Teddy Swims

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Doug Barrington and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Welcome, I'm Lily Padman and you're Doug Barrington. I want to be, I want to be- Doug Liman? Michelle-.

What if it was Doug Barrington and Doug Liman?

I want to be Michelle Montana. Do you know why? Tell me. Because my first street in LA was Barrington Avenue.

Oh, so there's your farm-.

And you lived off Montana.

I didn't live- I wish I lived off Montana. Mother, you lie, you-. No, that's where the rich people live.

You told me you lived off Montana.

No, I didn't. In Santa Monica. No, I lived off of Broadway, in between Broadway and Santa Monica Boulevard. Montana's, where the nice people live.

I guess I'll be Michelle Broadway then.

There you go, Michelle Broadway. That sounds slutty. Yeah. I grew up on Barrington.

You were Doug Barrington.

Yeah, right, right, right, right.

And so I will be. Michelle Broadway, Montana, hyphen.

Michelle Broadway. Okay, great. We sorted it out. I wonder if you're a listener and you're like, you guys, it's time to hang up. Just say your names and get out.

No.

Okay.

I wouldn't mind having a-.

Pseudonym?

Not, what's the other word for it?

Nom de pleas? No, it's like persona, but- Yeah, alter ego?

Alter ego, thank you. That's the word I'm looking for. An alter ego, Michelle Broadway, Montana.

Oh, you're adding all of them now.

Yes, she's hyphened. Because she came from a family where the mother refused to give up her name.

The mother was stubborn. Yeah, so I love her.

I wanna be her.

Yeah, okay.

I'm gonna be her.

Great, Michelle Montana, Broadway. Broadway, Montana.

This is what happens when you hyphenate people.

Yeah, that's y'all's fault. As long as I get both names in there, you should be happy. No. Yeah, why'd the order matter? You're saying one order's better than-.

What if we said Dax Shepard Randall?

Great, enjoy.

Okay, I will.

We have a sweet boy on today. Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet boy. His name is Teddy Swims, but I think it should be Teddy Sweets. Oh, yeah, I like that. He's so sweet.

Yeah, this was fun. It's so talented.

Yeah, outrageous, outrageous, raw. You, of course, like everyone else, fell deeply in love from his last album, I've Tried Everything But Therapy among those songs. ♪ I lose control. ♪. He's so fucking good, but mostly he's a sweet, sweet boy.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

♪ He's an armchair expert ♪.

Get a car lift going, I see, man. That's sick.

Oh, thanks for noticing. I mean, you would understand. This is a dream of all dreams. Yeah, hell yeah, brother. I have a fucking car lift in my garage.

Hell. yeah, brother. That's awesome.

A horsepower sitting on it.

That's what you like to see, baby. Success, baby. We love to see it.

I gotta take you in a little bit. Okay. This would be really inappropriate if you were a female guest, but I'm gonna let my eyes start at your toes and I'm gonna follow your legs up very slowly and I'm gonna look at every-.

Do a body scan?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm immediately curious who some of these portraits are of. So let's start on your left leg. there. Who's that gentleman?

Okay, this guy is Chris Farley, dressed as Han Solo. Oh!

Oh, my God, incredible.

Wonderful, wonderful.

And I got a little Dave Chappelle right here. Oh! We love Dave.

He's the best. Have you met him and got to show him your thigh?

Yeah, dude, I didn't get to show him the thigh. I got to go to his Grammy party and he was doing this kind of like open jam thing, and I got to go up there and sing, and it was so sick, man. Thundercat was playing bass, Corey Henry's on the keys. It was the coolest shit ever.

Oh, yeah.

Ardor Day got up and sang. It was just star-studded over there, man. So I got to go up there and meet him.

Does he make you nervous?

He was already like three sheets to the wind and inviting people up. And he was like, Teddy, everybody says you're awesome. Let's fucking hear what this is about. And so I was like, dude, I got a tattoo of you on my leg right here. I wasn't gonna just drop trowel in front of him.

Sure, sure, sure. You gotta find out his boundaries.

Look at this, bro.

Yeah. It would have been a lot of production. He would have known for a while what was coming. It's better to have drawstring on and just drop.

Yeah, exactly, baby.

He makes me nervous. I'm saying that I haven't even met him, but I know he would make me nervous. I'm very intimidated.

I was thinking I was gonna be, I think it was just the environment. If it was just me meeting him, like walking into his house or something to do something like this, I would probably be freaking the fuck out, for sure, you know, but it was just such a big party going on. So it was easy to just like, hey, man. And I got called up to the stage to sing. I immediately knew I was gonna crush that.

That's the gift you have, I don't. I don't have anything to come. wow him with, right? I think. the reason he intimidates me, it's anyone that I've labeled so cool.

That's how I felt meeting John Mayer. That is the coolest fucking guy I've ever met. He's just cool as hell. It's like, he's like, yes. And I know a lot of things must bug that guy.

Poppy energy.

I could not stop.

No, you gotta help me understand, because, and this is not shade to John Mayer. Truly, I think he's talented and everything. I wouldn't be intimidated at all. I don't think he was the dude in my high school. I was like, hey, what are you guys doing after school?

When I was first coming up, playing and singing and stuff, from Room for Squares on, he's just always been one of the guys. for me. Everything he's done too has been completely alone. I'm a huge collaborator when it comes to writing and using my guys to write and play. And he's done everything by himself.

His conviction and self-confidence is the thing you-.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I also find that musicians in particular really do respect him.

He's the musician's musician, the artist's artist, but also has the hits. Whatever thing about trying to be like a big artist, you can do it the John Mayer way and really never give up your integrity and make things that are good for artists to listen to, singers, to listen to, players to listen to, but also still get a number one slot by doing that. And I think he's what that is for me versus like, I'll take the shitty record and I know this is gonna be the number one single. I try to avoid those at all costs and just try to do it the way that makes me feel like my integrity's intact.

The Mayer method. Yeah, the Mayer method. The John Mayer method. Absolutely. You should write a book called The Mayer Method.

Dude, I love you and I'm so glad to be doing this now. Me too. Because it came in hot, dude. As soon as I saw you standing there watching me, I was like, Dax, Dax, Dax, dude, I love you, bro. You're my fucking hero, dude.

I loved it so much because what you were helping me through was I was having a moment where I was like, man, I am 49.. Everyone here is young. Everyone knows what's happening. I'm starting to not know what's happening. And then I see you and I'm like, this motherfucker.

Incredible, incredible.

So then I'm thinking like, God, I'm so asleep on this genius. Now, mind you, when I hear the song, I know the fucking song. I just didn't put it together right away. And then I'm like in a shame spiral that I'm so disconnected. And then you came up and you were so kind to me.

You actually made my whole night. Dude, always. I'm glad to hear that, man. That makes the world of me.

It was really a lovely moniker.

It was a Spotify party. We were both there. We were posting it. I have no excuse to be out of the loop. So I'm embarrassed for sure.

Yes, that is good. It actually fills you with deep shame that you're not on to it.

Yeah, totally.

I'm glad to hear that, but not the shame part. I love that. I'm grateful that there's always ways to get out there. And you hear it firsthand. And I think that's the most beautiful thing that we try to do is just every place we can be, whether it's a 200 cap or anywhere.

Yeah, we were like 12 feet away. If we wanted to rush the stage and stab you or something, you were very vulnerable to our attack. We were very close. We were. Yeah, I was quite moved by the whole thing.

If I'm too much for somebody, then they're just not for me is what I think. I come on hard and strong and fast. And I'm just like, I love you. One thing I've been trying to learn in my love life is to not do that. You kissed me once.

I think there'll be an explanation for that. as we walk through your whole life. Yeah, probably. I can relate, big time. Georgia, you're with a fellow.

I'm from Georgia.

Oh, right on. Where from? Duluth. Yeah, a lot of my homies are from Duluth. You know Duluth.

I've been constructing a mental image of it for the last 10 years. we've been friends. I have yet to go, but I've heard so many details. Is it a haven of malls?

There's a good amount of malls. A lot of them have shut down during the pandemic and stuff. And I think some are making its way back. I'm actually going back on Friday. My aunt's getting married in Monticello.

Oh, this sounds like something out of Eastbound and Down. It's gonna be absolute white trash. Yes, absolute white trash wedding. It's gonna be sick. Anytime the bride and bride arrive on a jet ski, you're seeing something special.

Steampunk theme, they said. I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna wear.

What does that even mean? Yeah, how does one dress for steampunk? I mean, Rob would have a great answer. What should he be in? Suspenders, leather pants.

No, but I gotta call her eventually and ask, like, what do you wanna do? Are you just trying to fly through this thing? Or do you want me to do some scripture or something? Because you never know, sometimes people want, even if they're not Christian, they want some Jesus-y part of it.

Now, listen, I'm gonna advise you to prepare basically two versions of this, because you have to account for the fact that there's at least a 15% chance one of them will sustain a pretty serious injury, pulling up to the dock. Exactly. Because jet skis are highly unpredictable and they often end in failure. So you need to have one that's like, let's get this done because the ambulance is waiting. And then you need one.

And we're probably gonna have to cut from the video where I'm trying to pull them up on the...

Yeah, you might wanna wear life preservers. As part of your steampunk routine.

Maybe make it look like a bulletproof vest or something. Try to go for that kind of look.

50 cents slash, wow, buoyancy compensator.

