"John Legend"

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Speaker 2 How about we do a song just by hitting our microphones, right? Like a. Okay.
Okay, ready? So I'm going to do like a rhythm thing. Yeah, I'm going to start a beat and then you guys fill it in.

Speaker 2 Sean's going to go second and Willie's going to go third.

Speaker 1 Here we go. Okay,

Speaker 2 I'm really cheesing myself out.

Speaker 3 That's cringy.

Speaker 1 That was good.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Let's.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Let's.

Speaker 1 So wait, we got to touch these moon rocks that were on the moon. Like, they're four billion-year-old moon rocks.

Speaker 2 We got to touch a couple of moon rocks that weren't on the moon. What do you mean, moon rocks that were on on the moon?

Speaker 1 On the moon. Sorry, yeah.
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, they were on the moon.

Speaker 2 All those scientists must have loved you.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, oh, guys, it's so relaxing to have an actor around.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 2 One plus one can can equal anything.

Speaker 1 I asked so many dumb, dumb questions, too. I'm sure they were probably so over it.
But we got to go inside this vessel called

Speaker 1 the Orion. It was,

Speaker 1 it's like, it's like, what is that called? A simulator that the astronauts train in before they go to the moon. They're going to go to the moon in this thing, this Orion thing.
Did I lose you guys?

Speaker 1 Are you guys sleeping?

Speaker 1 No, it's pretty great. I mean, no, no, no.
That's interesting. I mean, I thought it was fascinating.
I am one of those people, Katie, you get the pushback on this. I am one of those people like,

Speaker 1 we got a lot of stuff going on here. Why are we leaving the moon? I know why we're going to Mars.
Where are we going? We're going to the moon. God damn, we got so much shit to fix over here.
But

Speaker 1 we got to get ready for Mars. We got to get ready for Mars.
And I know a lot of innovation comes from Mars.

Speaker 2 Right. So eventually that stuff will touch us here.
But isn't it mostly kind of for morale and mankind excellence and all that? Well, to go to the moon?

Speaker 1 All of that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, are there real practical applications to what we're doing up there? I'd say I don't know. I'm not doubting it.
I'm just from a place of total.

Speaker 1 I think so. Yeah, there's lots of things we've already discovered about the universe

Speaker 1 going to the moon. Sure.
And a lot of innovations, as Jason said, that he said, we get touches back here. A lot of stuff that they innovate for the program.

Speaker 2 And I think as soon as we really nail down this whole sort of, you know,

Speaker 2 mirrors to see what yesterday actually looked like, I mean, if we can really nail that down.

Speaker 2 Listener, if you've got an extra hour to fall asleep,

Speaker 2 go ahead and listen to my theory.

Speaker 1 Who was it with? Who was the name of our scientist? Sean, we can wave at ourselves from our episode with Neil DeGrass Tyson. I think that that's what's happening right now.

Speaker 1 We're seeing Jason back in that time

Speaker 1 two years ago.

Speaker 2 If I could find somebody intelligent enough to figure out a way to have the Hubble or the

Speaker 1 new web. The web.

Speaker 2 The web to like fire into a mirror that then fires back into a mirror, into another, into another, into another,

Speaker 2 we won't have to, we won't see all the way back to the Big Bang. Like that, that seemed like that's the tough parts already done.

Speaker 1 No, we could do that. Now we could see just into yesterday.
Say, I thought I remember you telling me that when you were on Silver Spoons in your dressing room, you used to fire into the mirror.

Speaker 1 Is that not? Am I misremembering?

Speaker 2 no will that's totally different bro that was aaron gray related it was um

Speaker 1 golly he's still he can see you can he still does that you can find him doing that occasionally

Speaker 1 wait and really quickly i just want to last thing i want to say sean to you because you brought it up Okay. You, Sean, text me.
I just want our listeners to know that you guys went on vacation.

Speaker 1 After all this, Jason, you complained about, I never get to go on vacation and blah, blah, blah. You and Sean went on vacation without me.

Speaker 1 well you were invited yeah yeah i think you were invited i wasn't not really i wasn't really invited really yes you were yes you always are you're always invited i'm taking a big drink no i know i mean i think that you guys knew that i was out here at the beach yeah or you're still at the beach right when do you come back from the nonsense soon i have boy i've been i was apprehended on the street a few times from hey you know i heard that you're out here on long island and bayman's giving you shit for having a bunch of range rovers in your driveway and then you do drive a gmc And I go, yeah, do you think we make this shit up, bro?

Speaker 2 But you do park the Range Rover next to the GMC, right?

Speaker 1 No, no, it's in California. But, well, I have to tell you something.
Tell you something.

Speaker 1 Speaking of the beach, I went the first day I got there, me and Jason and Scotty went into the ocean.

Speaker 2 This is in the Bahamas,

Speaker 2 not in Houston.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 We went

Speaker 1 to the ocean. We went into the ocean, and I have just swim trunks on, white as a, you know, the whitest person alive on the planet Earth.

Speaker 1 And this guy, Jason, has a big, thick-rimmed hat on, glasses, a long-sleeved shirt, like shorts down to his knees, covered. You look like you were a gardener in the middle of the ocean.

Speaker 1 No, it's the worst. I've been to the beach with him before.
It's terrible. Tramp stamp.

Speaker 2 Don't forget about the tramp stamp.

