I'm really trying to get my energy up and be cool and funny.
But when I come down here, I have a huge feeling in my heart that is so powerful.
I felt like you were back there for a minute when you walked in.
And I've been in places like that.
Yeah, I really wanted to be here with you to have this conversation because this place was so impactful to my life.
And this is where I built my artistic soul with the community that lived here.
We all good?
Cool.
I know places like this.
This is a real Lower East Side.
It doesn't change.
That's right.
You never want it to change.
No, this is where all the cool kids hang out.
This is where all the names get chucked in the toilets and on the bathroom, and somehow you'll find yourself in and amongst layer after layer of identity.
That's right.
That's right.
And I feel like it was here that I learned being different and being artistic and being you know what other people thought was weird.
It was actually, like, a community that I could be a part of.
Because you learned together.
Yeah, and we supported each other in all of our, like... you know, creativity and our imaginations.
I mean, I used to write songs at the bar over here with a PBR and a shot.
Wow, so you could literally come in here and start jotting down ideas.
Yeah, and I actually really liked writing on napkins.
I just thought it was kind of romantic.
Tell me you still got those.
I do.
I do.
My mom kept them.
But this place was really special to me because it was just a few blocks from the house and it was open during the day.
And I would often write music during the day, and I would work at night.
So I spent a lot of time here, and I made lifelong friends.
Did you used to play?
I did used to play.
I really sucked at full.
I mean, I think you might have a go at that one.
I don't know.
No, no, no.
With my gloves.
See, this is exactly.
It's perfect.
Yeah, it's perfect.
It's perfect.
Oh, shit.
See, I'm so bad.
I was good at drinking and writing music.
And I loved having drinks with friends.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We used to party and we used to make music.
What a simple time.
It was an amazing time.
I'm excited to sit down and get into where you are today, though.
This amazing album, Mayhem.
I know fans are so excited about this record.
I feel very privileged to be able to have a conversation with you, and we can all share that with everybody.
Thank you.
I mean, I'm not here anymore, but Mayhem definitely began here.
You know, what I'm really reminded of being in here is that nothing was more powerful than living down here and finding myself and becoming Gaga.
Do you remember the moment when you became Lady Gaga?
It was like, okay, I see it.
I was working on some music and I was making all this theatrical pop, and some of which ended up on The Fame my first studio album.
I just was, I just really wanted to change my name.
It didn't feel like it matched the person that I was becoming, and I was in my apartment on Stanton Street and I just I just came up with it.
I was listening a lot to Queen and I thought of the song Radio Gaga and then I thought what if I put Lady in front of it?
And that felt kind of like it was sort of inspired by all the club kids around here and also all of the art that I would see that we would all make to throw parties.
We had the coolest art to throw parties down here and seeing other people's personas like lady starlight, darian darling, breed love, tommy london, anna copacabana, justin tranter, and semi-precious weapons like um, who's now like a huge songwriter he's incredibly talented we were like all down here and watching them.
I was like oh, i can, i can be the artist of my own life.
So they, they really inspired me and um, It still does.
You can't miss the vibe here.
No, no, no.
And it's not just any dive bar.
And people that hung out down here when I was down here.
I know that they would say the same thing that there was something special about this area.
Yeah.
And I bet there's people down here now that feel that way.
You said recently something really great and reassuring for fans.
You said, I love being Lady Gaga.
Have there been times more recently I would say years within years where that hasn't always been the case, where you had to rediscover that passion for the identity that you've built over the course of your music?
Yeah, it definitely can be complicated.
I think that my earliest memories as Gaga were so powerful because they were formative and free.
And then my career was such a blessing, but as it took off, I think the way that other people related to me as like a superstar
Not that I didn't want to be one, but almost something outside of the artistry.
Does that make sense?
It does, because I always think, when I talk to artists like yourselves, who have such a strong artistic identity and come through the other side of that phase, that the general perception is that objectification for lack of a better term one's star power is a frog in a pot of boiling water, that you want it and then you realize do I actually have ownership over that anymore?
