00:03this is your odyssey check-in with carly ray jepson we are here at the hard rock hotel new
00:09york i'm so glad to uh to get you that you carved out the time for this thank you my
00:14pleasure i was
00:15watching something you uh an interview you did not long ago and you were talking about books which i
00:20loved um and you were saying like you you commit to them like even when it's not the right book
00:26for you you have to finish so i was curious principal's daughter over here you know finish
00:31the book no matter what even if it's bad but you sometimes you just gotta let it go i'm learning
00:36yes absolutely so do you treat songs the same way great question i'm learning to not okay i think i
00:44used to see a song all the way through bridge details outro everything like really get into
00:49the nitty-gritty and then decide what it was i think i'm better at spotting when i've like caught a
00:53fish
00:53so to speak okay meaning like i have something that i want to i want to take home with me
00:58versus like set it free we're good um and then sometimes i'm wrong and there'll be like a little
01:04floating idea that years later will still be sort of haunting me and then i think okay there's more
01:08exploring to do here but i will very often just begin by um you know running with it for a
01:16while and
01:16letting it go if it doesn't feel special yeah how do you know like when to when to abandon it
01:21and
01:21then do you just like break it down for for parts that you could use on another vehicle or
01:27how do you know actually a lot of my songs are collections of like old ideas that i've kind of
01:33reused or repurposed in some way um i think that because the way i move through life is sort of
01:39just
01:39by i don't know like holding on to a little if we have a conversation and you say something that
01:45i
01:45like i'm like oh that has like a little musical tone to it i might write it down or sing
01:49a little
01:49voice memo of something that like floats into my head and then later on if like a session's kind
01:54of stale i'll be like i've got a couple ideas and i like might pull something in or you know
01:59or if it
01:59like really like fits the the kind of theme of what we're talking about that day but i'll do that
02:04a lot
02:04yeah i know you write from personal experience and also you you incorporate fantasy fiction in there
02:10as well do you think your fans uh can tell which is which or like do songs come out differently
02:17or
02:18i mean i don't know i think that it's hard for me to tell which i feel like i feel
02:24like the reality
02:25is is that i start from a just a feeling more so than like on thursday at six this happened
02:30like
02:30it's more just uh pulling from our life's experiences of just being like oh this this is kind of becoming
02:36this breakup song and i'm gonna pull from every time i've gone through a breakup to like infuse
02:41gotcha you know some magic into this moment does that make sense yeah yeah so there's hints of it
02:46all you're like you know this would be really good for the story here i'm gonna i'm gonna you know
02:50elaborate emphasize maybe maybe yeah i think that um you know i go to music as a place to escape
02:57and
02:57sometimes also connect like it's both things i i do like the feeling that it feels uh like a really
03:04fantastical place and then at the same time i also like that it can be very grounding and there can
03:10be a really hard thing or an exciting thing that you're processing in life and it's a place to really
03:14make sense of those feelings um so i use it for both things and everything in between and and i
03:20i feel
03:20like you know writers do that novelists do that i feel like filmmakers do that i feel like most of
03:26the
03:26arts do that incorporate a little bit of both maybe i think it's really about like i think the word
03:31poetry comes to mind of just like you're kind of trying to make even the sorrowful things kind of
03:36beautiful yeah you know oh that's great that's great so obviously you became a mom this year i did
03:44you have an album this year so i i was wondering is that intentional because i know as a new
03:53parent um
03:54you know you can be taken away from your job and and other things that bring you joy for a
04:01long time
04:02and and you maybe lose that sense of self a little bit so did you do this purposely to maybe
04:09i don't
04:10know center you or bring you back in some way or did it just happen by accident i mean it
04:16feels like
04:16nothing was planned and yet everything took some great deal of thought yeah obviously uh having a child
04:24is such like a miracle and an amazing thing and and we were definitely hoping that we would get to
04:28have that experience and um once my uh pregnancy was sort of a real thing and we were digesting that
04:34it sort of just happened that i was finishing this double album um but you just you don't know when
04:39that's gonna happen and so for us we're like okay how do we make sense of this now and of
04:43course that
04:44took um it took form in in real time where i was all of a sudden i was four months
04:49pregnant when it
04:50became time to shoot the album artwork and we're like okay are we hiding the belly are we keeping
04:54the belly we it was a bit of a choice just like embrace this is what's happening let's do it
04:58and
04:58same for the videos i think i was six months pregnant with on wires and nine months pregnant
05:02for after all and we were just like and it was kind of beautiful there was some poetry to that
05:07and
05:07the fact that after all was written from this place of really trying to almost imagine and almost
