Episode 88 - Kosmos

[transcript automatically generated - cleanup in progress]

william you make you made a music tape i did i did a good thing [Music] yeah i've been writing i think i started writing it four years ago about so or four and a half years ago so yeah which is when i met you so didn't you do a track that was played during black and white yeah so all right so people have asked about that song ever since that episode where is this this ghost song yeah so here's a little bit of the backstory of cosmos i started working on this record i started writing it four and a half years ago uh then about three years ago started recording the record um most of the record was done and the record got put on hold because of a legal dispute that happened and so when we did the black and white episode the album was about to be released so we were wanting i gave it to you as kind of like a promo thing oh by the time this podcast comes out the album will be out that did not happen so like see i live in la right like everyone in la has this story i didn't realize this where they're like yeah dude i did a record and the label like we just had this or it got put on hold for this reason or all sorts of things happen so the album got put on hold we released black and white with several of the songs on it and everyone's been asking about it ever since and so yeah eventually um because it was about to come out when it was about to come out and so yeah i i had to you know i had a legal situation happen i had to get a lawyer it was not fun i've never had a lawyer in my life yep i now own my masters which as an artist you know is not is a rare thing most artists unless you're doing independent music you don't own your masters so i was able to um gain ownership of my masters and the album became mine but by the time i got the record i was so exhausted that i had to kind of take a break from it all like i had some health things come up as well that just kind of forced me to stop touring and traveling and i just took a little bit of a break and so then by the time i did i felt like part of the record started to feel outdated um which truthfully it really wasn't but i'm a perfectionist so i then kind of went back in the lab and started redesigning the record and reproducing parts of it so part of the record is what was happening four years ago and then part of it is a lot of things from the last two years or a year and a half of me going back and reproducing re recutting vocals changing maybe some lyrics or changing some 808s and so what you have in front of you is a repackaged uh well i'm gonna call it repackage it is the album um but it's gone through different evolutions of time itself which is kind of in line with the whole theme of the record do you love the record or do you hate the record now after four hours actually i actually i could say this and i don't think every artist can say this i actually believe cosmos is a masterpiece yes yeah oh man i'm here for that yeah it's it's a masterpiece y'all um partly because of the internal struggle with the record but also everything on the album has been thought through every every wrong note every vocal take every cent every 808 uh was intentional and you know how it is uh this right when you're working over you could always change something there's always like i can make that better we could get that sound better and i finally got to the place with it where i just had to release it and let it be because again it's been three to four years uh and that's sometimes way too long to be working on a record so i feel happy with the record there's always little tiny things i wish maybe oh that could be but then again that's always going to be the case so i think it's a masterpiece and i will say i don't feel emotionally connected to the record anymore maybe because i've heard each song so many times and it's been reproduced so many times that in my head i love it in my heart i'm writing another album so in that way i think because it's been such a long journey i haven't been able to feel it doesn't feel brand new to me yeah i so relate to that i know a record's done usually historically when i just don't care anymore about doing anything else on it like well i don't want to hear that anymore i think it's done yeah yep maybe that's the five like overthinking things yeah i don't want to think about this anymore yeah it seems like it's good enough it seems like it's good enough and uh and you know and i get other people's opinions you know i pastor what do you guys think of this and i like to weigh you know my friends opinions i've showed you tracks i've worked on through this process you know and i get people's opinions and and then there just comes a point where it's like it is what it is like they say in hawaii it is what's her relatives said that to lisa one time it was like a real dramatic real dramatic fight and she goes like they say in hawaii it is what it is who says that in hawaii i don't know but we've it's become a thing with lisa and i as they say in the deep forests of ireland have a good day it sounds like it provided a lot of comical relief in the moment it was said william is there something about about hitting the wall with the perfectionism where the perfectionism couldn't take you any further like i'm curious about this language that you used around like accepting it and kind of letting it go but also preceded by that statement about like i'm a perfectionist and i'm curious about the relationship between those two in the making of this album yeah okay maybe perfectionist is the wrong word how about this i like to constantly critique and edit um meaning i always think something can be made better and to me part of my writing style or the way i approach music was always in a i i started writing at 18 with an acoustic guitar taught myself how to play and i wrote songs to process emotionally complex things like that's what you do when you're 18 and i listened to a lot of lauren hill bob marley and ben harper and i was just processing heavy things and that's what i was doing but in my actual music career much of what i did was collaborative who my former label who i used to be a part of we wrote a lot together we collaborated together not just in the songwriting process but also in the producing and the editing process and the mix process so we were giving each other feedback on mixes all the time and so i love that process i actually find a lot of creativity in critiquing and editing and you know i my friends johnny swimmer working on this new record right now and i was over their house last night and they played the whole record for me and i have to even like edit myself in moments like that because i often think uh i hear producers here and i'm like you should add this you should do that but that's not really what they're asking me for right so but that's also part of my creative genius too is like i'm hearing this i also hear what's missing a lot oh i mean there's this is missing or that should be that or you should expand this like and i just naturally do that and some people i think they can come across as critical or you know giving feedback that it isn't wanted and it truthfully is but i also do know that that is a gift and so for me i can do that with myself sometimes that becomes really harsh and i've had to learn to have like a good relationship with myself and be kind to myself in that because i can judge myself pretty harshly but i do find value in critiquing because i think i've always been better when i've been critiqued and when i've allowed my opened myself up for that so this record was a constant editing and i think the quality of it to me speaks to or at least the way it's resonating is because i opened it up for lots of critique and just you know i didn't do the back thing right which is like just total purist do everything yourself and then just release it and hope everyone thinks it's genius um i really opened myself up to take some some hits on it which i think it only makes it better i'm a ship without a shore sinking to the ocean floor falling deeper deeper there is nothing [Music] breathing you're the only air i need [Music] [Applause] is [Music] sometimes in psychology we think about that part in ourselves as we call it the critic almost like we're externalizing it and giving it a name