Taylor Swift on Reclaiming Her Masters, Wrapping The Eras Tour, and The Life of a Showgirl | NHTV

All right, let's get to the part of this show that I think is what everybody is going to

be talking about.

Do I get to say it? Do I get to say the two words?

Yes. First of all, you can do whatever you want, Taylor. I don't know.

We're not going to review. This is very much whatever.

I want to work within the framework of the podcast. I'm a fan of the podcast.

Typically we would allow the guests to say new news.

Yeah, yeah. I want to do it.

I think Taylor has a little bit of new news. Welcome back to New Heights, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, 92 percenters, we missed you. This is a very special episode of New Heights, a one three show. We are your hosts.

I'm Travis Kelsey.

This is my big brother, Jason Kelsey, out of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. University of Cincinnati grad, since he, wow, baby. Harold Hickey, come soon enough, baby. Let's go, Bearcats, let's go, baby. Subscribe on YouTube, Wundry Plus,

wherever you get your podcasts, and follow the show on all social media at New Heights Show with one ask for fun clips throughout the week. Jason. Oh, we got a good one. Why don't you tell the people what we got coming up?

That's right, 92%ers. You may remember when we said New Heights wasn't coming back till August 27. Well, that was a lie. That was a lie. And hopefully you can forgive us because uh we got a as Travis said we have a very special episode today

that we just simply could not turn down that's right this is a special pre-season episode that we decided to bring to you a little early so let's not waste any of their time Jason let's get right to it you want to do the honors our guest today is the singer songwriter producer and director from Nashville, Tennessee. That's bullshit.

She is from Reading, Pennsylvania.

She is the most awarded artist in the history of the American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and iHeartRadio Music Awards. She has 14 Grammy Awards and is the only artist in the history to win Album of the Year four times. Last December, she wrapped up the Eerosure, which spanned 149 shows across 51 cities, five continents. It was the most attended tour of all time.

I'm still going. Hold on for her last album. The Torture Post department set a record with 1.76 billion streams globally within the first week alone. All right. And as a fan of that guy on the Chiefs, she has 19 wins, two AFC titles, and a Super Bowl. 92 presenters, are you ready for it? Making her podcasting debut, the most aggressive guest in the history of shows, Taylor Swift!

That intro, Jason. Oh my God. I've seen this before. No, look, his soul has left his body. No, that was so good. Thank you. I tried to thank you for screaming for like 47 seconds for me. That was so nice. I'm shaking right now. I'm shaking. No, you did a great job.

Take a deep breath. Big guy. Take it.

Did I get everything?

How much, how much more could we have put in that?

Like, I felt like that was, that was such an amazing intro. And also just like, thanks for wearing the merch that goes a long way. Just like immediately makes me feel comfortable just looking deeply into my own eyes.

Okay. All right.

That's what I was going for? It's a good t-shirt. I like it. Thanks for having me. This is my first podcast.

This is amazing.

Thank you for coming on.

What took you so long to jump on podcast?

You know what? I just, I was waiting for you guys to invite me. This is my favorite podcast.

So we've already been over this. You're a big fan of the show. You're a 92 percenter. I go into on a routinely basis. I like new news just because of the screaming.

Like I hear him screaming new news from across the house constantly. It's like my favorite part. Like he'll be like, new news, new news. And I'm in the kitchen being like, new news. So I love that because of just the bellowing of it. Like I love no dumb questions.

That's a banger.

I really like it when you give people advice. It's kind of my personal favorite.

Do you usually agree with the advice

or do you just like listening to it?

I mean, I think that you guys give such male-centric advice, which I think is just dudes who don't want drama. Dudes who are trying to avoid the mess. But sometimes you're gonna do a bit and say the messiest thing that they could do, which is funny too. So we're going to ask the question.

Everybody watching the show is currently asking, why are you coming on the show? Why? What are you

doing? You have so many better things to do with your time. This podcast has done a lot for me. Um, I owe a lot to this podcast. I podcast got me a boyfriend ever since Travis decided to use it as his personal dating app about two years ago. So.

Worked pretty good.

Yeah, hey.

Were his friendship bracelets that good? Did you give the friendship bracelets

or was that just on the podcast?

I've never been, I've never seen the original.

Yeah, they didn't leave the stadium because I was butthurt, Jason.

He was, he threw a tantrum. He threw a man tantrum.

Get these out of here.

It's so funny.

It's like I was so.

My plan is ruined.

She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me,

she loves me not.

This is so wild.

She hates me.

Like, it was such a wild, romantic gesture to just be like, I to date you. Like on, I don't know. It was at first when I looked at it,

I was like, this dude is.

That's what it does when you're on the stage and you perform in Arrowhead.

That's what it did.

This dude didn't get a meet and greet. He's making it everyone's problem. That's what I thought at first. And then I was like. You come to Arrowhead, I was like, did he ever reach out to be like in the tents? Or did we know he was in the building? He came with Pat. And he thought

that because he knows the elevator lady that he could talk to her about just getting down.

That's how it works. Just go.

And I got yeah, that's how it works in 1973. But yeah, but but yeah, he really just was like, I know a guy I can figure this out. But I actually when I thought about it, I was like, actually, we live in a day and age where they I'm not a very I'm not an online person at all. Not like on social media like that. And like, I'm genuinely terrified to

open my DMS. It's just like, it's just like, it's about, I just, there's smoke coming out of my DMS.

I don't want to go near that. I don't know what you want somebody to go through it. I'll go through it just cause I'll laugh my ass off. It was like, if you have like 20 million

unread DMS, you're just like, um, to date you. Yeah. Do you want to go on a date with me? I made you a friendship.

I said, do you want to date me?

I was like,

Come outside and meet me. Just meet me once.

Give me a chance.

I was like, if this guy isn't crazy, the Ares tour listening to every single one of those songs like she,

I know what she wants me to do.

I feel that.

I know exactly what she wants me to do.

This is just her wish list of like,

Meet me, please, now I'm butthurt.

Yeah. I'm upset that you didn't meet me even though you didn't know I wanted to meet you because I didn't do any proper logistical planning It was wild but it worked I'm glad it worked I'm just circling back to New Heights to say thank you for for this

So, yeah, thank you to New Heights all the editing Jake Thank you for putting that on social media and letting it do its course. But hold on, before we move on, how did you know he wasn't crazy? Because that's the other side of that, right? Like a guy goes up there and professes his love for you.

It's either one, it's like, this could be the But there's a there's a right crazy. Yeah, he's the good kind of crazy. And I knew that he wasn't crazy. The first couple of times that we talked, I was just like, he's, he's truly like, he's truly getting to know me in a way that's very natural, very pure, very normal, like, also like, just the way that he could make me laugh so immediately about normal things. The like, Travis is like, he, just the way that he could make me laugh so immediately about normal things. Like, Travis is like, he's just a vibe booster in everyone's life that he's in.

He's like a human exclamation point. Like, you know, he's like, when you take a picture on your phone and you put the like, you push the enhance color button, that's like what you do to everyone's life. That's why when I text, I I text I'm always exclamation. You use so many more exclamation points now. But I think it was just like, also you were so, you're so non-judgmental about people and you were not

judgmental about the fact that I knew nothing about the world you were in.

It was the best.

You were nice.

I got a clean slate.

She doesn't know any of my band stuff. Are you kidding me? Jason, on our first date, I legitimately asked him what it was like when the Chiefs played the Eagles in the Super Bowl and he looked across the field, across the line of scrimmage and saw his brother standing on the other, like five feet in front of him on the field. And he was like, he didn't even look at me. But I now know what an insane question that was. He was like, actually, I'm on the offense

and my brother's on the offense, and I'm only on the field at the same time as defense. I thought everyone was on the ground at the same time.

I thought I thought that the quarterbacks. I mean, that's how you played it on the playground growing up. So I understand if you hadn't like.

No, you don't understand. I thought it was like Jared Goff is here and Josh Allen's here. And they're going to be like, they blow a whistle and then they go at each other and they're like, er. And it's like, who's going to win?

That's actually.

I would love to see Jared Goff play some defense.

Let's see.

Jared Goff on defense. I've got some thoughts. Yeah, I didn't know what a first down was. I didn't know what the chains were. I didn't know what a tight end was.

I am forever thankful for you diving into the football world wholeheartedly.

Oh, my God. I fell in love with it. I became obsessed with it. I became like a person who was running through the halls of my house screaming, we drafted Xavier Worthy! And my friends were like, what is, who body snatched you?

This is, this is, what do you mean?

We drafted Xavier Worthy.

I forget where I was, but you were the first person

to tell me that we drafted, I was screeching. No, I was screeching. I couldn't believe it. I was freaking out. We're talking about like-

I couldn't believe it either. I'm like, wait, is she right? I got to look this up. I'm like, did she get the wrong information here? But yeah, we traded up.

Yeah. talking, we're, we're learning. I continue to learn. Maybe somebody else that even knows what those coverages are. Yeah. I'm not ready to be an analyst right now, but give me 16 months.

You're going to pick up on it. I'm telling you, I thought you would ask some of the best questions when we were up in the booth and there's like your desire to learn more, but your

genuine excitement around it as well as like your competitiveness. She's not fucking around God he's not fucking around Reclaiming masters you want to do this tee it up. I'm one of uh, one of my favorite things this summer was Taylor reclaiming her masters her recording of her first six albums finally became hers. And you haven't really talked about it. You've made that beautiful post on all your social channels,

thanking everyone that made it happen and everything. But why don't you tell the 92%ers how it really felt.

Oh, wow. So to catch anyone up who doesn't know about this saga, like I signed a record deal when I was 15, and I always kind of refer to it as I got my music back this summer, but I never owned my music at all. So traditionally, a lot of record deals are set up

in a way that artists don't own what's called their master recordings. Owning your master recordings means that you have complete control and power over distribution, licensing, and essentially the way your legacy is shaped. It's a huge thing.

It's always been a huge thing for me. Like since I was a teenager, I've been actively saving up money to buy my music back and to ever own it in the first place because it's usually the label that owns it. But I've always wanted this to happen. So it's been sold.

