A Life in Six Songs
A Life in Six Songs is a music-interview podcast focused on those particular songs that have a strong connection in each of our lives. These are not necessarily your favorite songs, but rather those times music was seared into your memory attached with what you were going through at the time.
Check out all the info at ALifeinSixSongs.com
So many of the discussions around music are about who the better band is or why a certain genre is not as good as another. Those discussions miss what is so fundamental about our interaction with and enjoyment of music. Here, we lead with Love, Kindness, and Curiosity, to counter the Hate, Anger, and Judgment in the world (and there is a lot of it!) We are a judgment-free zone where we do not critique our taste in music, but are focused on understanding the unique role music has played in each guest’s life.
"Don't ask me how I survived. Ask me what song I played on repeat when I thought my whole world was over."
Listen to the songs from the show! Check out the Life in Six Songs Playlist on:
Apple:
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/a-life-in-six-songs-podcast-playlist/pl.u-kv9lq9mFNvoRK
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4EmPAPejwNo6WwCKDeVmwU?si=a7b1957c464844f8
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Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit or educational use tips the balance in favor of fair use. The original work played in this video has been significantly transformed for the purpose of commentary, criticism, and education.
A Life in Six Songs
Girls Do F*cking Drum: Genevieve Wynand On Doing The Next Big Scary Thing
On this episode, we sit down with Genevieve Wynand, a writer and editor from Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada. At 11 years old, she was dead set on playing the drums, but was told that “girls don’t play drums.” 35 years later “More Than A Feeling” by Boston comes on the radio while driving, and she makes the life-affirming decision to drive to the music store right then to begin her drumming journey that was stifled all those years ago. It is a story of courage and transformation. Genevieve shares how drumming became a liberating force, helping her navigate anxiety and body image issues, ultimately changing her life. Her story highlights the indispensable role music plays in growth, healing, and the (re)discovery of our truest, favorite selves.
Connect with Genevieve on:
Genevieve’s article on Introvert, Dear
Follow your hosts David, Raza, and Carolina every other week as they embark on an epic adventure to find the songs that are stuck to us like audible tattoos that tell the story of who we are and where we’ve been, to help us figure out where we’re going. It’s a life story told through 6 songs.
WHO WE ARE
DAVID: Creator & Host @ALifeinSixSongs
Facilitator & Educator | Music-Based Healing | Musician | Curiosity with Loving Kindness
CAROLINA: Co-Host @ALifeinSixSongs
Storyteller | Professional Facilitator
RAZA: Co-Host @ALifeinSixSongs
Lawyer | Producer | Solo Project: Solamente | @razaismyname
RESOURCES & LINKS
- Liked songs from this life story? Check out A Life in Six Songs playlist on Apple Music and Spotify
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- Are you a veteran who is struggling? Call the Veterans Crisis Line: Dial 988, then press 1.
- Support our work!
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- Don’t keep us all to yourself! Share our podcast with your people!
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Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit or educational use tips the balance in favor of fair use. The original work played in this video has been significantly transformed for the purpose of commentary, criticism, and education.
And it was like okay, I was 11 and now I'm 46. That's 35 years. Like I, it's got to be 35 years, cause if I wait a year and if I wait a year it's a year. I'm not drumming Like I have to have to do this and then maybe by the time I'm, you know, 50, I'll like which I can't even believe. I'm saying that age it's like kind of astonishing, but it really is never too late. Do the next big scary thing.
Speaker 2:That's what I would say. Host David Reese, I'm your host.
Speaker 3:David Reese, and I'm joined by my co-hosts, carolina and Raza. Hey there, hello. On each episode, we embark on a trip with our guests to find those songs that are stuck to us like audible tattoos, that tell the story of who we are and where we've been, to help us figure out where we're going. It's a life story told through six songs. We come to these conversations with love, kindness and curiosity to counter the prevalence of hate, anger and judgment we see in the world. Our guiding view, with a nod to Ted Lasso, is be curious, not judgmental. We hope that by listening to these stories, you can bring more love, kindness and curiosity into your own life. With that, let's go have a listen together.
Speaker 3:Our guest today is Genevieve Wynan, a writer and editor living in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver, british Columbia, canada. She additionally works for the Federation of BC Writers, supporting other writers with their craft. A mom to an 18 and 23-year, in 2022, genevieve began to learn the drums and participate in a monthly drum circle. Currently, she is co-writing a braided memoir motivational book with her drum teacher. Our paths crossed when I came across an article she wrote for the blog Introvert Deer, which is about how learning an instrument is great for introverts, and I said we need to get her on the show. And so, genevieve, welcome to Life in Six Songs.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you all so much for having me here. I'm so excited to get a chance to talk with you.
Speaker 3:That's great, we're glad to have you on. So before we get into your actual six songs, we like to start with just kind of like a warm-up question, kind of a you know 10,000-foot view question of you know, when you think about it. Just briefly, what role does music play in your life? How do you see music in your life?
Speaker 1:I think lately it's become more of a companion than it ever used to be. I think growing up I was definitely like the top 40 kid, you know. Whatever was playing on the radio, that was what I was listening to. And I think since learning an instrument, I'm leaning into music differently. I know we'll probably talk about a lot of stuff, but I also have gone through a journey of healing my nervous system over the past few years, which makes listening to music so much more available to me. So, yeah, I kind of feel like I'm at a new beginning. Definitely, my family is like questioning some of the choices, like they never thought they were going to have, like a metal mom, you know it was like so. So, yeah, things are changing, but it definitely is a companion.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. I love that, and it explains why we wanted to have you on the show, Cause that's that's what it's all about, about how music is that companion for us, and that's what we're going to get into with your six songs, seeing how it's been there throughout your life. And so with that, let's dive right in and get into your first song. So for this first one, you know what was a memorable time when you were first exposed to a band or artist music. You know what was the song or band and who exposed you to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question. So it was definitely a break on through by the doors. It was my dad, I was probably about seven or eight and it just cracked open an alternate universe.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Let's take a quick listen and then we'll chat on the backside.
Speaker 2:You know, the day destroys the night, night divides the day. Try to run, try to hide, break on through to the other side. Break on through to the other side. Break on through to the other side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard for me to not just hear the drums now. Now, like I have to go back to my like little seven year old mind.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's awesome, yeah, so what was it like? What is it like hearing it now? And then, yeah, tell us about when you were seven and hearing it set the scene for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the seven year old self definitely still comes back. My brother he's about three years younger than I am. We were in the living room and my dad he's like you've got to listen to this song, and I don't know if he got new speakers. I don't know what the record player vibe was, I just remember he put this on and he turned it so loud. He wasn't a music guy. He wasn't a music guy. You know, music was in the house. I mean it was. It was around. There'd be, maybe it was like an eight track on in his old Datsun or something when we'd be driving. But this was like my brother and I got the message like we need to sit down and we need to listen to this and there's a reason that this is important to him. And he put it on and I didn't understand it at all.
Speaker 1:I mean this is like this is not baby Beluga, like we are moving from childhood into another realm and he just had this, like he was transported, he was gone and and I was kind of confronting the sound it's very raw. I don't want to say it's disjointed, but it's. There's something so like piecey and chunky about it, but it all works together and the message in my mind, in my child mind, I could actually picture something breaking. But to watch a parent experience something and want you to experience something that you're trying to reach and you can't, it's like it's a very interesting experience for a child.
Speaker 3:Did, um, did your dad like say anything about it? After you listened Like, did he like kind of talk about it, or was it just like you're going to experience this and it was all just about the experience of it?
Speaker 1:He might have. I don't recall I mean, I really was. It was like a portal to another realm, but I wasn't quite ready for it. But it did teach me that something existed, literally, like on the other side, like that's the thing. I think there's something about the lyrics too. Like it's not just the music, it's like the lyrics and the vocals and you can hear like he's not not, like there's something going on, you're being invited into another place. It's a lot for a seven-year-old, it's a lot for a 49-year-old. Like I'm listening to it now and I'm I can anchor on the drums. Like okay, what's going on there? Like, okay, he's influenced by jazz, like I can tell.
Speaker 1:Like there's like some things going on, but I don't, I can't land. I can't land in this song right, I'm sure.
Speaker 4:And music like that, I'm sure, through the years, like every time you hear it and you're a little bit older, in a different place, like whole other layer washes through of the song or of the music it does.
Speaker 1:And and I was thinking about that too, I know, I know that you know the music was in cycles and we all kind of come to music at different points in our lives. And I definitely re-encountered the doors when I was a teenager. You know you'd be at parties, everybody would be getting stoned and like the doors would be on and it was the same thing because, like I was way too paranoid to like do drugs in high school, like I did not. Again, it was like there's this other realm, like people are experiencing something that I'm not a part of and they're having fun, I think. Like it's like are they enjoying themselves? And it was just. Sometimes things are adjacent to us. If they can't be fully inside us, we can almost touch them.
Speaker 3:And I think I felt that experience as a teenager, with that music, with my stoner friends like I, I love them, and they were somewhere that I couldn't be yeah, yeah, and it kind of does that thing of like you know, this being the first song and um, we're talking about and it's this song from when you were like seven and we, we seem, with so many conversations we have on this show, these these sort of early musical moments and what they do to you, either in a restrictive sense or in an eyeopening sense, right, some people have talked about growing up very religious and having very restrictive, you know, music in the house.
Speaker 3:Right. Here's something where your, your dad, is introducing something to you outside of that right, something, something you know on the other side. In that sense, and so it's like even if you're not like, this is my new music and I love this and I'm going to be jamming to it every day at seven or eight years old, um which like rock on if you're seven years old right, right I want to meet you right, what kind of music do you like? The Doors, it's like badass Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for real. But it's this thing of like, exactly like the song is saying right, there's something on the other side and you can break into it, and you were being made aware of it in some sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a real gift actually. Actually, whenever I think we're exposed to something, I think as children. I think children do a really good job of kind of buffering themselves too, like they you think about, like when you have, like the talk with the kids, like only so much goes in as they're ready for it to go in, and maybe music is a little bit like that too. It's like you will take what you can receive and you'll protect yourself maybe a little bit. I mean, I was a kid that always asked the big questions, so it doesn't really surprise me that I had this reaction.