like it's another it's another being it's another energy inside of us and so i hear i i hear you talk about the critic inside yourself and how strong and how useful the critic is at helping you refine a project did the critic get fatigued or did another part win out like an like the acceptor the acceptance part the part that might have said like i'm i'm done with this or did the critic yeah get tired i think i think the critic did get tired because i do think it was way too long to hold a record maybe yeah it's a long time and i mean i'm not i'm not a kanye west on any level right he could work on a record for four years but granted he's pulling from probably 200 songs right like i was really just critiquing about 1560 songs for three years oh man who am i right but um and then there are songs that didn't make the record for that reason and that was you know you know didn't feel like yeah so how many times do you think you've heard each of those songs oh my god oh my god that's why i feel pretty neutral about the wrecker like i do enjoy it i think it's a great record but again i'm working on another record in my head already so um emotionally i'm not connecting but i i totally agree with you hillary about the giving the critic like its own name and energy and force and then knowing when to sideline him and to say hey buddy no more critiquing you have a critique deadline now and you just have to accept and let it be because i've literally had this record for the length of how some people raise children i felt like when now that the album's out it's like i had this child that i birthed but i kept him home for four years and now he's going to preschool and like okay now go meet the world you'll meet some bullies and handle yourself and now you know daddy's gonna find a new project you know or daddy might raise another child did you did you find that the critic early on got in the way did it take a long time to get these songs out like i know for me i have had to learn to shut the critic down during during times of of the creative process and especially early on because it's like as soon as that first chord comes out the critic can be there like that's fine is there a better chord or it's like if you can totally get paralyzed with that yeah and you absolutely can so did it slow you down early on or have you learned how to early on shut it down then turn it on and okay so i think in the creative process it is best to not judge what you're doing as it's coming out so i have this kind of philosophy of just let it flow so i just let things go so if we're in the studio if we're in a writing session or in the studio producing something i just i let it be on the front end i don't heavily critique on the front end i only really critique on the back end so meaning because i want to i feel like real creative flow doesn't happen or the good moments don't happen unless there's freedom of expression to just be you know so i don't bring the critic in on the front end in some ways i know initially what i like and i don't like in a melody or in a in a lyrical idea so in that way that's the type of you know critiquing happening for sure but i mean i will run with a bad idea for a long long time before i actually call it a bad idea uh so in my creative flow i think the more i can just let it flow and just i'm doing hand motions you guys can't see it just flowing and let the music flow and let the the the melodies flowing and let it feel imperfect whatever perfect is right like perfect to me is simply high defining meaning i like it but even if i don't fully like it let it just be and then what i'll do is then like if i'm in a writing session or i'll create an audio file and then i'll go back and then i'll listen to oh i love this melody but i hate the way i resolved it so i either come up with another resolve or i'll put it to another writer hey i love this melody what's a good way to resolve this and then they go oh what about this and i go oh i love that and then that's how i'm you know how we make a melody same with the lyric i love this idea or this concept i love this phrase like so there's a song on the record called you and me my producer gave me a the synth beat with some 808's behind it right 808's are basically like a trap beat and thank you yeah yeah science mike does not know what 808 questions there's other people out there that don't know what awaits yeah you just so you know guys science mike is nervously like shuffling a deck because he doesn't know what to do with this conversation you gotta be like nothing nervous normally we're like wait a second which part of the brain is the hippocampus so i'm great i'm great at jumping into conversations at that time that's my specialty nice you and me so that's the track that was on the black and white episode that people loved had a trap beat but they didn't know what it was and it kind of sat in a vault somewhere on a file in a studio somewhere for two years just quietly resting but my producer came to me and said hey i've got this beat i've got and i got this idea for a song like i kind of want to sing like this question to god like is it you and me god is it you and me and he had the melody he's like he's like you see you and me is it you with me and he's like i think it needs to be you and me that's what this song feels to me i'm like oh so i took his idea and just ran with it right you see this in comedy and improv right it's you just you just agree yeah all right and then you work within the framework in the world view so i i instantly grabbed the mic he's playing the beat we put a vocoder on my voice just to kind of give it like a cool feel and then i'm just like [Music] you know and i just and i'm flowing and then i'm like you've been silent so yeah you've been silent so long and i'm just making up words off the top of my head it doesn't have to make sense and that's how the song came so out of the idea of asking the question god you're quiet i don't hear you i haven't [Music] you know i've been broken holding on [Music] [Music] tell me and then that is how we made that song and then i instantly said oh this is dope what if god responded to us and then we put a a woman as the voice of god responding to me yeah for all my feminists out there yeah her [Music] my voice is [Music] is if you can combine them that's right down there right down the middle oh yeah yep do you ever find that when you're doing that kind of scat stuff that you keep doing similar words yeah always look yeah when i do scatter them i was like why do i always want to sing i a certain sound yeah it's like a pattern of tongues well for me oftentimes because i was doing worship music for a million and a half years uh it was always scripture it was always like some you know uh all creation loves to worship you know like the heavens declare your faithfulness yeah when you're coming with a male you're always just plugging in like the popular christian these words that just are gonna get the hands raised and and so my heart will worship you know hey and uh so for me yeah the i scat a little bit but for me i was always instantly searching for biblical language yeah yeah yeah you know there's this guy i remember he did a freestyle for us backstage one time he was like a youth pa youth pastor kind of speaker guy and he did a freestyle rap for us and it was kind of impressive i was like whoa and he threw in weird words like ice pick i was like okay you're just throwing this out but then he did another one and he said ice pick again i was like you phony you know people can reuse words right no but ice pick okay william you were ridiculous you were so ridiculous can you take us back like back up all the way i mean four years is a long time and it sounds like it has changed so much over the four years but what did you want cosmos to be what is it why cosmos as a name like yeah phillison so cosmos i took the word from ken wilbur's book theory of everything where he talks about he defines cosmos and he actually defined it just fell over i do too i don't know what this guy's got a problem with well i do know actually in the book you might like this because you know kenworth says a lot of great stuff he said uh cosmos he used the word k because in the greek the original the cosmos word in the greek starts with the k what looks like a k or we interpret as k