My music has been sold a few times. The first time that it was sold, it really ripped my heart out of my chest. And I told everybody exactly how that felt for me and what I was going through and I started basically defiantly Rerecording my music because I wanted I wanted to own it and this was the only way I thought it was ever gonna happen

And so I knew she had a bad kid and she's got she's got a little bit of a bad kid. Yeah Bad kid. That's a yeah savvy kid. That's like hey, I've been told I've been defiant a lot of times.

Well, you are, you're very, it's like, I, I, um, insubordinate

Travis, insubordinate.

Yeah.

It's it's, I think for me, you know, that was the closest I ever thought I would get to owning my music. And so re re recording my music, it was so exciting to get to have that opportunity. But there was still like, I thought about not owning my music every day. It was something that I never was. It's like an intrusive thought that I had every day. And so we do the heiress tour. After the heiress tour, I had a meeting with my team and we decided this might be a good time to approach the current owners of it.

The owners of it was a private equity firm called Shamrock Capital. I knew them to be above board people. They had been very friendly to us. What I was looking to do though was I wanted to buy my music outright. I don't want to be in a partnership. I don't want to own 30% of it.

I want to own all of it.

Yeah, and you deserve that.

But it was a long shot to think that they would do that, that they would sell that asset to me.

It's a big asset.

It's a huge decision for them to make to sell that to anyone, including me. I decided that rather than this be like a business conversation, I'm in the business of human emotion. I would so much rather lead heart first in something like this, because for me, this is not, oh, I want to own this asset because of its returns, because of the dividends that I will receive over the years.

I want it because this is my handwritten diary entries from my whole life. These are the songs I wrote about every phase of my life. This is my photography, my music videos, my most of which I funded, you know, my artwork, everything that I've ever done is in this catalog. And so rather than send lawyers or management, like in a big crew, I sent my mom and my brother who I work with to LA and they, um, sorry, they

sat down and they like, this happens. I don't ever really talk about it because it sat with Shamrock Capital and they told them what this meant for me. They told them the whole story of all the times we've tried to buy it, all the times it's fallen through, all the times we had gotten plans together and figured out something we thought was going to work and it didn't at the last minute. And so my mom calls me afterwards. She's like, look, you know, they were wonderful.

They heard us out. We have no idea which way they're going to go with this. And so I was like, I get it. I get it. I haven't gotten my hopes up about this in a decade. And so it was a couple months after the Super Bowl, we're in Kansas City.

And I get a call from my mom and she's like,

she's like, you got your music. And I'm so sorry that this is, it's literally been so long since this happened. Like it's every time I talk about it. She was like, you got your music. And I just like very dramatically hit the floor for real.

Like honestly just started bawling my eyes out. And I'm just like, just weeping and kind of like unable. I was just like, really, really, really? What do you mean? What do you mean? And I'm like, get yourself together. Get your shit together. Like, just go tell Travis in a normal way.

And I knock on the door. He's playing video games. And I'm trying to say it in a normal way.

And I'm just like, Travis!

And he's like, he like puts his headset down.

He's like, guys gotta go.

And I think he thought something was wrong. And you come up and I'm just like, I got all my music back. And then just start absolutely heaving.

Just dead weight, just dead weight, all control.

Had no power in my legs to support myself. And yeah, this changed my life. I can't believe it still. Every time I think about it, it's like, I have to tell the short version to everyone because it is still like,

this will affect the rest of my life. I think about this every day now, but instead of it being like an intrusive thought that hurts me, it's, I can't believe this happened. Like, how lucky am I? How grateful am I? I'm so grateful to like the artists that helped me with my

rerecords. Because when I did my rerecords, I started doing those in 2021. And a lot of like most of the industry trades were like, this is a bad idea. This is her sort of derailing her career in a way nobody's interested in you doing the same album twice. Fans are not going to be engaged with this.

This is not going to go well for her.

Somebody knew though.

And it was like, I still was able to like reach out to friends of mine like, like, like Phoebe Bridgers, Keith Urban, Maren Morris, Chris Stapleton, you know, Hayley Williams from Paramore, Fall Out Boy, like all these absolutely incredible artists that like shape who I am as an artist. And, and they like agreed to be a part of the re-records. And I like, you know, I, one of the only people I told before this happened was like, I called Phoebe Bridgers and I was just like, I don't think I'm gonna do anything about this. And she's like, I think you just, did you just say what I think you said? And so this has just been like, it was just, I'm so grateful for it.

It's, it's just unbelievable. And I was so happy you were there when that happened.

I mean, I was, cause I could not stand. Yeah. I mean, I started crying too. You know, I'm a cryer. I was, I'm just so happy for you because I've seen, I've seen how you make music. I've seen how you make these videos, seen the effort and the focus and the strategy behind what just one album in Torture Poets Department and, and, and in Fortnite. And I was blown away that you had been doing this your entire life. And for, you know for your first six albums, you

weren't given the rights to all of that. And I know what that looked like. And I know how much it burns you that you didn't have that and you didn't have your creation. And I think doing it the right way, creating the fan base that you did the right way,

and leading your life in a direction that you were eventually going to get it back somehow, someway, because of you always doing things with the right intentions.

So.

Thanks. So, I guess, how does music ownership, this is so crazy to me. So you wrote these songs, you sang these songs, you put everything into them, and don't get me wrong. There's publishing companies, people that support artists out there, but how, how does ownership of music even work? Like when you recorded these songs

when you were 16, right? Is that like, you're the singer down to us. 90% of the singer gets a certain portion. The, uh, the artist gets us or the songwriter gets a certain portion, the artist gets a certain, or the songwriter gets a certain portion, and then the publishing company gets a certain portion.

Okay, so that's a great question. And there's two main categories that we're talking about here. So master recordings is the actual recording. It's the actual vocal, band, production, mixing, mastering, that actual thing. Yes. Mine also included my album artwork, my music videos, everything that went along with any era of music that I had done for my first six albums.

Got it. Every era.

So then there's also, then there's another category, which is publishing. Yes. Then there's also then there's another category which is publishing. I own my publishing which is why You know, I have control over You know if my song is used in a film I and I and I wanted them to use Taylor's version Instead of the original version I the songwriter can decide that got it. Okay, you know and so it's like I basically side that got it. Okay. You know, and so it's like, I basically, I've always been very lucky

because my publishing was protected. A lot of artists have have their publishing sold away from them or they sell their publishing and I, you know, and a lot of artists, it may not be important to them. It was always important for me. The publishing aspect of it has always been something I've had firmly in place, which is great because my songwriting is the core of why I do this, why I love it so much, and what I think has made anything happen in my career at all.

Greatest songwriter of all time.

That's very nice of you to say that. It's like says her boyfriend.

It says a lot of people.

Basically, then you have the master recordings side of things. Now this is a discussion that was not really brought up amongst the artist communities, especially not with fans. This was all kind of industry centric and kind of boring contract stuff that like fans were not speaking about. And so one thing that I think is really great that has come about because of this is that I Have so many new artists come up to me now and say hey

I didn't even know this was a thing and when I went to go and negotiate for my record deal I negotiated to have my masters revert back to me after a certain amount of years or that I own them outright and It's not for everyone. Not everyone cares about this artist to artist artists have different priorities Some artists sell off all their masters because everyone's allowed to have their own priorities What I wanted though is that if I were to put the information out about what I went through at least it gets artists Talking about this to decide whether this is a priority

for them, because you can't know if it's a priority for you unless you know what has come before you and what has happened. And so the master recordings thing, that's your actual ownership of your recordings. To put it in perspective,

if I never would have been able to buy back my music, one day someone else would be leaving all of my music from my first six albums to their kids in their will.

Right.

Yeah. And you think about it like that. It's like, I thought of it. I made it. I recorded it. I paid for most of those music videos.

You know, I wanted an opportunity to buy that back. And that was important to me.

You feel like they're yours. They should be yours. Yeah, exactly. Do you think it was easier for you to do one? Because you're, I mean, just you talking about this, you're so aware of the business side of this and the legal ram of like, you're more aware than I think probably most artists are, but being in the world, it's crazy being a songwriter, the smartest woman in the world, you being the songwriter, being the singer, owning no publishing rights, being able to rerecord songs that gave you leverage

and able to make this move, right? Yes. Yeah. Yes. So that was it. And also, uh, you know, in my contract, they didn't put a clause in that said I couldn't re-record because nobody was doing it and nobody thought that was a good idea. Right. So, and also like, who would be that stubborn? Like who would be, who would be that petty?

This bad ass kid over here.

That they would record every single thing. That's so bad ass. Over and over again.

What was your favorite one? Not just, not just that. Hold on, though. We're not just that who has a fan base that's going to listen to the same album twice in a row. It's a good point. Jason is a good point. Honestly. And this is where they missed it. You had to make a third 1989. I'll listen to that already built. That's the thing is the fan sold a story with the second time you released this album, right? And the fans got behind that narrative and they're like, screw the first album. We're rolling with the re-recorded

album because we're supporting the artist.

Oh yeah. They were like, we ride at dawn. And it was amazing because, you know, they're the reason why the re-records worked out. They're the reason I was able to purchase my music back because they came to the Ares tour. And basically, they're the reason why any of this worked out. And I also want to note that the other people who are like We Ride at Dawn, my live band, they played on all the re-records.

It's like, you want to know why they sound so perfect on the Ares tour? They played on all those records. Like, they're session musicians too. And that's how good they are. And I'm so impressed just by their ability and their dexterity as musicians to be able to do that so convincingly because there are actually some... The Taylor's version is the one I kind kind of prefer a lot of that stuff.

I think it sounds incredible, but I'm happy to have all of it.

So that leads me to the next question, Tay. Now that you own all of it, you have the re-recordings, you have the original recordings, what should we listen to? Like, do I roll with the, does it matter?

You're just like, whatever you guys want. Yeah, it's really whatever you guys want. Because I love both of them. I would not have put out the re-records if I didn't think that they held up or were better. I think a lot of the vocals I did on the re-records are better than the originals.

Okay.

But it's like if you found a nostalgia in the originals and that was what you were 12 years old bopping around in your bedroom, go crazy. Yeah. We got them all.

I'm going to start doing comparisons. That's what I got to do.