Speaker 1 What's the tramp stamp? He's got a tattoo in the small of his back.

Speaker 1 Oh, I never saw that. Well, because you were clothes.

Speaker 2 It just simply says breathe.

Speaker 1 But he just wears so much clothing in the ocean, right? We have this photo, Sean, when we went for Molly's 40th and we all went with all the kids down on this big vacation of four or five years ago.

Speaker 1 All the kids, everybody, we're all outside. They're like 12 of us.

Speaker 1 And Jason,

Speaker 1 it looks like he's like in the Arctic.

Speaker 2 Well, listen, it's twofold. Number one, I don't know if you guys have heard about sun cancer or UV rays or something.

Speaker 1 There's a couple of articles I'm going to send you.

Speaker 3 Sun cancer.

Speaker 2 And then there's the other thing called dad bod that I don't think anybody really needs to see dad bod.

Speaker 1 No one's got a worse dad bod than me. And I was with my shirt off.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm going to send you a top. Check your mail.

Speaker 1 Will I send sending you a couple?

Speaker 1 You still get mail there?

Speaker 1 Guys, we were keeping our guests too long. All right, listen,

Speaker 1 this is incredible. Our guest today is anything but Smartless.

Speaker 1 He's a spectacular. Incredible talent.
I could listen to him sing for 20 hours a day. He's such a smartie that he not only skipped one, but two grades growing up, starting high school at 12 years old.

Speaker 1 Good lord. Just like me.
Well,

Speaker 1 right when Jason was

Speaker 2 ending my scholastic career.

Speaker 2 That's enough. And

Speaker 1 his genius was not exclusive to academics. He started playing piano at four years old, which paved the way for his eventual EGOT status.
Yes, he's another EGOT.

Speaker 1 So for Tracy, EGOT is Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. He's won all of those.
Wow. So previous jobs, which I love finding out out about, are like a wedding singer, a business consultant.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to ask him about that. Legend has it that it was Kanye West who helped him get signed back in the day.
It's Uber talented, Mr. Smarty Pants, John Ledger.
Whoa, Legend has it. Wow.

Speaker 1 He was classing up the joint.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's got a cool shirt on, too. Hi, everybody.
Well, hello.

Speaker 1 Hi, John Ledger. How are you?

Speaker 3 What's happening? What is happening?

Speaker 1 Look at it where are you right now?

Speaker 3 I'm at my office in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 Look, it looks clean and simple.

Speaker 2 You don't look busy at work.

Speaker 3 This is actually Chrissy's office. My office is next door, which is basically a recording studio.
Right.

Speaker 3 So she has... We bought a three-bedroom house basically to be our workhouse.
And my recording studio is in the next room over. And then this is her office.
But I often do that.

Speaker 2 Now, were there zoning issues with that, John? Zoning issues with having an office in a house. I've explored this.

Speaker 3 This is a don't ask, don't tell policy, even though I just told millions of people.

Speaker 2 Yeah, let's have the address on that real quick.

Speaker 1 Ask for forgiveness later.

Speaker 1 Wait, before I dive too deep into this, John, because I don't want to get like an hour into this. How many feet back from the curb is the house? Is that where you're going to?

Speaker 1 No. Okay, so we're off of the zoning.
Okay, good. No, I want to just because I'm going to forget if this goes on too long.
Jesus Christ, superstar, you were, that was unbelievable.

Speaker 1 That was incredible. And it was totally live.
Totally live. What was that, like two years ago, three years ago?

Speaker 3 That was 20,

Speaker 3 it was 2019, I believe.

Speaker 1 It was on NBC, I think, right?

Speaker 3 It was on NBC

Speaker 3 with Sarah Borrellis as Mary Magdalene.

Speaker 1 She was great too, man. I mean, that show, to do that live like you did in front of all of America, that was, it was, you were incredible.
It was just so great. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Didn't you win something for that?

Speaker 3 We won the ME for our best live special.

Speaker 3 That's so great. that's that was my E that made me an e-got.

Speaker 1 That's so cool. What kind of prep goes into something like that? Like how far, what is it, just months of just the rehearsal? You're gonna do it live TV? I mean it's gotta be intense.

Speaker 3 Well, you know, we're musicians, so we do live performances all the time. Yeah.
But

Speaker 3 doing a show like this is quite an endeavor. And there's so many moving parts.
There's so much crew and production and everything that needs to happen, choreography.

Speaker 3 Everything needs to go right and it was magical we uh rehearsed for a few months um it aired live on easter sunday and i think we started working on it in january but then i had to go away and do a tour in asia uh for a few weeks in between rehearsals and uh so i come back and we rehearsed for the final week or two but uh man it was quite an endeavor quite a great team and i love doing it you know what when i i was a musical director at this dinner theater in the suburb of Chicago, long story.

Speaker 1 But anyway, we did Jesus Christ Superstar, and on Easter, not making this up, on Easter Sunday, one of the performances, the guy who played Judas, you know, where he hangs himself in the middle of the thing?

Speaker 1 In the middle of the show? Spoiler or Lord. But there's this contraption, you know, that saves him from obviously doing that.
But it broke on Easter Sunday.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. Wow.

Speaker 3 Well, look into that. So he, in fact, was resurrected.

Speaker 1 He was resurrected. Sean, did you play Jesus Christ or the superstar? I was in the piano.

Speaker 1 I was in the piano. Oh, you came out of the piano.

