March 13, 2025 • 34 mins
Jewel–with just that name, you know exactly who she is. With over 30 million albums sold worldwide, four Grammy nominations, and an American Music Award she has all the accomplishments of stardom, but didn’t get there the traditional way. She spent her childhood in Alaska performing in bars with her dad and left home at 15, struggling with homelessness as a young adult. It was performing at a coffee shop that led to a bidding war between four major labels and eventually a hit record. Yet the most surprising part of her career was when, at the peak of her fame, she stepped away from it all. Jewel recounts her journey navigating what she’s learned about mental health, the ebbs and flows of fame, and why she turned down a million dollar advance. Listen in for an insightful conversation about creativity, inspiration, and the importance of living a life in service of others.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I knew I wanted to make a folk album at
the height of grunge, and I knew that the opposite
exceeding were really slim, and it failed spectacularly for several years,
to the point where I started to go in and
make a second album and give up on the first.
But luckily Bob Dylan wanted to tour with me, and
he mentored me on tour and just told me to
keep going and gave me the courage to keep going,
(00:30):
and eventually that album went on to be the best
selling album of all time.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hi. I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to Math and Magic.
On this episode, we're going to explore creativity their music, art, poetry, philanthropy, activism,
and sometimes just for the soul. Our guest does all
of that and has lived her life not the life
others want her to live. She's one of those few
one name people. Jewel Jewel was worn in Utah, grew
(00:59):
up in a last performed as a kid, learned to
Yoda at an early age, spent some time in Hawaii
and down in San Diego. She had a huge early
success as a singer songwriter, but did not follow the
usual trajectory of stardom. She built her own philosophy for
her life and has expressed it through all she has created.
(01:20):
Probably most important, she has an impressive life of service
to others, Yes, to her son and family, but also
to those most in need. In other words, she's an
impressive human in all ways, and a super nice person.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Welcome, jewel shame, Thank you with kind introduction.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, we are going to dig into some meaty topics,
but first I want to do you in sixty seconds.
Do you prefer cats or dogs?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Both?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Early riser or night out?
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Early raisin, West Coast or East coast, the middle of
the country.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Coffee or tea, tea, Yoda, ling or singing?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Same thing?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Books are movies? Cook or eat out?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Eat out?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Comedy or drama, comedy, call or text? Text, Bear lard
biscuits or French fries.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Bear lard biscuits every.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Day all the childhood hero.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Hmmm, a nice name.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Most important bit of advice you ever heard? Hardwood grows slowly.
Favorite place to visit, Venice, Italy.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Secret talent, I can move my under eyelids. That's a
good one.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
What did you want to be when you were growing up,
someone helpful.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Great.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Okay, let's jump in. As I was digging through all
the research on you, I was searching for what unifies
it all the people I've ever had on this podcast.
You definitely have the most diverse set of life experiences.
Come from Alaska settlers at your background, child performer with
your family. You've been homeless. You spent a year in
(02:58):
high school in Hawaii with an. You've had super success
at an early age that you gave it up for
a few years to take a breather. You were smart
enough at a young age to figure out not to
take a big money advance for your record company. You've
witnessed abuse and betrayal from those who love, yet it
has never turned you dark. You've been in alternative music,
pop music, country music, all with huge successes. You've won
(03:22):
countless awards, performed at all the major sporting events, have
sold over thirty million albums. By the way, you even
won the Mask Singer. You're an author, You're an activist,
You're an artist. You had a highly acclaimed exhibit at
Crystal Bridges built around your view of three planes. So
maybe we start with three planes is that what unifies
(03:43):
your life and doesn't help us understand who you are.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
I think the thing.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That unifies all of the really varied experiences have had
in my life is my desire to understand pain and
what do we do with it? And it set me
off on a really epic life's adventure to see if
happiness was a learnable skill and a teachable skill, to
try and make it the number one most important thing
in my life. For me, the Three Planes and my
(04:11):
exhibit at Crystal Bridges was about trying to unify my
life's work. I'm known as a musician, I'm also known
by quite a few as a mental health advocate, and
then a lot of people don't realize I'm a visual artist,
and so I've done all of these things separately, sort
of in silos in my life, and for me, the
Crystal Bridges exhibit was a way to unify all of
(04:31):
those things together into one experience that brought music, visual art,
and behavioral health together. It is based on the philosophy
of mine that I believe we each travel through three
realms of reality every day, often without realizing it. We
have our in our life, which are our thoughts and feelings.
We have the scene life, which is our jobs and
finances and families in the physical world, and then we
(04:53):
have our unseen life. Whatever helps us feel inspired and
in all that might be a specific theological perspective for people.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
For others, it just might be this.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You know, when they see James Webb telescope images, they
feel inspired. And so I think that mental health is
a side effect of learning how to navigate these three
spheres with alignment. For instance, if I can introspect and
understand what I think and feel, that's really critical. If
I can then articulate that to my boss or my
(05:25):
partner and they can hear me and we can enact
physical changes based on that, that feels really good. Or
if I feel like I know why I'm put on
the planet and that also is my job, that makes
us feel really good.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And the adverse is true.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
You know, if I cannot articulate my feelings, or if
I won't you know, tell my friends and family who
I authentically am or feel accepted for it, it makes
us deeply unhappy because these conflicts really breed in happiness
in our lives. And so that was the impetus for
me to do the Crystal Bridge as an event. Also
(06:00):
just because I get restless if I'm not growing and
learning and pushing myself, and so wanted to expand into
visual art and pushing myself in any way.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I want to spend a second and get into creativity.
You're right, You're known for many things, but probably best
known as singer songwriter. So let's talk a minute about songwriting.
Where does the song come from, how do you develop it?
And do you have any idea which ones will be
popular or do you care?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I developed my writing practice as it means for again
going back to pain. You know, I grew up bar singing,
and so I had a front row seat to what
I realized was people in a lot of pain. I
was in a lot of pain because my mom had left.
My dad took over raising us, but had become an
alcoholic and abusive. And I realized, you know, by observing
(06:51):
people in these bars, that everybody was trying to understand
what to do with pain, and some people use drugs, alcohol, sex,
violent relationships, and it made me wonder what am I
going to do? And nobody out runs pain, and the buffalo,
I learned, is the only animal that goes into the
heart of a storm, because the quickest way is through,
(07:12):
and so I had to ask myself, what is the
quickest way through if you can't outrun something painful? And
for me, I realized that my journaling, you know, I
was writing from a young age, was bringing me into
the heart of the pain, and that actually alleviated the pain.