I just got to start doing comparisons.

Yeah.

You're going to listen to every beat.

You're certainly, it's not mandatory, Jason.

I mean, it sounds like a good time.

I'll say this. streaming for about two years now. Oh, that's fantastic. Thank you so much. That's why we got that spike in the 35 year old male

demographic.

Yes, that 1.7 billion. That was at least 1 billion for sure. We have one IP address from one iPhone that continually is listening to this. Did you have a favorite album that you re-recorded that like, are there different eras

that you liked recording more re-recorded that like, are there different eras that you liked recording

more re-recording?

I really liked them all, but I think Red was very special. There were songs that I called from the vault songs. And there was one, which I think is maybe my favorite song I've ever written called All Too Well, the 10 minute version, where I unearthed, there were there originally so many more verses in that song than ended up being on the on the album that I had put out when I originally put out Red. I made the glorious fortuitous mistake of saying that to my fans in an interview. You know what those words mean. You're so handsome. So basically,

I said that in an interview to my fans and they just like, hung on to it. They were like, where's the 10 minute version? Give us the 10 minute version. And when it came time to doing Taylor's version and re-recording the album, I went back in, found the verses, restructured the song to the way that it pretty much was when I had originally written it, put them back in. And that song is one of my favorite things I've ever done.

And it was, when we were on the Aries tour, I'm watching people just like cathartically scream this song to the point where I'm watching people just like cathartically scream this song to the point where I'm like, do you need to go to the hospital? It was so passionate, the fan response to that song at the Aries tour. And I remember thinking so many times like, what if this never happened? Like, what if I never had to record this?

Oh, it's one of the most iconic parts of that tour.

It was so fun. And so, yeah, it really did make me fall back in love with that album specifically. I have a song with Phoebe Bridgers that I really love on that, you know, From the Vault. Chris Stapleton was a part of it as well. And I just, I think that one, I've always loved Fearless in 1989 in a very pure way. But Red, I've kind of gone back and forth over the years and been like, you know, like that re-recording, it made me just be like, oh God, I love that album. I have no complicated feelings about that. I wouldn't have done anything different.

Maybe except to include the original verses the first time.

Well, let's, we just talked about the different eras a little bit. Let's talk about perhaps the most daunting thing that any honest artist has ever taken on, which is the heiress tour. Oh my God. You finally finished it up last December in Vancouver. I don't know. I, what did it feel like to wrap it up?

What does it feel like now? Like not touring and being on a jet every day, basically trying to go from country to

country.

Yeah.

I mean, it feels great, Jason, to be honest. I'm not going to lie to you.

You don't miss it?

I miss it. I do miss it, but it's like it was perfect for what it was. Do you know what I mean? And it was a lot of, it was a lot of physical therapy and it was a lot of being in a state of perpetual physical discomfort, kind of like when you're in season. I'm not getting hit by huge 300 pounders, but the heels for that long.

No, when I saw the recovery station in the hotel room after with the toe spacers,

I got an acupuncture.

I've got,

I'm telling you, dude, the similarities were crazy. I'm like, Oh my gosh, she does more than I do.

We're like comparing physical therapy stories, like recovery stuff.

Have you ever tried taping your ankles?

We've related on how much torture we've put our bodies through. Yeah, I miss it because I miss the fans and I miss that connection. But at the same time, it was so special. It was like the most formative time of my life. I learned so much about how far I can push myself. And if I set a goal, making that a 3 and 1⁄2 hour show

in the beginning of the tour. It's like, you can't like be sick one day and then decide tonight it's going to be two and a half hours. Right. And it's really just like prioritizing the fans experience before, before anything else. And my fellow broken heart. Yeah. Don't get me started. Don't you get me started or like stomach flu or like like just like aching feet or blisters or whatever. Like it's it just was. Which she had all of this going through. Usually

all at the same time. Going into her fourth show. Yeah and it's just it was kind of the coolest thing in the world because when we were putting together this tour, I had some really lofty goals I wanted to reach conceptually, because I wanted to show, I wanted to show fans, and especially younger fans, visuals and sort of performance art references that were really important to me as a kid

and what inspired me to wanna do this, right? So like, I wanted to put elements of, of musical theater, Broadway, ballet, you know, scenery that you would see in an

opera, uh, kind of things like this. I watched the whole tour. I don't, I just thought it

was amazing. I didn't know this, but that's, that's exactly it. I wanted it to be references that I thought were really high concept and really high value for fans and for them to see things they hadn't necessarily seen before all in one concert. But I wanted to do it at the highest intensity, rapid fire. You're seeing something new every 15 to 30 seconds. And so it feels like you're scrolling in an algorithm, right? And when I heard reports of people saying that they got actual amnesia after the concerts, I was

like, Oh, I think we did it. Yeah, I think I think we did it nailed it. That's, that's genuine that that's, I didn't even wasn't even shooting for that goal when they're like I saw so many things and I Experienced a state of euphoria that I now don't remember what happened to me

I was like, oh my god, all I remember is that she didn't want to meet me. That's And as much as much as you and I've told you this as much as you want to you know Give new heights credit. I give the heirs to a credit. Yeah, I give the heirs to a credit because if I would have never gone to that show and been mesmerized, and just being captivated, yeah, and then left with such a desire to want to meet you. I would have never went on here and told everybody how butthurt I was. Yeah, I'd never just been so engulfed in the curiosity of who you were

Things about that last statement is you didn't even know what the word engulfed meant before like you met Taylor like this is You've broadened your horizon so far. It's where the perfect I'm telling you it's so she makes me so much better. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying that. But it's like you see you on the stage and you see how crazy you can get an entire stadium going and then I get you in a room and it's like I've known you forever. It's like it was just the easiest conversation I ever had and it was just so much fun that it just – it knocked my socks off from what they say.

Knocked your socks off.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I felt the same exactly about you. She blew me away. And I had never experienced something so mesmerizing on stage and then so real and so beautiful in person.

Hey, that's wonderful.

Should I leave?

I'm a skidmark. Yeah, I think so. and so beautiful in person. Hey, that's- Should I leave?

Yeah, I think so. Honestly, at this point, I think everyone should leave.

I don't know where to go from here now. How many countries did you do the heiress tour in?

47,000 countries, Jason.

You just listed that in the beginning.

I said 51 cities, which I don't know if that's right.

It was a lot of countries. What was really fun about all the countries that we went to is when we first started dating, he was like, I always wanted to go and really vacation in Europe and see Australia and go to Asia. I was like, well, I got a tour for that. It's coming up.

Nice. You got room for a six-five guy to come hang out?

Yeah, we can figure it out. No, the dimensions are wild, but we'll make some room. I think we'll have to leave some equipment trunks behind. Thank you for accommodating. But absolutely, we'd be happy to have you. We got to travel the world and have vacations and adventures when I wasn't on stage, which was really fun, because Europe was so fun.

Australia is amazing. Yeah, it was great. And that entire part of our lives, like I was on tour for so long, and now I finally am not on tour. And it's kind of great because I'm getting my hobbies back.

Like when I was on tour, all I had the bandwidth for was what's the acoustic mashup this week? How do I say welcome to the heiress tour in Portuguese? You know, that was the only thing digging up my brain space. And now it's, uh, it's been so fun

to see what Taylor actually gets into around the house.

It's like, I'd say all my hobbies could be categorized as like hobbies you could have had in the 1700s. You know, like I get on my granny shit.

You enjoy doing all of these homey things.

That's basically what you're saying?

Yeah, I like to sew. I specialize as you know, in children's purses and baby blankets. I make two things and that's it.

I do know that very well.

She's very good at these two things.

I love to paint. I love to cook. I have a different baking obsession every six months.

I'm the luckiest man in the world.

Right now we're very deep in a sourdough obsession that has taken over my life.

I am aware.

I am aware.

And I'm very deep in it now. You've got me deep in this.

I'm lucky. I'm lucky. I'm I'm, I'm working as, as much as I am. I'm running as much as I am because I am, I'm getting the caloric intake.

Yeah. He asked me to send him two loaves of sourdough at training camp. I'm like, I'm like wrapping sourdough loaves in like, like Saran wrap or whatever, like cling film. The sourdough's taken over my life in a huge way. I'm really talking about bread 60% of the time now. It's become a huge, huge factor.

I mean, and she's getting good with making all these different versions of it. Oh yeah. My favorite one was probably probably I mean, the regular sourdough is one of my favorites, but the blueberry.

Yeah, we do. There's a blueberry lemon. There's cinnamon swirl cinnamon raisin. And this one I've been workshopping for the girls because they love everything rainbow fun fatty sourdough. Oh my gosh. Yes. No, it will. Yes. They love sprinkles. Like we put you know, we put sprinkles in everything when we hang out.

Yeah. It's really, yeah.

She's a loafer for life now.

Yeah, and it's gotten pretty crazy over here. I'm just like always like baking bread and texting my friends and being like, can I send you some bread? I need some feedback. Do you like this one better than you liked the other one? Like I did the rise a little differently. I'm on like sourdough blogs. There's a whole community of us and I didn't know it.

Oh my gosh. The amount of people hoping that you're on their blog.

Oh, I'm on your blog. Girl, I'm on your blog. But it's like, I just didn't know this. There's people like me out there and this is where the internet is good. This is where the internet is a good place where you can curate a reality where like, all I really use the internet for is sourdough and when Travis shows me videos of otters on his Instagram

algorithm. I want, I want a wild. I want a wild otter so bad. I just wanna like find these little creatures

and be friends with them.

Why a wild one? Why wouldn't you?

Aren't they all wild? Oh no, there's domestic.

There's domestic otters?

He wants one specifically whose life he saved, who knows that he saved its life. Very noble. Who Yeah, it's a really specific type

I'm not er he's looking for the the videos that I watch or somebody just in a canoe

Yeah, he doesn't want to let go up to an otter and take it from its mother Oh, he wants to see an otter and the otters like my paws caught in a shell and he's like, I got you And then the otters like thank you forever with its little paws. And then it swims up and then it's, and you're kayaking and it's like doing this to you. Like that's what he wants.

And I want it to honestly, who doesn't?