Speaker 1 Like coming out of a cake? Like coming out of the piano?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was nice. Why don't you play the piano?

Speaker 3 Another fun fact about that experience, Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice also both became egots because of that same Emmy.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Wow.

Speaker 3 So we all three got it the same day.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's pretty wild.

Speaker 2 How many are there of you? Yeah. The egots?

Speaker 1 17.

Speaker 3 17. Sean knows.
He's doing the research. But Jennifer Hudson just joined the club.

Speaker 1 She's the 17th. Yeah.
Yeah. Isn't that wild? Will,

Speaker 2 where are you on the list? Do you have any?

Speaker 2 You've got your Oscar and your Tony.

Speaker 1 I'm in the

Speaker 1 no-gots.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Got zero. I ain't got no gots.
Got none.

Speaker 1 That's mine. I ain't got no gots.

Speaker 2 Now, John, with all of these things that you do at such an incredibly high level and you're so in demand, how do you go about making your decisions about what to do, what to do next,

Speaker 3 how to prioritize work got this great family too and the money the money yeah it's all about the money yeah of course yeah no uh honestly i i i'm very fortunate i get to make choices and so i do stuff that i'm excited about do stuff i'm passionate about do stuff i think i'll be really good at doing and uh they do have to pay me well so yeah um all of that comes into the decision but i would imagine that your interests change pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 Like, how do you, how are you? Certainly with theater, you have to commit so far out in advance. How do you ever get nervous that you're going to commit to start rehearsals on a play in six months?

Speaker 2 That's going to run 12 months. And but then all of a sudden something comes along in the television world that works quicker, that might be at odds with that scheduling wise.

Speaker 2 Like, does that ever give you ajita about making choices?

Speaker 3 Well, I haven't actually done Broadway. I only did that live performance.
We did it Saturday and Sunday of Easter weekend, and that was it.

Speaker 3 So we just rehearsed and did the show that weekend and I didn't do like a long run on Broadway like a lot of artists and actors will do so I haven't had to make that decision yet do you want to it would be a tough one honestly because it takes a lot of time a lot of energy yeah

Speaker 3 and you can uncheck that money box yeah yeah there's not a lot of money oh but but also you know my my kids go to school in los angeles and i would want to be with them and it would be hard to make that decision honestly yeah How old are the kids?

Speaker 3 My daughter's six and my son is four.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. You're right in it, man.
Going back to at the beginning, in the intro, when I said you skipped grades and you entered high school at 12 years old,

Speaker 1 that's just crazy, Pants. What did you, how,

Speaker 1 did you feel like you missed out by skipping? Or did you want to skip? Or were you pressured by your parents or teachers?

Speaker 3 Well, it was my mother that was definitely pushing it. And I honestly wouldn't advise it for most kids.
And I think you do lose out socially

Speaker 3 when you try to put a kid that's 12 in a group of 14 year olds. I think it's

Speaker 3 hard, you know? Yeah. And I was super shy.

Speaker 3 But, you know, music was my way of connecting with people. And I think music kind of saved me from being just completely antisocial and

Speaker 3 a complete geek. But honestly,

Speaker 3 it's tough. And I don't think I would advise anyone to do it with their kids.
I wouldn't do it with with my kids either.

Speaker 1 Was there a reason for that?

Speaker 1 Was it going to help you sort of with your music?

Speaker 1 Was it going to give you more opportunities earlier? Was that part of the no?

Speaker 3 My mom, I think it was almost like a badge of honor for her because she homeschooled us for a while.

Speaker 3 And she liked the idea that her son was so well-prepared that he could test out of, you know, two levels above where he was supposed to be.

Speaker 3 And so I think it was almost like her proving the worth of her home teaching,

Speaker 3 saying when I came back to public school, I was two years ahead of my peers and I could be skipped to eighth grade when I was supposed to be in sixth.

Speaker 3 So I think honestly, that's what motivated it more than anything.

Speaker 1 Where was that? What part of the country was that?

Speaker 3 I grew up in Springfield, Ohio, which is about 50 minutes west of Columbus.

Speaker 1 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 1 And now back to the show.

Speaker 2 So that was a real early declaration

Speaker 2 that you were making that it's going to be music. I'm all in.
And

Speaker 3 was there did you feel any pressure like well god i better keep getting better and better and better and better because i'm like all in on this career and i'm not well you know trying to yeah i was straddling uh for a long time because you know i was a really good student and i uh went to an ivy league school after high school and i studied english as a major and then went on to be a management consultant as sean mentioned in my intro yeah i want to know and so i i was was doing other things that could be like backup plans, even though I thought music really was the thing I wanted to do and wanted to commit to.

Speaker 3 And I had been loving music. I've been making music since I was a kid.

Speaker 3 But I always had, you know, a little bit of insurance, you know, with my academics and with

Speaker 3 other jobs coming out of school. But I truly always wanted to do what I'm doing right now.
I even wrote an essay when I was 15. It was for Black History Month.

Speaker 3 And McDonald's was the sponsor for the essay. And

Speaker 3 the competition was the future Black History Makers of Tomorrow. And it was an essay competition.
And they said, how do you plan to make Black History?

Speaker 3 And I said at age 15 that I was going to become a famous musician. And I was going to use my position as a musician to help my community.
That's amazing. So I knew that I wanted to do this,

Speaker 3 but there were a lot of detours and backup plans that I kept going along the way until it finally kind of all came together.

