
Lex Fridman Podcast
#408 – Tal Wilkenfeld: Music, Guitar, Bass, Jeff Beck, Prince, and Leonard Cohen
Tue, 09 Jan 2024
Tal Wilkenfeld is a singer-songwriter, bassist, and guitarist. She has performed with legendary artists including Jeff Beck, Prince, Incubus, Eric Clapton, Herbie Hancock, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Hans Zimmer, Pharrell Williams, and many more. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/lexpod to get 15% off - LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack - Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings - Shopify: https://shopify.com/lex to get $1 per month trial Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/tal-wilkenfeld-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Tal's Instagram: https://instagram.com/talmeastory Tal's Twitter: https://twitter.com/talwilkenfeld Tal's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/talwilkenfeld/ Tal's YouTube: https://youtube.com/TalWilkenfeld Tal's Love Remains record: https://talwilkenfeld.lnk.to/LoveRemains Tal's Linktree: https://linktr.ee/talwilkenfeld Big thank you to Crossroads Guitar Festival and Jeff Beck Estate for the footage included in this podcast. Crossroads Guitar Festival: https://crossroadsguitarfestival.com/ Jeff Beck & Tal Wilkenfeld at Crossroads: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BVgUzUZeTw4 Guitar: Jeff Beck Bass: Tal Wilkenfield Drums: Vinnie Colaiuta Keyboards: Jason Rebello "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" is originally by Stevie Wonder PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (06:51) - Jeff Beck (15:44) - Confidence on stage (32:23) - Leonard Cohen (40:23) - Taxi Driver (51:43) - Songwriting (55:23) - How to learn and practice (1:13:53) - Slap vs Fingerstyle (1:20:16) - Davie504 (1:24:36) - Prince (1:30:13) - Jimi Hendrix (1:32:27) - Mentorship (1:38:46) - Sad songs (1:44:43) - Tal performs Under The Sun (live) (1:50:00) - Tal performs Killing Me (live)
The following is a conversation with Tal Wilkenfeld, a singer-songwriter, bassist, guitarist, and a true musician who has recorded and performed with many legendary artists, including Jeff Beck, Prince, Eric Clapton, Incubus, Herbie Hancock, Mick Jagger, Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart, David Gilmour, Pharrell, Hans Zimmer, and many, many more. This was a fun and fascinating conversation.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Tal Wilkenfeld. There's a legendary video of you playing with Jeff Beck. We're actually watching it in the background now. So for people who don't know, Jeff is one of the greatest guitarists ever. So you're playing with him at the 2007 Crossroads Festival. And people should definitely watch that video.
You were killing it on the bass. Look at that bass. Were you scared? What was that experience like? Were you nervous? You don't look nervous.
Yeah, I wasn't nervous. I think that you can get an adrenaline rush before a stage, which is natural. But I think as soon as you bring fear to a bandstand, you're limiting yourself. You're kind of like walling yourself off from everyone else. If you're afraid, like, what is there to be afraid of?
You must be afraid of making a mistake and therefore you're coming at it as like a perfectionist and you can't come at music that way or it's not going to be as expansive and vulnerable and true. So, no, I was excited and passionate and having the best time. And also, you know, the fact that he... gave me this solo. The context of this performance is that this was a guitar festival.
It's one of the biggest guitar festivals in the world because it's Eric Clapton's festival. And there's like 400 guitarists that are all playing solos all night. And we were, like, towards the end of the night. And I could tell, like, Jeff, like, got, like, a kick out of, you know, I'm not going to solo on, like, one of my most well-known songs, Castle Bend and His Lovers.
Well, Stevie Wonder wrote it, but people know Jeff for that song and his solo on it. Like, I'm going to give it to my bass player. And, like, he did. And, like, he's, like, bowing. Like, he didn't have to do that.
But you really stepped up there.
It just shows what a generous musician he is, and that's evident in his playing across the board. He is a generous, loving, open musician. He's not there for himself. He's there for the music. And he thought, well, this would be the perfect musical thing to do.