I mean, who doesn't?

Yeah. Right.

Yeah.

So do otters eat bread?

Can we get a sourdough eating otter? That might be the perfect combination. We're going to figure that out. I think they will.

I don't know if they do.

I don't know.

They're probable.

But yeah, we had discussed maybe carrying around cans of sardines just in case we run into one.

Nice.

It's better in principle than it is in practice. Easier to conceptualize. It seems pretty easy though, you just gotta go canoeing. Which is also easier in principle than it is in practice for us in terms of just the weight balance on the water.

I'm on the hunt for a friend.

Yeah.

Stuff you didn't know you needed to know, right, Jason?

I mean, I love otters.

I don't know who doesn't love watching Instagram otters.

This is what life after ERA's tour is though, Jason. You gotta, it's so close. I'm retired, I am all in on this. I wanna bake, I just don't have the planning behind it. Taylor's a planner and she's gonna have the sourdough alive.

We're not gonna keep a sourdough alive.

I've folded, what is it?

He's actually done it. He's actually done it.

Yeah, I've made a loaf.

You've had one of my loaves actually.

He's done all of it. Like we've, we've set it up where it's like, I've got a station and he's got a station and he's done all of it. So he's actually baked too. I've stretched and folded

before. Yeah. But there's just like something always slightly weight all the floor. No,

his was actually higher than mine. His was more delicious than mine. It's like, it's also, you

know, no directions over here. I get into the chance Jason, took like two chunks and you sent it off to the lab, there's gonna be so many more germs and microbes. Oh my God, oh, ew.

Ew.

The bacteria count. What is the fungus in this, that's on this one?

That's the sour, Jason.

That's the sour, okay, but the bacteria count.

Ew.

Ew.

Ew.

Ew. the bacteria count. What is the fungus in this that's on this one?

Yeah.

That's the sour, Jason.

That's the sour. OK.

Why is there chest hair in it?

How did you?

Yeah.

There's like chest.

The apron's too low.

There's like chest hair in his. There's cat hair in mine. It's just like both of these are completely inedible. But it's crazy how many puns you can make because I do the whole I got bread bags and I got labels. And so it's you can you can really go for it with the puns. You go, Are you ready for it? Are you ready? Flower song

is the slamming screen door. That's horrible. It's a loaf story, baby just say yeast.

Just say yeast.

Yeah.

What song is it?

Keep going.

It's a loaf story.

She said dough.

No, it's horrible. Loafing Him was bread. It's bad. You don't know that song.

That's okay.

I love you.

It wasn't on the tour.

Tour. So, we do have this. I did fuck that up. 21 countries. Did you learn anything throughout the… Is there anything at the end of the tour when you were wrapping up that you wish you had

been doing the whole time? Is there anything you would do differently now that the entire tour is wrapped up?

No.

I'm really glad that I didn't know it would have gone on as long as it did. I'm glad that I got to, like, actually be prepared for this tour the way that I was because, you know, in previous tours, I had noticed that I would get on the tour and I'd have to like get my stamina up throughout the tour. And by the last quarter of the tour, I'd finally hit my stride stamina wise. And I'd be like, Oh, I can do this easily every night. Yeah. I wanted to be at that point at the beginning of the Aries tour. So that's why I did so much more training,

so much more endurance training and cardio and stuff that, you know, doesn't come naturally because I'm not an athlete. So it's like that stuff I have to really force myself to do.

Don't you say that? I mean, don't you dare say that.

It's how I feel. And I don't even, it's not like I say that in a disparaging way. I, I, I don't care at all. Why do we take it that way?

I don't know.

Yeah, I'm like, I really I'm not an athlete and that's fine. Like I play instruments.

I take it that way because we're undefeated on the beer pong table. I've seen you throw a football.

No, that's not good. And you know, that's not good.

It does.

No, it does.

You can.

No. Spiral? Yes.

You got to be real with me though.

It's better than me. Because it's not… there's no spiral. I don't think I've ever caught anything that's ever been thrown to me, near me, around me.

I've seen it. You're just disinterested in being an athlete.

That's true.

Can you hit something with a stick? That's a telltale sign of an athlete. Good with. Yeah, no, I don't know, Jason. We I've never tried that. So it's like, we're going out back after this. My relationship with sports was like, you know, I grew up in Pennsylvania. I always heard my dad yelling at the screen watching Eagles games. That was always the sports sounds that I heard in my house. However, I was up in my room playing guitar, learning instruments, playing piano. Just, I was focused on different things. I was so laser focused on music. And that's how I was in school.

I would go to sporting events so that I could sing the national anthem. Everything was a means to an end to get me to get to do music. I know every halftime show from the Super Bowls, but I didn't watch the sports. And so Travis-

Watching the Aries Tour and seeing that power skip, I knew you were an athlete from the power skip.

That's, you're just saying words.

It's one of my favorite parts.

Just telling lies.

To see you just skipping down that runway.

Just looking like a giraffe, its limbs were put on all wrong.

Not everybody can, everybody can skip, but not everybody can power skip in heels.

That takes athleticism. Thank you. I appreciate that. What a unique compliment. So yeah, I definitely became obsessed with sports when it came to him. I'm competitive on his behalf, but if you and me are going to go against each other in something athletic, I'm going to let you win because this to me, I don't see why. What do the points even mean if I'm doing it? I'm a fan of athletics and the sports.

If I'm doing the sports, like, I'm throwing like this, because I don't really care if it goes

where it's supposed to go.

Interesting.

It doesn't bother me.

Until we're in a heated battle.

And when I don't make the catch, I'm not embarrassed.

No? She's a good teammate, so she'll give effort if it's teamed up. It's individual sport, she's not going to care. But if she needs to be held accountable, she'll show up.

If I'm on his team and we're playing beer pong or something, I'm really trying.

You're now you're in this.

You're a team sports.

Because this matters to him, right?

Absolutely.

I'm a team sports gal. Yeah. I don't care.

I'm getting out of here. Yeah.

I'm doing this, I care.

Okay. All right.

I'm doing this, I care. This, care a lot.

We're doing this, we're kneading dough.

I don't care.

Stretching for us.

I don't care if this happens. I don't care if this goes here. It's not part of my metrics for my self-worth. All right, that's probably very healthy, to be honest with you. Hey, you know? I was like, as long as you're fine with this.

What, no, I'm completely fine with you being an athlete.

Yeah.

I'm not an athlete.

I'm never gonna be.

I think you just missed the whole point.

Yeah.

What? Do you have a favorite thing from the heiress tour? I have a lot of favorite things from the heiress tour. I would look out and I would see a lot of bonding happening between generations of people.

It's true.

It was really wonderful. It was like the most incredible feeling in the world because I can see all that I've got LASIK and incredible. Basically the heiress tour. I think one of my favorite things was when the fans would come up with their own traditions, right? Oh, so cool.

Because I can plan a stage show that's like, we know exactly what's happening, when it's going to happen. It's very stage managed. It's a whole production, right? And I love to plan. But I also do love surprises. Like there's a time during the European, like of the heiress tour, there's a song called Willow where we do a performance where we have these, it's a very like witchy performance. We have these like light up orbs and we're in cloaks

and it's all very woo. And the fans decided that they were gonna bring their own light up orbs. And by that, I mean balloons that they would blow up in the audience. Like, and then they would light their,

they would use their phone light behind it and create a light up or when I tell you, I looked out. Yeah. Or a glow stick, whatever. Like they would figure out ways to luminate them themselves. And it was insane to look out and see spontaneously thousands of these orbs just go up. And I just feel like I don't even know who organized this.

Was there a group text? How did you guys even do this? It was so special. It felt like we were all part of something together in a way that couldn't be planned. And there's as much as I love and relish in planning, it was really fun that they would do things to sort of delight me every once in

a while. They had little chance. They had all these traditions by the end of the tour. It was like Rocky horror picture show where they have their own,

literally. It was, I remember being in Gelsinger in Germany.

And you know what? What did you just say? Gelsenkirchen. Love is him learning that. Yeah. That's an actual, that's a city? He came to Gelsenkirchen. Gelsenkirchen. I think that's how you say it. And supported me there. I've never heard this.

If you say it with a German accent, it probably sounds more like the actual city, but And I remember seeing that part of the show and they were literally doing circles and like putting the orbs up in the air and passing them to each other like they were performing.

It was so beautiful.

It was crazy.

They were so committed. I've never played for crowds that were as committed.

Yeah.

So I think I loved the event of it. Like I'm always trying to figure out how to make music into more of an event, right? How do we make it romantic? How do we make it something that people experience together? And that's why I love vinyl.

That's why I love putting so much into the tour or a music video or events or activities for them to do or Easter eggs or little puzzles for them to solve. Like it's gotten to the point where it's just like, it's a little bit, people are like the Easter eggs thing is getting a little Zodiac killer at this point. I'm like, as long as they like it, you know,

how do you go about like knowing how to do an Easter egg?

I don't even know. Like, what does that process start? Are you like, well, I have some parameters. What is the art of the Easter egg? The art of the Easter egg is that there's, there's do's and don'ts, right? Like I'm never going to plant an Easter egg that ties back to my personal life. It's always going to be towards music or a musical, something I'm coming up with something I have coming up a plan I have

coming together, something that you don't know I'm saying for a specific reason that you'll hear later and you'll go back and be like, oh my God. Like I think my favorite one of those was I was given an honorary doctorate from NYU and I made the commencement speech and I put so many lyrical Easter eggs in that speech that when the Midnight's album came out,

after that, the fans were like, the whole speech was an Easter egg. And that's for me, that's really fun because they find it fun.

For sure.

And also just, I love numerology. I love math stuff. I love dates. I love certain I just that stuff like I find really fun. And you know, we I want Easter eggs to be a certain thing where like if you are a part of the fandom and you want to experience like music in a normal way, then then you don't even see these. You don't even care what that thing is above that doorway in under that

dimly lit, flickering light over there that's upside down backwards. In Braille. I do you don't you don't need to know what that is. Yeah. But if you want if you want to look at

that.

