"John Legend"

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I'm excited to learn Spanish. I took Spanish in high school, but I don't remember a lot of it.
But the reason is I live in California and there are millions and millions and millions of people that speak Spanish and I love it. I love to learn.
I love challenging my brain. I, you know, learned piano for so long, which is like a language.
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How about we do a song just by hitting our microphones, right?

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.

Sean's going to go second, and Willie's going to go third.

Here we go.

Okay. I'm really cheesing myself out.
That's cringy. Smart Liz.
That was good. Smart Liz.
Smart Liz. Smart Liz.
So wait, we got to touch these moon rocks that were on the moon.

Like, they're four billion year old moon rocks.

I got to touch a couple moon rocks that weren't on the moon.

What do you mean moon rocks that were on the moon?

Sorry, yeah.

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, they were on the moon.

All those scientists must have loved you.

Yeah.

Like, oh, guys, it's so relaxing to have an actor around. I know.
One plus one can equal anything. 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 the Orion.
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?

Are you guys sleeping?

No, it's pretty great.

I mean, no, no, no.

That's interesting.

I mean, I am one of those people,

God, you get the pushback on this.

I am one of those people like,

we got a lot of stuff going on here. Why are we leaving the moon? I know, Why are we going to the moon? Where are we going? We're going to the moon.
Goddamn, we've got so much shit to fix over here. Yeah, okay.
But we've got to get ready for Mars. We've got to get ready for Mars.
And I know a lot of innovation comes from Mars. Right.
So eventually that stuff will touch us here. But isn't it mostly kind of for morale and mankind excellence and all that sort of thing? What, to go to the moon? All of that.
Yeah, I mean, are there real practical applications to what we're doing up there? I'm saying I don't know. I'm not doubting it.
I'm just from a place of total smartlessness. Yeah, there's lots of things we've already discovered about the universe going to the moon.
Sure, and a lot of innovations, as Jason said, that he said we get touched as

back here, a lot of stuff that they innovate for

the program. And I think as soon as

we really nail down this whole

sort of, you know,

mirrors to see

what yesterday actually looked

like, we can really nail that

down. Listener, if you've got

an extra hour to fall asleep,

go ahead and listen to my theory. Who was it with? Sean, we can wave at ourselves from our episode with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
I think that that's what's happening right now. We're seeing Jason back in that time.
Back in two years ago. If I could find somebody intelligent enough to figure out a way to have the Hubble or the what's the What's the new one? The web.
The web. Yeah.
To, like, fire into a mirror that then fires back into a mirror, into another, into another, into another. Yeah, yeah.
We won't have to... We won't see all the way back to the Big Bang.
Like, that seemed like... That's the tough part.
It's already done. No, we could do that.
Now we could see, like, just into yesterday. Gee, 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.
Is that not, am I misremembering? No, Will, that's totally different, bro. That was Aaron Gray related.
It was, oh no. Golly.
He still does that. You can find him doing that occasionally.
Wait, and really quick. I just want to, last thing I want to say, Sean, to you.
Yeah, yeah. Because you brought it up.
Okay. You, Sean texted me.
I just want our listeners to know that you guys went on vacation. After all this, Jason, you complained about, I never get to go on vacation and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah. You and Sean went on vacation without me.
Mm-hmm. 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 you guys knew that I was out here at the beach. Yeah.
You're still at the beach, right? When do you come back from the nonsense? Soon. Boy, 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 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?

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

No, no, no, it's in California.

But, Will, I have to tell you something.

I have to tell you something.

Speaking of the beach, the first day I got there,

me and Jason and Scotty went into the ocean.

This is in the Bahamas, not in Houston. Right.
We went into the ocean. We went into the ocean, and I have just swim trunks on, the whitest person alive on the planet Earth.
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.
No, it's the worst. I've been to the beach with him before.
It's terrible. Tramp stamp.
Don't forget about the tramp stamp. What's the tramp stamp? He's got a tattoo on the small of his back.
Oh, I never saw that. Well, because you wear clothes.
It just simply says breathe. 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.

All the kids. Everybody, we're all outside.

There are like 12 of us.

And Jason,

it looks like he's

like in the Arctic.

Well, listen, it's twofold. Number

one, I don't know if you guys have heard about sun cancer

or UV rays or something.

There's a couple of articles

I'm going to send you.