Speaker 3 And it started to come together when I started working with Kanye, when I started to get a lot of collaborations with him and with the artists he was producing.

Speaker 3 And I finally got a record deal in 2004 after about six years of trying, five years after I graduated from Penn. That's amazing.

Speaker 1 How did you and Kanye first meet? What was that process?

Speaker 3 So he grew up in Chicago. I grew up in Ohio.
And

Speaker 3 my roommate in college grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, but he was Kanye's cousin. And

Speaker 3 so my roommate, Devon,

Speaker 3 who I'm still very good friends with, and he's also a musician and a really creative person and an entrepreneur.

Speaker 3 Anyway, I was playing gigs around New York and working as a management consultant during the day. And I would invite my friends out to my gigs.

Speaker 3 And then Devon started DJing with my band and one time he invited his cousin to the show. His cousin Kanye had just moved from Chicago, was living outside of New York across the Hudson and Jersey.
And

Speaker 3 he was like, I'm going to invite my cousin to the show. You guys should meet and you guys should collaborate at some point.
And Kanye wasn't a big producer at this time. He was just...

Speaker 3 Devon's cousin as far as I was concerned. But he

Speaker 3 had just started working with Jay-Z.

Speaker 3 He just started working with folks in uh rockefellow records uh like memphis bleak and beanie seagull all the artists that jay had signed um you know in that early time of uh rockefellow records and um he was starting to become known as an in-demand hip-hop producer and we started working together and he was uh producing some of my demo songs and I would write with him on his demo and you know my demo eventually became my debut album get lifted and his eventually became his debut album album, College Dropout.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 he has a lot to do with my success.

Speaker 1 It's amazing when you find the thing that you want to do with your life, and then you just hang out with like-minded people. Shit happens.
Yeah, and it comes together.

Speaker 3 I always say luck is when opportunity meets preparation. But, you know, you got to put yourself in positions to take advantage of it.
And part of putting yourself in that position is...

Speaker 3 all the rehearsal, all the prep, all the performances you did when only, you know, 50 people were there, 100 people were there yeah yeah for sure and then part of it is just you know opening yourself up to meeting different people and and uh connecting with different people and i started to do that especially when i was living in new york and i was meeting lots of folks who helped my career along and it finally came together wow do you do you enjoy the the lyric writing more than the music writing more than the performing how would how would you how would you stack those things in in

Speaker 3 i love writing writing is is fun. I don't really separate the music and the lyric because it's so intertwined when I'm writing.

Speaker 3 It's usually two or three of us sitting in a room just vibing. And I usually come up with a melody before I come up with a lyric.
And so when I write a melody, it's just me humming nonsense.

Speaker 3 I call it my mumble track. So I have a bunch of recordings on my phone and me mumbling nonsense.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 So it's not like a guitar, not a piano. It's just you mumbling.

Speaker 3 Well, it may be over a piano or over a guitar or over a track that a producer.

Speaker 1 Just trying to find the words.

Speaker 3 Just trying to find the flow. So when I write ordinary people, I'm saying,

Speaker 3 and it doesn't make any sense yet, but I figure out what it sounds like and what it might sound like.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I love that.

Speaker 3 Exactly, Sean. Exactly.
And so I record this mumble track, and then the mumbles kind of suggest different tones and ideas and rhythms. And then eventually the lyric comes from that.

Speaker 3 And that whole process usually takes me about three, four hours.

Speaker 3 Usually me and another person. Sometimes I do it by myself.

Speaker 3 And then I'll record a demo in that, the end of that session. And that's my work day.

Speaker 1 You know, so you have the, I'm cutting way to the end of this interview, but you have this new album coming out called Legend, which of course is like, of course it's called.

Speaker 1 Like, why didn't we do an album? It's called that. Yeah.
It's like right there in your name. Yeah.
And

Speaker 1 it's a double album. And I listen to every single track.
It's

Speaker 1 so great. First of all.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 I didn't know they'd give it to you yet. So yeah, it's Secret Secret.
I'm always excited that somebody's heard it because

Speaker 3 I feel like it's been my little secret for so long.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I'll tweet and I'll also. No, Sean, you already did that.
It's uploaded. I listened to it just this morning.
Yeah. Just ripping.

Speaker 3 What are the piracy sites now? It used to be LimeWire and NASDAQ.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah. And I've just been selling it.
I've just been selling them on Lower Broadway, a canal, for the last half hour. It's done really well.

Speaker 3 No one buys those anymore.

Speaker 1 It's done really well, dude. Well, thank you.
Yeah, no. But I want to just talk about a couple of the songs because they're so great.

Speaker 1 You know, the All She Want to Do Is Dance is going to be like a mega, mega, mega, mega hit song. Like, I hope so.
I hummed it back as I was listening to it.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh, the key change is coming. There's the key change.
It goes up. You know, it's like.
Sean thought he wrote it because he was going,

Speaker 3 he was doing a mumble check.

Speaker 1 It's so good. Every wedding will play that song, by the way.
But then I was listening to a bunch of other stuff, and it's some of it's really kind of like sexy, cool.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, one, one of the songs about sex, definitely. Yeah, a lot of songs about like splish splash.
Some of your lyrics are, and I'm gay, so I don't get this.

Speaker 1 I'm going to make you wet the bed.

