My name is Bridget and I produce the Imperfects.
I grew up in Australia but my ancestors arrived by boat in search of gold during the 1800s.
What I've come to realise is that they arrived on land that had been cared for by the Indigenous peoples of this continent for millenia.
It was and always will be Aboriginal land.
We at the Imperfects would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was recorded and we extend our respects to their elders past and present.
At the Imperfects my job is to create a space for important stories to be heard and in doing so I pay homage to a rich history of storytelling cultivated by the world's oldest living culture.
The first three to six months were interesting but oh my god after you get past it and everything starts to kind of come back to normal you kind of feel like a kid again, it's hands -down the best decision I've ever made.
The Imperfect invites you into a very safe place, a place where we share without judgment and drink heaps of vulnerability.
Grab yourself a cup.
This is the Vulnerability House.
I'm really really excited about today's guest.
I didn't, Murph, I didn't tell you before we started recording, I don't know why, I feel I was planning to, but I'm a huge, I love the wombats.
Love the wombats. I didn't finish that, I'm a huge fan.
the one you didn't know?
I'm a huge fan of the Wombat.
Your first, I guess, major album guide to love, loss and desperation.
I played so much, and when I knew you were coming on, I played, put that album on, I haven't listened to it in years, and I still knew so many of the words.
It is such a great album.
So great. I mean, you guys are incredible.
So, so stoked to meet you.
Thank you. Nice to meet you too.
Thanks for having me.
So, this is back probably in 2012, I was doing this program in education and every Friday I drive about three hours down to this community and it was for boys who were in and out of juvenile detention.
So, I would play your music in the car on the way down there to get me in this uplifting or energising or just make me feel good, because it was very difficult work I had to do.
And the music just, I don't know what it was, it just put me in this space to be able to work with those boys who were really challenging at the absolute best of times.
So, again, I just reiterate, we just think you're great basically.
Thank you. Yeah, no, it's mad to think of my art, music, sound tracking, other people's lives.
It still doesn't really kind of, never sinks in to be honest.
Well, you must get it.
But you didn't actually let Josh say how great you are.
You don't have to say how great I am.
It's okay. No, you are.
You've got a gift with melody actually, I've got to say, because I was listening to, I went back and listened to some stuff this morning as well.
And I cannot get moving to New York out of my head in a good way.
And that bassline is amazing.
Very, we love a chromatic bassline.
Now Murph, if you wouldn't mind telling each of us why you think we're great.
That'd be cool. Just seems fair.
That's how we always start the show.
And after that you can tell me what a chromatic bassline is.
We'll do that as well.
And of course the new album, Oh The Ocean is out now.
Do you have a memory of like a gig or a performance you did where it was just you thought to yourself how have we got here?
How are we... This is just unbelievable.
We find ourselves in this position.
Not really, no. I don't think I personally will ever get to a place where I don't think that the rug can be pulled from underneath us at any given second.
So I mean, Splendor in 2018, 2019?
I don't know which one.
And I was wearing a beautiful white shirt for it.
But that was cool. We've had lots of shows where it's been like, wow, that was incredible.
But never like... We've made it.
Never we've made it plant our flag in the moon or anything, you know?
So that's amazing that even after everything you guys have achieved you still there's a sort of feeling of this might all come to an end.
Yeah. Well. I think it's kind of healthy.
But also new things emerge that you have to deal with and everything's constantly changing.
the plates are kind of shifting around.
Yeah, it's you're constantly having to adapt.
Yeah, like I always think it's kind of amazing when, that marriage is last.
And I kind of feel the same way about any band that sticks together for a long period of time because like the people you are now are just so different.
It's kind of a miracle, a beautiful miracle that you guys are together.
Yeah, I mean, we were all very similar at the start, I think you know but we were just getting absolutely shitfaced and having the best time ever and then I guess everyone mid to late 20s everyone started we all start kind of changing and becoming our own individuals but now we've kind of come full circle at a place where we can get shitfaced again where we see each other as individuals and kind of you know we love each other because of how different we are yeah that makes sense yeah awesome Because, have you all got kids now?
You've got two kids?
You've all got kids?
Yeah. Chad's got a daughter, Dan's got a son, and I've got two girls, yeah.
Amazing. Well, there is a deck of cards staring at you in front, so the way this works, for people who haven't heard, imagine there'll be lot of new people listening, fans of yours.
So this is called the Vulnerability House, and the way it works is there's a deck of cards, and on that deck of cards, there's a bunch of questions written on each...
well, And each question is sort of designed to invoke some form of vulnerability or a memory or some sort of feeling that you may have been having now or had in the past.
And yeah, just pick them at random.
