March 12, 2021 • 50 mins
Kesha talks with one of her frequent collaborators Ben Abraham ahead of his new album release. Ben and Kesha relive the experience of writing Kesha's song Praying together with Ryan Lewis and then performing it together on the Grammys. Ben tells the story of his upbringing in the pentacostal church and experiencing exorcisms.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Growing up in the church. Did you ever see an exorcism? Like?
Was it? Yeah? You did. Welcome to Kesha and the
(00:22):
Creepies today. Is one of my best friends and a
very special guest. Ben Abraham, singer, songwriter, artist extraordinaire. I'll
take it whatever the script, as you've got one of
my favorite singers and songwriters, one of my top top favorites.
(00:43):
That's well, that's very cold. You have great taste. So
I received that as high praise. I remember when you
sent me a video not that long ago of you
singing Praying and I was like, damn it, Ben, you
can't sing my song that we wrote together better than me.
(01:07):
I'm about like a four. Nobody sings it better than you.
Just so we're clear, No, not true. It's on my
Instagram if anybody wants to see it. Oh, thank you.
That's very that's very conn I mean that. What an
amazing experience that was. I know. So we met. For
those listening who don't know our backstory, we met because
(01:30):
we wrote Praying together with Ryan Lewis, and that turned
into like probably the most important song of my life
and a very pivotal moment for me. And from what
you've told me it was a cool moment for your
life too. It's just like a yeah, I mean life changing,
(01:50):
life changing, same super life changing for me. And then
you performed at the Grammys with me, which was isn't
that what three years ago? Like last week? Oh my god?
That feels like I've done a lot of dumb, crazy, wild,
(02:11):
insane ship That was definitely, I think the scariest thing
I've ever done in my life. I get that. Yeah,
it's funny that grab I I feel really lucky that
I had that experience, um, because I guess as a musician,
we all there's some part of our brains. Even if
you're like who cares about awards and all that stuff,
there's still some part of your brain that's like, that's
(02:33):
a goal in your career. I feel really lucky that
I was first exposed to it kind of in secret
and in hiding through you, because it really dispelled it
for me, Like it was walking in you have all
these expectations, and I remember there being a moment before
it even started where I was standing. I remember you
were in that dressing room upstairs, and I'd come to
(02:53):
say hi to you, and then I walked out into
your balcony and looked over the the space and I
was like, Oh, it's like it's a show in a
big arena and it's fun. And it's not that it's
not everything. This is not like what all music is about.
It was something kind of I feel lucky that I
was exposed to it then, so that you know, if
(03:14):
I'm ever lucky enough to go back there with my
own work, I feel like I've already gone through the
feeling of it once before. Yeah, like intense kind of
build up. It's like a mythical thing. It's like seeing
the Lockness monster or something. And then once you're like
up there in it, you're like, oh, okay, well it's
(03:38):
just like something like you see it's like it's not
really a monster. It's just like two old dudes with
like a stick in a broom and like, yes, but
we've all agreed that, like it's really important and that's great. Yeah,
people love I believe people love ritual Like yeah, marriage
(04:00):
or baptism or Christmas, whatever it is. We like reasons
to celebrate. I have like this very weird thing where
art isn't a competition, but then but then it is
because there's number one, and then there's number two and
(04:21):
you come at number two and you're bummed it's not
number one instead of being like, holy ship, my song
number two. So it's sod when it gets rank, like
like it's it's the idea of it being a race. Yeah,
it's like competition. You feel this, like how do you compare?
Like some of my favorite musicians in Melbourne, where I'm
(04:43):
from and where I am at the moment, are like
weird ass noise artists who like can stand on a
stage and create these really challenging, crazy noise scapes soundscapes
and they're so inspiring. And then I can take that
and as filter it through my lens and maybe incorporate
some of that noise into a song that might become
(05:05):
a big pop song. How do you say that one
is more important than the other, especially if one kind
of inspired the other thing. And it's crazy that we
live in a world that makes forces us to compete
with each other and like rank. So I'm like a
big fan of not competing anymore. Like I've decided for
(05:25):
better for worse, this could be the end of my career,
but I'm not going to compete with anybody anymore. I
just it's so exhausting. It is so exhausting, so much
energy put into something that isn't even like we created it.
It's not really real. Like I had that same moment
at the Grammy's when you were there, and I just
(05:47):
couldn't stop crying hysterically because I was so nervous, and
I would like look out and Elton John's like walking
down the hallway and I was like, what is life?
This is so weird. And then you just get out
on the stage and you play a song just like
you'd get out on stage and play a song at
like a radio show or any other place like at
(06:09):
the coffee shop, and you realize it's like, wow, it's
like this whole big thing that we constructed to make
a big ordeal about art, and you realize that you
look back, I don't know who won Best. I don't
I don't know if I remember a lot of the awards.
I mean I remember who beat us? Yeah, yeah, we
(06:30):
do edge her in. No. It was weird and it
was scary, and I can't really say it was fun
because I felt like I was going to ship my
pants and I was wearing a white suit and it
was quite a time that we lived through together, and
we did it and we lived it and and it
was it's in immortal moment now. But I didn't realize
(06:53):
that you were raised religious Pentecostal because I was raised
like Catholic school and then like would just go to
like the super churches and I was just trying to
figure out which one fit and like none of the
none of them fit just right. And I was so
mad about it. But I didn't know you had a
religious a bringing to And then now knowing that, when
(07:15):
I listened to your music again, I'm like, oh I
hear that. I hear like that like a little gospel
element or just I hear the church in it. Yeah,
I like that. I had no idea. I mean, faith
is such a especially right now, it's such a hectic
time to to be affiliated with any of that stuff
(07:38):
and to and to even talk about it. There are
so many people get so angry about this subject. And
I feel like I was raised so like my parents
are ministers, they still are ministers, and the Pentecostal yes,
but that also means something so different in Australia to America,
like the Pentecostal church in America as I'm sort of
(08:00):
learning is like snake handlers and like, yeah, it includes
this kind of storm the capitol, bring your guns fundamentalist part. Uh,
that doesn't that doesn't happen in Australia as much. Um
So it's I feel nervous even kind of saying that
I kind of have grown up in that because my
(08:21):
parents are also like really smart, thoughtful, beautiful people who
weren't raised Christians. They both have like radical conversions, and
um so I was, and they're both musicians, so I
was raised in a sort of art infused spirituality. Certainly
music infused spirituality more than the like let's we're at
(08:42):
war with the world and we will conquer. Like it
wasn't that at all. It was like God is real
and big and how can we possibly understand what any
of that means? And music is part of the search.
I love that. And I think that religion is a
scary topic, but Comma Slash and I think that it's
(09:09):
fun to talk about because they It's kind of why
I made the podcast is to just talk about like
what supernatural things or paranormal or just what are the
things that make that challenge your worldview? And for me,
that's been a mostly spiritual thing. So it's kind of
like a little sneaky way to get people to talk
(09:30):
about like why they think we're here, what happens after,
or like you know what I mean. So I think
just having a nice conversation with somebody about the universe,
Why should people get so angry about it? Yeah, well,
I think, yeah, I mean I often wonder if some
of it is typically religious people have detached from the
(09:56):
lived experience part of being a human and have just
invested everything into the ideas of how the world should
be rather than this. I think religion is most interesting
when there's like the ideals of like this is what
it could be, but then it collides with the reality
of this is what it is, and there's this weird
space between those. It's like a tug of war where
(10:17):
it's like, Okay, we're supposed to you know. If God
tells me that I can be happy and I'm not happy,
there's not something wrong with me. It's just I have
to live in the middle of this tug of war
between these ideas, and to me, that's interesting. And I
think that what we're seeing at the moment is this
like rabid fundamentalist, these people that refuse to acknowledge how
(10:39):
life is and they're just like we all need to
live according to the way that this could be and
should be. But it's like the world is falling apart
in front of me, and there's some things that are
just unprecedented. I mean not in history, of course, there's
been pandemics before, but in my lifetime, our lifetime, I've
never seen anything like this. I never knew to expect
it and never new to prepare for it. It It wasn't
(11:00):
really on my radar. I was just trucking along doing
my thing. So to have like a full stop and
be able to take in everything that's going on, yeah,
for me, has been like very life changing, really spiritual,
and I'm seeing that the more open we are with
(11:22):
our humanity and maybe like I know me for sure,
Like TikTok came out when I was twenty one or
twenty two, Like I've done some dumb ship and it's
on camera, and I am aware that it was dumb.
I am sorry, I am embarrassed. I wish it was
(11:42):
not on camera. But that being said, you can also
like I'm a human was a young little idiots. I
think this is like this even ties in a bit
with what we're saying, Like there's there's you're saying this
now with this idea of like what life should be
and reflecting on things that you've done that maybe we're
(12:04):
not in line with what it could be, but that's
part of the human experience, and I think it could
be one of the things that we celebrate. I mean,
obviously I don't want to wait into this too far
because this is a fraud conversation, but I think it's
okay to look back and be like, I did some
really dumb stuff and now I've changed and I've grown,
and it's I'm kind of cool to have documented that.
