Kesha

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin pop music's long standing party animal, Kesha is now dead set on slowing down and on speaking up. Since debuting on the hook of flow Writers Mega Hit Right Round in two thousand and nine, Kesha's released five albums, two of which debuted at number one. Until very recently, she was involved in a decade long court case with her former producer and labelhead. Somehow, despite that bitter legal battle and a public struggle with an eating disorder, Kesha's remained steadfast in sharing her art with her fans, who she affectionately refers to as her animals. On today's episode, I talked to Kesha about how working with Rick Rubin on her new album Gag Order provided the safe space she's longed for when making music. She also talks about how she channels Dolly Parton, Iggy Pop and Beyonce when she's in promotion mode, and how early on her career she lived in a castle with roommate to Vendra Banhard. This is broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's my interview with Kesha. Look at you.

00:01:23
Speaker 2: There you are, Oh my god, Here I am there.

00:01:26
Speaker 1: You are here, I am I'm nobody.

00:01:29
Speaker 2: I am also nobody.

00:01:31
Speaker 1: Well that's not true based on what I've what I heard from this album.

00:01:34
Speaker 2: I was just listening to the episode with Andrea last night.

00:01:38
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so good. It's a great episode.

00:01:41
Speaker 2: It made me feel so good, like it made me feel good about myself, I guess, which is the beauty of sharing intimate parts of your mind.

00:01:52
Speaker 1: Made you feel like seen, you know, yeah.

00:01:54
Speaker 2: And also not alone, which I feel like is the goal in making art.

00:02:00
Speaker 1: Was there any particular part of it that resonated.

00:02:03
Speaker 2: Like the entire thing? Just his ability to be so vulnerable about and like really transparent about where he was at when they recorded. That was helpful, especially the part about imposter syndrome and feeling like sometimes just when you have this hole inside of you, you focus on the goal of making something great and then when you make it, that hole is going to be filled. And then when you do make it, and like, by the grace of God, and I'm so grateful and so at the risk of sounding like an asshole, because I am grateful and I don't want to ever sound like I'm not. But when you achieve success, thinking that's going to fix you, and it doesn't, then you're kind of left at the top of a mountain like alone, lonely, still broken.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: But accomplished.

00:02:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, accomplished, accomplished alone and like you've exercised all the resources you thought were going to fix you. So I just relate to that, like, not every day, but when I have those moments, you feel so alone in that, and it's scary, it's sad, it's lonely, it's terrible.

00:03:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, how long into your career did it take for that feeling to sort of make its way into your It's funny.

00:03:24
Speaker 2: Because, like, I think it actually is helpful that I have these insecurities that I sing about on the record and that I'm pretty transparent about now. In my life, I've never really felt that feeling of I'm on top of the world. Even when I had the number one album in the country, even when my song broke records, I felt like it was all weird luck and I never had that feeling of like walking into a room and being like suck by dick bitches, Like I wish I had a moment of that, because looking back, I'm like, fuck, I should have at least had like a year of being a narcissistic asshole and I missed it.

00:04:08
Speaker 1: This is always awkward. We met the day actually you met Rick. Oh my god. Were walking on the beach in Malibu doing a separate interview for something different, But yeah, you had just met with Rick. We were talking and it was a good vibe. But even then I didn't want to. It's always weird to tell someone like when you've met them, But I met you like pre TikTok kesha like you. No, it's really not a bad story. It was just no, it was just it was great. It was Coachella two thousand and seven or eight, and I was at the back of a tent watching Devandra Banhart and a blonde girl and a brunette of some I don't but just the script don't remember came up. I think we were all probably inebriated, but I remember me maybe not. You just get in I won't well, I won't, you know, put your business out there like that. But your friend was like, do you know who this is? And I was like, no, I know, I have no.

00:05:21
Speaker 2: Clue. That's a good friend right there. I don't remember this particular exchange, but I do remember going to see Devendra Banhart and I ended up sharing the same house with him in Laurel Canyon at one point. Wow, but there were so many rooms. The place was like a castle that I don't think we ever even met. There were like twelve rooms in this house, or like ten rooms. And I would come home and I think he shot a music video in the living room on my couch, and I like came in and it was just like a very it's a very sexy group of individuals like on my couch, and I was like, the fuck is going on here?

00:05:59
Speaker 1: But sounds magical.

00:06:01
Speaker 2: It was a magical time. But like your story checks out, is there like a worse part?

00:06:07
Speaker 1: No, No, there's no bad part to it. It only it just it you having said that there was never a part in time in your life where you feel like you arrived, and some of your honesty on the record about it reminded me of that time because it was I remember your friend saying that her being like this Kesha she sings on the flow Rider song right round, and I was like looking at you, thinking about the souse, like this is no way this is the same person. I remember your name, and then like you was later or a year or two later, TikTok came out, and remember you were kind of like it was like you were off to the races.

00:06:39
Speaker 2: But blasted off into outer space.