If you take the top three and choose if any of the top three, you feel comfortable answering, then.
But I'm supposed to focus on just one.
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, there's no there's no rules really, except for the ones that I've just laid out very specifically.
And who's the word random but also said the top.
So please don't touch any more of it.
I really like this one in what ways do you fear you could negatively impact your children?
Oh, then that's a beauty area.
How old are your children, by the way?
Five and three. Five and three?
Okay. How are you finding that stage?
Yeah, it's a wind tunnel.
That's the best way of describing it.
Yeah, it's just mad.
How do you mean wind tunnel?
I don't have kids, like everything's coming out really fast and just duck in and weaving.
Literally a lot of the time.
Yeah. I read somewhere.
Oh, someone said, when you have kids, you'll lose your mind, but find your soul.
And I thought that like resonated with me and I was like, gosh, yeah, that's, that's true.
Have you, where'd you find your soul?
Down the back of the couch.
Yeah. In the darkness.
Yeah, in the abyss.
So yes. In what ways do you fear you could negatively impact your children?
I took my eldest daughter, Dylan, to the Natural History Museum.
We always go to the Natural History Museum.
It's just good. I think we're kind of having a nice time.
It's cold. We're all like, you know, plastic, crystal things.
She just kept putting them in my bag before we drove there, and I was like, what's she gonna do with these?
And when we got there, she's like, well, I want to give them to my friends.
And I'm like, what?
What'd you mean? Well, it's just me and you here.
And then she went up to like some kids to give it to them.
And then it suddenly dawned on me that this was her plan for the day was to just give random people these crystals and start conversations with them.
She's five? Yeah. I mean, it's so sweet.
She's very kind of altruistic and it's really nice, but to me, like that's not like I don't want to talk to people.
I just don't want to talk to other parents and I know that this is a way to drag me into conversations constantly for the next six hours or whatever so I was like oh no maybe people might Dylan the scene the thing is maybe people don't act and then I like stop myself and I was like you need to shut up and just let her do this and so I did and I dealt with the consequences and the the awkward chats Some of them were awkward.
Some of them were totally fine.
And the joy that she brought to everyone else's day was like palpable.
And people were coming up to me constantly saying she's the sweetest girl in the world.
Like, she's actually just made our day, like we're so happy.
And she's made our daughter's day or our son's day.
And she's going around, giving out hundreds of these little crystals.
And yeah, and that was when it dawned to me.
It was like, well, I'm just projecting all of my BS onto her and stopping, you know, it was like, it was the best decision I ever made was to just be quiet and let it happen and see how it unfolded and what did unfold was amazing and it has probably helped her confidence astronomically.
And I would have just imparted my own ways of thinking and being onto her and turned her into a little version of me, which is definitely not the plan.
Um, without, without wanting to sound like a therapist, but, um, what like with your fear of like talking to people and like having to cause I have a similar thing, it's like, Oh God, to have to talk to strangers is scary.
But like, w do you have like a thought in your head of what will happen if you do like Is there a specific fear that's attached to it?
My sense of self is probably very connected to what others think of me, or what I think they think of me, or something.
I don't know. It's not good.
It's not the best. But yeah, when you're kind of in an anxious social scenario, I try to be the one that's making other people less anxious, somehow.
A lot of times I fail at that actually and make it a lot worse.
But, yeah, it's kind of very rare that I leave meeting someone for the first time without going God the fuck do you say that for you absolute idiot.
I generally try to say something idiotic to try and lower the tone to, like, to just get all the niceties out of the way and just get it straight down to the brass tacks.
Cut through the bullshit.
Cut through it. And often that fails and makes it so much worse.
There's a reason why we have to kind of, you know, slowly chit -chat and work our way into each other's trust and stuff, rather than me just, I don't know, saying something grotesque or straight off the bat.
It's like the, because I think I have a similar feeling about small talk where it just feels, you know, when it feels inauthentic and just feels like fake and you're like, what are we doing?
Like, yeah, we're just like, we're role playing as people.
We're like pretending to be people.
Let's just talk like normal, like you would talk to friends, but it's very, very hard to do that.
And before you know it, you're talking about how great the weather is today.
And you're like, well, this is it.
You're like, I've done it again.
I've gone to, um, I'm in it.
I'm pretending to be a person.
Yeah. Is this, is that sort of what it is?
Just in terms of the fakeness of interactions with people?
No, it's not necessarily the fakeness.
It's just an overwhelming fear of what others think of me, I think.
The fakeness doesn't help.
But I guess the chit -chat is useful.
I guess it's like building trust so that the kind of play can happen, or something.
That kind of makes sense to me.