And so I did it as a survival mechanism because
(07:32):
it helped me relieve that pressure just enough that I
could cope. And that led later, you know, when I
was sixteen to beginning to write songs. But it wasn't
to have a career. I just started writing songs because
I was going to school in Michigan.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I was already on my own.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I moved out at fifteen, and I couldn't afford to
get home to Alaska for spring break, and so I
thought I would hitchhike across the country and I would
afford it by street singing. And so that's how I
learned my first four chords. It was a minor CG
and D. I couldn't go out of order because I
didn't know how, and I thought I would just improvise
lyrics about people as they walked by, and so That's
(08:11):
how I came up with the first lyrics to my
first song, which was you know, people living their lives
for you on TV, they say they're better than you,
and you agree. It was really me just observing pop
culture and America. Yes, Alaska is part of America, but
it's very different. And so by the end of that
two week trip, not only did I survive and not
(08:31):
get murdered, but I ended up with a song and
I was just absolutely smitten. It made me feel powerful,
not because you know, I thought I was kind of
a career. It just made me feel empowered. It was
a real joy, and joy was a scarce commodity in
my life, and I really enjoyed it. But to answer
your question, I don't typically sit down with a purpose
(08:53):
or a name or a title unless I'm in a
co writing session, in which case I will come in with,
you know, preconceived coms. But typically I like not having
that preconceived notion.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Has the process changed for you over time?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, becoming a mom significantly impacted my free time where
there wasn't just that luxury of sitting around and an
idea coming to you and you work on it till
three am. I learned that I had to be a
lot more scheduled if I was going to write.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So how does that create a process differ from visual
arts and writing that you also do.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
The thing that I find similar about all of the
different mediums is that it starts with this sort of
nebulous feeling. I write from a feeling or an urge.
It's usually nameless and indescript, but it's intense in my body.
And then I start to investigate it, and sometimes that
feeling wants to come out as a poem and it
(09:50):
just never will be a song.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It just is a poem. O.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
There are times, you know, songs have a very specific
structure and pedameter and rhyme scheme. Visual art, I think
is the original language. You know, form and symbolism is
what we had before we have the written word. And
so it's all storytelling, and it's all communicating a story
(10:13):
and trying to find the most elegant and refined, simple
version of that idea or feeling to communicate that story
clearly to people, no matter what medium you're doing.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So let's talk about integrity, honesty, and candor. You're known
for telling people truths. You tell it in your songs,
but personally, you're also known for being a straight ahead,
very honest person with people, even when it's hard for
them to hear. Where does that clarity of vision encourage
to say it come from?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Some of the worst pain I've been in my life
has been when I was guarded and not transparent, and
I learned that it's a lot less painful to be
vulnerable and to be honest because it allows for connection.
When I was homeless, I was really suffering from loneliness,
and I realized in a way that I deserved it
(11:07):
because nobody knew me. I hid because safety was in hiding.
You know, you don't move out at fifteen, and it's
not safe. But I realized that the strategy I developed
to be safe, which was kind of hiding not being truthful,
was causing me to pay a really huge price. And
so I took a big risk while I was homeless,
(11:28):
and I started singing in a coffee shop and I
decided to tell the truth. And amazingly, people didn't shun
me or turn me away. They cried and I cried,
and it was like this five hour show for two
people in a coffee shop when I was homeless, But
It was so rewarding because I actually felt connection. And
(11:50):
the truth is we all have the exact same feelings.
We all experienced betrayal and hurt and jealousy, and you know,
great feelings and less than great feelings, and might as
well talk about it because it leaves a tremendous burden.
And that ended up serving me really well as a
famous person, because you know you're going to be put
on a pedestal, which is nobody deserves to be on
(12:12):
a pedestal.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Nobody's perfect.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And I found that by knocking myself off the pedestal
gave me a lot of safety, and it gave me
permission to grow, which is really critical for somebody that's
nineteen years old to getting in an industry. You can't
take a stance as if that stance is never going
to change.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
You have to be.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Able to make room for yourself to think, to adjust,
and thanks to the Internet, I was able to do
that directly with people and not just to be interpreted
through a journalist or something.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
We're getting into some interesting topics about your background, so
let's go back in time to get your context. You
were born in Utah, then went to your family's roots
in Alaska where you grew up. By the way, both
sides of your family had roots there. Can you give
us a little taste of that family history and a
little bit about what Alaska felt like. You said, Yeah,
(13:02):
Alaska's part of the United States, but it's pretty different.
Can you tell us what that was at that moment
and how it felt.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
My family were pioneers in Alaska. I think the difficult
thing about healing and why maybe some of us don't
want to look at our childhoods is because we think
it has to either be all good or all bad.
My family is really brilliant and has so much good,
but like any fruit, there's bitter seeds with the sweet.
(13:31):
My family that had so much charisma and incredible things. Also,
there was a really you know, abusive aspect in the family,
and my dad's childhood was so violent. Then when he
went to Vietnam, it was relaxing. It was the first
time he relaxed as a nineteen year old, and he
picked up, of course, some more trauma there and went
back to Marriot High School. Sweetheart, when my mom left,
(13:53):
you know, he started to what today we would call
trauma triggering. He took us back to the homestead where
I was raised. It was an incredible way to be raised.
The land in Alaska is just so pristine and divine.
I always was aware I was in the presence of
something great and bigger than me, and it was very healing,
which really helped me.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Through a pretty hard childhood.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
But that pioneer mentality being raised around, you know, there
were no gender roles how I was raised. Women shoed
horses and cut logs and build houses and my dad cooked,
and it was just I was always taught that I
was capable and that I was expected to figure it
out whether I was capable or not, and that ended
up giving me a lot of, you know, confidence in
(14:38):
how I approached my life, and it's probably why I
had the confidence to move out at fifteen of.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Like, I'll figure this out.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I'd rather fight for myself and believe in myself than
be in a position that I think is hurting me,
and so I'd rather try to do better here.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Your parents were performers. You mentioned that, and you started
performing with them. I think it about it age six.
Your parents split up and you kept forming their dad
you mentioned in sort of front row seat and bars
and Honky talks. Can you paint that picture for us
and tell us how that shaped you as a performer
and an artist.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, my parents had a dinner show in the nicest
hotel in Anchorage, Alaska when I was young, So I
learned to yodel and started performing with them when I
was about age five. And then when my parents got divorced,
my dad and I became a duet and we started
singing more in like Honky Tonks and lumberjack joints and
fishermen haunts, biker bars. Definitely an education, you know. My
(15:38):
dad was really brilliant. We would do five hour sets,
never would do a set list, did a mix of
covers and originals, very good at reading a crowd, very personable.