Speaker 5:But, yeah, yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I was thinking, you know, I wonder if you can compare. You know, listening to this song for the first time at age seven, and obviously it was a significant you know moment for a seven-year-old, right, and you're just like, oh my god, this is the coolest thing ever I didn't think coolest, I thought what the hell I mean.
Speaker 1:Now I think it's the coolest thing ever. Right, right interesting, interesting.
Speaker 5:Yeah, in some sense no, so I I think that was my sort of point of curiosity was was you know? Yeah, you know, you, you as a seven-year-old listening to this but then many years later, coming back to it and going, whoa, because some of the themes are still there, right, like breaking open, exposing to something, getting exposed to something new and different and different. But you know, as a seven-year-old, versus, you know with your family, but then versus. You know as a, I guess, maybe a teen or as an adult, um, and you know with the whole sort of like the stoner aspects, like a daily aspect, um, so, yeah, so maybe you know um, how does how does that compare? How, how do you sort of um, uh, you know, weigh both of those?
Speaker 1:That's another great question. But when you were asking it, you know, what I kept thinking was, like you made me realize like I think I was afraid, like I think I was, I think anxiety and fear. I think there's like self-protection maybe going on Like are you ready, you know, are you ready, what are you ready? You know, are you ready, what are you ready for? And actually, yeah, I think as a kid and as a teen, like definitely fear of what's on the other side was definitely self-protective when you don't understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't understand this thing. Like yeah.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's. And that's interesting too, because so often when people talk about music and a band they may like they may have heard it earlier in their life, but a lot of times people will describe it as I wasn't ready for it yet. Right right, kind of getting at that like and really kind of like explaining a little bit of what that might mean, like, not like I wasn't ready for, in the sense of like I don't know if I can kind of go there Right, I'm worried, what might happen or something like that.
Speaker 1:And when you see a parent, I guess that's interesting too, right, like you see a parent who's obviously transported. You see friends who are transported. You see people that are kind of like leaning into this, like experience that they can't help but fall into. It's so all encompassing and of course we know music does that. When that song I mean, it's something that happens, that is so it transports you and it transforms you. And when we don't have access to that experience that we see in somebody that we care about, maybe there's a little bit of distance from them too. Actually, wow, this is deep, you guys. This is just song one yeah, yeah, for real it's a good
Speaker 5:song. It's a good song to go deep on. Start with, yeah, gets us right and I I'm.
Speaker 1:I did not smoke any weed before we started, so we're obviously doing fine.
Speaker 3:We're breaking through just on our own, just on our own. Absolutely. One more question just before we move on to your next song. We were talking about kind of the song and the experience of it, but I was curious did it affect how you viewed your dad in that moment too? Because? You said he kind of put it on, and obviously this is something he likes, so he's in the zone doing his thing. Did that have some effect on you too, seeing him enjoy this or be transported by it?
Speaker 1:It did, it did. But you literally nailed it with saying, in this moment, and I think it was really for that moment alone. I don't recall it lasting. I mean, I can remember, you know, when I was old enough to sit in the front seat of the Datsun and I'd want to turn up the radio and it was like no, I want to put on my station, no, like it. But it was in that moment. There was something about that song that he wanted to communicate to us and actually, you know what, maybe I let him down Cause I, just like you said, I wasn't ready.
Speaker 1:I don't remember. I mean, I remember him actually playing some Johnny Cash for my kids when they were little, so the experience repeated, where he had a moment where he's like, okay, kids, like grandpa's going to teach you something, but I think it was too early for it to land with them too.
Speaker 3:Right, right, right. And I think too in those times because you know we talked a lot about the show of like having a song, you know, giving a song to someone to say here's what I feel. I can't really express it myself, but here's how I feel, and that might be what he was doing in that moment of just like I just want you to see this, and I think it's not a matter of you have to become the Doors fan as the child, but just the playing of it, I think, is part of that. This is something of me.
Speaker 1:You don't have to do anything with it, and what a gift, right?
Speaker 4:That's a gift you don't have to do anything with it. And what a gift, right, like that's right, yeah, right, I, I think also so. So, like, par for the course of parenting, of like, I just want to teach you something, this little person that I love, and the little person's like go away, I'm not ready, you know, but you're like I'm gonna give it to you any, am I gonna expose you to it anyway? And sometimes we do things with our kids that we think like, are like nothing, and then years later, they're like do you remember that random car ride or that random song Like that? You know, it was a huge core memory for me. And you're like what, what? You were listening.
Speaker 5:Cause, in the moment it looked like you could could have you know couldn't care at all, and I mean really like God bless the musicians who give us this opportunity, this vocabulary that we can use to communicate with one another, sometimes when we can't even put it into words, like I would not have had an experience with my dad like that. Had there not mean, you know, this is Jim Morrison we're talking about. This is not, you know, the like blues clues or whatever. I mean he is one of the most brilliant lyricists of all time. So kudos to your dad for at least you know I mean.
Speaker 5:He's given you the best of the best here.
Speaker 1:Set the bar right.
Speaker 5:Set the bar dad Absolutely Go dad man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's what know this, this. Just hearing this song again. You know I grew up my dad was a big doors fan. I, I mean, this could have been my story just as as well, like him putting it on the right, like you're the way you described. It is mine exactly the same, okay, and I just you know in in getting the clip ready for the song, for the episode and stuff. Just hearing the song again, it's just sort of like it's amazing how kind of timeless it is, no matter, when you first hear this.
Speaker 3:If you, if you played this for someone right now and it was the first time they've ever heard the doors, they would be like what is this? It's just something different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally All right, well, let's different. Yeah, totally All right. Well, let's move us along. Great first song, great way to get us going here. And so you know we already talked in that first song a lot about how music transports us right. It transports us right back to when you were seven. You know, for this next song we're going to specifically get into that. And so you know what is a song that when you hear it, you are instantly transported to a specific time and or place. And where does that song take you?
Speaker 1:Okay, so different living room we'd moved, so I was, so I'm now about 11. And 100% Dancing Queen by ABBA. It was the first time I was allowed to be home alone Again. I think it was about 11. Sunken living room, 80s, vibe. Parents left and I put the record on the record player this time and I just danced.
Speaker 3:Nice, let's take a listen.
Speaker 2:ABBA Dancing Queen you can just have a good time of your life. You see that girl watch that scene digging the dancing queen.
Speaker 3:What is it like hearing it now?
Speaker 1:Happy joy. I mean, how do you not start moving right? It's timeless. Like I was thinking like, so what was this? Like the seventies, the eighties, when was, but when was dancing queen? And it's like it's always, and and what's so cool about it is it's also for me now. So it takes me back to when I was 11, but like, bless the universe, like I am able to dance to this song now because, um, I know, david, we had a little bit of a chat you know in in anticipation of some of this, and so it got me thinking, um, this song is very now for me.
Speaker 1:But it takes me back then because I, for all of last year I was like I got to dance, like where do you go when you're in your forties to dance? Like a wedding, like I don't know anybody getting married. Like a banquet I'm not going to a banquet Like, okay, my living or my gas. I've been known to like dance in like the stores and like mortify my children. Like I get a little bit too movementy.
Speaker 1:But last year I encountered a colleague we reconnected and it was right at the end of the year and she was telling me she goes dancing at this, like I guess it's like a club down in Vancouver. She goes once a month and she's going through a big transition in her life. Last year was a big year for me, from start to finish, just so much happened and it was like I ended the year with this beautiful human saying like, come, dance with me. And because this song is timeless, because every DJ is going to play it for all time to make the people happy. It comes on every time and so I am, and everybody sings it so loud, like I saw Carolina moving, like everybody starts. Everybody's singing, everybody's moving, everybody is transported, whether they're, you know, 25, 35, 45, 75. They are that little kid.
Speaker 1:That's like free and just dancing and it's beautiful, so that's why that's one of my songs.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Like I'll say, I'm not an ABBA fan, but this is. But this is one of those songs that, like I don't know, you're just compelled to like sing it and dance to it and just kind of like freely move about. You know, there's just something about it.
Speaker 1:I mean there have been roller skates involved. I will say sorry, but before before the Home Alone time. I mean there's just something about it. I mean there have been roller skates involved. I will say sorry, but before the Home Alone time. I mean there was definitely like roller skates in the garage. You know, you can move in any form at any time. Anything that you're doing you're driving, you're chopping vegetables just be careful. Like you can dance at any moment with this song.
Speaker 5:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and it's such a good good Raza, I was just going to say this is one of those songs that you've heard everywhere other than just like on the radio. I mean, you know whether it's at a club or in movie sequences or anything like that I've heard. You know this is obviously like one of the greatest songs of all time. Yeah, or anything like that. This is obviously one of the greatest songs of all time.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, we've heard this. I need to know your Dancing Queen moment, raza.
Speaker 5:Oh, my Dancing Queen moment. Oh to tell, actually it was very, very recent and I heard about so, okay, so, funny enough, the word Abba. Abba means dad in Urdu, so I'm from Pakistan originally and so at home we speak Urdu and you know, with my dad we speak in Urdu and Punjabi Anyway, but he used to have a whole collection of like cassettes and records you know vinyl, back in the day, and I remember being like four years old seeing this, this cassette hand. You know it was like a bootleg hand, handmade, you know playlist, and it kept it said, you know, abba on it and I would always say, oh, abba, that's like, as in, that's my dad's, which it was, but the band's name was abba. So that's my, my, my like original story. But flash forward to like I want to say just a couple months ago I went to see opeth, which is a swedish death metal band, um and uh, their lead singer and of course abba, you know so danceable right, right, no, but here.
Speaker 5:But here's the kicker. So you know the connection is coming here we go swedish um uh, yeah, abba is also a swed, swedish band and and anyway.
