January 29, 2025 • 25 mins
Minnie questions Gary Lightbody, lead singer and guitarist of the band Snow Patrol. Gary explores what we do with the questions we still have for those who’ve left, the writing process behind Snow Patrol’s newest album, and shares his nostalgia for Spaghetti Bolognese Night.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Early cars were mostly joisting vehicles.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I heard, are you bringing the jousting vehicle?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I am, Yeah. We're going to charge at each other
at ten miles an hour. It's going to be a wild.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're going to drive to Sidcup, but we are also
going to joust.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Ye when we get there after ice cream.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
That is super local English humor. But you know you
just got to get on board with it. Really, Hello,
I'm mini driver. I've always loved Proust's questionnaire. It was
originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask
each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The other player's true nature.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
In asking different people the same set of questions, you
can make observations about which truths appear to be universal.
And it made me wonder, what if these questions were
just the jumping off point, what greater depths would be
revealed if I asked these quesses as conversation starters. So
I adapted Prue's questionnaire and I wrote my own seven
questions that I personally think are pertinent to a person's story.
(01:08):
They are when and where were you happiest? What is
the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real
or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you
most like answered? What person, place, or experience has shaped
you the most? What would be your last meal? And
can you tell me something in your life that's grown
out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group
(01:32):
of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You
may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to
their experience or the most surprising, or created the most
fertile ground to connect. My guest today is the brilliant
(01:56):
and gifted musician Gary Lightbody. Gary is the lead singer
of the band Snow Patrol, amongst other things. And you
may be interested to note that I am also in
a band with Gary called Tired Pony, And you can
check out the record that we made on the old
music streamers if you're so inclined. Gary is a very
(02:17):
good friend of mine. So this chat was like most
of the ones we have. It was deep and rambling
and full of questions and the search for answers and
quite a lot of screeching laughter. Gary met the death
of his dad with anomenous that spread, and I think
it's okay to say was pretty all consuming for a minute.
(02:38):
But like all great people and artists who remain interested
in pain, he somehow turned that non feeling into feeling
and wrote an extraordinary and elegiic album, which came out
last September and is Snow Patrol's eighth studio album, entitled
The Forest is the Path.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And it is absolutely beautiful. Where and when were you happiest?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm going to immediately talk about Johnny and Nathan because
I could look back in my life and find moments
of happiness, of course I can, but I think the
most recent one is the most relevant one for me. Anyway.
It still feels like it's there's an energy or power
emanating from it. And that was when we were making
(03:25):
the album. And I'm not just saying that just because
we've got an album coming out, but genuinely, it was
a long road. We tried to make it last year
and it didn't work out, and it's always kind of
heartbreaking when you get to the end of a project
you realize you haven't got it. You have to kind
of regroup. But then we met Fraser T. Smith and
(03:45):
the four of us went into his studio in January
of this year, and that process was just one of
the most extraordinary times in the studio that we've ever had.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Is it because it was hard and there was heartbreaking
about the not making it last year?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Was it that?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Or was there some sort of new complicity because a
phrase that what was it? Do you think that engendered
such happiness?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
It's a very very good point, because perhaps without the contrast,
it may not have been quite as starkly wonderful, if
that's even a phrase. Frankly, it could have been comparative.
You know, for me it still stands alone as a
sustained period of happiness in my life.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
How do you recognize happiness?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I think for me it's because I have run so anxious.
When I notice how long it's been since I've been anxious,
I started to realize that happiness has taken its place
or something contentment, perhaps in a sort of a less
high stakes kind of version of happiness. But because happiness
(04:59):
can now be ebb and flow, and it can even
turn to sadness pretty quickly, but contentment there is a
flow to that a continuum to that. If you catch
the right view or a surfer you catch the right way,
you can write on that for a long time. And
it felt like every day we were coming in excited
to be in the studio, and Nathan and Johnny Arrow
(05:20):
was excited to be together. But it felt like every
time they picked up an instrument, something magical happened and
I was there to witness it, which doesn't always happen
on every album as well. People might think that when
a band makes an album, they're in the studio the
whole time, every day, but that's not necessarily what happens
is sometimes life happens and you've got to be somewhere else,
(05:42):
and when you are actually in the studio, it's just
to play your parts. But with this period of five
weeks with Fraser, the four of us, we were there
every day for each other, even if we weren't playing.
