May 28, 2024 • 29 mins
Legendary singer-songwriter Jewel found success at a young age. When she hit the music scene with her iconic album “Pieces of You” in the ’90s, her authenticity endeared her to millions of fans worldwide and thrust her into the limelight. Her experience with the trauma of fame led her to eventually quit the industry for seven years and explore what she wanted to do with her life. She stopped by The Bright Side to talk about learning how to become more self-reliant, the pressure of success, and learning how to be happy.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today on the bright Side, Grammy
nominated singer songwriter Jewel is here. She's got a brand
new art exhibit and a new summer tour. She's talking
about why making the human choice is always the right choice,
and why in the end, only kindness matters. It's Tuesday,
May twenty eighth. I'm Simone Voice, I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello
Sunshine Simon. Jewel burst onto the scene in the nineties,
and she changed the game.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
She was really an outlier.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
There was this cookie cutter box that people had to
fit in with musicianship and artistry, and kind of like
Adele did about a decade ago, she changed things for people.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I think the common thread between Jewel and Adele is heartbreak, pain,
life experience. Like they both brought that grown woman vibe.
I mean, I remember when Yes Well grit, when Jewel
broke out. I mean, she brought this emotionality and texture
to her voice that felt just more mature in a
lot of ways than the bubblegum pop of that day.
(01:07):
I mean, songs like you Were Meant for Me? Who
Will Save Your Soul? Standing Still? Even the yodling like
she brought a whole new technique to the game.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yes, and she had been yodling in bars since she
was eight years old, but she became a household name
with her twelve time platinum album Pieces of You. I
remember listening to that in my mom's car as a
little girl. I was aware that Jewel grew up in
Alaska on a homestead, but the heartbreak of her childhood
(01:38):
was something I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The depths of Yeah, I mean, she experienced the unimaginable
parental abuse, homelessness, poverty. She left her home at the
age of fifteen and eventually got a scholarship to Interlock
and Center for the Arts. It's this prestigious boarding school
in Michigan for artists in high.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
School, That's exactly it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And she couldn't afford to go home during breaks, so
she hitchhiked around the country and to Mexico, and it
was around that time that she wrote her first hit,
who Will Save Your Soul?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Her resilience, to me is just mind blowing, and I
think that a lot of people probably aren't aware of
how committed she's been to providing mental health resources for others,
which I mean, she's done that for nearly two decades
through her Children's Foundation, she was part of.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
The mental health conversation even before it was a conversation.
So while you were away on your retreat, I had
the opportunity to sit down with Jewel. She's debuting The Portal,
which is an immersive art exhibit centered on wellness and
it's just in time for Mental Health Awareness Month. It's
on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
in Bentonville, Arkansas, right now through July twenty eighth, and
(02:48):
it includes companion music and EP titled The Portal, which
will be out this July. Simon, I'm excited to share
this conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I cannot wait to listen along with all of our
bright Side best. After the Break, Danielle's interview with the
One and Only Jewel.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
We're back and we're here with Grammy nominated singer songwriter
Jewel Jewel.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Welcome to the bright Side. Hi, thanks for having me, Jewel.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
My mom had a cherry red jeep Grand Cherokee when
I was growing up, and pieces of you would play
on repeat in the car. I knew every single one
of your songs before I even knew what the words meant.
I could really feel you. I could feel your music
even at such a young age, And I think many
people could say the same thing.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
What was the soundtrack of your youth?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
The wind and the leaves, the sound of seals in
the bay?
Speaker 5 (03:51):
Music.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
My dad was a songwriter. My whole family sang, so
there was definitely a lot of music around. We didn't
have a tough division, and so it was quiet. It
was quiet compared to other people's lives, but in that
quiet was a symphony of life that made me feel
incredibly comforted.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
When I was young, I was blown away when I
learned about everything that you had to overcome to become
one of the most successful artists of your generation, from
living in your car to selling millions of records. Your
path was paved with one challenge after another, and one
way you found your way through it all was music.
(04:32):
But how else were you able to find stability?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
I moved out at fifteen, and I knew before I
decided to do it, I was contemplating if I should
do it, and I knew it was quite dangerous to
move out. Statistically that doesn't work out well, and I
wanted to be very clear eyed about the type of
danger that I was stepping into and was that risk
worth leaving a home that I didn't really enjoy living in.
(04:59):
And I felt like that meant I had to have
a plan. I'd been reading a lot of philosophy at
the time, and maybe that's what made me sort of
very logical maybe or tactical about it. And so I
realized what I had to do was learn a new vocabulary,
a new emotional way of relating to the world. It
got me so curious, like how do you learn a
new emotional language? It felt ambitious and it felt kind
(05:21):
of exciting, and it also felt clear, like I had
a clear mission now, and that meant I had to
study and be observant and be curious. And I started
by watching other people's interactions and I looked at those
as if that was grammar. The way that parent how
to that child, the way that person didn't get angry
at that person. Those were all lexicons, pieces to put
(05:43):
together in a way of speaking, if you will. And
so I set off sort of at that time in
my life with that being my mission. Was happiness a
learnable skill? Was it a teachable skill? Could I get
to know my nature? If my nurture was really bad.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You were talking about sphere virtual emptiness in nineteen ninety five,
way before this was part of the zeitgeist. How did
music and writing save you?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
My dad grew up in a really abusive household, and
he wrote a beautiful book called Sun of a Midnight Land,
and one of the things he said in it is
I was given the sickness, but I was also given
the cure. And I think that's true for a lot
of us. All of our lives, all of our hearts
are destined to be broken. It doesn't matter for poor
(06:31):
or rich, we're famous or we're homeless. All of our
hearts are destined to be broken at some point. It's
what we do with the pieces that make us extraordinary.
