311. - Alex Cameron

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. Beautiful Tuesday in LA. I was worried we weren't going to be able to record this podcast though. Is that because... Spotify went down. Is that because you had a very important meeting? No, it was more about I was worried because, you know, I don't really focus on the technical side of this whole thing. So I was like, can we actually record the podcast if Spotify isn't working? But you're saying that we're good to go. Well, I'm saying we can record podcasts all day. I see. But until Putin removes his boot from Spotify's neck, It's anyone's guess how it's... I mean, we might have to just print this episode on CDs and mail them out to people who subscribed for now as like a... It's a Band-Aid, not a cure. But in these unprecedented times, we have to be able to pivot. These times are so unprecedented. The thought of Daniel Ek, Joe Rogan, and Vladimir Putin having kind of a roundtable right now on Zoom is pretty crazy because you can just stream music other places if you have to. You know what I mean? We have more important things to deal with right now is my point. And I think that Spotify being down is... sort of affecting people but I mean is it really that much I mean you know there are so many solutions it's not just like hey Netflix is down so I can't watch all the exclusive shows you know like everything that's on Spotify is also on a thousand other platforms yeah that's true thank thank you thank god because if if Netflix went down I couldn't watch you know

uh love is blind season two or or you know exactly that's a proprietary title you can't even buy it if you wanted to no you couldn't you can't pay for it if you well you can of course and netflix prices go up by one dollar every month so we're looking by the end of the year we'll be at 25 large um and and i'll keep paying yeah i'll keep paying because i can't get enough of these love-based reality programs yeah it's to me it's kind of you know those um i don't know if it's a meme or a joke or something but somebody was like Why do you look at gas prices? What are you going to do? Not buy gas? It's a little bit like that. What are you going to do? If Spotify goes up a dollar, if Netflix becomes $20 a month, everyone's still going to spend that. It's still an amazing deal. I'm loving the gas discourse. I'm really loving it. I can't get enough of that A-plus content of people posting a picture of a gas. station sign with the prices on it and saying, damn, this is fucked up. If that's the only thing that is affecting you from a war, then we're pretty good. I can pay $6 a gallon for a couple months. Assuming things do calm down. Assuming things do calm down. And that's something we're praying for. It is getting in the way of my... It's quickly becoming one of my most favorite days of the International Women's Day. Yeah, shout out to all our women listeners. Yeah, we get a lot of press talking about how we're a bro cast, but I would say our guests' diversity in terms of male-female is pretty good, right? And also our listener demographics, we're like 60-40 male-female. That's pretty darn good for any podcast, even one that's bro-y. I mean, that's true. ComeTown could never. If a woman listens to ComeTown, their server crashes. Yeah. It doesn't know how. The technology's not there yet. They get a red alert. Like an alarm starts going off, and they have to stop recording. It's really a problem. No, but yeah, happy International Women's Day, and happy Tuesday to you, Jason. I hope you're feeling good over there. Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good, man. I did my cardio workout.

And then when I'm done recording this, I'll go finish the job over at Equinox. I like that. I like that, Jason. I'm glad you started. So I'm not doing two-a-days. I'm doing a one-a-day split into two pieces. I understand, but it's a long tail. I know you like to spread it out. That's kind of your thing. Because we have a dinner tonight, so it's going to be a busy day for the How Long Gone family. Yeah, we're going to a friend of the show, John and Vinny's restaurant, just to check in over on Fairfax to see. You know, hopefully we'll get our same sommelier. Well, if they're not playing fucking Mos Def, I'm walking out. So it's either Nos, Mos Def, or Kanye West, or Chris is not going to even have one bite of the free mozzarella sticks they send over. You know what? I've lost my appetite. You know what? I've lost my appetite. I'm sorry. Are you playing Chief Keef? Oh, no. I'm sorry. This isn't dusty enough. Speaking of dusty, Jason. Speaking of dusty. Do you have anything? Yeah, I'll ask my sommelier tonight. Do you have anything dusty? When I ask what the price range is, and she says between $30 and several thousands of dollars, I'll ask if there's something dusty from the menu that she can recommend, and we'll go from there. Our friends at Pitchfork know about dusty because they just announced their festival lineup. Yeah, Sunday is their dusty day, but yeah, what do we... You got The Roots headlining in 2022. Bro, The Roots are a house band on a late night show. Like, Questlove is a cookbook author and still wears that ugly ass pin. Like, this shit is not... It's just weird because a brand that has built itself... He's got a lot of brooches, sure. A brand that has built itself strictly on relevancy and one that I... I mean, I look at Pitchfork every day, but like to have... To have the Roots, the National, who I love, but haven't put out a good record in at least five to eight years, and Mitski, who I... I want to like Mitski, but I don't get it. I really don't get it. She, she was in the news recently for, for saying that she doesn't want her fans to take flash photography at her concerts, which is just, I mean, you know, someone in her camp needs to tell her that that's not going to go well on the internet. Well, I think it was also video. I think there's, there's still now these artists are like, we're back and we want to share this moment with you. And I'm like, yeah, bro. But you know what I want to share more? What's that? Is the money that the fans pay to see the show. If you want to take, if you want to, if you want to pay $40,

to see me at brooklyn steel and you could take a couple flicks you know what i'm saying you can in fact you can record whole fucking songs i don't care what about okay what do you think about this because obviously everyone has a limit where you're going too far hers is you can take a pic but no flash no video but we have she's been kind of uh conveniently silent on where she stands with the apple live photos because that You know, that is a little bit of a gray area. That is a gray area. That's the combination of the best of both worlds, Jason. The boomerang king of Atwater, the jeans, has transferred now to the Apple live photo king of Glendale. Yeah, maybe that'll be my in with Mitski. I'm going to ask her, okay, where do we stand on boomerangs? Because that's a big part of my life and my creative process. And for you to cripple that? Yeah, that doesn't feel good. It seems unfair. But Spiritualized is also playing, so that hopefully means that Spiritualized is going to be touring, and we can go get blissed out to the boys. You have a cute way of... Calling overdosing blissed out. That's nice language. Jason, if I could overdose, if I could have a light overdose to spiritualize if they had a full orchestra, I'm willing to. That's about as good as it's going to get for me. I like also the phrase light overdose. Is that just another way of saying hi? Because technically a light overdose is just getting high, right? Well, no, Jason. There's like, look, getting high, man, if you're doing it right, sometimes you're pushing the limits a little further than other times. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. And that's a light overdose. You know, a light overdose is like you shake a little bit. Maybe you don't feel great, but then you come out of it. You don't want to end up in the hospital. You want to be there for the encore. Yeah, and that's something that... that I wanted to or that I've been I've been hearing other people talk about about you know their fear of getting high because they don't want to freak out or they don't want to get scared or whatever and I've heard people talk about it Joe Rogan being the most vocal about it about saying he's got he's got a bodyguard to like stop him from doing like I read the story today I think she was like a maybe like a beauty queen she apparently was high on cannabis

