unholy's a bonus track that's a show-off move isn't it yeah I mean the biggest song of the last
12 months is on Deluxe bonus mode I think it's so basically it's so flossy pretty messed up but I had to do it no I love it I absolutely love it um thanks for taking the time to speak i'm's out I mean we try to make this happen in the
exciting pre before the item came out yes to get everybody you know super psyched up um I actually low-key and I don't often broadcast this because it works sort of affect my business but I I actually really like to talk to artists after the
music comes out we do a lot of talking before the music comes out um it's hard to walk outline sometimes having heard the music when the fans haven't heard the music to be able to get the right information and make it comfortable for you to talk to the fans
about it you know what I'm saying yeah so it's much nicer for me to be able to share in the joy of the music like everyone else has and ask you the first question which is how does it feel after an album comes out oh um it feels like so exciting because you you've heard all
the opinions of people people's favorite songs all of that and um it's it's so you know the songs aren't mine anymore they're they're now everyone's which is a different outlook on everything and uh but but yeah I'm just I'm so proud of
this record and I'm so proud of uh everyone I've worked on it with and I really feel like um it's not gotten tired on my part at all and I'm so excited I'm putting together the show right now so putting together the tour serious tour I mean amphitheaters were
talking this is some of the most beautiful and prestigious venues in the United States yeah I'm so excited and uh I I mean that's kind of I feel like that's what I made this album for too is it's just to for the tour experience I
think about like how you're gonna put your set list together because it's not like it's all I mean yes everything it makes a banger but they're hot out bangers as well yeah um you know you definitely explore some sides of of your
songwriting and your feelings on this record and and you do so in the most open and vulnerable way um you know was it was it challenging to get yourself to that place where you were willing to share those sides of things you know what I mean
um I I felt like this is being an obvious example yeah a thousand piece is one of my favorites especially since like writing with Max has just been like such a trip like I love Max Martin and just like being kind of in the in that room was was crazy
um no it felt necessary for me I feel like I had some really personal highs and lows kind of while Unholy was kind of taking off and while like my life had really changed and um it wasn't all like happy and like yay I'm so successful now it's also like a
lot of pressure and just new things and criticism and especially I think with Unholy being you know a song that was so like for me and Sam so like about like our identities and stuff like that and I think so many people just like really
you know tried to like tear that down so I felt very emotional while all of that was happening it's interesting with Unholy I think people look did it like it was some kind of like over sexual statement to me Unholy is almost a protest song yeah
yeah I mean I mean us too I mean that's that's about it too um so so yeah it's it's interesting just how people saw that and saw us kind of celebrating uh you know the our uh kind of you know what we had to like overcome to like be ourselves yeah
um you and Sam know each other you understand each other like you do your friends within your community that are being unapologetically yourselves and yet Society still expects apologies if they don't understand something across the board it's what one of the most
bizarre parts of our humanity and holds us back in a huge way from evolving to a necessary place to go forward yeah so what about you what have you learned from the Unholy experience to your point of standing in the middle of a typhoon
where one side is success and the other side is this kind of criticism what did you learn about um where Society or where people Humanity are right now in terms of the kind of conversation you want to have versus the conversations that they don't want to hit
um I think I think what I've learned is that people are just you know people are going to assume whatever they want to assume and you can't control that and um people are scared of what they don't know um and I I think for me something that I
just like genuinely always felt is like I want to learn about different experiences I want to accept them I I wish everyone to find a way to make it through life and be happy however they want to make it and to be less judgmental especially you know seeing
Sam and like the things that people had to say about Sam just make me sad as as a friend you know and and someone who just like loves music and is such a talent and such a light and they're so brave as well Sam is yeah same 100 is is unafraid to defend their right to be
themselves yes which which I also you know which I find inspiring for me and so um but but it really also reminded me of just like my life you know when I when I was a kid it was like you're wrong and we need to try to fix you and like what
can we put you on or uh you you know it was kind of like something about you is wrong and we need to fix you I mean I mean from psychologists to like Mental Hospitals to like doctors and all that stuff because I knew so young that was like my childhood was all like Mental
Hospitals and so um there you know I found a way to um you know make it in my life so I can live with myself and be happy and I think that's something that people should be uh happy for you for but it just reminded me of that you know like
uh like I remember my grandparents saying like well cool that you're you know like great that you like found what you're gonna do but you're gonna go to hell now you know like I remember like things like that and it's just I know Sam grew up around that same kind of
thing where it's like okay by being myself I'm now something evil and something that you know shouldn't exist and so um I think just the Grammy performance and Unholy it was all just like kind of you know reminding us of that and what