(12:27):
Why Now, that's the thing you have to be able
to grow and learn from your experiences versus for me,
I just see people getting canceled, and I'm like, but
this is a great opportunity to like grow and change.
I mean, that's more beneficial than having someone live in
shame and guilt for the rest of their life. Like
(12:48):
what about exactly you acknowledge, you understand, you learn, you apologize,
you mean it, and you act different and I see
you learning and growing and trying. That's why it's always
so important for me. It's not like I ever think
I'm going to change anybody else's mind, like even on
this or through my songs. No, I'm not gonna change
(13:09):
anybody's mind. But i'd like to, like, I like to
try to have you see something from a different perspective.
And this is my perspective. So try it on. If
you don't like it, throw in the trash. But I
don't even know what the point of all of this was,
to be honest, I forget what the I'm supposed to
(13:30):
be interviewing you, and I don't remember what the question was.
It was something about the Pentecostal Church. Oh, like, what
does it mean? Because you were saying it's really different
in Australia. So it's just like is here in the
South it's like a little more extreme. So give me
your VERNI okay, I'll give you the This is the
theological um. This is very funny that I'm talking with
Kesh about this. So I love this. We can you
(13:53):
also don't have to you can also, I So just
so you know, I have no problem talking about this
stuff because I and we can get into this. I
really am at a point in my life where I
moved between being like, yeah, I think I believe this
and then being like, actually, nothing is real. The universe
is completely material. When we die, we die, and you know,
so I sort of I'm comfortable moving between us. So basically,
(14:18):
the difference between the Pentecostal Church and say, the more
broad church, beside the kind of branding of Pentecostalism, is
that the story goes that when Jesus came to Earth,
he told all these great stories and kind of started
a community of people that he was like, when I'm gone,
you can keep going. And then he died and then
went to Heaven, came back to life. When to Heaven,
(14:40):
it's the story. And then rather than just going and
starting the community straight away, a whole bunch of people
waited and then like, this is so funny that I'm
gett into this, but it will help you understand the
kind of spirituality culture that I've grown up in. The
concept of Pentecostalism is that they didn't just have the
stories about Jesus to tell, but like, really the spirit
(15:00):
of God came and it says that like there was
like fire among above their heads, and they spoken tongues
and all this kind of stuff. So Pentecostalism is supposed
to be this hyper spiritual version of Christianity, and then
over the centuries it's kind of waxed and wined, and
then you get some churches that have done away with
that stuff altogether, and I're like, we don't believe in
(15:21):
any kind of spiritual element. We just believe in the
like teachings of Jesus, and it's a bit more chill
and just like community focused. So in theory, the Pentecostals
are the ones that are like clapping their hands and
like cut like doing exorcisms and seeing the kind of
crazy stuff. I'm like, really, here for the crazy stuff,
(15:48):
here for all the crazy stuff, Like hey, okay, the
Holy Spirit that feeling as I love that terminology for
it because I don't know about you, but if you've
ever like when I hit that high note when I
(16:09):
we were recording praying and I made everybody leave the room,
I just opened my mouth and that fell out. I
didn't know what she lived in there. I don't know
she existed, And in that moment, I was like, oh, damn,
that wasn't me. That was something or something else. I
absolutely believe. So like again, I stopped me if I
(16:29):
ever get to into this, but it's you know, I
think that some people would say that the holy spirit,
aspect of God is the creative energy, is the kind
of creative part of um of life. I don't know
if you remember. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author who wrote Eat, Pray, Love,
gave a Ted talk years ago. You've told me about this,
(16:50):
I haven't seen it, and she talks about the idea
of um of artists have we we impose the idea
of genius on people, We say they are a genius,
that person is a genius. She said that that's quite
a contemporary idea that actually traditionally the concept was that
a person had a genius, which I think she even
(17:12):
described it. Some people wrote about it as if it
was like almost like um, like a demon that lived
in their house or something that fed them ideas, so
that rather than like you being the source of your genius,
some crazy mathematician just has these ideas implanted into their
brain from an outside source. And she talked about how
that is kind of liberating as artists because it takes
(17:35):
away the responsibility we have to wrestle with ourselves and
pull out ideas and actually instead of reaching in here,
we kind of reach up there looking for the ideas
to drop into us. And she talked about there's this poet.
I mean, people should just go and watch the talk,
but I loved um. When she talked to told the
story of some poet who described the process of writing
(17:58):
a poem. A poem where she was out in the
fields in her house in the country wherever she was,
and she could feel this poem like barreling toward her
over the plane and ran into the house as she
felt this wind of an idea passing through her, like
reached her hand up and grabbed it and pulled it
back to earth, writing the poem, pulled it backwards, grabbed
the tail, pulled it backwards and wrote the poem in reverse.
(18:22):
Because this passed through her, and to me, like, that's
the if there is a holy spirit, that's the function
of that, and that is why every it doesn't happen
all the time. But you would have experienced this, and
you've just said that you have. Sometimes you're performing or
creating or writing and there's such a flow and such
a thing that comes on you that you're like, that
(18:44):
wasn't me, Like it was me, but something like a
wind came through me and it was like a possession.
I feel like when you just told that story, I
have to tell you, I had chills from like the
top of my head, down my neck and down my
legs and arms. And that's I've never said this out
loud to anybody, so let me just tell it to
(19:04):
the whole world. Um, that's my secret for me and
my higher consciousness or whatever you wanna call it. That's
my secret. Tell I'm like, okay, when something is like
really just true, just give me full body chills and
then I'll know it's like for real true. So when
you were saying that I got my I got my
little I grew up being taught. This is why, like
(19:29):
artists are so sensitive as people, because we're vessels were
supposed to be filled with something for it to pour
out of us. That's why we're so susceptible to substance
abuse and different addictions because we have the capacity to
hold so much of that creative energy. I just feel
everything all the time, and I feel like, I mean,
(19:51):
you tell me, but I just feel like I notice
every little tiny thing to the point where it's like
I'm so annoyed with my like it's like, just stop
noticing everything. But I think that's almost like because I
sometimes think I'm being psychic, but I think I'm just
like uber perceptive everything. But I mean that's isn't that
(20:15):
part of That's part of it as well? Like as
as creatives we are, I feel like it's the I
don't know if this has been your experience I find
as an artist, I'm forced into this weird outsider's perspective
on every moment of my life. I think of it like, um,
(20:36):
like if you have a photo, if you take a
like a photo of a party, there's the people in
the photo enjoying the party, but the person that took
the photo had to be outside the moment to capture that.
And I feel like as artists sometimes were kind of
forced to both be at the party and having a
great time, but there's this other part of our brain
that's constantly observing everything. It's like you're saying, it's heightened
(20:59):
awareness all the time. But I think that's the stuff
that's what qualifies us for those moments, For that we
have this space in our brains that when we need
it and when we're called upon to become the vessel.
We just it gets filled with that stuff. And you know,
I mean, I chase those moments in my life, like
(21:19):
you were saying high notes where you're just you get
to the end and it's the best. It's like a
high because you're like, I don't know how that happened.
I don't know what just came over, but that's where
my self confidence comes from. I'm like that one time
six years ago, I opened my mouth and saying that
one note. But like they're just like little tiny moments
(21:44):
like that that happened like not very often for me.
It feels like you're being struck by lightning. I feel
like your genius probably is more active. Mine has been
dormant and depressed lately, but I'm trying to trying to
give her some Remember when you hit the high note, Okay,
we got this, But like it's moments like that that
are like they made me proud to be myself, just
(22:07):
when you impress yourself. And I don't know, it's just
really weird. Like this past year, I just have been
like feeling that like Holy Spirit. I didn't know that
was a Pentecostal thing, but I've been feeling that spirit
come and go more often, but you can't ever, you
can't summon it. It comes to you. It's like a cat.
(22:35):
But like when we're writing, Okay, we are writing in
my backyard, writing, you know, writing songs, and I was
trying to lay the sex. I don't know, what do
you think I've got to say? No, no, no, no no.
Is it just when you're standing on the side of
the pool going like this with your eyes closing into
(22:56):
the trees. It was my favorite thing. That was nothing.
I mean, there was nothing religious going on there. I
just every now, it doesn't happen every time. That was
so we were writing this song and I was so
feeling it and so like I was really connecting with
(23:20):
because I sort of sometimes my approach. Not all songs
are like this, but some songs I feel like we're
finding them. I feel like I'm like so literally this
is what I do. Like I almost feel like the
song exists, and my job is to kind of close
my eyes and eliminate other sources of information and like
feel the song. Right. It's like the it's like the
elephant in the room and or the six blind guys
(23:42):
feeling the elephant and they're kind of trying to get
the shape of it. I sometimes songs come to me
like that, and I was in those moments. I so
we were writing and I was pacing across your backyard,
and I felt I felt like the song was there,
and I remember like singing it and just kind of
(24:03):
feeling it out, finding like is it here, and kind
of know it's not there. There's something. So I was
just lost in this moment. And then I remember kind
of like looking at and you and Drew were like
it was beautiful. As someone that fully knows this, feeling
like it was beautiful because it's something you can't really
(24:25):
explain or touch. It's just all it's eliminating. It's not
the head. You're not sitting there doing the math on
Oh we've said this bit, and we've said this bit,
and if we've gone to this note, we should get like,
even though those things are so helpful, sometimes just in
the moment, you can just you can just close your
eyes and it's like you're you're looking for a current
(24:46):
in a river and you're like, there it is, and
it starts to pull you along. Bit yes, or get
really excited that I can't keep up with my own brain,
Like you said something earlier. I have to really listen
to this and I like, oh, that's a good song title.