Taught me to be very professional and to work hard,
and we practiced and rehearsed long hours. Obviously, it was
a pretty vulnerable environment to be in, and I learned
to trust my instincts because I had too, Like I
(16:01):
really had to learn how to look out for myself,
to never confuse a man's attention for my value. Because
I got to see before I was of age what
other women were going through, and in a lot of ways,
it made me a much better person, and it really
equipped me very well for the music industry because I
(16:22):
had a really clear understanding of what I would and
wouldn't do and what my actual value was, which I
insisted wasn't about my sexuality or sex appeal. I thought
I should be taken seriously from my mind, and I
was willing to walk away from any situation that didn't
do that, and paid a big price multiple times, but
(16:43):
not the biggest price, which is compromising your own character.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You spent a lot of time living without electricity. I
assume you were under exposed to radio, TV, even pre
recording music. What do you think the impact of that
was on your brain and who you became. I mean,
it's such a hot topic today about what phones and
social and internet are doing to the kids. What's your
view on it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It was really a great way to be raised. It
forced you to be creative. Every human is creative. You know,
play isn't creative. We're inventing play, and there's actually a
lot of science about what you know. It's called open
ended play. And when you have to turn a stick
into a plane or a bridge or a train, that
(17:28):
creativity creates neural synapses that don't get formed any other way.
And so the more we have simple toys that cause
us to employ our imagination. We've learned scientifically, you know
that the more open time we have for kids to
be bored, it's better for our brain development. And I
(17:49):
just happened to have been raised in a way that
allowed those things. I think that being creative takes time
to be alone with your thoughts, and that's definitely a
scarce commodity.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Now you've lived without much yet you spent the last
two years of high school in an elite private arts
school in northern Michigan. What did you learn about your
craft there? I think this is the first time you
had sort of formal training in your craft. And what
did you learn about the world. I mean, this had
to be a whole new mix for you, not quite
you know, Harry Potter going off to school, but had
(18:22):
to be a pretty dramatic change from what you had
been living.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
It was definitely culture shock. You know.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I had enough money to make it to Detroit, and
then I hitchhiked from Detroit up to Traverse City, where
my school is, and you know, I showed up in
a biker jacket with a large skinning knife on my belt,
and you know is it frowned on and the finest
establishment I found out.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
I was already paying rent. I was already on my own.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I didn't have a lot in common with a lot
of the kids, and certainly just the culture shock of
the poverty that I came from and the wealth of
other people. But realizing that I was a big fish
in a small pond, and you come to a place
like that where everybody is talented, it really causes you
to level up, which is great, and I loved that.
(19:05):
And I had access to some of the best teachers
in the world, and so I didn't think I would
get a scholarship to come back my senior year, and
so I just set about doing everything I could to
take advantage of the situation that I was in and
take as many classes as I could. It was incredible.
I learned so much, part of which was vocal training,
which was hard for me because I don't read music.
(19:27):
Everybody there was classically trained. I was a bar singer,
but it taught me how to use my falsetto and
there's still things I learned to this day that I
learned from that teacher. And she also was kind enough
to not force me into a mold. She recognized I
was different, I was coming from a different place, and
she even let me skip a lot of my voice
lessons so that I could take sculpture in other classes.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
More a math than magic. Right after this quick break,
welcome back to math and magic. Let's hear more from
my conversation with Ju. So let's talk about your big
break story. Like many of us, you're not a college graduate.
You went on another path. He had a couple of
(20:10):
big setbacks, and you know I mentioned if you were
in San Diego, fire because you wouldn't post for a
calendar the owner wanted to make. Then you got fire
because you refused a proposition from your boss, and the
price you paid was actually to be homeless. You lived
in your car, then your car was stolen and you
were crashing on the beach or in a friend's couch.
As you mentioned, you sort of went into the coffee
(20:31):
houses at that point, I honestly can't imagine that trauma.
Yet somehow, at age nineteen, you've got offers from four
major record labels and you signed with one, and it
all begins. So tell us the story of how you
made that job to these four companies interested in you,
and you deciding which one you're going to do to
(20:53):
build your career.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Being homeless is a really scary and vicious poverty that
was surprisingly hard to get out of. You know, I
thought I'd just get a new job and save up money,
and it just wasn't like that. It's an awful, vicious cycle.
I was shoplifting a lot of time. I had, you know,
panic attacks, agoraphobia, and I realized that I would end
(21:16):
up in jail or debt if I didn't do something
about it. And I was trying to steal a dress
in a dressing room and just realized I was the statistic.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
And I remember this.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I think it was a stoic quote that said, happiness
doesn't depend on who you are, what you have, It
depends on what you think. And so I wanted to
see if I could double down on that and really
change my life when thought at a time, because it's
all I had. If you can create a space so
that when you're you know, today, what you would call triggered,
instead of having a knee jerk reaction, you can form
(21:46):
a more thoughtful response that actually put me in a
very powerful position, because between thinking and action, you can
change your life. And I knew it. I knew that's
what I stumbled on. So I really doubled down on that.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
The first thing I tried to work on was my
stealingks that would end me up in jail, and so
to stop stealing, I tried to replace it with writing.
I was a really prolific thief. That caused me to
become a very prolific writer, and so I wrote songs
about what I was dealing with. Started singing in a
coffee shop every Thursday. I went from two people to four,
to twelve to sixteen. I wasn't trying to get discovered.
(22:25):
I was just trying to figure my life out. Is
trying to get rent. But after I don't know, six
months or eight months or something like that, Nancy, who
ran the coffee shop, was like, Julie're not going to
believe it, but Sony Records is coming tonight. I was
like what, And I knew nothing. You know, I did
five hour shows. I wouldn't let people use the restroom
until one in our messium in the middle. These poor
(22:46):
executives that came were you know, ridiculed for trying to
stand up in the middle of a song. And then
more labels came, and more labels came, many, many labels came,
and ultimately there was a bidding war, and I was
offered a million dollars signing bonus coming from a ranch.
You know, on horse Traders, nobody gives you something for free,
and so I wanted to know what the catch was,
(23:08):
and so I went to the library where there was
Don Pass what's his name, Pasma, Yeah, thanks, called everything
you need to know about the music business, and so
it just taught me how contracts work, how advances were.
That the million dollars was indeed in advance, and I
calculated how many albums I'd need to sell to pay
back that advance, and not to mention the fact that
(23:30):
it also have more in crude debt, because I would be,
you know, having promotional expenses, and I realized that that
would basically put a big bounty on my head. And
I didn't want a million dollars. I wanted a career.
I wanted a way to figure out how to do
something that I loved for the rest of my life.
And I was being given a really unusual opportunity to
(23:50):
have a shot at it, but I didn't think taking
the advance would actually put me in the best position.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
For what my real goal was.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I was also really scared because you don't take kids
like me with my emotional background and make them famous.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
I think that's going to work out well.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Every movie about people like me ends with death and addiction,
and I knew I was a very prime candidate for that,
and that what I was being offered was actually something
very dangerous dressed in the clothing of something very alluring.