Speaker 1 Boy, we just made some news right there. Well, hello, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 As a gay guy, I I don't want a girl wetting the bed.

Speaker 1 But you say I'm gonna

Speaker 1 make her wet the bed. Well, so okay.
Yeah. Anyway.
Well, she could be in the other bed.

Speaker 1 Wait, this way I'm just gonna mention anything about the hole in the sheet. I'm sorry, it's a sex.
Sorry.

Speaker 1 What's going on? So

Speaker 1 the songs are great, though. John,

Speaker 2 when you're not doing all these incredible things you do well,

Speaker 2 what do you do not as well, but really enjoy filling your free time with? You got like a tennis addiction? You got like a

Speaker 2 cheesy TV show watching?

Speaker 3 I love to do crosswords. Oh, yeah, me too.
I love to do crosswords. I'm all over the New York Times crossword app, but I'm pretty good at it.

Speaker 3 So I don't know if I'll say I don't do it as well because I do it pretty well.

Speaker 2 Will's pretty professional at Wordle and all that stuff. Have you gotten into that yet?

Speaker 3 I haven't gotten into Wordle. All my friends are doing it, but I'm sticking with the crossword.
I know New York Times bought Wordle too, but I'm sticking with the Crossword.

Speaker 1 Crossword is good. The Crossword's great.
New York Times. Wordle's okay.
It's pretty. Wordle's just kind of...
I do Octortal, which is

Speaker 1 Wordle's simultaneous. I'll happen to the Cordel though.
Yeah, and Cordle. I do Chordle as well, but Octortal is the real.

Speaker 3 What's the one? There's one with the Name That Tune kind of vibe. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I want to play that.
I'm bad at it. What about what can you do?

Speaker 2 I can't. I can only do Mondays crossword because I'm less than bright.
What about you? How far do you get?

Speaker 3 I do it all week,

Speaker 3 every day.

Speaker 1 Of course he does it every day. Are you finishing them?

Speaker 3 I'm finishing them, yes. Yeah.
To complete.

Speaker 1 Just I grew up on a soundstage.

Speaker 2 I'm

Speaker 1 not. I know.
I mean, look, if some of the answers were about the grip department or like, you know,

Speaker 1 how to set a C-stand, I need a four-byte floppy over here. Yeah.
How to push your call time.

Speaker 3 It's about patience, though. It's about patience.
You just got to keep at it.

Speaker 1 John, I will say, like, kind of to what Jason was saying, I mean, you had,

Speaker 1 in a way, you had so many things that you could have done.

Speaker 1 Like, you're really educated. You were like, talk to me about the consultancy.
Like you just kind of glossed over that. Like, wait, what? You had a whole other career? What is that?

Speaker 3 Well, so I graduated from Penn in 99. And Penn is a very business-oriented kind of place.
We have the Wharton School there, which, you know, is where our last president went to school.

Speaker 3 And lots of, you know, future CEOs go to school there. So it's got kind of like a pre-business kind of vibe at Penn, even if you don't go to the business school.

Speaker 3 So I went to the College of arts and sciences majored in English but a lot of my friends were applying to all these

Speaker 3 Consultancies and and Finance jobs and you know you feel like well if everyone else at school is doing this maybe I should you know at least check it out and so I started going to you know these like orientation meetings that you know if you're interested in these jobs some of the alums would come to the school and talk to you about them and one of them was an event for black and brown students students who might be interested in consulting.

Speaker 3 I sat down next to an alum who I knew pretty well, and she was really smart and engaging and told me about what she did.

Speaker 3 And so I applied to Boston Consulting Group, which is where she worked, and I got the job. And they offered me 50 grand a year, which for me at that time was a lot of money.
My dad was

Speaker 3 an assembly line worker. My mom stayed at home.
So I literally was offered more in my first year coming out of school than my dad had ever made in a year as an assembly line worker.

Speaker 3 And so I'm like, man, I should probably take this job. And I knew I wanted to do music, but you know, it's like, I'm going to have to work anyway.
I got loans to pay back. I got rent to pay.

Speaker 3 And I figured I might as well work in a job that pays me pretty well. And I learned some things.
You know, I met a lot of interesting people.

Speaker 3 And I thought I would only work there for like a year and I would get a record deal. And that would be that.

Speaker 3 And I started there in 99 and I stayed there for three years and then I worked for one of our pro bono clients for another year or so.

Speaker 3 And then I finally was getting super close to getting a record deal and I started touring with Kanye. And that's when I finally felt like I didn't have to have a day job

Speaker 3 and was getting enough money from Chevy.

Speaker 1 Sean, you're pro boner, right? What is the deal with

Speaker 1 pro boner?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know anybody.
What are you saying? My hearing is so terrible.

Speaker 2 How tempting is it for you to,

Speaker 2 and pardon my ignorance if you've already got this up and running?

Speaker 1 Well, we partnered a long time ago, yeah.

Speaker 2 To create like, I mean, what about management consultant in your

Speaker 2 kingdom, you know, which I'm sure you've got up and running now, as well as perhaps, you know, Kanye stuff and any of your other friends?

Speaker 2 Like, are you calling these folks and saying, hey, I'm sure you've got a great business manager and a great label and all that other stuff, but you know, we could kind of commingle here and one plus one could make three.

Speaker 2 Like, does your brain still work in that lane?