But if you do,

then it's there. Yeah, I mean like, if you know, you know, you know, you know,

oh, yeah. What's then, you know, then you know, let's talk about something. I don't know. What is numerology? You threw that phrase out there. Like, that's a comment. What is numerology? Do you don't know what numerology is? I'm assuming something with numbers. Yeah, like, I'm 87. and she's 13. Yeah. Literally. It's that simple. Just numbers. And 100.

Yeah. 13 plus 87 equals 100. That's numerology. Like what is numbers that have a specific significance? Like, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Do you not keep it 100 ever?

I'm trying to attempt to. It's crazy that you don't. What numbers do I have? Kylie, I don't know how to do this. It's okay. It's not for everyone. My favorite number is 13, though. It always has been Travis. I know. And that's part of the numerology of why we're doing okay. Part of it. Okay. It's been in my My whole Travis, Travis likes people that like the number 13.

Yeah. What is liking the number 13 say about us though?

It says that we're family in, in trichodectophilia. I think it is, is the obsession with

every day, dude. This is, that's a, that's a real thing.

You know what that means?

Every day.

He knows. dude, this is, that's a real thing. You know what that means? Every day, you know, trick a delphophilia. So that's the obsession with specifically number 13 or something. I'm sorry. Yeah. Triska deck, Triska decaphobia is when you hate 13 Triska decaphilia is when you love it. Philia is love. I, um, I don't know why I do it. It was like everybody else was afraid of number 13. So then I'm like, yeah, that's a phobia. That's okay. Yeah. You're just being contrarian, which I love. I love that about you. All right. Well, you're just like, you want to do this. I'm going to do this. That's exactly how I sound. Jason, Jason, Jason. All right. Favorite, favorite thing about the heirs to tour was besides going to it and

just being like this amazed at everything. I think I was on another podcast recently, just like all of the songs, everything you just talked about where it changes so much, right? There's something new every 20, 30 seconds. It was incredible. The nonstop length of it. But I will, I'm going to be rem remiss if I don't say one of the things that I love is watching Travis Kelce get on the stage, the man in the

tuxedo.

It was so good. It was so special. That was like, we were like, that came out because we were just doing we thought we were doing a bit like we both thought we were just joking. Because a lot of what we're saying is like inside of a bit and we're laughing the whole time. And every once in a while, one of us will be like, are you serious? Like I could be.

I could be serious. Are you serious?

Like I was serious in an in terrifying fashion.

I was like, yeah, it was like a wouldn't it be funny if kind of thing.

And I would try not to fuck this up.

The show's perfect.

You don't want to fuck the show up.

Do you? I knew you were going to be down for I knew you were if you wanted to do it like I was never going to pressure you to do it. But the fact that when when we were talking about it, we were joking. I kind of got I saw that little twinkle in your eye where I was like, oh, he wants to do it. He wants to do it. He wants to. You want me to go on stage? Yeah, and you got up there.

You were so good. Every single beat, his comedic timing is crazy. And when the lights are bright, he slows down time. That's when he thrives.

Well, no, I just black out and hope that it ends out perfect. You said you and I just saying the same thing. I did. Yeah, yeah. Like, nice. I rose from that stage. And I saw how many people are looking at you. It's just like,

blackout, you looked so good. It was so amazing. Like it was it was one of the loudest if not the loudest screams I've ever

heard on the tour. It was insane. It really was how many have you played football and some of the biggest stadiums you've been in front people But staring at your life. What was that moment? Like there's nothing like this. Well, you know like an ant I don't like the smallest piece of life ever like that entire stadium, the floor. What are all these people doing on the field? How are, holy, I didn't know this place felt like this. Oh my gosh, what is going on?

I have to pick her up now. Okay, here we go.

Don't drop her, don't drop her.

Don't drop the baby.

Don't drop the baby.

It's so funny that you were actually scared about that. You could like throw me over a mountain and like climb the mountain and catch me on the other side.

Football players drop balls all the time.

Oh my God, it was so good. It was London, it was Wembley Stadium. It was, those were such special shows. And we had just, wasn't this the week that I got to watch Jason meet the royal family?

It was.

It was. Yeah. I knew you were serious when I was like, Jason, do you want to go meet?

And he was like, what do I do with my beer?

Yeah. I watched him have this moment with his beer where he's just like, but I want to take it, but I know that I probably should not take it. I watched this happen and it was kind of the most amazing. I liked that you picked up on it. Cause that was exactly what was going on in my head. If I don't, like, if I don't have my beer, what do I do with this hand now?

Disrespectful to have a beer when you need loyalty?

Or am I just like being, being authentic by having the beer? I would normally have the beer. Wouldn't they want me to be myself? I'm watching you say that in your head and it was fantastic. I don't know. I'll always remember that. It was just like, I'll always remember meeting you for the first time, Jason.

Do we need to talk about that?

That time I did hold onto my beer.

You did. What was, I guess you brought it up.

What was that first impression like?

What was, did you know I was told to be on my best behavior? I didn't know what you were told, but I did know that one of the first things I saw was like you say to Kylie, I was just shot gunning beers with the bills mafia and I really want to go through one of the fire tables. I want to jump through it. I want to jump onto the flaming table and she goes, okay, can we not do that right now? And since then, I've heard her say that exact thing to your four year old about like, mommy, I want to throw this pudding on the wall. Wouldn't

that be fun? Can we not do it right now? That's a common phrase. And so I meet you. You're exactly as I thought you would be. Kylie is exactly as I thought she would be just like the realist, the smartest, the coolest. You're fantastic. Obviously, you know that. And then I swear to God, Jason, you flew through the window at light speed. I've never seen someone so big move so fast.

It's impressive.

It's like, you know when you see a cricket and it's here? Yeah. And then it's gone and it's 16 feet that way. You're like, did it just jump that way? How did it do that?

And he surprisingly, he gets more athletic the more drunk he gets. The more beers, I mean, it's real.

It was wild. I mean, it's real. I really should have played in the NFL. I think it would have been better. Nobody should have to do that.

Not no. At this point, I would never argue with that. And all of a sudden, like, you're out there in the snow, you're handing me children through the window.

Like I was trying to. That was probably not my best moment.

It was. And like, I think it actually was.

And I'm really grateful. I was like, you want to see Taylor? I got you. Let's go.

Whose kid is that, Jason? Do you know where this kid came from? Um, yeah, it was, I think it was your best moment. And I think I'm very lucky to have gotten to see it. I love this like new world that Travis has shown me. Cause I really, it's so fun. It's so exciting. There's so much pressure on these players that I didn't, I kind of was like, I've only ever been in music and been like, you know, seeing that, but the pressure on sports is just such a different type that I have such a respect for everyone. Like everyone I meet on his team, like everyone I see doing this, I'm just like, you've been focused on this since you were a kid

and it shows.

Well, and I'm sure there's a lot of relatability there. Anybody trying to be the best at what they do and dedicating their lives to it.

I mean, yeah.

Yeah. And I've been, I've been so lucky because I never have gotten to see what the suite looks like when I play the game. Because they didn't have a camera on it. I never get to see my friends and family. I never get to... So now whenever I make a play,

I get to see it, what it actually looks like, how much fun they're having, what, you know, the type of support that I get and how crazy it gets. So the Vegas Super Bowl, there was a camera on the suite

and when Nicole scored that touchdown and to see everybody in that suite start jumping on each other.

People are body slamming each other into other rooms. It was so violent.

It's giving me the chills right now. I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

That video.

To get everybody going crazy.

People went down. Like, there were people punching each other. It was like absolute chaos. And I have every memory of that. Every memory of that moment is intact, but it's just like screaming and thrashing around and trying not to be taken down by this undertow of your friends going absolutely insane.

I loved every bit of it.

Oh, it was so insane.

I mean, the suite that is, the Travis Kelsey suite that has been happening. What was your first impression of that?

Of everybody in there?

Who's the MVP of the suite?

Who's the MVP of the suite?

Okay. So he's got, which is an incredible, like a huge green flag is that Travis has had the same friends since he's probably four years old. Yes. Literally. green flag is that Travis has had the same friends since he's probably four years old. And he's incredibly good at maintaining friendships and he's so loyal and his friends are equally loyal and they're just the funniest, most

hilarious group of people. Yeah. And, um, you want to talk about green flags, the first game she went to the bears game. She literally went through the front door of the stadium.

Yeah. We walked right in.

Just right in like the tick, like general admission through general admission through with everybody on the bus to the game.

Oh, my gosh.

I was just like, Oh, she's just in it. She's down. She's down for the ride. She's here. She's here for the fun. She's like, I'll go through the mud.

I'll be a part of a chief's kingdom. Like, this is where we walk in. This is where we walk in. I don't know what to tell you. I don't have an alternative. I'm like, you know, we just played here three months ago and we went a different way, but I'm not going to say that I'm not going to backseat drive.

This shit.

What was that like?

What were people doing? Ross is so tall and so and so broad that it's like that, that helps a lot. And then just you have a lot of other just like big bulky dudes that you're friends with. Green flag not threatened by other guys. I was walking in with I had a hat on and I had a mask on and I'm walking in just in the front where we're walking in with thousands of people in Arrowhead and nobody

nobody noticed. Oh my gosh. There were rumors that we had been seeing each other but I think people

were like what would they talk about? Yeah. You know? Yeah. I hinted on the Pat McAfee show that

I was gonna see if you would be willing to come see me rock the stage at Arrowhead. Yeah. Since I seen you make the stadium so nice.

But nobody was like, oh yeah, we're definitely going to see her there and we're going to see her coming in through general admission.

I was like, no way this guy landed her.

No chance.

No chance that whole podcast thing worked.

I didn't believe it when you told me.

You manifested it.

I did, yes.

You summoned me.

Here I did. You summoned me. Here I am. Andy Reid has recently revealed that he was the one who set you guys up. How true is this revelation by Big Grid?

Whatever Andy Reid says, we're going to stand by.

We're not here to refute anything.

He says it.

Cupid.

That's what happened.

Big Grid. It's all the same. That's what happened. He's been friends with my dad. My dad is the most social man who's ever been born.

Shout out to Scott.

I was about to say, who's not friends with Scott?