Right.
What people love about you can be different for everyone.
Maybe they love your music or they love your stage performances, or maybe it's your clothes or, And the pressures of combining my artistry with being a pop star was really interesting and sometimes hard, because people have opinions about how you should look and how you should move through the world.
And that's not what this was about at all.
This was like you were you and who you were and what made you.
You was your superpower.
It wasn't like like telling each other what to do, or you know, you should do it do your art this way.
No, it was like it was us supporting each other and what we did.
And also it was about, like what records are you listening to?
Like what art books are you reading?
What movies are you watching?
Like like, what bands are you going to see?
How often do you rehearse?
What's your relationship with your craft?
And I think something I want my fans to know now which is why I said I love being Lady Gaga is I actually returned back to my artistry recently and it's a huge way of making this album.
I put so much of myself as a musician, as a producer, as a songwriter, in everything.
And that is who Lady Gaga is, to me.
Maybe to someone else, it might be the meat dress or something that I did that they remember as me.
But for me, I always want to be remembered for being a real artist and someone that cares so much about a life of art.
You may not realize this.
Let me just remind you that you've got the three-peat.
You have a hit now in your third decade.
And that is an incredible achievement.
Abracadabra is, we got the message.
These fan posts, look at how your fans interact with your music.
It's absolutely amazing.
You've probably seen this one.
Yeah, I love him.
I love him.
And then real production, real commitment.
Yep.
And then this one here makes me laugh as well, because Cat here.
The internet.
Your fans have really shown up.
Yeah.
They agree.
They're hearing it, right, in Abracadabra and in the music.
Yeah, I think, you know, like it's my job to make music that moves them and speaks to them.
And I, you know, all you can do is your best and work your hardest.
And I think I didn't want to make this kind of music for a long time, even though I had it in me.
And I think abracadabra is very much my sound, like something that I kind of honed in after many years.
And I wanted to do it again and I felt like being stagnant was just death in my artistry and I just really wanted to constantly be a student and not just reinvent myself but learn something new with every record.
And you know, that wasn't always what people wanted from me, but That's what I wanted from me.
And it's the thing that I'm the most probably proud of if I look back on my career is I know how much I grew from record to record and how authentic it all was.
The thing that was most important to me was being a student of music above everything else.
But like I was able to be a student of music with this album, but in a new way, where I was sort of asking myself hard questions like you know what really does define you?
And like, what is... you know, what is your personal mayhem?
What do you struggle with?
Like, what's the thing that you're always trying to live up to from your past?
That's a hard question.
It is a hard question.
And, you know, what are your sounds?
And what is your, you know, what is the music of your soul?
Like, how can you... go back to your earliest memories with music and put that into this album.
With everything you've learned along the way.
With everything you've learned.
Through the Chromaticas and the Joannes and the Art Pops.
All the things that were important steps, I hear them all on this record.
Thank you.
It feels to me how, in a strange way, you get to revisit some of those artistic steps you took on an album like Art Pop and apply a little more experience and a little more life into them and say, hey look, I can breathe life into that me again.
Yeah.
Heart Pop was a very special album to me.
I was, just like on my previous records, handpicking the producers that I was going to co-produce with.
I was choosing how to make the opera.
And it was not really happening in mainstream music that one track would change that much.
The groove would sometimes change.
It would completely not be expected.
It was very disruptive.
It was not easy listening.
It was basically like me going, I'll do what I want.
And I'll do it.
I'll do it my way.
But what's so interesting is I always did that.
It's just for some reason that record was viewed as more defiant.
I think because I was also fighting against some of the newer things in my life, you know, living up to my new image and wanting to break that.
So, you know, I never dressed the same and my hair was always different.
And, you know, art pop was more of a concept and a philosophy more than it was an aesthetic.
But it was definitely a statement.
And it's interesting, you become successful and it's natural for anybody in business, even with the best of intentions or not, to want to templatize that, to want to say, hey look, this is working.
Yeah, you know, but it's not working for me.