Oh man, I wouldn't say it's a beautiful place, but it's my place. I love it there. And I went to school called Salem and was a big theater kid. Our place was really tight knit. My mom, my dad, both sides of my grandparents, my great-grandparents, all from Conyers.

That's the south side of the diamond for the most part. Yeah, yeah.

And then on the north side of the diamond, there was actually my mom's granny's church that they used to go to. And then my granddad's church was a little ways down the road. And so all around the sides here are my granddad's brothers and sisters, daughters and kids. outside of the diamond. There's another kind of diamond around it.

Wow, so you're surrounding the whole area.

Yeah, and so I always lived with my dad as much as I possibly could, because he was in Covington or something. And every time you do anything wrong, there was like 40 people just like.

Someone could see you in every corner of the county. What kind of population are we talking about?

I couldn't tell you the population. I don't know, but I would tell you that there was times in my life where you can't throw a rock far enough without hitting a curb or a dims down in that town, because we have generations. So I would have to do like family trees to date. somebody. You know what I mean?

23 of me posted on your chest.

It's scary, yeah. We're thinking that down.

18,000.. 18,000.. Okay, because it's only 24 miles east of Atlanta, but was it rural?

The older I got, the more it became. More suburban-y in a way, but when I was younger, I remember my grandparents having chickens and stuff like that in their small yard, but over the years, more people came in, and it's right next to Covington, too, which is a little further east. And Covington, over the last few years, has been doing a lot of filming, and Tyler Perry's kind of the one that spearheaded all that stuff, and then Vampire Diaries and a bunch of things started getting in, so Covington's becoming this huge place of filming.

That's so weird. If, like Highland, Michigan, the town next to mine, became a hotbed of Hollywood activity, I would have a hard time understanding that.

But I think in Georgia, there's a bunch of tax-.

Incentives, yeah. So, mom and dad, were they married?

They divorced when I was probably three or so, so I don't remember them quite together. As we're talking now, they've weirdly been like kind of dating again, weirdly, as I'm 31.. Oh, wow. And it's been really weird.

It's gross, right?

Yeah, they came to our show in Vegas together and then they called me on the phone. He's like, baby, it's probably weird hearing us together. And I was like, dad, I don't know how I feel about it. If it makes you happy. And he's like, is there one thing to say?

Well, I don't know. We gotta really think this through. No, that's wrong.

Whatever makes you guys happy, but I'm not trying to parent trap you guys or anything, so fuck that.

I'm the same. So, my dad left when I was three, but they remained really great friends. And they'd be together. And even occasionally, if they were being mildly affectionate, I'd be like, guys, don't even think about going back down that road. Why?

It doesn't. It was always just yelling about this or that forever. And so they always kind of just despised each other in a way.

You don't have to name names, but did someone get sober in this equation?

None of them really ever had a big drinking issue or nothing like that. So that's been great. My mom was married to a guy from the time I was four to about 18, who was a massive alcoholic and had dad and dad's, dad and mom. They were a big line of alcoholics, but my parents, they'll smoke some weed here and there. My dad would get down every once in a while.

As needed.

Yeah, I've never had alcohol abuse within my parents.

Oh, that's lucky.

Yeah, that's really beautiful for me.

You had a lot of church, obviously, between the grandparents. Yeah, with my mom.

Yeah, but on my dad's side, it was never that way, which was great. On the weekends, I'd go over there and we could do whatever. We could eat all the ice creams we want. I mean, we was watching Martin, my favorite show. I got a picture of Jerome back here on my side, right?

Was dad spending money differently than mom? Because we'd go to my dad's on the weekend and he drove a Corvette, he had cable TV, we could order pizza. It was like he was rich, even though he wasn't.

It was very tough on my pop's side. My mom, she was with a guy who was pretty well off. He was gone all the time working. But my dad, on the other hand, he got with a woman who was schizophrenic and bipolar and had two more boys that are eight and 10 years younger than me. And so she was always in and out of prison and methed out.

Oh, that's lovely.

He'd put these four boys on his back and just chug through it. Oh, man.

How much older is your brother?

He's about 14 months older than me.

Okay, so really close.

Yeah, he's my best friend. He lives out here with me now.

And so, growing up, what kids were you in the social hierarchy of that world?

I've always just kind of gotten along with everyone. I've always been that way.

You have a very sweet face. It's the opposite of punchable faces. I appreciate that. You're familiar with punchable faces, you have the opposite.

Yeah, I've just always been able to get along with anybody and everybody. You know, it's just been easy for me.

And was your older brother bigger than you?

They're all bigger than me. My shortest little brother is, I think, still 5'10", but the rest of my family's in six foot. I got stuck at 5'7".

Well, I bet you got the singing thing. So it all comes out in the wash. Was your brother protective of you?

Absolutely, man. All of us. When I first had this thing picking up and going off, we'd started our merchandise business and I just employed my older brother to do it, because it was kind of like he didn't really get to start a life until just this last couple of years, when my little brothers got older. Because, as I was going doing this and my dad was trying to put my little brothers through high school, Kaylin, my oldest brother, was their mother for so long. He had to kind of take care of all of us in a lot of ways.

While you're surrounded by sweet men,

that's not always the case. Women, on the other hand, have been a little treacherous. I think I've continued to pick those. It's such a different thing than what a lot of people go through, because I have loving, gentle, hugging, kissing men in my life. Not so much that way with women in my life.

Your stepdad, would he fall into the great or not great category?

He's an awful person. Okay. I loved him when I was younger, but he was just an alcoholic and he was gone all the time and he was working, and he's really abusive and I haven't heard from him since. He raised me from four to 18.. He was a second dad to me, you know?

Disabandonment.

Yeah, I think it really did fuck me up. I still think of that sometimes.

Well, you start rewriting the entire history, right? Which is like, oh, he was only ever nice to me because of mom, now he doesn't have mom, so none of that was sincere or genuine. But also, you're smart enough to know you lost him to addiction. Some point in your life, you might even have compassion.

Yeah, I know as I'm on the road and how easy it is to fall into this spell of just drinking every day. And last year, all year long, when we was on tour for nine months, it was almost like a nine month bender of just anything to keep this dopamine flow going. That's been the hardest thing for me this year is, as we've been touring and trying to like get to this point of staying calm and being able to like, okay, we don't need all these people in the green room. We don't need a constant party every day. We don't need this dopamine.

Adrenaline.

Yeah, the adrenaline junkie you turn into. And then so, when you get home and you're not getting this constant affirmation, like, yeah, you're the best. You kind of get in this like, shit, man, I don't know. Am I okay? You get in this turmoil spot.

Well, I know how to regulate.

And I have to try to do things like get sun, go to the gym, try to get my life back in order for a week or two and try to get a routine going again. But then you're back.

Get stable and then do it all over again.

I'm grateful, though, the best job in the world.

You're like coming off of cocaine, but you don't have any downers and you're just in your hotel room. So it's like, what are we gonna do with all this?

That's the feeling. And then you're laying there till 3 a.m. And even if you got to get up at 6 a.m. to go radio, you're like, I can't turn this adrenaline off. And there's always a mini bar to start tapping into or something to get you a little bit more tired.

And you're like, what are you doing here?

We gotta get hammered tonight. Of course. There's always one, and it's tough.

And then for me, the justifications became more and more preposterous. Yeah. Yeah, they were kind of legit at first. And then it was just like, I mean, it's almost 11, 16, whatever the thing is.

But it's chemical, that high, the drop of being on stage and having all those people, it's an actual chemical drop. They're just like, oh, that sounds hard, but it's physiological.

Absolutely.

Of course you feel that way. It's not weird that you do. It's your chemicals, all of ours.

Well, and it all makes sense when you look back at how almost, I don't wanna be careful with my wordage here, but every performer I loved growing up was struggling with it.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

I don't know the one that was like the Billy Crystal of rock and roll, who somehow was doing it from a healthy place. Maybe, we don't know. And managed it beautifully.

Yeah, maybe, but he was like going to play a freeze tag at the end of the show with his friends. You know what I mean? He was going and partying.

Oh, maybe Paul McCartney. He seems to be the guy who escaped.

He's still with it. I'm sure he's had his time.

Even these ones you didn't think. Like Prince and Michael Jackson, both OD. They both died of drug overdoses. However, you wanna qualify it. Well, he had an opiate prescription.

I think, the more I do it, the more I realize like, oh, that's why we're all alcoholics and drug addicts. That's why we can become that so easy. Yeah.

So my probably number one guy I love is Waylon Jennings. And also my fantasy of his life is number one, which is on the road, up for six days on speed, writing, music, playing for people, sweating bullets, and everyone in his life's being let down, but the music's so good, they all overlook it. I was like, I gotta figure out something I do. good enough that everyone will let me live as shitty as I want and not kick me to the curb.

I missed Waylon Jennings a lot when I was coming up. I didn't quite come up on a lot of his stuff or his life or that matter, but I definitely could understand that feeling. That's what I thought I was doing with this career originally was like, I thought I could just be a degenerate all the time. And now it's like when you got a 3 a.m. lobby call to get to a radio station, I'm like, what the fuck is this?

Yeah, once you're inside the fantasy, you're like, oh, this isn't quite how I pictured it.

It's beautiful, but it's like, fuck, man, sometimes I just gotta wake up and feel like shit. or wake up, make sure I don't feel like shit.

I would argue, too, your specific story is a very extreme example of it, too, as far as the highs and lows. We're only one year out from Lose Control coming out.