There's days that I didn't play anything, but I was
there to witness Nathan and and Johnny playing pianos and
guitars and singing, and it felt very very special and
(06:06):
at the end, and this is another indicator I think
the last day, I said to Nathan and Johnny I'm
really sad that this is finishing. Normally you're excited to
go on tour, but on the last day I said,
I'm really sad that this is finished, that this is over,
and both Nathan and Johnny said you feel the same way.
(06:27):
So that feels like a significant period of happiness that
I won't forget.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Wow, God, I think that sustained anything is impossible anyway.
I think it's why I like this question is even
though some people interestingly bulk at the idea you know
that happiness is an endgame, it's not really what the
question is. It's really what is a snapshot of a
moment of joy? Because it's all moments, right, Even though
(06:55):
things like anxiety feel like they are permanent, there actually
is no status even within that, so it's constantly shifting
and changing. I love that snapshot of you guys going
into the studio and of it not just being a
day that we were happy, but every day we showed
up to create was amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, they will quote by the Buddha there is no
path to happiness. Happiness is the path, and it's sort
of referenced in the album title as well. The forest
is the path. It's okay to be lost. And I
was so afraid to be lost in my life or
focused on the destination and not the journey. And you know,
I think that happiness or that state of happiness only
(07:39):
really occurs whenever you let go of the destination. For me, anyway,
I couldn't agree.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
With you more.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
There's some version when I think about achieving happiness, which
sounds a bit like an oxymoron, and I might be
the more on them. I think you've got to set
the coordinates for happiness, like you set those coordinates and
then you have to let you have to let it
go or whatever it is. You have to set those
coordinates and then let it go and be in that
(08:07):
journey towards it. And I often get stuck by halfway
through the journey, or if I don't know, if I'm
halfway through the journey, I'm like, well, it just hasn't
happened yet or arrived yet, and I'm not there. I'm
so annoyed I'm not there. And someone brilliant called Esther
Hicks said.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Once she was like, you know, when you're in a.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Car journey from like Los Angeles to San Francisco, when
you get halfway you know, like Monterey or Big sur
You don't just get pissed off that you're not in
San Francisco.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You turn around and go home.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Idiots, you carry on.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
And I think about that a lot, like set your
coordinates and then get on the bus or the train
or the plane or the jousting car and just get
on with it.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Absolutely, absolutely, I love that accord. And it's also there's
a certain amount of detachment from those corders once they're
set exactly exactly, And I think that I was always like,
you know, if I take my eye off there where
I'm going, then I'll get lost and not realizing it's
okay to be lost.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, it's okay to be lost. What question would you
most like answered.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Well, I missed the opportunity to tell my dad quite
a lot of things. By the time I realized I'd
run out of time to talk to him, he was
well and to advance dementia. So I would like to
know if there is an after for us, and if
he's there, and if I'll get to meet him again
(09:49):
and have those conversations.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, I would like that too. By the way, I
would like to know that do you ever feel and
I know that it's more recent for you. And I
understand the process of grief is wayward and personal and
it is not subject to any rules whatsoever as far
as I've experienced. But if it's not too personal, do
(10:13):
you have conversations with him? I know that a huge
amount of this beautiful album is voicing feelings and speaking
things and shouting things out to your dad and at
yourself and ruminating, and it is a beautiful meditation on
all of those things. But do you ever converse with him,
(10:34):
even if you can't hear what he says back.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The answer to that is no, not really, I'm afraid too. Hmm.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, I understand that, I really do. But like we
said before, maybe it's coordinatece. Maybe that is something that
you really do live the answer to you get to
that place. I can't, for the longest time talk to
my mother in my heart or my head.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And now I'm.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Essentially writing a book that begins with a conversation I
had with her after she died. So I think there's
a journey with that.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I really do, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
There's a book of mind coming out that is about Yeah,
but writing it done is for me. It's like it's
not perhaps it is having a conversation with them, but
it did not take place out loud. Yeah, and I
think that's where I fell downe actually making the signed
(11:34):
the sound words are.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
We've talked about this before.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
When your parent is dead and there are things that
you didn't say or that they didn't say to you,
there is simply no way of having the conversation which
we would like to have, which is with them sitting
opposite us, where we get to everything and then they
get say everything to us. But as you and I
both exist in this space on the other side of
our parent is dead, now you know, what do we
(11:59):
do with those questions?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
In the absence of the answers? What do we do?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And I think you're doing exactly the most beautiful, amazing
thing a person could do, which is that you're using
it as fuel to make something that you offer up
to people that they will love and enjoy and will