I'm going to call you after we're done with this
and make you write the song with me. But I
(25:06):
do think that the songs that we've written, ironically, it
just happened to always have this very spiritual nature to
them because they're about like fundamental sides of our humanity. Yeah,
except for the one where you go that's one of
(25:30):
the best things. Sometime the world will hear that song
and yeah, it's it's a great it's a great song.
It's very different than praying. I have to say that
that's that's the thing. That's the sort of the downside
to the intensity that I think, at least maybe that's
(25:50):
just the last few years of my life. I've been
so interested in that search. Um, I definitely could have
a little bit more fun in my in my music
and create do whatever feel, do whatever the wind throws
at you. Yeah, I can't do anything else. I've tried.
I tried the l A. You know, when I first
moved to l A, I was writing songs with all
(26:10):
these different people. I tried to like put the coat
on that was like hey by on the club for you,
like for your own music. I can't even imagine this
just to be just to give people what I was like,
this is obviously what you want. And then I realized
(26:31):
I was like, that's not I'm not anywhere near as
good as the guys that do that. So I'm just
going to be there. No, Ben, I think you're just
two honest and like spiritually on a specific quest to
like be talking about popping it at the club unless
(26:51):
you're popping it at the club. I just personally, I
personally experienced you usually were like crying together. We did
poppet at the club once there was okay, we did okay, well,
and so we'll have one puppet at the I love it.
(27:13):
Was the first time I heard your song brother Tongue.
So it's called and it's so beautiful and that have
like speaking in tongues in it. What can you tell
everybody about it? Yeah, it's I mean, it's the songs
about the songs about the space that exists between us.
(27:36):
Like I think of all of life is kind of
filled with longing. And there's two types of longing. There's
like the longing that's like directed up to something beyond us.
And then the longing that's directed horizontally to the like
people around us, and the songs inspired by this idea
that like, you can be so close, you can get
(27:57):
as close as you can to other human beings, and
there's still this space and which to me is a
real spiritual but also very like human reality. Uh. And
I wanted, I mean, the big theme of the record,
of the whole album is is this quest in spirituality,
and I wanted to incorporate stuff that I grew up
(28:21):
understanding as as God and as spirituality, and so praying
in tongues was part of that. Ah. And yeah, So
there's just a moment in that and I don't think
I've ever heard anyone praying tongues on a record before,
but there's this moment where it's like I love it,
people like I love that bit of the mouth percussion
in it, and I'm like, great, Like if it sounds
like beatboxing, then great. And I mean, in this in
(28:42):
a sense it is. But it's also like what I
love about the concept of praying in tongues. And I'll
bring this up purely because I think it has creative implications.
The whole idea of it was that was like one
of the things that arrived at Pentecost, when the Holy
Spirit came upon people. The first thing I did was
praying tongues. And there's all this mythology around whether it's
(29:03):
like good or evil or whatever. What I love about
it is if you want to express yourself using your voice,
we are forced typically to use words which are instantly reductive.
If you say if I feel something for you, and
then I say love, that instantly eliminates all the other
(29:24):
options and brands that feeling. It kind of squeezes that
feeling into a word, which can be very powerful. But
sometimes your heart or your soul wants to like express more,
especially through like the concept of prayer. What I think
is really interesting is like if you want to ask
for something, sometimes it's like I don't even know what
(29:44):
I want to ask for. I don't know what I'm feeling,
that anxiety I'm feeling, And if I say I'm scared,
it's so much more than scared. If I say I'm unhappy,
it's that reduces it to language. So the concept of
praying in tongues like it eliminates the need a meaning,
but it's still produces the reaching out it's still your
(30:06):
voice being engaged trying to grab something. Does that make sense? Yes, no, completely.
I just want to likeational. It's like it's like so
in a music. So there is also then singing in tongues,
which I put on another song, which is it eliminates
the need to pin down lyrics. It's just and it's
(30:27):
different even to improvisation because you're not just like jazz
scatting according to rules. It's you're switching off the brain.
You're walking through the back of your heard just doing
this like reaching for something but still reaching. Does that
It makes perfect sense because I I feel like the
(30:49):
English language that's the one that's the only one I know.
Unfortunately you know a little bit of Spanish, but not
very much. So English can be so anticlimactic, Like when
I tell someone I love them, it's like I want
to squeeze their faces and jump on them and shoot
(31:12):
fucking glitter out of my eyeball holes, and like I
want to cover them in like this golden rainbow light
of goodness and be like, no, no no, you don't understand.
I don't just love you like I want to make
you feel this fucking way that I feel, because it's
so intense, and yeah, it can be reductive exactly, Like
(31:34):
I mean, you learn, we always learn all the time
that there's these German words that are like schadenfreud or
like one of my favorites was, what's the word um?
I'm gonna I can't remember it now, but it literally
means the sadness that exists between wishing the world, wishing
a dreaming of the world as it could be, and
(31:56):
living in the world as it is. Like it's like sadness,
you know, So like there's our language. What's the word
for that? I'm so annoyed that I can't remember this,
but you can. We can just put it up here
on a video. We'll just there. Um. But you know,
(32:18):
like I think, yeah, by nature, language and even to
an extent, music is um. I heard a composer describe this.
It's a little bit axiomatic in that once you draw
the black note on the music line or you say
the word, it eliminates the possibility of all the others.
And I think, and that can be really powerful, but
(32:39):
sometimes as human beings, that's what I love about the
concept of speaking in tongues. Wouldn't why wouldn't we want
to language that's just the sound of language and the
feeling of language, but it's the brain. The brain is
switched off. So it's just so you know, not that
you're going to speak gebers to somebody you love, but
(33:00):
certainly musically. I think that if we can engage with
these sides of our as a human being, these like
tools that we have, it just opens our minds up
to so much creative potential because we're not bound by
the confines of the rules of that we've constructed. You're
(33:21):
so smart and just fun and I love you so
I can jump across the screen and just call you
right now. Oh my gosh. No, it's so smart. And
I loved the music that the world hasn't heard yet,
but they will in May April whenever, whenever you say whenever,
(33:42):
whenever they get the pleasure of hearing is coming into
this year, they're going to get to hear your like.
I feel like it's a masterpiece. It's like as so
exciting working on it for so long, and it's a
just to listen to. You can just feel how much
(34:02):
you care about it and all of the emotion coming through.
It's just I can't use words. You have to listen
to it. Thank you. I'm so excited. It's so weird.
It's weird because we finished the album like over a
year ago, and it's weird sitting with it and you
can't help but go through these cycles of like it's
(34:25):
the best thing I've ever done, and then like this
is so unimportant in the scheme of where the world is,
that everything's unimportant everything. That's what I've realized is just
like everything is the most important. And then like also
nothing matters and nobody cares. So you just find what
(34:47):
brings you that like filled with whatever it is that
we're all craving and I and I feel like sharing
that's also a scary process, Like making it is terrifying
and then sharing it so scary. But then it's like
then you birth it into its existence for public consumption. UM,
(35:10):
I would highly recommend not ever looking at one comment,
but you do what you want because at that point
it's like if you have it's like if you birth
a baby and it's ugly, you're not gonna You're like, no,
that's a beautiful fucking baby. That's a beautiful baby in
the world, and some jackass who has no good taste
(35:33):
could be like your baby's ugly, and you'd be like, uh,
you don't get it, but now I feel bad about myself.
But your baby is like really dope and spiritual and gorgeous,
so you don't have to worry. But thank you, thank you.
So growing up in the church, did you ever see
an exorcism? Like was it? Yeah, you did, but it's
(35:57):
very I mean it's not like the movies, right, Like,
so this is just how I grew up. They're not
They're not like the movies in the sense that there's
no like I don't know if things don't shake in
the road at least as I've experienced, but like, yeah,
I've seen people like I've seen like teenagers, like teenage
(36:21):
girls get like crazy man voices and be like yeah,
I mean this is where that part of my brain is.
