well i want to say having both of you here together is a real joy as a team when it comes to making music it's a triumphant collaboration this album is amazing start to finish everything that i think people could have hoped for when they read that you guys are working together it was interesting because the
last track on it was originally a different song so we were almost like completely committed to the out it was called uh it's called times of my life but now let's play this when i'm gone um so there was like a i guess like you know a week ago essentially or two weeks ago
they called and they're like hey there's a tom petty similarity between learning to fly and and your song and um it like i mean because we had done the same thing where we had listened front to back and we're like wow this is a this is a it's a complete album and then the moment happened uh where we couldn't
use it and then trav was like throw play this one i'm going in there and that was that moment when i recorded that song the studio was like dead silent and really like heavy and that was a song that trav encouraged me to write i actually started writing it i wrote two or three lines and then
stopped and i asked him to move on to another song to record and we recorded like two songs of that song and he was like nah man go back to the other side what made you want to start writing that song before i asked travis what made you want to ask him to carry on i need to know
what made you want to start writing it because it's essentially like saying it's a letter kind of that was saying goodbye to my daughter for whenever that time comes you know too much yeah travis recognizing that the path to true authenticity is through true vulnerability and you've been there and
you've experienced that that comes with experience how did you encourage uh kelly to to revisit that song and to see it through well it was kind of in the in the beginning or middle of of making the album and we were we had started i had like this loop idea that my friend had sent
me and i was like well this guitar thing really i don't know just feels like something right from the get-go and then we started writing and we started talking about you know we both been in those situations where we made we made horrible decisions and you know sometimes some that would maybe
take us away from our family and our friends indefinitely you know um so we started writing it but i think it was like kind of like such a downer kel's i mean correct me if i'm wrong but i felt like he was like yo let's do something upbeat and fun and i was like
but i just got chills for the last 20 minutes we were writing the song and we were working on this song so we went back to it and and finished it started as a letter i wrote i wrote my daughter a letter the night before my chest was heavy there was all this it was it was really gnarly and i was
telling trav about it the day after being like you know like like last night i thought i almost croaked man and like you know i was i was writing this whole thing out in my notes pad like so that i was going to send to my daughter and like we throughout talking about it he was like
you gotta you gotta go in and say that so i mean even even just re-saying all this i'm so glad that we went with that as the last song because that just has such a it was so deep rooted oh yeah and even just the way you filtered it down you know you kept the vocal going and the sentiment if i miss you
uh and you filtered it so that it's eternal that's crazy that you noticed that because like i didn't want it to be filtered out and travis was like not filtered out because it'll sound like they're putting you like almost like in a coffin and you're like dude that's so weird that you
noticed that that's crazy i remember going back and forth on that okay cool the album starts in the most beautiful way possible uh you know it lays out the stall immediately um it what it does is it it throws into question um the intention behind all of it yeah i actually got really really mad
yesterday when reading a review that was like oh you know i had it's a great like like has great like pop catchy tunes or whatever and i was just like god you just missed it you just missed it it's so brutal it is so like it's such a diary of someone going in and out of like sanity and like one and vanity and all
of these other things that you're just you know i'm so glad you caught that man i mean to me the the the best part about it was that you can like play it and like hear it amongst all of the other things you're doing in your house and in your life but like if you listen to it it's
it like it cut you couldn't have picked a better partner to work with on this because if somebody understands the idea of being misunderstood in terms of how people perceive his band on the on the surface versus how deep that band have gone historically it's travis i think with this album with
tickets and obviously with blank at first listen you hear these songs that are upbeat and almost sound happy but then they have the darkest undertones and they're telling you know the darkest most unfortunate story and um and i feel like with kells and tickets it's a roller coaster of that
but it's funny because in actually acknowledging that this is kind of part and parcel with who you've become this person who inspires this adoration but really what are they adoring are they adoring the real you or they adoring the car crap i i was coming from a place of feeling
like everyone already counted me out anyway so this was like an album where it was like i'm with my dream collaborator i'm with my like also my big bro i'm like learning life things and i'm kind of just like we didn't have a purpose for making the album you know no no no no label was in a rush to get a
machine gun and it wasn't like trav was like yeah dude you know i got to get this off my brain it was like it was almost like the universe already wrote this album and it just figured out two conductors to make it happen yeah for sure travis you said something before which i just kind of want to
