I slept in cars.

My friends would sneapy into their houses, and I ended up getting shot by my friend's dad, missed my heart by a few centimeters and it's stuck in my lung today.

Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose.

I am so excited for today's episode because I get to sit down with Alex Warren, Grammy nominated singer songwriter whose music has reached billions across the world.

Alex's rise has been remarkable, not just for the success, but for the story behind it, a story of deep loss, unexpected love, and transforming some of the darkest moments of his life into songs that heel Please welcome to On Purpose Alex Warren.

Alex, it's great to have you here.

Thanks for having me.

Dude, that was an crazy introduction.

I love that.

Well, it's true.

You've had to live it.

Dude.

You gotta when I die, you got to give a speech or something that was beautiful.

I would.

I have a feeling, from having researched and studied your life for this interview and even the few moments we've just spent, if that is an honor that you would give me, I will.

I will be there.

I will receive that very gratefully.

We got to go.

I hope that's a long long way off, so.

We gotta go on a few hikes.

Yeah, absolutely absolutely, I need to learn a bit more about you.

I love it.

But first of all, I just want to say congratulations.

I just saw you were the number one song on Varieties hit Makers twenty five songs.

Oh my god, Sabrina Carpenter Kendrick's got like three on there or whatever it is.

I'm like, how does that feel?

That is incredible?

That's huge.

Well, I didn't know that until just now, which is I don't look at that stuff.

It's something for me.

I feel like I just focus on the music itself, and it's been really amazing to be able to have those accolades.

I don't know, it doesn't feel real.

Like that's the one thing that kind of like it doesn't hit me yet.

Every time I play a show and I sing that song, I take an ear out and hope people are singing.

And I get off stage ago where people singing the song like, and everyone's like, okay, yeah, shut up.

Yes, they were like this isn't cute anymore.

I'm like, I'm genuinely serious.

Wow, Yeah, that's beautiful.

And of course I saw you, you know, did a little share the other day, but Spotify wrapped yeah top ten albums of the number four song in the world.

Yeah, on the globe.

I mean again, it's just how does that feel?

Like?

How does that truly feel?

So there's a part of you that goes I don't look at it, and of course you're like checking to see whether but how does that feel?

Dude?

It's I see it, and it's true.

It's like a there's a warm feeling inside because I've always wanted that, you know, And I think everyone would be lying if they said they didn't love it.

I think that's the part about it.

I wrote it with my friends about meeting my wife, and that's even more special.

That's the song about my wife.

It's not some fluff, it's not some pitch song.

It's just a record that you know, we actually believe in.

Yeah, that's so special and that it's incredible to think that you've got the people around you that you're writing about, because I feel like often artists will write a song about someone, but then it's a breakup or someone that they're not connected to anymore.

I imagine It's a really rare feeling to actually say I'm writing a song about the person I love and they're in my life.

Yeah.

That's something I never really think about, is when people write like a breakup song, it becomes like a hit, like what that relationship is.

But yeah, it's just something where I feel like it didn't happen to me, it happened to us, and it's been really cool to be able to have that moment together.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I mean I was going to ask you, you've I feel like you've spoken about your journey many times before, Yeah, but I wanted to ask you, what's a childhood memory that you have that you feel defines who you are today that has played such a pivotal role in molding who you are.

I have never been asked that question.

Wow, I would say probably a lot of the memories I have with my dad.

My dad knew he was dying and so he It's so fun when I do these interviews and stuff because I get to actually like talk about him and talk about that life that I kind of forgot about.

But a lot of the pivotal thing was watching my dad go through chemo and slowly start to break down.

And he's still every day woke up at five am to be able to hang out with me before he went to work, to provide for what was left once he passed.

And I just remember, you know, a lot of times in my life and especially now, I kind of think, oh, like you know, I can't do this, I can't do that, or I just get nervous, and then I think about the things that my dad went through for us, and I can do anything at that moment.

So I feel like he bought me my first guitar and being able to play music and be able to sing, and watching his face when I didn't know what I was playing and it sounded god awful, but knowing that he got to churish that memory was probably a big one for me.

Wow.

How old were you when he was going through quema?

He got he had cancer four times before I'm an entirety of when I was born, but he beat it three times and the fourth time got him and he died when I was nine, So probably, like I probably remembered it from five to nine.

How did you have that conversation with you at that time?

Were you aware at that time at that age what was even happening.

I can't imagine.

No, I met it the night before he died.

I remember he was so they were just making him comfortable and so he was at our house in a hospital bed in the downstairs bedroom.

And I remember the night before the last conversation I ever had with him is he was puffed up on drugs and I was messing with them, and you know, I was like, Dad, will you buy me a ferrari?

And he's like, he was saying yes to everything, you know, And it's weird to think about it back then and kind of be like that was my goodbye was I was kind of fucking with him a little bit, and yeah, I all I know is like, you know, he died joking around with us, saying yes to everything.

You know.

He didn't even bother to, you know, say no or mess with us back.

But he left us all notes.

And when he died.

The morning he died, my mom came into my room at like five in the morning, I remember the time was actually five o five exact, and she said, it's time to say goodbye to your dad.

He had left us these letters and we got to read those letters.

And yeah, I can say that's a pretty surreal moment to kind of like think about.

But I never knew, well, I didn't even realize until I was like thirteen or fourteen.

Then he was in a part of my life.

I think it was just a weird, messed up joke.

I think I would make things up.

I'd be like, oh, he works for the FBI, or like he like faked his death, and I, yeah, it's pretty weird when I came to terms of the fact that he was gone.

So it was quite hard to actually come to terms with it.

It took a few years to even process the reality of the situation.

Like I don't think my brain could at nine years old, And I think back, I really never think about this, So this is like the first time in a long time I'm actually thinking about it.

It's like, I remember when he died.

I was doing the stereotypical wake up, wake up like he was dead in front of me, and I think it was just a whole moment of me trying to like be like stop joking around.

I was nine, but I understood he was dead, but I didn't understand what that meant, of course, And so for a good twenty minutes I had to I was slapping him, I was shaking him, begging him to wake up, and then they wheeled them out of my driveway and the neighbors all looked around, and I think that day I was like, I remember it so vividly but so blurry at the same time.

But yeah, I knew he was dead.

I didn't know what that meant until I was thirteen or fourteen.

Tell me about you said he would wake up five am to play with you or with you before you went to work.

Talk to me about what you do remember, because it's it's remarkable that you can hold onto memories from them, but obviously they seem so precious.

Are a lot of those memories based on things you remember, all pictures of video, and.

It's what I remember every day he woke up and it I have three other siblings, and so he would take me and my brother skateboarding and we would go to the skate park and get donuts early in the morning, or we would go to church, or I know, with my sisters or even all of us.

Like he'd wake up early and take us like leg of land, you know, and like he would just find every day was a different day.

Every day was a different thing.

You know, there was no routine besides the fact that every morning we woke up and we had no idea what we were doing, and it was kind of like a bucket list in some ways.

Like he wanted to surf and learn it, so we went surfing and like, yeah, so like every day, I think he just wanted to His goal in life was always to be a father and to have kids, and I think he just sped run it as fast as he could, knowing he was dying.

And I can't imagine that as hiding that from your children and trying to leave a future for them as you leave.

What a special man.

Yeah truly sounds.

Like someone nice tribe to be every day.

Yeah, absolutely, very worthy of that.

And when you came to that, what was the moment at thirteen fourteen where you came to that reflection?

Like what kind of made that.

I always knew my life was different, I didn't understand it.

I watched my little sister go to a daddy daughter dance without her dad, and I remember seeing her crying, and I started to think what was different about my life?

And I started to think about because at that point, it was like, oh, like you know, at nine years old losing your dad and then you're fourteen, it's all you know, like the formative years of your life have now starting, and so you're just being like, oh, I don't have a dad, that's a normal thing.

And I started to think about what was what I was missing, what I didn't have, and I think that was the biggest thing.

That my mom was an alcoholic who wasn't present.

So I realized I was raising myself and having to you know, all of us, of me and my siblings were raising each other, and that was something for us that we really we didn't realize wasn't normal for a very long time, and we struggle with today.

I think we struggle with having a normal sibling relationship because we were so busy trying to parent each other.

Talk to me about that parenting each other, Like, what was it like parenting yourself and then parenting when you're fourteen years old?

It's interesting.

I think it was more like, you know, me and my brother were obviously this protective brother over our little sister.

And then I think my older sister felt the issue was about four you yars older than us, so she felt really the need to do so, yeah, I think the dynamic is just different.

You don't have an older brother, you have someone that you for me at least, is someone I helped through a daily life and vice versa, and there's different things that I'm skilled at that he is.

And I think we adapted really really well to being able to being able to parent each other.

But then that normal relationship of just catching up and sibly.

It's weird now doing it as we had a moment when my mom died.