Sun cancer.

And then there's

the other thing

called dad bod

that I don't think

anybody really needs

to see dad bod.

No.

No one's got a worse

dad bod than me

and I was with my shirt off.

Well, I'm going to send you

a top.

Check your mail.

Will, I'm sending you a couple.

You still get mail there?

Guys, we were

keeping our guests too long. Alright, listen.

This is incredible. Our guest

today is anything but smartless.

He's a spectacular,

incredible talent.

I could listen to him sing for 20 hours a day.

He's such a smarty that he not only skipped one,

but two grades growing up,

starting high school at 12 years old.

Good Lord.

Just like me.

Right when Jason was ending it.

Ending my scholastic career.

That's enough.

And 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

So for Tracy

EGOT is

Emmy, Grammy, Oscar

And Tony

He's won all of those

What?

So previous jobs

Which I love finding out about

Are like a wedding singer

A business consultant

So I'm gonna ask him about that

Legend has it

That it was Kanye West

Who helped him

Get signed back in the day

I know

It's uber talented

Mr. Smarty Pants

Thank you. What's happening? What is happening? Where are you right now? I'm at my office in Los Angeles.
Look, it looks clean and simple. You don't look busy at work.
This is actually Chrissy's office. My office is next door, which is basically a recording studio.
Right. 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. Now, are there zoning issues with that, John? Zoning issues with having an office and a house? I've explored this before.
This is a don't ask, don't tell policy, even though I just told millions of people. Yeah, let's have the address on that real quick.
Ask for forgiveness later. 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? 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, that was unbelievable.
That was incredible. Thank you.
And it was totally live. Totally live.
What was that, like two years ago, three years ago? That was 20, it was 2019, I believe. It was on NBC, I think, right? Oh.
It was on NBC. Yeah.
With Sarah Bareilles as Mary Magdalene. She was great too, man.
Yeah. 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.

Didn't you win something for that?

We won the Emmy for Best Live Special.

That's so great.

That was my E that made me an EGOT.

Oh, that's right.

That's so cool.

What kind of prep goes into something like,

like how far, what is it, just months of just- At the rehearsal. Are you going to do it live TV? I mean, it's got to be intense.
Well, you know, we're musicians, so we do live performances all the time. Yeah.
But 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, everything needs to go right. And it was magical.
We rehearsed for a few months. 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 for a few weeks in between rehearsals. And so I come back and we rehearse for the final week or two.
But, man, it was quite an endeavor, quite a great team, and I love doing it. You know what? When I was a musical director at this dinner theater in the suburb of Chicago, long story.
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, in the middle of the show? Yeah, spoiler alert.
Well, there's this contraption, you know, that saves him from obviously doing that. But it broke on Easter Sunday.
Oh, no. Wow.
Well, look into that. So he, in fact, was resurrected.
He was resurrected. Sean, did you play jesus christ or the superstar i was in the piano i was in the piano oh you came out of the piano well like coming out of a cake like coming out of the yeah i was naked you play the piano another fun fact about that experience uh andrew lloyd weber and tim rice also both became egots because of that same emmy, wow.
Wow. So we all three got it the same day.

Oh, that's pretty wild.

How many are there of you, the EGOTs?

17.

17.

Sean knows.

He's doing the research.

But Jennifer Hudson just joined the club.

She's the 17th.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Isn't that wild?

Will, where are you on the list?

Do you have any?

You've got your Oscar and your Tony.

I'm on the no- list do you have any you've got you've got your oscar and your tony i'm in the i'm on the no gods okay got zero i ain't got no god got none that's mine i ain't got no guys 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 about what to do, what to do next, how to prioritize work, got this great family too. The money, the money, of course.
Yeah, it's all about the money. Yeah, of course.
I got it. Honestly, 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 they do have to pay me well. So all of that comes into the decision.
But I would imagine that your interests change pretty quickly. Like, how do you, how are you, certainly with, 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? That's going to run 12 months. 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.
Does that ever give you agita about making choices? 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.

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.

You can uncheck that money box.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's not a lot of money.