and got so freaked out that she, this is not, I don't think this is, she got so freaked out high on cannabis that she sprinted and jumped over a third floor balcony. Just like ran right through it and died. So why did you say high on cannabis in a very kind of Fox News kind of way? Because that's how it was reported, I think in the New York Post where I read it. Because obviously the media loves to say cannabis because they're narcs. I would never use that term. See, that sounds like you would never use that term. Speaking in context. I'm saying cannabis is, or flour. I know you do it in jest, but I feel like you could if you don't watch yourself, Jason. It's something I have to keep an eye on for sure. Just like my blood pressure, I also have to keep an eye on how ironic I am using the word flour. But he'll bring up this subject often where it's his theory that getting high on cannabis shouldn't always be. walk in the park. It should be difficult sometimes and it should be challenging sometimes. Every drug has its downsides. Nothing is truly perfect. A high don't come for free. Shout out to Mike Skinner. I know you're listening to this podcast, Mike. Let's push things forward. I definitely agree with him where you're kind of, and that goes back to his kind of alpha male outlook on life is you kind of are being a pussy and you are quitting and giving up too easily if you have one freak out on marijuana and you suddenly ride it off for the rest of your life. When it's given you so much, if you have a freak out on marijuana, then that is not marijuana's fault. That's your fault and you need to work on yourself. I like that. You're a pussy, and no matter how much you freak out, you have to return to the well and have another sip to prove that you're a man. It's like somebody being like, hey, why don't you deadlift 500 pounds, and then you attempt it, and you're like, that was really fucking hard. I'm not going to try it again. You're giving up, essentially. So you have to put in the work, and eventually you'll get there. The thing you don't understand about me, fam, is giving up ain't in my vocabulary. You know what I mean? That's right, Chris. That's what it says in my Nike commercial that's dropping tomorrow, but I wanted to go ahead.

and give a little preview over here. Yeah, giving up. Those words, you know, Chris knows speak, give up in his native tongue. But luckily the big man upstairs knows when to pull the plug for Chris when he's unable to. I pull the plug when the roots come on the stereo. God pulls the plug for me. You know, it goes both ways, man. Thank God we all have somebody looking out for us. That's all I can say about that. We do. Oh, thank God we have an Australian guest today. Speaking of drugs. There's nothing better than when we have an Australian guest. We love the motherland. You guys probably know Alex Cameron. He's a musician from Seat Me. But I think he's in New York now. Yeah, he is. I like his music a lot. We're also, you know, full disclosure. We are label mates. So I just want to get that out in front. I want to get out in front of that if I could. But because of that, we're not going to interview him in any different way. He's not getting a free lunch just because we're label mates and members of an elite group. Elite group of... Of secretly artists. Of other musicians. But yeah, I looked at his... First of all, I had heard of him before and heard his music before, and I do like it. But then when I was talking to Kevin Morby, Morby was like, got to have alex on you he's the best he's the coolest um and i was like okay and then and then it came around full circle like somebody else hit me about it separately from his team so i was like all right it's meant it's meant to be You have that many organic discoveries, and Chris's ears perk up. Exactly, and then the most organic discovery is my man has written some songs for the best band in the world, The Killers. So it's full circle for me completely today, and Jason's going to once again have to suffer through me talking about guitars with someone, but luckily this person's Australian, so he'll have fun too. I mean, I feel like it's international Chris's day. With the CV that this podcast guest comes with. Hey, look, man. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. And, you know, one day when we have a DJ on, you know, that'll be the day that I lose. No, we've had many DJs on. And, boy, were they all great. DJ Python, what a legend, right? That's a good point. DJ Python transcended the art of DJing to me, though. He was beyond. I can't even. I think of him as more of an enigma. Oh, yeah. You know, like a.

a cloud of smoke almost more so than the fact that he makes great electronic music. That's just icing on the cake. Yeah. I've never heard that part, but I like talking to him a lot. So, all right, let's, uh, let's give, if he worked at home Depot, we'd still have him on the pot is what I'm saying. Honestly, that's true. Yeah. He's, he's part of the community now. All right. Let's, uh, let's give, uh, Alex, uh, a jingle and, um, go down to new South Wales. Yeah. This episode of how long gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web. So do our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues. Obviously. Maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world, writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly. A website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could, you know, have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools so those future graduates can find me. And, you know, I'm able to accept, quote, unquote, donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. Show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early. And we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional as your competition, if not more. So head to squarespace.com slash howlong for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code howlong to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone is brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need a fucking...

Something put together, a cabinet. Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf. TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you. And, I mean, how it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture. repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a Tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because Taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs, handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive, and that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world, is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app. using promo code howlong. Taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code howlong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's trying to slow down. the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world and i know you particularly have quite a lot of questions a lot of questions but how often because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot how many times do they do three times a week and i i have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do that's just a guess the guardian is not some billionaire owned They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? Especially when it's not from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen.

Hey guys, Jason here for a quick disclaimer. We unfortunately had some technical difficulties with our Zoom recording and we had to upload our backup recording. Unfortunately, this means we don't get to edit it and make it sound as crispy and good as we normally would. So the quality of audio is not going to be amazing, but we can still hear and enjoy the conversation. Alex is a really, really funny guy and a great guest, and it's a really good episode, and we feel bad that this happened to him and to you guys, but it won't happen again. I have punished Chris for his errors, and he feels really bad. So hopefully this does not ever happen again, and thank you guys for your patience and understanding. So here's a great talk with Alex. Let's get into it. Alex, welcome. Welcome. I know you've done a lot of Zoom calls and things like this. Mostly you mentioned for court appearances and less for podcasts. What kind of crimes are we up to lately? Well, they're just a couple of compensation cases that I'm involved in that I can't really speak about at the moment. Okay. Okay, okay. Is this songwriting tips between top liners or is this a custody battle with a baby mama situation? This is workplace. Okay. I've had a lot of workplace harassment lawsuits actually in this exact workplace, so I kind of know where you're coming from. I'll tell you what, the court system has really slown to a bloody halt during COVID. They're not helping us out. I became very litigious during the quarantine, and Chris has been kind of getting the bulk, the business end of those lawsuits. I will say it's kind of messed up our mojo on this show. I think you got to leave it. You got to keep it separate. You know, I always thought that even, you know, if I, even if a close friend ends up suing me one day, you know, I'd like to think we can still go for a meal afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's, you have a, you have an enlightened approach and I think that's something that I could maybe learn from you. Wish I could be more like you, Alex. It's like nothing personal, you know, it's like shit. Yeah. Hate business separate.

Yeah, okay. Okay, so have you always had this enlightened attitude and outlook on life, or did you get this way because of drug use? Those are the only two options. Those are. I think, you know, I used to be really sort of, I guess one thing I think about a lot is like sort of jealousy and envy, you know, and jealousy. You wrote that one too, didn't you? If I wrote that one, I would not be sitting in the room. I'll tell you that one. You might be talking to us, but we'd be required to remove our clothing at some point in exchange for tokens. Yes, yes. Sorry, carry on. I think about... jealousy and the you know young the tension of being like a young excitable person and how everything is so big and important and and uh there was a there was like a Leonard Cohen song that like I actually felt my brain change when I heard it um it's called it's the uh paper thin hotel it's um it's off the record death of a ladies man And he sings, I think the chorus is like, the song is about a guy checking into a hotel room and hearing his partner having sex with someone else in the room next door. Oh, yes. The lyric is, what is it? The struggle mouth to mouth and limb to limb, the grudge of unity when he came in. Yep. Keep going. I stood there with my ear against the wall. I was not seized by jealousy at all. Keep going. In fact, a burden lifted from my soul. And here it is. And I heard that love was out of my control. That's deep, Lenny. Yeah, he goes there. And I don't know, I guess I've started to just place less of a...