thoughtfully and and empathetically uh dive into a little bit which was there were moments of real joy making this record there were moments of real challenge and moments when you felt like um you know through the process of making music you were concerned about kelly's health
and state of mind and so i want to put that to cali and ask you you know someone we've had honest conversations about the fine line between art and mental health and how there really isn't a line um and i wanted to talk to you a little bit about some of the some of the learnings and some of the
the the ground you covered whilst making this record you know i found a much different relationship with with my friends and family and my my daughter most importantly because there was a point where i was recording it i was just on drunk autopilot like i i would i was just like
showing up on the studio traveling like that was my comfort place like i would just come and like lay sprawled out on the couch for a second and just like get straight up and just go like record a million lines and like take an adderall and take do a drink a million coffees and like
and when i left travis i would feel lost again and i would drive 120 miles an hour home and hope that i get there when i got there you know i would just be like i just can't wait to get back to travis's so i'm just gonna i'm just gonna go out again and i'll you know i'll wait till my body forces
me to go to sleep and then then it got to a point where like dude like later on during the album it was like i was dropping my kid off to play with travis's kids and like that and like i was getting to see how his home life is like the model for what someone like me should be going you know what i mean
like going to achieve and like then i found love and then i found you know then then me and travis would go on on runs together and like he would be getting my mental together and with that being like nah like you know just real real og stuff and like now we go to grocery stores and get
fresh juices together you know what i mean so like the like the like it's been more than an album yeah bro it's been a lifestyle change travis to ultimately thank for all of that so it went much much deeper than the music and i was because that was because he opened his his heart
and his home up to me because it could obviously just stayed music but i i need i like i needed i needed like a that that figure in my life you know what i mean i needed like a big help me to calm me down travis tough question but i know that you know you and i have enough of a history that you know it's coming
from a good place when you're in an environment where you're recording somebody and you're collaborating with them and it's a deep and personal experience and you see that they're leaning into that creative space as a means of distraction to some degree as a coping mechanism rather than a release
and you got you know and that's that's a dangerous place to be um before you were able to kind of nurture him through this were there moments when you were concerned that making this album was to some degree enabling his behavior um i mean i i've obviously been there so
i was watching him and i was we were almost you know i would share stories and stuff to you know in the beginning of the album where i was living very recklessly and whether it be with like girls or drugs or whatever and we had we had a lot in common too much in common
um and then during the process of this i saw him like he had said like it went from you know like burning the candles at both ends and and you know being able to come and write to i think like and i was there too not knowing how i would write or how i would do my everyday without all the drugs and with all
out all the self medication and then i saw you know especially when his daughter would come visit a a different side of kells and um and i mean i think not even thinking about it the best thing i could do is lead by example like i could still be in the studio i could still make great albums and
and have you know crazy fun times with my friends but i don't have to do it at the you know at the expense of somebody's well-being yeah yeah yeah hurting myself for those around me if something happens to me and then i i really watched him grow all the way you know to the end
to like the last few months where he's fallen in love and this relationships means more than anything to him and obviously his relationship with his daughter has always meant you know the world to him and and just i've just seen the lifestyle change without me ever having to be like
have that rough whatever awkward conversation with him he just i just watched him grow over the last six months in in a pace that you know i i've never seen anybody um kind of grow like that and just proud of him tickets to my downfall yeah yeah roll up roll up and come see the circus of demise but it's really
gonna get it it's really only gonna end in your demise because guess what living vicariously is the worst way to live um so with that being said it leads us to an insulate um which which where that it that message is present uh the last line being you know um and i can't i'm so sorry i'm terrible
i have to paraphrase but when it's time for me to say goodbye i don't wanna i don't wanna close my eyes and feel like i haven't lived um it's a really tender moment uh it's you and and your current partner um and it's one of those things that i think ultimately to some degree informs your
journey which is you know a life well lived whether it's it's destructive or productive yeah but i didn't know what i meant until you just said that that's that's what i meant whoa that's crazy this is that moment where it's just like all right cool if i have to grow if i have to go forward i have to make a
record that helps me do it right because that's the only outlet you have to support you jews yeah you can't help who you fall in love with uh you simply can't do that and um and and yet you find yourself in a situation where you're you know you're you are in that environment where um you
know privacy is it comes at a cost how are you finding the balance between protecting what is ultimately yours genuine question what is what matters to you what is what is your personal um you know right to be able to experience based on how you you know how you feel versus what