Yeah, and it also just depends on what your goals are as an artist.
For me, my goal was always to be a student, so that meant I had to do things I hadn't done before.
Because if I was always treading old ground, I didn't feel like I was learning as much.
You wouldn't be here now like this.
It would have run its course.
No, and it was so cold, like...
Madion was like a kid, you know?
He was like 17 or 18.
Yeah, and I was like, what are we going to do?
And then we made all this amazing music together.
And Zedd was just like popping off.
And I was like, how are we going to do this?
And DJ White Shadow.
And we were listening to like...
You know Gustaf Ulstein, who I worked with on this record, and he knew that when I worked with him on Mayhem,
I said, I've been trying to work with you for over 10 years.
And he was like, here I am.
And like, it was the music that you fall in love with, the art.
And for me, that is so me.
I'm not like a fleeting music fan where I just like for the album go.
I'm going to find new things only, and then I'm going to let all of those things inspire me, but they'll be things I listen to for a month.
No, like Mayhem, was made off of inspiration of loving artists, music producers and sound that I've been studying for like at least a decade.
So it's like that's all ruminating in me as a student.
And to me Abracadabra, even though it has my DNA in it, even though Mayhem has my DNA in it.
It also doesn't sound the way that the Fame Monster did or the way the Fame did.
So it's like my way of thinking of music as being a cross genre, being able to combine lots of different things at the same time.
That is who I am as a musician and I've always been that way and that is what mayhem is all about.
It's like the mayhem of like being a non-linear artist and And with this album, embracing that about myself instead of being like okay, I have to fit it into this one thing.
You know, Abracadabra is such a smash out of recording.
Right now we're filming and it's unstoppable.
Does it feel different?
You've had, like I said, hits over three decades.
How does this one feel different?
You know, it's just like, I don't know.
It's just, it's its own thing, you know?
Every song is different.
I think people were happy to, you know, reconnect with my artistry through this song.
I think we wanted to see you dance too.
Yeah, I think so.
And for a while, that was not super easy for me.
So that was amazing too.
I love dancing.
How did you get back to a place where it felt good to dance and not like you had to work extra hard through pain to dance?
I just got much healthier.
I have good people in my life.
I fell in love with Michael.
As a songwriter, you need life to inspire your writing.
And if everything is like promotion it kind of like then I'll write about promotion and I won't write about that special moment I shared with you where Michael asked me how I would want him to propose to me one day.
We were in our backyard and I said, just take a blade of grass and wrap it around my finger.
And then I wrote Blade of Grass because I remembered the way his face looked and I remembered the grass in the backyard and I remember thinking he should use that really long grass that's in the center of the backyard.
But those moments to me, At a certain point I was into the idea of fame and artifice and being the conductor of your own life when it came to your own inner sense of fame.
I had to fight a lot harder to make music and dance a little bit later into my career because my life became so different that I didn't have as much life around me to inspire me.
It all became this one other thing.
And then I think my fans were like, why isn't she promoting things?
And like, where is she?
But like I needed to go live life, to have a full life and also to give back, to know my true gift, and that was that's my one of the sweetest things that i think michael ever said to me as my partners.
He was like you know who you are, is that you're an artist?
Like that's the thing that makes you the most happy.
So, like you know, we need to like nurture that part of you.
Um, and he reminded me that the other stuff was maybe sometimes hard for me and like me, and making it more difficult and so, like keeping me away from what i love.
It seems like um, the kind of thing you would say to someone as a friend or as a, as a loved one or a partner that is so obvious to him and yet for you to hear that to your point it it's so deep because your journey let's talk about perfect celebrity, i mean you.
I mean I can't believe you brought that one up.
Second,
I knew you would.
Well, because like you attacked fame.
Fame didn't have a chance.
Like when you were coming out, right, you went in, all in.
And you were out the other side, so we're going to get there.
You and I are going to get there in conversation.
But now that you're through, are you any clearer in understanding what the motivation was behind that, that desire to want to achieve that level of success and attention?
Yes and no.