00:06:41
Speaker 1: Even in that moment though, you didn't really seem super comfortable to me, and like, yeah, I'm Kesha of right round fame was like your friend was really interesting.

00:06:51
Speaker 2: Very very good friend, and I'm lucky to be surrounded by awesome women that we always like build each other up and like have each other's backs. And you say, I never felt comfortable in that role, But I don't think I've just ever felt super comfortable period, like ever in my entire life. I mean, have you had like an elongated period of time where you've just felt super company.

00:07:20
Speaker 1: I'm starting to now, and I'm worried that that means something.

00:07:24
Speaker 2: Oh that's so nice. That's that gives me hope.

00:07:27
Speaker 1: It gives me hope, but it also gives me anxiety because it does feel like maybe the other shoes is about to drop on some level and I should be prepared, and I'm.

00:07:35
Speaker 2: Not knowing what if it's what if you just earned it?

00:07:38
Speaker 1: What if? But then how long can that last? How long can it lasts until you know, well, getting comfortable, comfortable, It's pretty sure.

00:07:45
Speaker 2: Just like taking the good. When you get the good, you have to let it in as much as you do the bad. That's something I'm trying to exercise on a daily basis.

00:07:52
Speaker 1: It's a fair point.

00:07:53
Speaker 2: Like I sometimes I don't know if this is the same with everybody or it's just like my special concoction of brain cells. But when I see I can see like a hundred thousand positives and the one negative thing will be the thing I keep with me and convert to being the voice of my higher power in my head. Yeah, and so I'm really working on kind of what you just said. If it's good, just let it be good.

00:08:19
Speaker 1: Let it be good. Yeah, not worrying too much. What I mean early on? What was it early in life that made you not feel so comfortable?

00:08:28
Speaker 2: Like what I have a core memory of playing a song to high school. All school was fucking miserable for me. Also, Yes, by the way, so I have a theory which I'm not sure if this checks out, so like don't quote me on it, but if you are doing great in school, you're fuck the rest of your life. Like if you have the best time in school, you're good. If you have a shitty time in school, you have to forever. I feel like there's this need to prove those motherfucker's wrong. I think a lot of our lives are like shaped by the experiences that we have, all of it.

00:09:06
Speaker 1: We think we are who we are because we're making conscious decisions day after day, day and day out to be who we want to be. But you know you're right. More often than not. It's it's based on unconsciously things that have happened and sets us on these courses that you sometimes can't you know, whatever you can't there's no turning back.

00:09:24
Speaker 2: Well, and I have you ever had this thought? I always think, what would my style of music, of taste and clothing of everything, what would that have been like? If that one Like all the men I've been in love with, the like unrequited love where they didn't love me back, I just so wonder if they had loved me back, if I would have ever become the person I was wearing the things I wore just to try to be hot for that dude's whose name I don't remember.

00:09:57
Speaker 1: Being like trapped in that that stage, Like you just would have never yeah gone past, yeah, yeah, yeah, It's it's fair because you know, especially early in life, relationship tend to work out to be like these these things that kind of prevent growth, you know. I think hopefully as you evolve and get older and life relationships become like you can kind of grow as individuals, you know, ideally, right, but yeah, like you kind of like it stunts your growth way or like early on, you know, well it.

00:10:26
Speaker 2: Can stunt it or just shape it, you know. Like my first severe love was somebody who was really into punk music, and because of that, I started listening to the Stooges And now I have a Stooges tattoo and I've done a song with Iggy Pop. Like, would I have ever done any of that if I didn't have a crush on a guy that I knew quote liked punk music on his MySpace profile. I don't know.

00:10:58
Speaker 1: I miss MySpace. I mean probably not, probably not. You know, who knows, you wouldn't gotten too Iggy. But that's that's amazing. Iggy is one of the smartest people I have ever met. I think he's iconic.

00:11:09
Speaker 2: Actually have like a like the Holy Trinity of people. I pray too. When I get an interview question and I'm like Okay. It's either like, okay, how do I answer this like really sincerely and kind and genuine and speak from the heart. Then I channel Dolly Parton. If I'm like Okay, now's the time to be a little cunt, then I'm like okay, I channel Iggy. And then when I'm like when you're just like above it all and you just like are the most powerful bitch in the world, then I'm Beyonce.

00:11:40
Speaker 1: Ooh, Beyonce. I was curious who were going to pick? Yeah, Beyonce. I mean, look, we all found little Beyonce, but like when for you particular, we're in the journey, did you I.

00:11:50
Speaker 2: Think the self titled album with the pink I think it's just called Beyonce. Honestly, I'm not even like I don't have like every album that I play all the time. It was the feeling I felt when I heard the album. It's like black with her name.

00:12:08
Speaker 1: In pink thirteen. Yeah.