probably bring them enormous comfort.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Thank you, and you're doing the same. I cannot wait
to read your book. Your first book was an absolute
triumph and one of my favorite books for the last
ten years. As I've told you, thank you y. The
thing that I think we can do with these questions
is ask each other. Yeah, which we do, And I'm
very lucky to have people like that in our lives,
(12:39):
to have incredible conversations with. I know you have lots
of great people in your life and can keep them alive,
keep their energy in our lives. I don't know what
I would do without that.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I think it's also asking questions without the expectation of
an answer. I think that should be called something else. Yeah,
it shouldn't be called a question.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (13:02):
There should be another word for the things that you
want from your dead parents once they're dead. There should
be another way of expressing that. But you're right, talking
to each other does help.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
I think you're absolutely right. There's perhaps no answers, but
the answer is in the feeling seen. I think, Yeah,
you know, I don't expect anyone to fix the things
in my life, just that feeling of being seen. I
don't want to offer anybody any advice that they don't
ask for. Any advice I ever give is given with
the caveat. Please, for God's sake, ignore this.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Ignore what I'm back to say. But you.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Don't have lost two.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Can you tell me what person, place, or experience most
altered your life, and.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Back to where I started, I think this conversation. But
Johnny and Nathan, I think have been the two people
that have altered my life the most, two people that
I've loved being around the most and also learned the
most from and do constantly.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Did you guys meet in Scotland.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
No, Nathan's been in the band since two thousand and
two and Johnny's been with us from two thousand and nine.
But it's so interesting we've had conversations like this before,
the three of us, where we're like, those times don't
mean anything. It's like we always knew each other. We
(14:51):
just did. We always knew each other. There was no time.
I can't think of a time that I didn't know them.
We've been through a lot, you know, over the years together,
and there's been times where we weren't going great with
the band, great interpersonally, and we got through all those
things with some amounts of grace actually, and I feel
(15:13):
very proud of how we've sort of grown together and
become this trio that we are now. Obviously with great
love and respect and reverence to everyone that has been
in the band as well, especially Johnny Quinn and Paul
Wilson who most recently left the band, but with our
admiration and love and joy for everything that they do
(15:35):
in the future. But when that happens, when people leave,
you have to decide whether you want to continue. A
question was already answered. It was like, do we want
to keep going? Yes, of course, but it's how do
we keep going? That's that's the more difficult question to answer,
because we want to also make the most important record
(15:56):
of your life. Every time you make a record or
else why And we just had this strong, strong feeling
that in the answering of the hearty we continue was
the answer to the importance of the record, and so well,
this is how we continue. We put everything that we
have into this record, just like we've always done. So
(16:19):
the people I'm going to go with Johnny and Nathan.
Final answer, final answer, my final answer. I mean, I
know it's not really part of the question. It's kind
of like an either or thing, but Banger my hometown,
m it is really important to me. I love that
place so much.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Gary lived on Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica for a
long time and I loved him being just down the road.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It really is just sort of.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
How you'd imagine a California dream of, just like looking
at him with the Pacific Ocean and the swinging palm
trees and the sunshine and the Art Deco buildings in
Santa Monica and making music and getting acupuncture and hanging out.
And then Gary moved back to Bangor And I've got
to say, I've never heard a person eulogize about a
(17:02):
place where I know for a fact that it is
cold and it rains a lot, and yet Gary talks
about bang of the way that most people talk about California.
And Gary lived in California, which always makes me really happy.
And know that you love where you're from, and I
can't wait to visit you there. I can't believe I've
never been there, but I'll come.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, please do come over Beplaslack is right on my
doorstep and Forrest is right on my doorstep on one side.
So I've got the sea on one side of forest
on the other. And every time I walk in the forest,
I feel renewed. I don't feel that everywhere, but I'm
so glad to have refound my home. Yeah, you know,
like that quote. Home is not where we are born.
(17:45):
Home is where all our attempts to escape cease. Sorry,
And you know it's funny because it is where I
was born, and yet I tried to escape, And what
happened is I was only temporarily escaping. What I was really,
what I was really waiting for, was to come back
and realize that this was where I was supposed to
be all along.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
What would be your last meal?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Well, I can keep it in banger as everybody that
I knew, you had to set meal on a certain night.
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
You would have on Monday with sausages. Tuesday was Shepherd's Park.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Wednesday Shepherd's Power. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, I got most
excited about spaghetti Bolonnes night.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
But that's that spaghetti bolonnaise, Like that's quite sort of Mediterranean,
of like your mom or dad?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Who have cooked it?