We kind of all went our separate ways.

We kind of just realized what the w is wrong with our lives and we all stopped talking.

Oh wow, we all stopped talking.

We all went apart, and I started doing this and we rekindled not too long ago.

Most of us live in the same state now and we grab lunch every week and we try our best to kind of, you know, hash that out.

It's been nice.

Honestly, I'm really close with all them now, which is really cool.

Who was the first person to reach out.

Probably Lauren, my older sister.

She reached out to you.

Yeah, she's super, super keen on creating an environment of family and that was something I was missing for a while, and so she was kind of the glue that was like, you know what, let's just all come together and it's been cool.

She got us all to move to Nashville.

Was it easy to bring everyone back in or did it take a moment like talk to me about that reconnection.

Everyone wanted to everyone wants to be a family.

I think it's just being a part for four years at our twenties.

I mean you have to think like I was nineteen when we all kind of like went away, and so you know, a lot has changed since I was nineteen, you know, career wise, me wise.

I mean, I've grown so much as a human, you know, and I think boundaries and respect and you know, growing like just trying to like settle back into being siblings.

It's been a fun challenge, I would say, because it's it is.

It's like, you know, I'm one of those people I think arguing is a beautiful thing.

Well I do.

I think even with my wife, and she's finds it so funny and we'll be like fighting about like a rug and I'll be laughing.

I'm like, this is great.

Like we're talking like life is about compromise.

Life is about figuring out what you can tolerate.

Of me and how much I can tolerate of you, and you know, that's how a relationship works.

And it's been really nice to kind of like be able to learn things about people through an argument, how they feel, what is the compromise there, And that's what I really like.

Yeah, do you when you look back now, do you believe that parenting yourself allowed you to have some of this maturity at this young age?

Yeah?

One percent.

I didn't even I never got into drinking.

I never got into smoking.

Because you didn't have the opportunity.

Right, And so like for me, like I'm a pretty boring guy.

Like I think that's the one criticism I see online and people are like, oh, Alex is just the boring white dude.

I'm like, yeah, I am, I am, and I love it.

But no, it's allowed me to grow up really quickly, which is beautiful and sad, but it's funny.

I find I find things that I love that are childish.

You know.

I love skateboarding and because my dad loves surfing, I dirt bike.

I do all these things.

And so like I'm a giant teenager now kind of living out that childhood I never had.

Get again in my own way as I'm reflecting what you're saying.

So I felt like I parented myself.

My dad was more.

He was around, but he was aloof and in his own world, and so I was definitely my younger sister's father.

Figured that was the role I took on early on.

I really felt like I became mad at the house quite early on, and I look back at those moments now and feel very grateful for them as well, because to me, I don't think I would have had the skills that I was able to develop if I didn't have that experience, and I don't.

People always like, do you feel you missed out in your childhood?

I don't think I did, because I think I still had some of that in my way, and there were moments of that.

Do you I feel like you missed out when you look back, or do you feel differently?

I often do, But I think it's the childhood that I wasn't meant to have, you know, I missed out on having a father, you know, and like I missed out on you know.

I think when you learn how to ride a bike, you look behind you once you figure it out, and you fall a couple of times, and you look at your parents and you say, look, I did it.

And throughout my entire career, of even childhood, of becoming an adult and accomplishing certain things, I looked back and I didn't have those people in my life, and I think that starts to rewire your brain of what an accomplishment is.

You know, how do you value success?

To me, success is being able to show my parents I did everything I set out to be And so it kind of rewires you into thinking, you know, what is it?

What does all this mean?

And what does you know my childhood look like?

And I think everything that I went through has shaped me up to where I am today and whether I like it or not, and I do like it.

I like it I am now, but it is something that you know, I think about a lot.

Is like, you know, I would be a completely different person if my dad was still alive, my mom was still alive, and I didn't go throughout those things, And whether or not I want that is always a question.

I ask in terms of parallel lives.

Yeah, I think, like, you know, I could have had a childhood, I could have had all these different things, but I would not be who I am and what I know and I don't think i'd be a musician.

I don't think that I would be here.

I don't think I would have met my wife.

You know, there's so many different things I went through my life that I love that because I didn't have.

A childhood, how do you define success now?

Truly, I was so unhappy with myself for a long time.

I think I just never knew.

I always wanted to be a musician since I was a kid, since my dad introduced me to it, and I tried for my entire childhood and no one cared.

Again, I grew up in an abusive household, and you know, when you find something that you like, you get torn down for it.

So I just never thought I could do it.

You know.

My dad introduced us to music, and he passed again.

He passed away, and so I stopped.

I stopped trying it.

Just he played music all the time.

I grew up with Rascal Flats and Train and Cold Play, and he passed away and the music stopped, and figuratively and you know actual, And so when I started understanding what was happening in my life, I started playing music and I got torn down for it every day, you know, I would do talent shows.

My mom wouldn't show up and she would say I sucked and all these different things.

And you know, hearing that every day growing up, you start to think, do I suck?

You know?

And then I turned eighteen and I was still trying.

I would post covers on Vine and TikTok and it was musically at the time, and I got kicked out of my house and I would go and when I would shower out a twenty four hour fitness or whatever bathroom I could find at a resort or whatnot, I would sing in the bathroom and the acoustics were great, and I would post those on the internet and those wouldn't do well.

And yeah, I was every single second I could.

I think I got shot down.

And then I met my wife and I posted a video with her in my car and it did amazing the first rip around, and I was like, oh cool, Like this is going to get us out of the situation.

We kept going and found myself back to music in area.

What did your day to day look like with your mom and her addiction.

I was the only person who I don't know if I'm the only person who knew.

I was the only person who called it out at the time.

Yeah, so my dad, when he was dying, he knew and he was terrified, so he obviously did certain things that he wanted to make sure that we were okay.

But yeah, I would.

My daily thing is my mom would start.

My mom would sleep during the day and stay up all night, and so she'd be drunk at five am, driving us to school at six or seven, and she would sleep and she got back home.

She never had a job since my dad passed away, so whatever we lived on was what she he left us, and he died during the recession, so it was definitely a scarce interesting time.

You know.

We still grew up fine.

You know, my dad did well, and so when he passed away, it was whatever.

But daily it was I'd wake up and I'd find what alcohol she was hiding and I'd throw it away.

I can't tell if I was petty for that or if I just truly wanted to see her stop.

You know, but every attic needs a circuit.

They need someone to blame that isn't themselves, or at least that's what I think growing up with it, and I was that person.

I was the only person who could call out her problem.

I was the person who, when she was driving drunk, would make her pull over or I would threaten to call the police.

Yeah, I was the person who made it difficult for her to have the addiction because I didn't want to see it anymore.

I thought that, you know, you're supposed to be a parent, you know, And her and I clashed a lot, you know.

So yeah, my daily life was waking up, calling her an alcoholic for sure, threatening to call the police, and yeah, it was really really toxic.

I mean, looking back at it, I would call the police honor several times as she was abusive.

It was one time she elded me in the face so hard that I have a devia acceptance now from it, and I called the police and she made up a thing saying that I hit her or something, and I remember they threatened to take me to jail.

And that was the first time I ever felt like, wow, everything is stacked against me in some way, you know, and so like that was really difficult for me to be like, oh, well, I can't call the police anymore.

And it was so strange.

It was such a strange way to grow up reflecting on it, but it's also something you know again, it's I never drank.

I never drink.

I never do any of those things because I've never seen the good of it.

When people like, oh, we're going out to drink, I've never I've never understood that.

I've never craved it, never wanted it, and I'm not against it.

I just I just don't get it anymore, you know, because I grew up with the negative of it.

You know.

Yeah, did your desire to remove her addiction reflect badly on you?

Like, is that where the moments of tension and abuse, yeah, spoked was that you were the one trying to take it away from it?

Yeah?

And I think it didn't help that my siblings didn't realize it either.

I think my siblings would all be like, well, if you didn't talk back, you wouldn't get hit.

Was the sentiment behind it.

And I thought that was such a bizarre sentiment growing up.

But yeah, I mean I was just one of those people.

I like, I wasn't a troubled kid.

I didn't get into bad things, but I wanted to be a singer.

And my mom hated it.

She hated it.

You know.

I don't know what it was about, whether it was like vlogging or singing or just filming my life.

I never wanted to do a normal job like in school.

I would be instead of like class, I would go to bathroom and sing and film it and post it.

And of course I started my grades started slipping a little bit because that's all I wanted.

I knew I wanted to do that, and she thought I was some terrible kid, and so, yeah, it was.

It was definitely a clash between us, and it never stopped.

Even after all this.

She was still alive when I started doing well, and yeah, man, I remember I had distanced myself fully until I was like, look, you know, I'm not gonna I don't want you in my life until you get help.

And I remember the week she died, she had texted me I have a problem and I'm going to AA and then she died the week after, which crazy, did you believe it?