And so I had to have a real plan, and
so I decided to make a promise to myself that
(24:29):
my number one job was to learn about happiness, and
that meant I had to have auditible metrics around it
that I would check in with myself. And then my
number two job was to be a musician, and that
under that, I wanted to be an artist more than
I wanted to be famous, and armed with that, I
had a hierarchical way to make decisions, and so that's
(24:52):
why I turned down the advance. I did negotiate the
biggest back end I think anybody had ever been awarded
up to that point, stured the deal with the help
of my lawyer to actually have you know, triggers for
every I think it was five hundred thousand or million
albums sold, I would actually gain a point on the
back end, and I just de risked everything on the
(25:13):
front end, so I was not at risk to a
label because I knew I wanted to make a folk
album at the height of grunge, and I knew that
the opposite that succeeding were really slim, and so that's
how I negotiated the deal. And it looked like it
was probably a mistake for quite a long time.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I made a folk album with Milli Young's producer at
his ranch, and it failed spectacularly for several years, to
the point where I started to go in and make
a second album and give up on the first. But
luckily Bob Dylan wanted to tour with me, and he
mentored me on tour and just told me to keep
going and gave me the courage to keep going, and
(25:51):
eventually that album went on to be the best selling
album of all time.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Pretty amazing, fantastic story. Now I want to follow up
that story, though you had this incredible success, and then
decide you're going to take a couple of years off.
Where did that come from?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
For me, that was making good on my promise to
myself to put my happiness first, to break my career.
I was doing about one thousand shows at least a year.
I was doing five and six shows a day, sometimes
two cities a day.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
And then once I.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Got successful, it's about the same thing with a lot
more pressure. You know. By the time Hands came out,
which was about that time when I was homeless, I
was on the cover of Time magazine, and I was
one of the most famous people in the world, and
I couldn't I was having death threats all the time,
you know, fire bombs left outside my house, stalkers saying
(26:44):
they would shoot me in the head. During shows, couldn't
walk across the street or go use a restroom without
people following me. It was deeply triggering, you know, to
somebody with me again with my background, where I find
strangers really triggering, could even get me into a panic attack.
I was not equipped for the level of attention that
(27:05):
I got, and so I had to give myself permission
to stop or have a psychotic break, like I was
on the edge of a breakdown. I was like, I'm
not going to do that to myself. I don't need
to be famous that bad, and so I let myself
quip for as long as it took for me to
understand what was happening to me, what worked for me,
and what didn't. At the end of the two years,
I realized I really did love music. I didn't want
(27:28):
to change careers. And in that two years I also
got a lot less famous, like to the point where
I could go grocery shopping, and so I realized I
liked music. And then I realized, like I could just
rate my career like I could rate it by taking
huge breaks between albums, which is counter, you know, intuitive
(27:49):
to what any musician should do if they want to
make money and keep their momentum going. But it was
really good for me because it really helped my mental
health health and to be I think a great artist,
you have to have great periods of stillness where you
replenish and you learn and you grow so that you
can have this output. And I think that how we
(28:11):
manage careers, and indeed, just a lot of businesses, we're
expecting a constant linear curve up and that's anti nature.
Nature has winter, and artists need winter. They need a
fallow season to prepare the fields for another tremendous season
of growth and fruit. We don't just get fruit all
(28:32):
the time without paying a massive price. And so I
just realize that for myself, putting myself in alignment to
nature and natural rhythms, honoring my own natural rhythms, taking
breaks between albums, you know, that definitely meant I'd have
to work harder. You know, switching genres is a lot
of work, and then taking breaks and having to build
(28:53):
up your momentum again is a lot of work. But
it's just work. I don't mind work, you know. And
so that's how I said about my career.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
You know, it is one of the most special things
about you, and it's coming out in all this conversation,
is this sense of yourself but also a sense of others,
an incredible empathy, and how you've managed to channel your
skills to to help others. You did the project Clean
Water back in nineteen ninety seven, Higher Ground for Humanity
(29:22):
in nineteen ninety eight two thousand and one, you helped
co found the Inspiring Children Foundation. Here at iHeart, We've
done the not alone challenge with you, you sort of
go on and on and by the way, that's just
this smattering of what you've done, why, what motivates you,
and what are you trying to contribute here.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I think anybody that's known great suffering knows just how
much help matters. I think it's actually the saddest thing
about wealth is that it gives people a false sense
of self sufficiency. We're interconnected and we need each other,
(30:00):
and the people who are most vulnerable amongst us really
know that. And feeling that safety net, you know of
another woman saying I got you, I'll help you with
the rent this month, or I'll help you with your child,
or that safety net, we really really rely on it.
And so I just, you know, I haven't been able
to go through my life and on the suffering I
(30:21):
have without also, you know, feeling like if there's something
I can do about it, like why wouldn't I? And
it's fun, like being a rock star is very very fun,
but helping people enjoy living is way more fun. So
I don't know why people don't help or wouldn't help.
It's a big priority for me in my life. An
(30:43):
act of power is something that benefits you and your community.
Otherwise it isn't power, it's false power. And I think
that's what we're really seeing in our world.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Well, we're lucky to have you and have you committed
to this. I know the pain's awful, but it really
is being put to a very good purpose for society.
We usually end each episode of Math and Magic by
giving some shout outs. Who's your most important magician and
who's the most important mathematician in your mind?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
My favorite mathematician and magician are the same person, and
at Steve Wozniak. He's brilliant and so funny and such
a prankster, and my son literally just knows him as
the magician.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Oh, I love that, And I want to end this
episode with you giving a shout out to the greatest
influence on your career that are alive.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I think the thing that always inspired me as an
artist were the writers that gave a voice to the disenfranchised.
Check Off, Pablo Neruda Steinbeck, you know, Marvin Gaye, What's
going on?
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I think that's always really inspired me and touched me,
and people that had the courage to say who they were.
It's why I loved Innisnn. It's not because I wanted
to be here, you know, I loved Bokowski. It's not
that I wanted to be Bukowski. It's that it was
a revolution to hear somebody just sell the truth about
who they were, warts and all, and that inspired me
to be the type of person that I am and
(32:12):
to have the courage to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Juel, you are a really unusual person who has had
remarkable success, but probably the most important, you've had an
amazingly positive impact on others' lives. Thanks for sharing your
stories today and congrats on your enduring success and impact.
(32:35):
Here are a few things I picked up from my
conversation with Jewel. A difficult season makes for periods of
great growth. Jewel has prioritized mental health, happiness, and intervals
to rest and recharge. In a society the values constant output.
This can seem like weakness, but Jewel is litting proof
that it can lead to incredible creativity, renew passion, and
(32:56):
an eagerness to work hard. Two Devity is more valuable
than immediate reward. A one million dollars signing bonus was
dangled in front of jewel. It had hurt to turn
it down, but she wanted to de risk for record
deal and give herself and her music time to grow.
An upfront payment isn't the only way to negotiate your value.
(33:17):
Doing your research, figuring out if there's a catch, and
setting goals for yourself are great ways to assess how
something will serve you in the long term. Three. Giving
back can be more powerful than being a rock star.