But that still doesn't solve the problem that when I leave, I'll be like, God, why were are you talking about dicks or whatever?
Again. Here comes dick guys.
My wife calls me that.
Well, sometimes you just can't get the Instagram handle out of your head.
I totally understand where you're coming from, especially with the way that your children put you in situations that you wouldn't choose to be.
Yeah, me and my oldest is a bit younger, he's four, he's turning five in about a month, so not much younger, and wants to make friends at the park and has been asking me recently like, we'll go to the park and I want to be a better parent all the time and sometimes I find myself, in for whatever reason, tired or grumpy or just like not being my best and we'll go to park.
And then he'll come up to me and say, um, can you help me make a friend?
Yeah. And I'm like, I want to, I'm so proud of you for asking, but then I'm like, okay, now I'm going to have to go up to an adult and their kid that I don't know.
And I'm in a bad place myself.
Yeah. And I think like, you've got a choice here to not help your child develop social skills.
And to get, but I find myself getting in my own way a lot as a parent and then I have to just bite the bullet and do it.
But it's tough. It's like, I find that kids put you in situations that you would never put yourself in.
And if I can get out of my own way, it can be a great experience, but I often don't.
Matthew I mean, I have that same feeling all the time.
I don't know if you've experienced it where you've made the connection.
and kind of helped with the friend thing.
And then, at some point, they have a scrap.
Or at some point, they'll be like, Daddy, Johnny's calling me, and whatever.
And then you've got to deal with that, as well.
It's unbelievable. We're at this place once in Pasadena.
It's like this little track where people are riding around on bikes.
My two girls were on the same tricycle.
And this was this boy who was probably in a year older, and he was like, speeding around.
He kept like hitting into the back of them.
And we were trying to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen.
And my wife was like, Oh, don't worry girls.
You know, I think she said, like, his mummy is not here or like, he doesn't have, like, no one's looking out for him.
And she kept saying it's so loud, so passively aggressive.
she wanted someone to hear.
Yeah. Did you get his license plate?
And then this um, and then the mum finally comes out and she's like, um, are you talking about my son?
And, and then there's this tense kickoff between my wife and this boys mum.
Um, and you would love her.
I can't remember how it ended.
I can't remember how it ended there was a lot of you know f words thrown around and then my wife walked off and I was just stood next to this boy's mum and I was like and then suddenly both my girls started like interacting with the boy and then before I knew it they were like best best friends so we all had to then come together it was horrendous.
If your daughters didn't come in for the save you would have had to have started talking about dicks which doesn't always go well.
As a child do you have recollections of what it was like, like would've you been the kind of child to go up to people and chat to them?
Because our sibling relationships would be very different, like you are very, from my understanding, very reticent to go up to people in a playground but our sister would just like charge ahead to make friends.
Yeah, I just... What we were talking about I'd just hold my dick a lot apparently.
This is as a kid? I was like...
Not as a parent. Oh, between the ages of 30 and 36, you know I wouldn't be caught in public without holding my dick.
Age one, two, three or four, that was why anxious moves apparently and just standing on the side of the playground doing that and I stopped doing that.
I said, everyone, just be clear.
Just be super clear.
Incredibly shy. Incredibly shy.
That's surprising to me.
I wouldn't have thought that.
I would have thought you'd be very outgoing.
You're saying you are now.
Yes. But I was so shy.
Painfully shy. Yeah.
So do you remember for yourself?
Well, the reason I laugh, I just remember my grandfather's birthday once and tried to kind of go up to a group of people and I just started doing squats.
I thought doing squats would impress them.
So I was clearly not gifted at this from an early age.
What? Yeah, I don't know what I was doing.
It was so weird. I read, I read somewhere on this and you said before you don't want to bring your BS into your child's life, I'm so interested in your BS though as just from reading about you, something that I for some reason so naively assumed wouldn't be an issue for like, like a rock star.
Like anxiety has been a thing for you in your life that I just, whenever I was like, Oh wow, and then thought, no, why?
How could I be so nervous to think that this doesn't affect someone who's just like great at getting on stage and performing?
Yeah, I don't associate getting on stage with anxiety.
Yeah. When I was like 23, maybe I had my first like, I guess it turned out to be a panic attack.
I thought I was like, dying and it's something that just kind of keeps coming back now and again.
What was that like that?
Like the first time you have a panic attack, Josh has spoken about, he's similar age, I think it was actually, yeah, it could have been 23 as well.
Yeah. Yeah. I've spoken about it before, but one of the most terrifying things that ever happened Yeah that point, can you remember the circumstance?