Like whether it's a spiritual thing or just some kind
of like psycho somatic human science thing, it happens, so
like you can grapple with kind of what the meaning
(36:44):
of it all is. But I've absolutely seen Yeah, I've
seen people's like eyes roll back and like roll around
the floor and like scream and like I've seen we
used to um because my dad is Indonesian, and like
he grew up spiritual. My dad's not. He doesn't feel
things very spiritually as opposed to like my mom who's
(37:06):
very like very spiritual. But his dad was like a
witch doctor, and he grew up surrounded by this stuff
like Indonesia is such a your dad's dad was a
witch doctor. Yeah, he died. You can't just like you
can't just throw that out there, Well, he died. He
died when my dad was very young, so I didn't
grow up knowing him at all. But I guess I
(37:27):
say that to like for people that grow like for
people like my dad from Asia and from like that
part of the world, spirituality is just a given. There's
not really even a debate around like what is and isn't,
you know, which is an interesting thing when you live
in the West. And I guess that's part of maybe
why I've grown up so spiritual. But yeah, Like so
(37:50):
my dad had all that stuff when he was a
kid um and we used to when we would go
over and visit like my uncle's church in Indonesia, we
would see stuff like that, just like these sweet old
women like come forward and be like I need you
to pray for me, and then as they get prayed
for all of a sudden, they're like, I mean, it's
(38:12):
it's just it's so I can tell you what the
idea of it as as we were taught is, and
then you can grab it with what it really is.
I think of like going to a Slayer show, but
for a grandma. I mean, I guess it's I mean,
(38:33):
it's it's the idea is that there's something tormenting them,
if it's like a demon possession thing. It's so funny.
I remember, I just I loved listening to the Alice
Cooper talk to some of the stuff he was saying.
It was so I just know how he's being like
as a Christian, like how he's being taught. It's just
I was just like just even the way he was like, oh,
(38:55):
we don't even go near Wuiji boards and like it's
just so funny. It's the stuff that I up kind
of being told. Um. But the idea is that these
people are like tormented by like a spirit that just
wants to kind of mess with their head and what
and just torment them. And so when you pray, you're
trying to be like get away from this person. You
(39:15):
have no you know, and then in that process of
trying to extract these evil forces, there's like a manifestation
of stuff. And I've I mean, it's funny manifestation. What
do you mean by a manifest like a physical manifestation, Yeah,
but it's their body responding to something spiritual. So I've
seen like a friend of mine who um, who was
(39:40):
just we're just having a very simple like I wasn't
even part of it, but I remember kind of stopping in.
He was just being prayed for because he was, I guess,
dealing with some stuff and these ministers. He was sitting
in the chair really normal and just like, yeah, I
just need some prayer, and that the process of them
praying for him, his whole body like tensed, and then
he just sort of gets really agitated and like you know,
(40:04):
the breeding sort of and then you know that's when
they're like, who am I talking to right now? And
it'll be like nobody, like if if I was going
to act it out, that's literally what happens. And you
can feel like, wait, you were there for this, Yeah,
I wasn't in this is so I feel so vulnerable
(40:25):
as I tell me, you don't have to tell me anything.
You don't want to do anything you want exactly. I'm
I'm fine. I'm just more like I can just I
feel like you're like Francis is going to be in
the corner thing, Like she's in the corner. I always
doing that thing. She's a mask and so you really
(40:49):
can't tell at all. She's very expressive eyes. Yeah, I've
been in the room. I've been in the room for
these things, and I've um, I mean, this is the
stuff that so when as you get older, between this
stuff and then even the like the amazing spiritual experience
I've had through music and things where even if I'm like, yeah,
(41:11):
you know what, I don't believe if you were to
have that moment as you get older with faith, were
like I think I don't believe in a lot of this.
There are these certain experiences that I look back and
I'm like, even if I don't believe it, I can't
deny that that happened. I can't say that that didn't.
And yeah, I mean some some of the crazy things
(41:33):
that we would just see, Yeah, it's you know what else,
You're you're free to tell me all of the things.
Let me think of other I mean, and exorcism is
kind of that's that's crazy, that's sounds that sounds like
it could be a crazy experience. I personally had one
(41:53):
done to myself, and it was not that I did
because okay, so I by, oh my god. Okay. So
this lady had a cat that was really cute, and
that's why I now have the stupid cats I have
that p on my bed. It started with Mary Alice,
Mary Alice from Nashville. I was like, you have a
(42:16):
demon in me? And I was like, oh no, but
I did used to go like like it's like what
do I do about it? And She's like and so
she like swung a crystal over my stomach and said
(42:39):
a bunch of things and and her cat was there.
And then I was like, okay, my am I good.
And She's like, now I have to do like an
exorcism of like your body in your bed andrew hole house.
So she came and put salt in every doorway, opened
up all the doors, she like lit SAMs sort of
(43:00):
urban went around the whole house, and like I was
fully prepared to be like, okay, I'm going to turn
into like the girl from the movie The extorcystem like
some crazy sh it's about to happen, But really, I
think I fell asleep. My exorcism was really mellow, but
I liked it. To me, it was kind of just
(43:21):
like therapeutic to have some lady like pray over you.
I do think praying for someone is such and this
is like non specific to any religion, just praying for
someone or like sending them positive energy. I think it's
the kindest thing anyone could ever do, to take their
time and their energy to like try to make sure
(43:43):
like you're doing okay. I think it's just so sweet.
It's really kind so for her to just like do that.
Granted I was probably paying her five, but anyways, it
was just like a nice little therapy session, is what
I looked at it. I mean, there's there's a video
(44:06):
that you should go and look up. It's called Firstly.
You can just google exorcisms and you'll see a lot
of this stuff. There are some pretty wacky people out there,
but there's one video that I think is worth looking at.
Um there's an auzzy journalist called John Saffran s A
F R A N. And he did this series. He's
(44:26):
kind of like a Louis Theroux type journalist, was very
like he's a Jewish guy. He's super lovely and like
really amiable as a person. And um, he did a
series where he visited all these different religions and like
participated in there. It's called John Saffran Versus God. And
I think maybe he's agnostic or atheistic. I'm not sure,
(44:49):
but he visited all these different faith traditions, like he
he was crucified in some town and like the Philippines
where they literally like nailed through his hands and stuff.
Super interesting guy. His whole thing was like I'm just
going to go and experience everything. Um. And then the
last one he did was this Christian exorcist in America.
(45:12):
So he then gets an exorcism, ah, and he's he's
a very he's a comedian. So he's very like cynical
and sarcastic and very funny. And the video of his exorcism,
even to this day, apparently he reflects on it like
I don't know what that was because you watch he's
this really he can't talk through the bit of a list,
(45:32):
but you know, I went and visited a Muslim cleric
and like he's that's his whole tone of his experience,
and then you watch him five guys have to hold
him down as he's like like it's wild, and they
cut to they show like his camera crew and stuff,
just being like we don't know what's going like they
(45:54):
kind of break the fourth wall and they're like, we've
never seen John like this. We don't know what's going on.
Hold on, what's that called? So everybody, including myself, can
write this down. John saffran versus God, that's the whole
John Saffran versus God. Oh my god, I'm so oh
my god, I'm so exciting. Oh my god. I think
(46:19):
God is one of those words that has so much
baggage and like ship on top of it that it's
like I don't even know about that word. Like it's
a beautiful word, but at the same time, it's like
I want to make up a different like like how
prince became a symbol. I wish there's just like a
symbol trying to figure out what it would be that
hasn't already been used if you think of anything, but
(46:44):
that's insane And I'm going to watch that and your
because we're like almost out of time. Okay. Rapid Fire
stupid question. Here we go. What is invisible that you
wish people could see? Well, maybe I haven't thought this through,
(47:09):
but something that's invisible that I wish I could see
that bad smells because I have no I have no
sense of smell, so I wish I could. I didn't
know that. I didn't know that. It doesn't often come up. Hey, Kesha,
how are you doing? What if the verse goes by
the way, I can't smell anything. You can't smell anything.
(47:31):
I can. I wonder if what I have with smell
is how people describe like legal blindness. I think I
can kind of make out shapes and forms. I can
often tell that there is a smell happening. But I remember,
like this is when I knew I had a real problem,
when I was having like digestion health stuff. And this
is a great podcast story. Had I had to give
(47:53):
a had to give a stool sample, which um, they
give you like a little thing that you like, you
screw in and you're supposed to scoop out a bit
of pool. And what they told me to do is
poop into an ice cream bucket, get the lid of
the things, scoop it. So I did that, Hey, everyone,
I have so many questions, but go on. And then
(48:15):
so I'm sitting on the toilet. I've got my sample,
I put it to the side, and then I'm holding
this little ice cream container of my poop, and I thought,
this is my one chance to find out if I
can actually smell. There was my life. If it was
like cameras, literally, there would have been a shot of me.
Like to this day, I don't know what a poop
(48:38):
smells like. Oh my God, you're the perfect boyfriend. But
I washed my clothes like after two wears because then
I'm paranoid that you know, I've been told that I
don't smell. But that's something it's happened. It's happened before
someone's after me. Book, you evoked the Holy spirit O God.
(49:15):
This episode is going to be Ben Abraham and I
talked about poop. Oh Jesus. Okay, well, I think that's
a great place to add. So check out Ben Abraham's
music at I just find my instagram Ben Ben Abraham.