And it kind of all started when I went to audition for him, which was an interesting experience because I got food poisoning on the plane. And so literally when the plane landed, I went straight into an ambulance into a hospital overnight. The manager picked me up and I showed up at Jeff's door, which was like a three-hour drive through windy country roads.
And he answered the door and he's like, okay, you're ready to play. So we went upstairs and started like rattling off the set. And when it came to this song, Cause of Innocence Lovers, he just said solo. And he loved it and kept the solo in it. So that's kind of how, because there was no bass solo before I was playing in his band. So this whole thing was kind of new.
So even with food poisoning, like you could step up?
Yeah.
That's just like what instinct?
It's just being able to differentiate from like the body and from like expression music. All right. Yeah.
You know, it's interesting. You said fear walls you off from the other musicians. And what are you afraid of? You're afraid of making a mistake. You know, Beethoven said to play a wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable.
Yeah.
Do you think the old man had a point?
Yeah. Different styles of music invite varying degrees of, I would say, uncertainty or unsafety in the way that people might perceive it. So for instance, like the tour that I was just on, like playing Allman Brothers songs, like I am standing on the edge of the cliff the entire night. And if I... you know, mess something up, mess it up. Like what even is a mistake?
But if I do like a little clunker or whatever it is, it's like, so what? Like I wouldn't have played half the stuff that I'm playing if I wasn't constantly standing on the edge of the cliff, like wild. And so... I don't care about those few little things. I care about the overall expression.
And then there's other gigs that, for instance, if I got called for like a pop or a country session or a show, in those environments, they may want you to play Like just play the pot and play it with a great groove and time and great dynamics and don't really veer away from the pot and stuff. And, and I've done plenty of those gigs too. It's just, it's just a different like hat you put on.
What do you get from the veering from the veering off the beaten path? You just love it. Or is that going to make the performance better? Like why, why, why are you standing at the edge of the cliff?
Because at the edge of the cliff is all possibilities and unknown. You don't know what's coming. And I love being there in the unknown. Otherwise, it's just like, well, why are we doing this? Am I just like a clown on stage, like showing you my skills or what I've studied in my bedroom? It's like, no.
I want to be like pure expression happening right now and responding in real time to everything that's happening. And anytime I'm not doing that, it's like it's a waste of everybody's time.
Have you ever messed it up real bad?
Mess what up?
I mean, you know comedians bomb, you're a big fan of comedy. Have you ever bombed on stage?
Probably. I think it's all about recovery. And the more times that you fall off the cliff, the quicker you know how to recover and the varying ways that you can recover to the point in which it's concealed so much that maybe a listener might not even know that you're recovering.
And eventually you learn to fly if we take that metaphor all the way off the cliff.
I remember one time when I was really young. Well, not really young, but like when I was 21 or 22. Yeah, exactly. But when I was first playing with Jeff Beck. And we played at what I consider the best, the coolest jazz festival. It's Montreux Jazz. And Miles played there. Everyone played there. And they have the best speaker system ever. I was excited for months.
And the drummer, Vinny, was practicing for eight hours in the bus on the way there. And everyone was on fire on stage. And I remember playing a note, just one note. that I really didn't like. And I let it go in the moment on stage, but as soon as I got off stage, I was really sad. And so I sat on this road case. Everyone was out celebrating. I sat on this road case with a sad face.
And then Claude Knobs, the owner of the whole festival, came up to me. He's like, Dahl, what's wrong? And I'm like, I played a bad note. such a child and like he said all this wise stuff that you know miles davis is had imparted to him and like it fully cheered me up um he's like is there anything that would make you feel better and i was like caviar
dude came back 10 minutes later with this huge thing oh wow it was a joke it was a joke but he actually brought me caviar but anyway that's the that's the one time that i remember being sad about a performance now i'm just like okay whatever like it's done was it a physical slip of like the fingers or was it did you intend to play that note That I can't remember.
I can't remember if it was just a bad choice that sounded like a clanger or why it happened. It was so long ago, but I don't get depressed about that anymore.
That'd be funny if that was like your biggest and only regret in life is that note. It haunted you in your dreams.
And then like, you know, like I'm on my deathbed and just everyone's just bringing me caviar.