the rest of the world wants out of this i think it's kind of like the album where it's just like it's it's it's not on me to to shelter or anything anymore like i think it's like we're we are a vessel to even show love you know like tickets to my dad like that interlude i put that on there
because i was like man like we we just as much as we encourage like this lifestyle that travis and i grew up in where it's just like fast life fast girls fast drugs about all that like let there be love in there too man like that that would be sick to see a generation of kids fall in love you know
like those moments are great moments you know like i'm 30 years late on it but man i'm so glad it happened you know what i mean like you're right on time one of the sort of key collaborative moments on the record is you and halsey um again a couple that was much talked about
written about whatever truth or false doesn't really matter the point is the chemistry on the song is really evident um and it finds halsey really pushing that tone that she has which for me is one of the sort of most stealth incredible tones in modern music today like when she sings
in her natural zone it is like shut up shop go home i know your name's on the record but it's not your record anymore um and you know you really sort of pushed her into a space where she's spitting how was that experience working with her and getting her to step outside of her comfort zone
which is a dope zone by the way it took her five minutes to write that verse to tell you that much she was in it that was the quickest feature session i've ever had in my life she came in and i i have on camera the moment when she tried to do a low tone i've wasted so
much time and we were all like okay sick like this is dope and then did the next take she was like let me let me try higher i wasted something dude we all we all were like what was that like that's it do that pissed pissed it was so good dude so good she might have one-taked it dude she even it was
crazy yeah she pretty much did she was in the booth maybe 10 minutes and what's crazy is we had another song that we had wrote that we were like oh this would be cool for halsey and i think like did you even send it to her kels like we i think we knew and then we were working on this up-tempo song and i was
like yo this is the song we should put halsey on whatever and like i think you sent it to her that night the next day she came in was in the booth like 10 15 minutes tops and the song was finished bro i almost felt like i almost felt like she was randomly passing your studio when i
called her because she remember she pulled up in like 30 seconds she was like yeah 30 seconds so like i think we were really lucky man like with just how all the same with trippy like trip we had a whole song for trippy and trippy came trippy was like yo i'm like i'm actually close to y'all you
want me to come by this was it like one in the morning after i promised traffic could go home speaking no dude this was this was five in the morning five in the morning it's exactly like what you said where you're like it's nice to see trash travis if you want to take the big chair
then you got to do the big hours and you know that right like oh dude this from a guy who spent a majority of his life until he started producing coming in in three days probably one day going perfect perfect perfect and then going while mark and tom have to slave over riffs and
you're just like i'm out so now it's payback time trav hey dude a lot of the magic on this album happened at like three or five in the morning most of the time which was cool dude i lit zayn i'm literally like trav after this song like i promise like i know it's been a long day like making this
wrap up this is around one o'clock trippy hits me like yo i'm about to come through and i like to travel i'm like yo we did want him on this though that would be so clutch like we should just wait is this your is this is it wait wait wait wait is this your cell is that what you do
i just got a real insight into how kells sells the picture oh oh yeah this is me steli oh i totally oh man it should be just caught i mean yo we did talk about it though man i mean i'm just saying like it's on you but i'm just saying we did discuss it but we did just have this whole talk so i mean if
it doesn't happen it's because of you trap so we so he's so so trav's like i'm seeing trav kind of like hit the like two it's 2 a.m now we called him an hour ago so i'm like i call trippy or a facetime trippy i'm like what up dude he's eating i'm like oh you you aren't on your way he's like
yo i just ordered boston nova like i'm on my way as soon as i eat bro he comes through at like 3 45 in the morning trav's like dead we dude i forgot about this we play the song trippy doesn't like the song he's like oh at this point travis is just literally standing up and like adjusting himself
looking for his keys like he's half out the door and that song is like to rewind back the song we played him is the reason why we originally got in the studio too because when i came to see you and thug you had been like yo travis i've been working on some like cool rock music with trippy
and i was like oh facts play for me and he plays his track i was like oh that's my track like i i gave that to tripp and he's like i'll play another one and then i'm like oh that's mine too and then we were like yo we should get in and we were trying to finish one of those tracks that night this is
where i'm gonna tell you the truth travis ever get the feeling you've been cheated he knew all along they were your beat this is what cows does cows walks in the bottle blonde with the doe eyes is like yo i had no idea the whole thing is written on his forearm in byron oh
there's probably some facts in that day there's five facts this is no question that your chemistry is amazing and that the two of you you know um you add value to each other in ways that complements and so i hope that whatever you choose to do individually you find a way back together you