00:12:10
Speaker 2: When I first heard that album, my goal in life was too because she started in super pop like me, and I feel like she has fully embodied the power of who she motherfucking is. Yeah, and I am a no means comparing myself to Beyonce. It's just somebody that I tried to channel when I don't know how to respond to something. Yeah, but like I don't know, I just always felt a little bit different. I went to school in Nashville. I was born in the Valley and my mom was like a single mom made music, and we moved to Nashville, and I just remember from the earliest stages of going to school. I went to a Catholic school and all the boys were wearing shorts and all the girls had to wear skirts. And I remember getting in trouble and I got sent to like the head nuns office because I wore the boys outfit, and just since I was at like six years old, like, if the boys can do it, why can't I do it? And nobody really had an answer. I got my hands lapped and then it sent back to class. But I still have not gotten the answer from anyone. No one has given me the answer. If the boys can do it, why can't I do it?

00:13:24
Speaker 1: That is uh hot debate it still at the moment, it's and it's a great question, and that's probably there's no good answer, you know, there's no I.

00:13:34
Speaker 2: Don't think there is I don't think there's a good answer. Like I've gone down all the rabbit holes in my mind. I haven't figured out the answer. But even then, I always wondering, like why do you want to push?

00:13:44
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:13:44
Speaker 2: Why do you have to find a boundary and push? But I just if it doesn't make sense to me, I don't understand the concept of just shutting the fuck up and like it is what it is, which is something. Rick Reuben, who I did this record with, he said that to me a couple of times, and it like blew my mind. It is what it is. It's just like, what are you gonna argue with with that? It is what it is? He would just I would be freaking out about something and he would just like laugh and say, it is what it is. And I am still trying to like reach that level of acceptance just in life. It is what it is.

00:14:23
Speaker 1: Did any of that it is what it did? Any of that you know that Ethos did that like find its way into your creative process throughout the making of the record.

00:14:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. I'm I'm like pretty accustomed to be a control freak as much as I can be, and with Rick kind of just like laughing it is what it is. We didn't film the first month of recording because I was just an emotional beyond emotional wreck, Like it was really scary to me. He's only the second producer I've ever done an album with, Yeah, and so I was just so I felt so scared that he was going to quit. And I kept just like obsessively last gkeing him if he quits projects a lot, and if he thinks he's going to quit my project, because I felt so nervous that I wasn't going to be able to deliver the goods. And he's just so patient and so kind. I mean, you know, he's an amazing human. Yeah, he's so great. It was such a great influence on my life, but I have kind of taken in it is what it is. I made what I consider to be the most proud thing I've ever made with Rick. I'm the most proud of this of anything that I've ever made my entire life. I think it's a masterpiece. I think it's a classic. And if people are going to sleep on that, that's not my problem.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: I hope not. It's really good. I mean the last two records you made were great too, Like from a listener's perspective. From the audience perspective, it seemed like even those records were like a big growth period for you too, like just hearing your vocal more, you know, it just felt like, oh wow, like you're you're really like you're seeing like this person can sing.

00:16:08
Speaker 2: So I got kind of used to having auto tune as this crutch because I was like, no, no, no, it's like I need my medicine, like or I'm not going to be able to live right, like this is this is my life for us in my music, I have to have the auto tune, and Rick like weaned me off. It was like a detoxing program with Rick with the auto tune. I swear to god, I would cry and be like, no, please give me the auto tune and he's like, I don't know how else to tell you that you don't need it, And like I still am getting used to that idea, Like it's.

00:16:42
Speaker 1: Been shocking to me that you still feel like you might. I mean, you're a great singer.

00:16:48
Speaker 2: Thank you, And also like yeah, fuck yeah I am. And it makes me sad because, like we're talking about before, sometimes you just remember that one comment.

00:16:59
Speaker 1: You know, there's comments that I think even if you move past, I mean, they're just going to stick with you. There's certain comments that it's just offhanded comments. People don't even realize what they're doing, you know, say something. I've had family members say things to me as a kid that you know, I still I still think about it. I'm like, oh my god, you know I'm deficient in this particular way because someone just said it one day randomly, you know, not even they don't remember it.

00:17:21
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know, they probably have no recollection of it. And those things almost help define who you become because as people were just an amalgamation of all of our experiences, all the sounds we've heard, all the records we've heard, you know, like everything's a rip off because we heard it somewhere.

00:17:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:17:40
Speaker 2: Like, I really think our brains are just like our dreams. Our dreams just interpolate what we've experienced. And it's the same with making music. It's like I'm just dreaming. It's kind of like I don't know what's coming out. It's just a dream, but it's a mashup of something I must have heard with something else I must have heard and something else I must have heard.

00:18:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, the sort of like affirmations or sort of just like this the samples from sort of like you know, some are spiritual leaders. As a magician in there, it's kind of just like these great.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: A wizard not a magician.

00:18:17
Speaker 1: Excuse that the difference?

00:18:20
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yes there's a difference a magician. I don't actually know the technical reason they're different, but I'm pretty sure wizards are like more powerful, well more powerful well defense. Actually that's a good question, but we should ask the fans, what do you think is more powerful wizard or magician or a musician or yeah.