I'm not sure.
I think what I'm dealing with on Perfect Celebrity is a lot of anger that I feel towards myself about what is this thing inside of you that you needed that?
Why are you this way?
And the song is almost humorous in the way that I'm talking about it.
It's angry though as well.
It's super angry.
I've become a notorious being, find my clone, she's asleep on the ceiling.
It's almost comical, this idea that anytime I'm in the room with anyone, there's me, Stephanie and Lady Gaga asleep on the ceiling and I have to figure out which body to be in.
It's intense, but that was an important song on this album because It didn't feel honest to me on mayhem to exclude something that had that kind of anger in it, because then it felt like I was trying to be a good girl or whatever and be something that I'm not actually.
Part of my personal mayhem is that I have joy and celebration, but I'm also sometimes angry or super sad or really celebratory or completely insecure and have no confidence.
So the album has all of that.
And I don't know that I've done that on a record, actually.
I don't know if I've ever...
I think I have in a way, but Perfect Celebrity, for example, is probably the most angry song.
I don't think you've ever done it in a song.
I mean, it's all in a song.
There's rage in my music, for sure, for a long time.
But in a song where I'm just so implicitly calling out and also making a mockery out of this thing that I went after.
That's an important part of it.
I think that there's been examples of people who have taken a step back from Celebrity and Fame and tried to find a with all the best of intentions a pathway through to expressing what that's like.
But what you're doing is still doing it from inside the room and the experience.
And it's a fox in the henhouse.
You think that you're going to get away from it, but it will get you.
Yeah, absolutely.
It just will.
Yeah, it will.
Did I do it to myself?
I thought about the 90s too when I made that record.
There was a lot of 90s energy in that song.
I think that was one of the most brutal eras for that.
We lost incredible people because of the pressures of that.
Incredible people, amazing artists, powerful music.
The 90s is how I fell in love with music as a teenager.
In the studio, Uh, you know, we all kind of shared that in common as well, like a love of that time.
And so the album also like has, you know, Perfect Celebrity is sort of an electro grunge song.
And it was also inspired by The Cure and this song Never Enough that I used to play in my apartment like a million times before I walked into this bar.
And so it had that influence as well.
So that was sort of the like electro influence that came into it.
But so to give you an idea of how I made this album, is that after I made that song then I was like we need to change all the production.
Like I wanted to change everything.
You landed on something.
Yeah.
I was like, we have to change everything.
And then I went back.
And I said, no, we shouldn't change everything.
Because if I was to simply decide I was going to now make an entire electro grunge album, it would be just to try to saint myself as randomly cool in the middle of my project.
I actually thought that that was boring and not at all what Mayhem is all about.
And that the true chaos of who I am is that I actually am a lot more than just these concepts.
I'm like so many concepts at once when I'm working.
Because wasn't Perfect Celebrity at one point a working title for the album?
Yes.
And so, yeah, that makes total sense.
Because coming back to Mayhem frees you from that, right?
From that controlled expression.
And it's like, no, no, no.
The more... chaotic and freeform.
The more it feels like me.
You know, art pop was a vibe.
Joanne was a sound.
You know, Chromatica had a sound. all different.
The fame monster was more chaotic.
The fame was theatrical pop.
Born This Way to me had more of like a, you know, like metal electro New York vibe to it.
So I actually made the effort making Mayhem to not do that and not try to give my music an outfit.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
But instead to allow myself to be influenced by everything.
That was how I discovered my songwriting and production abilities as a kid.
So that was a special experience.
And then like still some of that influence though the electro grunge influence made it still onto other songs that were somewhere like industrial, somewhere like 2000s throwbacks like Garden of Eden.
And then there was.
There's a song called Can't Stop the High that you haven't heard.
That's on the version of the album that's on my website only.
And that is like a pure electro grunge record that goes even harder than Perfect Celebrity does.
How many songs do you think over the course of that period of time?
Did we make?
Yeah, for the album.
I mean, probably 50.
I mean, like so much music.
And we didn't use it all.