And so it's each of our jobs to learn to
become alchemists, to turn the poison into medicine. And we
all have some kind of resource available to us. And
so for me, writing really was that I had been
(06:53):
writing a long time before I started writing songs and
singing my whole life. And so when I couldn't afford
to go back home during the winter breaks at this
boarding school, I was at my idea of lemonade was
hitchhiking across the country. I couldn't learn other people's songs
because I didn't know enough chords, and it was just
a lot easier to improvise and make up lyrics. And
(07:14):
it was my first time seeing pop culture in America,
and you know, reality TV wasn't a thing yet. And
I do find that really interesting that my very first
line was people living their lives for you on TV.
They say they're better than you, and you agree. I
was raised without a television, and suddenly I was in America,
where there was worship, There was a hero worship, there
was worship of.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
People on television.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
And I know America was found out on getting away
from a royal system, from kings and queens, but celebrities
in America became the new kings and queens. And I
could see the writing on the wall. I could see
it happening already. And this in myself, lack of accountability,
of nobody's coming for me, Am, I coming for me, AM,
(07:58):
I really showing up for my am, I copping out.
I wanted to learn how to be more accountable, and
it took me longer than that moment.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
What do you mean copping out.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
I was shoplifting a lot, and granted it did help
me survive. There were definitely things about it that helped
food and things like that, but a lot of the
shoplifting was just to medicate my anxiety. It's also a
really entitled thing to do, to steal, but I had
a chip on my shoulder. I felt like the world
owed me. I felt like I was cheated and not
(08:33):
that those things aren't true. What I started to realize
and realize with more time, is that a lot of
us have many good reasons not to be happy, But
will you let those be excuses?
Speaker 5 (08:45):
That's where the rubber meets the road.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
That's where no matter how bad your life is, no
matter how betrayed and hurt you've been, it's still up
to you to learn how to be happy because nobody
cares but you. You have the most investment in it,
and me sitting around and saying poor me doesn't help it.
All it does is hurt me. What am I willing
(09:07):
to do about it? And so writing whole Savior Soul
was about watching where I thought maybe culture was heading disconnection,
asking and expecting other people to help us when we
are absolutely unwilling to be fully accountable to our own
If you want to say salvation, it's a strong word,
but in a way that.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Self reliance is just such a huge through line in
your story. You got a million dollar record deal and
you turned it down and you were still living in
your car.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Why did you turn it down?
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I ended a homeless because I wouldn't have sex with
a boss. He wouldn't give me my paycheck, so I
couldn't pay my rent, so got kicked out sort of
living in my car. I was having really bad panic attacks.
I was getting agoraphobic, which is a fear of leaving
your home, so I didn't want to leave my car
or sometimes wouldn't get out to go eat at a
panic attacks if I left my car or the street
corner that I was on. And my shoplifting hit a
(10:02):
whole new level, and I realized I would end up
in jailer dead if I didn't turn my life around.
But when I ultimately got discovered, it was accidental. I
wasn't trying to get discovered. I just I wanted to
stop feeling alone. The only place I told truth was
in this journal. I never read that journal to anybody
nobody knew the real me. I never was allowing myself
(10:24):
to be vulnerable enough to let myself be seen for
how much pain I was in or how bad some
of my coping skills were. And so I decided to
write songs very honestly and to sing them in these
coffee shops. My first show was for two surfers. I
think it was a five hour show, because that's what
we did growing up in bars.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
You do five hour shows.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
So I wrote five hours worth of material and these
two surfer guys just cried during the show. I cried
during the show, and I was rewarded for being deeply,
deeply authentic. And that felt like it'll bring tears to
my eyes, Like what a gift that was in my life,
that changed my life. And then that audio and screw
and I got discovered. But yes, my first album, I
(11:05):
realized also for some other reason, like I'll get to
the million dollars.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Nobody gives you anything for free.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
That is true.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
I grew up on a ranch, I grew up with
horse trading. I grew up with very smart people trading
and bartering. Nobody gives you something for free. There's always
a price, So nobody was giving me a million dollars
like I did know enough to know that. So it's
the catch. Nobody's telling me what the catches. And so
I did go to the public library and asked for
a book on the music business. It's a really famous book.
(11:35):
It's still being published today and updated, but it was
basically called Everything You Need to Know about the Music Business.
And so I learned about contracts. I learned about back
ends and royalties. I learned that the advance was alone,
and I learned that I'd pay it back through record sales.
And I learned that the money I make per record
sale is actually incredibly small pennies, if not fractions of
(11:56):
pennies per record. So I also learned it would take
maybe another couple of million dollars for my label to
invest in me.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
To see if I would ever be successful. So let's
call that a.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Three million dollar investment in me. And how many records
would I have to sell to earn that back for
the label? It was going to be millions and millions
of albums. And because I liked my authenticity, I knew
I was going to make a full album At the
Heights of Grunge. I knew the odds of that being
successful were incredibly low. I also knew that the hype
(12:26):
and the bidding war over me was a tiny bit
to do with me, But it's mostly to do with
the other labels competing with the other labels, and I
should never confuse that with my worth or my value.
You knew that at such a young age. Well, it
was everybody pulling me. If I may be a bit crude,
it was like a bunch of labels pulling their dicks out,
seeing who's the biggest and who was going to win.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Like that was very obvious.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
That wasn't like a difficult thing to like be like
like what's happening here?
Speaker 5 (12:52):
No, it was really obvious what was happening.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
You know, I'm trying to put myself in your situation,
and I'm thinking, like, you never had anybody look at
you and say you're special, Like you didn't have that
growing up, and that's what parents are usually for. And
then you have all of these people all of a
sudden saying you're special, in fighting over you, and you
still choose your authenticity. You just had this deep knowing.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
It was an odd dichotomy. I wasn't secure, I was
so flawed. I was so desperate for love and attention.
I just, for some reason, new fame would never be
what healed that for me. And when I looked at
fame and I looked at what fame seemed to do
to people, I don't think fame changes you. I think
(13:39):
it exaggerates you. And if you need power to feel
good about yourself, you're gonna need more of it. You
need applause to feel worthy, You're gonna need more of it.