Yeah, it's like a week from now or something?

Yeah. Wow. Doing well, making baby steps, baby steps, getting closer, getting closer, and then the floodgates, most listened to song of the year.

Obama's favorite song. Yeah, that was sick.

That was such a cool moment for me. I was lit up about that. Y'all made his little playlist, it was so sick. That song just goes to show you how the old way of doing something still works, because I had thought for so long that maybe a good song wasn't enough to just go anymore, because there's like 100,000 songs that come out a day on Spotify, right? A lot of these are backed up by trends via TikTok, Instagram, whatever have you, and when those trends start to happen, those songs start to hold up their hand, and it does make the playing field very even.

I would find it more satisfying if I were you as well that it wasn't even in a genre that's working at number one. It's not like you. listen to that and you're like, yeah, that's the one that'll catch on. It's not resembling any of the other top.

It just went last week, number one on R&B radio. It's already been number one on pop radio and it's number one on Billboard and rock radio. it's worked at and every different place it could be.

Okay, but back to Kanye, you were playing football as a little guy, and then you eventually discovered musical theater in 10th grade?

Yeah, 10th grade I got in.

But who were you? socially? Everyone kind of liked you, you were a good time, Charlie?

Yeah, absolutely.

Did girls like you, yet?

I was always nervous about that. I had a bunch of girls that were friends and I was always kind of like a serial dater, where I was just jumping into a relationship and then be in that for two, three years and then jump right into another one. And I kind of did that for a lot of my life.

Starting in what grade?

My first one I got serious about was ninth grade. We were together for, I think, two, three years.

That's a long time in high school.

We were broken up for like all of three days when I got into another one for like another three years. It was insane. It's been that way, except for where I'm currently at. I took months off before I dove back into something. because I've just been that way.

Now do you, well, we'll get to that, I guess. But when you start doing musical theater, you do Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Yeah, the first one we ever did actually was a show called Damn Yankees. So me and my best pal Jesse, who still plays with me, his dad was a guitarist and sang, and their whole family was big into music. And when I first started hanging out with him, I was the first time I ever saw somebody play and sing. He was in his basement and he had his PA set up and he started singing, ♪ Won't it get over that? ♪.

What age is this?

13,. we were coming right out of eighth grade. We get dropped off at the movie theater and take that 20 bucks our parents gave us and not go to the movies, do what you would think 14 year olds do with $20.. We just sit out there and sing acapella, trying to harmonize, trying to sing for anybody that let us sing. And his sister got us in a theater when I was in 10th grade and I remember still to this day, us doing the Damn Yankees show, and I had two lines, I think, in it.

Was your brother playing football?

Well, my older brother, he never played, but my two older brothers.

So I guess we're not all playing football. Why do you suppose that was an important endeavor for her?

I don't know, my dad did and my other brothers did.

It's a Southern thing.

And we always did. since I was a little kid, since I've been like five, she watched me on the football field.

But do you think she was worried about you missing out on the teammate experience? I'm trying to imagine what it is she thought football was giving you.

I think it was the fear of change that I was going to do something else, but it wasn't. until I did that first show and I'd sang my two little lines and I'd get out and my mom was like, baby, I'm so sorry. That's where you belong.

Oh, she flipped.

Yeah, she flipped so sick. All she had to see me was on stage.

Two lines.

And just be like, wow, baby, you go for it. That's good. You know, she was the sweetest after that.

Oh good, you won her right over.

Yeah, right over.

And then you started singing in the chorus in high school?

Yeah, funny enough, my senior year, I was kind of really falling behind. I was such a bad student and we had this credit recovery thing where you would go in class and you could do a few weeks of online bullshit and get your credits there. So I found this thing called Alpha, Omega and Conyers, and it's basically you go pick up work every week for like eight weeks and you'd read a chapter and you could pretty much Google all the answers, do the test on the back and then turn it in. You get credit. So I went over one summer going into my senior year, did all my senior core classes and all my credits.

You can't do that.

And I was like, well, I already got the credits.

So I am doing that.

So that's what I'm doing. Yeah. And she's like, well, I'm still getting you in the classes. And I was like, well, I'm not doing. And so I stayed all my core classes.

Yeah, you did it.

Because she couldn't say I couldn't do that. But they passed a law in Rockdale County. now that they can't do joint enrollment in places. I think I ruined it for some of the kids that were getting college credits.

And maybe for the best.

I still one day wanna pursue that again eventually, but I've kind of put myself in a box on roles I can play.

With the tattoos. Yeah.

There's gotta be a specific role now if it comes to acting again.

I was thinking that.

Well, when did tattoos start?

I got my first one when I was 16.. I got it covered up. It was a cross and it had my last name and a bander. It said Demsdale. And it said established 1992..

It's not that I don't think kids should get tattoos. It's just that they can't pick a good one. I'd almost sign off on it, but they need, like a panel of elders that approves your tattoo.

I agree. And not that I'm the one to take advice of tattoos from, but I think 16 year olds might be too early.

Kind of the first one. you see, you're like, that'd look awesome.

Doesn't really matter what it is, you see.

And I thought I was having the cross in my name and, like, you know, I was like, You really thought it through. Yeah, I tried anyway, but I just wanted something.

You know what's cute, Monica? I heard him say in an interview that what he wanted to be when he grew up was tattooed. That was a destination.

Yeah, that wasn't a real job, obviously. Doing tattoos is one.

Receiving money, yeah.

I remember my mom used to give us $10 at the end of the week when we did our chores for the week. And so on Sunday, we'd have to go to church and then we'd have to give 10% of our tithes and offerings, which is a good thing. And I appreciate that principle now, but giving up a dollar out of $10, I was like, fuck, I'm broke now. And my older brother would always give $5 because he's a fucking overachiever. Wow.

Yeah, what a weenie.

I would go to the Mexican restaurant every Sunday or Henderson's and they have those fake tattoo machines and I put them quarters in and just cash out, slap them, stand in the mirror all over my body.

Feeling awesome.

Yeah.

And did you feel protected by them? Like, what was the draw?

I don't know, I just felt tough. All the people I looked up to had tattoos and they were badasses. My first concert I went to and fought this bug for was 2007. Warped Tour. Paramore was there, Circus of Five.

I probably was there.

Yeah, he was there. Boys Like Girls, Coheed and Cambria. There was so many great bands at the time that were just my world.

And what actors did you think were cool?

Adam Sandler is my fucking dude.

Not Jack Black.

Jack Black is my dude too, but Adam Sandler is, I mean, I get that's quite a classic Billy Madison tattoo and Carl Weathers from Chels Peterson from Happy Gilmore right here. My dad raised me on nothing but Adam Sandler and Martin Lawrence and Chris Farley and SNL cast.

You want to know a trip, Teddy? The CEO of Ford right now is Chris Farley's cousin. No way. Jim Farley. And we interviewed him, and it's uncanny.

I think that blood really runs thick in him. Yes, very specific. Yeah, I just recently listened to the book, The Chris Farley Show. His brothers got together and wrote, and it's beautiful if you haven't ever read it.

Oh, I haven't.

Oh, it's about his whole life. The ending of it is just the last words he says in his life is just so sad. He's been up for four days. His prostitute is leaving his hotel and he goes after her and he collapses. And then she takes his watch and stuff and leaves him a note.

Yeah.

Yeah, such deep loneliness.

God, it's so sad. I mean, especially if you were struggling, his story would just have you in absolute tears. It's so powerful and sad.

Yeah, it is. There's a lot of things in that stew. It's not just addiction. It's also these highs and lows we're talking about. This kind of untenable high of public adoration.

That's so. much of it too, is that ability to always want to please and want to be around. And as soon as people are around, you gotta make them comfortable, but then you kind of feel more alone in a lot of those rooms too, where you're just always turning it off and turning it on. That's the biggest thing I struggle with, too, is that there's times I'm like, oh, fuck, I can't deal with all these people, you know? But as soon as I do, it's always the turning it on is the hard part.

What kind of things were you struggling with as a kid? in high school? Sounds like you had friends, you fucking finagled the school system, you're performing, you got a good dad.

A lot of what I struggled with is a lot of stuff with my mother and I wanted to live with my dad and I don't wanna like, I don't know if I'm ready to quite talk about certain things with my mother and her man. She married and that whole side of the family. It's not something I've really publicly spoke about and I don't know if my mom would be like-.

Yeah, you don't wanna hurt your mom's feelings.

But we went through a big, really tough time and with her decisions she made with that man and I had to get out of there and there was a lot of times where they were doing fine, but I'd rather live with my dad and struggle in the hood and raise my brothers. And it was always a love there that I was getting. Love was so much more than just this fake picture of what a beautiful house and a beautiful life looks like. I think there was a lot of it too. in regards to my upbringing in church and seeing the inside and outs of it.

Right, it wasn't just a disagreement. It was, you're amoral and you're gonna end up in hell because of this difference.

Yeah, and if you don't believe it, just like he did. I mean, he was headstrong so much that he wouldn't even go to a restaurant where there was a bar in it. He had a wood shop. He would never take money from the church. as a pastor.

I mean, the songs will probably be bad, but there's nothing wrong with it.

And my mom was always thinking I was up to something. I knew that came from a place of her just trying to seem like she was perfect, but also she was a pastor's kid. And now that I'm older, I'm like, oh, you were a fucking wild one. And you were thinking I was doing shit that I was not even doing. She was thinking I was into all sorts of drugs at like 12, and I was like, Mom, I don't even know anybody that does that.