When you believe that all people are interconnected and that
power comes from helping your community, then there's no greater
pleasure than trying to make the world a better place.
(33:39):
I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is created and hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks
to Sidney Rosenblum for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent,
which is no small feat. The Math and Magic team
is Jessica crime Chick and Bahed Fraser. Our executive producers
are Ali Perry and Nikki Etoor. Until next time,
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I knew I wanted to make a folk album at
the height of grunge, and I knew that the opposite
exceeding were really slim, and it failed spectacularly for several years,
to the point where I started to go in and
make a second album and give up on the first.
But luckily Bob Dylan wanted to tour with me, and
he mentored me on tour and just told me to
keep going and gave me the courage to keep going,
(00:30):
and eventually that album went on to be the best
selling album of all time.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hi. I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to Math and Magic.
On this episode, we're going to explore creativity their music, art, poetry, philanthropy, activism,
and sometimes just for the soul. Our guest does all
of that and has lived her life not the life
others want her to live. She's one of those few
one name people. Jewel Jewel was worn in Utah, grew
(00:59):
up in a last performed as a kid, learned to
Yoda at an early age, spent some time in Hawaii
and down in San Diego. She had a huge early
success as a singer songwriter, but did not follow the
usual trajectory of stardom. She built her own philosophy for
her life and has expressed it through all she has created.
(01:20):
Probably most important, she has an impressive life of service
to others, Yes, to her son and family, but also
to those most in need. In other words, she's an
impressive human in all ways, and a super nice person.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Welcome, jewel shame, Thank you with kind introduction.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, we are going to dig into some meaty topics,
but first I want to do you in sixty seconds.
Do you prefer cats or dogs?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Both?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Early riser or night out?
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Early raisin, West Coast or East coast, the middle of
the country.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Coffee or tea, tea, Yoda, ling or singing?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Same thing?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Books are movies? Cook or eat out?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Eat out?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Comedy or drama, comedy, call or text? Text, Bear lard
biscuits or French fries.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Bear lard biscuits every.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Day all the childhood hero.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Hmmm, a nice name.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Most important bit of advice you ever heard? Hardwood grows slowly.
Favorite place to visit, Venice, Italy.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Secret talent, I can move my under eyelids. That's a
good one.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
What did you want to be when you were growing up,
someone helpful.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Great.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Okay, let's jump in. As I was digging through all
the research on you, I was searching for what unifies
it all the people I've ever had on this podcast.
You definitely have the most diverse set of life experiences.
Come from Alaska settlers at your background, child performer with
your family. You've been homeless. You spent a year in
(02:58):
high school in Hawaii with an. You've had super success
at an early age that you gave it up for
a few years to take a breather. You were smart
enough at a young age to figure out not to
take a big money advance for your record company. You've
witnessed abuse and betrayal from those who love, yet it
has never turned you dark. You've been in alternative music,
pop music, country music, all with huge successes. You've won
(03:22):
countless awards, performed at all the major sporting events, have
sold over thirty million albums. By the way, you even
won the Mask Singer. You're an author, You're an activist,
You're an artist. You had a highly acclaimed exhibit at
Crystal Bridges built around your view of three planes. So
maybe we start with three planes is that what unifies
(03:43):
your life and doesn't help us understand who you are.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
I think the thing.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That unifies all of the really varied experiences have had
in my life is my desire to understand pain and
what do we do with it? And it set me
off on a really epic life's adventure to see if
happiness was a learnable skill and a teachable skill, to
try and make it the number one most important thing
in my life. For me, the Three Planes and my
(04:11):
exhibit at Crystal Bridges was about trying to unify my
life's work. I'm known as a musician, I'm also known
by quite a few as a mental health advocate, and
then a lot of people don't realize I'm a visual artist,
and so I've done all of these things separately, sort
of in silos in my life, and for me, the
Crystal Bridges exhibit was a way to unify all of
(04:31):
those things together into one experience that brought music, visual art,
and behavioral health together. It is based on the philosophy
of mine that I believe we each travel through three
realms of reality every day, often without realizing it. We
have our in our life, which are our thoughts and feelings.
We have the scene life, which is our jobs and
finances and families in the physical world, and then we
(04:53):
have our unseen life. Whatever helps us feel inspired and
in all that might be a specific theological perspective for people.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
For others, it just might be this.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You know, when they see James Webb telescope images, they
feel inspired. And so I think that mental health is
a side effect of learning how to navigate these three
spheres with alignment. For instance, if I can introspect and
understand what I think and feel, that's really critical. If
I can then articulate that to my boss or my
(05:25):
partner and they can hear me and we can enact
physical changes based on that, that feels really good. Or
if I feel like I know why I'm put on
the planet and that also is my job, that makes
us feel really good.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And the adverse is true.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
You know, if I cannot articulate my feelings, or if
I won't you know, tell my friends and family who
I authentically am or feel accepted for it, it makes
us deeply unhappy because these conflicts really breed in happiness
in our lives. And so that was the impetus for
me to do the Crystal Bridge as an event. Also
(06:00):
just because I get restless if I'm not growing and
learning and pushing myself, and so wanted to expand into
visual art and pushing myself in any way.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I want to spend a second and get into creativity.
You're right, You're known for many things, but probably best
known as singer songwriter. So let's talk a minute about songwriting.
Where does the song come from, how do you develop it?
And do you have any idea which ones will be
popular or do you care?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I developed my writing practice as it means for again
going back to pain. You know, I grew up bar singing,
and so I had a front row seat to what
I realized was people in a lot of pain. I
was in a lot of pain because my mom had left.
My dad took over raising us, but had become an
alcoholic and abusive. And I realized, you know, by observing
(06:51):
people in these bars, that everybody was trying to understand
what to do with pain, and some people use drugs, alcohol, sex,
violent relationships, and it made me wonder what am I
going to do? And nobody out runs pain, and the buffalo,
I learned, is the only animal that goes into the
heart of a storm, because the quickest way is through,
(07:12):
and so I had to ask myself, what is the
quickest way through if you can't outrun something painful? And
for me, I realized that my journaling, you know, I
was writing from a young age, was bringing me into
the heart of the pain, and that actually alleviated the pain.