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Was my mom? Yeah? My dad did not so much,
but he did make greats Sudar breads as we call him. Yeah,
he would make those of a Sunday every night and again,
so I'd have that too.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Most importantly, what night was spaghetti Bolonnes? Was it Wednesday?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
No? I think it was Thursday, but it's the meal itself.
I make a spaghetti bolonees night, and I'll make it
for my mom and my sister and my niece, and
my mum will makes spaghetti malonnaise. I'm able to contribute
to the passing of the spaghetti bawl nace. So we
don't have a family heirloom, but we have.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Thursday.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
That's a good legacy. Oh, I love that. Oh I
make a mean spaghetti bolonnaise. I'm going to make you
spagetti borones next time.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Then well, I will return that. This is the continuation
the ceremonial spaghetti ballnas.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Okay, did you ever have When I was younger, I
went to someone's house. I'm going to they can remain nameless,
but they put baked beans in the spaghetti polonnaise. What
And I couldn't eat it? And I remember the mother
looking at me, going why aren't you eating it? And
I was like, I'm not hungry, and she's like, he
(19:47):
said that you were hungry before. Why aren't you eating
the spaghetti bolonnaise? And she kept pushing me until I
eventually went because there's beans in it, and she was
like she of course there's beans spaghetti bollidais, at which
point I was like, I'm in a mad house. I
need to just get out of here as soon as possible.
(20:08):
But I was only like seven, so I'm interested if
anyone's ever come across that.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I've never heard of beans in a spaghetti.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
B I'm really glad that will die with her.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So she won't be listening.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Okay, in your life, can you tell me about something
that has grown out of a personal disaster and you're
not allowed to say all.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Of it.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Being borned?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
God, I hope that people don't think that I'm sort
of trying to like just tie everything to the new album.
I'm really not. We don't have to talk about the
album itself, but yeah, passing. There was a year where
I was numb, completely numb, and then a year almost
to the day, I read this roomy poem and it
just unlocked everything and I just burst into tears, uncontrollable,
(21:17):
like Charlie Brian shooting out of the eye tears. And
then the next day the numbness had lifted and I
started writing in earnest and I wrote a song about
my dad, obviously perhaps, But then the second song I
wrote was a song called These Lies, which is actually
on the new album. The first song appeared by my dad.
(21:39):
It was the poem really, and then I put music
to it, but it sort of flowed out of the pen.
Was mean, you know yourself. There's days when you're standing
at a blank page and nothing comes, and then in
other days when it's almost as if you're not you
have no control of the pen. It's just automatic writing,
and I'm just trying to stay out of the way
of it, like I have the pen attached to the
(22:00):
page and the words will appear.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Wait.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
The roomy quote is there is a field.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
There is a field out there beyond all right doing
and wrongdoing. I'll meet you there. That's right. That was
the key that the dawn broke.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I remember after one of our walks, because Gary and
I go on really long walks together and talk about things.
I wrote that quote down and it's on my desk
in England where I write, like where I'm writing my book,
and I have it there. I've also got like a
dollar sign drawn on a person. I've got to make
(22:43):
some money, I've got to keep a fucking ship going.
But then I've also got that roomy quote that I
wrote down when I came back from our walk, and
I love it so much. And I also love the
fact that it's next to my dollar sign, which always
makes me feel like this world is made up of
so much that is practical, that we're forced to be
(23:03):
practical about things, but it also what exists is this
beautiful poetry that is out beyond all of it, and
it's okay. It's okay that all that fucking shit lives
alongside all of that grace and beauty. It is okay
because I felt really sheepish when I put it next
to the dollar sign, and now I actually love it
and it makes me feel like, really, what radical.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Humaning looks like.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
It's like it's spinach in your teeth and dollar signs
that you need to be reminded of, and it's finally
being able to cry over your dead dad, and it's
about making something beautiful that from that. Like, I know
how agonizing it is to lose a parent, and this
record is just a testament to so much love and
(23:45):
light that he had to have had a hand in
making you.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
So I don't know, Gary, I'm so proud of this
record for you.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I hope that it was really healing, and I bet
you he can hear it, you know.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Thanks Mary, Babe.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Always always I'll take a picture of my dollar sign
and the roomy quote and then you can chuckle or
whenever you're thinking about that I'm taking anything seriously whatsoever
or getting anything done.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I love it. I love those two together. It's brilliant.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Tarn and love you so much, and thank you so
much for this. Really, your fans are going to love
it anyway.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I'm really grateful.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support
from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
The theme music is also by Me and additional music
by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella, a,
Nick Oppenheim, A, Nick Muller and Annette wolf A, WKPR,
Will Pearson, Nikki Ito, Morgan, Lavoie and Mangesh had Ticke
Adore
Early cars were mostly joisting vehicles.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I heard, are you bringing the jousting vehicle?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I am, Yeah. We're going to charge at each other
at ten miles an hour. It's going to be a wild.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're going to drive to Sidcup, but we are also
going to joust.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Ye when we get there after ice cream.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
That is super local English humor. But you know you
just got to get on board with it. Really, Hello,
I'm mini driver. I've always loved Proust's questionnaire. It was
originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask
each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The other player's true nature.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
In asking different people the same set of questions, you
can make observations about which truths appear to be universal.