00:18:44
Speaker 1: And you have it sampled. You have a wizard sampled into uh, into the and like some other spiritual leaders, and it's it. It helps frame the listening experience in like a really beautiful way, you know, because you're dealing with really I mean, just from the title alone, you kind of know it's going to be an intense listen from just the type of gag order. And it proves proves to be.

00:19:06
Speaker 2: You know, it is an intense listen. And we are kind of talked about what we were going to call it. It was initially going to be called Eat the Acid. And as much as I love that song. It's one of my favorite songs I've ever written, Like it's a really special song. But I was afraid that that would maybe play into this whole party girl persona that I have been so desperately trying to recover from because I realized America doesn't understand irony in mass so ever since then, I have to be really careful anytime I mentioned any kind of substance, even if I'm joking, it's like it's going to follow me into I'm far beyond when I'm dead, Like that's what I'm going to be remembered for.

00:19:53
Speaker 1: So I was like, I don't know, maybe, you know, there's a lot of time to you know, if that's not what you want.

00:20:00
Speaker 2: I don't want to be remembered as the chick that liked to party. It could be like she was really fun when she did party and and there's all these other facets.

00:20:11
Speaker 1: To her character and you can you know, yeah, and partying is now secondary too.

00:20:18
Speaker 2: I'm fun as fuck, like sue me.

00:20:23
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then come back with more of my interview with Kesha. We're back with more from Kesha. When did you write Eat the Acid?

00:20:36
Speaker 2: Okay, so eat the acid. I forget the date. But that was during lockdown, So I was upstairs. This is my house, so I was upstairs, and I was just having like this intensive anxiety because I think when you do what I do, you are like off to the races and you have very little time to sleep or do much of anything else besides maintained that this thing you fought so hard for and dedicated your life too is sustaining life. So that happened for twelve years. So lockdown was the first time I was in one place for more than two weeks, probably in over a decade. So everyone had a tough time, and I am I'm very grateful and I have a lot of privilege and I want to acknowledge that. But it was really mentally a fucking nightmare. Is almost unbearable, just because when you dedicate your life to something and then you have built this whole castle around this idea of what your purpose is and what is and then it's disintegrating in front of you. I really felt like I was having a psychotic break so watching these illusions kind of fall left and right, and realizing that if I never made a song again, if I never went on tour again. If I just like cease to exist, I'm not sure anybody would care, like and that freaked me out, Like people would care, it would be like a TMZ article, but like my family would care, my friends would care, and I know my fans, my fans would care. But like in large part knowing that if something happened to you and it would become just like a news story for twenty minutes and fade, then you start to be like, well, what if I risked and sacrificed everything for I've missed so many birthdays, I miss so many moments with my family, I miss my god son being born, Like all of these things, all of this time that I'm never going to get back, And what did I sacrifice it for, Like for a number one song, like who fucking cares? So like it's going to make me emotional because it's I'm never going to have that time back, and that like still fucks with me. Yeah, But I then kind of like with the help of Rick, like I refell in love with music and like why I started loving it in the first place, but I started making it in the first place? Why I have to make it? And I started feeling like it doesn't matter what anybody else would say, You're important to yourself. So this like falling in love with myself. Dynamic Rick really helped encourage. And I always when people would say love yourself, it's like, yeah, of course, love yourself, love yourself, promote love yourself, but it felt so corny to actually practice self love and like sit and roll my eyes at myself and then like and then do it. And I started realizing that that's where my passion and lust for life came back from, is like actually giving a shit about myself.

00:24:02
Speaker 1: With that renewed sense of love for yourself, I mean, do you feel like you can kind of integrate your life and your art in your career better?

00:24:11
Speaker 2: I hope. So we'll see. Like this album is so fucking special to me. I feel like it encapsulates me becoming who I am and like really being reborn in a way that I never kind of knew was possible. And to capture that audibly, to capture a process of going through like a spiritual awakening and ego death, really difficult mental obstacles, digging through the trash of my past and re emerging on the other side, and to capture that on a microphone felt so fucking scary. Yeah, when Rick, when we started working, Rick was like, let's film it. And I was like I just can't. I just can't. And so at the end I got really sad and I was like, fuck, we should have filmed this, and he said, it is what it is, and so I was like, you know what it does, what are you going to do?

00:25:03
Speaker 1: It is what it is. Making a record is documenting something. But and it sounds like this record didn't just die document a particular phase of your life, like it documented like a particularly like impactful phase in your life. Like the MIC's were rolling at the right time to get they're.

00:25:20
Speaker 2: Rolling at the most vulnerable times. Like there are moments on the record that are hard for me to listen to if I'm not in the right headspace living in my head. It was really really hard to make. But that was Rick's like favorite song.

00:25:37
Speaker 1: What in particular in that is hard for you to hear or made it hard to make.