He's just a maniac. He will make a friend in an airport in 1971, have a five minute conversation, and still be talking to that dude twice a week now. But he's like that with everyone he meets. He's able to have very many, very meaningful relationships. And it's a skill.

It's a talent. It is a mind-boggling talent that I have only known him to have.

Yeah. Yeah.

He's a savant.

It is impressive.

He is a savant.

Social savant, my dad. And so he knows Andy. And Andy's been coming to shows for years and stuff like that. So we've, I've always had like a really positive vibe about Andy Reed. I didn't really know what, what, what the sports were that he was doing, but I knew that that was my dad's friend. And he knew he was really, I now know he has literally the most iconic legendary coach of all

time. And like, from the way that you talk about him, his leadership style is so, I respect it so much because I feel like it's done without like aggression or raising your voice or losing your composure. It's all very composed and focused.

It will rip you apart for sure. You got to be really like running the plays he's called.

Yeah, but that's the thing. It's like, but it's not done. It's not overdone, right? Like if you get it from him, you know you deserve it and you're gonna keep up.

That's what I heard from him.

Exactly. And yeah, there's validity to it. There's like, there's so, there's such a genuine like want to get better that him getting you to like do it the right way, it's like a disciplinary thing. It's just like he wouldn't be doing it

unless he saw the greatness in you or he saw your ability to get it right and he wouldn't be doing it this way if it was any other way, if that makes sense.

It does.

There's a lot of heart.

Yeah, there's a stoicism too, which makes the heart when he shows it to you. And I think this is what you're kind of saying, Taylor. He's so composed and so locked in. And then all of a sudden when he does show that little bit of warmth, it's like, oh,

here's the teddy bear.

I see him. He's in there.

Yeah, he's funny.

He's cheeky. Yeah. But it's like everything has a reason. Everything is very intentional. I feel like he coaches and lives in a very intentional way, which I think is really awesome and it's just a great leadership style.

Yeah. There's a layer of trust and there's a layer of discipline where you're going to have some fun playing for him, but you're going to know when you got to flip that switch to be serious and be on point and do it his way. He says it all the time. He's got 51%. I was like,

yeah, all right. Whatever you say, boss. I always feel like when you lose your shit,

you lose your leadership. It's just something I've always tried to administer in what I'm doing. But he's a huge role model for that, how he motivates people and how he does so without flying off the handle and is just very focused on what the right thing is at the right moment.

Yes.

Yep. So what? So did Andy tell Scott something? Is that what I'm trying to get? What did Andy say to Scott?

I mean, okay. So when you guys did the full send on the podcast. Yes, it was. And he was like, you want to date me? And everybody heard it. It was the shooting your shot heard around the world.

Yes. Basically, everyone who likes you, which is a lot of people, started reaching out to everyone who knows me.

There we go.

I think it was like Andy was vouching for you. I think it was my relatives, my cousins were like, please, please, please. He's amazing. There were, there were friends that were like, he's actually an amazing guy. Like he's so great. It would, there was a lot of kind of people whispering in my ear about you.

And I actually, that's not normal. It's not normal. There are people just willing to go to bat for you and be like, you don't understand this guy's incredible.

Andy, well done.

Yeah. Thank you, Andy.

And Scott and Scott. Thank you.

There we go. Scott.

How speaking of which house got doing, he's doing good.

So he is doing incredibly well. My dad had an interesting summer. He actually, um, had a quintuple bypass surgery and that's a really intense surgery. Yeah. surgery and that's a really intense surgery. So it all happened really quick. He went in, I know he would want me to say this because he really like, he learned a lot through this process. He's had a healthy, perfect EKG every year that he's gone in to get his physicals. Perfect EKG.

But what found his five hard blockages in his heart was a resting stress test. So he's been telling all his friends, you need to get the stress test because that's what's actually preventative. If you can find that earlier, you don't have to have a bypass surgery.

You can sort out those blockages with stents and things that are a lot less invasive. So he finds out that he's got these blockages. They're like, this is, we got to do this tomorrow. We don't know how you walked in here, dude. This is crazy.

So he was, of course, saying to our family, he was like, you guys are busy. I don't want you guys to have to come in here. You and Austin are busy.

Just don't.

You don't have to do this.

Don't come.

The brave dad, The strong dad that is, you know, he had, he said something about like when a cat is injured, it curls up around a tree and heals itself. I was like, dad, cats don't have quintuple bypass. He tried to relate. You're just saying stuff now that doesn't mean anything to me. And so I was like, okay, I'm not going to come there. All right. Like he wakes up from surgery and it's my mom, my brother, and me, and his best friend. And he comes out of surgery and he did a comedy act, a comedy set for like 15 minutes. He was the funniest he's ever been and he's usually really funny. But he's

like, we didn't know how many blockages he had. And I was like, dad, you had a quintuple

bypass. You had five. That's crazy. It's more than he had. And I was like, dad, you had a quintuple bypass.

You had five.

It's crazy. It's more than we thought. And he's like, well, you see, I come from a very competitive family. And it was kind of wild. Cause it was like, it was very parent-child reversal

in a lot of ways. Like my brother and my mom and I were each taking shifts in the ICU and staying with them 24-7. And I remember when I was a teenager, my parents would always, the big fight we always had is I'd sneak my cell phone into my room and be talking to my best friend Abigail under the covers all night. And they'd be like, you have a test tomorrow. You need to rest. We're taking your phone, whatever. I'd get to the hospital, my brother will have done the night shift and he's like, he's like, hey, you got to take his phone. I caught him FaceTiming his friends

all night. He needs his rest. He needs to be sleeping. He's FaceTiming all night.

That's like one of the main things you need is you need that, that your body to just like

recover. I'm not doing it. My mom's like, I don't want to do it. So we're just like, it's like we've got our, like our teen, we've got to take our teenage son's phone away from him. Cause he's FaceTiming all night. He came out of surgery, tried to give guitar picks to all the nurses and doctors, but he wasn't wearing pants, didn't have pockets, hospital gown. You know, I'm like, I'm having these moments where I'm like, this dude built play sets and swing sets and cribs for me. I'm building his like, I'm building his shower chair and his walker and his like bed that

goes like this. Like, it's just surreal, man. And you're like, you know, we just all moved in with him for the whole summer pretty much. And just, you know, because you can't, you can't really walk on your own. He had a little harness for, for my dad, just like walking dad on his harness. And he was like the loveliest patient ever.

He just kept saying thank you over and over again. So.

Guy was full of life, man. He was appreciative that he, that he caught it.

He still is. Yeah. You know it. We had the FaceTime with him last time we were together and I was like, yeah, he hasn't changed a bit. This guy is still freaking got the energy going.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like Trav was hanging with him the other day and he was like, so sweetie, he says he's at 75% and if this is 75% I'm truly terrified of losing them. To give you the update, I'm probably at 85 to 90% now.

We've still got a month though.

So my dad's like, new arteries, new me. My mom just got a new knee.

New knee!

There we go, new knees!

She's doing great, she's scampering around. We're not quite at scampering yet, but she's doing great.

She's up and moving around.

Yeah, this was just like the summer of my parental upgrades, like we're just upgrading the parents, making sure that they live to be at least 186 years old, huge, because they're two of my best friends. And I just adore them. And it was actually one of the most special things that's ever happened to me, like spending all that time with them this summer and getting to like you

have those long talks that you don't have when it's like a small, concentrated period of time. This is when I learned to do the sourdough, right? My parents' friend, Tina, sends over a loaf of bread.

Shout out, Tina!

Shout out, Tina. That's my girl. Tina, I love you. Thank you, Tina. Sends over like the best loaf of bread I've ever had in my life. To call it bread feels really honestly sort of like, it's sort of like minimizing what this was, right? So I'm like, I need to know how to do this. I go over to Tina's house, she teaches me how to do it,

she gives me some of her starter. Life is never the same. All these things are happening in Florida. Travis is doing his training. He's like, look at him. Florida. Look at him.

Look at him.

And he's so fast and he can jump so high. So this is our Florida summer. It's a hell of a drug. We really Florida'd it up.

Florida. Yeah, no doubt.

All right.

How many people have come up to you guys and talking about about or spoken about how much they've appreciated you being a part of the Chiefs and like their daughters all of a sudden being in the sports? Because I get it all the time. I can't imagine how much you guys get it, how much the game has grown.

It definitely feels like a lot of people say that to us, which is really kind because there was never a thought in either of our heads that that was going to be a bad act.

I had no idea. That was a pleasant surprise. Seeing all the little girls in the stands at games and you could see a proud father right there standing next to him. It's definitely been fun to see that surprise.

You know, I think a lot of the women and of the the women and girls maybe they maybe they like watched one game to See me cheer on my boyfriend or whatever But if they if they stayed which is what people are saying based on the numbers That's because the game is so great and it's such an amazing interesting thing to learn about

I will say it was it was cool to see the comparison of it all because the way she runs her tour, her show, her team and everything like that, it's very team friendly. There are similarities in terms of her athleticism, what she's doing for three hours, how she works with her band.

I was screaming for 40 seconds during the intro

and I'm out of breath.

That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. But the preparation it takes to get there.

We can work on that.

I got a whole regimen for you.

OK.

We'll get you on the tour prep.

It'll be great. Perfect. Perfect. The goals that you set for yourself to achieve, like, it's very, like, there are some similarities you kind of have that same regimen going into stuff. And I thought that was fun for me to at least see when I saw you on tour and saw how much of a team

you guys were.

On paper, like we actually kind of have a very similar job. Like our job is to entertain people for three plus hours in NFL stadiums. And it's like, when I'm there, it's called a dressing room. When Travis is there, it's called a dressing room. When Travis is there, it's called a locker room. For me, it's called a rehearsal. For him, it's called a practice.

For him, it's called his coach. For me, it's my mom.

So, yeah.

So there'll be times for like game versus show, right? I'll be like, baby, how was the show? Game.

Game.

How was the rehearsal? The practice, you know, field stage. They're the same thing. We just call them different things. Yes, exactly.

It was cool to see the comparisons and how it kind of, I don't know, both aligned and hurt how hard she works in the gym. We've been to the gym like numerous times and she works harder than me every

time. That's crazy. You can like lift a car. He's just telling, he's just saying words. That's just genetic. He's just saying words.