Oh, yeah, you're right in it, man. Going back to at the at the beginning in the intro when i said you skipped grades and you entered high school at 12 years old yeah that's just crazy pants what did you how did did you feel like you missed out by skipping or did you want to skip or were you pressured by your parents or teachers or well it was my mother that was definitely pushing it and i honestly wouldn't advise it for uh most kids and i think you do lose out socially uh when you try to put a kid that's 12 in a group of 14 year olds i think it's it's hard you know yeah and i was super shy um 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 and uh and and a complete geek but uh honestly it's it's tough and I I don't think I would advise anyone to do it with their kids I wouldn't do it with my kids either right was there a reason for that like was there a was it going to help you sort of with music? Was it going to give you more opportunities earlier? Was that part of that? No, my mom, I think it was almost like a badge of honor for her because she homeschooled us for a while.
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 right and so i think it was almost like her proving the worth of her home teaching yeah uh saying when i came back to public school i was two years ahead of my peers and i could be skipped to uh eighth grade when i was supposed to be in I think, honestly, that's what motivated it more than anything. Where was that? What part of the country was that? I grew up in Springfield, Ohio, which is about 50 minutes west of Columbus.
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So that was a real early declaration that you were making that It's going to be music. I'm all in.
And 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, you know, trying to, you know. I was straddling for a long time because, you know, I was a really good student and I 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 what that's about. And so I 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.
And I had been loving music. I've been making music since I was a kid.
But I always had, you know, a little bit of insurance, you know, with my academics and with, you know, 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.

And McDonald's was the sponsor for the essay.

And 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?

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, 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.
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. 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. How did you and Kanye first meet? What was that process? So he grew up in Chicago.
I grew up in Ohio. And my roommate in college grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, but he was Kanye's cousin.
And so my roommate, Devon, who I'm still very good friends with, and he's also a musician and a really creative person and an entrepreneur. 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. 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 in Jersey.
And 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 Devon's cousin as far as I was concerned.
he um had just started working with jay-z just started working with folks in uh rockefella records uh like memphis bleak and beanie siegel all the artists that jay had signed um you know in that early time of rockefella records and um he was starting to become known as an in-demand hip-hop producer. And we started working together.
And he was producing some of my demo songs. And I would write with him on his demo.
And my demo eventually became my debut album, Get Lifted. And his eventually became his debut album, College Dropout.
And he has a lot to do with my success. 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. Stuff comes together.
I always say luck is when opportunity meets preparation. But, you know, you've got to put yourself in positions to take advantage of it.
And part of putting yourself in that position is 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 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 enjoy the lyric writing more than the music writing, more than the performing? How would you stack those things? I love writing.
Writing is fun. I don't really separate the music and the lyric because it's so intertwined when I'm writing.
Usually, 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. I call it my mumble track.
So I have a bunch of recordings on my phone of me mumbling nonsense. Yeah, yeah.
So it's not like a guitar, not a piano. It's just you mumbling.
Well, it may be over a piano or over a guitar or over a track that a producer is. But just trying to find the words.
Just trying to find the flow. So when I write Ordinary People, I'm saying, We're the never ready people.
We're the love of baby boy. And it doesn't make any sense yet, but I figure out what it sounds like and what it might sound like.
Yeah. I love that.
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. And that whole process usually takes me about three four hours um usually me and another person sometimes i do it by myself um and then i'll record a demo in that the end of that session and that's my work day you know so you have the i was i'm cutting way to the end of this interview but you have this new album coming out called legend which of course it's called.
Like, why didn't we do an album called that? Yeah. It's like right there in your name.
Yeah. And it's a double album and I listen to every single track.
It's so great. First of all.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah.
I didn't know they'd given to you yet. Yeah it's secret secret I'm always excited that somebody's heard it

Because I feel like it's been my little secret for so long

Yeah, I'll tweet it out

Well, no, yeah, Sean, you already did that

It's uploaded, I listened to it just this morning

Yeah, just ripped it

What are the piracy sites now?

It used to be LimeWire and Napster

Oh, yeah, yeah

And I've just been selling it

I've just been selling them on Lower Broadway at Canal

For the last half hour

It's done well, dude

No one buys those anymore

It's done really well, dude

Well, thank you

Thank you. Yeah, no.
But I want to just talk about a couple of the songs because they're so great. You know, the All She Wanted to Do Is Dance is going to be like a mega, mega, mega, mega hit song.
I hope so. I hummed it back as I was listening to it.
And I was like, oh, the key change is coming. There's the key change.
It goes up. Sean thought he wrote it because he was going...
Yeah, he was doing a mumble track. It's so good.
Every wedding will play that song. But then I was listening to a bunch of the other stuff.
And some of it's really kind of sexy, cool. We have some songs about sex, definitely.
Yeah, a lot of songs about sex.