00:25:41
Speaker 2: Just listening to this ideation of nonexistence and talking about my insecurities and how it you know, I don't think it's just in music, but it's very prevalent in entertainment, but I think it's kind of everywhere. As a woman, I feel like there's a lot of need to compare yourself, and I talk about that in the song. I talk about how lonely I feel inside of my head and how sometimes I just want someone to hold my hand while I walk through it in there, And you know he's not paying me to say this, so but like Rick was the one that, like I said, like, Okay, I'm gonna hold your handle. We walked through this together.

00:26:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:26:24
Speaker 2: So it's a beautiful thing, and I have no idea if people are gonna like it or listen to I have no fucking idea. I hope they do, because I think it will help certain people that relate to what I'm saying. But in terms of like chart numbers and wanting to be the dick swinging motherfucker that walks into the room, I think I'm just too old for that. Anyways, Sadly, I don't know.

00:26:47
Speaker 1: Come on, look at look at Mix still walking around with his dick swing.

00:26:52
Speaker 2: Okay, fine, maybe I'm want to start walking around with my dick swinging. As long as I ever start getting out of hand, somebody shoot.

00:27:01
Speaker 1: At tell me about the like the from like sort of the creation story of this record from like how did it come together? Like what did you bring to Rick that first day you met Rick?

00:27:16
Speaker 2: The first day I met Rick, I played him a bunch of demos that were like not very good. I will forever remember him.

00:27:25
Speaker 3: Where Rick, you told me to play you everything and I was like, now the song is not I don't like the song. He told me to play you everything, and then I played the song in about thirty seconds and he just started like crying, laughing, and I was like, Okay, that was the nicest way anyone ever told me that they hate my song.

00:27:49
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, that's really embarrassing. Next song it said. They were not good songs. But we talked a lot about spirituality through the process of this album, and he knew that I'm a seeker and kind of on the journey to I don't know, just be in touch with high power of some sort. And that's what we ended up really bonding over.

00:28:12
Speaker 1: Did anything from that first batch of demos you played him make the record, like any facet of those songs or any.

00:28:18
Speaker 2: One one did hate me harder? Oh, I like it, hate me harder. But but the song leaked. The original demo leaked like a couple of years ago, and I was disappointed because I was like, that's not the incarnation I wanted people to hear. But he took this like very poppy, kind of happy sounding anthem song and turned it into this really powerful ballad, strong defiant thing. So he made it a whole different animal. One of the many geniuses of him, he said, he's like the song like you put different clothes on it, different genres. We would try one song and make a ballad, and then we would make at a disco song, just see much one we'd like to do.

00:29:03
Speaker 1: Did you ever settle on a particular feel for a song in that process that you were maybe you wouldn't like like you was ever an instance we're like, oh, we'll try this song kind of like a gospel song, but I don't know that's really gonna work, but you were convinced.

00:29:18
Speaker 2: I honestly, I just kind of like when you're in the presence of a master, I think a really important tool is knowing what you're good at and also knowing what you're not good at, and surrounding yourself with people that are good at the things you know you're not good at so having like this like beautiful experience and getting to be sit in the same room with Rick, I was just like, honestly, I'm down to try whatever, like I was game, which I think hopefully. I mean, I'll speak for him, but I think it was fun for him too, because I was like, sure, let's try. Let's try dropping it like twenty bpm, drop the key, slow it down, change the chords, like I was here for the whole experience.

00:30:04
Speaker 1: That's great. Hate me harder was an idea, so you kind of have that, but I mean, you're kind of also started from scratch, so what was it was scratch?

00:30:14
Speaker 2: And then it was at the end of a song he heard me starting to sing living in my head because I was at the session and I had a lot personally going on that day, just with another department of my life, and I started just having an anxiety attack thinking about the phone call. I was just gonn me, so I was leeing. I just kind of mumbled into a mic like this like I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to be here anymore. I'm so fucking insecure. So we listened to the whole song and that little tiny part of the end ended up being living in my head and he was like that that's real. I want to start with that. So there were like little tiny pieces, I guess thinking back but hate me hard. It was the only song in its entirety, but Eat the Acid. I don't think I ever even played actually don't remember. Potentially no back. He may have heard Ethi Acid, but it was so different, but he just took everything off of everything, like the production all went away and it was rebuilt. Yeah, but Ethie Acid was kind of like the foundation of the album. That was when I was sitting upstairs having this like what I perceived to be a psychotic break but turned out, according to my therapist to be a spiritual awakening. So that was the song I wrote the next day after that.

00:31:34
Speaker 1: I guess to go back to the story you're telling you sort of in this dark period start of the first couple of weeks of lockdown, and you feel like you have a psychotic break in that that same sort of instance, you talked to your therapist.

00:31:47
Speaker 2: Oh, I talked to her the next day.

00:31:49
Speaker 1: The next time.

00:31:50
Speaker 2: I was like, I was like genuinely was like, Okay, it happened now what do I do?

00:31:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it was like.