Speaker 3 I think it still does, but I truly enjoy being on the creative side more. And so I have really good people that work with me.
I think what the management consulting did for me was prepare me

Speaker 3 to be good at hiring people and bringing people into my world that I could trust. And I hold a pretty high standard standard for everybody that works with me.

Speaker 3 And I think they're really good at what they do. But I think my standard was set higher by being in that setting with all these other smart people.

Speaker 3 And it helps me be a good client, honestly, a tough client, but it helps me.

Speaker 3 It makes me a better client for all the people that work for me because I ask the right questions and expect a lot from them. And I really do focus on the creative.

Speaker 3 I spend almost all my energy focused on writing songs,

Speaker 3 creating art, focused on my show, and then I allow all the smart people around me to help me handle the business.

Speaker 1 I'm still looking for them.

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Speaker 4 And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 Going back to like singing live, like superstar or touring, I'm always fascinated by people like you who have this muscle, this voice of yours that is so trained that you can sing night after night after night after night after night and not damage it.

Speaker 1 Like how... Do you have any kind of nightmare touring stories where something went wrong?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, you're saying that. I'm like, wow, well, I wish it was that

Speaker 3 easy to maintain these things. But my voice, it definitely fails me sometimes.
And I'm able to usually get through it.

Speaker 3 But there are definitely times when it's not as strong as I would like it to be. It's part of your body.
So it's not, you know, it's subject to all the frailties that human beings have.

Speaker 3 Just like athletes have rough nights, just like they get sore, just like all of those things.

Speaker 1 Where you take the microphone and you just hand it out to the audience and they finish your lyrics for you.

Speaker 3 Sometimes you're like, I was doing that in Europe just now because I got a little bit under the weather.

Speaker 3 And, you know, your body tells on you and your voice tells on you when you're under the weather, when you're tired, when you're dehydrated, any of those things. So it's a struggle every time.

Speaker 3 That means you have to take care of yourself.

Speaker 3 I don't drink when I'm on tour. I drink a lot of water, drink a lot of tea.

Speaker 3 And I have to watch my acid intake because acid reflux affects our voices. That's right.

Speaker 3 All of these things. And then I have to get enough rest.
And if I don't get enough rest, my body tells on me, my voice tells on me too.

Speaker 3 So all of these things require maintenance and then a lot of good warming up and cooling down before and after every show.

Speaker 1 How much sleep are you getting a night, John?

Speaker 1 What's your optimum?

Speaker 3 On tour, I usually sleep about six or seven at night. And then I'll take a nap

Speaker 3 in the middle of the day, a siesta,

Speaker 3 around, you know, two or three for a couple hours. And then so total, I'll end up with like eight or nine hours of sleep a day.

Speaker 2 Are you touring with the six and the four-year-old?

Speaker 3 They were with me in Europe and in Egypt just now.

Speaker 3 And then they'll come out to my Vegas residency sometimes as well. And they love it.
They love coming to my shows when we let them stay up late.

Speaker 2 Well, how does your sleep love that? You know,

Speaker 2 are they real cooperative with daddy getting seven or eight? They don't care. They jump right in.

Speaker 3 They let me take a nap.

Speaker 1 They do.

Speaker 3 My wife and my and our nanny,

Speaker 3 they keep them out of my room when I'm taking a nap. But, you know, they really love music.
They love coming to my shows. And they really respect what I do and try to honor that so far.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 You got to get a lot of sleep if you're going to be People Magazine's sexiest man alive.

Speaker 1 Snap.

Speaker 1 You know, and I've been trying to sleep my way into it. You know what I mean? Yeah.
For a while.

Speaker 3 You have to sleep with a lot of people you sleep with.

Speaker 1 I don't know what you have to do, but I'm not, whatever it is, I'm not doing it. Sean, can you give them some phone numbers?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I mean, that's that's pretty, when that happened, where you like, I mean, God, you must have got, it's great, but you also must get ribbed by your friends and people you know.

Speaker 3 It is the ultimate double-edged sword because

Speaker 3 they're saying something very nice about you and they're making this beautiful spread about you, but it just invites everyone on the internet to say why you didn't deserve it.

Speaker 1 Now, I apologize.

Speaker 2 I didn't see your spread for that, but do you have to do a bunch of real quote-unquote sexy shots for the sake of

Speaker 1 issue?

Speaker 3 Wet shirts.

Speaker 2 No, like a lot of smoke in the eyes looks, real hard looks.

Speaker 1 Again, this is perfect for me.

Speaker 2 You also look like there's a fire in the room, Will. Yeah, look at that sweat.

Speaker 1 Yeah, look at that.

Speaker 3 Get somebody to hose me down with a fire. You're giving me James Dean right now, Will.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there it is. Yeah, only high eyebrows, squinty eyes.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Jason and I used to say that we'd go to like events and you'd see somebody doing that in the thing, like in the, in the, you know, on the step and repeat. We'd be like, oh, look at this guy.

Speaker 1 He's got real smoke in the eyes. Yeah, he looks real confused.
Yeah, look at that.

Speaker 3 That's sexy. That's what they like.

Speaker 2 Was your wife there giving you shit just off camera or was she super supportive about it?

Speaker 3 She had.

Speaker 3 A few jokes about it, but she was genuinely proud. And, you know, she ribs me plenty.

Speaker 3 But I think she was genuinely proud. And like I said, you know, it gives the internet license to just, you know,

Speaker 3 go crazy and tell you why, why, why you didn't deserve it. And so I just stayed off the internet for a few days.