um and he called it the integration of mind matter soul and spirit or soul and body excuse me and for me that i found that to be so a theory of everything so consolidating or felt like it was a picture of my own journey of looking to integrate feeling disintegrated for so long and feeling um abstracted for myself and and separating head from heart and you know and often through religion i've i have been going on a type of spiritual deconstruction journey that was kind of leading me towards integration of wholeness and my personhood and my identity and my way of being um especially right when you're a christian musician and you're well known and you're traveling the world and you've got to kind of put on this face not even a bad face just the the cheerleader face you know i've got to always be peppy and happy and encourage the saints and that's my job is to show up on a stage and and get people pumped for jesus literally can you do like can you just pump us up for worship right now 9am really put me up good morning church good morning church listen i want you to come down to the front if you feel free to worship like we're just gonna lift our hands to the lord today okay amen now hug your neighbor next to you all right here we go one two three you are good you are good you are good we were worshipping we were worse we were worshipped this is so ridiculous now we have to put a trigger warning on the episode for all the evangelicals [Laughter] hey this is mom um just talked to erica she just said that you may not be coming which is fine we're looking forward to seeing you but take care of yourself she said you weren't doing real well um psalm 21 is the word for you for today um breathe take your time um stop and pray cover yourself i'll cover what you're doing asking for god's direction his grace and by any opposing sources that are coming to try again to you so i just breathe over you in the name of jesus and i say peace peace to your spirit to your mind and to your soul love you bye-bye so ken wilbur cosmos theory of everything yes can theory of everything i wanted to write a record that was honest for my spiritual deconstruction that was happening i was challenging biblical authority i was challenging white theology i was challenging even some of the some supernatural culture stuff then revival culture that didn't feel healthy to me and as being someone that was seen as a part of that and a face of that to some level you know i i was definitely seeing things that i didn't believe in and so i had to it forced a a real wrestling of my faith um especially what what didn't you believe in there's always the exaggerative nature of any type of like charismatic thing that i've been in for the majority of my life right like you how many people are being healed right now oh my god raise your hand oh my god 300 people just got healed look what god did wow so you are literally claiming right now 300 people got healed of something and there's no like investigation around this no i'm not even saying it can't happen i'm just saying can we have some like verifiable like we're going to put boards out in the lobby yeah because i mean it's just like it's just about a feeling i feel healed right now okay great all right you know so there's there's that you know also too um i think a lot of it's languaging because i do believe that you know as whitney houston says i believe in miracles right i believe in miracles sure but much that's being claimed as miracles i don't know if i i believe in or what that actually is gold like you're not into yeah like i mean feathers and diamonds and i mean some people don't even know what we're talking about right now but there is a subset of people probably a large that know exactly what we're talking about and just these phenomenons that were happening in all sorts of churches that people were claiming were signs and wonders and uh i think they were they more made me wonder than they were pure signs from heaven sorry i love a good pun [Laughter] you know uh and so i mean but i mean this phenomenon is global like right like you go to especially you go to third world countries and you see a lot of like supernatural claims and you know we talked about that a little bit on the tongues episode and um so just being around and i i mean i grew up watching tbn and there were prophets and apostles and people you know like if you give x amount god's gonna bless you and i would like send money to tbn and thinking god's gonna give me a miracle you know send money to the team oh my god as a teenager i did that all the time i used to watch benny hill how much have you given to tbn i in my in my teenage years and like early adult which is one of your games several hundred dollars easy which for a teenager yeah that's a lot of money that's a lot of money yeah like because i'm like a lot of money now yeah yeah because i'm desperate for a miracle and the prophet says did you get any oil or anything i never got the oil but i used to watch those like peter popoff was like you know he sends the whole anoints the oil and then sends it to you and like all those uh t-rex yeah i mean i saw it on the local church level as a kid even in black church but then like souped up on a television global you know that's a christian that's a big it looks produced like a local like a local show or something but that's like a multi multi million dollar totally and some of those like christian television broadcasting stuff globally reaches more people than some of our more popular tv shows in america like it just has an audience and so i grew up thinking that was real and that was all like the way the universe worked and the way the cosmos worked and then realizing through many years of do getting in my 30s and then realizing i don't actually feel fed by this i'm tired of seeing the same prophetic words getting recycled and called the prophetic word for this year i'm like that wasn't that what you gave seven years ago and it didn't actually happen but now it's supposed to wait huh like the year of favor again god says the year of jubilee free and he says this year we're going to see the revival that we've been saying was going to happen for the last 50 years but actually this year we're going to see the first sign of the harvest here we go right and it's not exciting well it's it's like a spiritual lottery right it's you're always putting the coin in and and pulling it and hoping to get the magic number and if we pray enough if we put enough people in a stadium if we you know and so i mean not to demean anyone that has because i believed i believed for a long time and i finally kind of woke up and said who does this benefit right like the whole structure of american christianity i'm talking about right like who does this benefit like does it actually benefit the people who are giving the money does it benefit the people who are actually in need of the healing does it actually be you know and so anytime you have to stand on a stage and get people cheered up so that they can then give their money i just think that's worthy of construction the creator of the universe needs poor people's money so he can have rich men fly around in airplanes to tell them that he needs their money yeah that's the plan william yeah obviously that that was the plan and and seeing i saw a lot of it up close and personal and and there's here's the thing guys there there are a lot of really authentic people in those spaces but it doesn't take away from the some of the pathologies around it that are unhealthy and unhelpful and also too truthfully i felt like i was breaking natural laws in my body by even how much i was traveling like and and it was like the more you traveled the more you were rewarded the more you were favored the more influence you would have the more like holy you're seeing or given over to the call of ministry and here i am just like dying suffering from like anxiety and depression not even realizing it but i'm so busy i'm booked y'all i'm booked i'm making coin i'm booked i got the gigs i'm standing on the big platforms i've i have the respect of christian leaders around the world but but it's costly but it's costing me my peace your soul points i heard that on a pete holmes podcast i can't remember who the guest was but they were talking about soul points and like how you spend them