Yeah.
It's my favorite record in a long time.
I feel like it has some teeth.
It has some teeth.
It has some teeth.
It is real.
The Beast is a revenge record.
I don't know who it's revenge against.
I know that the lyrics don't necessarily reflect that, but the energy of that performance and the arrangement and sound design on that song as coming from something unresolved.
That's what I hear.
Yeah, you know, so the album is a series of gothic dreams, I say.
It's like images of the past that haunt me.
And they somehow find their way into who I am today.
In that record, it is me or someone singing to their lover who's a werewolf.
But what I believe about this is this record is also about Michael and I, and that this song is also about me and being Lady Gaga.
What the Beast is, who I become when I'm on stage, and who I am when I make my art.
The pre-chorus of that song is, you can't hide who you are.
1159, your heart's racing, you're growling, and we both know why.
And it's like somebody that is saying to the beast I know you're a monster, but I can handle you and I love you.
Is there a relationship with that lyric and the lyric that follows in Blade of Grass, where it's really a really poignant observation you make from his point of view?
How can a man like me love a woman like you?
Yeah, 100%.
They're related, right?
They know each other.
100%.
Yeah, I mean Michael's like an incredibly warm-hearted kind, non non-entertainment or fame-oriented person.
We have completely different respective backgrounds.
Although he's very creative and very artistically minded, I don't know that he ever thought that he would like ever be with someone like me.
We're like so different in that way.
But we've really built a friendship and a bond over how to like, each share each other's mayhem with each other.
And like, we're like doing it together now.
I love how the fans have embraced him as well.
Look, it's when you have such a personal relationship with your fan base like you do.
I think it's important everybody knows that that is you commenting on those posts and you.
It's not somebody else.
Yeah, I love talking to my fans.
I mean, I used to...
Backstage after the Born This Way ball, hangout backstage with fans that I would pull from the monster pit, which was like I made this special area that if you showed up early to the gates for the show people would sleep for a week sometimes to get in early.
The first monster got a monster key.
And then I would choose like 20 to 30 fans to come backstage and I'd hang out with everyone and ask them about their lives.
And it helped me get to know who I was singing to.
And they feel like they know you.
And that's, I think, why this relationship that you have, having the courage to make it normal.
There's no private, there is normal yeah, and i think it's really beautiful.
I mean, i was talking to a friend of mine who's a big, big fan and he sees this kind of relationship that makes you happy and builds it through and that must just give you so much fulfillment knowing that both can be true.
Yeah i, i have both now.
I have, like my home used to only be the stage how lonely it was so lonely.
And also it is so much more fun to like take somebody out there with you, you know, like someone that loves you that um, that that knows um, knows what you're capable of in all, all the various aspects of life.
You know, i think that there's nothing that could like bring a tear to my eye.
I think, more on a daily basis than knowing that I mean also so much to somebody in a way that isn't about what I'm doing on stage or my song or what I'm wearing.
He's so grateful if I make him a double decaf espresso over ice, because that's his favorite.
And that's a huge part of who I am.
And mattering to somebody, just for being, you know, me, like a girl.
Like, that means a lot.
But also like to be embraced also, and that he will say to me like the thing you have to do to get yourself ready to go, do that is like so intense.
Like, he just wants me to be okay, and he wants to...
He's my real friend.
I mean, that's what I would say.
If my fans are wondering anything about my relationship that they could keep with them, it's that I made a real friend.
And also that he teaches me so much.
Yeah, like what?
Give us an example, if you wouldn't mind, about something that you could never have learned from anyone but him.
I mean, he re-inspired me in my life to know that living as an independent woman would make me feel happy, like doing things for myself, having my day on my terms.
He taught me a lot about my own business and helped me like, helped me to stay like balanced and grounded at home, to when I'm like working, and as we were making the album together, I didn't like, I didn't fall completely into an abyss of fantasy.
I was like able to always ground and come back to home.
And that makes, it makes the work better and it makes me happier.
I mean, honestly, he's taught me a lot.