Speaker 3 And it was a successful strategy.

Speaker 3 I didn't need to see all that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you frame this cover. I don't need confirmation on that.
I know it's framed. Where is it hanging?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 It's here in our office. So we have a bunch of magazine covers hanging up in the office.
So it's kind of like our

Speaker 3 work Hall of Fame. We've got our Vanity Fair cover,

Speaker 3 Chrissy's Glamour cover, and all of our covers. She has like 10 times more than me, but at least I have people, sexiest man.

Speaker 1 Which could be worth 10. I think that's worth 10.

Speaker 1 John, back to like the

Speaker 1 music part and the album. I know you collaborated with a bunch of people.

Speaker 1 Are there people that you have yet to collaborate with that you've always dreamed of? Is there any kind of... One or two top people at the top of the list?

Speaker 3 Oh, well, I love Kendrick Lamar. Two people who recently put out albums that I love,

Speaker 3 Kendrick and Beyonce. So I would love to collaborate with both of them.
Yeah. And both of them put out great albums recently that I've been listening to.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Do you read reviews, by the way, of your albums or songs? Yeah, I do.

Speaker 3 Sometimes. I don't read all of them, but I read a decent amount.
And, you know, I'm always curious to see what people think about it. And sometimes

Speaker 3 I feel like...

Speaker 3 Sometimes I disagree with them, but sometimes I also feel like they don't get it. Like,

Speaker 3 some like, cause they'll say things where it sounds like they just don't get it. They don't connect with the material and they don't understand what I was trying to do.

Speaker 3 But hey, it's always interesting to see what they say. And

Speaker 3 I don't let it get to me too much, but I'm always curious.

Speaker 1 So, Wade, speaking of things that have always gotten positive reviews, you got this gig on the voice, which is like, first of all, how did you land the gig? And tell me about some crazy, like

Speaker 1 the craziest auditions you've seen.

Speaker 3 Well, you know, the voice is like a plum gig in our business because you get to, they, uh, they keep you in LA, which if you live here and you, you have a family here, it's like an easy gig to have, just drive up to Universal when you have to drive up there and you get paid essentially like you would be on tour, but you're home and you get to be with your kids.

Speaker 3 So it's like really a good gig. And it's fun.
You get to be around other musicians. You get to be inspiring all these younger artists.
And it's truly a fun job. And

Speaker 3 I guested on the show. We have guest advisors on the show.
I was on Adam's team helping advise his team.

Speaker 3 And an opening came up and they, I think they liked when I was a guest advisor and offered me the job. And I did it for one season.

Speaker 3 They asked me back and now I've done seven seasons in a row.

Speaker 3 My seventh season in a row. And I don't see it stopping anytime soon.
I really like doing it. I really enjoy it.
I really enjoy working with the young artists.

Speaker 3 And it's a fun show. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It is great. You're great on it.

Speaker 2 What about producing television? Is that something that's interesting to you?

Speaker 3 Yeah, well, that's how I got Miemi from Jesus Christ Superstar. We were producers on that show.
And then I have a production company called Get Lifted Film Company.

Speaker 3 We've done

Speaker 3 documentaries. We've done television series.
We did one called Underground, which was particularly good and one we were really proud of.

Speaker 3 it was about the underground railroad um we've uh done uh feature films our biggest film we did was also on netflix called uh jingle jangle it was a holiday film uh featuring uh forrest whitaker and yeah and felicia rashad and some others and it was a christmas musical basically that's uh about a toy maker kind of a willy wonka type uh toy maker uh and uh yeah we've done some really cool stuff a lot of things that were music related but uh some things that weren't as well have you scored films at all?

Speaker 1 And would you want to?

Speaker 3 I've written songs for film, but I haven't actually scored a film. So I wrote Glory for Selma with Common.
And then I've written a bunch of songs for other films too.

Speaker 3 And I wrote a song for that Jingle Jangle film that we did. And I'll be writing more

Speaker 3 film stuff and Broadway stuff in the future.

Speaker 3 All of that is fun to me. I love writing.
And I love writing with an assignment too. I think.

Speaker 3 So that's why I like film and TV and Broadway because when you have some direction, it's kind of fun to have that assignment and some direction in your writing.

Speaker 2 What about when the kids start getting a little bit deeper roots into school and into their social rhythm and all that stuff?

Speaker 2 How do you think that's going to affect your ability to get out there on the road and tour a bunch? Are you going to homeschool them like you were and just take them out with you all the time?

Speaker 3 No, you know, I don't think we'll homeschool them and we'll just kind of figure out the timing. I think there's a way to pace touring so it's not too

Speaker 3 imposing. Yeah, like the kids went with me on this summer tour.
And like I said, I have the voice.

Speaker 3 So it limits the amount of time I can tour, but it replaces touring with another gig that I really like. And so, you know, as long as I have that, then I won't have to tour as much.

Speaker 3 But once I start touring again more, I'll definitely pace it in a way that makes sense. I really enjoy being a dad and a husband.

Speaker 3 And so I try to make time for that and don't let work overcome it too much. Yeah.
I love that.

Speaker 1 Every time I've seen you perform or in interviews, you're always so

Speaker 1 nice and

Speaker 1 genuine and like,

Speaker 1 you know, amenable. When do you hit people, John? What part of your day is what I want to know? You're not striking most people.