Let's just do that. Ben Ben Abraham is good. Hopefully
(49:38):
you'll just hear it. It's really really good. I can't
wait for the world to hear it. Three,
Growing up in the church. Did you ever see an exorcism? Like?
Was it? Yeah? You did. Welcome to Kesha and the
(00:22):
Creepies today. Is one of my best friends and a
very special guest. Ben Abraham, singer, songwriter, artist extraordinaire. I'll
take it whatever the script, as you've got one of
my favorite singers and songwriters, one of my top top favorites.
(00:43):
That's well, that's very cold. You have great taste. So
I received that as high praise. I remember when you
sent me a video not that long ago of you
singing Praying and I was like, damn it, Ben, you
can't sing my song that we wrote together better than me.
(01:07):
I'm about like a four. Nobody sings it better than you.
Just so we're clear, No, not true. It's on my
Instagram if anybody wants to see it. Oh, thank you.
That's very that's very conn I mean that. What an
amazing experience that was. I know. So we met. For
those listening who don't know our backstory, we met because
(01:30):
we wrote Praying together with Ryan Lewis, and that turned
into like probably the most important song of my life
and a very pivotal moment for me. And from what
you've told me it was a cool moment for your
life too. It's just like a yeah, I mean life changing,
(01:50):
life changing, same super life changing for me. And then
you performed at the Grammys with me, which was isn't
that what three years ago? Like last week? Oh my god?
That feels like I've done a lot of dumb, crazy, wild,
(02:11):
insane ship That was definitely, I think the scariest thing
I've ever done in my life. I get that. Yeah,
it's funny that grab I I feel really lucky that
I had that experience, um, because I guess as a musician,
we all there's some part of our brains. Even if
you're like who cares about awards and all that stuff,
there's still some part of your brain that's like, that's
(02:33):
a goal in your career. I feel really lucky that
I was first exposed to it kind of in secret
and in hiding through you, because it really dispelled it
for me, Like it was walking in you have all
these expectations, and I remember there being a moment before
it even started where I was standing. I remember you
were in that dressing room upstairs, and I'd come to
(02:53):
say hi to you, and then I walked out into
your balcony and looked over the the space and I
was like, Oh, it's like it's a show in a
big arena and it's fun. And it's not that it's
not everything. This is not like what all music is about.
It was something kind of I feel lucky that I
was exposed to it then, so that you know, if
(03:14):
I'm ever lucky enough to go back there with my
own work, I feel like I've already gone through the
feeling of it once before. Yeah, like intense kind of
build up. It's like a mythical thing. It's like seeing
the Lockness monster or something. And then once you're like
up there in it, you're like, oh, okay, well it's
(03:38):
just like something like you see it's like it's not
really a monster. It's just like two old dudes with
like a stick in a broom and like, yes, but
we've all agreed that, like it's really important and that's great. Yeah,
people love I believe people love ritual Like yeah, marriage
(04:00):
or baptism or Christmas, whatever it is. We like reasons
to celebrate. I have like this very weird thing where
art isn't a competition, but then but then it is
because there's number one, and then there's number two and
(04:21):
you come at number two and you're bummed it's not
number one instead of being like, holy ship, my song
number two. So it's sod when it gets rank, like
like it's it's the idea of it being a race. Yeah,
it's like competition. You feel this, like how do you compare?
Like some of my favorite musicians in Melbourne, where I'm
(04:43):
from and where I am at the moment, are like
weird ass noise artists who like can stand on a
stage and create these really challenging, crazy noise scapes soundscapes
and they're so inspiring. And then I can take that
and as filter it through my lens and maybe incorporate
some of that noise into a song that might become
(05:05):
a big pop song. How do you say that one
is more important than the other, especially if one kind
of inspired the other thing. And it's crazy that we
live in a world that makes forces us to compete
with each other and like rank. So I'm like a
big fan of not competing anymore. Like I've decided for
(05:25):
better for worse, this could be the end of my career,
but I'm not going to compete with anybody anymore. I
just it's so exhausting. It is so exhausting, so much
energy put into something that isn't even like we created it.
It's not really real. Like I had that same moment
at the Grammy's when you were there, and I just
(05:47):
couldn't stop crying hysterically because I was so nervous, and
I would like look out and Elton John's like walking
down the hallway and I was like, what is life?
This is so weird. And then you just get out
on the stage and you play a song just like
you'd get out on stage and play a song at
like a radio show or any other place like at
(06:09):
the coffee shop, and you realize it's like, wow, it's
like this whole big thing that we constructed to make
a big ordeal about art, and you realize that you
look back, I don't know who won Best. I don't
I don't know if I remember a lot of the awards.
I mean I remember who beat us? Yeah, yeah, we
(06:30):
do edge her in. No. It was weird and it
was scary, and I can't really say it was fun
because I felt like I was going to ship my
pants and I was wearing a white suit and it
was quite a time that we lived through together, and
we did it and we lived it and and it
was it's in immortal moment now. But I didn't realize
(06:53):
that you were raised religious Pentecostal because I was raised
like Catholic school and then like would just go to
like the super churches and I was just trying to
figure out which one fit and like none of the
none of them fit just right. And I was so
mad about it. But I didn't know you had a
religious a bringing to And then now knowing that, when
(07:15):
I listened to your music again, I'm like, oh I
hear that. I hear like that like a little gospel
element or just I hear the church in it. Yeah,
I like that. I had no idea. I mean, faith
is such a especially right now, it's such a hectic
time to to be affiliated with any of that stuff
(07:38):
and to and to even talk about it. There are
so many people get so angry about this subject. And
I feel like I was raised so like my parents
are ministers, they still are ministers, and the Pentecostal yes,
but that also means something so different in Australia to America,
like the Pentecostal church in America as I'm sort of
(08:00):
learning is like snake handlers and like, yeah, it includes
this kind of storm the capitol, bring your guns fundamentalist part. Uh,
that doesn't that doesn't happen in Australia as much. Um
So it's I feel nervous even kind of saying that
I kind of have grown up in that because my
(08:21):
parents are also like really smart, thoughtful, beautiful people who
weren't raised Christians. They both have like radical conversions, and
um so I was, and they're both musicians, so I
was raised in a sort of art infused spirituality. Certainly
music infused spirituality more than the like let's we're at
(08:42):
war with the world and we will conquer. Like it
wasn't that at all. It was like God is real
and big and how can we possibly understand what any
of that means? And music is part of the search.
I love that. And I think that religion is a
scary topic, but Comma Slash and I think that it's
(09:09):
fun to talk about because they It's kind of why
I made the podcast is to just talk about like
what supernatural things or paranormal or just what are the
things that make that challenge your worldview? And for me,
that's been a mostly spiritual thing. So it's kind of
like a little sneaky way to get people to talk
(09:30):
about like why they think we're here, what happens after,
or like you know what I mean. So I think
just having a nice conversation with somebody about the universe,
Why should people get so angry about it? Yeah, well,
I think, yeah, I mean I often wonder if some
of it is typically religious people have detached from the
(09:56):
lived experience part of being a human and have just
invested everything into the ideas of how the world should
be rather than this. I think religion is most interesting
when there's like the ideals of like this is what
it could be, but then it collides with the reality
of this is what it is, and there's this weird
space between those. It's like a tug of war where
(10:17):
it's like, Okay, we're supposed to you know. If God
tells me that I can be happy and I'm not happy,
there's not something wrong with me. It's just I have
to live in the middle of this tug of war
between these ideas, and to me, that's interesting. And I
think that what we're seeing at the moment is this
like rabid fundamentalist, these people that refuse to acknowledge how
(10:39):
life is and they're just like we all need to
live according to the way that this could be and
should be. But it's like the world is falling apart
in front of me, and there's some things that are
just unprecedented. I mean not in history, of course, there's
been pandemics before, but in my lifetime, our lifetime, I've
never seen anything like this. I never knew to expect
it and never new to prepare for it. It It wasn't
(11:00):
really on my radar. I was just trucking along doing
my thing. So to have like a full stop and
be able to take in everything that's going on, yeah,
for me, has been like very life changing, really spiritual,
and I'm seeing that the more open we are with
(11:22):
our humanity and maybe like I know me for sure,
Like TikTok came out when I was twenty one or
twenty two, Like I've done some dumb ship and it's
on camera, and I am aware that it was dumb.
I am sorry, I am embarrassed. I wish it was
(11:42):
not on camera. But that being said, you can also
like I'm a human was a young little idiots. I
think this is like this even ties in a bit
with what we're saying, Like there's there's you're saying this
now with this idea of like what life should be
and reflecting on things that you've done that maybe we're
(12:04):
not in line with what it could be, but that's
part of the human experience, and I think it could
be one of the things that we celebrate. I mean,
obviously I don't want to wait into this too far
because this is a fraud conversation, but I think it's
okay to look back and be like, I did some
really dumb stuff and now I've changed and I've grown,
and it's I'm kind of cool to have documented that.