Must've been so healing as well to, I love that quote when Ed Vedder, and I've mentioned this before, in the Pearl Jam documentary, he talks about meeting Neil Young and saying it was so great to finally meet a grownup I could count on.
Yeah.
It's so true.
Being able to count on somebody is something we all need.
Being able to have someone that always has your back, no matter what I think is.
Yeah, I feel super grateful.
Shadow of a Man is a powerful record.
Thank you.
What would you like to share about that song?
I mean, that song is like, so much a response to my career.
You know, and what it always felt like to be the only girl in the room a lot of the time.
And to always be like standing in the shadow of a man, because there were so many around me that I learned how to dance in that shadow.
And now you have a male friend in your life that you can count on.
I guess you have the perspective to be able to see it for what it was.
Well, I don't feel controlled or pressed.
I feel free.
When I made that song I was imagining actually, that I was singing walking down these streets like it.
I still am so inspired by this town and that feeling like if I could, if I could give anyone you know a feeling or a memory or an experience of mine that I've had.
The first would be The power of learning other people's stories and being available to understand another person in the world.
That's been the most giving, beautiful thing that I've experienced.
And then I would say your own artistic energy and the fight, and your own ability to persevere and to dance through life knowing that you might not win sometimes.
It's such a powerful image, the idea of dancing through that adversity, because through artists like yourself and your peers who've come before you and since, we're getting a much clearer picture about how challenging it has been and remains to be a woman in the music industry, in any industry, in any walk of life.
I think it's really powerful when songs like that get made, because we get a step closer to understanding what could have been better.
Thank you.
I don't think I've ever made a song like that.
It's defiant, and it's also fun.
It's powerful.
But women in music are a force.
People love women in music.
And also for as many people love women in music.
I also think women in music are heavily criticized.
I wish so much for no one in the world to be living life where they're heavily criticized every day.
And I'm really grateful for what I do.
I don't mean that in a way to like complain about this incredible life that I have, but I do feel, like you know, a sense of love for people that you know like misogyny's real too, and wanting women to you know, be good little girls all the time is super damaging.
And I think the more that we can support each other in speaking our truth and protecting ourselves and saying what we need and what we, you know, what we all deserve.
I think that, I think women deserve to be loved in that way.
And I think you know that also.
I can say you know, being a woman in this world that like cares about you know the artistry of my outward facing persona, that you know We also deserve to be able to wear what we want and express ourselves how we want to in a free and happy space.
It feels kind of hard to express yourself.
It just goes for anybody right now who feels strongly about something because it doesn't feel as free or happy as a space at the moment.
Yeah, and I face that on Mayhem, too.
I will say, I'm 38 years old, and I was like, well, I'm not 20 anymore.
And I don't know if I'll be accepted as I grow up and get older.
I still feel young.
But that was a part of this album as well.
It was a lot of fear of what that will be like.
And I ultimately decided that a woman can be powerful at any age.
You've never shied away.
Yeah.
And I've never had a chance to ask you that, when you're standing on a stage, like you did at the Grammys, and you take an opportunity to be an ally and to stand up and say something about a community that probably feels very misunderstood,
And if I'm really honest, under attack at the moment.
Yeah.
What that also feels like for you, it's a feeling you have before it's words that you say.
I mean.
What I would say first and foremost is what trans people are being faced with in this world is completely unfair wrong, and there's this like violence that's taking place on a daily basis in their lives.
I think that we all need to support trans people and each other to know that they deserve to be supported and loved and protected and lifted up.
And what I go through in my life is very different from that.
And what every community that is oppressed goes through is different.
It's all a unique experience.
And then there's individual people, and everyone's individual experience is different.
I would just say it's the most important time ever.
I think also when I said learning people's stories was a great gift, I think for me, I've learned that it's not all one thing and that every group of people and every individual person, their unique experience, is valuable and deserves to be upheld as their own.
You're making your best music that sounds like the most complete version of you.
You still created the space to be able to support, through your process, but also through words, that idea of mentorship.