Yeah, which is hard, but I don't know.

I don't know it killed her.

I don't know if it was just final and she realized she had a problem where she went to the doctors one day.

But I remember, I remember how up her house was.

I never I couldn't step foot in it.

But my siblings went and it was bad.

There was like she was dead way before she was, which is crazy.

I think watching two people die in front of you like that is like the it's the weirdest thing.

It's the weirdest.

You can't explain it.

It's the breath, the that person doesn't become a human anymore, you know, and like the if you've ever watched it before, it's it's the breathing that doesn't leave, like the it's so hard to explain to someone.

They're not breathing for themselves.

They're gasping for air and you want it to stop.

And it's the scariest thing.

It's crazy watching that twice at nine, and then you spent your whole life forgetting it, and then you turn twenty one and you just it's like a haunting thing that doesn't leave.

It's crazy.

Was that at home as well?

She was at home?

No, no, I I that one was in a hospital.

But when you die from drinking and liver failure, you're yellow all over, you know, because I think it's called johndice or something.

It's it's morbid.

It's like the I think watching my dad die, he turned white.

You know, because it's kidney failed.

Watching someone die slowly like that is probably like something that you can never forget.

It's crazy, terrifying.

Will you buy her best side when it happened as well?

Yeah?

I remember.

The one thing too, is you know, you walk outside.

We all just had a moment.

Once she had passed.

We went outside.

We all just started crying, and you know, you look around and someone's on their lunch break, and someone's pulling up in a fancy car to Jersey Mike's and everyan's laughing, and people are walking by leaving the the hospital, and it's it's it's weird to think that my world stops spinning.

But you're just you have no idea, You have no idea what the heck just happened in there.

You have no idea what we just went through, and it's it is so interesting, it is I remember that that stuck with me sobd I'm like, why are why isn't everyone Why isn't the world stopped?

You know, because mine just did.

It's crazy.

Yeah, with your father, obviously your memory was this almost playfulness or jerking around him saying yes, I'll get your ferrari.

Yeah, what was that internal and external dialogue with your mother.

They told us she could hear us.

I don't know if that was true or if that's just something you tell people to hope that they they they have closure.

A lot of forgiveness, that's what you were saying.

Yeah, a lot of forgiveness, a lot of apologies too.

What did you say?

I think for me?

You know, I I think in everything, especially in a place where there's clashing, it takes two people regardless.

You know, she could have been a better parent, She could have realized she had a problem.

And whatnot?

My mom watched her husband die and then had to raise four kids by herself.

How the fuck am I supposed to judge something like that?

How am I supposed to say you did that wrong?

You know?

And that's the one part for me is like a jest here so hard.

I thought, you're supposed to be this perfect person, you're supposed to be this parent, And it's crazy how selfish I could have been to assume that.

I don't know what you went through.

I don't know what it's like.

It's your first time living, you know how there's no perfect book on how to raise four kids, watch your your husband died to cancer and be all of a sudden have everything that you thought in life ripped away from you in a second and just have to put a smile on it and not have a cope.

So yeah, I think that was my biggest thing.

Is you know, I spent my whole life judging this person, not putting myself in their shoes and understanding what they had to go through to be okay.

She had to have drinks to be okay.

She had to kill herself to be okay with life.

That's hard, you know.

So I think that was like the one thing for me that like, you know, I had to wrap around and have closure with and there wasn't.

You know, it's closure in some sense, but I don't know.

I never got to I never had got to have that conversation.

I was, what's that word when you you weren't talking to someone, It's like a they call it something in a family, when you when you weren't communicating with them.

Yeah, kind of.

I didn't talk to my mom for a long time.

Yeah, it's hard.

Have you given yourself do grace?

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

I haven't thought about it until now, which is funny in such a public setting.

Yeah, I don't when you go through the things I go through, or at least I can't speak for everyone.

I have spent a lot of time not forgetting, but putting it on a burner, letting it sit there when it's time to approach those feelings.

And then when I do these things, I fully believe in being honest and I like to take advantage.

I told you that before we start recording, that these are my favorite parts of this job, and I think it's true because this is the time where I get to be human.

I think in my career, a lot of people look at what we do and it's the same thing.

I think they just, you know, they don't see the human behind the piece or the art or whatever.

They see the headline or they see whatever they want to see.

Whether I pass their favorite artists on a chart or if I got picked to do something a post to their favorite artists, It almost I become a villain in their life without them actually understanding who I am behind it.

And so when it's time to do these things, I think it's great because I think you start to realize how messed up a lot of us are.

Not even messed up.

I wouldn't even say I messed up.

I think just the things that you tend to separate the human from the art.

And I think that's the hardest thing for me too, is you know, everything I make in the music I write about is fully true to me.

I don't not taking pitch records.

I'm writing about my watching my parents die, which is so hard to then turn around and swipe on a TikTok and be like, ah, it's Warren sucks, you know.

And so it's just separating, separating that.

It's so difficult for me too.

I just have to scroll that whether it's good or bad, I don't look at it.

And it's hard.

It's really hard because these mean these songs mean so much to me.

These songs helped me through all those things I'm talking about, and like, it's so strange to be able to be like, oh wow, it's so strange not to take that personally, you know.

So that's that's definitely been a challenge.

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As I was listening to you, I was just thinking, I love that you have the capacity for grace for your mom and to sit there and say, you know, no one knows how to raise four kids, what's their husband die, deal with the challenges that come with life.

You know, she's not a superhuman.

And as I was listening to you say that, I was like, I hope you're able to develop that grace for yourself to be able to say, you know, no one knows how to come into the world and have their father pass away when they're nine years old, and have a mum who's an addict, and have three other siblings.

And because I'm looking and I think both coexisting is what grace really looks like.

Because it's beautiful that you've been able to even have the glimpse of that perspective for your mother and to expand that out into yourself, because I often feel that we do one or the others.

So we often feel, oh, yeah, I give myself grace, but I can't forgive that person and that doesn't feel fully healed.

Or we do the opposite where we give that person grace but we don't for us, and I can.

I can resonate with it because I always think about my dad because he was he had such a complex childhood and when I look at it, it gives me context and grace for who he became and if without that context in the same way as you just beautifully explained, but yeah, my dad like saw his mom die when he was four, He grew up in the slums of India.

He had four siblings that you know, we're just trying to figure out what to do like it.

And when I understand that context, I can have grace and compassion for him.

And then at the same time, even though I didn't have those troubles or your troubles, there's compassion I have to have for myself.

And so yeah, I really hope this opens a doorway for that for you, because it's beautiful that you have the capacity for that for her.

Yeah, I had it in that moment.

It's really speak.

I've never had that perspective funny enough, something so simple, something yet so profound, you know.

Yeah, I mean you have it.

You're the one saying it about your mother like you know, it's it's just yeah, you know, saying the same about your nine year old self and fourteen and twenty one.

But when when you were going through that, what was What do you believe you needed most in your teenage years that you didn't have?

Wow, I don't know.

I mean the obvious answer is obviously a parent.

Yeah.

Outside of that, yeah.

I think I I may do with what I hadn't.

I don't necessarily think I could have had anything more.

You know, you're growing up and being a teenager.

I think I had ambition, I had a dream, I had a goal, and I every day being a kid, I never thought of like, what what am I going to do?

Party wise?

I thought what am I going to do so I can achieve those goals?

I've always wanted to do this, So I don't know.

I truly every day I just woke up and I thought how do I make this dream and goal of mine possible and I've never let go of it.

How did you protect that and protect your self esteem in an environment where you're being told you suck, where someone who's the only caregiver in your life doesn't love your art or doesn't encourage it, and of course you don't have the resources to how did you protect that?

I have no idea.

I have no clue I should have given up so long ago, and that is something that I've questioned to this day of why it happened.

I for the longest time had this gut feeling since I was a kid.

And whether you for me, I credit that to God.

I'm a Christian and I have faith in that way, but for so many people, you know, I can't imagine I every day I woke up and I go, I'm going to do this.

And I had so much confidence for being such an insecure guy, for not believing in myself wise for not believing myself where my life was, and I would I should have given up way before I did, and I never did.

I just had this weird got feeling that this was supposed to happen, and I followed it, and here we are.

Yeah.

I love that as in I love hearing that too, because one of the most common things I hear a lot from my community is Joe, my family doesn't believe in me.

I'm in a toxic atmosphere.

There are people around me who just holding me back, people with negative energy.

What do I do about it?

And you're sitting here, you know, and we're looking at a snapshot of your life, and yes we're getting into some detail, but you know, there's so much more to it.

Of course, it's your life, and you're sitting here going, well, actually, that's all I had.

So I did all I had like that.

That was basically not your escape, but that was your it was your passion, it was your pursuit.

It was where all your energy went.

It's it's where all your focus went.