Speaker 5:So their singer, michael, has this habit of having like a nice rapport with the audience and he'll tell stories and you know, he'll kind of just like fuck with them and stuff and tune his guitar in between songs and things like that, and anyway. So the night is winding down and someone you know someone in the audience just yells ABBA, for no reason Because it's a Swedish band, of course and like without missing a beat, michael tells like an amazing story about meeting I'm forgetting which one of the band members it was, but the original, you know dancing queen, you know his hero, and he told like this really sort of heartfelt story about meeting her for the first time and being completely starstruck and everything. So yeah, so it's just like full circle there but this.
Speaker 1:You know what that's so beautiful about music? I mean all these different genres, but like the fundamental a musician has for another musician, the way that they're influenced, the way that this whole sort of thing grows and speaks to you know, music speaks to other music. It's, it's beautiful.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4:The appreciation musicians have for others, even if even if it's not their genre.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, absolutely. That's where music appreciation really starts to seem more and more like art, because you can't have just one pigeonholed idea. I mean, you can, people can like whatever they want to, but really when you start taking a step back and are able to sort of filter out different genres and different flavors and and you know appreciate something completely unrelated as much as your like favorite drummer or your favorite guitar solo or whatever, then you're like all right, cool, you're appreciating it for just the art factor of it, and that that's where it really becomes fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, and I mean that's, that's like what we're trying to do here with these conversations on this show is, you know, I had said when we were, you know, getting this going is like I grew up a musician but like hated so many music conversations because it was always just like let me tell, let me tell you why the band you like sucks and the band I like is the really the best one.
Speaker 3:And I'm like missing the point yeah, you can have those discussions, like we said. Like rosa, you know who's the best drummer and who do you like and you can kind of say why and stuff. But like what you're bringing up there, but both you know, with the story of ABBA and the you know effect it had on you, you know at a young, putting it on, blasting it their first time home alone and dancing to it and then getting back out to the club and dancing with it again, and then Raza's story about you know, opeth, lead singer, telling the story about abba and whatnot, and is that you know it's. It's not just about, like, what you might listen to, but what you appreciate, like raza said, and realizing that like, even if you're not putting on abba all the time, you can appreciate what it was there doing and how it created some of the other stuff we have.
Speaker 4:So, um, yeah, yeah, right, I think this song doesn't matter as much, as this is the song that, like you, associate with a rite of passage which is like independence for the first time.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's yeah, it is for the first time and now like so my kids are grown, but it's like you know, I'm at a stage of life when you say that it's like of course, like of course. It resonates now because it is as hard as it can be to watch your little babies grow up and as amazing it is, as it is to see them make their way in the world and be independent. It's really remarkable when you come back to yourself at a whole new stage and it is like a new kind of freedom to dance.
Speaker 3:Right, right, and it just shows, like, why, like you said, you go to the club and everyone's belting out the lyrics to the song when it comes on, but for you, because of this history and this story you have with it, it hits in a different way, right? And so if all someone sees is like you, like ABBA, and that's what they want to focus on, it's like you're missing that it's part of me Right.
Speaker 3:You missed the point. Like this was the song you put on when you were home alone, that first time, in dance too. But it could have been something else, right, it's not like you know, and then you might have had some other connection with it too. So this thing of like it's not, this objective thing, like we're all there, able to choose from every music that was out there and that's what you chose.
Speaker 3:So let me tell you why you chose wrong, or something like that it's like no, these are the songs that just happened to be the one that was was there. So yeah, yeah absolutely, yeah, I love that too um, the, the, putting it on, um and and kind of blasting it as as your first time home alone and how, like. I think that's a story so many people can connect with, like that's one of the things you do when you're home alone for that first time.
Speaker 1:It is, it is and it's it's. It's interesting that that's the impulse like it because, again, like it's interesting that that's the impulse Like it because, again, like it's not. I know a lot of people that grew up in like musical households where they had music on all the time and it was, there was a, there were constant soundtracks to their lives. I don't remember that being the case for me, so it's interesting to think that that's like the impulse to like that.
Speaker 1:That was the sort of thing I would relate to having a freedom moment. It's interesting to think of that little girl, that that's like what she chose to do. Um, and again, you're making me actually think about these things and appreciate them in a bit of a different way, like I'd never really thought about that, like of all the things I could have done, that that was what. I did.
Speaker 3:Right, you could have raided the liquor cabinet or slept in. Your parent, you know, jumped on your parents' bed or you know whatever Right right, but you went to music, which I think is one of those things that's telling, and especially, you know, with your drum set behind you and you know the music that's part of you like there was something there there was.
Speaker 1:And again, when you asked me at the beginning about like music, I didn't know that that part of me actually existed until recently. So this is just such a blessing to be able to like kind of think back on my life and be like no music was always there. It always was a companion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is a perfect segue into our next question. And song here, Um, because you know music. We've already showed how music is, can be there at points and can mark things, and so you know what was a song that was part of a weighty transition in your life and what was that transition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so about two years ago 2022, I was just driving alone and More Than a Feeling by Boston came on the radio and it just filled the truck, filled my soul, and then some things happened after that.
Speaker 4:All right, let's take a listen and then we'll hear what, what the transition was. I love this song so much, such a good song.
Speaker 1:I'm actually going to start crying. I guess there's only so much you can play to actually get away with it. We can't listen to the whole song, can we?
Speaker 2:Oh right, right, For the live thing, live thing. Clip it down a little bit, but okay yeah, but we're good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just to give us a taste here of no, no, I know I could listen all it's such a good song absolutely so that's about actually all that's.
Speaker 1:That's all. It took actually was about that long of listening to the song. I was about that far into the song and it was the drums, the drums when they came in, I was and I will start crying. I was instantly transported and filled up with. When I was, I guess I was about 10, 11 years old grade six band. So I grew up on Vancouver Island until I was about 11, 12 years old and there in the elementary school I went to grade seven and so it was mandatory for grade six and grade seven.
Speaker 1:Everybody did band and we went like I guess that was the end of our grade five year or something, and we went to like the senior high school and listen to the concert band play and we were to get all inspired, like what's the instrument that you want? And I remember sitting and I remember the drums, like I just I remember I felt them, I felt it in my chest, I felt it in my gut and I knew, like I knew that there was something about that that was like mine. And so going back to you know the elementary school and you pick you know three instruments you want to play, you make the list and I was like I needed one and it was drums, that was it, top of the list. I don't know what I put on the rest of the list. And I can remember when we went into the portable for a band and we went in and we found out what we were going to be playing and I was I mean, I didn't even know the word stoked then. But like that's what girls don't drum. And they gave me the trumpet and I'm like, what kind of like how? That is not feminine to me, honey. Like this is not my instrument, what do you think? Like this is not.
Speaker 1:And the two Jeffs in grade six they got to be the drummers. We had two and that was it. Like that, that was it. And you know, fast forward a couple of years. So when we moved over to the mainland, there was no program. I moved over here for grade seven, there was no music program, but then for junior high so junior high would have been grade eight, nine and ten I decided to join band and so for grade eight and grade nine I did. I made some amazing friends, had some amazing opportunities, fell in love with a drummer because you know, that's what you do when you're right Right.
Speaker 1:But never played, never thought of it again. I never thought of it for myself, I never thought of it for myself. It just went underground. And then, when I was 46 and I was driving along and this song came on, I was like I have to lean in. Like I am, I am terrified about what this means, but I have to lean in because I'm way more terrified if I don't because I'm 46 and this is it. So I was, I think I was headed to the grocery store. I mean, this is what you do when you have like teenagers and you know you have free time, you go to the grocery store. And I was like you do when you have like teenagers and you know you have free time, you go to the grocery store. And I was like no, I was like I gotta, I can't. I have to be among drums. I have to figure this out. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, but I have to do something. And should I keep going? Is this like story?
Speaker 3:yes, yes, yeah, we have questions.
Speaker 1:I mean, we know we know where it ends right right right.
Speaker 4:Right for those listening not watching there's a, there's a massive drum set behind her massive.
Speaker 1:Bless your heart, carolina. I love that. It's. It's enough, um. So, yeah, so I was driving, I was driving along this road. It was a beautiful road, tree lined and and it literally would spit me out like it was. It was one of those moments where it was like I could go anywhere.
Speaker 1:And we are really fortunate. We have an amazing, amazing music store in a city close by. It's called Long and McQuaid. I think they're only in Canada, I'm not sure, but like super, shout out to Long and McQuaid and I was like I got to go, I got it, I got to go and and I did, and I and I went in.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful, relatively new store. You walk in. There's electric guitars everywhere. I mean, if you're a musician, you can, you can actually pull them off the shelf and you can play them. I mean, everybody is fantastic and helpful and I but that was not what I was there for I was like beeline to like the drum section, and there was this kit set up at the front and I still remember it and I took a picture of it and it was like I think it was um, it was black and it was backlit with this green light and I'm like green, okay, okay, but I was like I don't know, like I don't know, I don't know anything, I know nothing.
Speaker 1:And I was walking through and I was like really trying hard not to cry and I just I think of it. And you mentioned that you know I'm working on this book with my drum teacher and I think of it as doing the next big scary thing. And that was what this whole thing was a sequence of. It was constantly doing the next big scary thing. So the first big scary thing was to actually just acknowledge like I have to do something. And then it was actually getting to the store, and then it was walking into the store and then a really sweet salesperson came up to me and he's like, can I help you? And I'm like I don't fucking know, like can you.
Speaker 1:And then I start, start like I'm telling him the whole story, like everything I told you guys, and I'm crying. He's kind of looking at me like well, it's drum month, we have some deals.
Speaker 3:Let me tell you about our specials.
Speaker 1:Oh bless your young heart, like this middle-aged lady having a moment in your store. But it was, it was drum month. I, you know, I was was like do you do lessons? They do. They have a wonderful lesson center upstairs.
Speaker 1:I got the brochure and again, I just kept leaning in doing the next big scary thing. I had no clue where it was gonna go, but I I again like I knew if I didn't, and I'm like really weird about like numbers and things too and it was like, okay, I was 11 and now I'm 46, that's 35 years. I it's got to be 35 years, because if I wait a year and if I wait a year it's a year. I'm not drumming like I have to have to do this and then maybe by the time I'm, you know, 50, I'll like which I can't even believe. I'm saying that age. It's like kind of astonishing, but it really is never too late.