of an emphasis on, you know, whether or not I was in control of like anything, you know, whether that be like other people or even my own feelings. And I certainly started to consider that I can't really have any great big impact on how long a feeling lasts for even. So I'd like to think that I'm in a, I mean, I speak. like I have any kind of authority on, on the matter. Really. I'm a wreck, but I'd like to think that I get, I'm a little more lucid in the way. I'm sure Lenny Cohen was a wreck at the time too, you know, but yeah, no doubt. Some poetry, didn't he? Yeah. Yeah. He certainly did. Oh my God. I, I, I, I, I even like tweaked or like pinched a nerve in your shoulder. From doing what? We've tweaked and pinched a lot. Are you kidding? My body, as an athlete, my body is constantly in pain, but luckily I have kind of a staff to take care of that. You know how you guys have like guitar techs and stuff? I kind of have something similar for my body. He has a tweak tech. Every time he gets a little tweak. So what did you, is this clean and jerk? Is this over row? Just a regular old bicep curl. What was it? I was playing drums on a record in L.A. last week, and I'm very suspicious of that. I haven't been treating myself to self-love in any excess lately. So you play drums as well? You were hired to play drums? These Australians do it all, Chris. You'll see that. I'm a hired... I'm not like a hired gun. I'm like a hired knife. Like a hired spoon. You're a hired kind of like a pretty good body shot punch. Yes, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like just sort of like, oh, that really hurt me. What the fuck? And there is value to that, you know, speaking of self-love. And I think going to L.A., especially coming from, you're in New York now, I'm assuming.

Right. Coming from frosty, snow-covered hills of New York City into sunny California, that seems like self-care to me. What kind of stuff did you do here? Other than injuring yourself going... Yeah, very eagerly. I think I thought, oh, I'm going to really show... I haven't played drums in so long. And I... You're like, yeah, let's get this... He hasn't played in years. Yeah, exactly. Let's get a real rusty Australian man to come on. play the rhythm on our record. People can't see it at home, but speaking of compensation, I broke both my wrists in 2019. I felt a scaffolding collapsed underneath me. Were you doing an inspection on one of your properties in Crown Heights, or was this a social call? Unfortunately, the poetic justice was elsewhere. But I'm lucky I didn't break my neck. I didn't break my legs or anything. I just broke my hands. How far was this fall? And we don't have to talk about the details if it's a trigger. It's, you know, if I walk past the construction site and he allowed claims, I am reminded of the fateful day. But it was one story I was told. Damn, that sucks. Especially as a musician, huh? Or just any person in general. Well, it's kind of cool, actually, because now when people ask me, like, oh, like, hand me a guitar, I'm like, sorry, you know, I can't play anymore. Even though originally I was rich. Just how everyone's blaming COVID on everything. You're blaming, oh, you fell off of a building and broke the rest of your hands. It's just not like it used to be, you know. This sounds like it would have been a great opportunity for you to kind of get into rapping. I think you probably did. Or maybe scat poetry or something. Yeah. No, I was throwing my voice like never before. Way to channel that. Way to channel that. People talk about, like, you know, the first thing people go to is, like, oh, what? You know, like, you couldn't wipe your ass because I had two casts on my hand.

You know, it must have been awkward. The hardest thing is just opening a door. Think about it. You cannot open a door. Yeah, we got to start at the beginning. We can't. People are skipping ahead to all this stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to have a come. A lot of different ways. You don't seem like a jerk-off guy to me. You seem like a toppy-only guy. You were good to go. We've all seen the movie Big. If you really need to lay a melody down, you can get one of those keyboards that you play with your feet. There's workarounds, but simply opening a door or slicing open an avocado. Oh, brother. Don't bring up avocado, Jason. He's going to get emotional. Don't do that. I love it. Love it. What did they say? It's like the fish of the sea. No, it's the fish of the land. No. Did they say fish of the avocados of the sea? I don't know. I think they're both really good for you. Yeah, they're great. It's good fats. I know that's something you're focused on. I know you're focused on those high-quality fats. Well, I mean, breaking your... We talked to... You're familiar with fellow musician Dashboard Confessional, I'm sure. I am ashamed to say that I know the name. He told us that he got in a motorcycle accident, he severed his biceps, and he had to relearn to play guitar because he'd lost muscle memory. Holy shit. Like, he knew, like, mentally, obviously, like, how to play guitar, like, that's a G, that's an A minor, whatever, but, like, his arms just wouldn't do it. So he had to start from the very scratch, like, House of the Rising Sun guitar tab type shit. You know what's interesting about that? he kind of had the experience, I guess, of what it's like to have information downloaded into your brain, like the matrix. Like he had all the musical knowledge, but none of the Mozart level. Wow. Yeah. Well, he had, um, he had the computer. He just didn't have the monitor. You know what I mean? Right. Oh my goodness. No, well, I certainly wasn't, uh, and I didn't think, I didn't think I had any great skill.

before i mean writing i had to write you know like didn't have to learn to write again but i just didn't write for like two years i only just started doing handwriting again yeah not writing songs you're talking about like literally writing like your name on a i like that i like that i just started handwriting again i like that yeah before you were just kind of typing with your nose i'm assuming yeah we're just one finger at a time it's like you know but i uh i one thing that i was When I broke my wrist, speaking of construction sites, one time I walked past a construction site and a guy yelled out, did you do that at work? I said, yeah. He just yelled out, 100K per bone, man. That's good advice. How much did you get for your wrists? A lot of bones in there. Cannot comment. I'm looking at the studio and I'm not seeing a lot of custom gear in there, so I'm thinking you're going to make off. Exactly. In fact, I don't own any of this stuff. It's all online. I'm about to get kicked out. This is the last bit of the hour in here. Coming down to the wire. I guess that's good that you are getting some scratch out of the deal. I've only had one injury like that where I broke my ankle. I was hobbled for a few months, unable to work. Did you, did you gain weight or did you lose weight during your, your time of? That's a really good question. I, I got a text from my brother about a year ago that was just like, he found a group photo that had been taken to the social event and he, he zoomed in on my face. So it was like become pixelated. He just said, you're fat. In a way that only a brother could say. I think I gained weight. That's probably because you were laid up, you were eating ice cream, taking Vicodin. You weren't really at your peak. I ended up losing weight and I was very shocked because all I did all day was just lay around the house and watch TV. In terms of

I mean, there was zero exercise. And then in terms of food, I was sort of at the whim of delivery food. You broke your ankle? Yeah, I broke my ankle. Wow. What's that like? Well, luckily, I didn't have to get surgery. It was a DJing injury, if you must ask. But I was literally DJing at the club. And I wasn't sober, you know, but I wasn't. I never get ripping blacked out drunk. I was literally in the middle of DJing, and I had to take a squirt real bad, and I wasn't going to be able to make it to the end of my 45-minute set. So I put on a long Tiesto track, and I ran out of the booth to go to the restroom, and I slipped. Somebody spilled a drink on the dance floor, and I just slipped and kind of hit it in just the right way to where... It just went out from underneath me, and then I got back up off the ground, and I couldn't put pressure on it, and that was it. He couldn't even two-step to his own set, so he had to go to the hospital. You're not a funky chicken for you, pal. Well, I mean, the funkiest of chickens. So funky the fact that I was cobbled for a few, but I was sort of at the whim of... delivery food or if my friend was in the neighborhood and he was nice enough to pick up in and out or something like that he'll bring it over for lunch or something but i ended up losing probably 20 pounds because i didn't drink alcohol the whole time i know that was the middle of a pretty good bender run for me and it's just like is a it's a balloon yeah people would come over and be like wow you look great what's going on i'm like I ate food and then I took a nap and then I watched Top Chef. This is a dark period for you. I forget about it sometimes. I was living alone. Do you remember the feeling of the bone breaking? This is a very different kind of pain. The pain that I remember more specifically was because when I went to the hospital, it was just like...

