Events howdy so Ben and I go way back we met he’s gonna be right in front of us this whole time it’s gonna be there the whole time like super obnoxious large and I put it in like several times so we’re gonna see it a lot so Ben and I met in Tampa Florida we went to high school together and then we moved here to gain so we both went to the University of Florida and we were roommates here and Ben has always been a musician he’s always been a guitarist and a really great writer he was a journalism major here and he played a little bit in college but I don’t think that any of us thought he was going to become a rock star like one of my big jobs is to embarrass Ben so everybody please enjoy this with me so after Ben graduated from UF he moved to New Orleans and was working an americorps job there and started playing shows around town and he was discovered and really quickly it kind of went from zero to a hundred so we kind of started off here as roommates in Gainesville that’s me as a chupacabra and then seemingly overnight he was on Conan and Letterman and touring around the world is it working he’s so embarrassed and here’s you with Jack White no big deal so I want to start I want to start here with your overnight success how did that feel to kind of randomly become famous I I think that it’s the same thing that Success I’ve I think everybody knows that when you’re growing up they tell you that like when you get success like you still have all the same problems and that’s a hundred percent yeah nothing changes I don’t know I have I get into concerts for free now that’s like pretty much it so that’s kind of fun yeah it is nice yeah were you expecting that at all when you started playing cuz you were just kind of randomly found when you’re playing in New Orleans right no I mean the thing about to play music I think and from the people that I’ve seen that end up playing music I think it’s it really is people who love it because if you love doing something you spend all your time doing it and then eventually you know just becomes your job you know I think that that’s what happened yeah yeah so the first album that you wrote Writing in Mexico was written mostly here in Gainesville and then in New Orleans right and that album when it was released was like really successful people loved it there was a lot of acclaim for that album and so for the second album you did it a little bit differently you went to Mexico for a month mhm and live there like Airbnb it and that’s where you read the second album so can you talk a little bit about what it was like to write that second album and maybe why did you decide to go to Mexico like was that intentional yeah I think at the time there was a lot of stuff going on I think it was before the election and that year there was a lot of uh you know he cramps I think I was just feeling very overwhelmed because I had been involved in I guess working against the kind of stuff in college and like in New Orleans and I think that I just I got to the point where I just I was like I need to get out of here and go somewhere else and I think he was helpful because I think he’d helped me to get some perspective on just the country that we live in you know I think that I think that we make a lot of issues here they’re big for us I think but I think that when you go out and you travel and you do other things you’re just like wow I don’t you know what I mean like I spend too much time thinking about race it’s just like this is the thing that isn’t even a real thing you know what I mean so it’s just like how much of my life that I want to dedicate to this yeah but I mean at the same time it is also important to you know work I guess to make the world a better for the people around me so that’s the kind of thing I think that I was thinking about at the time so when you release the second album Reflections on Mexico that you wrote in Mexico you released an essay alongside it and that essay began with this quote from James Baldwin once you find yourself in another civilization you’re forced to examine your own so it feels like Mexico was a really reflective process for you right can you talk about like what did you learn anything about yourself like how did that change your perspective yeah I think I think that it gets so overwhelming now you know with everything going on in the 24-hour news cycle things like that like I think that is difficult you know to just find time for yourself to just take a few minutes every day to just be like ah you know to just kind of meditate and just like clear your mind and that kind of thing and so I think that that was important to me to just have time to myself and I immediately saw changes you know I wasn’t planning on writing a record when I went down and it just kind of came out but it was just from not being surrounded by distractions all the time that kind of thing it was like more clear-headed to be down there right because you were pretty isolated you didn’t speak Spanish you were in like a random Airbnb thank you did you have one friend or did you make that friend I had a couple friends in Mexico yeah so the Witness Essay witness essay that you released with the album is really powerful and you talk about trying to kind of escape the systemic racism that has for sure been plaguing our country for a long time but we see it you know a lot more we see this on the news we see young mock men being shot really often and you said that when you were in Mexico those headlines kind of followed you and so this is another excerpt from that essay about it was like every time I turned on the TV there it was dead on the news and we both grew up in the South I think people think of Florida and they think palm