So I was in bed and I just woke up and my chest was tight and like I was kind of hyperventilating and sweating and I was like well I'm really sick here all like my lungs I can breathe properly.
I was like okay this is it, there we go and so I went to the doctor and he was like yeah this is a panic attack, here's some diasopam off you fuck.
That was it. Um, yeah, pretty much.
Wow. And it, but it was only kind of later down the line that I, you know, started doing therapy and stuff to kind of deal with that.
Yeah. Wow. That's, um, when he, when the doctor said that to you, I believed he said off you fuck off your fuck.
Just to get the quote right.
What was that like?
Because I would feel a bit dismissed, but was that a sense of relief of like, well, at least this is...
Yeah, it was complete relief because I didn't realise it was...
I thought it was something much worse that was happening.
But I guess it was a sense of relief, but also someone telling me, it's in your head and I'm like, well, it's not because I can feel it in my body and everywhere else.
So, yeah. It's kind of confusing.
Jamie Tworkowski Yeah, I was really lucky that for me, I called you.
I called my mum and I called you.
You knew a psychologist that I could go to and I started going to see her straight away and it started a really great incredible life -changing sort of eight years that I saw this psychologist for.
And I was so fortunate to have someone to sort of, in this case Hugh, to say like, Here's what you should do.
It sounds like it took you a while to go, say, a therapist or psychologist.
Was there a reason it took a while, or a reason why you started going?
Well, because the anxiety attack came and went, and then it was when I first had a major depressive episode.
That was when I started combining psychotherapy with an antidepressant or whatever.
And I've kind of done that, got better.
It's happened again got better.
It's happened again.
Um, and yeah, so it was more the kind of the low mood, freaky stuff that kind of led me into therapy as opposed to anxiety.
But the anxiety came first, you actually did it?
I don't probably not.
I was probably a miserable miserable bugger when I was like 17 or whatever.
When did you start the womb When did that start?
How old were you then?
Sorry to age you. 21.
Okay. All right. So, you had started the music career.
Well, I wouldn't call it a career.
We were, yeah, we had started the band and we're doing all kinds of small shows and stuff.
Yeah. Okay. But I had this therapist a few years ago who described depression anxiety to me in this beautiful way that has been very helpful.
Which is that depression and anxiety is the mind ping -ponging between an experienced past and a projected future and going back and forth until it kind of gives in and says, I'm going offline for a while here.
So that's the depression, I guess.
If you when you say I'm going offline for a bit, that's like...
Yeah, that's when it just changes gear because it it's not it's not happy with what's happening.
So it just shuts off.
What a description.
Yeah. And that's what it felt like to you.
I know when he said that I was like, that makes sense because it would, you know, I'd be hyper fixating on past things, past mistakes, past memories, and then jumping automatically to future pranks.
things like that, the things that didn't even come true or didn't even happen.
And just yeah, and it just made complete sense to me and that's why everyone's like we need to practice gratitude, you need to be present and I need to acknowledge to myself that 99 % of the things that I fear just don't actually happen, but still I never learned from it.
That's tough to do that.
It's such a consistent thing that I, you know, my partner, she gets anxiety and often it it is about like feared things that are going to happen.
And even though the 99 percent of the time, maybe more, they never happen, in the moment when she's like high anxiety, she's convinced.
And it doesn't help me saying because I can't prove that it's not going to happen.
I can't promise that it's not going to happen because you know, I don't know.
But it's fascinating to watch someone go through that where it's happened so many times, but that you still the voice in your head, the what I call my partner, Jams, anxiety.
I call her Annie, because it's like when Annie is here, she's so convincing and the voice and the things that she says is going to happen.
It's like, you better get ready because this is going to happen on this person is going to do this.
It's so she's so convincing is nothing I can say that is going to convince her.
Otherwise. Yeah, it's so powerful.
Yeah. When you were, as your career, and I guess your life ambitions from a success point of view, as that got more and your album came out and you played Glastonbury and all these incredible things started happening, how did that affect, if at all, your anxiety and depression like these episodes you're having?
It kind of went away for a little bit, but then came back harder, and then went away and then came back harder.
Yeah, that's kind of the easiest way of describing it.
And, you know, all of a sudden there's, there's, you know, drugs and alcohol everywhere to kind of qua many anxieties or make them even worse down the line.
Like was the alcohol and drugs kind of probably not consciously self -medicating but do you think it was part of it?
I say alcohol and drugs, drugs were never a really big part of my story to be honest.
but I can see how touring musicians and just touring people, or whatever, can kind of become dependent on it.
Because it's so helpful to kind of, you know, calm you down, you know, it will calm you down if you're kind of anxious about a show, but it'll also kind of perk you up for the show.