I didn't know what had happened yet because I'm not a doctor, obviously, but it was very swollen and it was looking kind of fucked up. And then they were like, yeah, your shit is fractured and broken. I thought those were two words that meant a very similar thing. They do. Some shit was broken and then some shit was fractured and out of place. So I guess the point that I was trying to make is that before they put the cast on, They had to reset the ankle to be in the right position because it had sort of dislocated itself. So they had to take my broken ankle, which was very painful, and be like, and then they're able to put a cast on. But I remember that sound and feeling of them resetting it. I was on a drug called Dilaudin. that was in the ER and they had me on the morphine drip and I kept hitting the button and I was like this ain't doing shit fam let me get an ass shot and they're like alright bet and they put it they gave me an ass shot and I was like I feel something but it's not really doing it So then they put an IV drip into my ankle. They found a vein in my foot, put the IV in there, and then the dilaudidin goes in. And while he has my broken ankle, I could feel and hear all the bones, like super fucked up sounds. And we were laughing. We were talking, because it was at USC Hospital, and they're like, man, because I'm really tall. And they're like, oh, you know, could use you. On the court of the Lakers game yesterday, buddy. We're, like, having a good time. And it's, like, it's pain that would have, you know, the Rock, Dwayne, the Rock Johnson, just in tears. Yeah. And I was just, like, felt like I was on vacation in Ocapulco. That's how good this shit felt. It's insane, right? Because I, so, when I broke, I broke both my wrists, and I was on the ground. When the paramedics arrived, they, one of them walked out. Because it was just, like, they were like, oh.

Like it was too gnarly for a professional? Yeah, I mean, I was like, jeez, thanks, man. I'm the one here with the obstacles. So when I went to the hospital, finally, they were like, look, both of your wrists are basically like the bones have just been completely scattered. You've basically melted your wrist here. The doctor said to me, we're going to give you Michael Jackson's Night Night Mix. Which is... Oh, we lost him. I was really ready for that. That better not be available on SoundCloud. Michael Jackson's Night Night Mix. Okay. His drug cocktail. Alex texted me in the middle of this saying, I would love for you to explain to me how someone can be a toppy guy and not a masturbation guy. Ooh, damn. This is the, this is the downside of having a great room, isn't it? It really is. This room ain't so great anymore. Jackson was being injected twice a day with Demerol. coupled with twice a day, three milligram dose of Dilaudid, along with injections of Vistriol. He also took 250 milligrams a day of Xanax. Oh, baby, 250. 250 of Xanax, 20 milligrams of Prozac, 100 milligrams of Zoloft. Jesus Christ. indigestion drug Prilosec. Well, you know, you're kind of, your tum-tum is going to be a little knotted up when you're on all those PKs. And we also got, just a little something to balance it out, 10 milligrams of Ritalin on top just to make sure he can keep his eyes open. Yeah, I was going to say, that just keeps you alive at that point. That's not even... Just so your heart remembers to beat. Yeah, you got to do something. You got to do something. That's smart. Okay, okay, so... Okay, Alex, okay, so they said...

Michael Jackson's night and night medicine. Yeah, his night and night mix, which is ketamine and propofol. And I've since been fantasizing about finding a way to maybe, for my 40th birthday or something, all my friends go into a room and a nurse comes in and gives us that mix because it was insane. The first thing was ketamine, and then the second thing was what? I believe it's called propofol, but I don't want to get it. And that's just like a very strong painkiller, Chris? Is that right? I believe so. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it might be the – I think. Yeah, I'm not totally sure, but I've heard that thrown around. Yeah, it was propofol marketed as Diprivan, as a short-acting medication to – result in decreased levels of consciousness and a lack of memory yeah yeah yeah so even cooler even cooler it causes relaxation so in order to operate on my hand they had to like do the thing you're talking about which is reset it a little bit because they couldn't just go in and start looking for splinters they had to like push it and it was a bag of crisps that had been crushed and they had all the chips stuck together okay exactly that's a really really good image um and uh So apparently I was just there. I was like, my business partner, Roy Malloy was there. And he said that I was saying, I was like saying, ow. And I guess I thought I was screaming, but I was like, ow. That really hurts. Okay, so in your mind, you're screaming in agony. Yeah. And then whatever's coming out is like... Yeah, so it was like the pain had been like the center. It was a very sort of like lucid experience of the pain not being able to reach my brain. It was like trying to, but there was something just blocking it out. Computer without the monitor. Yeah, yeah. It was really, really special. What was the recovery time on this?

Well, I guess what I was really surprised by, I guess... From when you hit the sidewalk to when you had your first wank, how many days are we talking? Okay. Let's say... I want to say, like, most likely at least 12 weeks. Yeah, okay. Not bad. I don't know. She won't mind me saying this, but my girlfriend... You know, luckily at the time had a thing for like the casts. Oh, the casts. She was kind of like, because when I noticed. I've been down this road before as well, Alex. Because when I recovered and, you know, took the braces off and the cast off, I mean, one night she was like, you can keep them on. and I was like do you still did she make she I'm just picturing her down on the street fishing the cast out of the garbage right after you've gone to bed yeah totally just keep them around if I ever like you know came home and just found the cast sort of like thrown across the bedroom floor I know that she was like she had to do what she had to do yes Because normally when I think of, like, that type of kink, you know, amputees, casts, crutches, wheelchairs, you know, it kind of goes down a sinister, like, Marilyn Manson, kind of Gigi Allen Road, where... Right, Crispin Glover. Yeah, Crispin, yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, the dark corners of the male mind. But I think on the female side, you know, to celebrate International Women's Day, I think it's a much more kind of... just a healthy normal relationship of like you know what i don't know why i like it maybe it's you know uh i can fix him a man in need like a real i can fix him not not emotional but like a physical i can fix right i i think that's also like i i you know there's something cute about a fellow that can't do much probably yeah probably this is more coming from me i'm projecting a little bit here but i think there's an element of like

Oh, you shouldn't be able to properly fuck me. You're gonna. You need this so bad. There's no surgery, no cast anywhere near the penis area. Right, that thing's still gone. You know, it's like the nurse and the war vet. You know, it's like, how bad do you want this? Yeah, you're Lieutenant Dan. I get it now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I understand. Yeah, that happened to me. I was not in a relationship, so it was a little bit different. It was maybe less sweet and caring and more of just a regular old, I want to. fuck that guy who has a cast on kind of vibe, which is also pretty cool. You know, that's cool that you can go to a bar with a cast and have someone go like, there's my time. Yeah. Yes. I know. I know. He's usually getting those NBA wife cast offs, but no pun intended. But once he had Jason, did you wear a proper cast like a, or did you have like an air cast? I had, well, because I opted to go no surgery, I had a cast that was my entire leg. It went from my foot to my upper thigh, like a Fenty Savage boot kind of thing. I was about to say, that's current season Bottega. Yeah, current season Bottega, it was in white, not in green, but I remember I went, it was like, I was sort of like on the tail end, you know, I was probably a couple months in, and some of my friends were like, come on, just come out. Some of my friends are DJing at the spot. It'll be easy and chill. It's tenants on a Thursday, Jason. You missed it for eight weeks. There's plenty of chairs and boots. It's like a loungy vibe. It's not like we're going to go to Bergheim at 5 a.m. type of shit. It'll be very easy. And I remember going in and everyone was just like, oh, it's so good to see you out, man. I feel like I just got out of prison or something. And were you in crutches at this point? I had crutches, yeah. I had crutches. Even hotter. Right? Even hotter.