That's just the good old Kelsey G.

That's one rep. That's one rep. This is what people forget.

I can stretch more.

That's what I can do more.

Yeah. I've heard about the, we've talked about the treadmill walk in while you're doing the whole show and like all of it. walk for four hours. Travis. I've never even tried that. I'm not stupid enough to try something like that. You kidding me? My knees would be shredded. Oh my God. So one of the other things that's been crazy to witness is just the immediate attention, right? Like I think you play in the NFL. You think on the two, the two of us, let me, yeah, yes. Okay.

The media attention on your guys relationship, on the amount of people that talk about it constantly, the theories that are out there, of which I am probably way too invested in. What? How do you guys handle all of the noise and chatter

about everything that's going on in both of your lives?

We don't really. I don't see a lot of things. I'm of the firm belief that like, you know, if you're basing your kind of, if you're getting your feedback from the internet or from comments and stuff,

like I just really think that like anything you put, anything you feed your brain, it will internalize. Anything you feed the internet, it will kill.

Yeah. Anything you feed your brain it will internalize anything you feed the internet. It will kill. Yeah, I

Have been in the music industry for 20 years Feelings at this point. She's a pro and it took me a little while to be a pro about it I think I think and there's still some like Wacko theories from the beginning that I was very like, oh no, like how is she handling this? I don't like the last thing I wanted to do is screw this up. So I'm like, in my mind is like, her being so calm, cool, collected, and so just real and understanding about everything that's going

on. Really made me grow up real fast in that in that aspect of things.

But also, I think the fact that you genuinely find a lot of online discourse to be truly hilarious. Absolutely. And that changes things for me because…

Discourse and truth.

You know, if I'm…

Find the humor in it.

Find the humor in it. If he's seeing things and he thinks it's funny and it doesn't even affect his day at all, like that's really completely bled into the way that I metabolize these things. It's at a point where like I I can, something can be about me, like my name can be in the actual headline. And it can still be none of my business. People can be out here, people might be out here doing too much.

Just shaking.

Doesn't mean I have to do a damn thing. Yeah, we live in such a social media moment where a lot of people's identities and and they get their feedback from that right like and I'm a real Constructive criticism guy like give me constructive criticism all day. I will take it It'll fuel me. It's helpful, right?

But I have so many like friends or acquaintances or people were like, they'll see one comment They don't like right and it will ruin their day. It'll ruin their night. Like, and I just want to say to them, like, you should, you should think of your energy as if it's expensive, as if it's like a luxury item. Not everyone can afford it. Like not everyone has invested in you in order to be able to have the

capital for you to care about this, right? Because like what you spend your energy on, that's the day. And it's so true, right? Like, it doesn't matter where you were, like, maybe you went to go get coffee today, maybe you saw friends today, if you were obsessing over one thing that you saw, like you literally like saw some guy call you mid. And you can't stop thinking about it.

Dude, that's the day then that's the night then. And so I, I just, I've been able to sort of mediate a really healthy relationship with not seeing a whole lot.

To what you just said to the social media expounds every all this, because everybody knows if they say one thing, but all of a sudden, if they put Taylor Swift attached to it, it's going to get 1000 more retweets and likes and hate comments or love comments or whatever. It's going to stir up tons of controversy. And I'm I get this way all the time where I just recently like went into the facility with Cam Juergens. And something was happening like in the social media world that I was like, why

are people like upset at this person? This is bullshit, yada, yada. And cam just hit me with like, are they really though? Or did just one person say something? Cause I used to get the same way where I'd get upset and then it took me like, actually nobody really gives a shit about Jason's early Twitter views? Oh baby. Oh my God. Oh baby. He had to get off.

He had to literally step away.

It hit me right between the eyes.

Because he would respond, I wouldn't say everybody, but he wasn't shy of letting people know how he felt on Twitter based off of their comments. It was honestly, Philadelphia, you guys know this, it was a treat, and it's become a treat again now that he's back on because you'll have a friendly conversation. Oh, you'll have to be like a different thing, right?

Look, you remember Twitter. You're like I fed us who me a squirrel ate a piece of bread didn't know they

Know that there's autocorrect

Be right. I'm like, I need a pair of scissors to open this, these scissors. Like we're just thinking things, right. It's like a different thing now. And it's kind of about like, information is power, I guess, unless all of your information is geared towards you thinking that everything is about you. You know, no, not everyone is ever thinking about one person all the time at any point. It's just like, if your algorithm is giving you either

criticisms of yourself or adulation or praise It's you're creating an ecosystem in which you're the centerpiece of the table And I just don't think that's healthy like that's not the way I want to move through the world So I do detach from the internet in a huge way. Like I'm just not, I have never, I have had my comments disabled on Instagram

for like 10 years now. And I don't miss it.

Yeah, I found that out after the heirs tour. Comments were going to be the first one.

Dude, the problem is I get so mad. I then go and look at all the other comments and then Twitter just feeds me more.

Oh yeah.

Dude, you're on like Reddit. Yeah.

We saw this and we're like, boom, boom, boom.

Yeah. Whereas I'm like, I don't know what this is, but get it out of my office. It's on fire. Yeah. My business is making music and taking care of my fans. And I have ways of monitoring what they want from me and how best to entertain them, which is my job. And everything else, I'm just sort of like,

it's not my business. I have actual business that I need to run. Can you imagine if we just talked about what people said about our relationship? Because if we talked about that, that would be all we talked about because

there's so much chatter. It's like, we're busy having an actual relationship.

I want to hear sourdough bread puns.

Yeah. And you will. And that's a promise.

All right. Let's get to the part of this show that I think is what everybody is going to be talking about.

Do I get to say it? Do I get to say the two words? Yes.

Well, I think we were going to try and... First of all, you can do whatever you want, Taylor.

I don't know. We're not going to review...

I want to work within the framework of the podcast. I'm a fan of the podcast.

Typically, we would allow the guest to say new news. Yeah, yeah, I want to do it. But with Zac Brown, we had another bit that we did.

I don't know if you saw.

I don't know if we can get back to this. We harmonized. I forgot everything that Zac taught me already.

All right, let's just let the expert take care of this. Okay, I just wanted, I wanted to scream it. Taylor, go.

Just Travis style. Do you want me to start it or echo it? I think Taylor has a little bit of new news.

New news! Yay!

She's a natural. She's a natural.

It wasn't as fun as I thought it was going to be. Oh, it was everything. It was everything

and more.

We did talk about Easter eggs earlier. Yeah.

And at the very last heiress tour, you didn't take the lift. You did not. You went upstage and exited through

an orange door. Why did you change the ending? So that's I'm happy you mentioned that. I'm going to say Jason, did you see that fans? Did you see that the fans noticed this? Because I was pretty proud of them for noticing that they know I just, yeah, I was surfing the internet and saw something. Yeah. So that was I was pretty happy that they noticed that I was surfing the internet and saw something. Yeah. So that was, I was pretty happy that they noticed that I was like trained them well. Um, so basically every night at the Ares tour,

everything happens with the reason Taylor's a planner. She's not just a random orange door.

What's happening there. Why is why and why anyway, so I, I would leave the stage every night going down the elevator lift. That's how every single air is show ended except for one except for the last one, where I exited through a door, an orange door to be specific. And I'm orange. That actually was an Easter egg. Basically, the reason why I chose to exit that way is because I kind of wanted to give a little subliminal hint to the fans that I may be leaving the Ares Tour era, but I was also entering a new

era.

A new era.

Orange.

So I wanted to show you something.

Okay. What do we got?

We got a briefcase.

Yep.

Mint green with TS on it. Yep. What's in it?

This is my brand new album. A briefcase? Yep. Mint green with TS on it?

Yep.

What's in it?

This is my brand new album.

We got TS12 baby.

This is my brand new album.

It's called The Life of a Showgirl.

Love it.

It was something that I was working on while I was in Europe on the heiress for a while you're on tour. I was working I would be

on tour on earth. Did she do this on the tour is still

blowing my mind. I just love it. I just love it a lot. I love

music. I would be playing shows I do like three shows in a row. I'd have three days off. I'd fly to Sweden, go back to the tour and actually like working on this. I was physically exhausted at this point in the tour, but I was so mentally stimulated and so excited to be creating. And this

is

literally living the life of a showgirl.

I was. She wrote it. That's why I said that's why I called it that. Nailed it. So do you want to see the back cover?

I would love to see all of it, yes.

The back cover is where we find the 12 tracks for my 12.

12 tracks.

12 bangers.

Okay.

So this is, so we got all of them.

What are they?

So we got track one, The Fate of Ophelia.

Okay.

Track two.

Okay, go ahead. I was going to say, do you know what fate of Ophelia is? Do you want to talk about Hamlet? I just, I don't want to get Jason all riled up. So let's, we can just go through the track.

Okay, okay.

Yeah. Track two, Elizabeth Taylor.

Okay.

You know who Elizabeth Taylor is?

You better.

I'm just kind of following, just kind of following along. Okay. All right. All right. All right. Track three, opalite. Opalite. You know what opalite is, Jason?

Why? Can we stop asking me if I know things?

Okay. I'm done.

I'm done asking Jason things.

He's like, I hate this.

I know a lot about this album and I'm excited.

Track four, father figure.

Father figure.

All right.

Track five, eldest daughter. Track six, ruin the friendship. Track seven, actually romantic.

Actually romantic.

Track eight, wish list with two dollar signs as the S's.

I just wanted to point that out.

There you go.

Dramatical flourish.

Track nine, would.

Would, wood. Wood?

Nice.

Track 10, canceled, but it's in all caps with an exclamation point at the end.

Oh, that's a banger.

Track 11, honey.

Honey?

And can you do drum roll?

Last track, track 12. The title track, The Life of a Showgirl, featuring Sabrina Carpenter.

Sabrina Carpenter!

Woo! Woo! Woo!

So.

That's awesome.

So that's that.

Look at this.

Yeah, and so then we've got.

That's a showgirl.

That is a showgirl.

We've got this orange vinyl here. And it's orange! Yeah, it is. And sparkly entering a new era sparkly.