05:11manifest a life of like domestic bliss for me what that looked like which felt like a safe and
05:18thrilling combination you know and um and and so then to fast forward and be nine months pregnant
05:24with my husband who i uh you know barely thought of these things as as real possibilities in my life
05:31so it felt like a real celebration to kind of document it um full circle moment so cool uh day
05:36and night
05:37obviously a double album and and you're a notorious overwriter for these albums you write a lot so i mean
05:44like what what was the number for this one of unused songs that you came up with well kind of
05:51like we
05:51mentioned earlier i don't think it was fully like here's the whole number of songs it was more
05:57you know working your way through ideas until you landed on the ones but i don't know if i have
06:01like
06:01an actual count i i just do know that my process is to kind of go exploring i think that's
06:06part of
06:06the fun i think if i knew exactly what i was making before i set out it would take away
06:10some of the
06:10the beautiful discovery that happens along the way with the process so um i knew that i wanted
06:16to make something true i knew i was attracted to these two different flavors and one was kind of
06:20like this acoustic-y more organic pop uh psychedelic folk so to speak and then the other was sort of
06:26more picturing being live and wanting to make everyone sweat and dance and go home with some like
06:31glitter on their body and like that felt exciting to me and i knew i would figure it out and
06:36to my
06:36shock and delight i realized i wanted to do both things at once and so that's sort of how day
06:42and
06:42night was born yeah do you have a favorite lyric on there uh i don't know one that like came
06:50out and
06:50you were like ah i'm so good at this just like a great a great lyric where you kind of
06:55impressed
06:56yourself i don't know if i remember sitting there being like who i impressed myself but i'm just gonna
07:01go with the first thing that came to mind which is from patience power passion um as about
07:06kind of i don't know feeling more self-acceptance through the eyes of your partner and letting
07:12that kind of be the thing that like helps you grow um and it's sort of this line uh i
07:19saw myself today
07:20and i was never one to think i was beautiful but my shadow started dancing in the setting sun and
07:25i
07:25skipped the rocks and i hit the water poetry poetry i love that you know it was a long time
07:31ago when you
07:31were first getting started out but i wonder if you could remember like when you're an aspiring artist
07:37um you're you're saving up money to book these studio sessions you have to be so mindful and
07:43intentional with when you get in the studio there's this uh pressure to produce something
07:48great quickly and now you you kind of have the luxury of you know there's not that pressure are there
07:56never thought that way about it and thank goodness for not because i think that would kill me are there
08:03but now thinking about it now do you feel like there's pros and cons to having that that you know
08:08yeah i think to be honest the the my experience of it has not been that only because i think
08:15i write a
08:16lot from home i write a lot on the road if you look at like what my studio session looks
08:20like it's like
08:20me on the back of a bus with a laptop a lot of the time and then i'll bring the
08:24ideas in later for
08:25future so i'm there there's no thinking oh budget and what are we doing it's more thinking like the
08:30creative process is in the shower the creative process is like over a dinner conversation it's
08:35kind of constantly happening um and then i i do think that though the the the difference between
08:42i think when i first started versus now is these long-term relationships that i've had not only with
08:48my collaborators but with my label and my team and like i've been with the same label since the get
08:53-go
08:53like since i broke out of canada and we just there's so much mutual respect and trust and knowing
08:58that i don't think it's like a big kind of scary conversation anymore of like here's what i want
09:03to do is that okay it's more like i've got an idea and they're like let's help yeah and that
09:07feels
09:08that feels like i'm really landed with the right team and family yeah cool i love that before we wrap
09:13i have to bring this up because i just think it's the coolest thing in the world your your partner
09:16is like bffs with beck and they've won a million grammys together did you meet him through your
09:25yeah or the other way around yeah no beck and i knew each other before oh okay and cole and
09:31him
09:31yeah they i mean cole is so my husband is like annoyingly humble and sweet i think we were dating
09:37for like a year and a half before i finally found out he had like six grammy awards i was
09:42like what
09:42he just doesn't he's just like so unassuming and so talented and um and also just um you know a
09:50big
09:50part of this project as well but we both are mutual friends with beck and it was really really nice
09:54to
09:54kind of see the full circle thing and um yeah i am such a huge fan of him actually we're
10:00going to be
10:00seeing him next week in los angeles that's like our first show that we're bringing our son to with the
10:05your headphones and everything yeah adorable i love that that's a great first show for your child
10:12my gosh you serious where do you go from there oh carly ray jepson we're so happy to have you
10:20here congratulations on everything we're so excited for you thank you so much