And I was just, you know, I was very out of sorts and a little embarrassed and just kind of being very sheepish. And then people, everyone wanted to buy me a drink and I hadn't drank in a long time. And next thing you know, I'm having to call one of my friends to come pick me up from a random house in Echo Park. It was a good time. That's wonderful. See, I think on the spectrum of like, you know, attractiveness, hotness, the full, the original. You know, just the white plaster mask is the hottest. And then like down the other end of the spectrum is the sort of Stormtrooper moon boot thing. That's like, that's getting you nothing. I would say that's doing the opposite of what the full leg plaster, but I feel like I don't see the plaster that much anymore. It's not as common. But because of the way all the ligaments were all twisted around, I couldn't like rotate my leg or my knee in any way or it could fuck up the thing. But I'm glad I did it. And I feel good now. I'm glad. I'm glad you did it. I think I remember my, my, an ex-girlfriend of mine, she, she broke her kneecap. She fell off a fence, broke her kneecap. Bro, was she sneaking into Coachella you couldn't get her notice passed? That's crazy, bro. It was splendor in the grass, Chris. Wrong continent. I apologize. Unfortunately, she was sneaking into her own home. She'd lost her keys and just sort of fell and broke her kneecap. What happens when you break a kneecap? Outside of the obvious. It split in two, like an egg. And they had to just wrap metal around it, like barbed wire, and just glue it together. And she was straight-legged for a long time. But yeah, we still managed to be intimate. When there's a will, there's a way, Alex. You said that straight leg ain't a problem for me. No, exactly.

So what is your current relationship with drugs? It seems like obviously your album has songs about drug use. You know, you talk about ketamine and a song called K-Hole. The actual album itself is called Oxy Music, which I assume is like a funny riff on Roxy Music. Chris, our co-host, he actually overdosed on OxyContin about five years ago. I'm just wondering if you thought there was something funny about that, Alex. Yeah, no, I think that shit's, um, I was going to just keep going back that it was funny, but no, it's, uh, I mean, for me, like the whole, I guess the whole, what I'm interested in doing is like finding, uh, points of, that are like culturally contentious and maybe even, uh, you know, the idea that, um, uh, something that is so prevalent in society can be so also like it's always something that's happening to someone else as far as the majority of people are concerned even though it's everywhere um and so when i'm trying to find things to write about i just want to find characters that for that i find people are potentially uh willfully or willingly misunderstanding you know like consciously being like, well, that's just because they're bad people. So the idea of writing songs from the perspective more or less of someone really sort of in the throes of substance abuse is just to get some perspective on what those stories actually mean and what it... how it how it can affect why a person would do it how it can affect a person you know let me tell you why because it feels good and you guys we covered that you know we covered that in the first part of this podcast i just want to reiterate it does feel yeah yeah yeah i think that's and i think that's part of it right people people just assume like that i think one of the biggest assumptions is that people get into you know the the in my experience it was it was harder

to start the habit than it was to put it down. There's a lot of circumstances that go in to really developing a habit with these kinds of drugs, you know, and it's not... Well, look, we're on Jag Jaguar, so we know the advances are a little bit low and that can be kind of an issue when it comes to purchasing drugs. So if you need to borrow some money, you just let us know. I appreciate that. I'm on secretly. It's the more like the more sort of historic kind of... You know, it's the main hub. I'm closer to the bank. It's good to know that they have banks in Indianapolis. You know what I mean? I guess, well, I mean, overall, I think there's a big divide between the way that drugs are perceived and the actual sort of the real culture of it all you know and it's it's ever since i was a kid i remember thinking that the way they were teaching us about drugs was so backwards because i i had a i had a friend pass away she died really young from drugs and it was ultimately because she was scared to tell an adult that she'd take it yeah yeah because it was just like no and nothing else yeah and and i even at 16 i was like this is horseshit we shouldn't be teaching kids that it's just a bad thing that you just don't do and maybe this is now obvious but for me for my entire adult life i've just been like we need to actually be okay with even just talking about this between generations you know yeah i think it's i mean i think it's changing to an extent but i think there's some i think for a lot of people it's just such a foreign concept you know you know what i mean because it's been hammered home that like if you do crack, you're poor and you're going to die, you know, whatever, you know, and it's, it's like, that's a hard thing to unlearn. Um, but I do think that even, I mean, even like the, the like level of knowledge around like Narcan and shit now, like that would have never, like there are people I know in New York that keep Narcan like in their purse when they're out because like that kind of shit would have, they don't even do drugs. Yeah. They don't even do drugs. They just want to help if somebody ODs, you know what I mean? Which is like a crazy,

That's really very different than the way we were probably similar age, the way that we grew up. Yeah, it absolutely is. And I think I went to like a party at like someone's, I guess it was their Christmas party. And it was in their place of work. in like this big sort of warehouse studio and i was just wandering about as you do like exploring the place and they had like a little shelf that had narcan on it just sitting there like the in one of the offices and it was a big label just said narcan and it wasn't like i think that you know if there's a a big part of the the record i suppose for me anyway if i'm thinking about like why i i wrote these songs is just like as an indication that it It's got far less to do with, you know, on a personal level, it has everything to do with the individual. But on a societal level, it's very much a culture thing, you know. And I got, I was pretty, I've been really surprised and impressed with the amount of bands that are providing Narcan at shows. Just the merch table, you know, it's like something that I'm like, You know, I feel good about doing myself as well, you know, at shows. Not doing Narcan, but I feel good about providing it for people at the shows. Do you have it available at your shows as well? We're organizing that now, yeah. We're putting it together for the U.S. run. I mean, I was wondering if it's like, well, it certainly is less of a problem in Europe, but it's still there, you know, but I'm not sure how readily available it is. I think it's... Yeah, it feels very American, I would agree. Yeah, so we're focusing... the American tour at the moment. Squeaky wheel against the grease. If I went to an Alex Cameron show, Jason, I don't know about you, but I think I'm bringing cocaine. That feels more appropriate personally. I do get a bit of a gun on stage. I don't drink or do any drugs before I go on stage. I go on completely bone dry. Really? Because I used to drink before shows and