trees but it’s still a southern state and it’s deeply entrenched in racism and I think that when we lived here together in Gainesville that was I think an opportunity for me to kind of examine my whiteness and how that privilege kind of benefited me in a lot of ways that maybe I hadn’t realized before so when Ben and I were living together I got pulled over once I was young it was maybe 20 or 21 and I had been drinking I deserved to be pulled over and this nice young white cop like came gave me a look was like hey you go to you go to UF I said yes he was like cool safe ride home see you later and let me go and Ben and I were talking the other day and I know Ben got pulled over a bunch of times when we were here in Gainesville but you told me nine times one year yeah that was the statistic I was gonna say which is insane nine times in one year and every time it was like what’s going to happen next and that’s just I mean that was us it when we were in our 20s like that kind of racism has been something that like you grow up with your entire life so can you talk a little bit about those experiences growing up and how that affected you growing up here in Florida I mean I think it just it puts a damper I think on the rest of your life I think I think because I think it’s like if you are child and you have like a parent to is just like not supportive of that kind of thing and how you get older and you get over it but it’s still kind of like lurking there so I think that I don’t know I think that it’s something that I’m just like working on I guess like putting behind me because I I mean there’s a lot of good people out there I think and I think that there’s a lot of good police out there you know but I mean I think that I have my own biases you know man that I’ve developed from just like growing up mm-hmm so we here come some Witness Excerpt of that like examination though I guess of race and those experiences in the last album so I want to start with a little excerpt from witness that you recorded with Mavis Staples and in the essay that you wrote that kind of went with this you said that this song kind of came from a desire to do more than just watch so here’s an excerpt from that [Music] you get up [Music] [Music] here are some lyrics from that song so these lyrics and the song are really powerful and in reading some articles and some coverage about the album there were a lot of people who said that this kind of sounded like a rallying cry like things that they had heard before from activist groups who are trying to call attention to this kind of ever-present problem do you see the this song and more broadly your work as like playing a role in those larger movements or do you feel like that’s intentional well I didn’t I did I don’t think that it was as much of a rallying cry for like other people as for myself you know what I mean I didn’t think that I was doing enough stuff you know which I wasn’t I think that the thing that’s helped me I guess recently with a lot of the fans have been going on to feel I guess better about the world and just like not want to you know blow my brains out is that it’s just being more active I think that that has helped me you know just volunteering and staying up-to-date on what’s happening in the news and just reading and those kinds of things I think surrounding yourself with other people who are interested and making things better I think that that can you know make you feel better about the future yeah and more hopeful and that kind of thing so I think that that’s where I was coming from with this and that’s what I wanted to share that the people was just like even though there’s a lot of stuff happening it’s not great so if you want to feel better about it I mean you guys start doing something yourself you know yeah I think that’s where I was when you grew up volunteering from a pretty young age right so you were telling me about the stuff that you’re doing in Los Angeles now which is work with pretty young kids right yeah I’m doing creative writing with the kids yeah and do you feel like that outlet is part of kind of wanting to be more than witnessing that to be more involved totally yeah totally I mean I have to meet for me I don’t know I guess I really just took a lot of time to think about the things that were important to me and I get somebody who had a lot of help I guess when I was younger at school just like those people who were just like I don’t know like they gave me a little boost yeah so I think that it was important to me to try to do that same thing so yeah for sure it totally Faith starts with little kids do it have you always volunteered with with kids or is this the first time this is the first time I’ve ever kids yeah generally I’m not okay so here I think we have one more clip queued up so this is from your video that you released from the new album believe okay mostly like the first 30 seconds of that [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so this song and witness also they both kind of have I feel like I feel like a faith v like I feel like you’re kind of exploring your belief system witness has a lot of like gospel influence and I know that your family has always been conservative and very religious and traditional and I think you’ve obviously taken kind of like a different route from probably what they thought you were gonna do with your life and so do you feel like you’re kind of like addressing those pieces of your life at all in your music cuz this kind of theme of of religion and faith kind of seems to be coming up in different ways no not at all I still don’t believe in God the ya know I think that I mean I was I think I was 26 at the time I was writing this guy