It's very nice. So what is the significance of the color

orange? Why orange? I've just always liked it. Jason. It

really, it really feels like I don't know, it feels like it feels like kind of energetically how my life has felt. And this album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour, which was so exuberant and electric and, and vibrant. And, you know, one of the things about this record is

like, it's, it's a record I made with my mentor, Max Martin and Shellback. And this the three of us have made some of my favorite songs that I've ever done before.

Which ones, if you don't mind me asking?

Well, they were my main collaborators on the Red album. We did We Are Never Getting Back Together, I Know You Were Trouble, 22, Shake It Off, Blank Space, Style, Wildest Dreams.

Oh, hell yes.

Oh.

You know, ready for it. So that's the, that's the energy we're going with. Yes. I understand why it's orange now. Okay.

So yeah, we've made, we've made songs that I'm so proud of.

There's going to be some fucking bangers. Yes.

I got, I'm picking it up.

Dude.

It's, it's like, I knew it's 12.

It's just the three of us making a focused album where, I mean, it felt like catching lightning in a bottle, honestly. We hadn't worked together in like seven or eight years. And-

This feeds, this feeds.

They're just awesome. They're just something, there's something about them. These guys, they're just geniuses in different avenues, in different avenues in different ways. And we kind of, um, I'm gonna put it down. I've just never like this. Today's the first day I've seen it. Do you know what I mean? I'm just

like, Travis is just gonna cradle it the whole time. Don't drop the baby. I will not. So it's like, uh, working with them again was absolutely incredible. And actually, when I was on tour in Stockholm, I had Max Martin come out to the show. And I was talking to him. And I was like, I, I just feel like, I feel like we could just knock it out of the park if we went back in and we did this all in Sweden. And

it was just us three. Like, I want to, I essentially said to him, I want to be as proud of an album as I am of the heiress tour. And for the same reasons, you know? And, and he was like, do you understand what kind of pressure that is?

Yeah.

I was like, yeah, why would you get, we can try.

Let's see your entire career.

Got it.

We can do that in one album. Well, okay.

So it's like, you know, I spent time in the time that we were off doing different projects. And he and shellback were doing different things. And I was making albums that were a little bit more esoteric, like folklore. So big words. You know what esoteric means? No, it's for specific. Exactly. Exactly.

What? He knows what that means. He. You know what esoteric means. I know, it's for a specific following. Exactly, exactly. Wait, what?

He knows what that means. He pretends he doesn't know what these words mean,

but he knows what they mean.

Esoteric means for a specific following, like a specific genre of people.

He knows what it means. Okay, I didn't.

So because I definitely was supposed to. Spark notes. It's all right. I watched the.

All right. He knows what Hamlet is.

Wait, Lion King is based off a Hamlet. Yes. Jason, your Reddit searches need to be more focused on relevant things.

We need your relationship with the internet to be a little bit purer.

I got the algorithm. I got the algorithm.

I know.

My relationship with the internet is bad.

It's about as bad as you can get.

Yeah.

Sorry.

No, you're fine. So I was like, I made a few records that were a bit more like specific in their sound or whatever, like folklore, evermore. Those were a little bit more like alt folk kind of leaning and just kind of exploring and trying to challenge myself as a writer. And I feel like both Max and Shellback did that too in their own ways going out into the world. And when we, by the time we came back together, I feel like we had so much more dexterity to what we do.

And it's almost like we'd all grown up so much. Like Shellback and I were both in our early twenties when we started working together, the three of us. And so it was very much like we were the ingenues and Max was the mentor. And this was the time where it felt like all three of us in the room were carrying the same weight as creators. And it was really special. It like meant the world to me to have this creative experience where like, we knew that we had to bring the best ideas we've

ever had. Yeah. And I know I also know the pressure I'm putting on this record by saying that but I don't care because I love it that much and I'm so proud of it and it just comes from like the most infectiously joyful wild dramatic place I was in in my life and so that effervescence has come through on this record and like as you said bangers and singers and we were just

like

there's no other songs coming. It's not like, like with torture post department, I was like, here's a data dump of everything I've thought, felt in two or three years. Here's 31 songs. This is 12. There's not a 13th.

There's not a fourth. There's not other ones coming. This is the record I've been wanting to make for a very long time. I love it. I love this so much.

Can we, so where do we start? I don't know where to start. You gave us a lot of information right there.

I know. We didn't tell Jason that this, that we were doing this. I just said like, can I go on the podcast?

Cause Brad Pitt did it and I want to do it too. that happen. The request or the ask from either one of us was never going to come. I don't know why I would never ask you. I just, I don't know. Yeah. Brandon still hates me because I never asked you, but I think this is way better.

We waited until I had some stuff to say, I think. There we go. I was waiting until I had like a sparkly briefcase to bring. I needed props. It took a long time to put that into production. So well, it is finished. And do you want to tell everybody when it's coming out? It comes out October 3rd, October 3rd. This album comes out October 3rd. It's easy to remember. It's 10

310 three still annoying. It is also your birthday week. We got

Wyatt October 2nd, we got you, October 5th. And then we got mom, October 9th. So this is a good, this is a good month.

Yeah, I picked a good month.

It's going to be a good week.

You know, all these Libras out there.

10-3, 13. The opal birthstones.

I'm picking up this numerology. There we go. Oh, see, I knew you. Never not annoying. Always gonna try to force a 13 into the situation. And this one was right there. It was just right there. For the photos, there are a lot more photos in this and there's a poem in this.

And basically, I love the photography so much that I don't wanna show it right now because I wanna keep some mystery going. Because that's, you know, just fun to have things to still discover. But the photos are done by Merton Marcus, who are two of my favorite photographers. The last time, and the only time I worked with them for an album cover shoot was with Reputation with that album.

And I loved what they did with those photos. So I called them up for this one. And I'm so happy with the way that the photos came out for this one. And it just basically was like, I was so proud of the music and so excited about this project from a creative standpoint that I was just like, all hands on deck, we're going all out. This is a full send. Like I care about this record

more than I can even overstate.

So.

It's so much fun. I mean, I understand what she's saying. Obviously, I've been fortunate enough to hear every single song on here, so I know they're all 12 bangers. It's a lot more upbeat and it's a lot more like fun pop, like excitement. And I think that's a completely like, I think it's a complete 180 from a lot of the songs on Torture Poets for sure. Oh, yeah

And and this life is more upbeat

That's what I was about to say it probably do you find that your albums mimic everything that's happening in your personal life? Yeah, like definitely your genres that you've done are like so wide-spanning between like country pop And then like it can get, I don't even know, Torture Poets, it was like so cathartic, it felt like, for you probably to write those songs and to release all that in one release.

Yeah, definitely. And it was like, I have different goals with different albums. And Torture Poets department, my goals were strictly lyrical. Like, and I love that. It felt like every song was a poem. Oh, yeah. And I love that album so much from that perspective. That was strictly what I

was trying to accomplish there. It was just really a full catharsis. And I loved to embrace the mess of, of writing from that perspective of the rawness of that. This I have a totally different set of goals. I always try to do something completely different. That's what I'm feeling at the moment. And I was feeling a complete pivot at this point in time. And I wanted the album to feel the way my life felt.

And this completely matches the way that my life has felt. And I also wanted it to be just, every single song is on this album for hundreds of reasons, you know, and you couldn't take one out and it be the same album. You couldn't add one and it'd be, it's just right. And that focus and that kind of discipline with creating an album and keeping the bar really high is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time. I tend to love to write lots and lots of music. So it's a temptation to release

lots of music. Sure. I wanted to do an album that was so focused on quality and on the theme and everything fitting together like a perfect puzzle that these 12 songs for my 12th album, it just, I feel like we achieved that. And I'm really happy about that.

So you mentioned a couple of things there. What is the theme of the album? If you would describe it as one like theme, if that's possible.

I would say it's everything that was going on behind the curtain.

Okay. And then what are the goals?

You said something like there, what would be like your main goals with this album? My main goals were melodies that were so infectious that you're almost angry at it. And lyrics that are just as vivid, but crisp, and focused and and completely intentional. So it's like, I feel like we actually came together in a really beautiful way, the three of us, Shellback, Max and I, where we had a conversation about how Max was like, I loved folklore. I loved the storytelling on folklore.

I don't want that to change. Like just because we're making these like these infectious anthems, like, I don't want you to leave that behind. And I was like, I don't think I couldn't if I tried. So at this point, I'm I got some stuff to say, I'm married to that kind of writing, you know, and so it was really amazing

that we were able to, without doing too much overthinking, we were able to get in there. And it was just ideas flying. And all of these ideas were like, we've been waiting years to come back together and make this project.

It felt really good.

You weren't going to move. You are going to make you dance. Do I have to wait till October 3rd?

You do Jason.

God damn it.

This is unfair.

We don't trust you do Jason. God damn it, this is unfair. You're not special. We don't trust you at all.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, smart. I completely get it. Completely get it.

The artwork, how do you settle on a front piece of artwork for an album?

This represents the end of my night. Okay. Right? So like when I'm on tour, I have the same day every single day. It's another reason why we have a very similar life. His show, his game days are the same days every day. My, his practice days are the same every day. His meetings is scheduled.

My show days are the same every single day. I just happen to be in a different city and my day ends with me in a bathtub, not usually in a bedazzled dress.

Sure.

Well, it's gotta be, it's on the front of an album.

It's gotta be dressed up. We try to keep it decent. You know? Yeah. I wanted to sort of like glamorize all the different aspects of how that tour felt. And that's how that felt to like be at the end of the night when all this has gone down.

You won't be able to get to bed till 4 in the morning after this. But you had to jump through 50 million hoops in this obstacle course that is your show and you did it. You got two more in a row. But you did it tonight. And the reason I wanted to have a sort of like an offstage moment as the main album

cover is because this album Isn't really about what happened to me on stage. It's about What I was going through offstage So it's like oh, it's you know, I didn't want to have like the lights are bright. I'm on the stage is the main album cover It's just this this to me tells more of what the actual content contents lyrically of the album are.

Got it.

Which is the life.

The life of the showgirl. Not what you're seeing. It's the The life of the showgirl. Not what you're seeing. It's the

life.