It'll never be enough. It is an addiction. And again,
I just knew that that was a very dangerous proposition
for me.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Decision kind of saved your career. Yeah, because I didn't
know this.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Your first album went to radio, it debuted, and it
did not do well.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
It ended up being a massive hit.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah. You know, for a person who didn't care about fame,
you got pretty darn famous.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
What was the hardest part of fame for you?
Speaker 4 (14:22):
I found it very traumatizing. You know, people don't like
to hear hear that. You know, famous people aren't easy
to have sympathy for, And I get.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Why, but you're easy to have sympathy for.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
H Famous traumatizing And I don't care if you've had
a great childhood, becoming that famous, often at young ages,
is a level of scrutiny and attention that.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
It's hard to describe, but.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
You know how you can walk down the street and
check out and you're just in your mind and your imagination,
or you can eat dinner and you're just just with
the person that you're eating when you suddenly realize like
every single moment is being scrutinized, and you're being watched,
and you're being followed, and that people change how they
act around you, and you don't get to see people
(15:15):
be their unaltered selves, their aversion of themselves that's through
the lens of how they perceive you. It's like living
in a circus full of funhouse mirrors. I also noticed
great fame and great power is like when planets have
a dense mass, right, it's been space and time around it.
Mass fame and mass power warps warps things around you.
(15:39):
It warps perceptions, and for me, especially with my traumatic background,
being touched people grabbing me, if I didn't act nice enough,
they'd say, ef you, you're not that great anyway, And
it felt just as lonely to be worshiped by strangers
that didn't know me as it did by having people
(16:02):
hate me that didn't know me. They feel the same.
It's isolating and very lonely because it's so impersonal, and
so you feel trapped and buried beneath perceptions you're the
great and terrible Oz. And so the only way I
knew how to handle that was a move the curtain
back and make sure I was always leading with like, hey,
(16:23):
I'm just a little guy behind a curtain, deeply flawed,
and leading with those flaws. But the other way I
learned to deal with it was that I didn't have
to do it. I didn't have to be that famous.
I could step off like it got much bigger than
I thought, incredibly grateful, But after the second album, I realized,
this actually just doesn't make me happy, and I'm either
(16:44):
going to be honest about it or I'm going to
have to go live a life of a lie.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
And so I quit for two years. You know, I didn't.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I couldn't handle it psychologically what had happened, how famous
I got that you needed bodyguards everywhere. I had death
threats every day. I had people saying they'd shoot me
in the head. During you were meant for me. During
a show somewhere on tour, I had stalkers unlike anything
the FBI had ever seen. It wasn't fun. I wasn't
having fun, and so I gave myself permission to quit.
(17:15):
I quit for two years, and I just explored, like
what I like to be a photographer? Would I like
to be a novelist? Would I like to be a chef?
Like what else do I like to do? I realized
at the end of two years, I actually really loved music.
I wanted to do it. I actually just didn't like
being that famous. And in two years my fame came
down so much that I could go grocery shopping. Really,
(17:38):
oh my god, it was so fast.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
So you unlinked the.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Two, but I just done linked them. Yeah, And seeing
that was very powerful, like how quickly once you're out
of the public eye, how quickly you fade away. And
so for me that actually felt really hopeful, And so
I got in touch in those two years with the
things that really drove me. You know, I knew I
wanted to be an artist more than I wanted to
be famous. I always know I wanted to have a
(18:01):
career more than I wanted to have a moment. I
wanted to be a songwriter. And I liked learning. I
like experimenting, I like growing, I like doing things I've
never done before. And so I realized, like, because of
the way I'd structured my deal, I never had to
have another hit, I never had to have the pressure
of like I didn't care about the success. I didn't
care about that type of success. At least, I didn't
(18:23):
care that everybody knew my name, and so that bought
me a lot of freedom. And so I created a
career path for myself that's really unconventional. But I would
kill my momentum between every album. I would kill my fame.
Between every album. I would switch genres, which is sacrilege
and everybody hated. But it kept me so alive and
so engaged and so curious because I had a new
(18:45):
puzzle to figure out every time.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Like your label must have been so mad at you. Oh,
oh my god.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
I was always just that kid. We were like, great,
here we go, what's she going to do this time?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
We have to take a quick break from our conversation,
but we'll be right back with more from singer songwriter Jewel,
And we're back with Jewel, You've said that your biggest
accomplishment is your well being. And it's sort of a
(19:16):
funny thing to say about a person who's sold thirty
million albums globally, but you said from the start that
your one true goal in life is to be happy.
I think some people chase freedom, some people chase fulfillment.
You are clearly chasing happiness. Why happiness?
Speaker 4 (19:36):
I've always had this thing I call my deathbed decision,
where I pretend I'm on my deathbed and i look
at this moment in my life and I'll ask, does
this moment matter? Is this the moment that when I'm
on my deathbed I'll remember? And getting to live and
have a career doing something you're built to do deeply satisfying.
(20:00):
Definitely know in my deathbed that that would be a
very satisfying feeling. What I care if I had another
thirty million albums sold, wouldn't I just wouldn't care on
my deathbed.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
What I care?
Speaker 4 (20:14):
If my family loved me, I would care about that.
And so I just started to navigate my life. And
I remember writing in my journal very young that I
wanted my life to be my best work of art.
I'm ambitious. I am an ambitious person. It's just that
my ambition was to create a different shape. It wasn't
just to create a song. I want my life to
(20:36):
be artful, and that means my creativity and my my
Whatever I have for intelligence, whatever I have for my
emotionality has to apply itself artfully to my life. And
that meant I had to give myself time to say,
what else do I want to grow in my life?
What is the shape of my life? If my life
was a mandala at the end of it, was it
(20:59):
a beautiful shape? Was it thirsty? Did I ever have enough?
Was it ever enough? And then life just kept also
dealing me blows where I just had to kept also
healing and putting my healing as a priority. But if
my life was a painting or a sculpture, my mothering
factors into that, my relationship to my health and my
(21:20):
healing factors into that. I've tried to do that artfully,
and I'm only the judge of it. Only I know
what I think is artful, you know, just like the
only same with me writing a song. Only I know
and I think that's a neat song. It doesn't mean
everybody else will agree, but it meant I had a
commitment to myself that way.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
You've described your new exhibit, The Portal as an immersive
experience that explores the intersection of so many of your
passions music, mental health, technology and art. For someone who
can't attend in person, what does this look like?