Speaker 3 What time to do it off camera?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's smart, man. Very smart.
Really smart.

Speaker 3 What pisses you off?

Speaker 1 Yeah, what do you hate?

Speaker 3 Oh, the things I get mad about. Well, a lot of it's, I'm very into politics, so I get pissed off about politics a lot.

Speaker 3 And I get very engaged when it comes to politics, so I'm pretty passionate about that stuff.

Speaker 3 And when I see people who harm other people, especially people who have less and have less power and less and fewer resources,

Speaker 3 I hate when people abuse their power. And honestly, that pisses me off.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, what's the craziest thing on your writer when you tour?

Speaker 3 I have nothing crazy on there.

Speaker 1 It's like some stuff. Come on.
Now, John,

Speaker 2 John, have you ever...

Speaker 3 have you what go ahead give sean is is a purple mm answer i don't have an answer i don't have a good one i we have like snacks we have like salted roasted almonds and oh you know deep i geez

Speaker 1 i ate the same i ate the same uh meal before every show which is rotisserie chicken and veggies roasted chicken yeah and uh veggies i i'm very boring uh jason's got gas x jason what is it gas x oh i have some i have some uh antacids but i fry it up i mean it's I saute it.

Speaker 2 Now, would you ever, would you ever, I'm sure you've been asked this before. I apologize.
I don't know the answer. Would you ever consider running for some sort of an office?

Speaker 3 I won't.

Speaker 3 You know, I get somebody,

Speaker 3 one of the Neo Con, what's his name? Bill Crystal

Speaker 3 tweeted that the other day.

Speaker 1 And no, definitely not.

Speaker 1 I want to be a part of the forward party, which is what they're creating, which is Democrats and Republicans have come together to start this third party. And they just forward you things.

Speaker 3 They forward you emails with funny chain mail and jokes.

Speaker 1 Well, Sean loves an email. Listen, nobody loves an email.
I was thinking about when you.

Speaker 2 Let's give Sean's email address out right now.

Speaker 1 Sean, you were talking about your job. John, when you were talking about that job when you were working consulting, I was thinking, like, God, that seems like a nightmare.

Speaker 1 But Sean would love it because he loves getting emails and responding quickly. He loves forwards.
Oh, he loves being in an office environment. He fucking right, Sean, am I lying?

Speaker 1 I like admin. I like admin.
I love admin.

Speaker 1 He's a loud shot.

Speaker 3 Johnny Legend, we've taken ways. You sound like you'd make a good executive assistant if you were busy.

Speaker 1 I'm not above it.

Speaker 1 Johnny, we've taken way too much of your time. Thank you for being here.
You are a nice man to do light. John the Legend.

Speaker 3 Thank you, guys. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 Nice to be here. Thank you, man.
And the album is so good. It's called Legend.
I can't wait for everybody to hear it. It's so thankful.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 I appreciate it. Well, keep at it.
Don't work too, too hard. And

Speaker 2 I think hashtag legend2024.

Speaker 1 I think we've made it. Yeah, there it is.
It's official. It's official.

Speaker 3 Jason's looking for an outsider.

Speaker 1 Here I am.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Go get it. See you.
All right, John. Take care, everybody.

Speaker 2 Thank you very much. Take care, buddy.

Speaker 3 Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 How about that guy?

Speaker 2 John Legend. Listen, this guy's a legend.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's right there in the name.

Speaker 1 It's so hard to build it into your name. It's so smart.
It's so smart. I forget to ask him, do you think that's his real name? Like Alicia Keys? Is Alicia Keys? And she plays piano.

Speaker 1 Is that a real thing?

Speaker 2 Well, you know, Harry Styles is not, that's not his real name.

Speaker 2 You know what it is? That's hair style. Did you know that? No, no.

Speaker 2 Dude, his real name is John Baxter.

Speaker 1 Is that true?

Speaker 2 No, Sean.

Speaker 1 Fuck.

Speaker 1 I believed you. I know you did, Angel.

Speaker 2 Just lay down. Just elevate your feet above your heart.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, you guys, check out his album if you can. I totally will.

Speaker 1 He's just one of those guys, like everything he's talking about, again, just so busy and prolific and just doing stuff and putting out records and doing the show and doing this.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I'm so tired listening to him. I'm like, how do you do it? He's a young'un.
He's a young'un. I ran into him at Sundance, the Sundance Film Festival years ago.

Speaker 1 And he's like, hey, you have a production company.

Speaker 1 How did you do that? And I was like,

Speaker 1 just start one. Right.
And we were talking so many years ago. And here he is.
He's like, cool. And then he went and did it and started and has all these shows.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was like, how do and now I'm talking, how did you do that?

Speaker 1 By the way, it's the best idea, right? I mean, to just do that, to be curious like that and go, hey, you, you did something that I think that I want to do. How'd you do that? How did you do that?

Speaker 1 Right. I love that.
I love that.

Speaker 2 Which is better than is better than like what you do, Will, which is you're just, you're just by

Speaker 2 curious.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. We're doing this so fast.

Speaker 1 Bye curious.

Speaker 1 We use the same one over and over.

Speaker 3 We got to get to the ads.

Speaker 2 Let's get to the the ads because I got a hard out. Let's go.

Speaker 1 Just lobbed that from the sidelines. That was so lazy.
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