Speaker 1:Do the next big scary thing. That's what I would say Always. Do the next big scary thing. And I made no commitments in that moment. Came home, looked at the brochure, I found the drum teacher that I started with was incredible, a professional musician. I studied with him for a year and it got me started. It was a really fantastic way to get started. It was a very comfortable place, but I knew at the end that I needed to do the next big scary thing and my drum teacher, ryan, is not scary at all he is a wonderful musician, but I knew I was going to have to do some work.
Speaker 1:He's a professional musician as well. He has been a teacher for years.
Speaker 1:There's a program called Drumeio and I saw it right. So he's got a program on there. And that's how I knew he was my next teacher is because he was explaining what he does with his students and and I was like holy shit, and this guy is right there, like I can take lessons with this guy right there and he will get me the. It's a vocabulary of movement with drums, right? I think David knows what I'm talking about. It's this vocabulary of movement and I wanted this in my body. And the first time I sat at the kit in the lesson center and all I read, I rented an electronic kit because that seemed accessible, like at the beginning, but I didn't know what the it. It was so foreign, right, but it was like, but I'm home, I'm home.
Speaker 1:So, that's my. More than a feeling song, it was. More than a feeling, it was.
Speaker 5:Action, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's the story and it changed everything. It changed everything in my life from that moment because of what I began to learn about myself and demons that I had to wrestle with, that I didn't even know lived inside of me that would take a couple of years to come out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that story.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sticking around. And now we come to the end. There's no more time, right, we're out of time. It's a life in three songs.
Speaker 3:This time. That's fine there's no more time. Right, we're out of time. It's a life in three songs this time. No, um, that's no, because this is this was I mean. Um, like I said at the beginning, right, it's this story that you had wrote about that. When I saw that, that that article, um, you shared this exact story and I, I was reading it and I was like I'm reaching out right now, because this is this is like exactly what this show is about in these these stories, because it's not just about let's talk about our favorite songs and that's it.
Speaker 3:But it's these ways these music has an effect on our life, either, driving it right. This song wasn't just there in the background when something happened. This song was the propellant right, it was everything. It's what did it.
Speaker 1:And there's no way I could have known. Like there is, there was right. You don't know, right.
Speaker 4:Right, right. I think what blows me away, why I love this story so much, is lots of us are on healing journeys, right, and so many of us yep, like our soul talks to us and then we're like no, no, not now. No, it's not a good time. No, there's no money, no, you know, whatever it is. And so, like I had not read the story I did not, I was not familiar, I'm hearing it for the first time and to hear that your soul spoke to you and you did not go to the grocery store and you went to the music store.
Speaker 1:I was like I can go to the grocery store.
Speaker 4:Another day Right, Like you listened and so many people don't and like look how your life has changed Everything.
Speaker 1:It was so loud and I've had. I call them. Whatever your spirituality is, faith is I. I've had these God moments before, so I've had practice. I've had these God moments before, so I've had practice. I've had practice, not a lot.
Speaker 1:There's a handful of times and when you know, you know, and to have and to free fall into that space is terrifying. But, like you say, if your soul is talking to you, it's probably telling you that not listening that's the scarier thing you know, because it's not going to tell you to do the brave thing. If you don't have that in you, you really, really, really have it in you. You really have it in you to lean into the next big scary thing. I really believe every single one of us because it's because you're leaning in, single one of us, because it's because you're leaning in, you're leaning in. I did not. I did not start where I am now. Then I mean it was literally walking into a store and just being among the thing I needed to be among yeah absolutely yeah, no, it's go ahead, rosa, I was just gonna say um, um.
Speaker 5:I was listening to the story and and then, david, I listened to your comment and this idea of compulsion, being compelled to do something, kept resonating in my head. And then, right when you said comparing people's spiritualities, I was thinking wait a second, where have I heard that before? I was thinking of the Exorcist.
Speaker 1:Oh jeez, Okay, let's go there. Take us there, Raza.
Speaker 2:We got Swedish death metal. We got the exorcist. Oh geez, Okay, let's go there. Take us there, Raza. We got Swedish death metal.
Speaker 1:We have the exorcist Raza brings it how so, raza, tell me, tell me about it, let's talk about that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no it's. You know, we were all in a spiritual journey of sorts, and some of ours happens to be on the opposite side. You know the ground below, that's all.
Speaker 4:So mad, so dark I love it.
Speaker 3:But it's the way too because when, when it does come on like that, it can feel like you're possessed right, like like there's, you are friendly right. It's a friendly possession, but nonetheless yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's a hashtag you need to coin, david.
Speaker 2:Yeah, possession.
Speaker 1:Friendly possession.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Maybe I'll work it into the tagline of the show. So I would so love that Learning how we are possessed by music in a in a friendly way.
Speaker 1:But we don't know where the healing, we don't know.
Speaker 3:No, right, right. And I think, like you know, just with the stories we've already heard too, like it, just like we haven't sort of mentioned it directly, but the fact that you were, like you know, 10, 11 years old and you had that feeling then of like I want to play those things and then got told, no, because girls don't do that, I mean I'm sure everyone listening and watching when they heard that was just like, like my goodness, like what, what that person did in that moment to like squash something in you that it took you then 35 years to eventually get back to. But like, and I want to tell, people now sorry, but girls do fucking drum, girls drum.
Speaker 2:And now with social media media.
Speaker 1:You can find them everywhere and so like anybody listening, like you know, please, girls, drum 100 100 awesome and you just you can find them everywhere.
Speaker 2:You see, it's not even a question now it's not even a question sorry, david, I totally cut you off though no, it's all right.
Speaker 3:Caveat rosa's about to do it again too.
Speaker 5:So oh no, you go first man okay, um, but no, just like so.
Speaker 3:So the initial part of this story is like a a a sad, terrible story. Right of being told, no, in this, like squashing, right. But then it's this like redemption, 35 years later, right, and in hearing the songs we've heard before, break on through, right.
Speaker 3:I'm having this moment of like 35 years later you broke on through to that other side, and then also with the Dancing Queen song. Right, you were saying it then too, like the first thing you did when you were home alone is put on some music, and that was based on what you were saying is. Right around the same time, you were saying I want to play drums, and we're being told to know which occurred to me actually. Right.
Speaker 1:Only just now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this musical drive that was there at those years that we know are so important, so important, formative and things 10, 11 years old.
Speaker 1:And all the dude drummers. I know that's when they started. It was 10, 11. It was like that's the age that's the age when and trust your kid to know.
Speaker 4:Kids know 10, 11.
Speaker 1:Yes, they're young but they fucking know. They know their soul and it's the last chance before they get totally like adolescented out of that. Like they know their soul, they know it. Okay, this psa is over, but please listen to your kids yeah, dave, were you 11 when you did, when you?
Speaker 3:started playing drums. Yeah, I was right. I mean, I was playing a little bit before that. My grandfather was a drummer, so I, when he would babysit me at like five, six years old, he would set up the snare drum so I was banging it and stuff, but like when I really like hit, was you know 10 years old? Yeah, right at that time, and that was, that was everything and I will say, you know, talking about girls do drum.
Speaker 1:I will say the blessing in all of this it's and it's just sort of happened incidentally, I didn't really set out, but I have had the opportunity of being a vehicle for drums to be introduced to a few girls.
Speaker 1:Um, so my niece, um, I I actually it was, it was was my nephew, he's a guitar player and and I had this electronic kit and I was like I'm not using it anymore. I asked, my brother-in-law gave it to them and it was my, it was my niece that really took it up and started playing. And my daughter, you know, she'll sit, she's a natural like holy shit, like she can just sit down and she can just hear me and I'm just like damn, like kid, like you've got this in you, like she can pick up a groove like instantly. And then we, um, she did volleyball and we were at this like volleyball tournament and there was this like huge break in the day and we're like, okay, like we were looking after kind of one of her friends, not looking after, but like she was driving around with us and stuff, and I'm like let's go teach Alex the drums, right, like let's go to Long.
Speaker 1:Island we went to the one that was out in Abbotsford and it was the day that Alex learned the drums and she sat down and she's like I can't do this. I'm like, try this you know simple beat right, simple beat, and by the end she was like throwing in fills and her dad had been thinking about getting an electronic kit and they freaking got one and she kept playing and it was like, okay, that's like, that's a gift to be a vehicle, like whatever they do with that but to be a vehicle for that.
Speaker 1:Oh, I just felt so good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:So you know it's, you don't know.
Speaker 4:No, I was going to ask um because it felt like. It felt like your soul was talking to you at 10 or 11, and then life squashed that message, 35 years later, came back, talked to you again. This time you listened. There's something about listening to our souls and being who we truly are, who we really are. So I am curious how has your life changed from listening to that?
Speaker 1:Um, I don't, I can't even describe how it's changed because I think that I would be imagining sort of like an adjacent life, like a parallel life that I just couldn't even like reconcile. But I guess change in terms of evolution, like the things that it led into um, are some things that we'll probably talk about with some of the other songs. My relationship with my body completely changed, my relationship with my ability to trust myself, um, my relationship with um family members and my ability to actually say like, okay, mom's got a busy day, so just heads up, she's gonna be starting her practice at 7 45 in the morning, y'all, so you're gonna have to. So, just so it did. Everything changed, like, but I can't even conceptualize it because when you ask me the question I think, well, what would it have been? And I actually really don't want to imagine what it would be without it if that makes any sense.
Speaker 4:So it's like clearly the road like it diverged.
Speaker 1:It diverged, but like it has cracked open everything. So so everything has changed. Everything has changed, and and I'm sure more of that will come up as we probably talk about the other songs I wish I could it's? It's changed my relationship with myself, like I said, with my body, with the ability to sort of like prioritize um things for myself that I never really could do before.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think I think you said it so well with that of like your life didn't just change because now you know how to play drums. No Right, which is what people might think, like you didn't play drums for so long and now you did it and it's added in.
Speaker 4:So now you know how to play drums. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're the same person, but you play drums now. Right, you have a cool new hobby.