Joke went way too far. You talked about confidence earlier. I don't remember where. So I want to ask you about how much confidence it takes to be up there. You said something that Anthony Jackson told you as encouragement, a line that I really like, that quote, on your worst day, you're still a bad motherfucker.
That's actually a Steve Gadd quote. And Steve used to tell that to Anthony because Anthony used to get real depressed if he did a wrong thing or not perfect thing. And Steve Gadd used to say this to Anthony Jackson. And then Anthony was my first base mentor or just mentor in general.
For people who don't know, he's a legendary bassist.
He's a legendary bassist. And I started playing the bass when I was 17. And I moved to New York. And I met Anthony. And he started mentoring me, but in a very not typical way. Like he would just sit in his car with me for hours and talk music.
You guys just listen to music and analyze it.
Exactly. And that was the best form of learning, I think. Just like, well, what do you perceive here? And, well, I heard this. And just discussing that. Jazz, usually? Or... No, all styles of music. And yeah, he told me that story about on your worst day. Because, you know, like, yeah, even then, like when I was like 18, 19, I get sad sometimes about performances. Like, I could have done this.
It's like, I don't do that anymore, thankfully. Or I'd be miserable.
So you always kind of feel pretty good.
Yeah. Yeah, now I do. Now it's just I sense the body feeling fatigued, especially if it's a very long show. Like the ones I just did were three-hour shows, and we did one- to three-hour sound checks. So that's a lot of physical activity every day. So I just feel the body being tired, like fatigued. The ears are fatigued. That's about it. I don't really reflect on the show much.
You're almost like from a third-person perspective, feel the body get tired and just... Accept it?
Yeah, I don't want to identify with it because then I'm tired, but I'm not tired. I'm usually like energized.
It's like with the food poisoning, the mind is still capable of creative genius even if the body is gone. Yeah. Something like that.
Yeah.
So no self-critical component. to the way you see your performances anymore?
There is critique, but not in the way that it would diminish my sense of self. It's different. I can just kind of... look at something and be like, okay, well actually next time I'll do this choice and this choice maybe. Maybe this would serve the song better. Maybe this would help the groove feel more like this. But it's not like I suck because I did this and I'm a loser.
Do you think that's bad? Because even when I asked that question, I had a self-critical thought. Why did you ask that question? That's the wrong question. I always have the self-critical engine running. Is it necessarily a bad thing?
It depends if it's affecting you negatively.
What is negative anyway?
Well, if it brings your frequency down and you feel less joyful inside, unless you don't feel complete, you feel less than, less worthy of something, then you could call that bad if you aspire to not feel that way.
Yeah, I aspire to not feel that way in the big picture. But in the little picture, a little pain is good.
That's fair.
So confidence. You seem like in this performance, you seem confident. You seem to be truly walking the bad motherfucker way of life.
A word that I prefer over confidence is trust because I think with confidence is almost like
there's a belief assigned to it that i am this thing that you believe in whereas trust is just simply knowing that you can get up there and handle whatever is going to come your way and it's more it's more of an open feeling where it's like yeah i could i could do this sure but not like i'm a bad motherfucker like you know what i mean this is a huge difference because
I've shared the stage with people who have a lot of confidence and it can be like a brick wall, just like fear is a brick wall.
So the brick wall is a bad thing. Like the thing you have with Jeff here on stage... Is not a brick wall. There's no wall. There's chemistry.
Yeah.
How can you explain that chemistry, the two you had?
Trust and lack of fear. Yeah. And also I will say, you know, that each individual has developed likes and dislikes over their lifetime. And that can be like, in this case, we're just talking aesthetic likes and dislikes. So... In this particular case, obviously our likes and dislikes are very much aligned such that the things I do to compliment him, he enjoys and vice versa.
But it could be two, you know, very trusting, open musicians on stage that don't have walls up, but their choices are very different. And one person likes heavy metal and the other person likes classical. So it's, it's gotta be both.
So you guys were good at like, yes, anding each other musically. Definitely. Is that where you're most at peace in a meditative way is on stage?
It used to be that it would only be on stage. It started with that. That was almost like my way in to flow state and meditation was playing music. And then back in the day when I'd kind of crash after shows, I wanted to change that. I wanted to always feel like I'm in flow state.