It's kind of, it'll put you to sleep.
But it's like, yeah, I don't know, It kind of puts you to sleep and wakes you up and it's always there and every time you, you know, get off of a tour bus and walk into what is essentially your office for the day, you're surrounded by booze, left right and center.
So it's no wonder that it becomes a major factor in people, people's lives.
Do you still drink?
No, yeah, I stopped over two years ago.
How have you found that?
Yeah, a journey. But amazing.
Just your first three, six months were pretty, pretty funky.
Yeah. And then it just kept getting better and better and better.
And now I almost you don't think about at all, to be honest.
Wow. That's amazing.
Yeah. What was the, what was the catalyst for that?
Like what was the laid up?
If you don't mind? You don't know.
You You know, in periods of high stress, my drinking would go up and it just got to a point where it was too much and I was kind of given an ultimatum, and I also recognised that I needed to make a change because the way it was going was not looking very pretty and I'd always had this deep sense that at some point I was gonna stop, quit, recover, whatever.
I always kind of had this feeling like, this is not good for me.
This is kind of like ripping myself out or whatever.
And I finally did it, which is great.
Yeah, well done. That's no small thing.
Yeah. No. It was yeah, pretty freaky at the start.
You said you had an ultimatum and it's like a medical ultimatum or?
No, my wife was like, you got, there's two options here, and pick one.
And so I did. And I'm kind of really thankful that she presented me with that ultimatum, even though I resented It had like so much for almost a year because it would just become such a huge factor in my life and how I operated daily and what was a day going to look like if I wasn't going to have some wafty natural wine at like 8pm with dinner or whatever.
It was so interwoven into my life and now I'm kind of out of that, which is exciting And now all that resentment has turned into gratitude towards for forcing slash encouraging me to do it.
I'm really interested, and I only ask this as a matter of like hopefully helping people who are hearing this going like, Oh, I would like to get to that point or on my partner is drinking.
How did your wife, if you don't mind me asking, and how did she approach it?
How did she speak to you about it in the ultimatum moment?
Pretty straightforward, because yeah, I won't go into the the kind of the details of what happened leading up to it.
But lots of shit was happening, you know, at home and outside of home with work with that with everything, and I just couldn't handle it.
So I went on a an absolute up and then woke I came to from that, and she was like, and we're not we're not doing this anymore.
And And I said, yeah, I've got no rebuttal against that.
So let's see what happens.
I was looking, I think it's in the song, I think, from your newest album.
I think you'll know for these.
There's a lyric that says, I'm aware that I'm the problem, but that doesn't solve the problem.
Well, that, yeah, that describes it or it's a good lyric.
It really, I mean, I think people will relate that cause it's, I mean, particularly I've never dealt with alcohol or drug abuse or anything like that, but there is a, that lyric particularly was like, Oh, because I read a lot of books about like how to better myself and listened to a lot of podcasts.
And I know what to do.
Generally speaking, like I know what I should be doing.
I know what I shouldn't be doing.
thing. And sometimes I kind of mistake learning the thing for actually doing the thing.
Yeah, yeah. It's like I'm very good at like, I think, like talking to someone and saying like, This is this is what I should be doing and I can sound very kind of smart about this.
But then to actually put into practice is obviously the bit that matters.
Yeah. And it is the hardest part.
Yeah, no, that's very true.
I'm exactly the same.
Yeah, it's almost like you learn these things and go, Yeah, that makes sense.
But then just don't put it into agency, don't do anything with it whatsoever.
Yeah, just carry on, just keep going.
But maybe more self -aware or slightly wiser person, but still the same POS or whatever.
Now, just guilty that I don't think, that I know I should be doing.
I used to drink a lot more than I do now.
having kids has been the main catalyst for me to slow down drinking just because I can't handle being hungover like I used to be with kids, and being aware of how short that time is with them as little kids, I just don't want to waste any of it.
But when I used to drink a lot more, I had issues not so much with anxiety but certainly with low low moods, and hence one of reasons.
I was I mean, I did have a panic attack.
So I guess I did have an anxiety issues as well.
But one of the things that only I only realized this year was like I, I believed that I was the person I was, not so much when I was drinking, but when I was kind of hung over for three days out of every week.
For years I started to believe that that was me.
A question for you is do you feel like you're a different person now than you were to the person when you were drinking?
I never thought I was like a truly awful person when drunk although I did eat pasta someone else's dinner with my own hands in New York once which was quite which was quite bad.
Wow you went up to their table and just yeah yeah it was like some kind of pasta and sat next to them.
Creamy? I think it was like it was some kind of like Ragu scenario so it wasn't fully creamy.