Speaker 3:Great, everyone needs hobbies. But what you did just say there to Carolina's question is that, no, it changed everything, because you did this thing and you were able to fully be yourself. I mean, you lay relationship with family and how it relates to your body and relationship to all of these things, which is what's so important, right, and so people are out there listening, right, and you've got that thing that keeps calling to you.
Speaker 3:Do it, Because it's not just going to change in the sense of like now you know how to play drums, or now you know how to ride a motorcycle, or now you know how to paint.
Speaker 1:It's going to change lots of things and because and it's like Carolina said it's so beautiful and I can see it in your eyes, I see the resonance in your eyes even over the screen that soul thing is you're being invited into that because the idea is, this is going to permeate a whole lot of shit, because there's stuff you need to clean up and stuff you need to confront and stuff you need to work through that If, if you're not ready to listen to your soul, I get that, because I think there's part of us that knows that this is a big fucking deal, because if your soul is calling you to this.
Speaker 1:It's going to change everything and I. It has been hard work but beautiful for me. Like the, I have never. I have never felt more at home in myself.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's beautiful. I think we can continue to talk about this song and story for forever.
Speaker 3:We do have some more songs to get to but I think this next question and song is going to fit perfectly with this, because we're going to get into exactly some of these struggles and challenges. Right, We've talked a lot about how music can kind of do these, these great things for us, but sometimes music is there as part of a challenge or struggle, and so for this next song, you know what's a song that you struggled to listen to or might even need to turn off because of the difficult memories it brings up. And what are those memories?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this song is 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins. I don't like listening to it, but I'm totally prepared to listen to it here for the purpose that it'll serve. It's a song from the mid-90s that takes me back to a really dark time.
Speaker 3:All right, let's take a listen. That's where I'm going to rest, to dance, I guess. God in the house of truth. So what was the dark time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, like I mentioned, I've struggled with my relationship with my body. I've struggled with my relationship with food. I have had anxiety as a companion since I was very little and that all really came to a head in the mid 90s and I had a pretty intense eating disorder, that this song was like the soundtrack of that time. And the reason it comes up now primarily is my daughter is 18. Like I think I mentioned, she's going through her 90s phase. So for like we're driving in her truck and it comes up on her playlist, I'm like please skip it, I can't listen to it, because at the time I worked at an espresso bar.
Speaker 1:That was like I don't know, I think espresso bars, like Starbucks and all that kind of came. It came to us here like I was probably about like 16 when I had my first Starbucks latte. So you know, like when you're like 19 years old getting a gig at an espresso bar, that was a pretty cool gig, the morning shift, and we had to have it on a certain radio station and the song was on all the time and I was submerged in an eating disorder and so it I made a playlist of some of these songs that we were going to talk about, to like just kind of listen to and kind of like hear them, and I couldn't put this one on it I needed I needed to just yeah, because it's like, it's visceral, like I'm back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'm totally prepared to talk about that time and that experience, because I think that there's so much shame and this is the other thing, Like when you talk about, about like what drumming changed. This is not a conversation I could have had three years ago. I don't even think my dad knows. My mom found out a few years ago. It came up because we had family friends and when I was kind of getting to the beginning of like my healing, this family friend and I apparently she has it in a memory that we were at university together and we were sitting and we were talking and I was I was explaining to her something that helped me and I guess it resonated deeply with her and it really began her healing journey. And she's actually written a book and thanked me in the book and so her mom knew and so her mom told my mom because secret secrecy, shame we hide this.
Speaker 1:I know that people listening are if that um, it's how it like hooks you and pulls you and and dictates your life and dictates your days, and, if nothing else, the reason that I put this song out there is because I think that the first step is to walk out of the shame and again that only came for me, healing with some of the things that began to happen out of playing the drums. It did not happen years ago and I really think that it's something that talks to us. If you've had an eating disorder, it's a language, it's an internal language that you speak or that you have to listen to. That. I'm not entirely sure if it ever goes away. I think you navigate it and you make deals with it and you heal, but it's a lens that you only share with other folks that have walked that path.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing this story, um, and, and, and and the song associated with it, um. You know it's, it's, it's. The goal here is just that, right, using music to tell some of these stories of um, to bring it out of the shadows, right, Bring it out of the shame, bring it out of the quiet talk.
Speaker 1:Bring it out of the shame. Bring it out of the quiet. Talk about it. You're not alone.
Speaker 3:You're not alone, realizing that you are not unique in going through it, but it is uniquely yours when you're the one going through it.
Speaker 1:And they're your demons, and it's the things that you have to wrestle with, and the things that brought me to it and that brought me out of it are not going to be the same for somebody else. The things that brought me to it and that brought me out of it are not going to be the same for somebody else, but you can navigate a space where you can heal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And just to say one more thing. And then, raza, or Caroline, if you have something, but on the music side of it, right, if you're out somewhere and you're driving with some colleagues at work and you got to go to some work function, and like the person driving is like, hey, let's put on some music. And they put this song on and you're like, ah, can we listen to something else? Someone could go what? Why you don't like the smashing pumpkins? Come on, it's the one of the biggest bands of the night, you know.
Speaker 1:like I can never even get that close to it. It wasn't liking, right, right.
Speaker 3:And that's kind of the point of it's like our relation with music is so personal in these ways that it's beyond just is it a good song or not, or whatnot. You were at a point in your life where this song was just constant there, right, all of us have had an experience like that of working somewhere and there's some song that's on loop and it sticks with us in all kinds of different ways and you just highlight so well how that song can attach to you, attach to this difficult time you were going through, and so it brings that back and it's interesting that you say thank you, thank you, and it's interesting how you worded, how you worded that, because I was thinking as you were speaking the control and and.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting when you talk about you said something about when you're forced to listen to a song because we are sometimes in environments where we don't that is not our option to to remove ourselves and, of course, folks listening, all of us that have struggled with food and body image issues. We know control issues and our relationship with what we can and can't control and how we act that out on our bodies, in our bodies, through our bodies. That's so tied in and that actually never occurred to me, david, that actually the song was forced upon me and it wasn't a problem at the time until it became associated.
Speaker 3:It's sort of an after the fact right, right, right, and not something specific about the song itself it's that it was forced it was there could have been the song that helped you through this time right exactly you could have been putting this on at home each night and it helped you through this time. But that's not the context of it.
Speaker 5:It was being forced on you, and so it has this other connotation yeah yeah can I ask, um, this might be taking a step back, but I think, uh, something you had said a little bit earlier um, uh, you had mentioned that, um, uh, you wouldn't have been able to discuss this song, or, you know, some of these other emotions tied to it, just a couple years ago. Um, but for this, you know this, um, this drumming journey has sort of allowed you this space now to open up. Could you, maybe, maybe, you know, give a little bit more context and color to that? Like how, what's the connection between drumming and, for example, this song? Like what, what is it about drumming that is now you know? It's made you um, uh, is it just more? Being more insightful, more self-aware?
Speaker 1:more. Is it like I wish I was that kind of no, no, it was therapy, so I would love to talk about this because this was part of the healing journey. So, um, I I mentioned I started with a new teacher, ryan, who has this fantastic plan for building these fundamental skills of drumming. So it's like, yeah, I learned songs and that's fun, and but there's like these sort of like fundamental exercises that I do. So, whether it's like stick control exercises or practicing beats to like really develop control with the kick, what would happen? And actually it did what happened. It would happen with songs too. So when I go to lessons, my, you know, I have a kit and my drum teacher has a kit and I just need to say, like this is, ryan is one of the most amazing humans that I've ever known. He's like a brother to me. Now it is a safe place.
Speaker 1:But something that was starting to happen when I was drumming, especially in songs, is my kick leg would go weak. So it's my right leg, I would be, I would be fine at home. I, you know, yeah, we're always a little bit nervous, like if somebody is watching, especially you know, hello, like a world renowned professional drummer is sitting there watching you. Like you get a little nervous, like it's understandable, but not everything to shut down. And I was and and I didn't know why and I took it you know I do all kinds of stuff, you know so like I took it to different, like healing practitioners and stuff that I see and and things helped. But last year and again this is what I was saying this last 2024 was a big year for development. It was like the spring and um have a family member who I was supporting, uh, through some health stuff, and we were in a situation where they were no longer driving. We were in a situation where I became aware of a pattern of interaction that we had that was drawing attention to my body and my mannerisms and myself in a way that just seemed so dysfunctional that I'd never really had a lens to see, because the dynamic of our relationship had changed. We were spending more time together and I was like this is fucked up and I think this is something, and I think this ties into the eating disorder, it ties into the leg, it ties into like it's, it's ties into everything about how I've always been somebody that pays more attention to what the outside world sees, rather than like operating from an internal space, if that makes sense, like I, way too preoccupied by the other lens and I was like I can't. The thing that this, that I will not allow this to mess up, is drumming. Like that is my mind in the sand, like I cannot. I do not accept this. And it did.
Speaker 1:It inspired me to go into therapy and I work with a therapist who does EMDR. It's there's many different ways of doing EMDR. The way that he does it, I had done it in the past with eye movement you keep your eyes open, and that didn't. That didn't work for me. That approach, this approach that he does, um, you hold these, these pods, and all in in one in each hand, and it creates this alternating pulse. And there's a whole lot more to that story. I would encourage folks, if they're interested, to look it up.
Speaker 1:But it was a game changer for me because it allowed certain things to become reconciled, um, at a level that was like, fundamental to my being and it's taken a long time like it to my being and it's taken a long time Like it's. It's taken months, it's taken many sessions. There's talking, there's all kinds of things, but drumming was my line in the sand, and so through that process of therapy I also worked through a lot of stuff that was tied up with the eating disorder. Um, so it was like one big potpourri or soup or something where there was all of these like ingredients and they all started to become unpacked and it was because I'm like nobody is fucking with my drumming, like I get so many years left and I like my goal is to be a hired gun in a dad band.