Because what else would you give your focus to.

If you gave it to all the the other things, you wouldn't have survived.

Exactly.

I never had a plan B.

I would go to school and in class as I was posting musicalis like it was.

It was literally all I did every day.

I would go into class and I would just go on my phone and do social media or post my singing videos and I was failing.

I didn't graduate high school like I and nor would I ever recommend that to anyone.

I do not know what that conviction was and why I thought that that was what I was supposed to do, and it just it.

I didn't fight it.

I tuned everything else out.

There was nothing else I was interested in, and I never had a backup plan.

I was like, I'm gonna be homeless.

I'm gonna do this, and I ended up being homeless.

Did God have anything to do with the conviction?

I like to think so.

I think a lot of times when I watch podcasts and I hear people say that though, it always throws me through a loop, you know, And I think, like, you know, a lot of times when I've you know, gone through this stuff and talked about my faith and things, I just feel as if I have been put on this earth to do this, you know.

And I feel as if I had to lose my parents to be the person I am today, you know, And the things that I've lost have shaped me into the man that I am.

And you know, I've met everyone and I'm happy with myself after all this loss and whatnot, and for me I've battled a lot because I've always been like, oh, like, if God was really, would I've done that to me?

You know?

And I think that when you when I look at a snapshot of my life, I look at every single mistake I've ever made and every single thing that's taken away, and every single thing that has happened to me has led been a lesson of some sort.

I've learned from everything, and I understand it's people probably disagree with that, and I think that's fully fine.

I just think for what I've lived through and the things that I've gone through and where I am today, the only thing to me makes sense is that.

And that's that's the beautiful thing about faith.

You got to believe it, you know, it's crazy.

Yeah, Do you regret not telling your mom how you felt?

Or do you wish you've got to tell her that you forgive her and that you understand and shared that compassion, or do you feel it was shared in spirit and internally and that no.

I think the one thing that I regret is my mom.

I look at this every time and it just kills me.

Is my mom died alone?

You know, she'd have friends, she didn't have family anymore.

Everyone left her.

Everyone left because they wanted to focus on themselves.

I think that's the hardest thing that I've had to deal with is when I thought about that.

I remember I was driving and I started thinking about my life and how I'm terrified to be alone.

And I started to think about my mom and I realized that she was alone, and I texted her and I wanted to check on her, and little did I know she was dying alone.

And so for me, yeah, I mean, it's so easy to it's so easy when people are out of your life, and now that it's happened to me so many times, to be like, wow, I wish I did this different, And you're never going to survive if you think that way.

It's never gonna I've lost so many people in my life, and every time, it's so goddamn easy to be like, Oh, I should have done this more.

I should have walked with them every day, I should have cherished those moments in between.

But now when I have friendships and my relationships, nothing matters to me at least, any issue is small because I'm I'm able to put in perspective the things that I've lost and been able to now understand the gravity of what that means and losing someone, And so I feel like as a person, I'm much better of a emotional person with other people because of that as well.

Yeah, of course, but I don't know, I can never think about that.

I'm genuinely so in awe of your ability to process much in so little time.

And I don't say that as empty flattery at all.

I say it with as much gravitas as you can probably say it with because and it's so interesting to me, because two people can go through the same thing and have completely different reactions and everyone's allowed to process it however they decide to process it.

But it feels like the way you've been able to walk these footsteps is allowing you to continue to grow and heal, but not crush yourself under the responsibility that you shouldn't have had to carry as a kid anyway.

And I think that's what's so interesting is so many of us as young people carry weight that was too heavy that shouldn't have even ever come across even as an adult, and you end up carrying that weight continuously.

And it feels like I'm not saying it it was easier or that that's not my interpretation of it.

But what I'm hearing is you've almost been able to put the weight down at the right time when you've needed to in order to move forward.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know, Yeah I do.

I just have this outlook on life that the and it sounds so redundant, and I keep saying it, but truly, I think that everything that has happened in my life is a lesson.

Where did that come from?

How did you even get to that place?

I don't even know.

It's had to be, that's it's a survival instinct, Like that's what I'm I.

Start to think about, what's the point?

Yeah, I started to think about my life, and I think I had a moment where I had a reflection but also had I battled with depression a little while ago, and I started to think, what was the point.

Why did all these things happen to me?

Why is this my life?

And where am I supposed to be?

And I think, you know, like you said, there are two ways of dealing with it.

There's a lot of people, you know, and my family's full of it.

My family's full of different ways that we have all endured what we went through because I'm not the only one and we've all gone different routes of that, and for me, I just started to think, what is the point if I'm not treating this the way.

I can't control the fact that my parents are dead, I can't control the fact that, you know, life is fleeting, and you know, I've had friends die and all these different things, and you know, or even like the mistakes that happened, getting cheated on or just random stuff that has happened in my life.

And then I start to realize if everything in life is a way to another thing.

You know, what happens to you is a byproduct of a decision that someone made, and your reaction is what follows.

Right And for me, if I lose someone, it teaches me something and some aspect of life.

If I make a mistake on stage, I truly think that that's something because I need to learn.

Mistakes are only important if you learn from them, and if you don't, it's a habit.

And so I've just really stressed that aspect of my life every day of you know, growing, because what's the point of living if you can't grow?

What's the point of living if you can't constantly try and become a better person.

The one thing I know about my dad, and I don't know much because he died when I was a kid.

Everyone I ask says he was the nicest person ever, says he was the kindest person ever, says he was a light when he walked through a room.

And I often think of when I die, what is someone going to say about me?

You know?

And so for me, you know, I've always just strived and chased that ability to be like my dad.

And every day I'm constantly striving to be a better human.

And the only way you do that is by growth.

And the only way you grow is by learning from your mistakes.

Why focus on the things you can't change, focus on the reaction of what has happened.

What do you hope people will say about you when you die.

I feel like a lot of people have probably sat here and said something about their career, and I just want to be I want someone to say that that was a great father.

I want people to be like that.

Say what you want about me, say what you want about my music.

But I cared a lot and I just want to be a good father.

That's what my entire life is set off to be.

You know, yeah, I love I love the videos you make for my co Yeah yeah, kids.

Yeah, that was inspiring me.

I was like, I need to start, I need to get on that train.

My dad left us home videos no way.

Yeah.

So that was the coolest part about daddy film for you everything everything.

I have hours of footage of what my dad filmed.

I get to hear his voice, and I think that's the other thing that no one teaches you about grief is you start to forget the smell of someone.

You start to forget what they sound like.

You forget what it's like to hold someone after having a bad day or confiding someone you don't know how badly.

The one thing I wish is I could call my dad and just ask for advice about marriage, about fatherhood, about just things you go through.

Like that's the thing I take for granted, just being able to call him, you know, I called every day to hear that voicemail every day until one day someone picked up the phone because my mom couldn't afford to keep paying the bill.

And so that's the one thing, is like, it's been so nice to be able to see those videos and humanize someone who I didn't know.

I often hear about my dad and I've put him on this pedestal of just being this perfect guy, and I don't want him to be.

I want him to have mistakes.

I want him to have flaws because I have flaws and I want to see that my dad.

And so, my dad's best friend comes around all the time.

He's in my life so much.

He's like an uncle to me.

And he brought these letters because back then they didn't have phones and my dad used to.

They used to write each other letters.

And it's his bestest friend and he gets troped up talking about him all the time.

And he showed me these letters.

And I write just like my dad say psyched for no reason.

I don't know why I say it.

I'm like, oh, I'm psyched.

That's sick, and everyone's like, what are you talking about?

And he wrote it in every letter someone I didn't know.

I think about that.

I did not know my dad I was nine years old.

I have memories of him the same way I have memories about my doctor, you know.

And that's hard, and there's so much of him in me.

And that's the coolest part is being able to every day learn something new about him.

And I say this and I don't know where I heard it, and it's I never came up with this.

But people die twice.

They die when they die, and they die when you stop telling their story.

And my whole goal with everything in my entire career, my entire life, is just to keep him alive, which has been really cool.

Yeah, I think you're doing a great job of that.

I mean, trying, my damn, Steven.

I feel so, you know, I feel like what you're talking about your dad.

I feel so close to him and that I have no you know, idea of who he was.

And I can agree with you more.

I feel that you carry a part of the people that you lost that you love.

I am a spiritual mentor of mine, a father figure who passed away five years ago, who I loved deeply, and he had staged four brain cancer, and so he started to lose his memory towards the last few years of his life.

So he went from remembering my face and name to my name towards the end not even noticing me.

And I can relate to that point of just he's the person I wish I could call to share anything that happens in my life because that's what he was.

And all of this took off after he passed away, really, and yeah, it's one of those things.

But I fully agree that I talk about him a lot on the podcast, to talk about him a lot with friends and family because there was no one like him, and I almost wish more people got to experience him, to know what was possible as a human and how someone could live with So he had this because he had staged four brain cancer and his memory started to break.