Because I would get stage fright or nervous, and I would think, oh, the booze helps, you know, get the Dutch courage. And it just makes you more nervous. Your heart rate goes up because you're dehydrated. I had to be taught this by someone. And it makes those fingers move not quite as quickly as you'd like them to. Right, yeah. And the voice, the whole thing just falls to pieces. And then I had a friend tell me, like, you know, you don't get drunk to go to the gym. and you're up on stage dancing. Oh, damn. I learned that the hard way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You don't want to be on that rowing machine, that erg. Yeah, Jason had two pints before he hit the elliptical and did not end well. Yeah, amazing. I have gotten blacked out drunk and gone to the gym just to see what happened, and it was, we got kicked out. Yeah, yeah, I don't doubt it. But yeah, that is a good point. I agree with that because you are working hard on stage. It was a little bit different for me as a DJ because you're not working quite as hard. You are able to do it pretty well. If I'm DJing, I'm definitely going to have a drink just because I like to have a couple of drinks when I'm listening to loud music. Big for you to admit, Jason, that a DJ is actually not a musician. I'm glad that you finally, after 20 years... I didn't say that. I said we're not working quite as hard as Alex. I'm sorry. Depending on how many decks you have going at once... I remember when I, when I managed a band and I would be, we would be partying backstage. I'm doing Coke and I'm wasted and they're all doing it with me. And then I'm like, Oh, you guys, you're about to go perform for an hour and I can barely like have a conversation. So I don't, I'm going to have a tough time holding my blackberry for the next hour. But I feel like, I think it's just like practice. Like once you get to a certain point, that's just like, if that's how you do it, that's how you do it. And you, you know, you, you black out. Basically, just do it for an hour and then it's over. Yeah, yeah. It does, you know, the more shows you do, I'm sure the more capable I was slowly becoming being extremely drunk on stage. Not a skill that you want to really get super amazing at. It's like when you slowly start to realize that you're not getting hung over anymore. And for a second, you're like, this is awesome. And then really quickly afterwards, you're like, oh, but wait.

I'm not hungover because I require alcohol to just be normal. That's bad. Much like going to the gym afterwards, we like to reward ourselves with a nice smoothie or a tuna fish sandwich. After you're done with your stage show, how are you rewarding yourself if you're going up bone dry? I like to have a nice cold beer. Hummus, some crudités, some hummus. You know it. That's part of the course. So a cold one? I like to pretend I'm sort of in the dressing room after maybe a tough game of rugby league or a five-day test match. I like to get that atmosphere going. Like, well done, everybody. Cheers. Hey, well done out there. We're all wiping the blood and the grass out of our... It's very sweaty. A cold beer after a show is something that I'll never get. Cold beer, a nice pull, long pull off of that Juul? Yeah, a nice... I just started on this Juul. I think it's awful. I think it's really bad for me. What flavor are you rocking with? It's the Virginia tobacco. That's what I was encouraged to stop. That's what I would do too. I used to Juul no longer, but I do miss it sometimes. I'm assuming that you did it to stop smoking cigarettes? I think it just somehow slowly morphed into it. I was never a big smoker. I think this is why Juul's got banned, guys, is because... Teenagers never smoked cigarettes before. They just jeweled and then became extremely addicted to the pina colada flavor. Then they got popcorn lung and then they died. Not the popcorn, it's the nicotine. Popcorn lung doesn't happen too often. I'm sorry. I was misinformed. It's still better for you than having a cheeky cig, that's for sure. The problem is I can do it indoors and then when I can do it indoors...

Daddy doesn't stop sucking on that thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think this is not a long-term solution for my vacuous mind. It's just... When do you leave? When do you leave for tour? So we start rehearsals in Brussels on the 16th. Oh, listen to this guy, Jason. He's starting rehearsals in Brussels. Some of us have to do that at a soundstage in Hollywood, maybe East Hollywood. This guy's going to Europe to kind of get the show. Yeah, I got to get acclimatized. And also just get ready for a shocking diet of bread and cheese. Just to line the stomach with heavy dairy and processed meats. They don't have any sweet greens over there in Brussels. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They try. It's just like... It's just canned beets? It's like eating salad at a 1950s dinner party. They bring out prawn or shrimp jelly and whole lettuce. Sir, did you order the whole lettuce? That's right, yeah. It's so, it's, I mean, I don't want to, you know, culturally it changes from place to place, obviously, but there are some places you go to. And, and I think certainly Australia used to be like this. I used to think I like, when I was a kid, I was just like, my, my, my uncle used to make these things. He'd call them moonies. And he'd be like, eat your moonies. And I'd be like, he's like shit. I guess I just don't like vegetables. He would just like cut up a zucchini and grill it and then give us like straight. nothing on them, grilled zucchinis. And I was like the kid that apparently didn't like vegetables. I was like, no, motherfucker, I don't like your cooking. Oh, was it called a Mooney because it was like a half moon shape? Yeah, he would like cut them into some moon shape to make them more interesting. It's like, just add some salt. Right, right, right. All you do is add a little salt. Yeah. Would it kill you to squeeze a bit of lime and a couple of glugs of some local olive oil?

right i'm not you know maybe some balsamic let's let's calm down calm down sorry sorry yeah okay i understand and i think the the same thing happened to me when i was a child as well of like i don't want you know once you eat a good vegetable then you're like okay I understand that. Unfortunately, I didn't eat a good vegetable until I moved to California. That's what Jason told me. No, that's not true. They have very good produce in Australia, don't they all? That's true. I would like to say I think we do have the best, you know, across the board, the best food in the world. Oh, here we go. If you start talking about the breakfast again when it's just eggs and fucking toast. You said across the board. The best Texas barbecue, the best Sichuan. Yeah, the steak frites in Melbourne are great. Yeah. That's a good accent. That's a really good accent. Well, I just think that Sydney has a really good Chinatown. Yeah, they do. No, we're just joking. I know a lot of great chefs in Australia, great chefs of Sydney. and they have a rich, diverse culture, and they do love their food, but they do also think that their food, especially their breakfast, is better than every other breakfast. Yeah, there's a bit of smugness there. Whenever we have a guest on who's Australian, we like to bring it up of, like, no one has been able to explain exactly why an Australian breakfast is better than a regular breakfast, other than it's just bera. It's just bera. Which is kind of like, I like that there is no, I like it too. I like it. It's just good. The yolks are yolkier. Right. Yeah. It's just an English breakfast with avocado. It's not, you know, but yeah, I think I have, I certainly, when I started touring, I noticed.

Well, you know, because I kind of put it down to the fact that we didn't, Australia didn't really get hit thanks to the mining boom, the mineral boom in like the late 80s. Well, I don't know, sometime before the global financial crisis. We didn't really get hit by the GFC. Okay. Also, don't short form GFC. Somebody did that to me recently, and I'm like, that's not a thing. I've never heard that before. Right. Another Australian. Another Australian. Yeah, that was a good point. It was Yayo. Yeah, it was another Australian. Yeah, Yayo said that. Funny that you say that, because when I went to London last time, I noticed that GFC actually stands for Gluten-Free Chicken Nugget. I thought it was meant that was like the Gloucester football club, but it was probably all of those things, I think. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I shouldn't belittle it. Anyways, back to the mining boom. We didn't really, on a cultural level, get hit by the global financial crisis. Thank you for slowing it down for some of us. No worries. So I think a bunch of Australians just started to travel because there was all this bullshit excess income. And then you have Australian cafes popping up in Berlin and all over the world. The funny thing about an Australian cafe in Berlin is that they're trying to do the Australian experience, but the produce isn't there. So in my mind, what Australians are really talking about when they start bragging about their food is the fact that there's just a good... climate to grow good produce, which is a similar climate to California in a lot of areas. It's like opening a sushi spot in the middle of a desert. Right. You're only as good as your fish. Yeah, you don't order Thai food when you're in, like, Boise. What do you – so if, you know, I'm pretty familiar with the New York dining scene, especially when it comes to Australian-owned restaurants. I would love to know what your favorite is because they're all bad, so there's no good answer. Right. Come on, Chris. Come on. I've got to say, I'm not a big restaurant guy, full stop. I have a couple of places that I like to eat in New York. What do you mean you're not a restaurant guy? What are you, a big coach at home?