Did you have mentorship when you were growing up as a young artist?
I mean, Lady Starlight was my greatest mentor, I think.
I don't think I would be here without her.
She just taught me so much about life and art and music and fashion.
And I had a vocal teacher, Don Lawrence, who was a mentor, all my piano teachers.
But then in a whole other way, Like Bruce Springsteen's voice.
When I like sit in this bar, I like remember thinking about Bruce Springsteen and sitting at that bar and just being like how can I be as soulful as he is?
You know, Stevie Wonder's voice and his music putting me in an absolute trance as a child.
I mean, Prince and having someone that had an imagination like Prince did. making music.
I'm just naming three people.
There's thousands of artists.
Then there were the collaborators as well, the people that have become mentors throughout your life.
I love that.
They're seemingly at least as far as I can tell only one collaboration on this record, and we already know what that is.
That's Die With A Smile, which is a perfect way to end the record too.
Also, Bruno is a feature. on Die With a Smile, or me and Bruno made Die With a Smile together.
Then Gustafel Stein is on Killa, and we made that record together.
And then I mean I have to say it has nothing to do with this album.
But when you ask me about mentors, I have to say probably one of the even more meaningful mentors I ever had was Tony Bennett.
Yeah.
And I wanted to ask you just a few things or a few observations about these key collaborative relationships that I feel have kind of given you something really valuable at certain points in your life, starting with Tony.
Because we spoke at length about that relationship on the last project that you were able to release together.
Now, with a little bit of hindsight and a little bit of perspective, what's really stayed with you from that experience and the conversations and time you spent with him?
He used to just say, stick with quality, kid.
And he was right.
That was his North Star all the time.
Tony was just worried about different things.
And that inspired me, what his focus was.
And that has stayed with me.
And as I grow up, I'm like well, I'm just gonna keep being a musician and I'm gonna keep working hard at my music and working hard at my songwriting and working hard at my producing.
The other things matter, but your gift and your talent is what matters to me, what matters the most.
I mean, honestly, I think he could have been singing until he was 110.
Because he knew what was important.
It was the music.
And the music brought him back to life when he couldn't remember anymore.
I've seen it with my own eyes.
We talked about this, but off camera.
I mean the power of the frequency of music and the way that it attaches to our memories.
And I've spoken on camera about this only when relevant and important to the conversation, I think.
But watching my mother go through cognitive deterioration with her dementia diagnosis and realizing that music brings her back into the room was one of the most powerful realizations of my life.
And I'm so sorry that you have gone through that.
It is super painful.
You've been kind to me already about it and I appreciate that.
It's very painful, but isn't it amazing?
Amazing.
Music is such a powerful force and it gives people life and it changes the ether in the room.
There's nothing like it.
And I will say that I feel so much gratitude that I get to have the feeling of like music is the medicine of my mayhem, because when I feel like I don't have any clue what I'm doing, I don't have my bearings on what I'm good at, what I suck at, what's the right answer?
What's the wrong answer?
It is music and the real relationships in my life that center me, because music is.
It's this thing that I do, that I'm so sure, when I'm doing it, that it's exactly where I'm supposed to be.
So it's like a totem, you know, when I get disoriented.
Disoriented, yeah.
And that's some of, I don't know, I think people can relate to that feeling.
Mayhem for me is, you know, when life feels really hard.
Yeah.
And I'm so lucky to have such an amazing life, but we all have our moments.
And there's things I don't share with my fans, too, and some things I'm not ready to share yet.
But just when life throws things at you, you just get so turned around.
And how do you get back?
And for me, I get back with music.
And that's how I...
I get back.
All I wanted to do with this record was create music that, from start to finish, someone could listen and get back to themselves in some way.
I wanted it to be fun.
That's the other thing.
It's mad fun.
Zombie Boy is crazy fun.
That sounds the most like this area to me than almost any other record.
Yeah, in a way, thank you.
I feel like this place is going up when I'm hearing that song.
Everyone's already here.
It's packed.
It's going off.