When he'd meet people, all he'd do was thank them for their service to God, and so his brain was stuck on gratitude.

Wow, so all you do is thank people, so you could forget their name, forget their face.

But because he was a leader in our spiritual community, he would just if it meet you, just be like, thank you for your service to God.

And he'd really mean it, like thank you for everything you've been doing.

That's beautiful.

And it was just and I was like, wow, Like, God, if my brain ever broke, I hope it breaks like that.

That just shows what's really you know in there.

But Yeah, as I'm hearing you talk about this, it's almost like every phase of your life I mean when I was preparing for this, I was like I, and now I'm getting to meet you, obviously, so I have a completely different perspective because I'm looking at how much resilience you have, in strength you have, and how much you're willing to open the wound as well, and look at it from different angles, which is at seventeen, your mom kicks you out of the house, and then you end up, as you said a few moments ago, you end up being homeless and living in a car.

Talk to me about the day to day of living living in a car as a seventeen year old, because.

I mean I had it.

I had it pretty lucky.

I'm not gonna lie like I I slept in cars.

My friends would sneaping into their houses and I would sleep, like you know, on their floors with hiding hoping no one walked in.

Yeah, I'm not.

I there was only a few nights where I actually slept like on the road, like probably two, you know, And like, I think that's the biggest thing for me is you know, I my mom kicks me out because she wanted me to come back.

She wanted me to I think, her whole thing.

And what I never realized was insecurity of being a mother, you know, and for me, I would just I had a point where she that night, she had pinned me on the ground and just started waiting, punching as hard as she could.

My brother, who's a marine, ended up pulling her off, and I ran out of the house and I never came back.

And that was something where then the next day she called the cops, and the cops went looking for me, saying that I hit her a whole thing, and so I just hid.

I hid on the street, hid in my friend's cars.

My mom then called all of her all of their friends parents and said I'm bad news and all these things, and then they stopped letting me sleep in their house, and so I would sleep in a car.

And then I ended up getting shot by my friend's dad with a one seventy seven, which is like a baby.

It's like a you know, you hunt deer rabbits or something with it, and it's the way it's shaped is supposed to do as much damage in the animal.

And it was an accident.

He didn't mean to where he didn't understand the scope of it.

And why did he do it?

Why why did he even.

I think a lot of the guys who grew up in the seventies and eighties would shoot each other with pelicans like that was the thing, like I guess, and I don't think they realized this wasn't a pelican and it was like a hunting rifle.

And he also, I don't know if he knew it was loaded, but we were filming a video and he said run.

I ran and zigzagged because I thought that would work.

And damn was he a good shot.

He nailed me right in the liver and it went on.

It missed my heart by a few centimeters, and it stuck in my lung today.

It's still there today.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's so small that if you were to if you act right, you can see it.

But if you were to pull it out, you'd have to break my ribs and it'd be a chance I would die, and it's just not worth it.

It's capitalized in my lung right now, my right lung.

And talked to me about how it fell in the moment, I mean, that's excruciating.

Have you ever seen those videos of paintballs hitting your body in slow motion?

Yeah, it felt like that.

It hit a nerve.

I jumped up.

I broke my elbow or I fractured it or whatever, and I just remember the worst pain you'll ever feel in your entire life.

I don't know what it's like to get shot with a nine mil, but that was like it was burning in my body and I was scratching my chest trying to just get the pain.

I was like, make it stop, please.

And I remember when I was shot, they didn't believe it was in me.

They thought I was working around and so they were squeezing the wound, trying to get the pellet out, thinking it was at surface level, not realizing I was bleeding internally.

And yeah, I remember, that was probably the worst pain I've ever felt my entire life is feeling the pellet burn or bullet technically it's a bullet burning in my body.

That was hard.

That one sucked.

Did you go to the hospital with me?

Yes?

Yeah, I went to the hospital.

They had made me for a gunshot wound.

I had the cops come, because every time you admit anyone to the hospital for a GSW the cops come.

This guy, he's funny enough.

He officiated my wedding.

The guy who shot you.

Huge part of my life.

Actually, he's a huge part of my life.

He was a father figure to me when my dad passed away and he made a mistake.

I'm also probably the most forgiving person you'll ever.

You literally, I think, Alex, we need to slow down.

No, he's amazing.

He's truly like his family has been such a crucial part of my life and in my recovery, not recovery, but in my life of becoming who I am today.

He has been.

He's someone I still go back home and visit, and he officiated my wedding.

His daughter is my best friend since I was thirteen, and he was letting me sleep on the floor of his house and sleep sleep in his car.

And when this happened, he obviously paid the hospital bills and he bought me a He he owns a Volvo dealership.

He manages a Vola dealership.

And so I had a car and I slept in it, which was awesome.

So I had the car that I had.

It was a stick shift nineteen ninety four wagon.

It was great Vulvo Wagon.

How long did that recovery take?

Recovery I was in the hospital for two months, maybe a month and a half.

And you said, it just missed your heart.

Yeah, yeah, but nothing and you were lung.

Yeah, but it can't do any damage.

In there if I fall from a certain height.

It's what they said, if I like fall to my body at ten feet maybe.

So no flips.

I still flip, but it's not something you think about like it's it doesn't cause any pain, like you don't sometimes.

Oh, sometimes I.

Go for singing and like, I don't know, I need to.

Get my lung check out, especially because I just I quit smoking three years ago when I was almost something.

I really got into a smoking cigarettes and I went to vaping, and so I really want to get my lungs checked out, especially having cancer round in my family.

But yeah, I I need to get that checked out.

I have no idea.

All I know is I sing my little took a shot.

That's that's crazy.

Yeah, I mean like it's just almost like I mean, I'm in shock right now because it's it's just thing after thing after thing after thing.

I mean it's you know it sounds fake.

No, No, I didn't.

I didn't feel that.

I just feel like it's it's it's hard and it's it's just like it doesn't sound fake to me.

It just sells.

I say it all the time.

It doesn't sound real.

It doesn't sound real in the sense of just like you can't believe someone survived it all.

That's that's the hard part.

It's like, how did someone survive it all and not end up?

You know?

It's almost like how did someone survive it all and have the approach you have to it?

That's what like sitting with you here today, knowing all of this and then hearing about it from you in detail, and I'm like, how do you not how do you not you.

Know, device how do I not have advice of sorts?

No?

No, it's not even how are you.

Just gone in a fully different, a huge different outlook?

Yeh, that's what I mean.

It's it's the outlook that is the most profound to me.

And I'm really grateful for that.

Like it's it's quite it's beautiful to sit with that because I'm always looking for I was on tour this year earlier this year, and I met this young girl who her stories just stayed with me ever since, and it was like she she was, she's from here.

She was a world champion cheerleader, winning all these competitions, traveling across the country performing et cetera, you know, everything that cheerleaders do.

And then she had a freak accident broke her you know, broke her back spy, and she's a quadribrilegic now, she is paralyzed from her hands down.

I met her in her wheelchair that she'd come to my event.

She's nineteen years old.

She was sixteen when it happened.

Wow, And she was just bright and beaming and like the light in the like she was just you know, brought almost a light into the room.

And I just couldn't believe, like someone who had been through that she was telling me a story could be that like, you know, that powerful and vibrant and everything else.

And I tell her story, and I'm so grateful I get to share yours on the platform because these are the kind of stories that inspire me and make me look for the lesson and make me look for the gift, and make me look because it's stories like yours, and stories like hers, and stories like so many others that I've had the fortune of talking to, or people I look forward to meeting in the future that inspire me in my darkest moments, which are not as dark as that, not to compare, but they're not and so or as yours.

And yeah, it's it's beautiful to think that you can find beauty and create beauty through so much.

Yeah, it's far.

It's inspiration for me just to be able to dude.

Growing up, I wanted an outlet in music and I didn't know it.

I didn't find it.

I didn't see it, you know, until I heard Lewis Capaldi when I was like eighteen.

I think I was eighteen when I heard Lewis and he started writing about loss, and that was something that was hugely inspiration for me.

I write about that now, and that was a lot of that got me through a lot of stuff, you know, And so I think that was the biggest thing, was like I wanted to be that for someone else.

I wanted to help other people who I think the one thing that I did that was super selfish was assumed that this was all me.

I assumed that this only happens to me, and I'm the only one who has lost as parents and I'm the only one who goes through these feelings.

And as I started playing these shows and as I started to write these songs, I realized that it's it's way more than you think.

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter how much you make or what your skin color is, you go through loss.

You understand that you have things that you lose every day, your family members, your friends, your loved ones, your dog.

And that's the one thing that's universally, I think connect Everyone is understanding that piece of you that is gone, and everyone tries not to talk about it.