(12:27):
Why Now, that's the thing you have to be able
to grow and learn from your experiences versus for me,
I just see people getting canceled, and I'm like, but
this is a great opportunity to like grow and change.
I mean, that's more beneficial than having someone live in
shame and guilt for the rest of their life. Like
(12:48):
what about exactly you acknowledge, you understand, you learn, you apologize,
you mean it, and you act different and I see
you learning and growing and trying. That's why it's always
so important for me. It's not like I ever think
I'm going to change anybody else's mind, like even on
this or through my songs. No, I'm not gonna change
(13:09):
anybody's mind. But i'd like to, like, I like to
try to have you see something from a different perspective.
And this is my perspective. So try it on. If
you don't like it, throw in the trash. But I
don't even know what the point of all of this was,
to be honest, I forget what the I'm supposed to
(13:30):
be interviewing you, and I don't remember what the question was.
It was something about the Pentecostal Church. Oh, like, what
does it mean? Because you were saying it's really different
in Australia. So it's just like is here in the
South it's like a little more extreme. So give me
your VERNI okay, I'll give you the This is the
theological um. This is very funny that I'm talking with
Kesh about this. So I love this. We can you
(13:53):
also don't have to you can also, I So just
so you know, I have no problem talking about this
stuff because I and we can get into this. I
really am at a point in my life where I
moved between being like, yeah, I think I believe this
and then being like, actually, nothing is real. The universe
is completely material. When we die, we die, and you know,
so I sort of I'm comfortable moving between us. So basically,
(14:18):
the difference between the Pentecostal Church and say, the more
broad church, beside the kind of branding of Pentecostalism, is
that the story goes that when Jesus came to Earth,
he told all these great stories and kind of started
a community of people that he was like, when I'm gone,
you can keep going. And then he died and then
went to Heaven, came back to life. When to Heaven,
(14:40):
it's the story. And then rather than just going and
starting the community straight away, a whole bunch of people
waited and then like, this is so funny that I'm
gett into this, but it will help you understand the
kind of spirituality culture that I've grown up in. The
concept of Pentecostalism is that they didn't just have the
stories about Jesus to tell, but like, really the spirit
(15:00):
of God came and it says that like there was
like fire among above their heads, and they spoken tongues
and all this kind of stuff. So Pentecostalism is supposed
to be this hyper spiritual version of Christianity, and then
over the centuries it's kind of waxed and wined, and
then you get some churches that have done away with
that stuff altogether, and I're like, we don't believe in
(15:21):
any kind of spiritual element. We just believe in the
like teachings of Jesus, and it's a bit more chill
and just like community focused. So in theory, the Pentecostals
are the ones that are like clapping their hands and
like cut like doing exorcisms and seeing the kind of
crazy stuff. I'm like, really, here for the crazy stuff,
(15:48):
here for all the crazy stuff, Like hey, okay, the
Holy Spirit that feeling as I love that terminology for
it because I don't know about you, but if you've
ever like when I hit that high note when I
(16:09):
we were recording praying and I made everybody leave the room,
I just opened my mouth and that fell out. I
didn't know what she lived in there. I don't know
she existed, And in that moment, I was like, oh, damn,
that wasn't me. That was something or something else. I
absolutely believe. So like again, I stopped me if I
(16:29):
ever get to into this, but it's you know, I
think that some people would say that the holy spirit,
aspect of God is the creative energy, is the kind
of creative part of um of life. I don't know
if you remember. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author who wrote Eat, Pray, Love,
gave a Ted talk years ago. You've told me about this,
(16:50):
I haven't seen it, and she talks about the idea
of um of artists have we we impose the idea
of genius on people, We say they are a genius,
that person is a genius. She said that that's quite
a contemporary idea that actually traditionally the concept was that
a person had a genius, which I think she even
(17:12):
described it. Some people wrote about it as if it
was like almost like um, like a demon that lived
in their house or something that fed them ideas, so
that rather than like you being the source of your genius,
some crazy mathematician just has these ideas implanted into their
brain from an outside source. And she talked about how
that is kind of liberating as artists because it takes
(17:35):
away the responsibility we have to wrestle with ourselves and
pull out ideas and actually instead of reaching in here,
we kind of reach up there looking for the ideas
to drop into us. And she talked about there's this poet.
I mean, people should just go and watch the talk,
but I loved um. When she talked to told the
story of some poet who described the process of writing
(17:58):
a poem. A poem where she was out in the
fields in her house in the country wherever she was,
and she could feel this poem like barreling toward her
over the plane and ran into the house as she
felt this wind of an idea passing through her, like
reached her hand up and grabbed it and pulled it
back to earth, writing the poem, pulled it backwards, grabbed
the tail, pulled it backwards and wrote the poem in reverse.
(18:22):
Because this passed through her, and to me, like, that's
the if there is a holy spirit, that's the function
of that, and that is why every it doesn't happen
all the time. But you would have experienced this, and
you've just said that you have. Sometimes you're performing or
creating or writing and there's such a flow and such
a thing that comes on you that you're like, that
(18:44):
wasn't me, Like it was me, but something like a
wind came through me and it was like a possession.
I feel like when you just told that story, I
have to tell you, I had chills from like the
top of my head, down my neck and down my
legs and arms. And that's I've never said this out
loud to anybody, so let me just tell it to
(19:04):
the whole world. Um, that's my secret for me and
my higher consciousness or whatever you wanna call it. That's
my secret. Tell I'm like, okay, when something is like
really just true, just give me full body chills and
then I'll know it's like for real true. So when
you were saying that I got my I got my
little I grew up being taught. This is why, like
(19:29):
artists are so sensitive as people, because we're vessels were
supposed to be filled with something for it to pour
out of us. That's why we're so susceptible to substance
abuse and different addictions because we have the capacity to
hold so much of that creative energy. I just feel
everything all the time, and I feel like, I mean,
(19:51):
you tell me, but I just feel like I notice
every little tiny thing to the point where it's like
I'm so annoyed with my like it's like, just stop
noticing everything. But I think that's almost like because I
sometimes think I'm being psychic, but I think I'm just
like uber perceptive everything. But I mean that's isn't that
(20:15):
part of That's part of it as well? Like as
as creatives we are, I feel like it's the I
don't know if this has been your experience I find
as an artist, I'm forced into this weird outsider's perspective
on every moment of my life. I think of it like, um,
(20:36):
like if you have a photo, if you take a
like a photo of a party, there's the people in
the photo enjoying the party, but the person that took
the photo had to be outside the moment to capture that.
And I feel like as artists sometimes were kind of
forced to both be at the party and having a
great time, but there's this other part of our brain
that's constantly observing everything. It's like you're saying, it's heightened
(20:59):
awareness all the time. But I think that's the stuff
that's what qualifies us for those moments, For that we
have this space in our brains that when we need
it and when we're called upon to become the vessel.
We just it gets filled with that stuff. And you know,
I mean, I chase those moments in my life, like
(21:19):
you were saying high notes where you're just you get
to the end and it's the best. It's like a
high because you're like, I don't know how that happened.
I don't know what just came over, but that's where
my self confidence comes from. I'm like that one time
six years ago, I opened my mouth and saying that
one note. But like they're just like little tiny moments
(21:44):
like that that happened like not very often for me.
It feels like you're being struck by lightning. I feel
like your genius probably is more active. Mine has been
dormant and depressed lately, but I'm trying to trying to
give her some Remember when you hit the high note, Okay,
we got this, But like it's moments like that that
are like they made me proud to be myself, just
(22:07):
when you impress yourself. And I don't know, it's just
really weird. Like this past year, I just have been
like feeling that like Holy Spirit. I didn't know that
was a Pentecostal thing, but I've been feeling that spirit
come and go more often, but you can't ever, you
can't summon it. It comes to you. It's like a cat.
(22:35):
But like when we're writing, Okay, we are writing in
my backyard, writing, you know, writing songs, and I was
trying to lay the sex. I don't know, what do
you think I've got to say? No, no, no, no no.
Is it just when you're standing on the side of
the pool going like this with your eyes closing into
(22:56):
the trees. It was my favorite thing. That was nothing.
I mean, there was nothing religious going on there. I
just every now, it doesn't happen every time. That was
so we were writing this song and I was so
feeling it and so like I was really connecting with
(23:20):
because I sort of sometimes my approach. Not all songs
are like this, but some songs I feel like we're
finding them. I feel like I'm like so literally this
is what I do. Like I almost feel like the
song exists, and my job is to kind of close
my eyes and eliminate other sources of information and like
feel the song. Right. It's like the it's like the
elephant in the room and or the six blind guys
(23:42):
feeling the elephant and they're kind of trying to get
the shape of it. I sometimes songs come to me
like that, and I was in those moments. I so
we were writing and I was pacing across your backyard,
and I felt I felt like the song was there,
and I remember like singing it and just kind of
(24:03):
feeling it out, finding like is it here, and kind
of know it's not there. There's something. So I was
just lost in this moment. And then I remember kind
of like looking at and you and Drew were like
it was beautiful. As someone that fully knows this, feeling
like it was beautiful because it's something you can't really
(24:25):
explain or touch. It's just all it's eliminating. It's not
the head. You're not sitting there doing the math on
Oh we've said this bit, and we've said this bit,
and if we've gone to this note, we should get like,
even though those things are so helpful, sometimes just in
the moment, you can just you can just close your
eyes and it's like you're you're looking for a current
(24:46):
in a river and you're like, there it is, and
it starts to pull you along. Bit yes, or get
really excited that I can't keep up with my own brain,
Like you said something earlier. I have to really listen
to this and I like, oh, that's a good song title.