And it made me wonder, what if these questions were
just the jumping off point, what greater depths would be
revealed if I asked these quesses as conversation starters. So
I adapted Prue's questionnaire and I wrote my own seven
questions that I personally think are pertinent to a person's story.
(01:08):
They are when and where were you happiest? What is
the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real
or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you
most like answered? What person, place, or experience has shaped
you the most? What would be your last meal? And
can you tell me something in your life that's grown
out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group
(01:32):
of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You
may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to
their experience or the most surprising, or created the most
fertile ground to connect. My guest today is the brilliant
(01:56):
and gifted musician Gary Lightbody. Gary is the lead singer
of the band Snow Patrol, amongst other things. And you
may be interested to note that I am also in
a band with Gary called Tired Pony, And you can
check out the record that we made on the old
music streamers if you're so inclined. Gary is a very
(02:17):
good friend of mine. So this chat was like most
of the ones we have. It was deep and rambling
and full of questions and the search for answers and
quite a lot of screeching laughter. Gary met the death
of his dad with anomenous that spread, and I think
it's okay to say was pretty all consuming for a minute.
(02:38):
But like all great people and artists who remain interested
in pain, he somehow turned that non feeling into feeling
and wrote an extraordinary and elegiic album, which came out
last September and is Snow Patrol's eighth studio album, entitled
The Forest is the Path.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And it is absolutely beautiful. Where and when were you happiest?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm going to immediately talk about Johnny and Nathan because
I could look back in my life and find moments
of happiness, of course I can, but I think the
most recent one is the most relevant one for me. Anyway.
It still feels like it's there's an energy or power
emanating from it. And that was when we were making
(03:25):
the album. And I'm not just saying that just because
we've got an album coming out, but genuinely, it was
a long road. We tried to make it last year
and it didn't work out, and it's always kind of
heartbreaking when you get to the end of a project
you realize you haven't got it. You have to kind
of regroup. But then we met Fraser T. Smith and
(03:45):
the four of us went into his studio in January
of this year, and that process was just one of
the most extraordinary times in the studio that we've ever had.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Is it because it was hard and there was heartbreaking
about the not making it last year?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Was it that?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Or was there some sort of new complicity because a
phrase that what was it? Do you think that engendered
such happiness?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
It's a very very good point, because perhaps without the contrast,
it may not have been quite as starkly wonderful, if
that's even a phrase. Frankly, it could have been comparative.
You know, for me it still stands alone as a
sustained period of happiness in my life.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
How do you recognize happiness?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I think for me it's because I have run so anxious.
When I notice how long it's been since I've been anxious,
I started to realize that happiness has taken its place
or something contentment, perhaps in a sort of a less
high stakes kind of version of happiness. But because happiness
(04:59):
can now be ebb and flow, and it can even
turn to sadness pretty quickly, but contentment there is a
flow to that a continuum to that. If you catch
the right view or a surfer you catch the right way,
you can write on that for a long time. And
it felt like every day we were coming in excited
to be in the studio, and Nathan and Johnny Arrow
(05:20):
was excited to be together. But it felt like every
time they picked up an instrument, something magical happened and
I was there to witness it, which doesn't always happen
on every album as well. People might think that when
a band makes an album, they're in the studio the
whole time, every day, but that's not necessarily what happens
is sometimes life happens and you've got to be somewhere else,
(05:42):
and when you are actually in the studio, it's just
to play your parts. But with this period of five
weeks with Fraser, the four of us, we were there
every day for each other, even if we weren't playing.
There's days that I didn't play anything, but I was
there to witness Nathan and and Johnny playing pianos and
guitars and singing, and it felt very very special and
(06:06):
at the end, and this is another indicator I think
the last day, I said to Nathan and Johnny I'm
really sad that this is finishing. Normally you're excited to
go on tour, but on the last day I said,
I'm really sad that this is finished, that this is over,
and both Nathan and Johnny said you feel the same way.