Yeah, I cook at home. Well, I mean, I guess I understand that. I couldn't relate, but I do. At least you didn't say rubies. There's one wrong answer, and you didn't say it. So you're good. You're off the hook. I didn't know you were sick in the kitchen, though. Well, yeah, I am. Do you have a jaffle maker at home, Alex? Jaffle? Yeah. Not here, but my... I did have one growing up, and they are extremely good. Do you guys have those here? Like a real good, like, toasted sandwich press that does the shape and everything? Yeah, we call it a panini. I don't know if you've heard of that. No, no, no. This is a special thing. This is a special thing. Is this an Australian exclusive? Well, I remember my mom had one when I was a kid, like in the 80s. They had them where you would put, like, a piece of, like, white sandwich bread in. And then whatever filling you want, peanut butter and jelly, ham and cheese, you name it. And then you put the other piece of bread on top and it squishes it like a waffle press. Oh, I see. And then it crimps the sides and turns it into like a pizza pocket or like a hot pocket type of thing. It also creases the center so you can just rip it apart and it becomes two sealed pockets. Oh, sounds like empanadas to me, cultural appropriation. Yeah, potentially, yeah. You guys go ahead and steal that from the culture. But I think only Australians call it a jawful. Yes, yes. Is that a combination of waffle and another word? No, the name comes from the creator of this invention, Dr. Ernest Smithers, who's from Bondi, New South Wales, who created and patented the jawful iron back in the 50s. Holy smokes. Damn, I thought you guys had only given us avocado and tame impala, but this... No, no, no. Yeah, we've given you the Australian empanada, which often has like bolognese sauce in it. Some bondi bolognese? It's called fusion is what we like to call it. It sounds pretty good to me. The problem, the one thing you need to look out for, and Alex knows this, Chris doesn't, when you're making a jawful, you know, don't fill it up with heaps of ingredients because you will spring a leak and that's best to clean up. Exactly.

Well, that's very good. Good knowledge there. You always do less than you think you're going to need, even though you're hungry. Sure. So you can't juffle it with anybody's stomach because your eyes are going to be bigger. You fuck it up. Do it just before you're really hungry. What would you say, Alex? I'm a vegetarian, so what would be the perfect juffle? If I'm going to make one, what is the number one go-to ingredient for the juffle? You need cheese. You've got to go cheese. I would probably try and make you like a cheese and tomato. That would be really fucking good. Would you be using sheep's milk cheese, goat's milk cheese, cow's milk cheese? I would just use a sort of a sharp cheddar. Oh, okay. Straight down the middle. I'm not mad. Especially, I know those tomatoes are probably picked from the vine behind your parents' house, so they're coming in fresh. Cheeky heirloom, some extra shop. It's going down a treat. What do you think about the meat pies that you cover with peas and mash? Do you like those? The peas and mash thing is more of an English... In Australia, we just do ketchup, which we call tomato sauce. So it's like a meat pie. Classic is a four and 20 meat pie, which is sort of minced meat. And then you just douse it. We actually got to the point where at school we would get like the ketchup containers, you know, the big sort of like communal ones, and we would like jack it into the pie. So the real power move is to get the nozzle. Punk to the top of the pie and squeeze the sauce into it. Like you're filling a stuffed donut? Yes, exactly. So then it becomes this sort of like mess of ketchup and like offal, basically. I was talking, I mean, you've been to Harry's Café de Wheels before? Yeah, he does the... How does Harry do them, Alex? Harry will put the mash...

And then create a hole in the mash and put the gravy in the hole and then put the peas on top. And that's great. But one time I was down there. That's cute for you. That's great. Harry can mind his own business as far as I'm concerned. And he does, I guess. But one time I was down there and a rat ran up my leg. No, bro. Like up your car price. Up my legs to get to my pie. Yeah. Not up the... Not the inside. He only touched the 501s. He didn't touch students. Exactly, yeah. So there's like a whole bunch of rats in that area that no one knows about. Sorry, Harry. Expose her, Queen. Expose her. And you've got the rat receipts. Okay, so hopefully he gave you a free pie floater after that. They're not the most talkative. It's the whole... So it's like, for people who don't know, it's like basically a caravan or like a trailer outside. Have you been? I have been, yeah. It's like a little roadside stand. Exactly, yes. It's not a brick and mortar. No, it is not. Or a kiosk, if you will. Yes, exactly. And it's also covered in photos of the celebrities that visited there, I guess, in the 90s. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Elton John. And Danny. Yeah. Yeah. All the, all the big names. Yeah. That's, that's later, right? That's later. That is later. He might have been there, but I don't know if he's on the wall. He could be. I think he's done enough now. Yeah. I'm not into behind the scenes guys making the wall. Above the line only for my wall. Yes. Yes, exactly. Because you don't want people going like, and they're having to read the signature. Yeah, exactly. They have to know who it is. He did lighting on Star Wars. I don't know if he needs the 8x10. I mean, Spielberg is probably one of the ones. I'll allow it, but I'm not happy about it. Maybe for a Hawaiian hotel. Otherwise. Yeah. So you said that you...

You were doing a great cocktail, the Michael Jackson night night sleep that did have ketamine in it. And you do have a song about K-holes. Do you do ketamine now? Is it a part of your life? And this is a safe space. The last episode I talked about doing ketamine and giving the house a nice clean. So this is a ketamine positive podcast. Well, I actually did ketamine. I did ketamine infusion therapy. for the first time at the beginning of, you know, at the end of last year. And it was nothing short of amazing. It was absolutely incredible. So this is where you go to an office and they give you an IV drip of the stuff. Yeah, you go into, I mean, I guess there are different experiences and I would recommend making sure you know what you're getting into when you do it. I was recommended this place by someone. They gave me a sort of a 90-minute sort of rundown of what the procedure exactly was, which is, in the suite of the office that I went to, a lazy boy. So you're reclining, feet up, optional. IV drip. They have a heart rate monitor on your finger, and they take your blood pressure. They manage your vitals? They manage your vitals. Yeah. And they manage your vitals. I have a quick question. Are you managing my vitals during this research? Yeah, exactly. It's got to be a question. A lot of people forget that. Every statement is a question. So then I suppose, you know, they let you select your music, the music that you want to listen to. So I chose like Deep Forest. kind of like ocean sounds with the odd sort of like slow attack synth chord, your major, like it's just a C major in there. Slow attack and a slow release? Deeply slow release. Oh, yeah. It comes on slow and it leaves you slow. Oh, yeah, yeah. You don't even notice it's there. A slow train going past. Okay, okay. And then...