I'm going to call you after we're done with this
and make you write the song with me. But I
(25:06):
do think that the songs that we've written, ironically, it
just happened to always have this very spiritual nature to
them because they're about like fundamental sides of our humanity. Yeah,
except for the one where you go that's one of
(25:30):
the best things. Sometime the world will hear that song
and yeah, it's it's a great it's a great song.
It's very different than praying. I have to say that
that's that's the thing. That's the sort of the downside
to the intensity that I think, at least maybe that's
(25:50):
just the last few years of my life. I've been
so interested in that search. Um, I definitely could have
a little bit more fun in my in my music
and create do whatever feel, do whatever the wind throws
at you. Yeah, I can't do anything else. I've tried.
I tried the l A. You know, when I first
moved to l A, I was writing songs with all
(26:10):
these different people. I tried to like put the coat
on that was like hey by on the club for you,
like for your own music. I can't even imagine this
just to be just to give people what I was like,
this is obviously what you want. And then I realized
(26:31):
I was like, that's not I'm not anywhere near as
good as the guys that do that. So I'm just
going to be there. No, Ben, I think you're just
two honest and like spiritually on a specific quest to
like be talking about popping it at the club unless
(26:51):
you're popping it at the club. I just personally, I
personally experienced you usually were like crying together. We did
poppet at the club once there was okay, we did okay, well,
and so we'll have one puppet at the I love it.
(27:13):
Was the first time I heard your song brother Tongue.
So it's called and it's so beautiful and that have
like speaking in tongues in it. What can you tell
everybody about it? Yeah, it's I mean, it's the songs
about the songs about the space that exists between us.
(27:36):
Like I think of all of life is kind of
filled with longing. And there's two types of longing. There's
like the longing that's like directed up to something beyond us.
And then the longing that's directed horizontally to the like
people around us, and the songs inspired by this idea
that like, you can be so close, you can get
(27:57):
as close as you can to other human beings, and
there's still this space and which to me is a
real spiritual but also very like human reality. Uh. And
I wanted, I mean, the big theme of the record,
of the whole album is is this quest in spirituality,
and I wanted to incorporate stuff that I grew up
(28:21):
understanding as as God and as spirituality, and so praying
in tongues was part of that. Ah. And yeah, So
there's just a moment in that and I don't think
I've ever heard anyone praying tongues on a record before,
but there's this moment where it's like I love it,
people like I love that bit of the mouth percussion
in it, and I'm like, great, Like if it sounds
like beatboxing, then great. And I mean, in this in
(28:42):
a sense it is. But it's also like what I
love about the concept of praying in tongues. And I'll
bring this up purely because I think it has creative implications.
The whole idea of it was that was like one
of the things that arrived at Pentecost, when the Holy
Spirit came upon people. The first thing I did was
praying tongues. And there's all this mythology around whether it's
(29:03):
like good or evil or whatever. What I love about
it is if you want to express yourself using your voice,
we are forced typically to use words which are instantly reductive.
If you say if I feel something for you, and
then I say love, that instantly eliminates all the other
(29:24):
options and brands that feeling. It kind of squeezes that
feeling into a word, which can be very powerful. But
sometimes your heart or your soul wants to like express more,
especially through like the concept of prayer. What I think
is really interesting is like if you want to ask
for something, sometimes it's like I don't even know what
(29:44):
I want to ask for. I don't know what I'm feeling,
that anxiety I'm feeling, And if I say I'm scared,
it's so much more than scared. If I say I'm unhappy,
it's that reduces it to language. So the concept of
praying in tongues like it eliminates the need a meaning,
but it's still produces the reaching out it's still your
(30:06):
voice being engaged trying to grab something. Does that make sense? Yes, no, completely.
I just want to likeational. It's like it's like so
in a music. So there is also then singing in tongues,
which I put on another song, which is it eliminates
the need to pin down lyrics. It's just and it's
(30:27):
different even to improvisation because you're not just like jazz
scatting according to rules. It's you're switching off the brain.
You're walking through the back of your heard just doing
this like reaching for something but still reaching. Does that
It makes perfect sense because I I feel like the
(30:49):
English language that's the one that's the only one I know.
Unfortunately you know a little bit of Spanish, but not
very much. So English can be so anticlimactic, Like when
I tell someone I love them, it's like I want
to squeeze their faces and jump on them and shoot
(31:12):
fucking glitter out of my eyeball holes, and like I
want to cover them in like this golden rainbow light
of goodness and be like, no, no no, you don't understand.
I don't just love you like I want to make
you feel this fucking way that I feel, because it's
so intense, and yeah, it can be reductive exactly, Like
(31:34):
I mean, you learn, we always learn all the time
that there's these German words that are like schadenfreud or
like one of my favorites was, what's the word um?
I'm gonna I can't remember it now, but it literally
means the sadness that exists between wishing the world, wishing
a dreaming of the world as it could be, and
(31:56):
living in the world as it is. Like it's like sadness,
you know, So like there's our language. What's the word
for that? I'm so annoyed that I can't remember this,
but you can. We can just put it up here
on a video. We'll just there. Um. But you know,
(32:18):
like I think, yeah, by nature, language and even to
an extent, music is um. I heard a composer describe this.
It's a little bit axiomatic in that once you draw
the black note on the music line or you say
the word, it eliminates the possibility of all the others.
And I think, and that can be really powerful, but
(32:39):
sometimes as human beings, that's what I love about the
concept of speaking in tongues. Wouldn't why wouldn't we want
to language that's just the sound of language and the
feeling of language, but it's the brain. The brain is
switched off. So it's just so you know, not that
you're going to speak gebers to somebody you love, but
(33:00):
certainly musically. I think that if we can engage with
these sides of our as a human being, these like
tools that we have, it just opens our minds up
to so much creative potential because we're not bound by
the confines of the rules of that we've constructed. You're
(33:21):
so smart and just fun and I love you so
I can jump across the screen and just call you
right now. Oh my gosh. No, it's so smart. And
I loved the music that the world hasn't heard yet,
but they will in May April whenever, whenever you say whenever,
(33:42):
whenever they get the pleasure of hearing is coming into
this year, they're going to get to hear your like.
I feel like it's a masterpiece. It's like as so
exciting working on it for so long, and it's a
just to listen to. You can just feel how much
(34:02):
you care about it and all of the emotion coming through.
It's just I can't use words. You have to listen
to it. Thank you. I'm so excited. It's so weird.
It's weird because we finished the album like over a
year ago, and it's weird sitting with it and you
can't help but go through these cycles of like it's
(34:25):
the best thing I've ever done, and then like this
is so unimportant in the scheme of where the world is,
that everything's unimportant everything. That's what I've realized is just
like everything is the most important. And then like also
nothing matters and nobody cares. So you just find what
(34:47):
brings you that like filled with whatever it is that
we're all craving and I and I feel like sharing
that's also a scary process, Like making it is terrifying
and then sharing it so scary. But then it's like
then you birth it into its existence for public consumption. UM,
(35:10):
I would highly recommend not ever looking at one comment,
but you do what you want because at that point
it's like if you have it's like if you birth
a baby and it's ugly, you're not gonna You're like, no,
that's a beautiful fucking baby. That's a beautiful baby in
the world, and some jackass who has no good taste
(35:33):
could be like your baby's ugly, and you'd be like, uh,
you don't get it, but now I feel bad about myself.
But your baby is like really dope and spiritual and gorgeous,
so you don't have to worry. But thank you, thank you.
So growing up in the church, did you ever see
an exorcism? Like was it? Yeah, you did, but it's
(35:57):
very I mean it's not like the movies, right, Like,
so this is just how I grew up. They're not
They're not like the movies in the sense that there's
no like I don't know if things don't shake in
the road at least as I've experienced, but like, yeah,
I've seen people like I've seen like teenagers, like teenage
(36:21):
girls get like crazy man voices and be like yeah,
I mean this is where that part of my brain is.