Yeah. Um, so I was doing some pretty bad things, but I mean, at least that one was kind of funny.
I don't know. Yeah.
It's extremely funny.
Like did they find it funny or were they, I think one of them found it funny and.
The person who's food it wasn't.
And then, uh, they did not.
Thankfully my, my wife was around at the time and she took my credit card out and paid for it or whatever.
Um, so yeah. Yeah. It's like, cause that story to me, it's like, telling it now, it's like, that's so funny in like the, us, you know, me replaying it in my head, but in the moment.
Do you remember it being funny or was it kind of like hectic?
Oh, I don't remember any of it at all.
Wow. It's kind of like the Bill Murray story, you know, he apparently went up to someone, had Just got the steak or whatever at this Beverly Hills restaurant, and Bill Murray goes up, sits in front of them, takes all the food, just slowly eats it in front of them, and the other person's like ...
and he just slowly eats it, drinks the wine, and then when he's finished he just puts it all back and just says, they'll never believe you and walks out.
If that is true ...
I think it ... I feel like it is.
He does things like that.
But I also think...
I wonder whether he would do that if he wasn't Bill Murray, like if he was never famous.
Is there a part of that that he thinks like, oh, this is...
I mean, of course. Because he says at the end, I'll never believe you.
But playing into kind of the mythology of yourself.
Do you think there's any part of you, like as someone who is a famous rockstar, is there a part of you that goes like, I can do this because of...
Oh no. No, no, no, no.
I don't think of myself as a famous anything, even a rock star, really.
I was just drawing a parallel between how cool he did it and how awful I did it.
There are so many amazing Bill Murray stories.
Yeah. But no, back to your question.
I now realize how terrible my kind of thinking and how cyclical my thinking was back, back then.
Whereas now, I think I'm closer to operating like a, you know, fully functioning human being.
Yeah. That's, that sounds familiar to me, because I don't, yeah, I wasn't so much referring to the drinking bit, which is why it took me so long to realise the problem that was creating for me.
Because I was like, well, I'm not that bad.
Like I'm not a bad drunk.
So I'm not that bad.
But I hadn't, I just hadn't done the maths, probably because my brain wasn't capable of doing it while I was drinking that much of like, you're just not giving your brain a break without this stuff in it, to have self -compassion, to have a bit of love for yourself to grow a little bit.
And yeah, I'm not sober, but I don't drink as much as I used to.
And it's been one of the biggest gifts my kids have given me is that space.
I think most people either slow down when they have kids, but for me, like what you were saying before about you know, Oh, we've only got this.
They're gonna be older soon and all that that those thoughts would actually make me thirstier.
So I'll be like, Oh my God.
This is yeah. I'm going to lose everything and I'm going to lose these precious moments.
And yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
I kind of did the opposite for me.
So I feel like some people really ramp it up and some people are able to deeper it down.
That totally makes sense to me.
Especially if it's been there, not saying this is the case for you, but for people, for people whose it's advice that sort of helps to deal with any kind of anxiety or depressive thoughts or feelings, then I can imagine that it would go, it could go through the roof when your kids.
With your relationship and, and alcohol, was there a point where it became obvious that was having an impact on our relationship or was that not quite the case.
I am seeing more and more things pop up now in the kind of, in the clear light of day I can point back and go, ah, I can see how that affected you.
Actually there are quite a lot of moments that I can recall and obviously that trust between us is now, hopefully, in the course of being rebuilt.
But really, I mean, when we first met it was kind of partiesville for many years.
And then we had kids and she was able to dial it down.
And I guess I was like, Oh, I'll dial it down a bit.
I'll dial it up. And then over time, that graph just went kind of north.
There's a fair discrepancy sitting there between the two of you.
Yes. Every day that goes by, I kind of look back and see how I've how I made things pretty interesting between us.
But I didn't notice that at the time.
Before you describe the first few months of sobriety is pretty funky.
Um, I'd love to hear more about what that's like because I think it could be really helpful for people because I imagine that first — I'm sure it's different for everyone, but those first few months would be so difficult to get through.
How did you, how did you manage to get through it?
One thing I didn't know that I kind of know now is that your dopamine system is absolutely fried.
So you feel pretty rough for like a good two to three months and then every day that progresses It just becomes better and better and better your dopamine system from the drinking.
Yeah It's kind of amazing what it does to your mind really.
And I know and I had you know I was very foggy for like three to six months Until it kind of cleared up, but yeah, no, I don't know I mean for me, it's my my mind would say everything's fine.
You don't have a problem look, you've just done two weeks, you're fine, go, go on, go down to the, um, the bar and do what you normally do.