And that's on the system.
Yeah, and it's like what I love about being in this bar with you and talking about this is when we hung out in this bar.
Winning in life was like knowing what to play when the jukebox used to be over there.
What did you used to play?
Oh, my god, i would play motorhead and i would play david bowie and i would play ac dc and i would play black sabbath.
It was like we were all having a conversation in here with the music and it.
It wasn't about like global domination.
When you walked in and you were here and i wondered, like in that moment, whether Your life since then has felt like the blink of an eye or a river.
Both.
It definitely feels like both.
I just had no idea what was going to happen.
And I'm really grateful that it did.
What I value when I think about this time is not what it gave to me in my career, but the endless memories.
Yeah, they're hard sometimes, aren't they?
The memories were so powerful here, and that will just be in my heart forever.
I am so grateful and you hear me say it a million times when I talk about this because I obviously feel like I need to qualify that piece of myself.
And it's true, but it is like I do feel so happy to be in a place now in my life when I just the thing that I valued the most in all of this was the, the community.
And I left that behind.
That's the sacrifice.
That's a really powerful observation in my life too.
I mean, and everyone I've ever spoken to who's lucky enough to still be here.
And we talk about what we go through, the highs and the lows.
The thing that we really center on when we wonder what it cost is the people.
Yeah, it was the people.
And I think part of the abracadabra video.
That made it special honestly, was I spent like real time learning that choreography, working with Paris and working with those dancers and I got to be, you know, in their community while we made it.
And I felt like I belonged.
And that feeling made me so happy.
And I think it like really translated in the video that I was like with my people.
You might have to get, oh my gosh, this is the Blues Brothers.
It's time to get the band back together.
I know.
It's time to get the band back together.
I still talk to so many people from that time.
But it is like I don't think they'll ever know how much i valued.
I think they just found out.
I hope yeah, i try to tell them, but you know where the community really comes alive tour, oh my god i, the fans are so special and you know i i'm just like completely wowed when i see them wake up in this magical way.
It's almost like the words in abracadabra, like It woke up.
All my old friends.
People want to see you.
And look, life is different than when you start.
And things like tours have to be really worked into what real life is.
That's the beautiful balance of growth, right?
Yeah.
But if I had done a poll of all the fans and said one question, this would have been it.
Do you have a desire to tour?
Different or the same, but tour and bring mayhem to the road?
Yeah, of course I do.
Yeah.
I mean, I love being on stage, and I enjoy it again at this time in my life, so for sure.
I'm so excited for Coachella and it's all I ruminate on constantly, all of my ideas and what to do and how to do it, and what does mayhem mean?
You know, how do we bring mayhem to the desert?
I'm really excited, you know.
I just feel, you know, I feel like I'm like firing on all my cylinders again and that it's super rad.
And I can't wait to see my fans.
You know, and I also can't wait to do it with Michael, you know.
It won't feel as lonely, right?
I suppose the way you were describing before felt, to me at least, like that was the great distraction from all the things you were missing as much as it was enjoyment.
It was like, hey, I'm here because I don't know what's over there waiting for me.
Is that...
After my career took off, I didn't have a sense of home in the same way.
Obviously, I have an amazing family that I love so, so much.
And they were always wonderful.
Like, I just was away, you know?
And I was kind of untethered.
And I loved that for a long time.
And then I just, like, imploded.
And it was like that.
And felt like I didn't have gravity.
So now I have.
Now I have gravity, and gravity's good.
And sometimes I joke now, and I just will say I'm boring now, and thank God.
No, but seriously, maybe I'm not boring in my art, for sure.
Boring maybe was what I was doing before, where it was so predictably chaotic all the time.
I enjoy being able to reflect on, all of my dreams and then make them.
And yeah, that's why, that's why I say that mayhem is also all these Gothic dreams.
It's like all all of my dark, all of my dark dreams and all of the different things they mean and how they come.
They come alive and it's all in one place and it's total mayhem.
And it's like completely, it's completely me and it's my gift to my fans.