Speaker 1:Like that would be like a dream come true. For me. That's like the bar, like I don't need to sell out stadiums I'm realistic. But to like jam with like some like wicked local musicians and feel confident and comfortable at the kit, like I don't know how long that's gonna take, but nothing, nothing is gonna get in the way. So I don't know if that really answers your question, but it was like. That was like the whole. That's the healing journey. Yeah, that's what it's taking.
Speaker 5:What you say about. You know the um, uh, the line in the sand aspect is drumming. It's like, okay, if something is starting to affect that, that is so I'll. I'll take it that that makes sense.
Speaker 1:And great it helped me with my eating disorder. Like that is an incredible bonus. Like because it changed my relationship to my body, like the gratitude and appreciation that I have for what my body can do, like that's another thing. It's like, if you're leaning into this really difficult thing, and again, like Carolina, it was so beautiful when you say, like, when your soul is speaking to you, there's a reason it's speaking to you.
Speaker 5:When I drove to Long and McQuaid that day, I'm not, I got a drum, I got to figure this out, and that's one really nerdy question here yes, I love it okay, drumming nerdy question was there, um, when, when you started playing drums, was there like a skill I don't know if it's like double bass or paradiddle or whatever was was there a skill that you were like, you were unable to do, but over time and practice, you know with with your instructor, you were able to hit it, and then, like the sort of euphoria that follows, after that can you speak to a little bit?
Speaker 3:about yeah, what was your drumming?
Speaker 5:white whale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go I think I mean, there's all the technique stuff which is constantly growing, and ryan is a double bass drummer, like, so he's wicked, like I mean like when you see, like just it's, that is definitely a goal one day.
Speaker 5:What's his last name? I'm sorry, I've been put a Ryan. Okay, I've heard it. I have heard it, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's a cool guy Shout out to Ryan because he's been, he's walked the journey with me, right, um, and that's the thing it's like. The sessions are, there's this therapeutic. So in terms of technique, like definitely like working on, like stick control and actually, like you know, developing like speed and like doubles and all that like that's super cool. Figuring this thing out with my leg, which I'm still doing because I do exercises to work on that, and that's a you know, that's, that's a constant thing. But the the thing for me was going from intellectualizing and rational and thinking and like reading music, because I could read music and it's really cool. Like, if you can read, if you can read music, it's really cool. And I mean, folks don't really get that, you know, yeah, drummers, there's sheet music you can read and it's fantastic because it'll break it all down for you. But that analytical approach was like my, it almost became an anchor. It almost became an anchor and when I started working with Ryan he would, we didn't rely so much, especially like for the songs.
Speaker 1:I'm not playing off music, it's feel, it's listening, it's paying attention to, like what he's showing me, and translating that into movement and and going on, feel and resting in the trust that, yes, you need to, again building a vocabulary movement. You got to think about what you're doing. When you're encountering something new, you're constantly like what the hell? Okay, so this is doing this and this is doing that, and you need to have that beginning period of learning it. But translating into just like being able to play the music and trust my body and I'm learning a song now where it's? It's the biggest game changer. It's not an easy song, but step-by-step I've been able to build all the parts and so now I'm like when I play and I check out and my body and soul takes over and I don't really give a shit about the. Am I doing this right?
Speaker 2:that's, that's it, yeah and it's reached that point of flow nice yeah, and I mean I don't know like I.
Speaker 1:Kids are fantastic. Young people are fantastic because they record everything right, like they're like posting everything on youtube and instagram and they show everybody their journey. I have really like not recorded myself at all. It's a highly recommended that you actually pay attention to how you're playing. I need to do that so I don't really know what it looks like from the outside in. I know what my family gives me feedback on, but I I love it when I don't care.
Speaker 4:And.
Speaker 1:I just it feels like I'm in time and it feels like, and I used to always be ahead. So, david, I don't know. And, raza, you're, do you play an instrument Like I was? I was always ahead. I was always ahead of the beat. And now I can. I find that when I play different songs, I'm getting the feel for each of those songs and I'm resting at whatever point they're inviting me to be at. Yeah, nice, oh, this is so dangerous, it all comes down to drumming.
Speaker 3:I know I've got more things I want to say, but you know we have more songs, but I also want to say, carolina, do you have something you wanted to ask or say?
Speaker 4:I just I know we have to move on to the next song, but I just love, I love that music. Not just listening to it, but playing it gave you the shift of moving from what your body looks like to what your body can do.
Speaker 1:It really did, it really fucking did. And the gratitude that I have for this body at 49, I think back to that 19 year old kid, 20 year old kid, and I just think. I think back to that 19 year old kid, 20 year old kid, and I just think, honey, it's a gift, like, yeah, you're wrestling with some shit and it's going to take you some time, but it's a fucking gift. Absolutely yeah, I have my Kleenex box, right yeah.
Speaker 3:I just before we move on to the next song um, the one thing I was going to say, um about it that I think and and this is for us here, but also for people that are listening and you know, because we talk about healing, you know that this is this show is my drumming at 46, right I I got the option to do it at 10, right, so I had I had that this show.
Speaker 3:Having these conversations talking about music is my sort of thing. That has been my thing. That is part of my healing journey, that I don't want to let PTSD or other things mess up, right, and I think, for people listening, we talked about and you said it so well about how drumming changed your life. Right, it wasn't just I've got this new hobby, but it just changed everything. The way I relate and I think when you said it there too, about the drumming, was the line in the sand, like I'm going to deal with all of this other shit because I've got this thing now that I don't want to lose and so I'm going to do all the other work. And I think that's really helpful for people to hear is that it doesn't just magically fix something. It gives you the motivation to want to do the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and motivation To deal with it.
Speaker 3:Motivation doesn't even do the drive, it's a compulsion right, right, right the possession.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It is it is A friendly possession.
Speaker 4:Friendly possession Friendly possession yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 5:The power of Christ. Yes, oh yeah exorcism over there.
Speaker 2:Thank you all yeah.
Speaker 1:And please, I know we have to move on, but I really want to encourage folks to not give up on their journey, that every step that you are walking, as dark as it feels through an eating disorder, through a struggle with your body, keep walking. Hang on to whatever glimmer you can. Any day, that's a win. Any slight shift in your perspective, any moment where you have that little drop of peace, it will build. It will build.
Speaker 3:Absolutely All right, let's move on to the next one. Okay, so in a number of these previous examples it's sort of been you and music, kind of alone, right, even the coffee shop example is kind of there were other people around, but it was sort of this individual experience or driving in the car with Boston. But a lot of times we listen to music with other people and it brings us together. So for this next song, what is a song that reminds you of a good friend or group of friends?
Speaker 1:It is To Be With you by Mr Big, and now I'm definitely going to need the Kleenex box and it reminds me of my high school friends. Disclaimer this is not the stoner crowd, so if they're listening, different group, different group.
Speaker 3:Not the stoner crowd, so if they're listening, different group.
Speaker 1:Different group, not the stoners. They were stoner adjacent and this is. It takes me back to them.
Speaker 3:All right, let's take a listen Deep inside. I hope you feel it too.
Speaker 2:Waited on a line of dreams and blues, just to be the next to be with you, nice.
Speaker 4:Girl, your song choices are just.
Speaker 1:They chose me honey.
Speaker 3:That's what we say on this show all the time. The songs choose us. Yeah so what's the story behind this? What's the group of friends set the stage?
Speaker 1:So this one kind of again 2024, but also takes me back to 1992. So in the summer of 1992, it was right at the beginning of the summer, at least that's how I remember it and for anybody listening that knows the story that was personally affected by this story, I just want to say that I want to do justice, but it's going to be filtered through what I remember of this time. A classmate was killed in a horrific car accident and there was no drugs or alcohol involved. I just want to say that it was back roads. There were details that I learned last year that fleshed out some of my memory of that time.
Speaker 1:But the reason that this song speaks to me is because my friend Christy and I were not on this camping trip. One of my dear friends from this group was and was in the immediate aftermath of it, and Christy and I, though, we sat on her bed like every day after school and we just like listened. I know we listened to more songs. I could not tell you what they were. This is the one that we just listened to over and over and over again. Maybe it was like a recording off a radio, I don't know Like this was the mixtape era.
Speaker 1:I don't know if we just like played it. I don't know, but there was something about the feeling. I still remember sitting on her bed I still I'm in that room, no-transcript, and we had started talking. We started messaging again. We're like, oh my God, we got to get together and it had been building, so I guess it would have been at the end of 2023. We started in a group chat and finally, in 2024, christy took the lead on it and she's like we all got to get together.
Speaker 1:It was June. It was literally the night before my daughter's graduation ceremony and I didn't even care what time. I got home. We all got together, except for there was, unfortunately, there was a couple girls that couldn't make it, and it was like no time had passed In the buildup to getting together. Annika, my daughter, had been at a volleyball tournament and there was music piped in. It was massive. It was like this huge event there was you know, you know how it is with tournaments, right and this song came on and I had literally just been messaging this friend group.
Speaker 1:And this, this collision of worlds, happened where my daughter was the age that I was. I was talking to these girls that I hadn't seen in 30 years. We were all like it's like we're all turning 50 this year. So this year we're all turning 50. It's like there's something magical about that. And when we got together, this accident came up. It wasn't the only thing we talked about, but we did talk about how it changed every single one of us. We were all differently related to this boy who died. Some of us were closer, some of us just knew him kind of casually. It changed.
Speaker 1:Every single one of us and my kids do a lot of off-roading, they do overlanding kind of trips. They drive on the roads that this crew had been driving on. And that was another thing that, thank God, I had started therapy that I could unpack. So it's like I don't even know where these stories end and begin. It just this song does all of that for me, and and and it's astonishing. It's astonishing that you know, one human 30 years ago can have a fate that impacts all of these other people forever. That 30 years later I'm getting emotional talking about this in a way that I couldn't have imagined then, and this song does that- yeah.
Speaker 1:I hope. I hope that that's. I can't guarantee that there was any clarity on that story because it is a mashup of two completely different eras of my life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely how music can be, this thing that helps us. I was going to say navigate our life, but that makes it sound like it's just in the moment and it's like a GPS, like it's just directing us, but it's a way to mark our life in ways right. We know this with people later in life who are suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's and things like that.