I was just having like a corner like crisis yeah the the world is too crazy place I was losing it the I think I don’t know I was reading a bunch of stuff I think that I just got I just got into a dark place where I think that I really didn’t believe in anything you know that so many things I think are just it’s hard to I guess tell what’s real and what’s not really know and like especially playing music and just like being in the music industry and growing up with music and being so excited about and then getting it I mean you just get jaded I mean it’s just normal to be older and just get you and so I think that I know I think that it was important for me to I guess just like rediscovered things that I was passionate about and kind of just like find those things again and just like you excited about something you know and I think that for me with this album it was just like okay well I’m playing music now and I it’s okay but am I gonna be happy at the end of my life if I’m just like a song-and-dance man who’s just like entertaining people you know it was just like if I’m gonna do this like I think I want to do more and I have at least a few songs where I’m trying to communicate something else that’s happening that’s maybe a little deeper so yeah so being in the music business I Play get there probably like there are a lot of temptations and I know you’ve talked before about like kind of grappling with that and we both struggled with self-destructive behavior in the past have you found ways to feel good and to play that are good for you and that are self-destructive well playing is good now I mean I quit drinking last year yeah pretty much a little bit it’s cool it’s cool have you found ways to like play that are good things that feel good but that aren’t bad for you good bad for me I mean the whole theme is play how do you play oh how do I play it trying to stay on brand I don’t know I don’t know how to answer that question I don’t know what I don’t really know what you mean how do i what do I find to replace the self-destructive behaviors you’re saying yeah I don’t I haven’t I haven’t figured that out I had no idea do you feel like music is becoming more positive my music yeah you have like an oh man oh you’re like touring again do you think this has been like I did the I was I was before Mavis Staples thing on the sound and I had done a song for her last time I wrote a song for her album when I talked to her a lot and she was 76 years old at the time I think um it was just really focused on I guess at this point at that point in life just focusing on the people that she loves and her friends and her family and those kinds of things and surrounding herself would just I mean she travels everywhere with her sister and just is enjoying every moment and so I think that for me replacing those self-destructive behaviors with just like a new band of people that are just like my friends like my clothes people that I hang out with all the time and just I don’t know just spending more time with people that I care about I think that that’s my play now yeah I’m on tour with my friends instead of people that are just like session musicians or something yeah and it has touring been fun like have you got any place that you really liked or is it just totally exhausting yes it’s just so what do you feel like is gonna happen next you’re saying that you don’t want to be just like a song man a dance man do you want to continue making music do you feel like there’s something after that that you want to explore well I’m into California and medical marijuana it’s really taking over so speaking of fun ways to play that aren’t totally bad for you everybody last guy was like talking about coral reefs we’re like medical marijuana it’s great all right wait where are you going with that is Medical Marijuana and so next you want 200 marijuana is it here maybe I just I can’t I can’t play music for everybody now so yeah I don’t know what I’m gonna do do you feel like there’s another album coming or do you feel like you might want to take a break after this no I probably make another one I mean what else am I gonna do yeah I mean apparently become a marijuana growers what I’m hearing all right well Bennett hypos went to journalism school here and we both had Mike Foley as our reporting professor and so it’s Foley in the house that would be so great well my daughter I met his daughter in Seattle she’s a radio wait what’s her name I don’t know names I feel like I met her before yeah that’s cool de chien everywhere did she know that your dad yeah she knew yeah yeah I brought I brought up a lot of stuff about him and she got a little weird about did she interview you or you just like she interviewed me yeah that’s cool well I was gonna say Mike Foley always taught us that before we ended an interview we should always get the name of the dog but I know you don’t have a dog so instead I was gonna end with is there anything that you want to add and is there anything that you feel like is next for you besides becoming in their own medical marijuana grower anything that I want to add I mean I’m just I’m happy to be here I think that I don’t know it’s nice to to be around people I guess that just like don’t they just aren’t piece of [ __ ] there’s so many there’s so congratulations to all of you it’s just so many terrible people out there I guess that’s like the I don’t know I I just I’m trying to I guess just surround myself yet with people who just care I mean I think that’s how you get things done it’s just like pulling together all the people that you know that can help in that or have the same interests as you and just going for it you know yeah there’s an estimate [Applause]