The Green Room: Teddy Swims at Lollapalooza

  • 2 months ago
Transcript
00:00You are a person who you don't fit into a box and the world may try to put you into one.
00:05I want to talk about maybe the choice to remain yourself and to not feel like you have to be
00:11something or something else. How did you come to that choice?
00:14I'm a dear friend of mine, Jamil, we call him Smooth Bad Coleman, a dear,
00:20dear friend of mine, one of my best friends in the world. He told me one time,
00:22because he used to have this affinity for people that I thought
00:25somebody would change or something would get good. He asked me this one thing, he said,
00:30well, if you could listen to your gut, you could tell me one time in your life
00:34that you didn't already foresee this coming or you already knew this person was going to do this,
00:37but you chose to give them the benefit of the doubt, but you knew this in your gut the whole
00:40time. He said, if you could tell me one time in your life that your gut has ever been wrong,
00:43your gut feeling has ever been wrong, I'll shut up.
00:47I couldn't say one time and I started from then on listening to my gut.
00:52I feel something staring in my spirit. I avert immediately. I talk about things when they happen.
00:58I don't swallow things. I just trust my gut. That's all you can do. This is the only thing
01:03that has your back. Smooth, he got you with that.
01:06Yeah, Smooth's the man.
01:08That's my fucking dog, yeah.
01:09He gagged you a little bit, I fear. Tell me about Lose Control. That song was
01:15born out of a four-day camp, four-day writing camp. What were you thinking about? Was it equal
01:19parts being and connecting to the lyrics or was it like, I need to nail the intricacies of this
01:26track? How much were you thinking about it? I was really in a bad place at the time. I was
01:29with somebody that at the time was not really... I don't want to say anything terrible about the
01:36person because she's not a horrible person, but it was just a bad place and we were not meant to be
01:43together. I was sinking in a lot of ways. I remember just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing
01:49that day and I wanted to talk about it. Thank God for Julie and Brunetta and Mickey Echo and Ammo
01:55and some of the best guys in the world that I'm able to help me put my feelings into words and
02:01put them into songs. I think that song was about... We had built this lifestyle based on
02:08the certain things that our lifestyle was doing. We came to codependent on each other and the
02:12lifestyle we were living together. If somebody tried to clean up or stop doing this or that,
02:17it was like our substance was the substance we were using.
02:22It just really sunk us down into a deep spot. I'm really grateful now that that song
02:28was so specific in my life at the time. I'm so grateful now though that it had this
02:32necessity because it's helped me channel my trauma into some celebration with loads of
02:36people now. I feel less alone. I had somebody tell me that my feelings were crazy or weren't
02:42allowed to have them. I think that's one of the things in life. If anybody ever makes you feel
02:47like you aren't allowed to feel something, then they should not be in your life.
02:53I guess that brings me to my next question of how open and honest you are in your lyrics. You
02:58tell us exactly where you are, where you've been in the ways that you emote with your voice,
03:04but also in the things that you say. How did you get to the point where you knew what to share
03:08and what to keep for yourself? I stop keeping things for myself. I try to move as honestly and
03:16openly as I can. I think that attracts people that will be willing to do the same or accept
03:21you as you are and right where you are. I'm not perfect. I don't think there's anything meant to
03:27be. Of course, there are some things that you're supposed to hold to yourself. I try to be honest
03:33and move. I feel like I've been so lucky to get this opportunity and get this job to have a place
03:37that I can come and put my stuff in and have people let me know I'm not alone. I felt like
03:44the more honest I become, the more honest life around me becomes. I just try to be as open as
03:52possible. It's like the less you have to hide. It's all out there anyway. You don't need to have
03:57any secrets. Before we get out of here, this is going to be our last question. You just finished
04:041.5. You gifted that to us. Thank you for that. I want to think about part two. How do you approach
04:10songwriting now that so much in your life has changed? I think we have it. I think we have
04:16the album. I think it's done. I had a couple more camps we went to. I just got to put it together.
04:24I think we're shooting for around the fall maybe to release it, but I don't know. There's always
04:28so many moving parts now and opinions, but I think we have it. It's going to be a lot more of
04:35my journey of healing versus my journey of being in absolute turmoil like the first one was.
04:41There's a whole lot of learning that I've done and unlearning that I've done. I think that's
04:46going to come true into the music. Hopefully, you can get out of any situation. It's never too late
04:54to get out of it. I think a lot of that's going to be. We're actually playing a song, I think,
04:59might be the next single. It's called Bad Dreams. We're playing it. We're debuting it today to see
05:04if people like it. I'm pretty sure they will because I'm sure they were looking for you in
05:08that and they're like, wait, but Teddy, how do we get to the next part? This might be able to
05:12get them through that next stage. Perfect. Well, thank you so much. Have so much fun out there.

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