Speaker 3:Like music a lot of times can be the thing that still they're still able to connect with. They remember that you put a song on that they, you know, danced at their wedding, at or whatever, and they, you know, they connect with it and your story kind of just highlights that so well of like this song you heard it at this volleyball tournament when the world from back then was coming back together here and kind of puts it together and kind of marks it in a way where you're able to kind of pause and and have awareness of what's happening in that way, and so it's just beautiful.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Others.
Speaker 4:I see.
Speaker 2:I see, I see their faces.
Speaker 4:Like so much is coming up for me with with this story and this experience. Um one, how music marks time, right, as david said, and it doesn't just like mark it like oh, I remember where I was. Like you almost feel like you're that 18 year old again. You do, and it's hard sometimes, and so then, like that, combined with how hard it can be sometimes as a parent when you still feel like that 18 year old but you're in charge of this human I know you know, and then they're at the age that you feel like you still are and you're like it.
Speaker 4:It's a, it's um, I don't even know, it's just like pivoting back and forth all the time like know, it's just like pivoting back and forth of realms all the time. Like you know, our daughter is graduating this year as well, and I find that so much of how I'm parenting right now is a direct reflection of how I was at graduation time.
Speaker 4:What was going on for me, what was my experience, and so what am I hoping for you in your experience and what lessons did I learn that I'm hoping you learn? And you got to buy a grad dress and you got to hoping you learn driving and you gotta buy a grad dress and you gotta rent a limo and you gotta do all this practical shit that's like not even yeah yeah, and help guide someone through a, a transition, a rite of passage, when you're still coming to terms with the things that went on at that same age.
Speaker 1:I mean I'll say, my kids have done a better job than I did navigating these ages and stages. And I say better in the sense of I mean I guess I have firsthand experience of my own neuroses, I don't of theirs. You know what I? Don't say that lightly they look like they're doing an amazing job, but we all carry shit Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think all of that to say all the things that we are juggling and the older we get, the more we juggle that we think we're doing a great job at juggling. And then one song just causes Yep, like an that we think we're doing a great job at juggling, and then one song just causes a yep. Like an explosion of all of that Yep and like all the feelings come up from then and now.
Speaker 1:One of the one of the things that was really neat about the experience with my girlfriends last year that we realized was we all have friends now. You have your mom friends and you have your couple friends and you have your work friends and you have all of these people and they're all these different ages and stages and they're really cool people that you love. But the group of us had this collective memory and there was something about sharing that space and that time and those experiences. And it's not just talking about the teachers and you know the dynamics in the high school. It's like there's this collective memory and in talking about Andrew's death and in remembering that time and Danielle, my dear friend who was there, was able to reflect on because she had a closer relationship with the family and she was able to sort of share some things that came out of that time, and she was able to to fill out some things that happened around the accident that I didn't even know she was carrying.
Speaker 1:So christy and I were on our bed, on her bed, literally. You know, processing in our way and you know some of the the kids would go to the, to his house and visit with his parents. Like everybody had these different ways of processing. But the one I'll tell you this and I hadn't shared this Not many people know this, but my one experience with Andrew, because he was more sort of like a friend of a friend but there was this night when a bunch of us had gotten together and there was one truck and that a friend had and three of the guys sat in the front and the rest of us piled in the back and if okay, we're talking about my dad, so break on through. Guy was like, also seatbelt. Guy, like you, don't fuck around with your seatbelt. Like, you wear your seatbelt like that, no question. And here's his 16 year old idiot daughter. And this is why I say my kids have done a better job than I did piling in the back of the truck, because there was a cute boy that I really liked and he was back there. So of course I'm going to be back there, hello.
Speaker 1:And we all laid down and we went on the freeway and so Andrew was with us. He was actually sitting in the front. We went down I don't know if anybody around the world knows Stanley park, but that's like a big deal park in Vancouver and that's where we went. We drove while some of us lay in the back of the truck and I was just like that was like my rebel moment, right, and the whole time my dad's voice is in my head and I'm sorry, dad, I know if you're listening like, yes, I did this, but what happened when we got there is there's these iconic totem poles at Stanley Park and I think now they might be protected.
Speaker 1:What we did as teenagers, I think, would be considered inappropriate and sacrilegious, but we were stupid kids having our moment of like spiritual awakening and I remember we all grabbed hands and held hands around a totem pole and somebody said and cause, this is what you do when you're like 16. They said when we die, all of our spirits are going to return here. That's like huh, whatever, we're having our moment, we're doing our thing, we pile back in the truck and we go home, but he died. Andrew died before the year was out and that'll fuck a kid up, you know, for a little while yeah, because it's like it is not a joke, right?
Speaker 1:you know it's, that's it's. It's why, if your soul calls you to something, you gotta fucking listen you gotta listen, yeah because you, you don't know. So that went really that way, but but that moment that.
Speaker 4:It's so hard at that age. There were a few kids we lost in high school, mostly in car accidents, in different ways. I'm so sorry. You never forget. You never forget those kids At that age. To process death, and not the death of your grandparent or your great-grandparent, who you're like, you're older, they lived a good life but to process the death of someone young while you're still young, yep Rough.
Speaker 3:Right, cause it cause it. You know, jen, like your story of of you, you did this thing around the totem pole of. Like you know, you sort of are speaking about death or what might happen, but you don't think it's going to happen.
Speaker 1:No, cause you're lying in the back of a truck going 90 kilometers an hour right like the bed of the truck right, yeah, yeah, yes, but I will tell you I was lying next to the cute boy and I was so happy. It was such a moment of joy. But now I'm like screw danger right, so, and so's laying next to me so cute.
Speaker 3:So the age right, you throw, I mean, and that's why, why neil peart of rush is one of my favorite lines we're only immortal for a limited time that was my daughter's.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, that was her yearbook. That was her yearbook quote was it really? It was her yearbook quote. That was her yearbook quote and that's like I. I knew when I read your article I was like I gotta gotta connect with this person, ryan ryan is probably the biggest neil peart fan you'll ever meet Big Rush fan.
Speaker 3:So like yeah, so meant to be. Why don't you say it?
Speaker 1:again, I totally cut you off.
Speaker 3:Let it land for folks because it's beautiful when we're younger, in those ways we think we're invincible, yeah, right. And then something like that, what you the story you just described about, you know this, this friend, um, dying in a car accident happens, and then that kind of wakes everybody up a little bit from that of like, oh, we're not immortal, right? This? This is something that can happen to to our circle right in those ways, and it it those moments change you or can change you. They can.
Speaker 1:And you know it's interesting because, as we're talking about music, this is like kind of giving me goosebumps. But I'm recalling, you know, some of those frantic phone calls like this is the day of landlines, right, like you were lucky if you had like an extension, like a long cord where you could go somewhere else. And I remember after the accident happened, so it was like we would be phoning each other all the time and I won't say the name of who, who it was, just I don't want to put it on anybody, but but one of the girls I was talking to had gone back to the accident scene and one of the things she found was a mixtape. That's like fuck, because what does that do when you hear that? That's what does it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Right, because there was, yeah, a song playing.
Speaker 1:There was a yeah, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:There's always a song playing yeah right, absolutely.
Speaker 3:There's always a song playing, absolutely. Thank you very much for that story and sharing it, and I like a number of your stories. There's there's this, there's a challenge to it, but in so many of it there's this, there's this coming together or something later on right so this, this, this, this this reconnection with these people and these friends from that time.
Speaker 3:So thank you for sharing that. Yeah, and with that you're at your last song. Now, here we go. I don't want to go. Song number six Okay, this is just the conversation for the show. This won't be our last conversation, cool. But for your last song, we've talked about a lot of challenging things. And so for your last song, what's that song that's just going to instantly put you in a good mood when you put it on.
Speaker 1:It is, this is the Way by Five Finger Death Punch and it fucking rocks.
Speaker 3:Let's take a listen. This song also features DMmx, who you'll hear right at the beginning of the clip Nice.
Speaker 1:I will say this is a song that, if I'm in the kitchen and I'm just like moving my shoulders, my daughter's like is that what you're doing at the club, mom? I'm like, no, no, this is the kitchen version.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 3:So anything particular about this song that does it for you.
Speaker 1:It's another thing that I just can't put into words because it's that feeling, it's just it just just just crack something open. I. I mean it's kind of like you're kind of like given a fuck you, but at the same time you're like really happy to um, I started I again. So like a lot of like, like heavier music and stuff was not really a part of my, like the soundtrack of my life until recently, and this one last year again was the whole arc of the year was really interesting. It began with supporting a family member who is no longer driving, someone who I didn't, who is a very close family member, who actually people would be surprised that we didn't see each other a lot, but with their pivot to not driving, I became the driver, spent a lot of time together, and so there were. So I was just in that in between stage, like I said, my daughter had graduated, my son is older, working, my kids were moving on, and now it's. It was my mom. It's my mom who I love. Hi, mom, she needed some support and was going through some health stuff, and we know, we hear, we read that this can happen. You know your kids go on and then your parents need you and my mom needed me, and that brought some stuff up over the course of the year and so there would be again.
Speaker 1:I wasn't alone in the truck as much. I didn't have that music moment. I clearly this is like a pivotal thing for me is having like alone time with music while I'm driving. And I just didn't have that. I didn't have that release and I didn't know that I needed that until I didn't have it anymore. That that was like sacred space.
Speaker 1:I think in some ways because I'm not someone that's always listening to music there's not always music on at home, I don't always have music in my ears. There's something about the experience, I think, of driving where I don't know if it's like a road trippy feel, I don't know what it is and I just lost, I lost a lot of that because we're driving. So any opportunity that I had to be alone, this, this, this, this song would be on like always, like I would. I will sing it, I will feel it, I will dance to it as much as like a shoulders thing, it just it became part of the therapeutic process and I, I I can't really put into words why the lyrics, the music, they're just like kind of I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we don't have to right that doesn't have to have an explanation, it's just even talking about it, though, like I feel like this expansion in my chest, like I, just, I, just I want to soak it up and be soaked up by it yeah, absolutely and that's what the great music can do.