But then I know that that's just going to end up in the same cyclical thing over time.
Um, so, yeah, it's about accepting that may be, um, your brain doesn't have your best interests at heart and not to listen to it all the time.
Um, yeah, and I think that's kind of a big issue with people.
In general, I feel like people are not really taught how to think, they're only kind of taught what to think.
And I still haven't learned how to think, to be honest, but I'm getting there.
But yeah, no, the first three to six months were interesting.
I imagine it can be even more interesting if you have to go to rehab or you're in like delirium tremens or something like that, but I wasn't, that wasn't me, but oh my God, after you get past it, and everything starts to kind of come back to normal, kind of feel like a kid again.
It's hands down the best thing, the best decision I've ever made.
Wow. Yeah. That must have been incredible the time.
I don't know if you can pinpoint, I don't know, if it would be possible at pinpoint in time, but the moment you started to feel your brain almost coming back again and getting that clarity.
I don't know if there's a moment that comes to mind, but that must have been an incredible feeling.
Well, I just realized that I didn't get excited about anything.
I mean, maybe I'd like, you know, we're playing big stage at Glastonbury, mild like little bit of a, you know, I suddenly life got exciting again and the highs kind of restructured themselves into a correct ladder, like I was a kid again.
I didn't think about drinking or what I'd do after playing golf or going to the cinema or like going rock climbing or whatever.
It was about the rock climbing, whereas it became about what was happening around the rock climbing.
Everything became a vehicle for the drinking, yeah.
Did you ever think that you could get to that stage?
Did you ever think that was possible?
No. Even when I was in early sobriety, I didn't think that that was what was happening, but I mean, the best way I can describe it is that, yeah, it takes a lot of work, but you essentially go back to being a kid again, and that's how you look at life.
and it's, um, it's, it's extremely pleasurable.
It's amazing way of explaining it being a kid again.
I feel like that's constantly wanting to be a kid again.
I think a kid's the best.
Do you mind if I ask you?
because I know you've written a little bit about it in lyrics, but I, we were chatting about this earlier and finding it fascinating, explaining the relationship that you've explored a little bit with, the antidepressants you're on in creativity, and the impact that has.
How did you find them to interact with your ability to create?
I was first on Sitalopram, I don't know that's, that's the UK name, and they put me on an ungodly dose of that, like, um, that was pretty high.
I was having the best time.
and you're high on the basic that yeah it's depression yeah that I don't know they get they gave me way too much or I don't know and everything I wrote was pretty crap for like a year or two and then I came off them and then everyone's reactions to the songs I was writing dramatically improved and I was like oh Oh, okay, maybe this is somewhat linked to those.
Everything got better when I got off the Satalopram.
But I was on a shockingly high dose where I basically thought everything was incredible all the time.
So it probably impaired on kind of, I think being creative you need to kind of passionately create and then dispassionately edit.
and I probably couldn't do the latter because I was so happy.
I thought everything was great.
That's amazing. Passionately create and dispassionately edit.
That's so cool. Yeah.
I mean, I still take watch the teen or prozac, but only a very small kind of.
I'll put, I imagine I'll be doing those till the cows come home.
Yeah, that's all the worms come home.
Well said. Yeah. Yeah, that is such a beautifully way of putting it because I just realised then, I hope it didn't come across like this, and I definitely didn't want it to.
In the question of sort of glamourising the idea of there needing to be like creativity coming from a place of really struggling.
Yeah, I hope that didn't come out because your answer is beautiful, the way that you could then dispassionately add it.
Yeah, no. And I used to think the same, I was like, how am I going to be able to write songs without, whilst being sober and what am I going to draw from and I'm not going to get myself into trouble and what am I going to do, but it's way better.
I feel more creative and life is endlessly, it's just hilarious.
So, yeah, I don't think there's any shortage of inspiration at the moment.
Before you started going on an anti -depressants, how dark did it get, with the depression?
Do you have memories of it being...
you mentioned low moods before.
Do you have memories of being really quite dark?
Yeah. Sorry, I laugh at it a lot.
I don't know if that's sick or twisted or not cool, But yeah, no, there was there was one time where I had a friend, actually, an Australian doctor, I'm still really close with Dr. Bill.
He's like a rock doc in Australia.
And he I was having a really bad time around just after the third album came out.
And I went to see like this crisis psychiatrist in Windsor in London, who he got me in with at the last minute.
And that was kind of freaky.
And I just couldn't stop.
Like I was just crying at everything.
We laugh about it. My wife was living in London with me.
And we were watching Jurassic Park like the lost kingdom or whatever.
And she was like lugged looking at it.