on a creative endeavor or whatever you're doing and sometimes it's like it's just not a good transaction like you're spending too many soul points for what you're getting back exactly that's exactly how how i felt so my soul had been tattered and tired and then i realized what was working and what wasn't working and that forces a deconstruction and so so cosmos really was an acknowledgement of the things in me that needed to come together that weren't coming together it was the coming together of matter mind body soul and so i i started with the theme an idea for the record i always start the any record that i do i always have a concept or a name or a title so i had cosmos i was like when i read it i said there it is so my song in the gray is a song about going on this journey this wilderness journey the the first line it actually this song was the quickest song i wrote on the album it took me 45 minutes to write it top to bottom and i had i had a one person come in and edit a word or two but like to make it stronger but it was done in 40 minutes um i had the piano melody my producer came up with it and i took a pin in a pad and the headphones walked around the garden actually we were in carole king's offices we were recording in her offices believe it or not when we did in the gray and uh she's like her office at the time is the studio excuse me this house in studio city and uh a little beautiful backyard garden and i just walked around her garden offices and wrote this song in the gray in 45 minutes maybe her like some her spirit was there or something i don't know um and the first lyric is i walk through desert plains here on the open range feel like a renegade looking to run away here in the wilderness i'm coming face to face with all that i've done and who i will become and it's kind of this acknowledgement of to go on this journey you pay a cost you often look like the renegade you look like the scoundrel you look like the one that's leaving the faith but truthfully you're looking for the place where everything begins to come together again and begins to make sense which the course is the place the place where my eyes are finally open and the winds of change are blowing the place to place where i love you in the mystery and you rewrite my history in the gray um and that for me kind of typified probably better than any song on the record every song carries a mood in my interior cosmos but that one probably is the manifesto for sure [Music] i'm coming face to face with all that i have done [Music] until i see the place the place where my eyes are changing [Music] yeah breaking down the walls till i see the sun i fight for kingdom come this has just [Music] begun i will not hesitate until i see the place [Music] oh [Applause] there's no looking back [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] please [Music] history where fades away it's normal at so many different points in our life to feel like something is getting in the way of being present or happy something stopping us from achieving the goals that we have for ourselves or feeling connected to the people that we love betterhelp will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist to help you work on all those things you can connect with someone in a safe and private online environment for that reason it's so convenient you don't even have to leave the house and you can start working with someone in under 24 hours when working with someone through better help you can send a message to your counselor at any time and get a timely and thoughtful response plus you can schedule weekly video and phone sessions betterhelp has licensed professional counselors who are specialized in treating things like depression anxiety navigating family conflicts and so much more they're committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed anything you share with your counselor is confidential so many people have been using better help that they're recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states start living a happier life today as a listener you get 10 off your first month by visiting betterhelp.com liturgists join over 1 million people taking care of their mental health again it's betterhelp h-e-l-p-com liturgists i remember being in vancouver william when you came through this past summer and i guess it was this fall in september and yeah we played this house show and we packed it out and i remember some people after hearing you sing that and while you were singing that weeping like tears were coming to their eyes and i remember at the end when when you and i were doing a little bit of q a and talking with people and stuff that that it seemed like there was so much permission in that room when you sang in the gray because of of how painful that is to be there to leave something you've known um leave something that's felt certain leave something that's been a part of your community your identity and when you see someone else doing that and making making space for you to go into that space it feels so much less lonely i remember people being so touched by you naming the process of being in the gray and being the renegade and finding the place and rewriting the mystery and all of these beautiful things that often feel terrifying because they've been out loud or because they're alone so whenever i think of that song i just i go back to that house on that rainy vancouver fall evening where people were so so so touched by you sharing your journey yeah that was a beautiful night thank you for sharing that often when i think of our history i used to think it was all so black and white and then i realized it actually was all a bit more in the gray and it's hard because you want to look back on your past and and see it for all of its brilliance right or all of its clarity but truthfully there's often more going on than we realize like my sister just sent me this picture the other day of with a family picture of us i was probably 10 12 years old maybe and the face i was making in the picture my sister she sent it to me and then she said look at this prophetic quirk on your face she was like what was that about and it was kind of this look on my face of like what are we doing why are we here what is actually going on and we took it in front of this church that we were going to uh my dad was the pastor and not you know too much longer after that we went through a pretty terrible church split but it kind of felt like it was in the air like i kind of knew like there was something going on here everyone's saying this this is black and white this is right this is wrong this is whatever and something in me just went there's something there's an underlying tension here that's going on that we're not acknowledging at 10 years old like you could see it on my face but actually there's so many pictures from that time i realized i had the same look i always feel like i've always had that kind of premonition and knowing and so to put it to music to describe the journey of questioning the journey of being aware and awake and seeing what other people aren't seeing and that's kind of been signature for my life and so i feel like this song is that manifesto and that touches me that people feel that connected to it or it typifies their journey as well well you've really given us so much of yourself and and the pain and the beauty that you carry and i can hear it all in this record and it's magnificent william really just gonna say thank you for the risks that you took and for sticking with it like four years is a long time it doesn't sound tired though it sounds vibrant and full of hope oh that's good because i told myself if i didn't release it this year i'm done i did i said i was like this record is i'm done if it if i don't force myself to release this then um it's over uh start another record yeah so thank you for acknowledging that well i would have i would have stolen it from you and called my record [Laughter] another legal battle ensues or are you going to say mike i'm laughing because you're so is this the trolls that are like mike you got to stop interrupting people is that what's happening right now i don't want to interrupt people he gets this feedback it was it was a twitter game it was a gate level scandal anyway like he's saying mike is always interrupting people yeah i edit this