What comfort did it give you? The only time I was really optimistic in life was when I had booze in me.

When I think about why I started drinking or why I started smoking cigarettes, it was truly to be cool, you know? And that was all there was to it. I just wanted to be cool. And I was hanging out with these kids and they were smoking weed and I wanted to smoke weed. And if I could be the one to get the alcohol, then I was a fucking legend.

You knew better than to say, hey, ma'am. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Ma'ams weren't buying too much. Hell?

It's an option for you.

It's a total road. I wouldn't have had that.

Yeah, it's a perfect time. I think it's super powerful. That's why I think kids these days are so much more well-off. You know, you can school at any moment, and there's an 11-year-old doing what we think we are good at way better than we'll ever be at it. Their access to information and being able to learn and play is-.

Study it.

So much harder than what even I had. I'm grateful for that. I could just Google, you know, if I wanted to watch Marvin Gaye and watch him live, I could see videos of him sitting there singing and watch his mouth and what he's doing, how he moved. And I could watch Grammy performances of Michael Jackson. I remember the first time I saw Michael Jackson do that one where he beats the record.

I know. Can you imagine having America excited to see you take your glasses off?

He was so sick. He was so badass to me. And I just like knew from that point, I was just watching him. I was always like, God, what a fucking badass dude.

Did you watch that greatest night in pop music? documentary on Netflix?

Oh, I have not, no.

Oh, my God. Your head's going to spin. It's about them coming together to make We Are The World. You've got, like Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie, kind of orchestrating everything. And it's every single greatest singer alive in this one room.

What a monster, man. Stevie Wonder. Yeah, Song of the Key Life, number one for me. Man, I'd love to be breathing the same air. He's the one.

So you joined a bunch of bands. I'm imagining it takes you a minute. A, you're probably just saying yes to any opportunity that comes your way. These dudes want you to sing with them? Great, I'm in.

I had the same guys. It was kind of a tight knit community of musicians. And a lot of kids were doing metal from when I got out of high school till even now, you know? And I was still in a metal band called Airs at the time. And this band called Wild Heart.

What age is this?

I must've been 26,, 27.. This was right before Teddy Swims really started happening. And at the time, I was with this girl who had a child and her baby. daddy wasn't around. And I was even about to go get this full-time job and was trying to think.

And it's only four minutes long, so.

He's like, I'm going to the UK with Issues and I'll be back in a month. You have a month to get like 30 minutes of music. So me and Addy grinded out a bunch of hip hop songs where we're rapping on these songs.

Is the quality going downhill quickly?

It's getting better.

Oh, it's getting better. Yeah, it's getting better.

We're getting better at rapping. Addy's crushing it. I'm okay, but it's not my thing. I'm here to say. But this is my opportunity to go on tour.

Jayton Collin Dimmesdale.

Yes, sir.

Jayton, that's a pretty unique name.

Yeah, it is. I've never met another one.

It is, neither. But you were going by, Teddy?

Yeah, I've always been called Teddy, because while I was waiting tables and stuff, Jayton's hard. They're like Jake, Jamie, Jason. So my look is just always, oh, there's our Teddy.

Oh, like Teddy Bear?

Yeah, and that's where it just kind of came from.

Jayton, that's so sweet. I've always been Teddy.

Yeah, yeah, okay. We ended up doing this tour and this was March of 2019.. And then we get back and the Teddy Swims thing was kind of cool. Maybe I could do shit as Teddy Swims. And I just used the name Teddy Swims and uploaded a Michael Jackson cover of Rock With You.

Watched it this morning. It's incredible.

June 25th of 2019.. And that was 10 years after he died. And so we wanted to just pay homage and it started going crazy. And we were like, guys, why don't we just turn this shit into Teddy Swims? Let's see what happens here.

Yeah, it's kind of the full commitment moment.

It feels like you're so behind on life. It's always at the 28,, 29,, 30 mark, you're just like, God, I'm so far behind. And the kids that are coming up too, that are making music, like you got Billie Eilish crushing at 16.. I'm like, God, what the fuck am I doing here?

I'm a decade older than her, what's going to happen to me? Why pick Rock With You? I want to applaud that. I think Off The Wall is the best of all those albums.

Yeah, I got it hanging on my wall now, man. Rock With You, weirdly enough, because it was that time we had found the stems of it online. Sometimes producers want to just take something and mix. My producer was just going in and he had found the stems of it and was like, I want to mix this out. Which is really cool, because you can hear Rod Timberton, when you get all the stems of the song, you can actually mute a bunch of the stuff, and there's the original mumble track of it too.

where they wrote it to.

And it's so cool. It's like they had the instrumental done and he went and made up the melody with his mumbles, and then they went and wrote the words to the mumbles, which is so sick.

And is that in the finished song?

The mumbles are, but when you get the stems, you can hear that they kept that in there. It's so crazy, because it's similar to a lot of times we do the same thing, where you just kind of come up with a mumble of the melody first, and then sometimes you might be almost saying a word and you're like, what are you saying there? Oh shit, that sounds like you're saying this. And then you come up with some beautiful words. My song, The Door, for instance, my buddy just already had the beat and the mumble of it.

You reverse, engineer it, kind of.

Yeah, and so it was cool to see that happen and see that was still the way that it was done. Yeah.

Now, Rock With You got, I don't know, 10 million views or something, or maybe more. When I looked at it this morning, it had 2 million views, but you're still the one by Shania Twain. Seems like a very from left field choice.

Oh, my God, I need to hear that.

And that one has 167 million views. It was a monster, yeah. Yeah, that's probably the one that gets Warner Records' attention.

I think the biggest thing is because the original version we did of it, I dedicated it to my mother and I was like, this goes out to my mom, you know, I love you, and it touched people.

It's kind of a mystery, because Rock With You seems more in tune with you. It just doesn't seem like you're gonna sing that. I think there's also some of the mixed messages of looking at you singing. that song is very interesting.

That's the thing that first worked out for me on Rock With You is, once it hit this, 500,000 views, people were looking at my face and my whole thing going on and singing that song. They were like, okay, either this is gonna be funny or this is gonna be really good, or it's gonna be both. And it ended up being, I think, quite funny and actually good. People were like, I did not expect this guy to sing this way. So we kind of leaned into that gimmick so much.

That makes sense, yeah. If you look the part perfectly, it would be a foregone conclusion. So there's nothing novel or interesting about it.

WWE, you gotta work the fucking gimmick. You just gotta have some gimmick that gets people's attention.

But do you think it's by design a little bit, even just in life? Do you like presenting one way?

I had a buddy of mine, my best pal from school, Julian Seltzer, man, he's my dog. And he told me one time, it was a few years ago, before all this, he said, you're really an icon. when somebody can dress as you for Halloween and people can know it's you.

And I remember hearing that and being like,

okay, what do I gotta do from here to make sure that's the case? And I've spent forever trying to be like, okay, what do I like? to put a little bandana on, grow my hair out this way, tattoo my face? What do I gotta do here to make me different? Yeah.

Certainly people went as you to Halloween last year. Yeah. Have you seen any pictures?

Yeah, I have a picture. Also, my buddy, Kurt, my door manager, his little cousin, they've written all the... And I had this one, I can't remember the family on Instagram. They did a video, it's lose control. And he's like, kind of mouthing it.

Obviously, I have tattoos, but I have no face tattoos. What's the chat in your head as you go in and you're like, wow, we're gonna go all in on this.

Well, the first one I got, so it's his home at last up here.

On your hairline.

My granddad had passed away. It was really the first time I'd ever saw death right there in front of me. So he was in his room and they had separate rooms within their 52 years. You know, eventually, I guess, you just get separate rooms.

She got sick of hearing about it. Yeah. She wasn't doing it right, probably.

So I'm sitting in there playing piano. Like I said, we're all in this diamond. So there's like 50 of us. by the time I get there. Everybody in the family is so quick to go right there.

Okay, so that one you regret.

I mean, it's there, it's whatever. I did immediately have regrets to it. And they were like, Beau, you don't remember? all night you're walking around, just bouncing your eyebrows like party jumping, party jumping, party jumping, party jumping. I was like, dude, y'all should have put me to bed way earlier than, why the fuck was I doing that?

Yeah, because I guess I sometimes assume the saddest thing when I see people, like, let me put it this way. I have none on my left arm. Well, I have a couple, but I'm not covering my left arm because I actually like how my left arm looks. I got a good vein in my bicep. I'm like, well, I don't want to cover that up.

I can see where you're coming from.

Maybe it's just me being older, but first of all, when I look at dudes with tattoos, I think they're like me, which is I got fucked with and abused as a kid, and I want to send a message not to fuck with me. I want to be tough.

Maybe there's a piece of that too. I've been too approachable sometimes. Maybe there's a piece of it inside that subconsciously I do want to look tougher. Maybe there's always this piece of me that feels like I'm judged for being this and I want to turn people's minds into not judging a book by its cover. I've not put a lot of thought into much of it.

Yeah. How about this, though? So the other thing was I wasn't very into punk rock as a kid, and what I liked is there was like a costume. So I had the crazy hairdo that would distract you from me. I had crazy clothes on that would distract you.