what people told us yes it's tough that's tough I think what thank you for sharing that I mean I think that's beautifully beautifully described for people that that perhaps don't understand that success can actually bring up a lot of trauma yeah getting
what you want can often be the take you to the closest place of what it felt like when you were at your lowest point yeah for sure and uh yeah it's it's a mixture of that you know it's it's highs and lows and I'm so grateful for for the highs you know like
we want to grab me we're just crazy and uh something like I'll never forget but but also it just like kind of reassured me in my just I just need to make the music and everything else is up to you and in general what I know about myself
and is that I you know I'm just trying to be like I found how to be myself and I want the same for you I'm not trying to tell anyone how to be however you are and however you make it through life is valid and it's great but um I think a lot of people were like oh
they're pushing this agenda and trying to make people what they you can't make people yeah something they're not and so I just like kind of found um you know kind of feel like I got stronger in my in my point in myself of
like I want to inspire you to find you know yourself and be yourself and I uh not trying to push you to be anything or be like me you know it's so it's so beautifully described and really highlights the fact that you are coming from a place of generosity really
allowing others to exist in their life just allow me the space to do the same yeah and yet that almost makes the other side of the conversation angrier and louder and more frustrated and more fearful for sure and they keep throwing these terms around which are going to
get us nowhere fast in fact they're taking us backwards fast yeah which is like um you know almost like you have a choice and you know because we're having what I consider to be a really important and lovely conversation about this human
conversation about this yeah when people say things like that either to your face or in the media or they say you know it's a choice or whatever can you try to find the words to describe the feeling that is the opposite of that when you're
a child and you know that you have work to do and a journey to go on in order to find your true self and that it's not a product of your imagination or a choice or something that you created as an artificial form of value that it's it's
deep within you so that if someone's listening to this and they still say that they might get a little bit closer understanding that it's no more of a choice for you than it is for anyone else to breathe and walk in their shoes yeah well well it's it's
alienating you know like I think the first few experiences I've had with people trying to communicate with them were very alienating and I could talk to my family about it you know I um was very new from a very young age exactly you know who I was inside and
just um it kind of from the first few meetings and psychologists and trying to you know get to the bottom of it it was kind of like just like oh you know just make your kid live uh as what your kid doesn't feel like you know they are and
so yeah it was just um people didn't believe me and people you know thought I was uh crazy for it and so it's I feel like that's very rooted in me and like I think that's why I uh music made me feel like I have the same feelings and emotions as everyone else and when I
listened to music it was very like oh you know maybe I am just like everyone else and um but yeah it was definitely just trying to be forced uh to forget this idea that I had of myself I think it's an idea like it's an idea like it's an
idea yeah and it's and it's not it's just I've I've personally always known it and everyone has their own journey of of getting to know themselves and that's that's beautiful you know um but but yeah it just it felt very similar to that you know what what everyone kind of
on the political and like uh you know it got so political too about just like me being myself and well Fearless just trying to make music you know yeah yeah but also fear is born out of politics and politics goes searching for fear
because the truth is is that's how we create control mechanisms to hurt large groups of people into one way of thinking which makes it easier ultimately to make money yeah for sure it's really just ultimately about money I mean I'm sorry it kind of is it just
all comes back To Have and Have Not Right and who can get hit fastest um you owe you are 100 winning your own side of the conversation by being the artist that you had always and being yourself and and history will prove that to be the case
um and pop music has man did pop music show up for you yeah which is which is so incredible I mean Madonna and Sam and Nikki and uh I'm just I'm so you know over the moon of of just like how special it's been and how like accepted I feel in in that world
well because pop music and I was talking about this with you about Nikki and about how Nikki's identity the way that she plays around and creates her identity no one can say that Roman's any different to Nikki and Nikki's any
different to this person yeah Barbie and the whole thing of the way she plays it's all who she chooses to be at that moment in time and that's one of the beautiful things about things like pop music is it allows you to subvert you know David Bowie one of the great
chameleons of the artistic era of humanity chose how he chose to wanted to go and you can never tell him that he was playing a role yeah this is who he is in that moment in time so in a way it's the perfect job for someone who wants to be able to live with freedom
yeah for sure and and I definitely at that you know and that's so exciting for me and I feel like especially with this album Feed the Beast it's like I really just uh explore all the sides of myself and it's all over the place and it's not
just tied down to to one thing and uh but it's like all all of me is in there uh so and I feel like it just makes for a really uh fun experience all the way through because it takes you through the highs and the lows and that kind of
that's what I wanted to do because like that's what kind of like success and everyone being like well you got everything you want it now um why don't we say that to each other I know how successful do we turn around and go it's almost like an accusation