And so it's been the most beautiful thing about making music has been able to be a It's one thing you can't articulate when you lose someone and going through grief, it's something you cannot articulate.

You don't know how to go through it, and everyone has a different vice on how to.

And I think that's the biggest thing is making music that sounds like it, making music that allows you to articulate that feeling, you know, And so I've just been really focusing on that.

Yeah, I think that's I mean, especially for things that can't be put into words.

It feels like that's exactly where music comes to heal.

Yeah, because you feel seen, you feel heard, you've for longer stood without having to say anything.

Yeah, you can just put it on and it's it's amazing to hear that Lewis was doing that.

Was there any other artists that you feel have opened that up and gone there to that extent that impacted you?

Probably Sean Mendes.

I think we were talking about Sean earlier too, and Sean is when I first wrote my first song I fully, I'm so sorry, Sean, I've ripped off stitches.

Fully, I stole the four chords that he did and I would just moved the capo around and that's obviously a version before.

But that was a huge thing I songwriting.

My first four years of my life, songwriting was just Shawn Menda's stitches chords moving around a capo and because I didn't know how to play a guitar, and there was a huge inspiration just listening to songwriting too and understanding you know, his his you know, understanding different ways people grow up, in different things they go through, and his songwriting was a huge inspiration for mine.

So yeah, I probably have.

We love Sean.

He's been a guest on the show too, and he's yeah, he's absolutely sweetheart.

Yeah, so wait, all of your music knowledge is fully self taught.

Yeah, yeah, not until I was about twenty twenty one.

I really put out my first song Yes, and I was like, I need to take this, I need to do this and throw my whole, my everything into it.

I wanted to do it right.

I wanted to obviously because music I had such a weird relationship with it my entire life that I definitely have really bad imposter syndrome.

So I started taking music theory lessons.

I started taking piano lessons.

I take vocal lessons three times a week if not more still to this day, for the last four years of my life, I started taking guitar lessons, and you know, asking how to produce, and like, you know what, I'm in the studio, what do you do to my voice?

How do you do that?

What do you do this instrument?

How do you compress that?

How do you eq that?

And when I'm doing my inner monitors, what's the frequency you're taking out?

What is auto tuned tune?

Dad is at four forty four to thirty two?

And I think it's really interesting just learning about it and kind of starting from scratch and reevaluating what you want to stand about music.

So yeah, along I was self taught for a very long time, and then I really wanted to understand it all.

Yeah.

I love hearing the balance of both of just this pure passion and then mastery.

It sounds like where you're actually trying to put in the hours and the work and the you know, the reps in a more formal capacity at the same time as having this years of just singing or musically or posting a video when there wasn't any training or structure around.

Yeah.

Yeah, I had to do it all myself, and I realized that I was fortunate enough to be able to have an arsenal of help, and so I just took it.

Did it?

What did it feel like?

You talked about You mentioned it earlier and I'm kind of looping back to it, but you talked about like how when you met your now wife cover like that there was something special about that connection, and I believe you met on Snapchat, Yeah, which is which is amazing.

Talk talk to me about how that happens in the New Age Romeo and Juliet.

Yeah, Now, my friend had moved to Hawaii.

She's from Hawaii, and my friend had moved in with her and they were friends, and so she would throw my wife cover on her story a lot, and there was this photo and so funny.

I tell this story at the time and she's like, I hate that photo.

My wife can sleep anywhere at anytime, in any position anytime.

Like she comes surfing with me in the morning and she'll fall asleep on the rock.

Like I'm not kidding.

There's photos of her sleeping on rocks.

There's a photo of her.

The first photo I ever saw of her was her sleeping in a weird position like this.

And I texted my friend and I said, that's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

And we started talking on snapchat.

Yeah, what part of you did you share with COVID that you think was hidden until then?

Like was there something that COVID brought out of you that you didn't even know you had within yourself?

Seems like you have such a special relationship.

Yeah.

I don't know a single girl who would find out that I'm homeless and go cool, let's do it.

Stropped out of college, she had five hundred bucks saved up, that's it.

She found out I was sleeping in a car and immediately was like, all right, cool, Like, let's do it.

That is that is the crazy I am like, I cannot believe she's amazing.

I know she's she's I I'm.

Have you asked her like why she said yes to that?

Like we actually I should, I should examine that.

You're right, make someone want her on the podcast with you.

I didn't.

I didn't expect when she said yes to go why I was like, yeah, dude, I'm not.

Going to ask her like you were, like you were dating, things were going good.

Did you ask her to move in with you?

Like?

Was it that kind?

No?

She just she did it.

She it was it was straight up like I was sleeping in my car.

She was staying with a friend because she lived in Hawaii, but she came out to California and just a visit and then she was like oh cool, yeah, and moved out of her friend's house and moved into my car.

She had options.

She picked probably the one that no one would have picked.

And I think that's the thing it taught me for me, like that's something I probably would have done.

You know, as I've said all these stories, now I feel like I'm one of those people who I trust my gut, and it seemed like her gut was that and she didn't question it, and I feel like that was kind of the indication of like, Wow, this isn't a normal person, this is my person.

How were your relationship before that?

Did you have time for relationships?

What do they look like through your teens?

I was notoriously cheated on.

I was, well, I think I I think I looked for what I was missing in my home life and girls.

I mean, I've met my wife when I was eighteen, so like you got to think all everything before that was probably not real.

But we're not real, but just not necessarily I would say mature.

I was a clinging guy, like I was a super cleaning guy who needed you know, who didn't trust anyone.

I got cheated on every relationship.

I was not a catch by any means, you know.

So I think relationships before were just me trying to figure out who I was, but also what I wanted in a partner.

You know.

Was it difficult accepting love from COVI because you'd not had consistent love.

Before, Yeah, it was definitely.

I took me a second to be secure with my relationship.

Probably took me a year or two to be frank with you, man, I don't think I was secure at all.

I think I just had so much baggage.

I had so much shit in my life.

My mom was alive at the time, and my mom made it a mission to make my life hell.

So my mom said some pretty choice words to my girlfriend or now wife at the time.

What did she say?

She sent her a whole message pretty much being like, you know, calling her whore and saying all these things.

My mom was probably the most My mom was an amazing person, but when she was drunk, she was probably the most racist, homophobic, rude person I ever grew up with, which kind of showed me my mom.

I will say this and again, I love my mother, but she showed me exactly who I didn't want to be, you know, and hence why I go by Alex barn it's my mom.

I didn't want anything my mom did ever reflect on me because I am not that person.

I never want to be that person, and so I started going by my not real name because I never wanted that part of that to be associated with me.

But my mom was not a kind person when she was drunk, and she made it a mission to attack anyone in her life, which is probably in security thing in herself.

Was the name change an identity shift on settling or did it just feel.

Felt right, felt normal, felt felt it gave me so much easement.

You know, my mom just very vocal about things that I did agree with it, which I feel like everyone has that, you know, I can't.

I don't think Thanksgivings are necessarily everyone's a favorite thing, you know.

So who did you celebrate Thanksgiving?

Family?

Yeah?

Yeah, my older sister and my brother.

Yeah and yeah, so we went out and we went to their house for Thanksgiving, which is nice.

Yeah.

How cathotic was it to have your music career take off in the same year as your mom passed away?

Like?

Did that mean something to you?

Did that have some emotions attached to it for you?

I have never thought of the correlation.

Uh wow, Yeah, I didn't even realize that was the same years.

I never thought about it like that.

Yeah.

I think I'm right, you are?

You are.

I put my first song out in June or twenty twenty one, and she died in October at twenty twenty one.

That's crazy.

I don't know.

I've never thought about that.

I that's cool.

I don't know how to react to that.

I think it's something that i'd have to probably process.

Yeah, of course not of course, Please didn't mean to shock you.

Just no, no, no, I mean it's not that yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, I appreciate.

This revolutionary thing.

It's more of it.

It's more of like it's it's I I definitely feel like my what has now spewed of my music career is something that you know, has been dealing with those things.

And the fact that that happened the same year I pursued music, I feel like it's just another one of those things that have just happened that you kind of have to wonder, what the hell is happening in my life?

Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's yeah.

Life is just there's so many moments like that that, uh, yeah, you can't explain them because you go, how is it possible, Yeah, that these two things come inside in a matter of months.

So many so many form men in my life, you know, to the point where it's like, you know, I'm baffled by it every time.

So many sliding doors moments in your life too.

I'm almost like, well, what if you and your mom didn't have that fight where you opinned and you didn't run away.

Yeah, and what would happen if you didn't get shot and become really close to, you know, your friend's dad, who you know, was the efficient of your Like, there's and everyone has that, everyone has those yours seem quite there's just there's just really high tension moments of just figuring that out.

Talk to me about the wedding with cover.

Yeah.

How long were you to before we got married?

Five years?

Okay?

Yeah, yeah, five years until I propose six years until we got married.