show i know that natural conversation has interruptions mike is not the worst of us by by any stretch of the imagination everybody on the show is pretty good i've been purposefully interrupting more lately because i've realized in listening to some good podcasts that it happens a lot it keeps the show moving well michael you just sound like another white man taking up air there you go see you just did it and it's great it was great it keeps it moving well i've been aiming for zero interruptions i knew it worked for about uh 10 or 12 episodes if only people can see the cringe that happens when mike accidentally interrupts it's not just like it's not like nonchalant i don't really care it's like the man legit goes into full cringe mode when he thinks he has inconvenienced someone and we all lose out for it yeah yeah that's true and if anybody yeah and if anyone is worried that mike is silencing me as a woman please speak with me directly about it and i will educate you on autism and relationships that i have with mike and the other men on the show and will come to their defense 10 times out of 10 as a woman thank you hillary mike please interrupt us okay so what i was gonna say i have a weird uh relationship with music uh which i now that i know i'm on the spectrum is super helpful so it's actually really hard for me when my friends release music because i want to hear it and i want to relate to it but i have like a really specific listening inventory so literally every time i write on a book i listen to atlas year one by sleeping at last only over and over for three years now four years now uh when i drive here from la i have a crescenta of sun only listen to another day of sun or the entire line soundtrack but some days literally only the track it's another day of sun over and over and over and over right so i have very specific soundtracks in my life so i wanted to really engage this record and engage it well and i was like when do i have a big chunk of time consistently in the car well the longest drive i do is my therapist is in beverly hills yes he is so it takes like like an hour one way yeah from la crescent with traffic yeah yes yeah today it was like more like an hour and a half it was brutal so cosmos is my pre and post therapy music so i've heard the record like a lot you're where all those streams are coming from well i was lucky first i got it from you before it came out yeah and i put it in my library and then the day before the record came out i deleted it from my library so that it wouldn't count as an itunes match record but go back to an apple music record so it counted his stream so yes i did think about how many streams you should get as part of that i also i download most of the records that i really enjoy but i never download my friends records because i always want to count as streams and not as downloads so i just think about music royalties excessively in my day-to-day listening habits it's really nice and uh but downloads now count because it's okay to down i think to download you can do both now you can download it if you wanted to you can buy it and then but still use the apple music even downloading on spotify or whatever still gives you i think it gives you more royalties now oh boy well i don't know i'll have to look that up and make a new data driven decision to maximize my friend's personal income based on my personal listening habits thank you for even thinking yeah not many people think about that that's all i think about so the thing like that struck me about the record what is it man i just really like the movement starting with an invocation and then the interludes so i know like in a record the the most interest is paid to songs with singing but i'm actually most fascinated with the interludes and the tracks you chose and why and then how that influenced the track arrangement because i don't know what listen i'm into on cosmos but it's it's in the the high dozens of listens so i just i'd like to get a sense for how you came up with that structure and that arrangement because yeah so the interlude huge part of my life yeah so the interludes were a late minute addition to the album was probably one of the last things i did on the record actually beyond wave was the last thing i did on the record and then before right before that was the interludes i really wanted to tie the concept together i felt like the concept was a little too abstract the cosmos record and i kind of put my eggs in that basket to the point where i thought the concept was too vague that i was going to change the album title to in the gray like the whole record just call it in the gray which is a great title too and i would probably would have been happy doing that but i kind of felt committed to this process and to this weird phrasing that just stuck out to me so cosmos if you look in the original greek of john 3 16 it's worded for god so love the cosmos that's the original wording in the in the greek there um that he gave his only begotten son and so there was something to do with his way better yeah forgot to love that forgot to love the cosmos that english translation is terrible yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah guys love the world no no it's the cosmos all of creation gets liberation and um and so that's why i stuck again with it and said you know i want to drive this point home and i want to drive the point home from invocation to benediction i wanted to kind of take some of those liturgical phrases phrases that i grew up with like if i were in a uh a traditional church of god service especially funerals and and some of them more like ordinations and stuff they would have invocations by this person and they would specifically ask reverend bishop dr so-and-so is going to come and give the invocation and then you know witchcraft oh well invocation invocation it's a it's a church it can't no don't they'd i think i guess they invoke spirits they invoke stuff yeah i mean the word is yeah it can be used in many different ways but it has ties to church tradition uh and as well as benediction and so i had a few people that i i wanted to open the record with i wasn't even in contact with i was in contact with um the woman who runs james baldwin estate but i couldn't find a clip that i really liked enough to put at the beginning and long story short i chose james collins who passed recently founder of black liberation theology i ran across this video of him um talking about to me what represented black theology which is uh the resilient spirit of humanity that no matter what's going on there's still a humanity and a hope and a dignity inside of you and so when i found this clip of bill moyers talking to james cohn from like the 90s it it struck me it was to me a such a consolidation of black theology the best of black theology that i grew up with and it it fit perfectly with the first track on the album which was beyond wave which was basically beyond wave is a song that describes the scapegoat and it's the song about feeling crucified but then finding your power and rising up which for me felt like a lot of the last couple of years so i wanted the invocation to be from the founder of black liberation theology which a lot of people still don't know who james cohen is i really wanted to highlight him and his work and even his recent passing to let people know that there's a humanity that inside of you that no one can kill wow no matter who thinks they can take it from you like richard rohr says right there's that it's that immortal diamond that no one can give it to you and no one can take it away and uh that is the best that theology has ever given me when i think of my childhood and my grandfather and my dad and like the preaching that they would do was like there's nothing that that is the spirit of christ inside of you like no one can take that and rob that from you you are looking at it from the perspective of those who win you have to see it from the perspective of those who have no power in fact god is love because it's that power in your life that lets you know you can resist the definitions that other people are placing on you nobody knows my sorrow sure there is slavery sure there is lynching segregation but glory hallelujah now that glory hallelujah is the fact that there is a humanity and a spirit that nobody can kill