That's a lot to do with it, 100%. That confidence level is something that I've worked on a lot. Over the pandemic, I was so fortunate, and I have a tattoo of him right here, Diamond Dallas Page, man, one of my heroes in my life.

Who's he? I'm sorry.

Diamond Dallas Page is a WCW legend, like a old wrestler. And he started this thing called DDP Yoga, and it's this mixture of yoga and calisthenics. It saved a lot of people, gotten a lot of people that were injured, back on the field. There's this guy, Arthur Borman, you can check out on YouTube, and this guy was 300 something pounds and was on. Walker.

or something.

Oh, my God, scared to death doing that. There's 50 people on this shoot that are just staring at me like, okay, now, turn this way. And I've just never been that exposed to a people's like eye. They're like, come here, let me get some makeup here. Let's get some more oil going right here.

They're finding problems, they're making adjustments.

Oh God, pulling my shorts down. I've never been in that place. It was really big eye-opening thing for me. You have to accept yourself, and that's like the hardest thing in the world to do. And when I see people like my beautiful girl now, she's just got the perfect body.

And what's funny is, I think, that the route to liking yourself, Monica and I have too many conversations about this, but if you're comparing yourself to Brad Pitt, yeah, you're out, I'm out. There's nothing we can do if we're comparing ourselves. But if we remember that, actually novelties, what's so beautiful.

Yeah, come on.

In specific, like, no, no, that's what you look like. And you, as defined by who you are and your character, you're the physical representation of your spirit. And we can all come to think everyone's super attractive. If that inside's good and you recognize like, oh, I'm the only one who looks like this. Anytime I can really hone in on that feeling of like, this is the only one.

Although I am starting to wonder now, with AI and the sim, that there's just like 10 cookie cutters. We're all just 10 cookie cutters with like a little bit of different hair.

I can see that. There are certain types. Yes. A big thing for me too is I stopped worrying about what I look like in pictures now because I see myself on stage and people post these pictures of me and I'm just up there like looking crazy. Sure, sure.

I'm cool Joe today.

As soon as I leave the mirror, this little sucking I had going is immediately out.

You're so right. I don't think any of us have any true idea of what we look like.

No, we don't have no clue.

This'll comfort you. Bradley Cooper was on here saying that he genuinely thought, when he won Sexiest Man Alive, that it was like a bit that people were fucking with him. He sincerely thought that. You're like, well, that's comforting.

He is sexy.

Yeah, he's sexy as a motherfucker. My God.

Yeah.

Okay, let's get to you writing. Lose Control because you're prolific. You have that six months of focus. You get signed, you have two EPs and then, within two years of that, you're releasing. I've Tried Everything, But Therapy, Part One, your album.

Yeah, I just got back a couple of days ago from another writing camp. We were there five days and split up into two rooms with eight of us and turned out by 20 songs. Writing Lose Control, I think, was the one that we'd kind of been building this sound for a long time. I was also in a really toxic thing at the time with an ex I was with. It was bender to bender, and I think we both kind of got to this place of being really codependent on this lifestyle we were sharing, and these high, high, these low, lows.

Lifting each other up out of shame all the time, or piling on shame all the time. Leveraging each other's shame against each other.

That shit, exactly, bro. You know that too well. We kind of were into that place and, weirdly enough, we wrote that song, and The Door too, which is top 42, on the same day. I had broke down that day and was just sobbing and sobbing about the situation, because it just seemed like it couldn't get better, and every time I was doing something, it was like, where are you, what are you doing? I was coming to a head with her and our situation.

By the way, that's already a familiar pattern, because mom thought you were doing bad stuff you weren't doing.

Yeah.

So, like, the familiarity.

I think so.

Yeah, we mistake familiarity, I think, a lot with... Comfort. Comfort and love and all these things.

I think there was just always that piece of it. There's a lot of patterns that I will say that I chose in toxic relationship I had with my mom at some point in my childhood.

Yeah, that's what we do.

Yeah, we all do that.

It's so weird too, because we had written these songs about this certain thing, and it's so nuts that we wrote The Door, for instance. The night I saved my life when I showed you The Door and I wrote this song and I was talking about this song and I didn't even realize, because I was just numbing myself to the situation. Like, I knew the song, Lose Control, was gonna be special. I knew it was gonna change my life. I knew we had nailed it, but it wasn't.

I love the idea that songs can do this because I write, and often I've written on experiences I've had, and as I'm writing them, I don't really understand them. and then I read what I've written afterwards and all of a sudden I go, oh, okay, now I actually understand it, but I had to write it first, and that's cool that a song can do that as well.

I think that's the beauty of writing, though, because I find that if you're going through an issue and you come to me, I got the exact advice to give you, but if I'm going through that, I'm a fucking wreck.

Yeah, of course.

And so I think it's just turning yourself into something that you can read. that gives you advice to yourself.

You need some distance from yourself.

Exactly, when you turn your words into a friend that somebody else would say to you,

then you're like, oh, thanks, bro, appreciate it.

You're so close to the thing that separation from yourself is really truly like, okay, I see it now. I'm having nightmares every night and I'm freaking out about this thing. I didn't know that it was that cut and dry in my brain, but I had clouded it up with so much shit and I was running from it so much, and I just couldn't catch up to myself.

It's kind of crazy how brilliant the subconscious is.

It's mad, dude.

Well, it's there to protect you too. Sometimes we're not ready to feel it or understand it. So when you're ready is when you can hear it. So maybe you just weren't there yet.

Certainly not. To some degree, I wish I would have listened to myself sooner, but it's so great that I did go through those things and I was able to talk about them in a way and put them in a song in a way that was actually super life-changing for me and turned it into such a positive thing. And now I touched so many people and I hear beautiful stories about it, touching people's lives and changing people's lives. And when we play those songs or they come on in a party, everybody can celebrate to this absolute pain and turn it into something we can revel in and we can celebrate this pain and agony. And that's such a beautiful thing.

Well, you give people the gift of not feeling alone, because they can feel what you're going through.

And they do the same for me, dude. And it's a powerful fucking thing.

2.6 billion streams. It's fucking nuts.

Wow, wow, wow.

That's crazy.

I mean, the title of the album is I've Tried Everything But Therapy, Part One. And then I did hear you in another interview say that you're terrified to change because you're afraid that all that stuff is the source of all the creativity. And I'm wondering how you feel a year out from all that. Have you gone to therapy?

I guess that's the first question. Well, I talked to my mentor.

Because I think I got the guy for you. Really?

Yeah. I would love to try.

I'm guessing, I'm projecting, but I have a very hard time. I'm a paradox. I want everyone's adoration. And when I get everyone's adoration, I can't feel it or experience it or accept it. And then that leaves me feeling completely fraudulent and unworthy of it.

Connect with him. Yeah. I think that's been. the biggest thing is, if I've talked to somebody here and there, and DDP is the closest guy I've got to it because he's also been able to help me navigate this growth in this rocket ship and how fast life is changing right now. I would love to talk to somebody that knows those kinds of things.

You're a pretty foreign object for them. Yeah.

And I want to talk to somebody that knows what I'm going through right now on the journey to become whatever it is I'm aiming to do.

And don't you have this pull, or I have this pull, which is to acknowledge I am good would be sacrilegious. That's flying too close to the sun, right? That God's going to smite me if I actually believe I'm worthy of it.

Yeah, absolutely. But it's so awful though.

Then you don't experience any of the wonderful, magical things that are happening to you, because you think to do so would be to anger the gods, that you would be getting too big and bold and egomaniacal just to accept, not to parade around like I'm Teddy Swims, but just to fucking accept it.

Yeah, totally.

That that's okay. And you're not smiting anyone. You're not flying too close. You're not an egomaniacal asshole. You're just like going, I can own the fact that I opened up my mouth in 2.6 billion times.

Please, I'm right there. Yeah, thank you. See it right through me. Yeah, for certain.

And then, when you're drunk, you can accept it.

Oh yeah, I'm the best. Yeah.

Now, no worries about being too egomaniacal when I'm hammered. I'm insufferable drunk.

I find, too, that my writing, using that as a tool, it allows me to feel like my ideas are super strong. And sometimes I'll have the same ideas if I'm sober, but it's been taking me forever because I'll be like, oh, maybe this could be, or maybe this could be a course like this. But when I'm a drunk asshole, I'm like up and like, dude, what if it's, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm just jumping around. I'm like, this is it.

You weren't afraid to take a huge swing.

No, I feel like sometimes in the room, I'm trying to now learn, you don't have to be hammered to write a good song. You can not drink and write a great song. And learning that has been a pivotal thing in my life.

Yeah, because the broken math in your equation, it's not being drunk that allows you to do that. It's confidence that allows you to do that. And that's just a version of getting confidence. And there's other versions. But the fear that the magic that is you would disappear without it is bullshit.

If anything, it might be hindering.

It's absolute bullshit, for sure.

So will dictate whether you get to do this for five more years or 40 more years.

Yeah, exactly.

But entertainment slittered. with that. I mean, Jackie Gleason never performed. sober. In his mind, he couldn't do standup.

Last year, I did my first Europe tour sober. And I did this year, most of it sober. And I try to make sure I take those times to try to do shows. But I always find that when I'm going back into doing shows sober, the first couple are just absolute nerve wracking. Oh my God, I don't have this energy.

It's walking to the wings of the stage. Yeah. Once you're at the stage looking, doesn't something take over you?

Yeah, absolutely. I don't need it. But for some reason, there's a piece of my brain that says I'm just funnier, I'm cooler.