Speaker 3:Go ahead, rosa.
Speaker 5:I was just gonna say yeah it sounds like it's like of it's, it's like you're saying it's not, it's not the music. Say, yeah, it sounds like it's like of it's, it's like you're saying it's not, it's not the music, it's not the lyrics, it's like this visceral.
Speaker 1:You know just feeling it's more than it's more, more than a feeling tying it all together which you knew as you curated this list, right david you guys, yeah no I didn't know when I was.
Speaker 3:This is the universe working through me, all of these, are these through?
Speaker 2:this is the universe working through me all of these are these happy accidents that the universe is doing so much with this show we don't
Speaker 1:even know what is going to happen because I picked the songs but I didn't see the thread.
Speaker 5:Sorry, raza this pertains to you. We started with your dad and we're closing out the list.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, you went all meta on me, jesus I know what I know therapy next time yeah, I was.
Speaker 3:I was on that same note with what raza said. I was gonna say we started with break on through and you sharing, you kind of weren't ready for it. And then we end with this song where you are breaking through.
Speaker 2:This is the way.
Speaker 4:But don't we feel?
Speaker 2:like that I mean we feel like that.
Speaker 1:We find the way, we do find the way, yeah, and we're not angels.
Speaker 3:We're not angels.
Speaker 4:No, and there's something about when we actually get to be who we are.
Speaker 1:That is kind of just, oh, my God Right, just this, rock on. Yeah, you know, this is the way. Freedom, it's so freedom. Yeah, it's so freedom and it is. It is remarkable that music can be a way of feeling it and experiencing it and talking about it, and I mean, that's what the beauty this, this podcast, is incredible. Like Like this concept is incredible. It's therapeutic to think about one's life this way.
Speaker 4:There are connections and, yeah, yeah, I'll ask, as we've just completed all your songs, like, how does, now that you've just like done it all, how does it feel to hear your life reflected in these six songs?
Speaker 1:It feels like I am the most at home with myself that I have ever been, and these songs help me understand why I love that.
Speaker 5:That's awesome, I love that it's beautiful. Oh my God, that's probably one of the best answers to that question yet that's awesome. I love that. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 5:That's probably one of the best answers to that question yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's get ready. That's going to be a reel on Instagram, for sure. That is the tagline one for the show Love, that that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Along with what's the hashtag.
Speaker 3:Oh shoot, friendly possession, friend shoot friendly possession.
Speaker 4:What was it again? It's like I was like pleasant possession, friendly, possession friendly, yeah go back to the video.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm worried about. It's like no, we've got a recording we got it, you got it, you got it all, david, you got it absolutely, absolutely you are an amazing group of humans. This is an incredible gift. I I just I am so thankful for this experience. It's it makes me feel a lot of joy and gratitude to have walked this journey with you all my gosh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you, and we are equally as grateful for you being a part of it so thank you for picking a really fucking amazing six song list.
Speaker 5:Honestly, start to finish. It's been just badass.
Speaker 3:And full disclosure, raza and Carolina, because you just see the finished six. There was like three, four others. That it was a tough, was it?
Speaker 4:a tough choice.
Speaker 2:It was tough to narrow down.
Speaker 3:One of the more tough ones, not just for, like, the songs of like oh I'd love to get that song in there but for the stories. There was a number of different things we could have put in here. But, like we said, part of this in my healing journey has been learning to not overthink things, and so I just trust and know that it's right and not say, oh, I should have done it the other way or something, because look what happened and how beautiful it was.
Speaker 1:So, and thank you to all the music makers in the world, everybody that has played any part in any component of getting any song, lyric, beautiful experience out there into the world like blessings on you all because, like clearly it is just, it's fundamental to the human experience, right absolutely.
Speaker 3:We're not quite done. Yet, though we do.
Speaker 5:Oh ross, well, you're just gonna do it you're just gonna dive in, so no, so, no, dave, I was gonna kind of throw a bit of a monkey wrench, but I was gonna run it by you first. This is just.
Speaker 3:It just came to me go for it um follow your soul is this a big scary?
Speaker 1:thing, because if this is a big scary thing, you got to do it, you got to do it All right, should I be? Scared.
Speaker 5:No, no, no not at all. So I think I totally disrupted Dave's intro to this, but I had to say it. So typically we do like a lightning round, okay, and our lightning round is usually the question. I'll ask the question what was your first, your last or and your most, you know?
Speaker 1:and when I tell you one of these, I'm gonna lose all musical credibility too when I tell you one of my answers.
Speaker 5:But okay, but here's the thing I was thinking about throwing a monkey wrench into this whole thing, which is why I got excited, which is why I'm gonna run with it, and I was like you're our first. I think you're our. Yeah, you're, you know, canadian, our neighbor from up north.
Speaker 1:Oh shit Okay.
Speaker 5:And given, okay, given. That, can I just say tragically hip and leave it at that. Like can I avoid the?
Speaker 1:whole hot scene and just say the tragically hip and like we're covered, Okay, no.
Speaker 5:Well, I was going to say, given that you know our friendly neighbors to the north have given us so much fantastic music and, frankly, you know David's favorite drummer, rush Neil Peart.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just people in general.
Speaker 5:Favorite people. We're both hockey dads. I mean, come on, you can't go wrong. I was going to throw you a little bit of a monkey wrench and say, hey, just lightning round your top five. You know favorite, favorite bands, but canadian bands, and this is where I told you I'm gonna lose like all musical credibility.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay so let me do in an unranked order sure okay, well, tragically, hip rush, um. And then I just want to give a shout out to, like my friends, band pacifica. They like world world music, juno nominated. That's like a big deal Canadian award. And now I'm just like I guess I mean, do you have to say Brian Adams? You have to say Brian Adams, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what Rosa was hoping for.
Speaker 3:I think we're going to go.
Speaker 4:Alanis Morissette. Actually, you know what Alanis?
Speaker 1:takes me back to my Smashing Pumpkins days. That was number two. Yeah, 100%. I love Alanis. I mean, you know, Taylor Hawkins, May he Rest, actually was a drummer for her. So, you know all blessings, but it takes me back to that time. But I feel like I need to give a shout out to like 5440 from back in like the early 90s. Maybe I don't know if that's like familiar to anybody. So is that five?
Speaker 2:Can I get?
Speaker 5:off the hot seat.
Speaker 3:It is way too hot, as we make you speak for all Canadians, I know.
Speaker 1:I speak for one human who has come to music way too late and no, I don't want to say wait at the perfect time in her life. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and that's the whole point of the show is to your. We're all speaking for ourselves. We're judgment free.
Speaker 1:So it's just what comes up for you, although I saw Roz's little moment there.
Speaker 5:Cause Brian Adams, come on, you can't go wrong with Brian Adams come on. You can't go wrong with Brian Adams.
Speaker 4:What's wrong with Brian Adams? You like Brian.
Speaker 3:Adams, that's what Russ is saying. I think he's saying you can't go wrong with it.
Speaker 1:I got to say I do the Summer of 69 math because I was born in 75. And it's funny because there's ages and there's these concrete things and it's a song I grew up with, of course, in the 80s, but it's weird how old I feel when I listen to that song.
Speaker 2:Now I didn't feel that old like back in the day when I listened to it but it's a classic.
Speaker 1:It's a classic Totally, totally.
Speaker 4:Can't go wrong. Well, before we sign off and kind of end things, we have just a couple minutes left and I want to make sure that we give you the floor to tell folks who are listening or watching what you've got going on or you know anything, or watching what you've got going on, or you know anything that might be interesting that you want to share with folks. Floor is yours.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, thanks. What do I have going on? Well, I'm actually really excited about this book project. Ryan and I got a solid start last year and then he just had a lot of incredible opportunities with work and his own career, but we're definitely going to get back on track with that. It's been a really interesting process because we are writing it as a braided memoir, and it's interesting when we see these beats that we hit throughout our lives, throughout our ages and stages.
Speaker 3:But Can you briefly tell us and our listeners what a braided memoir is?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm calling it that. I mean, I work in publishing I should know if that's what it's actually called. But essentially how we're tackling it is, we're kind of looking at themes. Our goal is to have it to be like a sort of motivational, inspirational kind of a thing as well, with like some activities and things for folks to work on. But how we envision it is that we each write a portion of the chapter and we kind of take a theme or a topic. We look at the arc of our lives and it's remarkable, the synchronicity. So even though you know, in the first chapter, for example, I'm sharing a lot of the story that I talked about, now Ryan is talking about being that 10, 11 year old kid that gets like.
Speaker 1:You know, that gets the job and gets that and and I also braid into that my experience in the lessons and coming to lessons at an older age, and he talks about his experience meeting, you know, and he has students of all ages, but there was very something, something very special about like the connection that we made for this journey, and so that's how we imagine braiding it together is some past things that you know, where he grew up, on Vancouver Island too, which is interesting, so nice yeah, I love that, so so we have a book to look out for in the future.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I've set it here.
Speaker 4:There you go.
Speaker 2:You put it out, I put it, yeah, it's on. Now it's on.
Speaker 3:It's the next scary thing we're leaning into.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah, be friendly possessed by it? Yeah, I will, absolutely. That is going to. Just that is going to take off. I know that's going to. It's gonna.
Speaker 3:yeah, it's going to happen. Jen, thank you so much for spending these, you know, these few hours with us, but really, you know, opening up your life to us and and sharing these stories and these moving moments marked by by music. Uh, we are very grateful for that, and so we thank you for being on.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I I am forever grateful for being on. Thank you, I am forever grateful for this experience. Thank you all.
Speaker 3:Awesome, Awesome. All right, everybody, you know what to do. If you like this story and you want to hear more of it, like and subscribe. If you are someone out there who is going through any challenge or struggle, no matter what it might be, know that you're not alone. Know that it can get better. Make that first step to ask for some help. Tell someone you trust about it. It does get better, even if it's scary and it might not feel like that. But please take that first step. We want you here and with that we will see you next time on A Life in Six Songs. Thanks for watching.