And so I did it as a survival mechanism because
(07:32):
it helped me relieve that pressure just enough that I
could cope. And that led later, you know, when I
was sixteen to beginning to write songs. But it wasn't
to have a career. I just started writing songs because
I was going to school in Michigan.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I was already on my own.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I moved out at fifteen, and I couldn't afford to
get home to Alaska for spring break, and so I
thought I would hitchhike across the country and I would
afford it by street singing. And so that's how I
learned my first four chords. It was a minor CG
and D. I couldn't go out of order because I
didn't know how, and I thought I would just improvise
lyrics about people as they walked by, and so That's
(08:11):
how I came up with the first lyrics to my
first song, which was you know, people living their lives
for you on TV, they say they're better than you,
and you agree. It was really me just observing pop
culture and America. Yes, Alaska is part of America, but
it's very different. And so by the end of that
two week trip, not only did I survive and not
(08:31):
get murdered, but I ended up with a song and
I was just absolutely smitten. It made me feel powerful,
not because you know, I thought I was kind of
a career. It just made me feel empowered. It was
a real joy, and joy was a scarce commodity in
my life, and I really enjoyed it. But to answer
your question, I don't typically sit down with a purpose
(08:53):
or a name or a title unless I'm in a
co writing session, in which case I will come in with,
you know, preconceived coms. But typically I like not having
that preconceived notion.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Has the process changed for you over time?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, becoming a mom significantly impacted my free time where
there wasn't just that luxury of sitting around and an
idea coming to you and you work on it till
three am. I learned that I had to be a
lot more scheduled if I was going to write.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So how does that create a process differ from visual
arts and writing that you also do.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
The thing that I find similar about all of the
different mediums is that it starts with this sort of
nebulous feeling. I write from a feeling or an urge.
It's usually nameless and indescript, but it's intense in my body.
And then I start to investigate it, and sometimes that
feeling wants to come out as a poem and it
(09:50):
just never will be a song.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It just is a poem. O.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
There are times, you know, songs have a very specific
structure and pedameter and rhyme scheme. Visual art, I think
is the original language. You know, form and symbolism is
what we had before we have the written word. And
so it's all storytelling, and it's all communicating a story
(10:13):
and trying to find the most elegant and refined, simple
version of that idea or feeling to communicate that story
clearly to people, no matter what medium you're doing.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So let's talk about integrity, honesty, and candor. You're known
for telling people truths. You tell it in your songs,
but personally, you're also known for being a straight ahead,
very honest person with people, even when it's hard for
them to hear. Where does that clarity of vision encourage
to say it come from?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Some of the worst pain I've been in my life
has been when I was guarded and not transparent, and
I learned that it's a lot less painful to be
vulnerable and to be honest because it allows for connection.
When I was homeless, I was really suffering from loneliness,
and I realized in a way that I deserved it
(11:07):
because nobody knew me. I hid because safety was in hiding.
You know, you don't move out at fifteen, and it's
not safe. But I realized that the strategy I developed
to be safe, which was kind of hiding not being truthful,
was causing me to pay a really huge price. And
so I took a big risk while I was homeless,
(11:28):
and I started singing in a coffee shop and I
decided to tell the truth. And amazingly, people didn't shun
me or turn me away. They cried and I cried,
and it was like this five hour show for two
people in a coffee shop when I was homeless, But
It was so rewarding because I actually felt connection. And
(11:50):
the truth is we all have the exact same feelings.
We all experienced betrayal and hurt and jealousy, and you know,
great feelings and less than great feelings, and might as
well talk about it because it leaves a tremendous burden.
And that ended up serving me really well as a
famous person, because you know you're going to be put
on a pedestal, which is nobody deserves to be on
(12:12):
a pedestal.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Nobody's perfect.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And I found that by knocking myself off the pedestal
gave me a lot of safety, and it gave me
permission to grow, which is really critical for somebody that's
nineteen years old to getting in an industry. You can't
take a stance as if that stance is never going
to change.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
You have to be.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Able to make room for yourself to think, to adjust,
and thanks to the Internet, I was able to do
that directly with people and not just to be interpreted
through a journalist or something.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
We're getting into some interesting topics about your background, so
let's go back in time to get your context. You
were born in Utah, then went to your family's roots
in Alaska where you grew up. By the way, both
sides of your family had roots there. Can you give
us a little taste of that family history and a
little bit about what Alaska felt like. You said, Yeah,
(13:02):
Alaska's part of the United States, but it's pretty different.
Can you tell us what that was at that moment
and how it felt.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
My family were pioneers in Alaska. I think the difficult
thing about healing and why maybe some of us don't
want to look at our childhoods is because we think
it has to either be all good or all bad.
My family is really brilliant and has so much good,
but like any fruit, there's bitter seeds with the sweet.
(13:31):
My family that had so much charisma and incredible things. Also,
there was a really you know, abusive aspect in the family,
and my dad's childhood was so violent. Then when he
went to Vietnam, it was relaxing. It was the first
time he relaxed as a nineteen year old, and he
picked up, of course, some more trauma there and went
back to Marriot High School. Sweetheart, when my mom left,
(13:53):
you know, he started to what today we would call
trauma triggering. He took us back to the homestead where
I was raised. It was an incredible way to be raised.
The land in Alaska is just so pristine and divine.
I always was aware I was in the presence of
something great and bigger than me, and it was very healing,
which really helped me.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Through a pretty hard childhood.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
But that pioneer mentality being raised around, you know, there
were no gender roles how I was raised. Women shoed
horses and cut logs and build houses and my dad cooked,
and it was just I was always taught that I
was capable and that I was expected to figure it
out whether I was capable or not, and that ended
up giving me a lot of, you know, confidence in
(14:38):
how I approached my life, and it's probably why I
had the confidence to move out at fifteen of.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Like, I'll figure this out.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I'd rather fight for myself and believe in myself than
be in a position that I think is hurting me,
and so I'd rather try to do better here.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Your parents were performers. You mentioned that, and you started
performing with them. I think it about it age six.
Your parents split up and you kept forming their dad
you mentioned in sort of front row seat and bars
and Honky talks. Can you paint that picture for us
and tell us how that shaped you as a performer
and an artist.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, my parents had a dinner show in the nicest
hotel in Anchorage, Alaska when I was young, So I
learned to yodel and started performing with them when I
was about age five. And then when my parents got divorced,
my dad and I became a duet and we started
singing more in like Honky Tonks and lumberjack joints and
fishermen haunts, biker bars. Definitely an education, you know. My
(15:38):
dad was really brilliant. We would do five hour sets,
never would do a set list, did a mix of
covers and originals, very good at reading a crowd, very personable.
Taught me to be very professional and to work hard,
and we practiced and rehearsed long hours. Obviously, it was
a pretty vulnerable environment to be in, and I learned
to trust my instincts because I had too, Like I
(16:01):
really had to learn how to look out for myself,
to never confuse a man's attention for my value. Because
I got to see before I was of age what
other women were going through, and in a lot of ways,
it made me a much better person, and it really
equipped me very well for the music industry because I
(16:22):
had a really clear understanding of what I would and
wouldn't do and what my actual value was, which I
insisted wasn't about my sexuality or sex appeal. I thought
I should be taken seriously from my mind, and I
was willing to walk away from any situation that didn't
do that, and paid a big price multiple times, but
(16:43):
not the biggest price, which is compromising your own character.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You spent a lot of time living without electricity. I
assume you were under exposed to radio, TV, even pre
recording music. What do you think the impact of that
was on your brain and who you became. I mean,
it's such a hot topic today about what phones and
social and internet are doing to the kids. What's your
view on it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It was really a great way to be raised. It
forced you to be creative. Every human is creative. You know,
play isn't creative. We're inventing play, and there's actually a
lot of science about what you know. It's called open
ended play. And when you have to turn a stick
into a plane or a bridge or a train, that
(17:28):
creativity creates neural synapses that don't get formed any other way.