Have you succeeded? Yeah.
I've gotten a lot better. I'm still obviously on the journey, but yes.
So you meditate. I think you've said somewhere that you meditate before shows or just in general.
I meditate every day. When I'm on tour with my band, I ask that we all meditate together for at least 20 minutes. And I don't dictate which type of meditation. I don't put on a guided meditation because everyone has their own
thing they want to do maybe someone might be praying in their head it doesn't matter it's just the idea that we all put our phones down and we all are in one room connecting energetically spiritually and just letting our lives go for a second and then we walk straight on the stage and it's always really connected and there were a couple gigs where we ran out of time for that and i could tell there was a there was a major difference in the performance
So it both connects you and centers you, all of those things.
Yeah. But then when I'm home, like I love to meditate and I've tried various styles of meditation and studied various types of things. So I don't do just one thing. I kind of customize it depending on where I'm at in my life.
You and the world lost Jeff back a year ago. You told me you really miss him. How has the pain of losing Jeff changed you, maybe deep in your sense of the world?
You know, it's hard to accept that we won't create something musically again in this lifetime. But in terms of the grief... Grief was easier for me because I went through a major grief period in 2016 and 17. And that was the first time I'd really gone through the process of grief in a non-family situation, like with friends and mentors and people that I'd created with, which is different.
It's a different kind of connection. When my grandparents died, it's like, There was nothing left unsaid, and I was at peace with what was happening. With this, when Prince died out of the blue in mid-2016, and then Leonard Cohen died in November...
That just tore me to shreds because Leonard Cohen was not just someone that profoundly inspired me, you know, musically and lyrically, but spiritually, we had a very deep connection. And that was the basis of a lot of our conversation was spirituality. And so at that time, I felt like a piece of me went missing.
And that was a very long process where I just stayed in my place and didn't want to play a note of music. I kind of wanted to just get rid of all my stuff. So I had a friend come over and he's like, you should just, why don't you come to the comedy store? I'm like, comedy store? Like, what am I going to go to some store and buy clown suits? Like, what are you talking about? What's a comedy store?
He's like, no, no, no. Like the comedy store, the place where like comedians go. I'm like, okay, well, I've never seen standup. I don't, you know, I've seen Seinfeld on TV. That's like the extent of my standup experience. So he took me to the comedy store.
and every single one of those comedians like embraced me like i was family it didn't even take a day i was like part of the family and i made like 25 best friends and i ended up throwing all my stuff in storage and like finding a little room to stay in where i rented my gear out um My rent paying was me loaning the gear because I didn't want any responsibilities financial.
I just wanted to be completely free so that I could just process it and not feel like I had to commit to anything else.
work-wise or creatively i just wanted to unplug and so this was like a fun and very different way to unplug because you know previously i may have just gone to a monastery and spent you know weeks at a monastery or months but in this case i was like you know what this is a different kind of experience i'm gonna just hang out with comedians and stay in this room and
With no responsibility, really.
Yeah. Other than to really deeply connect with this grief that I'm experiencing. I'm not going to negate it. I'm going to really fully connect to it. And I did. And it was tough. And then, you know, more people in 2017 were leaving. Greg Allman, Tom Petty. I mean, it was like, these are people that I worked with, all these people, and like had...
great connections with them and they were all going and the world was mourning the loss of these people because of everything that they'd given to the world. Like they'd changed the world's lives, not just mine because I knew them personally. And so that was also complicated and why for me it was interesting to be grieving the loss of these musicians with comedians. Mm-hmm. And I learned a lot.
It changed my life because I just learned to laugh at absolutely anything. Everything. I mean, my grandpa had a really great sense of humor, too. My grandpa's a Holocaust survivor. And, like, he could just kind of, like, laugh at anything. And, like, so I already kind of have that in me. But being around all these comedians just kind of, like, exaggerated that for me.
And that really changed things for me for the better. So then when Jeff Beck died... It was like, okay, I've got these tools. I know what this is. And I'm going to go through it again. And I'm going to be on tour with Incubus in two days.
Yeah.