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Yeah, this was such a dream come true project for me.
But to walk people through the experience, you come into
the museum and you're met by a hologram of me,
and it's a two minute spoken word poem that encourages
us to listen. It talks about a first personal philosophy
of mine.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
I call it the three spheres.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
It's the idea that each of us travel through three
realms of reality every single day, often without realizing it.
There's our inner life, which is our thought and feelings.
There's our scene physical life, which is our jobs and
our families and finances and just the physical world. And
then there's the unseen. Whatever that means to you, It
might be a really clearly defined spiritual path. It might
just be that you get chills when you see a
(22:35):
James Webb telescope image, and when you read physics you
just feel so inspired and in awe. So it's whatever
gives you a sense of awe and inspiration. The idea
for me is that mental health is a side effect
of these three spheres working in harmony. Mental anguish is
a side effect of them being in conflict, and so
the entire experience is designed to help people define and
(22:56):
understand what these three realms mean to them. After the hologram,
they walk through the contemporary wing of the museum, where
I curated ten pieces of their art. There's a video
of me next to these pieces that says, what does
your inner life feel like? And people are given a
journal and they write the answers down to these prompts,
and they're each relevant to the three spheres. Three about
(23:18):
your inner realm, three about what you think about your
physical realm, and three about the unseen. The last piece
combines all of them, and I ask people to identify
one thing that causes their three realms to be in
conflict and one thing that helps their three realms come
in harmony. And then they fill in the blank of
a very magical sentence. I think the sentence is like
a magical formula. It has changed my life. The sentence
(23:40):
is I sacrifice my attachment to X, and I dedicate
it to why. Every morning I work with a sentence
I fill in the blanks for myself, will share mine.
I sacrifice my attachment to perfectionism, and I dedicate it
to actively noticing what's going right. I say that sentence
every morning in my meditation fifty times a day. Perfectionism
(24:04):
just has my number. It's just really hard for me
to get out of it, and it ruins my day
because nothing's perfect, by the way, So it just means
I'm pretty much annoyed all day.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
It's not a fun way to navigate. Oh, it's the worst.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
And so I'm able to redirect in every moment. And
this is a behavioral health tool because our brains are
pattern matchers, and once you tell your brain to be aware,
to be on the lookout for perfectionism, and to replace
it with another tool, your brain will do its job.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
It will tell you the fifty.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Billion times a day you engage, and it's this mindfulness
practice that then begins to help you build a new
pattern in a new way of being.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
So that's the last part of the art walk.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
It takes about an hour up to this point, and
then people walk outside and they see a drone show
with an original piece of music that I created that
puts all of these fears together. It goes from spoken
word into soundscaping into song andto spoken word. It's like
me meets Pink Floyd. Is the best way I can
just describe this music because it's unlike anything else I've
ever done. But it's the favorite piece of music I've
(25:05):
made in my whole career.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
I hope you tour this. This sounds so spectacular.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
In April of this year, you took the stage with
Olivia Rodrigo at Madison Square Garden and I loved your
TikTok explaining why you wanted to go do it and
meet her and meet her parents. You loved that she
was a writer, not just a singer, and that she
was a good person. Amiss the monster of fame? Can
you see your influence in artists today? And I'm going
(25:35):
to lead the question because I see so much jewel
in Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Do you see it?
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Oh gosh, there's a really neat demo of Taylor writing
a song that is you were meant for me. It's
the melody. It's like when we learn to write songs
that's how we learn. We learn by trying to figure
out how somebody else wrote that song, and so it
was her own lyrics, but it was definitely you were
meant for me, And clearly she couldn't release it, but
it was obviously so flattering to see that she was
(26:05):
learning how to put her songs together by listening to
that song and her mother mam at her really early
in her career. And you know, I was told what
an influence I was on her, which is, you know,
that's our job. You know, Ricky Lee Jones influenced me,
Joni Mitchell influenced me, Josephine Baker influenced me. We need
these influences. We need people that inspire us to do
(26:26):
what we do, and we should be proud of those influences.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
You said, I want to be one of the best
singer songwriters of my time, hold my own with my heroes.
That's a sixty year goal. When you're thinking in that
sixty year cycle, which I think is so rare, what's
the mark you're wanting to make?
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Now, how do I describe it? You're not entitled to
being a good writer. You just have to work at
it every day. One of the reasons I stepped back
from like the NonStop album cycle, taking steps back away
from fame was because to write, you have to learn
a lot. You have to be deeply engaged with life
so that something can inspire you and you don't know
(27:03):
how that's going to come out of you. I think
that for me, it meant that I had to keep
finding a freshness and an aliveness in my body, and
that you never know if that's going to be received.
I don't know if anybody will hear this ten minute
piece of music called the Portal. It's strange, there's no
format for it, there's nowhere to put that out. They
were just asking on streaming platforms like what category. I'm like, hmmm,
(27:27):
you tell me, ah.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
What are you calling? Mental health?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Or yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
It's strange, but it's just so authentically me. And that's
all you can do is do the work, do the
work that you believe in. No idea how I'll be remembered.
I just know that for me, it's very important that
I push myself as a writer, and for me, that
means something has to be alive and fresh and awaken you.
That isn't trying to be liked it's just trying to
(27:54):
be evolving in your own humanity.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Juell, thank you for sharing your time with us on
the bright Side.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Thanks, it's an honor, and thanks for helping people realize
just how much beauty and the sunny days are ahead
of all of us.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Jewel is a singer, songwriter and a mental health advocate.
Her immersive art exhibit, The Portal, an Art Experience by Jewel,
is on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American
Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, until July twenty eighth.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
That's it for today's show.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Tomorrow, journalist, television host, and author Brooke Baldwin joins us
to share how she found her voice and how she's
loving her bad Girl era.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
This one is so good and so spicy, y'all, you
don't want to miss it. Okay, listen and follow the
bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. I'm Simone Voice. You can find
me at simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
That's ro Ba. Y see you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Keep looking on the bright side.
Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today on the bright Side, Grammy
nominated singer songwriter Jewel is here. She's got a brand
new art exhibit and a new summer tour. She's talking
about why making the human choice is always the right choice,
and why in the end, only kindness matters. It's Tuesday,
May twenty eighth. I'm Simone Voice, I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello
Sunshine Simon. Jewel burst onto the scene in the nineties,
and she changed the game.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
She was really an outlier.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
There was this cookie cutter box that people had to
fit in with musicianship and artistry, and kind of like
Adele did about a decade ago, she changed things for people.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I think the common thread between Jewel and Adele is heartbreak, pain,
life experience. Like they both brought that grown woman vibe.
I mean, I remember when Yes Well grit, when Jewel
broke out. I mean, she brought this emotionality and texture
to her voice that felt just more mature in a
lot of ways than the bubblegum pop of that day.
(01:07):
I mean, songs like you Were Meant for Me? Who
Will Save Your Soul? Standing Still? Even the yodling like
she brought a whole new technique to the game.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yes, and she had been yodling in bars since she
was eight years old, but she became a household name
with her twelve time platinum album Pieces of You. I
remember listening to that in my mom's car as a
little girl. I was aware that Jewel grew up in
Alaska on a homestead, but the heartbreak of her childhood
(01:38):
was something I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The depths of Yeah, I mean, she experienced the unimaginable
parental abuse, homelessness, poverty. She left her home at the
age of fifteen and eventually got a scholarship to Interlock
and Center for the Arts. It's this prestigious boarding school
in Michigan for artists in high.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
School, That's exactly it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And she couldn't afford to go home during breaks, so
she hitchhiked around the country and to Mexico, and it
was around that time that she wrote her first hit,
who Will Save Your Soul?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Her resilience, to me is just mind blowing, and I
think that a lot of people probably aren't aware of
how committed she's been to providing mental health resources for others,
which I mean, she's done that for nearly two decades
through her Children's Foundation, she was part of.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
The mental health conversation even before it was a conversation.
So while you were away on your retreat, I had
the opportunity to sit down with Jewel. She's debuting The Portal,
which is an immersive art exhibit centered on wellness and
it's just in time for Mental Health Awareness Month. It's
on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
in Bentonville, Arkansas, right now through July twenty eighth, and
(02:48):
it includes companion music and EP titled The Portal, which
will be out this July. Simon, I'm excited to share
this conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I cannot wait to listen along with all of our
bright Side best. After the Break, Danielle's interview with the
One and Only Jewel.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
We're back and we're here with Grammy nominated singer songwriter
Jewel Jewel.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Welcome to the bright Side. Hi, thanks for having me, Jewel.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
My mom had a cherry red jeep Grand Cherokee when
I was growing up, and pieces of you would play
on repeat in the car. I knew every single one
of your songs before I even knew what the words meant.
I could really feel you. I could feel your music
even at such a young age, And I think many
people could say the same thing.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
What was the soundtrack of your youth?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
The wind and the leaves, the sound of seals in
the bay?
Speaker 5 (03:51):
Music.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
My dad was a songwriter. My whole family sang, so
there was definitely a lot of music around. We didn't
have a tough division, and so it was quiet. It
was quiet compared to other people's lives, but in that
quiet was a symphony of life that made me feel
incredibly comforted.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
When I was young, I was blown away when I
learned about everything that you had to overcome to become
one of the most successful artists of your generation, from
living in your car to selling millions of records. Your
path was paved with one challenge after another, and one
way you found your way through it all was music.
(04:32):
But how else were you able to find stability?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
I moved out at fifteen, and I knew before I
decided to do it, I was contemplating if I should
do it, and I knew it was quite dangerous to
move out. Statistically that doesn't work out well, and I
wanted to be very clear eyed about the type of
danger that I was stepping into and was that risk
worth leaving a home that I didn't really enjoy living in.
(04:59):
And I felt like that meant I had to have
a plan. I'd been reading a lot of philosophy at
the time, and maybe that's what made me sort of
very logical maybe or tactical about it. And so I
realized what I had to do was learn a new vocabulary,
a new emotional way of relating to the world. It
got me so curious, like how do you learn a
new emotional language? It felt ambitious and it felt kind
(05:21):
of exciting, and it also felt clear, like I had
a clear mission now, and that meant I had to
study and be observant and be curious. And I started
by watching other people's interactions and I looked at those
as if that was grammar. The way that parent how
to that child, the way that person didn't get angry
at that person. Those were all lexicons, pieces to put
(05:43):
together in a way of speaking, if you will. And
so I set off sort of at that time in
my life with that being my mission. Was happiness a
learnable skill? Was it a teachable skill? Could I get
to know my nature? If my nurture was really bad.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You were talking about sphere virtual emptiness in nineteen ninety five,
way before this was part of the zeitgeist. How did
music and writing save you?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
My dad grew up in a really abusive household, and
he wrote a beautiful book called Sun of a Midnight Land,
and one of the things he said in it is
I was given the sickness, but I was also given
the cure. And I think that's true for a lot
of us. All of our lives, all of our hearts
are destined to be broken. It doesn't matter for poor
(06:31):
or rich, we're famous or we're homeless. All of our
hearts are destined to be broken at some point. It's
what we do with the pieces that make us extraordinary.
And so it's each of our jobs to learn to
become alchemists, to turn the poison into medicine. And we
all have some kind of resource available to us. And
so for me, writing really was that I had been
(06:53):
writing a long time before I started writing songs and
singing my whole life. And so when I couldn't afford
to go back home during the winter breaks at this
boarding school, I was at my idea of lemonade was
hitchhiking across the country. I couldn't learn other people's songs
because I didn't know enough chords, and it was just
a lot easier to improvise and make up lyrics. And
(07:14):
it was my first time seeing pop culture in America,
and you know, reality TV wasn't a thing yet. And
I do find that really interesting that my very first
line was people living their lives for you on TV.