well you've got everything you wanted now yeah but I didn't really know I wanted that I just wanted to keep going yeah for sure like I just want to keep keep doing this for sure that there's no like one goal that's like the goal is
the journey the goal is to always make music always evolve always find new things to talk about find new Sonic worlds and all of that you know I want to do this forever but uh you know it's it's great but with that just comes a lot of stuff to work through do you
think about your younger self and and if you'd had somebody in your life did you yeah yeah for sure um I mean I think for for me um like someone like Madonna who really broke down kind of gender barriers and things like that and I think like had
conversation about you know gender and uh you know homosexuality and the lgbtq community like that was someone oh and religion and faith and religion through line and all of that absolutely at a time when America was just trying to figure out like how to make religion
colorful how to put some color into religion right and then here she is and she's just like oh we can go way further than that for sure so so that was someone who inspired me as as a kid a lot to just uh be myself what was their
first meeting like uh insane she came to the SNL after party and I just like talked off your ear about how much I love her music when she walked in yeah did you run stomach go inside out yes isn't that the best feeling it's the best feeling yeah no uh Madonna I'm in
and died and when I met Cher I I died yeah it was crazy yeah I'm doing that that was insane yeah I love Cher what's it teach you about star power because you have it Kim but I mean but you know I think star power is something that you also grow you have an innate
Charisma which others are drawn to and that and a confidence that sometimes comes from trauma which others are drawn to yeah but the actual idea of like walking in the room and shutting down the SNL after party you've got to earn
that yeah so what's it like when you see people like Cher and Madonna walk in what does it teach you about star power yeah I mean it definitely is I think it's something that that grows over time the more secure you become about yourself and the more that you grow into
yourself I think a lot of people uh just I think it's about realizing what makes you special and what's something that only you do and uh emphasizing that God and really narrowing it down to to this is what I do best and this is like where
I fit into everything I think in the beginning you know everyone every artist kind of starts with like emulating what they find great the music that they like and listen to and then trying to recreate it and then uh by doing that you start finding your own nuances and
what you know makes you different than other people and I think it's the people that find what makes them different and go down that track all the way that really you know grow presence and uh their own aura that that just no one has
and so yeah I think just all of those artists have that and that's what gives you like the tingle and like what makes you makes everyone like look when you enter the room you know it's just that like unexplainable Aura thing you know
the one of the things you sit in there in that great answer was um be willing to go down that road all the way like yeah in a way that is the one thing that that people can take from that answer and apply to their life because you know if you find yourself in
a Zone where you appreciate who you are and what you can offer that's one thing but you gotta hold the line that's where people like Madonna really Shone through for a lot of a lot of General is that she if she believed wholeheartedly in it
no amount of pressure with it from the public governments anything of that nature would ever deviate her from their path for sure like I mean you have to because like people are gonna criticize everything you do as as they should you know and uh if you don't believe in it
it's gonna tear you apart you know you you need to make sure that everything you do you stand behind and I think that's the most important part of the whole gig but when you say as they should that blows my mind because that shows a level of generosity in terms of
how people relate to one another that someone who's been through the kind of childhood and the experiences and the challenges and the criticism you've been through shouldn't be exercising it blows my mind that you still have a a place in
your heart for that and that you know you there are different varying scales of criticism I know you're not saying people should be rude to each other but it blows my mind that you still have an open mind toward that and that for some
reason you don't have a gate that's pulled up on that kind of attitude more yeah I mean look everyone in this world gets gets judged you know so so so will I and like I'm down for that and I always want to you know I love reading what other people have to
have to say about me when it's when it comes from a genuine place of I listen to the music or I watch the performance and like here's my like true thoughts and uh even if it's something negative you know I can learn stuff about myself
it's I mean it's like when it becomes like insulting or it's you know that that is something that I just like try to block out but but I think in general like criticism and uh that stuff is something that that's good you know I um yeah I make music and I want to know
what people think about it yes you do this album Feed the Beast is like epic or words lead to this moment in time everything you've made up to this point leads to this moment in time right the skill levels higher the collaborations
are more meaningful the relationships inside the creative space a better everything just flows on this album um thank you you're in a really sweet spot here even in the uncomfortable places that you take yourself thank you I want to talk a little bit about some
of the people you work with I mean the ghost cat the snow leopard Max Martin the person I've been trying to chase down for a conversation for about nine years yeah yeah so if you know any good word you can put and I'd appreciate it