Like whether it's a spiritual thing or just some kind
of like psycho somatic human science thing, it happens, so
like you can grapple with kind of what the meaning
(36:44):
of it all is. But I've absolutely seen Yeah, I've
seen people's like eyes roll back and like roll around
the floor and like scream and like I've seen we
used to um because my dad is Indonesian, and like
he grew up spiritual. My dad's not. He doesn't feel
things very spiritually as opposed to like my mom who's
(37:06):
very like very spiritual. But his dad was like a
witch doctor, and he grew up surrounded by this stuff
like Indonesia is such a your dad's dad was a
witch doctor. Yeah, he died. You can't just like you
can't just throw that out there, Well, he died. He
died when my dad was very young, so I didn't
grow up knowing him at all. But I guess I
(37:27):
say that to like for people that grow like for
people like my dad from Asia and from like that
part of the world, spirituality is just a given. There's
not really even a debate around like what is and isn't,
you know, which is an interesting thing when you live
in the West. And I guess that's part of maybe
why I've grown up so spiritual. But yeah, Like so
(37:50):
my dad had all that stuff when he was a
kid um and we used to when we would go
over and visit like my uncle's church in Indonesia, we
would see stuff like that, just like these sweet old
women like come forward and be like I need you
to pray for me, and then as they get prayed
for all of a sudden, they're like, I mean, it's
(38:12):
it's just it's so I can tell you what the
idea of it as as we were taught is, and
then you can grab it with what it really is.
I think of like going to a Slayer show, but
for a grandma. I mean, I guess it's I mean,
(38:33):
it's it's the idea is that there's something tormenting them,
if it's like a demon possession thing. It's so funny.
I remember, I just I loved listening to the Alice
Cooper talk to some of the stuff he was saying.
It was so I just know how he's being like
as a Christian, like how he's being taught. It's just
I was just like just even the way he was like, oh,
(38:55):
we don't even go near Wuiji boards and like it's
just so funny. It's the stuff that I up kind
of being told. Um. But the idea is that these
people are like tormented by like a spirit that just
wants to kind of mess with their head and what
and just torment them. And so when you pray, you're
trying to be like get away from this person. You
(39:15):
have no you know, and then in that process of
trying to extract these evil forces, there's like a manifestation
of stuff. And I've I mean, it's funny manifestation. What
do you mean by a manifest like a physical manifestation, Yeah,
but it's their body responding to something spiritual. So I've
seen like a friend of mine who um, who was
(39:40):
just we're just having a very simple like I wasn't
even part of it, but I remember kind of stopping in.
He was just being prayed for because he was, I guess,
dealing with some stuff and these ministers. He was sitting
in the chair really normal and just like, yeah, I
just need some prayer, and that the process of them
praying for him, his whole body like tensed, and then
he just sort of gets really agitated and like you know,
(40:04):
the breeding sort of and then you know that's when
they're like, who am I talking to right now? And
it'll be like nobody, like if if I was going
to act it out, that's literally what happens. And you
can feel like, wait, you were there for this, Yeah,
I wasn't in this is so I feel so vulnerable
(40:25):
as I tell me, you don't have to tell me anything.
You don't want to do anything you want exactly. I'm
I'm fine. I'm just more like I can just I
feel like you're like Francis is going to be in
the corner thing, Like she's in the corner. I always
doing that thing. She's a mask and so you really
(40:49):
can't tell at all. She's very expressive eyes. Yeah, I've
been in the room. I've been in the room for
these things, and I've um, I mean, this is the
stuff that so when as you get older, between this
stuff and then even the like the amazing spiritual experience
I've had through music and things where even if I'm like, yeah,
(41:11):
you know what, I don't believe if you were to
have that moment as you get older with faith, were
like I think I don't believe in a lot of this.
There are these certain experiences that I look back and
I'm like, even if I don't believe it, I can't
deny that that happened. I can't say that that didn't.
And yeah, I mean some some of the crazy things
(41:33):
that we would just see, Yeah, it's you know what else,
You're you're free to tell me all of the things.
Let me think of other I mean, and exorcism is
kind of that's that's crazy, that's sounds that sounds like
it could be a crazy experience. I personally had one
(41:53):
done to myself, and it was not that I did
because okay, so I by, oh my god. Okay. So
this lady had a cat that was really cute, and
that's why I now have the stupid cats I have
that p on my bed. It started with Mary Alice,
Mary Alice from Nashville. I was like, you have a
(42:16):
demon in me? And I was like, oh no, but
I did used to go like like it's like what
do I do about it? And She's like and so
she like swung a crystal over my stomach and said
(42:39):
a bunch of things and and her cat was there.
And then I was like, okay, my am I good.
And She's like, now I have to do like an
exorcism of like your body in your bed andrew hole house.
So she came and put salt in every doorway, opened
up all the doors, she like lit SAMs sort of
(43:00):
urban went around the whole house, and like I was
fully prepared to be like, okay, I'm going to turn
into like the girl from the movie The extorcystem like
some crazy sh it's about to happen, But really, I
think I fell asleep. My exorcism was really mellow, but
I liked it. To me, it was kind of just
(43:21):
like therapeutic to have some lady like pray over you.
I do think praying for someone is such and this
is like non specific to any religion, just praying for
someone or like sending them positive energy. I think it's
the kindest thing anyone could ever do, to take their
time and their energy to like try to make sure
(43:43):
like you're doing okay. I think it's just so sweet.
It's really kind so for her to just like do that.
Granted I was probably paying her five, but anyways, it
was just like a nice little therapy session, is what
I looked at it. I mean, there's there's a video
(44:06):
that you should go and look up. It's called Firstly.
You can just google exorcisms and you'll see a lot
of this stuff. There are some pretty wacky people out there,
but there's one video that I think is worth looking at.
Um there's an auzzy journalist called John Saffran s A
F R A N. And he did this series. He's
(44:26):
kind of like a Louis Theroux type journalist, was very
like he's a Jewish guy. He's super lovely and like
really amiable as a person. And um, he did a
series where he visited all these different religions and like
participated in there. It's called John Saffran Versus God. And
I think maybe he's agnostic or atheistic. I'm not sure,
(44:49):
but he visited all these different faith traditions, like he
he was crucified in some town and like the Philippines
where they literally like nailed through his hands and stuff.
Super interesting guy. His whole thing was like I'm just
going to go and experience everything. Um. And then the
last one he did was this Christian exorcist in America.
(45:12):
So he then gets an exorcism, ah, and he's he's
a very he's a comedian. So he's very like cynical
and sarcastic and very funny. And the video of his exorcism,
even to this day, apparently he reflects on it like
I don't know what that was because you watch he's
this really he can't talk through the bit of a list,
(45:32):
but you know, I went and visited a Muslim cleric
and like he's that's his whole tone of his experience,
and then you watch him five guys have to hold
him down as he's like like it's wild, and they
cut to they show like his camera crew and stuff,
just being like we don't know what's going like they
(45:54):
kind of break the fourth wall and they're like, we've
never seen John like this. We don't know what's going on.
Hold on, what's that called? So everybody, including myself, can
write this down. John saffran versus God, that's the whole
John Saffran versus God. Oh my god, I'm so oh
my god, I'm so exciting. Oh my god. I think
(46:19):
God is one of those words that has so much
baggage and like ship on top of it that it's
like I don't even know about that word. Like it's
a beautiful word, but at the same time, it's like
I want to make up a different like like how
prince became a symbol. I wish there's just like a
symbol trying to figure out what it would be that
hasn't already been used if you think of anything, but
(46:44):
that's insane And I'm going to watch that and your
because we're like almost out of time. Okay. Rapid Fire
stupid question. Here we go. What is invisible that you
wish people could see? Well, maybe I haven't thought this through,
(47:09):
but something that's invisible that I wish I could see
that bad smells because I have no I have no
sense of smell, so I wish I could. I didn't
know that. I didn't know that. It doesn't often come up. Hey, Kesha,
how are you doing? What if the verse goes by
the way, I can't smell anything. You can't smell anything.
(47:31):
I can. I wonder if what I have with smell
is how people describe like legal blindness. I think I
can kind of make out shapes and forms. I can
often tell that there is a smell happening. But I remember,
like this is when I knew I had a real problem,
when I was having like digestion health stuff. And this
is a great podcast story. Had I had to give
(47:53):
a had to give a stool sample, which um, they
give you like a little thing that you like, you
screw in and you're supposed to scoop out a bit
of pool. And what they told me to do is
poop into an ice cream bucket, get the lid of
the things, scoop it. So I did that, Hey, everyone,
I have so many questions, but go on. And then
(48:15):
so I'm sitting on the toilet. I've got my sample,
I put it to the side, and then I'm holding
this little ice cream container of my poop, and I thought,
this is my one chance to find out if I
can actually smell. There was my life. If it was
like cameras, literally, there would have been a shot of me.
Like to this day, I don't know what a poop
(48:38):
smells like. Oh my God, you're the perfect boyfriend. But
I washed my clothes like after two wears because then
I'm paranoid that you know, I've been told that I
don't smell. But that's something it's happened. It's happened before
someone's after me. Book, you evoked the Holy spirit O God.
(49:15):
This episode is going to be Ben Abraham and I
talked about poop. Oh Jesus. Okay, well, I think that's
a great place to add. So check out Ben Abraham's
music at I just find my instagram Ben Ben Abraham.
Let's just do that. Ben Ben Abraham is good. Hopefully
(49:38):
you'll just hear it. It's really really good. I can't
wait for the world to hear it. Three,
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