They say they're better than you, and you agree. I
was raised without a television, and suddenly I was in America,
where there was worship, There was a hero worship, there
was worship of.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
People on television.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
And I know America was found out on getting away
from a royal system, from kings and queens, but celebrities
in America became the new kings and queens. And I
could see the writing on the wall. I could see
it happening already. And this in myself, lack of accountability,
of nobody's coming for me, Am, I coming for me, AM,
(07:58):
I really showing up for my am, I copping out.
I wanted to learn how to be more accountable, and
it took me longer than that moment.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
What do you mean copping out.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
I was shoplifting a lot, and granted it did help
me survive. There were definitely things about it that helped
food and things like that, but a lot of the
shoplifting was just to medicate my anxiety. It's also a
really entitled thing to do, to steal, but I had
a chip on my shoulder. I felt like the world
owed me. I felt like I was cheated and not
(08:33):
that those things aren't true. What I started to realize
and realize with more time, is that a lot of
us have many good reasons not to be happy, But
will you let those be excuses?
Speaker 5 (08:45):
That's where the rubber meets the road.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
That's where no matter how bad your life is, no
matter how betrayed and hurt you've been, it's still up
to you to learn how to be happy because nobody
cares but you. You have the most investment in it,
and me sitting around and saying poor me doesn't help it.
All it does is hurt me. What am I willing
(09:07):
to do about it? And so writing whole Savior Soul
was about watching where I thought maybe culture was heading disconnection,
asking and expecting other people to help us when we
are absolutely unwilling to be fully accountable to our own
If you want to say salvation, it's a strong word,
but in a way that.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Self reliance is just such a huge through line in
your story. You got a million dollar record deal and
you turned it down and you were still living in
your car.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Why did you turn it down?
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I ended a homeless because I wouldn't have sex with
a boss. He wouldn't give me my paycheck, so I
couldn't pay my rent, so got kicked out sort of
living in my car. I was having really bad panic attacks.
I was getting agoraphobic, which is a fear of leaving
your home, so I didn't want to leave my car
or sometimes wouldn't get out to go eat at a
panic attacks if I left my car or the street
corner that I was on. And my shoplifting hit a
(10:02):
whole new level, and I realized I would end up
in jailer dead if I didn't turn my life around.
But when I ultimately got discovered, it was accidental. I
wasn't trying to get discovered. I just I wanted to
stop feeling alone. The only place I told truth was
in this journal. I never read that journal to anybody
nobody knew the real me. I never was allowing myself
(10:24):
to be vulnerable enough to let myself be seen for
how much pain I was in or how bad some
of my coping skills were. And so I decided to
write songs very honestly and to sing them in these
coffee shops. My first show was for two surfers. I
think it was a five hour show, because that's what
we did growing up in bars.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
You do five hour shows.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
So I wrote five hours worth of material and these
two surfer guys just cried during the show. I cried
during the show, and I was rewarded for being deeply,
deeply authentic. And that felt like it'll bring tears to
my eyes, Like what a gift that was in my life,
that changed my life. And then that audio and screw
and I got discovered. But yes, my first album, I
(11:05):
realized also for some other reason, like I'll get to
the million dollars.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Nobody gives you anything for free.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
That is true.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
I grew up on a ranch, I grew up with
horse trading. I grew up with very smart people trading
and bartering. Nobody gives you something for free. There's always
a price, So nobody was giving me a million dollars
like I did know enough to know that. So it's
the catch. Nobody's telling me what the catches. And so
I did go to the public library and asked for
a book on the music business. It's a really famous book.
(11:35):
It's still being published today and updated, but it was
basically called Everything You Need to Know about the Music Business.
And so I learned about contracts. I learned about back
ends and royalties. I learned that the advance was alone,
and I learned that I'd pay it back through record sales.
And I learned that the money I make per record
sale is actually incredibly small pennies, if not fractions of
(11:56):
pennies per record. So I also learned it would take
maybe another couple of million dollars for my label to
invest in me.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
To see if I would ever be successful. So let's
call that a.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Three million dollar investment in me. And how many records
would I have to sell to earn that back for
the label? It was going to be millions and millions
of albums. And because I liked my authenticity, I knew
I was going to make a full album At the
Heights of Grunge. I knew the odds of that being
successful were incredibly low. I also knew that the hype
(12:26):
and the bidding war over me was a tiny bit
to do with me, But it's mostly to do with
the other labels competing with the other labels, and I
should never confuse that with my worth or my value.
You knew that at such a young age. Well, it
was everybody pulling me. If I may be a bit crude,
it was like a bunch of labels pulling their dicks out,
seeing who's the biggest and who was going to win.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Like that was very obvious.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
That wasn't like a difficult thing to like be like
like what's happening here?
Speaker 5 (12:52):
No, it was really obvious what was happening.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
You know, I'm trying to put myself in your situation,
and I'm thinking, like, you never had anybody look at
you and say you're special, Like you didn't have that
growing up, and that's what parents are usually for. And
then you have all of these people all of a
sudden saying you're special, in fighting over you, and you
still choose your authenticity. You just had this deep knowing.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
It was an odd dichotomy. I wasn't secure, I was
so flawed. I was so desperate for love and attention.
I just, for some reason, new fame would never be
what healed that for me. And when I looked at
fame and I looked at what fame seemed to do
to people, I don't think fame changes you. I think
(13:39):
it exaggerates you. And if you need power to feel
good about yourself, you're gonna need more of it. You
need applause to feel worthy, You're gonna need more of it.
It'll never be enough. It is an addiction. And again,
I just knew that that was a very dangerous proposition
for me.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Decision kind of saved your career. Yeah, because I didn't
know this.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Your first album went to radio, it debuted, and it
did not do well.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
It ended up being a massive hit.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah. You know, for a person who didn't care about fame,
you got pretty darn famous.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
What was the hardest part of fame for you?