And did you get married?

Where did you get married?

We got married in Temecula, okay, yeah, so I'm from San Diego, so it was something cool.

We we got married at a garden.

Temecula is beautiful.

Yeah.

I was terrified of the wedding or Temecula, the.

Wedding Tomcla scrape.

Now the wedding I was.

I wanted it to be perfect, and it's so it's so crazy when you have family and everyone and you invite a bunch of people.

And I wanted this big wedding because I think that there was so many people that were a huge part of my life, you know, like so many people are the byproducts of who I am.

Today, and so I invited everyone in my life.

I think there was three hundred people at my wedding.

Looking back at that, I probably would have shrunk it a little bit.

But yeah, I think everyone just wanted it to be a particular way because they wanted it to be like their wedding.

And I think you know, that rehearsal dinner was terrifying.

It was nothing went to plan.

Nothing went to plan at the rehearsal dinner or the rehearsal in general, and the minute the wedding actually happened, it was perfect.

It was perfection.

I could not have dreamed of a better wedding and it was amazing.

It was so cool to be able to I mean, even like my vows, I don't think I'll ever write a piece of work better than those.

And you see, I didn't want to work on my wedding, and I with the vows, I also just wanted to make sure that I said everything I wanted to, you know, And I think that's the biggest regret in my life, as I never got to say the things I wanted to and the time that I had, and the wedding was something for me where I thought that would be the perfect time to say everything I've ever wanted to to her.

And so I spent you know, the better half of that night prior just perfecting those vows.

And I remember before I even went out, I read it over again and I was like, do I want to do a grammar change?

But it like it was so funny and I it just it came from the heart and it was so special.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

Yeah, I'm a big I'm a sucker for love and I've officiated few weddings and whenever i'm a fishing a wedding, my my voice in my head is don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, because I love love so much that I can just like fully break down and I'm like tearing over, like you know, the bride walking down the aisle and then look in the husband's husband to be's eyes and the groom's eyes and it's just, yeah, it's a magical moment.

And vows are probably my favorite.

Blaw that's the part where I really have to hold it together and it's it's yeah, wedding.

Weddings are a beautiful thing.

I remember I broke down on saying my own vows to my wife.

Oh my god, when I gave my speech, it was just like claws.

It's just you know, she was laughing.

She was cracking up, which is so in uh indicative of our relationship, right, Yeah, what are the parts of your What are the parts of your I find this and I'm intrigued to hear what you say about this.

You said that you learned from your mom or you didn't want to be Yeah, what are the parts of your mom that you sometimes see in yourself when you're dealing with KOVI or anyone.

I'm stubborn.

I'm really stubborn, man.

I mean, ah, that's difficult.

I think I spent so much time arguing with my mom that I just became so argumentative, you know, And I think that's like my biggest thing in my biggest struggle is I think I just want to win every argument now, you know, growing up with my mom, My entire relationship with her was trying to prove that she had a problem and trying to spin my words a certain way to articulate to her that she had a problem.

You know, if I said at one way, she would tell me that she didn't have a problem, shut it down.

So every time I had that, I had to articulate it a different way, try to give her a perspective, big metaphor guy, because I always tried to correlate to someone who's I always wondered how someone's brain worked that they couldn't admit that they had a problem or couldn't understand that if you're getting drunk at five am and driving your kids drunk to school, right, So I'd find different ways to try and communicate with that with her.

So I always thought it was a communication air and it was never that.

And that was my problem is it was never communication or it was not wanting to admit you had a problem, but you knowing it did so for me, you know now that i'm that's a better half of my entire life.

You know, I cash myself arguing with my wife trying to win opposed to trying to understand where they're coming from.

You know, it's like you hear something.

And that's the biggest thing is the last two years of my life, I've been me just trying to put myself in other people's shoes.

Because that's the one thing I carried away from it was whenever someone would argue with me, I didn't care about how they felt.

I cared about winning the argument, and I had to take a step back.

And I think once I started music, especially and just really writing records, it really kind of changed who I am now.

And I've been able to really emotionally be present in a lot of things and understand that you know, how someone feels is important, you know, and I know that.

And after I remember, after every argument, I'd be like, wow, I'm a piece of shit.

I didn't like.

I obviously care, I obviously care, but during that moment, it just it was instinct of just to be combative, and so I remember it would be an hour long conversation just for it to end with I'm sorry, like that's not you know.

And so it's just that's been definitely one of the things I've carried from my mom.

It's just truly like, you know, that relationship where there was just so that you know, what.

Are the cycles you and Kova want to break for your kids.

I know you said the goal is to become a dad, and.

The cycles, I think, wow, I don't know.

I think more about how I'm terrified to be a parent because I don't want to do it wrong.

You know, especially with the way I grew up, I grew up without a dad.

How am I supposed to understand what that's like if I never had it, you know?

And so what I've really thought about is just the fact that I'm I want to be a girl dad so bad.

Like I don't know what it is.

I just think I would thrive with a girl.

And I think the biggest thing is, you know, the only thing you can do right is love them unconditionally and try your best to raise them.

You know, there is no right way, there is no proper thing.

It's just going to be me trying to be the best father I can be.

I think with things that we're trying to break, I'm not sure I haven't given that much thought.

I haven't necessarily thought about what that might look like yet.

You know, which is going to be an interesting conversation or at least interesting thought process when I go into it.

Yeah, definitely, I'm excited to see what you both come out with.

Yeah, I feel like there's you have so many great reflections, Yeah, pinpoints and like almost you.

Know, I've really bat it with not when she gets pregnant.

I don't want to tell anyone I don't want to post about it.

I don't want to.

That's been the one thing I really Everything in my life is private or it is not private.

Granted, I tell you everything you know, and I love that aspect of my life.

And I think I battle the one thing about it with as I'm so insecure now, I'm so I have the worst imposter syndrome.

I care about what everyone thinks about me.

Really, I care so much.

If I have a thousand comments and one of them and someone saying I suck, I walk around all day asking people if I suck?

Wait, but this person said I sucked?

Like do I actually suck?

Like?

And wait?

Was this fine?

Was I off here?

And like I I could never put my kid through that unless they wanted to.

But I wouldn't.

I don't know if I could ever.

Do you know if distraught i'd be if I decided to share a photo with my kid and someone's like that kid's thinking ugly?

Are you kid?

I'm not going to put them through that.

I put myself through that knowing my genes.

No, But I don't know.

But my wife is like she loves talking about the things.

That's like she loves like posting about stuff.

So it's definitely been a thing where like that's been a huge conversation is posting about that and I don't think, I don't think I will.

Has that been the because you know, when you look at your life and you think you've been through so much hard ship, Yeah, and it's fascinating that a common saying you suck still hurts.

It just shows us as humans, we're all wired so similarly, Like, it doesn't matter that you've dealt with way harder things in your life.

Yeah, having at having it that, like having you said it was the one out of thousand comment that says you suck, it still hurts because we all don't want to be hated or like, Has that been the hardest thing about this rise and the music getting so much love and affection of Cross across the world comes with it naturally proportionately comes you know, people who don't like it or whatever it may be.

Yeah, has that been the hardest thing about it?

Yeah?

I think so.

I think again, Like I said, like the music I make is so real to me, it's about my personal life.

It's hard not to take it personal.

So many people are like, oh, it's art, don't take a personal they're judging your art, they're not judging you, and it's my art is me, you know, and that yeah, like that was you know.

I'm not thinking about the song and how you don't like it.

I'm thinking about the fact that there's a fifteen year old kid who wrote that in his bedroom trying to get over lost, you know.

And that's the hardest part for it.

And I also think it's like, you know, I think it's probably my mom's voice when I look for that comment, I'm looking for my mom in some random way.

If I had a therapist, I bet you would say that.

But yeah, it's just been like one of those situations in my life especially, I've just really kind of it's the hardest thing, dude.

I am the most insecure mother over me, which most of us are.

Most what I've learned as most people in this industry are the most insecure people where you think they have it all together and everything's being held together by tape and nails.

What are you insecure about everything?

I am everything.

I think that's so easy for me to say all these different things because it's true and I believe it.

But at the same time, I look in the mirror and I I, you know, not even the way I look.

I just wish I these songs are so true, these songs are so real, and I want them to be perfect every time, and it's not humanly possible.

I want, I want.

I've worked so hard and I just want people to think I'm good enough, you know, because like I think that'll convince me I'm good enough.

And so when I see comments that you know, are hateful, I think that's the truth, and I think everyone's being nice.

It's just gaslighting me, which is a perception thing that I need to work on.

Yeah, do you feel enough today?

Yeah?

I had a really good show last night.

And you know, like it's funny, it fluctuates, but like, I don't know, I've been feeling the love recently.

I think the hardest part about being nominated for the Grammys and all these different things is it opens people up who do not like you to fully just shit on you.