It's scary, all this stuff. Alcohol removes fear. It literally removes inhibition. That's what it does. So everything that's objectively scary becomes less scary.

Absolutely.

Although I will say one time I interviewed Monica in Denver, our guest fell out. Their plane didn't come. So she became the subject of the live interview. And we got some wine bottles out there.

Yeah.

I mean, I drink.

I'm not saying that I'm immune to this. That's why I can say that because it makes things less daunting. All of it. It makes time change. It works.

It makes it so much easier to get to know somebody and not be afraid to step out and be like, yay, what's up? The inhibitions are just.

Yeah.

There's a piece of me that always loves me. that way. I love that guy. But also that guy can be achieved without.

Totally.

But I just haven't figured that guy out yet.

Well, you're 31..

You're young. You have time.

Yeah. I got sober at 29..

Also, it's funny when you're in it, you do love the person. You love the drunk version of yourself or the inebriated version or whatever. But if you're on video and then you see, you don't like that person.

I don't know.

I have a zone, Monica. I got a sweet spot. Yeah, baby.

It's hard to live in the sweet spot.

Six, Jack and nine. It's like, I can watch that video,

but 12, I don't wanna see it.

Well, yeah, we used to take so much video back when I was drinking. And yeah, there's a sweet spot. There's one in particular. We go on this tubing trip in Michigan. We get on the bus.

That one right, there is a little, yeah.

It tipped.

We're going to Australia on the first lot. We're doing our first arenas in Australia, New Zealand.

Arenas, dude. It's just huge, man.

So cool.

How exciting. So you're going to Australia? So you start in New Zealand and then you go to Australia.

It's my favorite place in the world.

Australia, you've already been.

Yeah, we've been out there every year we go and we've been building this thing up to be to that point. The big thing about touring now is that it's such a different business now than it used to be. You can have a hit and not be able to sell a 500 cap room and you could be number one song and not be able to sell those tickets. Frames doesn't quite put asses in the seats. We go and we played everything from the 300 cap to the thousand cap, to the 1500 cap.

Well, right. You don't make any money anymore selling albums. If you don't have a touring business, you don't have much of a business.

You can have a number one hit and not sell 300 tickets. And it's crazy how that can work.

How do you like having money? How's it going?

Oh, it's great. You like it?

Yeah, I like it a lot. Have you bought anything stupid?

I haven't bought anything stupid. When we hit number one, me and my manager, we got the Cartier tanks together, which was really cute. Okay, that's sweet. My stupid little buy, but it was like my first little watch. I bought a new Bronco, too, last year.

But also you learned early on, you said, the house with your dad, with the love, was more important to you than the house with the stuff. And so that's a good lesson to learn early.

Yeah, the first thing I did when I got signed to Warner was get my dad a Ford F-150 Lariat. We had been breaking down and pushing, and I could put a damn starter transmit, whatever the fucking anything, so I got him a real good truck when I first got signed, first big purchase I made.

Oh, that's so sweet, before you got yourself one.

Yeah, he's my hero. But I haven't really done anything stupid yet. I spend a lot of money on food. I will always go get every fucking appetizer there is. I don't mind dropping a bag on a meal for me and my friends.

And you live in LA now?

Yeah, Sherman Oaks.

You like it?

I love it. It took me a minute to find my footing. You know, the people I like to see, the places I like to go. So many people like to be seen places rather than be places here. And once you find that grounding, Sherman Oaks has been like, back home in Atlanta, I bought a Camry.

Sure, sure, sure.

You gotta leave the window down, door is unlocked, nothing of value in your car. Just make it easy for them to get in there.

Sign that says unlocked on the outside of the door.

Yeah, just please don't bust the window. It's unlocked.

Well, listen, Teddy, it's been so great to talk to you. I loved getting to see you perform. I feel so lucky about that. Did you stick around for John Batiste?

No, I didn't get to. We were doing the schmooze thing, so I didn't get to see him. He's incredible, though.

Between you and him that night, it was such an embarrassment of riches. That was quite a party.

I love that. Yeah. Embarrassment of riches, what a beautiful way to say.

But it was so nice meeting you there, and I'm so glad you came in and chatted with us. And I hope everyone checks you out on tour. Where do people go to get tickets?

TeddySwims.com, probably.

That's a good website to have. You didn't have to do like Teddy Swim. Teddy Swim Sings, like that could have been a back up.

Oh, sure, you're right.

I'm making it confusing. Is he swimming or singing?

Dot edu. Oh, yeah, I did.

Actually, one night, first time I ever met Max Martin, I was working with my buddy, Johan. The last story. I'll tell you. We were there and we're eating food, and Max comes in, and I was so stoked. Max Martin's the biggest producer ever, right?

Like, as he saw my stature,

he's like, no, Teddy Swims is his name, he's a singer. He goes, this is my daughter, this is Doris, Doris Bicycle.

Oh, that's great.

Could be in his house, I must be damn good at swimming. But 5'7", 260 pounds, there's no fucking way that guy's a fucking gold champion. Does he?

That's hilarious.

This is my friend. Have you worked with him?

I have not worked with Max.

Do you have a dream collab?

Yeah, man, Adele, certainly.

You guys would be great together.

Of course, Stevie, Paul McCartney, while they're still here.

We're gonna manifest that.

I like that pick, Adele. Me too.

She's the fucking one, bro.

John Mayer?

Yeah, I got a chance to write with him one time. Oh, you did? We kind of wrote a couple choruses and I spent a day with him and it was just beautiful, bro. He's fucking cool as hell. I love it.

I love how much you love him.

You're gonna have him tattooed on your legs soon.

All right, Teddy, great having you in. Thanks so much for coming. Everybody go. see you on tour. Go to teddyswims.com.

Yeah, he told us he did that.

He did?

Yeah.

I feel like I would definitely remember that.

Yeah, he did it with, I think, Rachel Bilson's show.

Oh, okay, okay, okay. Did he win money, prizes?

That I don't know.

What if he had a new car when he came to work? That would be cool. Can you win a new car on Celebrity Family Feud? Or do you, you probably have to play for a charity if you're doing celebrity, right?

It should be.

Like Wheel of Fortune. I almost called it Spin the Wheel, but I think that was the show I was on, yeah. Was it, mine, was just maybe called The Wheel.

No, I think it was Spin the Wheel.

No, because he also had The Wall.

What do you owe me? Oh. Like a cake or something?

Yeah, I'll buy you a big, big cake. Okay. I think it's called The Wheel. I'm hoping it's, I think the more I say, I think it's called The Wheel. as you search it, that'll up the odds that I was.

Spin the Wheel.

It is?

Spin the Wheel, 2019, there you are.

That's you. But hold on, hold on. Spin the Wheel was our saying. No. It wasn't called The Wheel?

No, look, look at the Wikipedia.

Oh yeah, it says Spin the Wheel. Boy, that was a rough, I had a hard time surrendering.

Yeah, you did.

I'm there now, though. Okay, but anyways, how exciting Wabi Wabi was on Family Feud.

Well, I think we should ask him if he won. I'm sure I asked and I don't remember.

Yeah, what do you think? he'd be more prone to remember that he was a big winner or a big loser?

Big winner. He would remember if he was a big loser.

We all would, right?

No, I think he would remember if he was a big loser, but the world would remember if he was a big winner. That's a nice way to think of it.

Yeah. I don't know. I just, I think we all take losses. pretty hard is my point.

Personally, though, that's what I'm saying, but the rest of us don't.

No, we don't care. We like people more when they lose. That's the funny thing.

Not really. I don't think so. Okay. Because I suck at other stuff, yes.

Rob was in another game show that he didn't tell us about? No.

Well, I talked about it on Sync just now, so it feels redundant, but I did find some other comments on another person's page, not ours, because I know not to look at ours.

I got to say while you're on that topic, the comments are getting so funny now because they say, I just read them this morning. It says, Monica, I love your outfit. Hope you're not reading this. Now. they're all like, I love your outfit.

I appreciate those people who are doing that, and I'm not seeing it.

Well, a lot of people really loved your outfit from the Munchausen episode.

Oh, my black shirt.

Oh, here's the thing. This is a theory. No, continue on with the comments you read, and then earmark other comments. I read.

Okay, so I went to a new dermatologist yesterday, all the way in Santa Monica. I'm sorry, esthetician, all the way in Santa Monica. Yes. I'm not sure if she's a dermatologist or an esthetician, so there's no way for me to know. Yeah, who knows?

Everyone plays it kind of fast and loose.

She's all the way in Santa Monica, but worth it, worth the trip. I also, you know, I always do this figuring out of hacks of time. So I went early, and then I stayed in Santa Monica until eight.

The whole night?

Yes.

What did you do?

I met Molly for a quick, like, hour after, and then she had to leave, and then I just worked.

Okay, and where did you, did you eat somewhere fun? Did you eat at R&D?

No, we went to Balter, which is in Brentwood. That's where Molly and I met, and then I just stayed at Balter for another two hours.

Okay, loitering.

Yeah, I did, I was loitering. At first, I had my computer out, and then that felt like it wasn't the right space for that. So I just, I did it via my phone.

Oh, wow.

So yeah, anywho, but then it was great, because it was only a 30-minute home, and then I stopped for Go Greek.

Oh, in Beverly Hills?

No. In Studio City.

Oh, it's open.

Yeah, it's so good.