Speaker 4 (14:22):
I found it very traumatizing. You know, people don't like
to hear hear that. You know, famous people aren't easy
to have sympathy for, And I get.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Why, but you're easy to have sympathy for.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
H Famous traumatizing And I don't care if you've had
a great childhood, becoming that famous, often at young ages,
is a level of scrutiny and attention that.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
It's hard to describe, but.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
You know how you can walk down the street and
check out and you're just in your mind and your imagination,
or you can eat dinner and you're just just with
the person that you're eating when you suddenly realize like
every single moment is being scrutinized, and you're being watched,
and you're being followed, and that people change how they
act around you, and you don't get to see people
(15:15):
be their unaltered selves, their aversion of themselves that's through
the lens of how they perceive you. It's like living
in a circus full of funhouse mirrors. I also noticed
great fame and great power is like when planets have
a dense mass, right, it's been space and time around it.
Mass fame and mass power warps warps things around you.
(15:39):
It warps perceptions, and for me, especially with my traumatic background,
being touched people grabbing me, if I didn't act nice enough,
they'd say, ef you, you're not that great anyway, And
it felt just as lonely to be worshiped by strangers
that didn't know me as it did by having people
(16:02):
hate me that didn't know me. They feel the same.
It's isolating and very lonely because it's so impersonal, and
so you feel trapped and buried beneath perceptions you're the
great and terrible Oz. And so the only way I
knew how to handle that was a move the curtain
back and make sure I was always leading with like, hey,
(16:23):
I'm just a little guy behind a curtain, deeply flawed,
and leading with those flaws. But the other way I
learned to deal with it was that I didn't have
to do it. I didn't have to be that famous.
I could step off like it got much bigger than
I thought, incredibly grateful, But after the second album, I realized,
this actually just doesn't make me happy, and I'm either
(16:44):
going to be honest about it or I'm going to
have to go live a life of a lie.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
And so I quit for two years. You know, I didn't.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I couldn't handle it psychologically what had happened, how famous
I got that you needed bodyguards everywhere. I had death
threats every day. I had people saying they'd shoot me
in the head. During you were meant for me. During
a show somewhere on tour, I had stalkers unlike anything
the FBI had ever seen. It wasn't fun. I wasn't
having fun, and so I gave myself permission to quit.
(17:15):
I quit for two years, and I just explored, like
what I like to be a photographer? Would I like
to be a novelist? Would I like to be a chef?
Like what else do I like to do? I realized
at the end of two years, I actually really loved music.
I wanted to do it. I actually just didn't like
being that famous. And in two years my fame came
down so much that I could go grocery shopping. Really,
(17:38):
oh my god, it was so fast.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
So you unlinked the.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Two, but I just done linked them. Yeah, And seeing
that was very powerful, like how quickly once you're out
of the public eye, how quickly you fade away. And
so for me that actually felt really hopeful, And so
I got in touch in those two years with the
things that really drove me. You know, I knew I
wanted to be an artist more than I wanted to
be famous. I always know I wanted to have a
(18:01):
career more than I wanted to have a moment. I
wanted to be a songwriter. And I liked learning. I
like experimenting, I like growing, I like doing things I've
never done before. And so I realized, like, because of
the way I'd structured my deal, I never had to
have another hit, I never had to have the pressure
of like I didn't care about the success. I didn't
care about that type of success. At least, I didn't
(18:23):
care that everybody knew my name, and so that bought
me a lot of freedom. And so I created a
career path for myself that's really unconventional. But I would
kill my momentum between every album. I would kill my fame.
Between every album. I would switch genres, which is sacrilege
and everybody hated. But it kept me so alive and
so engaged and so curious because I had a new
(18:45):
puzzle to figure out every time.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Like your label must have been so mad at you. Oh,
oh my god.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
I was always just that kid. We were like, great,
here we go, what's she going to do this time?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
We have to take a quick break from our conversation,
but we'll be right back with more from singer songwriter Jewel,
And we're back with Jewel, You've said that your biggest
accomplishment is your well being. And it's sort of a
(19:16):
funny thing to say about a person who's sold thirty
million albums globally, but you said from the start that
your one true goal in life is to be happy.
I think some people chase freedom, some people chase fulfillment.
You are clearly chasing happiness. Why happiness?
Speaker 4 (19:36):
I've always had this thing I call my deathbed decision,
where I pretend I'm on my deathbed and i look
at this moment in my life and I'll ask, does
this moment matter? Is this the moment that when I'm
on my deathbed I'll remember? And getting to live and
have a career doing something you're built to do deeply satisfying.
(20:00):
Definitely know in my deathbed that that would be a
very satisfying feeling. What I care if I had another
thirty million albums sold, wouldn't I just wouldn't care on
my deathbed.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
What I care?
Speaker 4 (20:14):
If my family loved me, I would care about that.
And so I just started to navigate my life. And
I remember writing in my journal very young that I
wanted my life to be my best work of art.
I'm ambitious. I am an ambitious person. It's just that
my ambition was to create a different shape. It wasn't
just to create a song. I want my life to
(20:36):
be artful, and that means my creativity and my my
Whatever I have for intelligence, whatever I have for my
emotionality has to apply itself artfully to my life. And
that meant I had to give myself time to say,
what else do I want to grow in my life?
What is the shape of my life? If my life
was a mandala at the end of it, was it
(20:59):
a beautiful shape? Was it thirsty? Did I ever have enough?
Was it ever enough? And then life just kept also
dealing me blows where I just had to kept also
healing and putting my healing as a priority. But if
my life was a painting or a sculpture, my mothering
factors into that, my relationship to my health and my
(21:20):
healing factors into that. I've tried to do that artfully,
and I'm only the judge of it. Only I know
what I think is artful, you know, just like the
only same with me writing a song. Only I know
and I think that's a neat song. It doesn't mean
everybody else will agree, but it meant I had a
commitment to myself that way.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
You've described your new exhibit, The Portal as an immersive
experience that explores the intersection of so many of your
passions music, mental health, technology and art. For someone who
can't attend in person, what does this look like?