So you've got the headphones on, the noise-canceling headphones, and then they give you, like, this really nice night mask, which is one of those, like, soft suction ones that doesn't actually touch your eyes. Oh, yeah. So you're in this, like, dark space. You can't even, you know. And, yeah, exactly. And then you lay back and you just, you know, they jack you full of ketamine. I'm sure that's the terminology they used. Yeah, yeah. We're going to be jacking you full of this stuff right now. Mr. Cameron, just relax. We're going to jack your arm full of ketamine. Just lay down. Wait, was this in New York? Yeah, this is in Brooklyn. So is this in like an office, like a medical building type vibe? Yeah. Or is this in Steve's living room? Yeah, exactly. Well, one day, fingers crossed. So this particular clinic is run by an ex-ER, I guess like head doctor. And she became, I suppose, was... She knows how to find a vein. Yes, she does. And she also knows how to manage... Vitals. You know, I guess the major concern with ketamine treatment is... you know, panic and anxiety and people not being used to psychedelics and maybe having what they perceive to be a psychotic episode, even though it's just the ketamine. Well, no, that's the problem. That's why you got to keep Coke around because if you do a bump, it's going to level you out. I don't know if you asked the doctor about that, but something to think about for next time. It's funny you say that because they do have, like, if you really are losing your penny and you're just going, like, fuck this, they have, like, benzos right there that they can swap out and so they can because that's like an agent right for psychedelics anyone that uh anyone that's a real pro that's a fire extinguisher yeah okay so they have that there in case because i so three out of the four were like blissful amazing experiences for me and then one of them was i felt like i was trapped between the walls of two different dimensions but you did this you did this four times you did this four times

Yeah, four times, four sessions. Was the bad trip out of the four the last one you did? No, it was the third one. So I went away like, good God, I just met God, and apparently it was Satan, which really flipped the whole thing upside down. God was an emu in a nurse's outfit. trying to duct tape together the walls of a room that I was stuck in because the rooms were going to fall down and outside of the walls was just like infinite space. And this emu was like, I really don't want you to see out there. Okay. I think my first takeaway is I'm not doing enough ketamine when I have my cheeky little bump in the end. No, this is a serious amount. When you said they jack you up, you wasn't lying. No, they jack you. But were you doing this for a purpose or was this just to have the experience? No, yeah, there's certainly an element of curiosity, but they also, you know, you have to, it's, I guess, required to do like a mental health assessment and you have to be the right kind of candidate. You have to sort of have experience of depression and maybe be currently experiencing depression for it to even be effective or anxiety. or what have you, but I've got, I don't know if this is something that I haven't really ever done an interview before, but I, I was super talkative during my, um, my, uh, first, uh, experience there, the first infusion. And apparently I demanded that the doctor who was present, um, write down what I was saying, because I felt it was of utmost importance. And she just sent me the train. That's very Kanye West-like, but sorry, go ahead. It was a, there was a big feeling of like, I found the secret guys. If someone doesn't write this down, like, you know, whatever's coming out of my mouth is pure gold. So somebody should write this down. I'll give you 10% once I become a billionaire. Exactly. In fact, there's even a sentence in here. Take my word. You got the transcripts. I've got the transcript right here. Oh, beautiful. This is a great way to end this show. So I, I mean, I feel like I could read the whole thing, honestly, but I'll give you.

I'll give you the first bit, okay? I'll stop when I'm ready to stop. You read the first bit. If we want more, we'll ask you for it, sweetheart. I'll stop when I feel like stopping. Say when. Peasant, prince, fisherman and fish. Submarine and the water, bird and the sky. Canadian otters, very sweet animal. I know what it feels like to be an otter now. I am part of a riverbed. Little alien fella just looking at me. Everything is malleable, just as I am a flat surface as well as 3D. Who knows where a finger really is? I may be spread across a whole field. Remember you are moving around. Be graceful. I like the word graceful and grateful. My hands are in some lobster boxing glove. I feel like I'm in a sausage chair. Sorry to interrupt you. Is that an Australian slang or is that just a chair made out of sausage? It's just a chair made out of sausage. Great question. It could go either way. Thank you for that. It's a real sausage chair. Yeah, exactly. It was just a chair that felt like a sausage. Got it. I'm diving from outer space. Skydiving. Everything is upside down. I'm upside down in my chair. I've gone full all the way around. I'm seeing shapes. Take my words and sell them as albums. Put them into USB sticks and sell them on the train. I'm a mechanic under the Batmobile. We train the horses to feel like wheels. Very comfortable. You can't train a pig to taste like bacon. You don't end up in a cave unless you wanted somewhere to sit down. Have you found a publisher for these? I'm sort of like wondering if there's a, if, you know, cause this is, you know, a lot of this stuff that I get into a very sort of basic teenage, uh, like acid revelations that are like, not all that profound, quite trite, but, uh, there's also some shit, you know, like, you know, for instance, like, uh,

I'm a mechanic under the Batmobile. That one feels pretty important. Oh, there's something there. Timely as well. There's a lot. I mean, out of all that stuff, obviously, you know, let's say half of it will just kind of be some, you know, teenage gibberish, like you were saying. But then the other half of it, there's some real gold in their hills. Yeah, there is something to it. I started seeing, oh, here I go, space people like Romans in the stars, metallic waves upon waves upon waves. To ever think that I was in control was ridiculous. To ever think that I had any kind of idea was ridiculous. But that's exactly what I'm talking about, the ridiculous nature of things. Glass and sand and fire and kitty cats and pyramids and liquid metal. I guess I was just like talking about what I was seeing, but it was absolutely insane. I'm glad that the doctor captured that and I hope you didn't have to pay extra. Did that just come with the, was that kind of included? She was really cool about it. She just sent me an email. I was like, Hey, by the way, just found this. She didn't make fun of you. She didn't. She just, she, she's like, she did like, well, so the first time she didn't make fun of me. Right. And I thought, wow, I just had a really profound experience. She said, obviously, next time I'd recommend you just hitting record on your phone. And so I did. You were the musician. Yeah. And when I listened back, I could hear her laughing in the background. I'm going to monitor your vitals and just kind of have a laugh. These vitals look good, bro, but you're saying some wild shit. Yeah, I guess she's just like part of her job is sitting there and just watching people absolutely off their tree. Yeah, totally. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, she's looking at her Instagram stories as well, but, you know, that's why the drug dealer, you know, does a line, takes his money and leaves. He doesn't want to see where it's going. Right, exactly. Well, one thing you've done is inspire me to seek out a place just like this because I would love to give it a try. Do you think that now that you're all done, you are a changed man forever? I think it's really effective. They described it to me as floss for the mind.

like you know we're talking about a very like fundamental chemical level here not like what kind of thoughts will i have or what feelings will i have it's like they're just chemically resetting the mind and uh yeah exactly so the mental plaque you know obviously look into it and make sure you pick the right spot There are some rough places. Don't go to that guy in Altadena in the apartment complex. When I go and seek them out on Yelp or TripAdvisor, never pick the cheapest ketamine therapy place. I don't want to talk about how much money I should spend because I don't know if that's an indication of quality. That's a good point. But you can get a feeling. Yes, exactly. You want to be like, oh, it's costing me something. You don't want to be like, wow, that's cheap. Out of the two feelings, you want to feel like spending some money. Just like regular therapy. Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly right. All right, Alex. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. We had a great time. And then Oxy Music is going to be out. This episode will come out tomorrow. So that comes out, what, this Friday? Yeah, March 11. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. You guys are awesome. Congratulations, bro. Have fun on the road. Tell my family in Brussels I said hello. I will. I will. I'll go find them and throw a break for them. Perfect. I appreciate that. We'll talk to you soon. See you guys soon. Bye-bye. Later.