And so the more we have simple toys that cause
us to employ our imagination. We've learned scientifically, you know
that the more open time we have for kids to
be bored, it's better for our brain development. And I
(17:49):
just happened to have been raised in a way that
allowed those things. I think that being creative takes time
to be alone with your thoughts, and that's definitely a
scarce commodity.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Now you've lived without much yet you spent the last
two years of high school in an elite private arts
school in northern Michigan. What did you learn about your
craft there? I think this is the first time you
had sort of formal training in your craft. And what
did you learn about the world. I mean, this had
to be a whole new mix for you, not quite
you know, Harry Potter going off to school, but had
(18:22):
to be a pretty dramatic change from what you had
been living.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
It was definitely culture shock. You know.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I had enough money to make it to Detroit, and
then I hitchhiked from Detroit up to Traverse City, where
my school is, and you know, I showed up in
a biker jacket with a large skinning knife on my belt,
and you know is it frowned on and the finest
establishment I found out.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
I was already paying rent. I was already on my own.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I didn't have a lot in common with a lot
of the kids, and certainly just the culture shock of
the poverty that I came from and the wealth of
other people. But realizing that I was a big fish
in a small pond, and you come to a place
like that where everybody is talented, it really causes you
to level up, which is great, and I loved that.
(19:05):
And I had access to some of the best teachers
in the world, and so I didn't think I would
get a scholarship to come back my senior year, and
so I just set about doing everything I could to
take advantage of the situation that I was in and
take as many classes as I could. It was incredible.
I learned so much, part of which was vocal training,
which was hard for me because I don't read music.
(19:27):
Everybody there was classically trained. I was a bar singer,
but it taught me how to use my falsetto and
there's still things I learned to this day that I
learned from that teacher. And she also was kind enough
to not force me into a mold. She recognized I
was different, I was coming from a different place, and
she even let me skip a lot of my voice
lessons so that I could take sculpture in other classes.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
More a math than magic. Right after this quick break,
welcome back to math and magic. Let's hear more from
my conversation with Ju. So let's talk about your big
break story. Like many of us, you're not a college graduate.
You went on another path. He had a couple of
(20:10):
big setbacks, and you know I mentioned if you were
in San Diego, fire because you wouldn't post for a
calendar the owner wanted to make. Then you got fire
because you refused a proposition from your boss, and the
price you paid was actually to be homeless. You lived
in your car, then your car was stolen and you
were crashing on the beach or in a friend's couch.
As you mentioned, you sort of went into the coffee
(20:31):
houses at that point, I honestly can't imagine that trauma.
Yet somehow, at age nineteen, you've got offers from four
major record labels and you signed with one, and it
all begins. So tell us the story of how you
made that job to these four companies interested in you,
and you deciding which one you're going to do to
(20:53):
build your career.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Being homeless is a really scary and vicious poverty that
was surprisingly hard to get out of. You know, I
thought I'd just get a new job and save up money,
and it just wasn't like that. It's an awful, vicious cycle.
I was shoplifting a lot of time. I had, you know,
panic attacks, agoraphobia, and I realized that I would end
(21:16):
up in jail or debt if I didn't do something
about it. And I was trying to steal a dress
in a dressing room and just realized I was the statistic.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
And I remember this.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I think it was a stoic quote that said, happiness
doesn't depend on who you are, what you have, It
depends on what you think. And so I wanted to
see if I could double down on that and really
change my life when thought at a time, because it's
all I had. If you can create a space so
that when you're you know, today, what you would call triggered,
instead of having a knee jerk reaction, you can form
(21:46):
a more thoughtful response that actually put me in a
very powerful position, because between thinking and action, you can
change your life. And I knew it. I knew that's
what I stumbled on. So I really doubled down on that.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
The first thing I tried to work on was my
stealingks that would end me up in jail, and so
to stop stealing, I tried to replace it with writing.
I was a really prolific thief. That caused me to
become a very prolific writer, and so I wrote songs
about what I was dealing with. Started singing in a
coffee shop every Thursday. I went from two people to four,
to twelve to sixteen. I wasn't trying to get discovered.
(22:25):
I was just trying to figure my life out. Is
trying to get rent. But after I don't know, six
months or eight months or something like that, Nancy, who
ran the coffee shop, was like, Julie're not going to
believe it, but Sony Records is coming tonight. I was
like what, And I knew nothing. You know, I did
five hour shows. I wouldn't let people use the restroom
until one in our messium in the middle. These poor
(22:46):
executives that came were you know, ridiculed for trying to
stand up in the middle of a song. And then
more labels came, and more labels came, many, many labels came,
and ultimately there was a bidding war, and I was
offered a million dollars signing bonus coming from a ranch.
You know, on horse Traders, nobody gives you something for free,
and so I wanted to know what the catch was,
(23:08):
and so I went to the library where there was
Don Pass what's his name, Pasma, Yeah, thanks, called everything
you need to know about the music business, and so
it just taught me how contracts work, how advances were.
That the million dollars was indeed in advance, and I
calculated how many albums I'd need to sell to pay
back that advance, and not to mention the fact that
(23:30):
it also have more in crude debt, because I would be,
you know, having promotional expenses, and I realized that that
would basically put a big bounty on my head. And
I didn't want a million dollars. I wanted a career.
I wanted a way to figure out how to do
something that I loved for the rest of my life.
And I was being given a really unusual opportunity to
(23:50):
have a shot at it, but I didn't think taking
the advance would actually put me in the best position.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
For what my real goal was.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I was also really scared because you don't take kids
like me with my emotional background and make them famous.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
I think that's going to work out well.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Every movie about people like me ends with death and addiction,
and I knew I was a very prime candidate for that,
and that what I was being offered was actually something
very dangerous dressed in the clothing of something very alluring.