00:32:00
Speaker 2: The first week I would say it's the first weeks, maybe first months were the most intense of lockdown. I don't remember the exact day, like it was somewhere between March Tune somewhere somewhere in those months is when that happened. So this experience happened. I felt like I had a conversation with God, who is really funny.

00:32:22
Speaker 1: Turns out it's good to know. I'm so happy to hear that.

00:32:26
Speaker 2: Thank God, like great sense of humor.

00:32:29
Speaker 1: Thank God, that's that fool.

00:32:31
Speaker 2: And I was so scary that I just like woke up the next day and got like I was like genuinely scared. I can laugh about it now because I've had some distance, but Jesus Christ, So I was so scared. And then after she told me that she's like just lean into it, it was all very casual.

00:32:49
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay.

00:32:50
Speaker 2: So then I got on a zoom with my mom and Stuart Crichton, and I was like, we have to write a song about how I thought I was saying my mind. But I think I saw allusion of what is fall and I realized what love is and the only thing that can save us as society is love. And there were all these like see what the album is gonna be. But it had to start with eth acid because my mom told me when I was young to never take acid. So to this day, I've never taken as you've never taken acid.

00:33:30
Speaker 1: No, I've never taken acid. I'm terrified of it me too. Why are you ah, because I have I have mental mental in my family. I'm just scaring I'm going to turn out like you know, have like a break, you know, mushrooms other things fine, but also too long, too long. I'm like, you know, it's five six seven hours of my time.

00:33:52
Speaker 2: I think we would really get along like off camera as well, honestly, because I'm right there with you.

00:33:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, you know, I could you know, noon cool and then I can have dinner and be like good to go great.

00:34:03
Speaker 2: You know, and get like sleep. Yeah, I don't get I like the idea of getting just like like feeling a little naughty, like have a glass of wine and I'm like okay, I like I like keeping the anchor of stability.

00:34:18
Speaker 1: Because I have to, and that's the control. Yeah, probably part of.

00:34:23
Speaker 2: Right, totally. I think I cling very very aggressively to what I can, which I'm currently in the process of trying to loosen the grip because we're not really in control of much. Actually, no, that's another illusion. That's another illusion I'm trying to get rid of.

00:34:42
Speaker 1: We have to pause for another quick break, and then we'll be back with more from Kesha. We're back with the rest of my interview with Kasha, and I love the outroas I actually wanted to ask you about that. In the next life, I want to come back as a house cat like that melody. Did it come from something?

00:35:03
Speaker 2: It did? But I want to know what the melody reminds you of. First.

00:35:07
Speaker 1: I don't it reminds me one of those like real like fifties songs, you know, like Earth Angel or something. I don't know why, Like it reminds me of like a do Woppy early R and B always been in existence, one of those songs, you know.

00:35:21
Speaker 2: Oh cute. I love that. It's totally not what the inspiration was. Do you want to know what it is?

00:35:27
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:35:27
Speaker 2: Or should I just let you live with your fantasy of.

00:35:30
Speaker 1: Part I'll revert back to my mind. Okay, I see, But I do want to.

00:35:33
Speaker 2: Know so the end, So the drama. I wanted to have one song that is kind of poking fun at the fact that, like, we as humans love drama. I think it is. I don't know if it's the culture. I don't know if it's just part of being a human, or maybe it's just me, but people fucking love drama. They love bad news, click bait, like everybody loves it in their own vein. Like I think about sports teams, is that just so you can have a team and then fight each other, and then there's drama like the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills drama. Politics, to a large part, sadly now becoming more about drama. I don't think that's right. I think politics should be about politics. But so I wanted to kind of compile a song that sounded like the psychosis of what the world and what like scrolling through TikTok feels like to me, it feels genuinely so deranged sometimes where you're like he he, I'm dancing, Oh my God, like that constant flow of noise and chaos. I wanted this song to be about that, and then the outro I wanted it have you ever been to Disney land. Okay, So the Housecat, which I wrote with Kurt Vile, is for me supposed to sound like and you're going on the water ride, the one you're in, like the log ride. I don't know what it's called. So you're going up and you're passing all these like really cute little characters, and there's like a wolf and it's a wolf's singing in the corner and he has a cauldron foot a bunch of bunnies and it's so cute, but it's actually really fucked up, like there's a wolf boiling bunnies alive and echoing while you're going. You're going up the hill and there's these songs going and they start getting faster and then they goes a're getting fat. He starts hearing the screams of children.

00:37:43
Speaker 1: And I wanted to end of the song something like that, like the screaming of children. No, like the not the ride. Okay, I got you on.

00:37:52
Speaker 2: The whole, like the experience of the deranged moment of the water ride at Disney when you haven't yet reached the top but you're about to free fall.

00:38:05
Speaker 1: I love that. Yep, Why am I? I love them? Attractor on this modeled after the deranged experience of scrolling TikTok and and you know, the bizarre world of fairy tales screaming children. It's such a good song though, thank you. Yeah. And there's a couple of there's a couple of moments too of them, because I mean, you know, as you said, it's like, you know, obviously it's like a heavy listen, but it's a couple of songs that are like really nice reprieves from kind of like those more tense moments about halfway through while I need is you yeah, and then and then happy at the end. I mean, it's just a great closer.