when you don't have the guns when you don't have the military power when you have nothing how do you keep going how do you know that you're a human being you know because there's a power that transcends all that and as long as you know that you will resist the benediction was taken from a youtube video that i saw with eva maria lewis this teen teenager she's in college now teenager she was a teenager she was 18 years old oh my gosh yeah oh my gosh yeah she did sorry she did a ted talk that blew me away it's nine minutes long guys go look at it it's called uh chicago a land of wilderness and oasis yeah not while you're driving oh you got to get youtube while you're driving yeah oh my gosh like it'll i i was i cry every time i hear it it's beautiful her poetry is beautiful she describes her educational experience having to be bust um or take a train from the south side of chicago to north chicago where so she said i lived on a daily basis between oasis and wilderness meaning the south side of chicago being a place of wilderness economic divestment has just rendered it like there aren't food there's not food there's like it's a food desert it's a uh educational hazard like there's so much violence and she talks about it being rooted in the economic divestments that were happening to that city and she and the human rights violations that subsequently have been happening ever since so if you sit her on a panel and she talks about this next to a woman from syria and you know there's going to be no difference in this story which is wild because chicago is a great american city and so at the end which is what got me which is why i put it on the record she starts describing the vision of oasis meaning what does it look like to have entire cities that experience health wellness prosperity flourishing they're invested in every child has a roof you know every school has textbooks um super practical stuff you know the you know that where the hood is actually seen as a real community and that's what she does she gave dignity to urban communities by that speech and i wanted to end it there because to me it felt reminiscent of the biblical narrative that you see in the prophets of isaiah talking about rebuilding cities and ancient ruins and raising up former foundations and and that where there's been desolation god is going to bring a new bloom to the desert right like you see you hear all these prophetic promises all the way to revelation in the new jerusalem and this eternal city that comes down from heaven that speaks of this river of god that heals the nations right and i just feel like as christians we've lost our moral imagination we we've lost the dream of the new jerusalem we've lost our ability to see the world through the eyes of hope again and c.s lewis to me had it madeline engel had it like some of these great writers really espou that's why we love them because they were leading us to the place of inclusion to the place of oasis and uh to hear it from a teenage black girl to me though just represent her humanity uh represented something so subversive in our modern political moment and but also represented something so beautiful and hopeful so i wanted to end it with her i reached out to her she's a sweetheart i got her information we talked and she just actually messaged me yesterday and she was so blown away by the her she said her mom she sent it to her mom and she said her mom was was so impacted by it to hear her poetry from the ted talk to music and you know our friend charles jones on b3 oregon right playing that behind it and it was beautiful so to me beginning to end it takes you from the individual humanity the invocation takes you from the resiliency of though i've been though they're slavery though there's lynching though i've felt crucified or scapegoated and then brings you to the universal dream of oasis that we all can be free and then right before that is we'll all be free which pairs next to it right the dream of going from the beginning of the record of my deep particularity and then moving through my internal cosmos into the greater cosmos of humanity and moving us there that's why i think it's a masterpiece and i did it using black voices my work will not be finished until there exists no community in wilderness the ultimate goal is a world where every community falls in the category of oasis imagine that imagine a chicago a country a world where there exists nothing but oasis imagine a world where the only thing we have to dodge while outside are raindrops the bucket boys the elote man and the corner store owners are all seen as entrepreneurs there are no potholes but fertile soil capable of cultivating produce that may feed an entire community and there is no need to escape the hood because the hood loves us just as much as we love it there are four grocery stores within walking distance every school has the means to invest in their children every child has a chance every house has a roof every person has a job fit to provide for their entire families health cultivation education nourishment and safety are all within reach we don't live in this world but we can it is imperative that we hold each other accountable to make the vision of oasis a reality and only then [Music] after we cultivate bountiful land together will bullets not be necessary for survival thank you yeah and the interludes all throughout i have my mom on a voicemail which mind you the day i moved into my little bungalow in the hollywood hills that i found the day before i was supposed to catch a flight to detroit for a funeral and i had such a bad anxiety attack that i could not get on the flight and i was overwhelmed at the time i didn't know i was getting my my place so i was that's what was triggering because i wasn't sure if i was going to get the place and i was basically homeless i moved you know i was back in l.a again and i was homeless and um my mom called me my i told my sister i wasn't coming and then my mom called me and she left me that voicemail which is very typical of my mom and what she would do and how she would pray over me and uh encouraged me and so i really when i heard it i didn't think much of it i just kept it in my voicemail and then when we were thinking about uh interludes for the record me and the producer i remember with the voicemail and i said you know what i want my mom to be on this record too and um yeah and the rest is just simply me describing a little bit in a jumbled way but me talking to some friends we just put it on an iphone and i just started talking openly it's about an hour conversation and explaining the last few years of my spiritual evolution and that's what you're hearing kind of me jumble through like in in in the song placement with the everything it's all going from darkness to light from shattered light i feel like the first half of the record is shadow on the second half enters into light just as the way the cosmos is constantly or the planet is constantly moving in circular motions of shadow and light and i feel like that's our spiritual evolution and our our personal journeys is to move from shadow to light and to go back into shadow like it's constantly shit yeah that's why the record is taking you through that so the first interlude with me speaking is shadow and light and it describes that and then the next one is my mom's prayer then it moves into this 40 second song called gonna make it which is a response to my mom's prayer then it moves into the transcendent moment of in the or and the gray leads you into the transcendence of light the way in cosmos and then new forms is basically kind of the flipping of that like how everything is always moving in forward motion and everything is ultimately for reformation uh reforming that which wasn't making it new and and then we go into shine on us which feels like just a bride of light like just kind of peeking through the darkness and then it goes into declarations of uh edge of time that i will always love you in the shadow and the light um and the affirmation of the whole journey into um never let me go the cosmic reassurance into bam will all be free the universal inclusion of all things silent casualty oh god grant us peace in these sleepless nights i can hardly breathe despite brutality i know that we'll be free i know that we'll be free so let the