um he is just this remarkable enigmatic figure who only works with the best um so what can you tell us about that experience from your perspective of working with this pop music Master well for me I feel like I had studied his sort of philosophy of of music and pop
for since I was a teenager before you even met him yeah I remember just watching YouTube videos and interviews and anything I could find so do you think when you met him you reflected him back at himself a little bit a little bit that's awesome yeah for sure I mean
I uh just had studied him so much that I that I definitely like knew his philosophies and all of that that stuff and then it was really just like once that was kind of established it was just going in and having fun and it was just
coming up with Melodies and he's you know the same as me in the way that we both just like went into the booth and just like Freestyle anything that came to our minds and then we picked out the best parts together so it's fun with him
yeah it was really really fun and uh I think that's the way um you know it's should be working with and and I'm happy he hasn't like lost that fun you know yeah because like someone who has done it for as long as like a Max Martin like I was like scared
it was going to be like stale or you know anything because I think because Max only focuses on the fun parts right which is why I can't get hold of Max yeah yeah like it's it's like I hope one day when we meet and we do this he'll walk
away and go that was fun but I respect the fact that he has figured out that the most fun thing he can do is spend a day with you that I mean that would be the the biggest thing in the world I mean it's cool because like I uh the first thing after the Grammy uh when I
when I came back down is I hugged Max Martin and he was like he had like a tear in his eye and he was like so happy he's just a great guy and I really uh would love to you know would recommend anyone to work with maximize you can
recommend it all day put them in the room hey Max it's uh Zane here Kim recommended hello hello I think I think Max makes the call yeah that's why it's so great whenever I speak to artists who've worked with him because it is a relatively short list I
mean you know considering who he could work with which is anyone in that world hands down an honor an honor I think that's what the gift of the present is yeah I think without it we would all go crazy for sure I mean it's too big a comp to comprehend and so I think that's
why when they say stay in the moments their present stay in the moment what they're saying is give yourself the best bit of dealing with the unknown because it's all unknown yeah it really is like the the key to everything and it's it's
so hard I mean especially if you like there's a lot of noise in your head and I feel like in general like yeah I just assume like myself like I'm I always have like a million thoughts you know so you have a lot of noise in your head
yeah like tons of noise and I feel like it's it's been so essential for me to like learn to meditate and learn to be in the moment and learn to breathe because I can just keep going and going and going you know because anxiety and the energy it creates within your body
is actually incredibly powerful fuel yeah for sure I mean I I recently I watched a lot of stuff about like stress and positive stress and how to transform stress into being a positive thing interesting and uh I I've always wanted to be really really busy like that's
always been like my dream you know to have a back to back to back schedule you know workaholism is also a coping mechanism for sure yeah definitely I mean I know for sure all right I'll I'll take that as some advice to think no I mean but
I'm more I'm more reinforcing what you're saying which is to take that the idea of of stressful energy of the of your desire to want to work something wrong with wanting to work hard in a place after something that you love it's just acknowledging that there are times
you might be doing it to avoid something and how do you then translate that into a truth for sure yeah you know that's that's a that's a life's work but yeah I mean we can all find ways to distract ourselves in life for sure yeah it's
it's always been like a hard thing for me to like sit down and just do nothing like oh you know that's just been something that's always been the hardest but I feel like I'm forcing myself to do it too and like you you have to at some
point like you reach like that like limit and you're like if I don't recharge I'm not gonna have anything to offer anyone and so yeah learning that it's a process so you meditate I meditate yeah I keep trying it I you know I I I mean I know it's really frustrating
until it like clicks it's like for me I was like always like I've been trying for like six years or something you know just like recently like the last year clicked so keep at it peace we found some peace in it yeah that's all I want
I don't mind if I you can't master it I just right want to feel like I'm I need to be more open to it I just feel every time I just get into a place something shut you know you know when you're just about to go to sleep but you've got too much coffee in in your
system or you're too much anxiety or something's going on your head whatever you're just about to go to sleep and then you just keep waking yourself up and you're just like oh man I just want to allow myself to go to sleep that's kind of how it feels for me a little bit
sometimes do you ever go through that with a meditation thing which is like yeah I think that that was my my main thing why it took me so long to get into it because I was kind of like I you know I came here from Europe to La La changed
my life but I was still like ugh I'm going to become an LA person and start meditating and doing yoga and like you know like I was just like so like you know like no don't become that that I was standing in like my own ways smash beers
totally so I was kind of torn what path I should go down and then um yeah and I'm glad that I overcame that because we haven't lose control though was there ever a point in your life when you felt like you were hitting down an out of control path yeah yeah for sure
um I think right before like stop pop uh there was definitely just like a lot of like substance problems for me which I've always you know had I feel like medication and things like that for me had always been a thing because like again like in my childhood