That's been the one thing I ever really had to like CT online everyone, I think, like you know more now than ever.

It's percept Like I think, because I'm a Christian who writes songs about my wife, people think they know who I am or they assume I'm some thing, you know, whether it's political or what they think that I believe in this And like I've seen the most outlandish things said about me on the internet, and it's the biggest things, Like I just don't comment on it because it's like those people, I'm not going to change their mind, you know, if you think I'm some racist or whatever this thing because you think because I'm a Christian, I think that's the craziest thing in the world, you know.

And my faith has to do with you know, with my parents passing away and who I am today, you know.

And it's just been it's been such a struggle to kind of watch people say things about me that is not true, you know, and all of a sudden, I just have to be okay with it and not say anything because that's the right play, you know.

You you fight for yourself.

These people aren't gonna believe you.

You know, they're just gonna be like, oh, you're just saying that because you sold your soul, and it's like what what.

Yeah.

I came up with a rule a few years ago that really helped me process stuff.

I was like, the closer you get to the top, one one percent, or whatever industry you're in, the more likely it is that fifty percent of people disagree with you.

Yeah, And that math helped it make sense because I remember when my comment section was just like the nicest place on earth, when it was cute and cozy and everything else, and then you just realize, you're, like, okay, scale means disagreement, it means disconnection, it means debate, whatever it means, and you realize that it's not a reflection of you, me or anyone else.

It's it's normally just a reflection of too many opinions and that and one thing that's really helped me a lot is recognizing that hate is loud and love is usually soft and quiet, and that hate is so aggressive and direct, but love is so indirect and subtle in how we share it.

And I've tried really hard over the last couple of years to take so before I used to be indifferent to both.

And what's really helped me recently is to be as gracious in receiving love as I was serious about reading hate.

Ooh, so when I used to read the hate for comments, you read them and you take them seriously.

I get that feeling that you read one back comment like I must suck and check it with everyone, So you're taking it so seriously.

So if I'm going to take it that seriously, I need to take the love as graciously as I took that.

And so now if someone says to me, Jay, I listened to this episode with WHI ter I'm sure people with with Alex, and like, I couldn't believe Alex was you know, it's like I would try and take that in far more graciously and presently than I ever would, because I recognize that I have to rewire my brain not to only listen to the good stuff or only think positive, that's not the goal, but to truly let my heart and soul feel the impact.

Because I definitely let my heart and so feel the impact of someone, you know, trying to hurt me.

And it's it's such a strange thing to like, I think that was the one part that was really hard for me to turn off was the fact that I wanted to defend myself every second.

You know, I see so many things about me on the Internet that they're not true, and everyone just assumes these things because of who I am or how I'm perceived on the internet, and so it's just like a weird thing of just like you want to be so badly be like no, no, I'm not like that, look like I'm this, and it's like it doesn't matter.

Like people are gonna believe whatever the hell they want to believe anyway.

But that's the hardest thing is shutting up.

Yeah.

Yeah, I remember once I said, I wish I could sit down one on one with every single person, Yes, doesn't mind stop me if I could just hold their hands for a moment and look in their eyes and explain my intention and what I was going through and what I was struggling, you know, whatever it may be.

And I know I can't do that physically, so you know, it's.

Crazy, but I get Yeah, I hope one day.

I hope one day that some people just realize my intentions.

My intention is just to make music that can help people.

Everything past that, it doesn't matter, Like I think that's the problem is like everyone looks at these things so much and they viewed as arbitrary and they just want to hate on things that they may not like.

And I think if you give everything a chance, like I there's so much music that I may not like love right, but I respect the fact that they're trying.

I think that's the biggest thing in life right now.

It's like there's so many popular musicians right now where their fandoms are like, oh Glex because this is this and it's like, dude, do you not realize all of us are friends behind the scene, all of us are rooting each other on, you know, and like that's the one thing is like I feel like you're it's just such a strange and obviously it's the job.

It's so the job, but coming from being a fan to then doing it, yeah, it's the craziest thing.

It's the craziest thing being in it and like understanding it and being like wow, like I understand why people don't say anything.

It sucks that you can't, you know.

Yeah, And it's so hard because we're also living in a time where I think everyone's like, let's be sensitive about each other's mental health and let's really be thoughtful about how we make people feel.

And then over nothing like just over almost like a it's almost like a treating music at art like a sports team.

Yeah, you know, but Alex, it's been such a joy talking to you, and I've truly hoped this at the beginning of getting to know you better and getting to know you more.

I've loved every moment of your openness, your vulnerability, and I really appreciate just how truly transparent you're willing to be in order to help people and help people understand your music better.

And I think that's why your music has resonated so strongly and deeply with me and billions of people around the world, because I believe that everything you shared today is exactly what we're hearing and feeling in your music.

And I felt this as deeply as we do the chords and the singing and all the work that comes through with you.

So thank you, so much.

Thank you.

I don't feel like you realize how much I needed this, obviously.

I hope this was really really important for me.

That means a lot to me.

We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five.

These questions have to be answered in one sentence each, So Alex Warren, these are your final five.

Okay.

The first question is, and we ask this every guest, the first question is what is the best advice you've ever heard or received.

I've actually never received any advice I think I've I've used, but I would say the best advice would be wait, I forgot this is one sentence.

No, No, that's fine, that's not you can do that.

I'm gonna let you do that anyway.

Everything happens for a reason.

Everything happens for a reason.

You whatever happens in your life, run with it.

Okay.

Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

Give up?

Who said that to you?

My mom?

How many times?

Too many?

To the point where I stopped leaving it.

So that was definitely the thing, and I think it fueled me to even keep going more so.

Sometimes it's great when someone repeats bad advice because you get desensitized from it.

Is what I'm taking away from your your brain and how it works.

I want to scan your brain one day, me too.

Yeah, we should do that.

So yeah, I would love to do that with all the colors.

Yeah.

Yeah, I have a lot of neuro sciences on the show, so we love that.

We have to figure that out.

That'd be special to do.

Let's will arrange that.

Question Number three, I'd love for you to leave a video for your kids here on the podcast.

So really, yeah, that was all right?

Cool?

Which camera do I look in one?

Right?

Hey, kids, it's your dad.

I'm sitting here right now with probably your uncle at this point, or I don't know.

He's around a lot, and I don't know if he's eating out of our fridge or what he's doing.

But I just want you to know that I love you so much and I pretty much talked about you this entire podcast, and if you want to learn more about me and watch it.

I love that.

That's beautiful.

Thank you, thanks for letting me do that.

Cool, so cool.

I just love it.

I love you that all the time.

I love that you do all the time that you're inspiring me to want to do it, Like I'm going to start doing it because of you.

It's the best and I got it from my dad, and I think it's the most special thing.

Especially when they're born.

I'm going to have a camera everywhere so they know that, like, so they just have that moment.

You're so young.

But did you watch that show How I Met your Mother?

Yes?

Yeah, it's like that to me is just you know, I love that show and I never thought of it, so you inspired it.

I love it.

Question number four, if you talk to your father today, What would you say to him?

Am I everything you wanted me to be.

I care more about what my dad thinks than anything, so as I live life, and I think you asked me this so many times today and I didn't have an answer.

And as I'm saying this, I think I know it is you ask why I have this outlook on life and how I do based on the things I've gone through.

And I think it's really easy to when you have a person or you believe someone's looking down at you.

And I like to think that my dad's proud of me.

And so that's the thing is, you know, everything I do, I try to be moral and I try to do the right thing because I truly believe that my dad is watching.

I hope one day we get to see those videos in some capacity.

I would show you any time.

Yeah, that's I kind of if he was able to infuse that much morality, love.

Kindness, and you'd love them.

I know, those really special, Yeah, genuinely so powerful.

Fifth and final question we asked this to every guest who's ever been on the show.

Alex, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it.

Be be nice to your neighbor, treat your neighbor the way you want to be treated.

I think that's one we've lost so much.

Is everyone now more than ever needs it.

Where we are today, there's so much hate and there's so much judgment, and that's now more than ever.

I just think that everyone needs to be treated the way that they would like to be treated.

Alex One.

And I'm so excited to see you at the Grammys.

Yeah, I'm going to be there.

I'm really looking forward to seeing you, you know, hopefully when putting it out there manifesting right now.

I would be wonderful to be there and see you get that award that you so deeply deserve.

And I can't wait to watch the Leon Thomas Wannert, I appreciate you.

Thank you so much for me for me, Alex, such a pleasure, truly, thank you, Thank you.

You're awesome man.

That's a great guy.

That was so needed.

If you love this episode, you'll really enjoy my episode with Selena Gomez on befriending your inner critic and how to speak to yourself with more compassion.

My fears are only going to continue to show me what i'm capable of the more that I face my fears, the more that I feel I'm gaining strength, I'm gaining wisdom, and I just want to keep doing that