lighting keep [Music] in these desperate times teach us to have no fear so we lay our head [Music] yes we'll all be free [Music] let it break into the darkness let it break into the darkness [Music] [Music] we'll be free we'll be free [Music] dreams [Music] [Music] all the love [Music] [Music] oh we'll all be free we'll all be free i apologize to all of you who cannot ask your people who make records why they are structured in that way oh man that's so helpful i have such a a left brain view of the world that when i incorporate art i start taking it into its little constituent pieces and i like i love it not all artists are willing to when they'll help articulate kind of the larger arc for me because otherwise it is it is it's hard to see that that vast scape with the microscope i used to look at things and this is why albums matter to me versus just the single driven industry that we now have is you know prince said you know like black lives like books albums still matter because they do albums really matter because they're tell like we forgot how to tell stories with music now i feel like we've reduced music to these you know jingles and like ringtones and like you know give me a song and tingle you know like like tickle my senses for a moment make me feel good for a second right but we have no metaphor anymore we have no story and albums do that more so than simply one song they can take you through a whole range of emotions and that's what cosmos is meant to do it's to take you through your emotions and your it's to take you through spiritual descent and to spiritual ascent and to move you so so for some people where they're at in their journey they're going to resonate with the dissent more and they're not going to really maybe care about the ascent and then the people who've gone through this the dissent are going to need the ascent they're going to need to go higher and transcend and wherever you and some people are going to love it all immense immensely and so the thing i wanted to do was i wanted you mike when you heard the record i wanted you to pick it up again in six months and resonate with songs that you weren't resonating with when you first heard it because you're in a different season yeah and you're in a different part of your evolutionary journey and those songs that you're like oh that's cool but you don't really care from as much which no one let's just be honest no one really loves every track on a record usually some people do if it resonates he's like maybe i think i do which just try to play them out of order and see how i react yeah yeah yeah which some people do they're like oh i like this song this song this song i like you know people that's fine you don't have to like no one has to like every song on the record but i wanted the record to be so compact in a way where you couldn't divorce any of it from the other and you had to sit with it as a whole because i think we don't give ourselves time to do that anymore with projects this may be me romanticizing an era of music but i like the idea of music and an album in particular not only the storytelling and and the metaphor but being political speaking to what's happening now in the world with with an eye on where you want things to go and in that way i think about it being kind of like scripture like it all needs to be seen through the lens of what's happening around us and so even you choosing the voices of your family and other other people of color and and amplifying those voices i think of as being in such a significant political statement that needs to be heard and for people kind of the huge numbers of people who are leaving the evangelical church for them to have music too and to look at how that's this record might sit at this time and space differently than it would have you know if it came out 20 years ago because of what's happening in your context and so both telling a story about the individual journey and like the biopsychosocial spiritual development of a human and these cycles that we go through of dissent and ascent but also it sounds so ripe for right now yeah i agree you know truthfully i'm glad the record's out now then two and a half years ago when it was originally slated to be released i think the record was was ahead of its time actually and i say that because i do think there are moments that foretell that are great and that record in a lot of ways would have foretold but um sometimes the greatest impact isn't to foretell it's just state in the moment when something is happening and so truthfully i do think this record was meant for now more than two and a half years ago and i think the way i was writing was i was writing this album for what was coming more than what purely was or i had just experienced and i didn't realize that i was doing that um until i started going through some personal struggles that allowed me to then realize how much my lyrics were speaking to what was coming i think that's kind of the joy of art so this album taught me i thought i was making this album and in a lot of ways this album taught me taught me something about myself as an artist a producer a now a business owner a master owner it taught me something about myself but it and on the business music side but it really taught me about spiritual progression and my art has always been connected to my spiritual journey being a worship leader i never released a song that not only did i not believe in but that didn't feel like a prophetic word for the moment every song that i released was a wave of consciousness for that moment and the way it resonated with people and people that have known my work for eight ten years know that to be true they know that when that song was released this is what happened it made us feel this you know and so i think if you judge my worship career from beginning to end right now or present i think you will see that the spiritual evolution had been happening before [Music] or mystery show us what we need to see light the way home [Music] mystery or mystery show us what we need to see [Music] mystery or mystery show us what we need to see the way [Applause] [Music] what would you say to someone who asked you if this was a christian record um yeah obviously we know that word comes with a lot of baggage but i would say it's it's a crystic record i that's what i call it i say that this stick chris stick i took the word from tahar dischard in it's basically another way of saying christ centered but christ being the the invisible foundation of the universe that's what it's i think christic yeah i like it instead of a mystic i think of myself as a crystic acrystic yeah i'm a christic meaning you know mysticists can be very vague and there's many religious traditions that can conjure up but i feel pretty solidly centered in a type of christic tradition which some would just say christian that's fine but even that carries a type of stigma to it that i don't necessarily buy into so i would say cosmos explores spiritual terrain that um is not commonly discussed and would probably only be discussed by somebody who sees themselves as a christic mystic type can you be a crudest you are crudest i can be a criticist too um so yeah this is a christian record meaning christ is at the center of all things he is the divine center i believe and or to me is the that's the metaphor that i use to describe reality so yeah it's a christian record but christ is implied without having to be spoken i actually had a more traditional worship song too to go on the record and i took them off because i actually didn't want um though cosmos can be interpreted the title track can be interpreted as a worship song like a corporate worship song i i had two more that would have definitely lent the record built the record um to feel more like a corporate worship album and i took three songs actually now three yeah i took all the corporate worship songs off the album that even though they were produced pop i still was like this still feels a little too corporate worship because i wanted christ to be implied without being directly stated and you just don't like that cash yeah well obviously listen listen y'all i i believe in securing the bag like everybody else however if the choices i have made in my life have not always been money related the types of things i espouse publicly do not lend