Like Splish Splash, some of your lyrics are and I'm gay, so I don't

get this. I'm going to make you wet the bed.

We just made some news right there.

Well, hello, Sean.

Wait a minute. Breaking news.

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

So, but you say I'm going to

make her wet the bed.

Well. So, okay.
Yeah. Anyway.
Well, she can be in the other bed. Wait, this is what I'm kidding.
Do you mention anything about the hole in the sheet? I'm sorry, it's a sex. Sorry, I don't know.
What's going on? So, John. No, some of the songs are great, though.
John, when you're not doing all these incredible things you do well, what do you do not as well but really enjoy filling your free time with you got like a tennis addiction you got like about that cheesy tv show watching i have a i love to do crosswords oh yeah me i love to do crosswords i'm all over the new york times crossword app but i'm pretty good at it so i don't know if i'll say i don't do it as well because i I do it pretty well. Will's pretty professional at Wordle and all that stuff.
Have you gotten into that yet? 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. Crossword is good.
The crossword's great, New York Times. Wordle's okay.
Wordle's just kind of – I do Octordle, which is eight. Yeah, Wordle's too easy for him.
Wordle is simultaneous. What happened to the Quartal, Will? Yeah, and Quartal.
I do Quartal as well, but Octortal's the real. What's the one, there's one with the Name That Tune kind of vibe.
Oh, yeah, I heard about that. Yeah.
I want to play that. I'm bad at that.
What about, can you do, I can't, I can only do Monday's crossword, because I'm less than bright. What about you? How far do you get? I do it all week.
Every day. Of course he does it every day.
Are you finishing them? I'm finishing them, yes. To completion.
Just I grew up on a soundstage. I'm not bright.
I mean, look, if some of the answers were about the grip department or like, you know... Oh, yeah.
How to set a C-stand. I need a four-by floppy over here.
Yeah. How to push your call time.
It's about patience, though. It's about patience about patience you just got to keep at it john i i will say like kind of to what jason was saying i mean you had uh in a way you had so many things that you could have done 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 well so i i graduated uh from penn in 99 and penn is a very business oriented kind of place we have the wharton school there which uh you know is where our last president went to school and uh lots of uh 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.
So I went to the College of Arts and Sciences, majored in English, but a lot of my friends were applying to all these consultancies 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 who might be interested in consulting.
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. 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 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. 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. 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.
And I thought I would only work there for like a year. And I would get a record deal.
And that would be that. 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.
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.
That's so cool. And was getting enough money from touring.
Sean, you're pro boner, right? What is the deal with... You added an R on it.
You added an R. Pro boner.
Yeah, yeah. I don't know what anybody's saying my hearing is so terrible how tempting is it for you to uh to and pardon my ignorance if you've already got this up and running we've partnered a long time ago yeah um to create like i mean what about management consultant in your 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, 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 co-mingle here and one plus one could make three. like does your still work in that lane 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 uh management consulting did for me was prepare me uh to be good at hiring people and and bringing people into my world that i trust.
And I hold a pretty high standard for everybody that works with me. 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. And it helps me be a good client, honestly, a tough client, but it helps me.
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.

I spend almost all my energy focused on writing songs, creating art, focused on my show.

And then I allow all the smart people around me to help me handle the business.