Oh, wow.

And I'm PMSing.

Okay, congratulations.

Thank you. Things have been so topsy-turvy. I feel very overwhelmed and stressed out. I also feel really clumsy.

Oh, yeah.

Like everything's falling down. Right. I've been meaning to tell you.

What, you broke something?

I scratched the whole side of my car.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I've been trying to run.

You drug it along something?

I was pulling out of the gas station, and there was that pole.

Oh, wow.

And I thought I could get through, because there was someone behind me. And then I couldn't get through. And I am annoyed by my beautiful car that I do love so much. I am annoyed by it because it beeps at everything except when I hit my car.

Well, to be fair to the car, it has sensors on the bumpers, in front, and then back. Why not on the side? Because no one's really side swiping things. They're parallel parking. Okay.

I could do that.

Because if I'm in a car, of course all mines are turned off. I can't stand all those detection things. Yeah. Like, leave it to me, you know.

I can handle myself.

Yeah, but when I'm in a rental car, in someone else's car, and they have all that shit, I just, I don't even listen. It's overly cautious.

Well, except not when it counts.

Yeah, it doesn't have any sensors. Because, think, if you opened your door, it would start beeping. I don't know. I don't know why.

It seems like at this point, they should be able to know when you're about to hit a pole.

Hit a pole, yeah. Did it dent it, or just scrape it?

I think it's just scraped. I honestly haven't looked too hard. Yeah. Because I'm too stressed.

That's a good method. Often, if I scratch my wheels parallel parking, I don't let myself look at it. when I get out of the car. I just carry on with whatever I'm gonna do, because if it's in my head, when I get to wherever I'm going, is this gonna ruin my whole thing? And I have succeeded sometimes in forgetting to even look at it.

Oh, God. Okay, yeah, so whatever. That's part of the PMS. And of course, you know, I was like, of course this happened, because I don't know how I'm functioning. Like, I feel crazy.

There's a dizzy, there's a big one.

It is, they're getting worse.

They're getting bigger.

I think, because perimenopause.

No, I know you read that book, but you're not there yet, okay? There'll be plenty of time for you to be perimenopausal. Perimenopausal.

I know, but it seems odd that they're getting worse, and blood's getting less, but the symptoms are getting worse.

Like, it's not. It's not ideal, okay.

Anyway, you're at my apartment right now.

Right, I just wanted to say, behind the curtain, because we're doing work on the attic. Yes. We recorded here, and you said, I need to warn you, my house is a disaster. And then I just walked in, and there's a lot of cargo in the living room. There's tons of huge boxes.

Like, there's a huge box of paper towels.

And an enormous box of toilet paper, like enough for barracks of an army base.

I didn't mean to do this.

Yes, and you told me, you didn't realize the quantity was so big, but I was actually envious, and I'm like, I can't find that quantity on Amazon. And then I was like, is there a portal for like big box shopping on Amazon that you wandered into accidentally? Could have been. Where all the units are like 100 plus. Anyways, you had a very funny joke, because there's a lot of boxes.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna call in a wellness check. But then I sat down on the couch, I noticed you don't have a shade on your lamp.

Yeah, that really worried you.

Well, that, I'll tell you why. That looks like you were fucking partying. Like that looks like you're drinking hard in here, and like lamps got knocked over. So that to me signals a different thing, muscle memory. Although of course you didn't do that.

Or shooting up.

Well, no, you're very docile when you shoot up. You would have just sat on the couch. You wouldn't have made this big of a mess.

Okay, well, the lampshade is aesthetics, because I got a beautiful lampshade. Just afraid to say fucking anything, but I have a beautiful lampshade that I got when I was in New York earlier this year. And it has a pattern. And the lampshade that was on this lamp that you are noting, which is a table lamp, also had a beautiful pattern, but they don't go together. It's too much beautiful pattern.

It's too busy. I got you. This meticulous style.

Well, yeah, it requires a lot of tinkering. Also, one of those boxes is a food processor from Prime Day.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

They had a bargain and you, oh.

Yeah, that was exciting.

Oh, wonderful.

Okay, now back to, I went to the dermatologist. I found this person from another podcast, 2 Niche, which I have shouted out on here. Remember, because I said, I was surprised by the way the host looked, because I had a whole vision in my head and then they didn't match that, which was funny. It's just funny when you have an idea in your head and then it doesn't match up, in which I immediately followed with, I assume this happens all the time to me, which is interesting. All to say, when I said that on that episode, they took that clip and they did a video of them reacting to it, which was very funny.

You got into the comments. Yeah. Yeah, and.

And they were so mean.

Oh, they were.

Yeah.

Oh, to them, or to you? Me. To you?

Yes.

Oh my God, Monica. I'm very sorry.

Classic, insufferable Monica.

Oh my God. Mean stuff. Mean stuff. Oh my God.

And I'm already feeling sensitive and topsy-turvy and wellness-checky.

Uh-huh, too many paper towels, too much toilet paper, no lampshades.

Wasn't the time for me to see that.

When was that, yesterday?

Yeah, yesterday night.

Oh boy. Okay. Yeah. Okay, well, we're gonna get through all this. We are.

I haven't had therapy since all of this has happened and I've been seeing her on Saturday and I'm sure she'll help.

Okay, now here's one. that's a debate because again, these go either way for me, right? Like, so I think the OCD comments were really warranted and I was very grateful to have gotten that criticism. and then we got the expert and it was wonderful. So everything worked out that way.

Yeah, it's horrific.

That seems redundant.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I guess I didn't agree with that.

Yeah, I mean, it was just a reminder that the internet is a scary place. Yeah, it's a dangerous.

Dangerous place.

I really don't like it. there. I think, eventually in life, not right now.

You'll leave there.

I think I'm gonna not be on there forever.

Yeah, look, I'm on there and I love it. And I also think that a better version of myself would exist without it. And probably everyone.

We feel so peaceful.

Yeah, how about what would you, miss? Cause? there are, so you got to DM the hosts of that, and that's great. I love that. Like using it as a phone book is radical.

Yeah.

Or like I started, following, of course, George Kittle today, and I wrote him a really lengthy DM about how radical I think he is. Yeah. And so that's lovely. I want to be able to do that.

Well, it's nice to share positive things. Like, of course, anytime anyone is able to share anything positive or thank people, yes, that's great, but it is not used for that most of the time. And it just, it bums me out personally, of course, but it really, I get very heady about humanity. Right. And that's not good for me to think the world is bad and that people are bad.

I wonder if there's been like some big meta analysis of what percentage are bad. I'd be curious. Cause I think it's mean or bad or negative. Cause. I think it's probably, as we know, we've had neurologists explain this, like the chemicals for negativity are stronger than, right?

It's still, I don't like it.

You don't like him. It might be small. I'm just suggesting it might be smaller than we think.

I'm sure it, I don't think it is. It's a breeding ground for people who might not, in life, behave that way. But for some reason, this anonymity, and I think it brings out the worst in people.

Well, it's like how people behave in a car as well. Right, exactly. Yeah, that's a very fascinating one.

It is. And some people, you know, of course, again, you're right. There's like so many nice people on there. There's so many people that are like, no, she's just kidding, or like, whatever. A lot of defense, which is sweet.

And oh my God, that's horrible.

Like, it's too much. And there's like one person who said, no, no, no.

I like that. you have a voice picked out for her. Yeah, you already have a voice picked out.

Because it was nice. But she said, she delivers things weird, but she means well.

And I was like, that's actually not helpful.

Yeah, and then, of course, and I'm like, do I deliver things weird? Like, what is happening?

Now, I will tell you this.

Okay.

You're not interested in my approach to all this, but I'm gonna tell it to you. So, like when I'm on other people's things, like I was on Theo Vaughn's podcast. I'm not gonna dare look at those comments. I was on Peter Atiyah's. I'm not gonna dare, like I saw his post of our interview and I'm like, stay away.

Because people don't love you.

Well, because they're there for that host. And then I also, this could be my story, but I also think a lot of people on the right think I'm like a super far left liberal. And so I'm just immediately, no matter what I say, I'm a libtard, perpetuating this terrible. So I just know when an audience, like if I go on a show where an audience is more right leaning, I just don't even, I would never even glance at that. Because I just assume a couple of hundred of those listeners are just gonna, it's a great opportunity to sound off about the left.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then there's gonna be this handful that are gonna come out hard because it's sitting right there.

Anyway, so.

Anywho.

Oh.

Oh, so see, that's someone in their car laying on their horn.

They're so mad.

And they would never in line at a grocery store go, eh, like they wouldn't just yell.

Yeah. I did get really paranoid. The person who said I was insufferable and that had like 22 hearts, I clicked on her.

Okay.

And she was private, so I couldn't like really see much. But then I was like looking at her picture and trying, you know, I've become crazy.

Who the enemy is. Yeah, you gotta identify who to look out for.

These things, it's so contagious in such a negative way. So yeah, I'm looking at her, and then I thought, what if this person is one of the people who's come up to me and said something nice?

Oh, sure.

Then I started to get paranoid about all the people who come up and say nice things. I'm like, well, what if they're nice in person? because people are nice in person. But then they go.

Then their alter ego. Yeah. Yeah. Kitschwitch.

Your sister?

Why do they think that's Callie's? What's hers?

Kitschwitch was your sister's cooking thing.

Yeah. What's Callie's?

K-watch.

So close. There's a W and a C and an H and a K.