towards me making cash especially coming from the christian space so that was the defining characteristic of a host of the liturgist podcast yeah being on the liturgist podcast does not make me more popular in the christian space this is a podcast for people who like to sacrifice actively sacrifice public income potential yeah in exchange for speaking honestly about what they believe exactly because i mean it's just funny the amount i won't even say it i don't even dignify names and spaces but i could be i have had invitations to be in spaces where if i just pretended i could be raking it in like i you know even in the last couple years like if i just simply didn't talk about that if i simply presented a certain way and just stayed quiet about other things i could be the main worship leader at that that big church i could be the recording with that big artist i could be so unfortunately talking about bill osteen's saddlebag church i think that's a confluence i think that's a confluence of ministries that you're talking about which by the way [Laughter] which by the way shout out to lakewood church because they play my songs all the time and i actually really love those people there so there you go for that but um no i could be doing a lot of other things that could make me money and i'm trying to figure out a way to make money and be honest and that is my that is that was also part of my integration for cosmos all things coming together was i i had a friend told me who's been in the music industry the pop world for like 15 years and he actually told me he said for the first he goes when this album comes out it'll be the first time you ever make clean money wow wow and i went whoa what's that like to hear i didn't realize my money was dirty before but actually in a lot of ways you know uh you know anytime you you do christian music you have to present a certain way and there's a level of dishonesty in that whether no matter how intentional or sincere you are there is a part of you that you don't bring forward because it makes other people feel uncomfortable especially as a worship leader you have to be all things for all people you are not an artist so i made a decision i'd rather be an artist than a worship leader and i haven't looked back since i still occasionally lead worship but not as much anymore because they want you to be a worship leader not an artist hmm i you probably don't know anything about that i don't know anything about it oh you used to be worshipped that's right i forgot wow it's been a while since we just saying i'm a friend of god you know i see the compromises that christian artists make all the time but i think i think i don't know like a purist way of making money that doesn't have some form of you you have to present only certain things i mean if you're a if you're a banker and you don't you can't show up to work topless well they're immoral like bankers are immoral amoral or immoral i mean yeah what are you saying what any job you have to like you if you're an artist i guess an artist is like there's a difference between being pragmatic like a pragmatist right like working like in making compromises that are built around integrity with any career or field right i i don't think compromise is not a bad word or a dirty word yeah uh compromise comes from good faith right to meet in the middle and to build bridges and meet people in the middle and i think that is huge a moral thing to do um is to surrender and limit part of yourself for the space and inclusion of another um in their desires and wants and will um and actually i would i would even argue i hope this doesn't come across with christian music bashing because there i i know a number of artists that are in the christian space that are very authentic and and very plugged into their calling and identity and it feel it's one for them it's not a fake thing for them um i think the world around it can be whatever but them as artists i do know several at least that are very sincere and pure around it but there is a compromising i would often say though those people tend to be white and like they fit the image anyway so there's nothing for them to fl you know to be stolen of them like they're they're like celebrated in the space where i think people of color and all sorts of different people that sit in different intersections uh struggle to feel like they can bring themselves fully forward in those types of spaces so for me it's hard because i see some of my white friends in the christian music industry who are really authentic and the space celebrates them in that authenticity and i go wow what a dream that a whole structure that ignores and makes invisible other people or doesn't celebrate as much other people can celebrate you so it's com it's complex around it now why you as a white man could make it work [Laughter] in every possibility i'm ready to explore the depths of you discovery from now for all eternity [Music] do you hope [Music] my hope for cosmos is i would love for people to take their headphones go walk in a park drive around your car listen but it's very it's better on headphones i i would actually say it's more personal um that they would take time for themselves that they would allow the fragments of who they are to potentially come together i pray this piece of art would encourage folks to not feel crazy to enter into the door of mystery and to know that it's not overwhelming you can be known and seen in the unknown i dream of a new world where people are valued that there's security well-being dignity and respect for all people and i pray that this music makes people feel seen and they feel that security in the cosmos because it's scary out here and if we often feel alone i often feel alone but i really want people to know they're not alone and i hope this record can be a companion on a difficult journey that's my prayer for cosmos william i love you i love this record and i'm so so so proud of you and i can't wait for everyone to listen thank you willary yeah it's a great record man and i i dream that it does have commercial success for you as well because you're entering a brave space we talk about brave space quite often you're entering a brave artistic space um which i know first hand when you sing about spirituality too much a lot of doors slam in your face usually in the in industries and when you talk about it in ways that's not conventional that's not middle of the road generic cookie cutter christian [Music] all the rest of the doors usually slam so i love how bold artistically you are the vision that you had the amount of work and love and soul that you put into this and i just hope that it finds the right audience because there's definitely the audience that will resonate with it and i hope the audience makes the makes the industry like pay attention and like it's okay to to have music that doesn't fit so cleanly into any of your boxes industry music industry i i hope that it that's what my hope is that it finds the people because they're it's definitely going to do all those things that you said you hope to do in the right people's ears so uh that's why we wanted to do a podcast because we want to get it into work [Music] you are the only one [Music] [Music] the record is cosmos by william matthews and if you're impatient to listen don't worry at all you can actually click on the show notes for this episode or leave links to the records on common streaming and download platforms hey guys another way you can help me with cosmos is to go to your favorite streaming site whether it's apple music or spotify search william matthews you can hit the follow button then all you do is find cosmos save it to your libraries and add your favorite songs to your favorite playlist that'll help a lot that'll help get streams up and it'll also help the algorithms because all of this stuff is flammable i promise all my interstellar melon and i'll come find you and add this to your spaceships playlist for reminder i'm an eagle scout a doubting heart yeah [Music] i'm a son of a gun with a gun for a heart yeah and i wrote for you i wrote this note for you here smoke this in hopes that it get into your bones tomorrow so you know you know so you know you know i ain't going nowhere [Music] me [Music] to fight for my heart [Music] [Applause] thanks for listening everybody