I'm so looking for them. And now, a word from our sponsor.
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And now, back to the show. 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.
Like how, do you have any kind of nightmare touring stories where something went wrong or? Yeah, I mean, you're saying that. I'm like, wow, well, I wish it was that easy to maintain these things.
But my voice, it definitely fails me sometimes. And I'm able to usually get through it.
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. Just like athletes have rough nights, just like they get sore, just like all those things.
Where you take the microphone and you just hand it out to the audience and they finish your lyrics for you. Sometimes you're like, I was doing that in Europe just now because I got a little bit under the weather.
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.
That means you have to take care of yourself. I don't drink when I'm on tour.
I drink a lot of water, drink a lot of tea. And I have to watch my acid intake because acid reflux affects our voices.
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. So all of these things require maintenance and then a lot of good warming up and cooling down before and after every show.
How much sleep are you getting a night, John? What's your, what's your optimum? On tour, I usually sleep about six or seven at night, and then I'll take a nap, like, in the middle of the day, a siesta, 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.
Are you touring with the six- and the four-year-old? They were with me in Europe and in Egypt just now, 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. Well, how does your sleep love that? You know, are they real cooperative with daddy getting seven or eight? They don't care.
They jump right in. They let me take a nap.
They do. My wife and our nanny, 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. You got to get a lot of sleep if you're going to be People Magazine's sexiest man alive.
Oh, snap. You know, I've been trying to sleep my way into it, you know what I mean, for a while.
You have to sleep with a lot of people. Sleep with.
I don't know what you have to do, but I'm not, whatever it is, I'm not doing it. John, can you give him some phone numbers? Yeah, but I mean, 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.
It is the ultimate double-edged sword because 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.
Right. Now, I apologize.
I didn't see your spread for that. but do you have to do a bunch of real quote-unquote sexy shots for the sexiest man issue? Yeah, they're like, you know, wet shirts.
Oh, no. Like a lot of smoke in the eyes looks, real hard looks and stuff.
Again, this is perfect for me. You always look like there's a fire in the room, Will.
Yeah, look at that. Get somebody look at that.
Get somebody to hose me down with a fire hose. You're giving me James Dean right now, Will.
Yeah, there it is. Oh, look at the high eyebrows, squinty eyes.
Oh, my God. We used to talk, Jason and I used to say that we'd go to events and you'd see somebody doing that and the thing, like on the step and repeat, we'd be like, oh, look at this guy.
He's got real smoke in the eyes. Yeah, he looks real confused.
Yeah, look at that. That's sexy.
That's what they like. I know.
Was your wife there giving you shit just off camera, or was she super supportive about it? She had a few jokes about it, but she was genuinely proud. And, you know, she ribs me plenty.
But I think she was genuinely proud. And like I said, you know, it gives the internet license to just, you know Go crazy and tell you why you didn't deserve it And so I just stayed off the internet for a few days And it was a successful strategy I didn't need to see all that Now, you framed this cover And I don't need confirmation on that I know it's framed Where is it hanging, yeah.
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 work hall of fame. We've got our Vanity Fair cover, Chrissy's Glamour cover, and all of our covers.
She has like 10 times more than me, but at least I have people, sexiest men. Which could be worth 10.
I think that's worth 10. John, back to like the music part and the album.
I know you collaborated with a bunch of people. 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? Oh, well, I love Kendrick Lamar.
Two people who recently put out albums that I love, Kendrick and Beyonce, so I would love to collaborate with both of them. Yeah, that'd be amazing.
And both of them put out great albums recently that I've been listening to. Yeah.
Do you read reviews, by the way, of your albums or songs? Yeah, I do. Sometimes.
I don't read all of them, but I read a decent amount. And amount and you know I'm always curious to see what people think about it and uh sometimes I feel like sometimes I disagree with them but sometimes I also feel like they don't get it like yeah so I'm like because I'll say things 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 but hey it's always interesting to see what they say and uh I don't let it.
They don't connect with the material and they don't understand what I was trying to do. But hey, it's always interesting to see what they say.
And I don't let it get to me too much, but I'm always curious. So wait, 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 the craziest auditions you've seen 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 uh gig to have just drive up to universal uh when you have to drive up there and and you get paid essentially like you would be on tour but you're home and you can be with your kids uh so it's it's like really a good gig and um it's fun you get to be around other musicians you get to be uh inspiring all these younger artists and it's truly a fun job and um i guested on the show we have guest advisors on the show i was on adam's team helping advise his team and uh an opening came up and they i think they liked when i was a guest advisor and uh offered me the job and uh i did it for one season they asked me back and now i've done uh seven seasons in a row.
Wow. Isn't that amazing? My seventh season in a row.
That's crazy. 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. And it's a fun show.
Yeah. It is great.
You're great on it. What about producing television? Is that something that's interesting to you? Yeah, well, that's how I got my Emmy from Jesus Christ Superstar.
We were producers on that show. And then I have a production company called Get Lifted Film Company.
We've done documentaries. We've done television series.
We did one called Underground, which was particularly good and one we were really proud of. It was about the Underground Railroad.
We've done feature films. Our biggest film we did was also on Netflix called Jingle Jangle.
It was a holiday film featuring Forrest Whitaker and Felicia Rashad and some others. And it was a Christmas musical, basically, about a toy maker, kind of a Willy Wonka type toy maker.
And, yeah, we've done some really cool stuff. A lot of things that were music related, but some things that weren't as well.
Have you scored films at all? And would you want to? 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. And I wrote a song for that Jingle Jangle film that we did.
And I'll be writing more film stuff and Broadway stuff in the future. That's so great.
So all of that is fun to me. I love writing.
And I love writing with an assignment too, I think. 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. What about when the kids start getting a little bit deeper roots into school and into their social rhythm and all that stuff? 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? 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 imposing yeah like the kids went with me on this summer tour and like I said I have the voice 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 that, then I won't have to tour as much.
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, and so I try to make time for that and don't let work overcome it too much.
Yeah. I love that.
Every time I've seen you perform or in interviews, you're always so nice and genuine and, like, you know, amenable. When do you hit people, John? What part of your day is you're striking most people? I try to do it off camera.
That's smart, man. Very smart.
Really smart. What pisses you off? Yeah, what do you hate? 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.
And I get very engaged when it comes to politics, so I'm pretty passionate about that stuff. And when I see people who harm other people, especially people who have less and have less power and fewer resources, I hate when people abuse their power.