(06:27):
So that feels like a significant period of happiness that
I won't forget.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Wow, God, I think that sustained anything is impossible anyway.
I think it's why I like this question is even
though some people interestingly bulk at the idea you know
that happiness is an endgame, it's not really what the
question is. It's really what is a snapshot of a
moment of joy? Because it's all moments, right, Even though
(06:55):
things like anxiety feel like they are permanent, there actually
is no status even within that, so it's constantly shifting
and changing. I love that snapshot of you guys going
into the studio and of it not just being a
day that we were happy, but every day we showed
up to create was amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, they will quote by the Buddha there is no
path to happiness. Happiness is the path, and it's sort
of referenced in the album title as well. The forest
is the path. It's okay to be lost. And I
was so afraid to be lost in my life or
focused on the destination and not the journey. And you know,
I think that happiness or that state of happiness only
(07:39):
really occurs whenever you let go of the destination. For me, anyway,
I couldn't agree.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
With you more.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
There's some version when I think about achieving happiness, which
sounds a bit like an oxymoron, and I might be
the more on them. I think you've got to set
the coordinates for happiness, like you set those coordinates and
then you have to let you have to let it
go or whatever it is. You have to set those
coordinates and then let it go and be in that
(08:07):
journey towards it. And I often get stuck by halfway
through the journey, or if I don't know, if I'm
halfway through the journey, I'm like, well, it just hasn't
happened yet or arrived yet, and I'm not there. I'm
so annoyed I'm not there. And someone brilliant called Esther
Hicks said.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Once she was like, you know, when you're in a.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Car journey from like Los Angeles to San Francisco, when
you get halfway you know, like Monterey or Big sur
You don't just get pissed off that you're not in
San Francisco.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You turn around and go home.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Idiots, you carry on.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
And I think about that a lot, like set your
coordinates and then get on the bus or the train
or the plane or the jousting car and just get
on with it.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Absolutely, absolutely, I love that accord. And it's also there's
a certain amount of detachment from those corders once they're
set exactly exactly, And I think that I was always like,
you know, if I take my eye off there where
I'm going, then I'll get lost and not realizing it's
okay to be lost.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, it's okay to be lost. What question would you
most like answered.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Well, I missed the opportunity to tell my dad quite
a lot of things. By the time I realized I'd
run out of time to talk to him, he was
well and to advance dementia. So I would like to
know if there is an after for us, and if
he's there, and if I'll get to meet him again
(09:49):
and have those conversations.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, I would like that too. By the way, I
would like to know that do you ever feel and
I know that it's more recent for you. And I
understand the process of grief is wayward and personal and
it is not subject to any rules whatsoever as far
as I've experienced. But if it's not too personal, do
(10:13):
you have conversations with him? I know that a huge
amount of this beautiful album is voicing feelings and speaking
things and shouting things out to your dad and at
yourself and ruminating, and it is a beautiful meditation on
all of those things. But do you ever converse with him,
(10:34):
even if you can't hear what he says back.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The answer to that is no, not really, I'm afraid too. Hmm.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, I understand that, I really do. But like we
said before, maybe it's coordinatece. Maybe that is something that
you really do live the answer to you get to
that place. I can't, for the longest time talk to
my mother in my heart or my head.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And now I'm.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Essentially writing a book that begins with a conversation I
had with her after she died. So I think there's
a journey with that.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I really do, for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
There's a book of mind coming out that is about Yeah,
but writing it done is for me. It's like it's
not perhaps it is having a conversation with them, but
it did not take place out loud. Yeah, and I
think that's where I fell downe actually making the signed
(11:34):
the sound words are.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
We've talked about this before.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
When your parent is dead and there are things that
you didn't say or that they didn't say to you,
there is simply no way of having the conversation which
we would like to have, which is with them sitting
opposite us, where we get to everything and then they
get say everything to us. But as you and I
both exist in this space on the other side of
our parent is dead, now you know, what do we
(11:59):
do with those questions?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
In the absence of the answers? What do we do?