00:38:46
Speaker 2: Thank you.

00:38:47
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful song, Thank you.

00:38:49
Speaker 2: I really have such protective feeling, you know, I don't have kids that are human. I have animals, So it's like the only thing I can compare it to. That's how I feel protective, or of like what I'm hanging out with my brother's kids, Like that's how I feel about that song. Yeah, I feel very like maternally protective over that because I know that once you've spent your life chasing all the things I've chased and accomplishing a lot of them, failing miserably and embarrassingly in front of a lot of people, over and over and over, buying nice houses, going on the vacations, having the hit songs, having the not hit songs, the glory and the humiliation. After I had this experience I told you about, I walked out of this album realizing that now that I've trudged through the not only sad, it's not only sad. It's just a really contemplative album. And there's moments of fun. There's moments of joy, there's moments of anger. There's moments of surprise totally, there's moments of what were you surprised about them?

00:40:05
Speaker 1: Just certain changes in song, like really honest, there's certain changes in song, the brief interludes, like all of a sudden, ram Das is in my ear. You know, it's like, oh, you know, it just took me to places I wasn't expecting. Yeah.

00:40:22
Speaker 2: I always wonder if, like if people are bummed when an artist flips the sonic script on them, because at a point you become something that people go to for escapism. For me, I feel like a lot of people have previously come to me for escapism, which I think is an incredibly important thing for humans, but so putting out this record, I'm I'm just curious if people like when artists do really drastically different stuff.

00:40:55
Speaker 1: It's hard to say that, you know, Like, I'm sure you have like super fans from the very beginning, and they probably want just that same formula. But I do think that even if you gave that fan the same thing over and over, they say they want it, but they'd probably become bored of it and then they use you. You know. It's like you can't win with some people, right.

00:41:21
Speaker 2: Well, I think my like actually surprisingly my super right or Die fans, my animals, they're so here for the evolution. It's more I think people that maybe have heard a song or two of mine, only saw a picture or two of me and a video or two, and then they're like, the fuck are you doing? Like I kind of felt like I had to work through the right to make an album like this, But then that's when I would channel Beyonce. Yeah, thinking about that album I told you about, and I was like, she just like made it a piece of amazing art that encapsulates who she is. I feel and hear who this woman is.

00:42:03
Speaker 1: I want to do that well, This album's like kind of locked me in to Kesha, you know, like I'm that like.

00:42:09
Speaker 2: Have you been converted?

00:42:11
Speaker 1: I'm nearly animal, I'm nearly you know, you know I might end up there. I would say I was a casual listener before and like, but this album is like one of those ones that I think if you really like music, warrants like a couple of like deep listens. You know. It's it's sequenced, beautifully produced beautifully, it's written beautifully. You sound great on it. You know. It's like bits and pieces of things that I think have come out on other albums, and it's like it's like all of it finally, all those things that were great in these little moments, and it's like, oh, it's now, this is all this is the complete thing, this is It's all there. You know that that was my experience listening.

00:42:54
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm going to just accept. I'm going to take in the good because I love it. I worked really fucking hard on this and I know Rick did too, and yeah, so I'm going to take in the good.

00:43:03
Speaker 1: And I know he loves the record too.

00:43:05
Speaker 2: Wait, I want to finish one sentence because I go on tangents that I didn't finish, and then my manager's going like, yes, what I can carry on for a second, but my cat has to go to the set.

00:43:15
Speaker 1: That's important.

00:43:16
Speaker 2: I wrote, All I need is you about him?

00:43:19
Speaker 1: Really? So yeah, wow, it's beautiful.

00:43:21
Speaker 2: I have a necklace with his little name on it.

00:43:24
Speaker 1: What's his name, mister peeps, mister peeps? I love it. What a cat you know is miss Okay?

00:43:37
Speaker 2: Yes, let me say by do him hold over? Okay? Sorry?

00:43:42
Speaker 1: Tell me that you'll live forever mister peeps.

00:43:49
Speaker 2: Oh. I think that I had to channel the most sincere, pure love I could think of. And Rick was like, write it about the love you have for yourself and I was like, honey, we're not there yet.

00:44:04
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, but.

00:44:07
Speaker 2: We're going to start with mister peeps.

00:44:10
Speaker 1: That's like when I do my loving Kindness meditations and that you know, they ask you to think about it easy love, like nothing complicated. My mom always goes to my mom's dog, you know, because it's like how can you You just can't. It's like the most goofy little dog with like one tooth, and you just like, yeah, I get you know, It's.

00:44:26
Speaker 2: Like how can you hate a creature like that? You can't.

00:44:30
Speaker 1: It's impossible.

00:44:32
Speaker 2: But it's like humans are very hateable. Yeah, you have one wrong sentence and you could just hate somebody.