And honestly, that pisses me off.

What's the craziest thing on your rider when you tour?

I have nothing crazy on there.

It's like simple stuff.

Come on.

Now, John, have you ever...

Go ahead.

Give Sean a purple Eminem answer.

I don't have an answer.

I don't have a good one. We have, like, snacks.
We have, like, salted roasted almonds. Oh, you diva.
Jesus Christ. I eat the same meal before every show.
Which is rotisserie chicken and veggies. Roasted chicken, yeah, and veggies.
I'm very boring. Jason's got gas sex.
Jason, what is it, gas sex? Oh, I have some antacids and things. Yeah, but I fry it up.
I mean, I saute it. 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? I won't. You know, I get somebody, one of the neocards what's his name bill crystal tweeted that the other day and no definitely not 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 and they just forward you things they forward you emails with funny chain mail and jokes well sean loves an loves an email.
Listen, nobody loves an email. I was thinking about when you were...
Let's give Sean's email address out right now. 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. 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? I like admin.
I love admin. He loves admin.
Johnny Legend, we've taken... You sound like you'd make a good executive assistant if you're not busy.
I'm not above it. Johnny, we've taken way too much of your time.
Thank you for being here. You are a nice man to do this for us.
John the legend. Thank you, guys.
Thanks for having me. Very nice of you.
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, so good. Thank you.
I appreciate it. Well, keep at it.
Don't work too, too hard. And I think hashtag legend 2024.
I think we've made some. There he is.
Official. It's official.

Yeah.

Jason's looking for an outsider.

Here I am.

All right.

Go get it.

See you, man.

All right, John.

Take care, everybody.

Thank you very much.

Take care, everybody.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

How about that guy?

John Legend.

Listen, this guy's a legend.

Okay?

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

It's so smart to build it in your name.

It's so smart.

It's smart. Wait, I forgot to ask him, do you think that's his real name?

Like Alicia Keys?

Is Alicia Keys and she plays piano?

Is that her name?

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

You know what it is?

That's Hair Style.

Did you know that?

No.

No.

Dude, his real name is John Baxter.

Is that true?

No, Sean.

Fuck.

I believed you. I know you did, Angel.
Just lay down. Just elevate your feet above your heart.
Yeah, no, you guys, check out his album if you can. I totally will.
He's just one of those guys, 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 and i'm like it's i'm so tired listening to him i'm like how do you do it he's a youngin he's a youngin i ran into him at sundance uh the sundance film festival years ago and he's like hey you have a production company how do you how did you do that and i was like well you just start one right and um yeah we were We were 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 i was like how and now i'm telling you how did you do that 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? Right. I love that.
Which is better than, is better than like what you do,

Will,

which is you're just,

bye,

curious.

Oh my God.

We were having so fast.

Bye,

curious.

We used the same one over and over.

We got to get to the ads.

Let's get to the ads

because I got a hard out.

Let's go.

You just lobbed that

from the sidelines.

That was so lame. Let's go.
You just lobbed that from the sidelines. That was so lame.

Smart.

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