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And I think you're doing exactly the most beautiful, amazing
thing a person could do, which is that you're using
it as fuel to make something that you offer up
to people that they will love and enjoy and will
probably bring them enormous comfort.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Thank you, and you're doing the same. I cannot wait
to read your book. Your first book was an absolute
triumph and one of my favorite books for the last
ten years. As I've told you, thank you y. The
thing that I think we can do with these questions
is ask each other. Yeah, which we do, And I'm
very lucky to have people like that in our lives,
(12:39):
to have incredible conversations with. I know you have lots
of great people in your life and can keep them alive,
keep their energy in our lives. I don't know what
I would do without that.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I think it's also asking questions without the expectation of
an answer. I think that should be called something else. Yeah,
it shouldn't be called a question.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (13:02):
There should be another word for the things that you
want from your dead parents once they're dead. There should
be another way of expressing that. But you're right, talking
to each other does help.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
I think you're absolutely right. There's perhaps no answers, but
the answer is in the feeling seen. I think, Yeah,
you know, I don't expect anyone to fix the things
in my life, just that feeling of being seen. I
don't want to offer anybody any advice that they don't
ask for. Any advice I ever give is given with
the caveat. Please, for God's sake, ignore this.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Ignore what I'm back to say. But you.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Don't have lost two.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Can you tell me what person, place, or experience most
altered your life, and.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Back to where I started, I think this conversation. But
Johnny and Nathan, I think have been the two people
that have altered my life the most, two people that
I've loved being around the most and also learned the
most from and do constantly.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Did you guys meet in Scotland.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
No, Nathan's been in the band since two thousand and
two and Johnny's been with us from two thousand and nine.
But it's so interesting we've had conversations like this before,
the three of us, where we're like, those times don't
mean anything. It's like we always knew each other. We
(14:51):
just did. We always knew each other. There was no time.
I can't think of a time that I didn't know them.
We've been through a lot, you know, over the years together,
and there's been times where we weren't going great with
the band, great interpersonally, and we got through all those
things with some amounts of grace actually, and I feel
(15:13):
very proud of how we've sort of grown together and
become this trio that we are now. Obviously with great
love and respect and reverence to everyone that has been
in the band as well, especially Johnny Quinn and Paul
Wilson who most recently left the band, but with our
admiration and love and joy for everything that they do
(15:35):
in the future. But when that happens, when people leave,
you have to decide whether you want to continue. A
question was already answered. It was like, do we want
to keep going? Yes, of course, but it's how do
we keep going? That's that's the more difficult question to answer,
because we want to also make the most important record
(15:56):
of your life. Every time you make a record or
else why And we just had this strong, strong feeling
that in the answering of the hearty we continue was
the answer to the importance of the record, and so well,
this is how we continue. We put everything that we
have into this record, just like we've always done. So
(16:19):
the people I'm going to go with Johnny and Nathan.
Final answer, final answer, my final answer. I mean, I
know it's not really part of the question. It's kind
of like an either or thing, but Banger my hometown,
m it is really important to me. I love that
place so much.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Gary lived on Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica for a
long time and I loved him being just down the road.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It really is just sort of.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
How you'd imagine a California dream of, just like looking
at him with the Pacific Ocean and the swinging palm
trees and the sunshine and the Art Deco buildings in
Santa Monica and making music and getting acupuncture and hanging out.
And then Gary moved back to Bangor And I've got
to say, I've never heard a person eulogize about a
(17:02):
place where I know for a fact that it is
cold and it rains a lot, and yet Gary talks
about bang of the way that most people talk about California.
And Gary lived in California, which always makes me really happy.
And know that you love where you're from, and I
can't wait to visit you there. I can't believe I've
never been there, but I'll come.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, please do come over Beplaslack is right on my
doorstep and Forrest is right on my doorstep on one side.
So I've got the sea on one side of forest
on the other. And every time I walk in the forest,
I feel renewed. I don't feel that everywhere, but I'm
so glad to have refound my home. Yeah, you know,
like that quote. Home is not where we are born.
(17:45):
Home is where all our attempts to escape cease. Sorry,
And you know it's funny because it is where I
was born, and yet I tried to escape, And what
happened is I was only temporarily escaping. What I was really,
what I was really waiting for, was to come back
and realize that this was where I was supposed to
be all along.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
What would be your last meal?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Well, I can keep it in banger as everybody that
I knew, you had to set meal on a certain night.
You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
You would have on Monday with sausages. Tuesday was Shepherd's Park.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Wednesday Shepherd's Power. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, I got most
excited about spaghetti Bolonnes night.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
But that's that spaghetti bolonnaise, Like that's quite sort of Mediterranean,
of like your mom or dad?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Who have cooked it?
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Was my mom? Yeah? My dad did not so much,
but he did make greats Sudar breads as we call him. Yeah,
he would make those of a Sunday every night and again,
so I'd have that too.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Most importantly, what night was spaghetti Bolonnes? Was it Wednesday?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
No? I think it was Thursday, but it's the meal itself.