And she just turned round at me, and I was just like bawling my eyes out.
Like, I was just so wrapped up in my own, I was so lost in my own head.
But I'm trying, yeah, crying at Jurassic Park.
Is that the dog as the goat?
Probably not, no. Was there any, and there's no pressure around this whatsoever.
Did you go towards suicidal ideation at all?
Was there any of that happening for you?
You hear a lot of people saying that that's kind of the moment of kind of wakes them up or scares them the most?
I'd always had a bit of that.
I'd always kind of toy with these darker ideas.
But they never progressed past in our, you know, a brief ideation.
I've dipped in and out of those thoughts since I was 15.
I don't know. I guess in my head, it's like, well, doesn't everyone think like that, but maybe they don't.
Have you watched Jurassic Park the Lost Kingdom since to see if it actually is that sad?
It's not that sad. Yeah, but I'm very lucky that it came in.
My wife is not, you know, she is very far from, you know, sycophantic or she doesn't buy into my reality or my kind of thoughts and emotion, so she will call me out and go, I can't believe you're crying at this now, you're ridiculous.
Go and see someone.
You know, that's kind of the, and I think that's how I operate the best with someone like that rather than someone who is going to kind of affirm everything that and I think and feel.
But I might be an outlier in regards to that.
What do you guys make?
Through a mutual friend in the music industry.
Yeah, I woke up in London.
I was hungover and I was like, oh, after this, I'm going to go to LA and I took a guitar and flew out that night and met her.
That night. Oh, yeah.
My friend was like, you've got to download this app since 2013.
It's like, you got to download this app.
It's called Uber. I was like, that's ridiculous.
Yeah. So I met her that night and then nothing happened for a few months and then, then something happened.
Yeah. And so she, I thought you said she was the Uber driver.
No. no. Kind of feel like just back to this card I've been thinking like, in what ways the cards is, in what ways do you fear you could negatively impact your children?
But it's kind of occurred to me that like we should put a card in it.
It says, in what ways do you think your children could positively impact you?
Yeah. Because I kind of feel like the just that story you told about Dylan, and I'm sure there's many others.
But I don't have kids, I don't know, but I just hear often that you obviously learn things from kids.
Your own kids I imagine all the time.
Is there anything without wanting to throw a bonus non -existent card in there?
Other than that, are there ways that you feel like having kids or being a dad has kind of changed your outlook on life or in a positive way?
Well, just as you were saying, that was like kind of being a kid is the goal, right?
it's like we should be getting out of their way as much as possible.
And that's kind of a place that I feel like I'm getting back into now.
You know, going out and running, or going to the park or going on holiday.
All these things are like really exciting to me now because I don't drink anymore.
All those things just used to be a byproduct of the ultimate kind of escapism that it was surrounded by, and that I should be getting out of the way as much as possible because I have probably a damn sight more to learn from them than they do me.
What has amazed you most about being a dad?
Is there any one thing you just like you didn't say coming and has not necessarily enriched but just changed you as a person?
having someone who is more important than yourself just changes shifts everything.
And it's an amazing part of life and adulthood, I think.
And I'm, yeah, but and especially Dylan's five, now she's so outgoing, and I just love being around her.
I never thought I'd get to expect, well, I had no idea that that relationship or that kind of, you know, love was possible.
So yeah, that has changed me a lot for the better.
Yeah, it is just, yeah, as massive fans of your music, it's so cool to meet you.
It's so amazing to chat with you.
Thank you. And thanks for being so generous with your answers as well.
I know it's like, you've definitely never heard of us and what we do in our podcast.
It's not your normal podcast.
That's what your doing more podcast about it.
I also am a bit disappointed at the lack of dick mentions from your consideration.
I know, I feel bad.
You're the dick guy.
Yeah, the reputation procedure.
But you had it covered.
It's only decal the concept.
Oh, that's true. It kind of stole your thunder.
I think I said I held it when I was one to three.
That's ridiculous. It would have been like three to six just to clarify.
OK, now you're creeping a little bit too old.
Let's keep the mythology at one to three.
No one can disprove that.
We'll edit that bit out, but Matthew or Murph, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure.
I really enjoyed it.
Thanks so much. Thank you.
Cheers. Enjoyed this week's episode but want a little more?
Then you might want to know that we have a brand new show called A Little More in Purfix over on Patreon.
For a little bit of money you'll get access to bonus episodes with the three of us every fortnight.
Early access to live events, plus other things that we haven't thought of yet, but when we do think of them, you'll get them.
Visit patreon .com forward slash the imperfects.
The imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment, or assessment.
The advice given in this episode is general in but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