And so I had to have a real plan, and
so I decided to make a promise to myself that
(24:29):
my number one job was to learn about happiness, and
that meant I had to have auditible metrics around it
that I would check in with myself. And then my
number two job was to be a musician, and that
under that, I wanted to be an artist more than
I wanted to be famous, and armed with that, I
had a hierarchical way to make decisions, and so that's
(24:52):
why I turned down the advance. I did negotiate the
biggest back end I think anybody had ever been awarded
up to that point, stured the deal with the help
of my lawyer to actually have you know, triggers for
every I think it was five hundred thousand or million
albums sold, I would actually gain a point on the
back end, and I just de risked everything on the
(25:13):
front end, so I was not at risk to a
label because I knew I wanted to make a folk
album at the height of grunge, and I knew that
the opposite that succeeding were really slim, and so that's
how I negotiated the deal. And it looked like it
was probably a mistake for quite a long time.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I made a folk album with Milli Young's producer at
his ranch, and it failed spectacularly for several years, to
the point where I started to go in and make
a second album and give up on the first. But
luckily Bob Dylan wanted to tour with me, and he
mentored me on tour and just told me to keep
going and gave me the courage to keep going, and
(25:51):
eventually that album went on to be the best selling
album of all time.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Pretty amazing, fantastic story. Now I want to follow up
that story, though you had this incredible success, and then
decide you're going to take a couple of years off.
Where did that come from?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
For me, that was making good on my promise to
myself to put my happiness first, to break my career.
I was doing about one thousand shows at least a year.
I was doing five and six shows a day, sometimes
two cities a day.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
And then once I.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Got successful, it's about the same thing with a lot
more pressure. You know. By the time Hands came out,
which was about that time when I was homeless, I
was on the cover of Time magazine, and I was
one of the most famous people in the world, and
I couldn't I was having death threats all the time,
you know, fire bombs left outside my house, stalkers saying
(26:44):
they would shoot me in the head. During shows, couldn't
walk across the street or go use a restroom without
people following me. It was deeply triggering, you know, to
somebody with me again with my background, where I find
strangers really triggering, could even get me into a panic attack.
I was not equipped for the level of attention that
(27:05):
I got, and so I had to give myself permission
to stop or have a psychotic break, like I was
on the edge of a breakdown. I was like, I'm
not going to do that to myself. I don't need
to be famous that bad, and so I let myself
quip for as long as it took for me to
understand what was happening to me, what worked for me,
and what didn't. At the end of the two years,
I realized I really did love music. I didn't want
(27:28):
to change careers. And in that two years I also
got a lot less famous, like to the point where
I could go grocery shopping, and so I realized I
liked music. And then I realized, like I could just
rate my career like I could rate it by taking
huge breaks between albums, which is counter, you know, intuitive
(27:49):
to what any musician should do if they want to
make money and keep their momentum going. But it was
really good for me because it really helped my mental
health health and to be I think a great artist,
you have to have great periods of stillness where you
replenish and you learn and you grow so that you
can have this output. And I think that how we
(28:11):
manage careers, and indeed, just a lot of businesses, we're
expecting a constant linear curve up and that's anti nature.
Nature has winter, and artists need winter. They need a
fallow season to prepare the fields for another tremendous season
of growth and fruit. We don't just get fruit all
(28:32):
the time without paying a massive price. And so I
just realize that for myself, putting myself in alignment to
nature and natural rhythms, honoring my own natural rhythms, taking
breaks between albums, you know, that definitely meant I'd have
to work harder. You know, switching genres is a lot
of work, and then taking breaks and having to build
(28:53):
up your momentum again is a lot of work. But
it's just work. I don't mind work, you know. And
so that's how I said about my career.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
You know, it is one of the most special things
about you, and it's coming out in all this conversation,
is this sense of yourself but also a sense of others,
an incredible empathy, and how you've managed to channel your
skills to to help others. You did the project Clean
Water back in nineteen ninety seven, Higher Ground for Humanity
(29:22):
in nineteen ninety eight two thousand and one, you helped
co found the Inspiring Children Foundation. Here at iHeart, We've
done the not alone challenge with you, you sort of
go on and on and by the way, that's just
this smattering of what you've done, why, what motivates you,
and what are you trying to contribute here.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I think anybody that's known great suffering knows just how
much help matters. I think it's actually the saddest thing
about wealth is that it gives people a false sense
of self sufficiency. We're interconnected and we need each other,
(30:00):
and the people who are most vulnerable amongst us really
know that. And feeling that safety net, you know of
another woman saying I got you, I'll help you with
the rent this month, or I'll help you with your child,
or that safety net, we really really rely on it.
And so I just, you know, I haven't been able
to go through my life and on the suffering I
(30:21):
have without also, you know, feeling like if there's something
I can do about it, like why wouldn't I? And
it's fun, like being a rock star is very very fun,
but helping people enjoy living is way more fun. So
I don't know why people don't help or wouldn't help.
It's a big priority for me in my life. An
(30:43):
act of power is something that benefits you and your community.
Otherwise it isn't power, it's false power. And I think
that's what we're really seeing in our world.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Well, we're lucky to have you and have you committed
to this. I know the pain's awful, but it really
is being put to a very good purpose for society.
We usually end each episode of Math and Magic by
giving some shout outs. Who's your most important magician and
who's the most important mathematician in your mind?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
My favorite mathematician and magician are the same person, and
at Steve Wozniak. He's brilliant and so funny and such
a prankster, and my son literally just knows him as
the magician.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Oh, I love that, And I want to end this
episode with you giving a shout out to the greatest
influence on your career that are alive.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I think the thing that always inspired me as an
artist were the writers that gave a voice to the disenfranchised.
Check Off, Pablo Neruda Steinbeck, you know, Marvin Gaye, What's
going on?
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I think that's always really inspired me and touched me,
and people that had the courage to say who they were.
It's why I loved Innisnn. It's not because I wanted
to be here, you know, I loved Bokowski. It's not
that I wanted to be Bukowski. It's that it was
a revolution to hear somebody just sell the truth about
who they were, warts and all, and that inspired me
to be the type of person that I am and
(32:12):
to have the courage to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Juel, you are a really unusual person who has had
remarkable success, but probably the most important, you've had an
amazingly positive impact on others' lives. Thanks for sharing your
stories today and congrats on your enduring success and impact.
(32:35):
Here are a few things I picked up from my
conversation with Jewel. A difficult season makes for periods of
great growth. Jewel has prioritized mental health, happiness, and intervals
to rest and recharge. In a society the values constant output.
This can seem like weakness, but Jewel is litting proof
that it can lead to incredible creativity, renew passion, and
(32:56):
an eagerness to work hard. Two Devity is more valuable
than immediate reward. A one million dollars signing bonus was
dangled in front of jewel. It had hurt to turn
it down, but she wanted to de risk for record
deal and give herself and her music time to grow.
An upfront payment isn't the only way to negotiate your value.
(33:17):
Doing your research, figuring out if there's a catch, and
setting goals for yourself are great ways to assess how
something will serve you in the long term. Three. Giving
back can be more powerful than being a rock star.
When you believe that all people are interconnected and that
power comes from helping your community, then there's no greater
pleasure than trying to make the world a better place.
(33:39):
I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is created and hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks
to Sidney Rosenblum for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent,
which is no small feat. The Math and Magic team
is Jessica crime Chick and Bahed Fraser. Our executive producers
are Ali Perry and Nikki Etoor. Until next time,
Host
Bob Pittman
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.