I make a spaghetti bolonees night, and I'll make it
for my mom and my sister and my niece, and
my mum will makes spaghetti malonnaise. I'm able to contribute
to the passing of the spaghetti bawl nace. So we
don't have a family heirloom, but we have.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Thursday.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
That's a good legacy. Oh, I love that. Oh I
make a mean spaghetti bolonnaise. I'm going to make you
spagetti borones next time.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Then well, I will return that. This is the continuation
the ceremonial spaghetti ballnas.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Okay, did you ever have When I was younger, I
went to someone's house. I'm going to they can remain nameless,
but they put baked beans in the spaghetti polonnaise. What
And I couldn't eat it? And I remember the mother
looking at me, going why aren't you eating it? And
I was like, I'm not hungry, and she's like, he
(19:47):
said that you were hungry before. Why aren't you eating
the spaghetti bolonnaise? And she kept pushing me until I
eventually went because there's beans in it, and she was
like she of course there's beans spaghetti bollidais, at which
point I was like, I'm in a mad house. I
need to just get out of here as soon as possible.
(20:08):
But I was only like seven, so I'm interested if
anyone's ever come across that.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I've never heard of beans in a spaghetti.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
B I'm really glad that will die with her.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So she won't be listening.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Okay, in your life, can you tell me about something
that has grown out of a personal disaster and you're
not allowed to say all.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Of it.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Being borned?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
God, I hope that people don't think that I'm sort
of trying to like just tie everything to the new album.
I'm really not. We don't have to talk about the
album itself, but yeah, passing. There was a year where
I was numb, completely numb, and then a year almost
to the day, I read this roomy poem and it
just unlocked everything and I just burst into tears, uncontrollable,
(21:17):
like Charlie Brian shooting out of the eye tears. And
then the next day the numbness had lifted and I
started writing in earnest and I wrote a song about
my dad, obviously perhaps, But then the second song I
wrote was a song called These Lies, which is actually
on the new album. The first song appeared by my dad.
(21:39):
It was the poem really, and then I put music
to it, but it sort of flowed out of the pen.
Was mean, you know yourself. There's days when you're standing
at a blank page and nothing comes, and then in
other days when it's almost as if you're not you
have no control of the pen. It's just automatic writing,
and I'm just trying to stay out of the way
of it, like I have the pen attached to the
(22:00):
page and the words will appear.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Wait.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
The roomy quote is there is a field.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
There is a field out there beyond all right doing
and wrongdoing. I'll meet you there. That's right. That was
the key that the dawn broke.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I remember after one of our walks, because Gary and
I go on really long walks together and talk about things.
I wrote that quote down and it's on my desk
in England where I write, like where I'm writing my book,
and I have it there. I've also got like a
dollar sign drawn on a person. I've got to make
(22:43):
some money, I've got to keep a fucking ship going.
But then I've also got that roomy quote that I
wrote down when I came back from our walk, and
I love it so much. And I also love the
fact that it's next to my dollar sign, which always
makes me feel like this world is made up of
so much that is practical, that we're forced to be
(23:03):
practical about things, but it also what exists is this
beautiful poetry that is out beyond all of it, and
it's okay. It's okay that all that fucking shit lives
alongside all of that grace and beauty. It is okay
because I felt really sheepish when I put it next
to the dollar sign, and now I actually love it
and it makes me feel like, really, what radical.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Humaning looks like.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
It's like it's spinach in your teeth and dollar signs
that you need to be reminded of, and it's finally
being able to cry over your dead dad, and it's
about making something beautiful that from that. Like, I know
how agonizing it is to lose a parent, and this
record is just a testament to so much love and
(23:45):
light that he had to have had a hand in
making you.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
So I don't know, Gary, I'm so proud of this
record for you.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I hope that it was really healing, and I bet
you he can hear it, you know.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Thanks Mary, Babe.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Always always I'll take a picture of my dollar sign
and the roomy quote and then you can chuckle or
whenever you're thinking about that I'm taking anything seriously whatsoever
or getting anything done.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I love it. I love those two together. It's brilliant.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Tarn and love you so much, and thank you so
much for this. Really, your fans are going to love
it anyway.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I'm really grateful.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support
from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
The theme music is also by Me and additional music
by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella, a,
Nick Oppenheim, A, Nick Muller and Annette wolf A, WKPR,
Will Pearson, Nikki Ito, Morgan, Lavoie and Mangesh had Ticke
Adore
Host
Minnie Driver
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