00:44:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's we're not We're so complicated, man. There's just so much room for misunderstanding and heartbreak and heartache and disappointing, you know, in the way that others treat us, impact the way that we treat other It's just like it's a fucked up cycle, you know.

00:44:58
Speaker 2: One who we are and what we've experienced and mismatch with who someone else is and their experience. And it's not even an intentionally hateful or negative if person or it's just a negative dynamic of a particular two energies coming together, you know what I mean.

00:45:20
Speaker 1: Yep.

00:45:20
Speaker 2: A lot of times if I dislike someone, I don't hate them. I am sad for what they're either reflecting onto me or I'm sad for what they're going through. Because usually I've found that when people are hateful to me, people that don't know me, I find that I become a mirror at times, which has become a big part of my job is becoming the mirror and being okay with being the mirror. And sometimes people want to punch the fucking mirror.

00:45:51
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, have you long been that and you just are realizing it? Or is this like a recent sort of I think.

00:46:02
Speaker 2: Like there's an element of always if you're like, you don't have to be a singer that puts out records and lots of people, not just anybody on Instagram. Like, if you're putting your life out there, people are gonna If you're in a bad mood and you feel bad about yourself and you're on your period and you're breaking out, and you're breaking up and like your mom is sick, Like there's no way you can look at a picture of someone having the time of their life and be like, yes, really, I mean maybe some people can, but like at particular moments in time, I have a hard time just not making that photo about myself.

00:46:44
Speaker 1: Yes, I know what you mean, like.

00:46:45
Speaker 2: Someone else's experience.

00:46:47
Speaker 1: I then internally make aperience where they are. They're creating experience, not even not thinking about you, concern not even you're not even in the thought process of it, but it becomes personal for you because yeah, yeah.

00:47:01
Speaker 2: Going through shit, or if you feel really good and you see that same picture, then you're like, fuck, yeah, eat it up, live your life. So I think it's just yeah, people are complicated.

00:47:10
Speaker 1: It's like The Oh Show says, man, you gotta eliminate jealousy.

00:47:13
Speaker 2: I think that, like I finally overcome that mountain. For me, the jealousy was just always thinking that I wasn't good enough. So that's where the self love kind of kicked in and really helped, because I really think everything and everyone is perfect without comparison.

00:47:34
Speaker 1: Comparison is a thief, you know it absolutely?

00:47:39
Speaker 2: Is that a famous quote or did you just make that up?

00:47:40
Speaker 1: Believe it's a quote. No, I didn't make that up. I believe it's a.

00:47:43
Speaker 2: Quote that's brilliant. Well, especially like I've I've grown up in a sphere of pop music. That's my history. That is not my present, and that's not my future necessarily, I don't know, but growing up in the years of people would be in college, but like going to an award show and then you get lined up and people pick like their favorite but like, they're of the craziest things that I've experienced. And I could laugh about it now, but at the time it was really hard to Like they would line up multiple women's bodies and just compare like nose to nose, lips to lips, arm to arm, breast to breast, asked to ask like who has the best and if you could make the hottest woman, which if each of these women would you put together? And things like that were just you know, that definitely took a toll. It turned into a really severe eating disorder because I didn't as all I could control. I felt like, Wow, thank god, I'm in a place right now. I'm just like, I'm really hot.

00:48:47
Speaker 1: So it's fine, it's beautiful. I'm so glad you're in a good place personally and musically, and you're so excited You've you've found what you want to do. The first the first song of like the you know this is it.

00:49:03
Speaker 2: It's funny that you say you found what I want to do. I actually have no idea what I want to do. Like this very well might be the last song and the last album I ever put out. I don't know. I'm letting. I've let go of the control of what I think should happen. I'm allowing what is going to happen happen. And I'm gonna work really, really hard to facilitate safe spaces for all people. That's all. I know what I want to do, and I'm not sure exactly what that means, but you know, for the summer, that means a tour and we'll see where that goes.

00:49:37
Speaker 1: I'm sure your tour will be a safe space for everyone. It's gonna beautiful, it's gonna be great.

00:49:42
Speaker 2: It's so fun. You should cut me. You'll have a great time.

00:49:44
Speaker 1: I'll come out. I'm gonna be I'll be there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Kasha, thank you so much.

00:49:51
Speaker 2: Thanks for letting me ramble.

00:49:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. Go go take care of mister Peeves.

00:49:56
Speaker 2: Thank you. It was really nice to talk to you.

00:49:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. Same, Thanks Takasha for delving into artistic evolution and how that influenced the making of her new album, Gaggler. You can hear gag Order, along with all of our favorite Casher songs, on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Benlliday, Nisha Venkat, Jordan McMillan, and Eric Sandler. Our editor is Sophie Crane Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription service that offers bonus content and uninterrupted ad free listening for only four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts subscriptions, and if you like the show, remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast stapp Our Themes expect Anny Beats on Justin Richmond,