She's private, though, so don't follow her.

Okay. Well, you could apply. That's how you do it. when someone's private. You apply to be their friend.

Me too.

Yeah.

I actually think it's fun because then-.

You're accepted.

It's harder to get.

Yeah. Can I bore you with one update? that's very long overdue, but people so deserve to finally hear an explanation, because God bless the F1 listeners. We had a really, really wonderful fan base for that show that was super supportive and they really liked it. And we really enjoyed, we got to meet a ton of them when we went to the race and stuff.

Really?

Yes, yes, yes. I almost want to read you my response to the lawyers, but we got this long letter from their lawyers basically saying that the name of our show can't be F1 because there's a trademark on F1, which, by the way, it's W-O-N. So they insisted we take down all of our videos. And I wrote back one of my, once a year I write a really mean email. This year was twice.

I know, I don't, I think it's very short sighted.

Charlie and I were obsessed with this cease and desist letter. I'm like, how do you explain this?

Do they have an official F1 podcast?

No.

That would be. the only thing would be we have this, this is pulling from that.

Right. No, we were just something. then added a totally different fan base to that sport as well. Because once again, even F1 tilted female, just like armchair does.

That's interesting.

Yeah, so my letter was like, you're welcome and we'll see.

That's a bummer.

Yeah. So that was going on, there was a legal thing and then there was also our contractual thing. And so my many apologies, that is the explanation. And TBD, if we do it down the road, we'll see. Cool.

Cool. Was there something, you said earmark something.

The trigger warning, I wanted to earmark. Did I earmark something else as well? Oh my God. What? This is gonna be a useless story to tell, because really it only matters if you see the photographic evidence.

You and Kristen love to say beat the heat.

You gotta beat the heat, it's imperative. And so I have so much muscle memory from not having air conditioning and spending my whole day at the AMC 7 in Santa Monica to beat the heat. I buy one ticket and then I go right into every single theater without pain. So we go there, and clearly other people are there to beat the heat too, because we get in there and at first, we have the entire movie theater to ourselves, which is so fun. We're so excited to be in there completely by ourselves.

Yeah.

No one would pick that seat in an empty movie theater. Okay, there's a lot of clues here.

Okay.

She sat down and then, within seven or eight minutes, she was out cold. She was beating the heat by going.

Oh, she was taking a nap.

Yes, I mean, I'm talking dead asleep. And there was one point where the action got so loud that in her sleep, she covered her ears. And you're not gonna like this, but of course, I started taking pictures. And it's not a good look for me to do that, but tell me you're not happy. I did this.

She's so upset that her sleep is getting disrupted.

And then the worst was, I kept, I had to take, every time she changed position.

She looks so hot.

Yeah, thank you. You agree, right? Our assessment is spot on. She was like doing her best to beat the heat. She's got a fucking Gatorade bottle in her drink holder.

She is.

Yeah. And she kept getting more and more slunk over in the chair. So I was taking pictures, and I had taken three or four, and it went great. I just had to hold the camera really still because it's dark in the movie theater. But then one time my flash went off.

Dad.

And then we like panicked, but she didn't notice at all.

And you guys were the only other people?

Yes, it's just Nate and I. And this woman who's maybe passing. And then the end, movie's over, we stand up and we're leaving. We've got to walk right by her. Because again, she sat in the very first seat out of the hallway.

He has to shake her awake.

Exactly. So. Nate and I, we start chatting with the guy. We're like, what's your plan here? Are you allowed to touch her?

No.

He's going to have to.

He's going to have to get close and say, ma'am.

Yes, he's going to do all that. And then she's just going to, in her sleep, cover her ears. And he's going to have to touch her. And he's like 17.. You know, he's a teenager.

Where is the best place to touch someone, to wake them up?

The shoulder. We talked about that. Oh, you did, okay. Yeah, you got to poke it. Just same way.

Well, that did not go well.

No, but I wasn't asleep at the movie theater.

I actually, my instinct is the knee.

That's-.

Too close to the private parts.

The vagina, yeah, yeah. You're like, you're touching her legs. Shoulders like the-.

But shoulders close to the breast.

Well, no, it's, I think it's the most standard place, point of contact with a stranger.

But then what if his finger slips into the nipple?

Someone's about to cut you off, like you're walking and there's going to be a collision and you've got to actually like touch them. You always grab their shoulders.

Go for the knees.

Grab their inner thighs.

Yeah, interesting, okay.

Oh, we loved it. Like, this is the exact type of thing that makes Nate and I so happy. Just thinking about this young boy. What a gift for you. Yeah, we had a lot of gifts.

Friend of the pot, check him out. Yeah. If you've missed him. I was at the Americana two days before that.

Seen a movie or shopping?

I wasn't beating the heat. I was in the heat. I sat outside to work in the heat.

You don't really need to beat the heat as much as us Northern Europeans do.

Well, I know you like to blame it on that. I do. Even though I think it's just, I have a high tolerance.

I know, you want it to be like you earned it.

Well, I do have a high tolerance. When I got my chin filler and also yesterday when I went to my new dermatologist esthetician.

Did you get more filler? This is the slippery slope of filler, okay.

I didn't, she doesn't do that.

But you're going weekly now for filler.

No, she doesn't do that. She was doing extractions on my face a lot.

Oh, was it awesome?

Well, it is, but it does hurt.

Cause they're putting a needle deep in there.

Well, they put a needle at first, but then they like push it. Yeah, that's disgusting. But she was like, I can't believe you're handling this like this.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then also, that's what they said with the chin filler. So I feel that.

And you're cheerleading, yeah. I feel that I have a high pain tolerance.

And so I can also beat the heat on my own.

But hold on a second. I think you're conflating two things. Are you in pain while you're outside? Sometimes. Cause, when I see you out there baking in my backyard, you're happy.

No, I'm sweating. Like I was sweating so much. And I mean, you're, you're, it's just an open tap. Like, oh.

Yeah, oh, speaking of the devil. And what a nice display of your clumsiness. That bottle's so far from you and you just knocked it over. I know. Yeah, you'd almost have used your leg to reach it.

I still did it. Anyway, it's painful, but I can do it and I like it.

Okay, all right. I have a very high pain tolerance too, but I didn't earn it. I just have it.

Well, I earned mine. Oh, okay.

Yours is an accomplishment.

Yeah, exactly. Because it is not that it doesn't hurt. It's that I'm unwilling to say it hurts.

Oh, my God, this is, yeah. Did I tell you this great conversation Lincoln and I had on the trip about fear? I told you I looked up and I saw her like on the fourth floor, going on the outside.

of the balcony. Doing some adventures.

Yes, yes, yes. And I waited a few days to bring that up, because it's never a good idea right away, because you're likely to embarrass the child. So I eventually said, a few days later, I said, hey, I happened to catch your stunt work and I'm all for it. I think it's radical. I said, I want you to just add in.

Yeah.

But I wonder what subset are like me and Lincoln, which is like, we're doing things, but we're actually doing them for a completely different reason.

Yeah, I bet a lot.

And it sounds like your chin thing, because I can relate. Like when I get tattoos, I go, yeah, that's annoying and it's painful, but I refuse to be controlled by it or dominated by it. And so I will overpower and ignore it.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's multiple things always at play for her. It's interesting because I definitely understand you with being controlled, because you were in situations where you had no control, but she must have her own things around control that you may not know, she may not know yet.

This is the weird privilege of having kids, is? it starts to challenge your story. So again, yes, I think I don't like to be controlled because of the stepdads and stuff, but I might genetically be that way. Yeah. And she might genetically be that way.

But it might be multi, there's so many, it's not just one or the other. Sure, sure, sure. It's all this big mix. Some ratio. Yeah, and I think for me with pain, the original thing was, you don't wanna cause any ripples in the ocean so that the more chances of getting removed.

Yes.

Which also probably cheerleading was a big thing. Like, yeah, this sucks. Like there's so much of it. sucked. Practice sucked, weight training sucked, but you know why you're doing it and then that works.

Yeah, you're right. There's a million ways to skin that cat, I guess.

Yeah, it's not so simple.

No, but I'm shocked pretty regularly about just to have witnessed how much of my stuff Lincoln has without a remotely similar childhood. And just more often than not, I'm going like, oh, wow. I'm giving my story a ton of credit. It probably only deserves some.

Yeah, exactly. That's true, I think. Okay, well, this is for Teddy.

Oh, Teddy Swims. Yeah. Sweet, sweet Teddy Swims.

Very sweet. He brought up Covington, Georgia. And he said, there's a lot of filming that's happening there. It reminded me that my first acting credit ever is Drop Dead Diva. That was shot in Peachtree City.

And you did that while you were still living in Georgia?

Yeah, after I graduated and I had an agent there, I worked there for a year and that was my first TV credit.

And did you join SAG from that?

No, it took a while.

Okay, you got eligible from that maybe.

Yes, exactly.

Did you do any commercial work there in Atlanta?

No, I did one hand modeling.

Oh, wonderful.

And Drop Dead Diva, maybe. one other thing. I can't remember, not very much. I was only there for a year. Maybe an industrial, maybe.

Sure.

Sounds right. God, I should know the project that I got, SAG. I don't, though. It might have been the Herbal Essence commercial.

Probably. Probably had to join at that point.

Yeah, must join. They call you a must join.

Must join. Another update, on this trip, Lincoln said to me at one point, you really gotta start trimming your leg hair.