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Yeah, this was such a dream come true project for me.
But to walk people through the experience, you come into
the museum and you're met by a hologram of me,
and it's a two minute spoken word poem that encourages
us to listen. It talks about a first personal philosophy
of mine.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
I call it the three spheres.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
It's the idea that each of us travel through three
realms of reality every single day, often without realizing it.
There's our inner life, which is our thought and feelings.
There's our scene physical life, which is our jobs and
our families and finances and just the physical world. And
then there's the unseen. Whatever that means to you, It
might be a really clearly defined spiritual path. It might
just be that you get chills when you see a
(22:35):
James Webb telescope image, and when you read physics you
just feel so inspired and in awe. So it's whatever
gives you a sense of awe and inspiration. The idea
for me is that mental health is a side effect
of these three spheres working in harmony. Mental anguish is
a side effect of them being in conflict, and so
the entire experience is designed to help people define and
(22:56):
understand what these three realms mean to them. After the hologram,
they walk through the contemporary wing of the museum, where
I curated ten pieces of their art. There's a video
of me next to these pieces that says, what does
your inner life feel like? And people are given a
journal and they write the answers down to these prompts,
and they're each relevant to the three spheres. Three about
(23:18):
your inner realm, three about what you think about your
physical realm, and three about the unseen. The last piece
combines all of them, and I ask people to identify
one thing that causes their three realms to be in
conflict and one thing that helps their three realms come
in harmony. And then they fill in the blank of
a very magical sentence. I think the sentence is like
a magical formula. It has changed my life. The sentence
(23:40):
is I sacrifice my attachment to X, and I dedicate
it to why. Every morning I work with a sentence
I fill in the blanks for myself, will share mine.
I sacrifice my attachment to perfectionism, and I dedicate it
to actively noticing what's going right. I say that sentence
every morning in my meditation fifty times a day. Perfectionism
(24:04):
just has my number. It's just really hard for me
to get out of it, and it ruins my day
because nothing's perfect, by the way, So it just means
I'm pretty much annoyed all day.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
It's not a fun way to navigate. Oh, it's the worst.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
And so I'm able to redirect in every moment. And
this is a behavioral health tool because our brains are
pattern matchers, and once you tell your brain to be aware,
to be on the lookout for perfectionism, and to replace
it with another tool, your brain will do its job.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
It will tell you the fifty.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Billion times a day you engage, and it's this mindfulness
practice that then begins to help you build a new
pattern in a new way of being.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
So that's the last part of the art walk.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
It takes about an hour up to this point, and
then people walk outside and they see a drone show
with an original piece of music that I created that
puts all of these fears together. It goes from spoken
word into soundscaping into song andto spoken word. It's like
me meets Pink Floyd. Is the best way I can
just describe this music because it's unlike anything else I've
ever done. But it's the favorite piece of music I've
(25:05):
made in my whole career.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
I hope you tour this. This sounds so spectacular.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
In April of this year, you took the stage with
Olivia Rodrigo at Madison Square Garden and I loved your
TikTok explaining why you wanted to go do it and
meet her and meet her parents. You loved that she
was a writer, not just a singer, and that she
was a good person. Amiss the monster of fame? Can
you see your influence in artists today? And I'm going
(25:35):
to lead the question because I see so much jewel
in Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Do you see it?
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Oh gosh, there's a really neat demo of Taylor writing
a song that is you were meant for me. It's
the melody. It's like when we learn to write songs
that's how we learn. We learn by trying to figure
out how somebody else wrote that song, and so it
was her own lyrics, but it was definitely you were
meant for me, And clearly she couldn't release it, but
it was obviously so flattering to see that she was
(26:05):
learning how to put her songs together by listening to
that song and her mother mam at her really early
in her career. And you know, I was told what
an influence I was on her, which is, you know,
that's our job. You know, Ricky Lee Jones influenced me,
Joni Mitchell influenced me, Josephine Baker influenced me. We need
these influences. We need people that inspire us to do
(26:26):
what we do, and we should be proud of those influences.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
You said, I want to be one of the best
singer songwriters of my time, hold my own with my heroes.
That's a sixty year goal. When you're thinking in that
sixty year cycle, which I think is so rare, what's
the mark you're wanting to make?
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Now, how do I describe it? You're not entitled to
being a good writer. You just have to work at
it every day. One of the reasons I stepped back
from like the NonStop album cycle, taking steps back away
from fame was because to write, you have to learn
a lot. You have to be deeply engaged with life
so that something can inspire you and you don't know
(27:03):
how that's going to come out of you. I think
that for me, it meant that I had to keep
finding a freshness and an aliveness in my body, and
that you never know if that's going to be received.
I don't know if anybody will hear this ten minute
piece of music called the Portal. It's strange, there's no
format for it, there's nowhere to put that out. They
were just asking on streaming platforms like what category. I'm like, hmmm,
(27:27):
you tell me, ah.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
What are you calling? Mental health?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Or yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
It's strange, but it's just so authentically me. And that's
all you can do is do the work, do the
work that you believe in. No idea how I'll be remembered.
I just know that for me, it's very important that
I push myself as a writer, and for me, that
means something has to be alive and fresh and awaken you.
That isn't trying to be liked it's just trying to
(27:54):
be evolving in your own humanity.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Juell, thank you for sharing your time with us on
the bright Side.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Thanks, it's an honor, and thanks for helping people realize
just how much beauty and the sunny days are ahead
of all of us.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Jewel is a singer, songwriter and a mental health advocate.
Her immersive art exhibit, The Portal, an Art Experience by Jewel,
is on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American
Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, until July twenty eighth.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
That's it for today's show.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Tomorrow, journalist, television host, and author Brooke Baldwin joins us
to share how she found her voice and how she's
loving her bad Girl era.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
This one is so good and so spicy, y'all, you
don't want to miss it. Okay, listen and follow the
bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. I'm Simone Voice. You can find
me at simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
That's ro Ba. Y see you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Keep looking on the bright side.
Hosts And Creators
Simone Boyce
Danielle Robay
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