yeah totally like if you open the Gateway for you totally so it's it sucks but it I definitely have struggled before in my life and I feel like it only emphasizes the the bad you know uh in the end so so I've just kind of learned my lesson over time with that
when did you learn your list and what was the moment Clarity for you I think when I just started losing friends and just said when I woke up and told people things that were unacceptable to me that I treated people bad you know and like people I care about so
um I think that for me was like the wake up point where I was just like oh my God like it and you don't even remember like any of it and it just uh yeah keep going and that's just like when when you start not being yourself and not like living
by like your own like this is who I am as a person you start betraying that I think that's that was my turn around thing well I was just like this is just something I don't do and I don't ever want to do again so with the weight this
conversation we've spoken on online and virtual and quarantines and phone calls and all kinds of things but it's so great to meet you in person and just to be kind of getting weaving in and out of the music and just you know it all it all makes sense all connected yeah all
of it's connected and that's crazy I think listening to this album you know Feed the Beast it's you're so good at creating a pop Universe of of bringing people in to create something that feels like pop music is just alive and moving forward
that I think some people forget about the challenges and the trauma and the and the things you've been through that do end up in these songs yeah they they all do you dress them up in fancy clothes but they are there yeah which which I love you know I love fancy
clothes and I love dressing stuff up I love it all yeah no but that's you know I think that's that's what pop is kind of all about like taking taking your real life and making it something that's more emphasized and more intense
even than that and so that's what I've always loved about it that that you can take the Hideous situations you've gone through and make them into something beautiful pour your anxiety into it and transform it into something beautiful and positive
um what happened to the album that by the way it rejects an album in 2022. who does that I mean I'm kind of impressed like who turns around to when artists and goes not good enough like it's like something from the 1990s you know what I
mean hey what's up you're gonna be a big star kid but not with these songs these songs back to the drawing board kiddo uh it's kind of fire honestly I mean it's like kind of uh some oh yeah at the time did you want to kill that person yeah yeah for sure and I mean
especially just like the the person who leaked it I mean it was just like so intensely annoying oops uh I have no idea but it's definitely like someone I know and that's what's really annoying about it like you know so it was just a double
whammy in a lot of ways and really stung and that was kind of the album where I set up like we set up the studio in like the closet of the Airbnb we got for lockdown and uh did everything like me and my friends like all together like every night just like trying to make
music trying to make something that made life have sense yeah and uh so so yeah it sucks my fans still have the music which is the good part you know like they don't feel like they got robbed of this album and neither do you in a weird
way I would imagine what I'm telling you I don't know I I would how I would look at it I don't know man I'd be so bummed as well but I think at the same time perhaps there's a reality where um you got the best thing out of it anyway which was the camaraderie and the
experience yeah and the therapeutic elements of making something and it may not have come out in a way that this is coming out which is kind of perfect but it's served its purpose right for sure and I mean how much better is the timing
of of this and feed the beast and uh what happened with Unholy and all of that stuff you know so so there's a blessing in everything and uh that you know hoping that I'll you know find a way to to put that out as well at some point I I think definitely taught me
lessons and writing wise like there was some like just stuff on that that I love and listen to to this day so life is good huh I mean I know it's hard and I know and I know it's hard because I have friends like salmon yeah and and other
friends of mine who continually remind me in in the most again the most sort of generous and empathetic way that their reality is not what the headlines say which is like with the in the positive magazines it's Progressive we're moving forward it's
like that's not what happened to me today yeah and I know it's still really hard and unnecessarily unfair but for you it seems like you're in a good place now thank you yeah no I I feel like I am and I feel like I just whenever I get to really like release my music
and perform it and all of that I'm so happy you know I don't feel like I'm really meant to be like at home you know I love waking up in a different city every day I love I love to travel I love to uh you know see my fans everywhere
and it's just been like finally I'm like really fully back to it and it sucks sucks when like that gets pulled from you and like you don't get to release an album but it really turned out for the better this time so so I feel that just
like recharged and as a performer I want to push myself so hard this tour and uh have like ideas that are just like I have to do or I'm gonna like die you know it's like I have to make them reality so uh yeah I'm just passionate and I feel like this Feed the Beast
album really just kind of represents all the different sides to me kind of feels like a sum up of what of what we've done all roads led to this that's how I feel too so I feel like it's like when you listen to this you get me and I'm excited about what's next like I'm
already like writing and working on it and and yeah whenever I just get to be creative and just like can shut off I think the both uh around me I'm very happy and uh yeah excited to talk to you and so I just like love doing this [Music]