And so Mike Durnt from Green Day, he called me up and he said, hey, like, I know you're going through a lot. And I said, I don't even know what I'm going to play. Like, I really want a vintage jazz bass for this. And I only have a 70s one that I don't really think is appropriate. I really need a 60s one, blah, blah, blah. And Mike's like, I'm going to hook you up.
He showed up to my place the next day with a truckload of old P basses and jazz basses and brought them all into my studio. And I'm playing them. And then I pull one out of the case. And it's Olympic white, just like Jeff Beck. And... I play it and not only did I get goosebumps and started crying, but I looked over at Mike and same thing was happening.
And he's like, uh, I guess, I guess Jeff might, might be happy about this. And he's like, well, you know, I didn't want to let this one go. I was just trying to cheer you up a bit and maybe loan it to you for the tour. But if you really want it, it's yours. And I was like, oh my God. This is like, Mike Dunn is the nicest guy ever. So that happened.
So that bass's name is Jeff, and it's a white jazz bass, and I played it on the Incubus tour. But yeah, I do feel like I'm more equipped to handle grief now.
Tell me about the comedy store a little bit more. Do you think comedians and musicians in some deep fundamental way are made from the same cloth? Like, are they spiritually...
connected somehow i think everyone's connected spiritually in the same way so i think personality wise um comedians and musicians are quite different actually in what way
Well, you'd have to subdivide even musicians into different categories too, because, you know, the thing that I appreciate about comedians is that, you know, you go to a restaurant with them and like all the observational humor of like, they'll notice everything. and make you laugh about it, which a really great songwriter does the same thing too.
And my favorite lyricists like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, they, you know, Warren Zevon, they add comedy into their lyric. And like, so those types of people, I would liken to hanging out with a comedian. It's very different from like, say somebody that is an instrumental guitarist or something like that, that they're more focused on,
whether it's, like, a kinesthetic thing or, like, a physical thing or whatever it is, they're not quite doing the observational thing in the same way. So I just appreciate, like, my favorite thing to do is... Go out and laugh, especially because like I can tend to be pretty analytical and be in my head. And so anything that just kind of lets me be in my heart and just enjoy life.
I think there's a photo of you with Dave Chappelle on stage. What was that about?
So right after Leonard Cohen passed away, the comedy store threw me a birthday party. It was this crazy lineup. And like, it was like, I'd play a song with my band and, um, and then Jackson Brown sat in and like sung a song and then like Dave Chappelle came up and said some jokes. It was, it was like one of my favorite nights ever.
Yeah.
Yeah. It was cool. It was, it was a very healing birthday party. Yeah.
Yeah, there's something magical about that place. Yeah. It's really special.
Yeah, well, the mothership has some magic to it too. It's really cool. It's different, totally different vibe, but like super awesome.
You said that Leonard Cohen is a songwriting inspiration of yours. I saw you perform a song, Chelsea Hotel, brilliantly on the internet. It's about, for people who don't know, his love affair with Janet Joplin. How does that song make you feel?
Great. I love that song.
Which aspect? Musically, the melancholy feeling, the hopeful feeling, the cocky feeling, every single line has a different feeling to it, really.
Yeah, but as a whole piece, I appreciate it so much. I actually lived at the Chelsea Hotel, and when Leonard and I first met, That was one of the first things we talked about was, you know, I lived there where all that stuff went down before they tore it apart. And, yeah, it's just a beautiful song.
You know, what makes me sad, the way it ends, I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best. I can't keep track of each fallen robin. I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, that's all. I don't even think of you that often. You know that line, I don't even think of you that often, always like breaks my heart for some reason.
Like how ephemeral, how short lasting like certain love affairs can be. Just kind of like, huh.
Yeah.
Do you think he meant it? I always think he doesn't, he's trying to convince himself of it.
It could be both or either, you know? I mean, that's the beautiful thing about poetry and lyric is that it's supposed to be open.
Yeah. I wonder if it's also open to him depending on the day, you know?
Definitely. I mean, the thing that he taught me or his advice to me was when you're writing a song, look at it the next morning, like just first thing and read it and then take a walk, smoke a joint, read it again. Go have a fight with your, you know, daughter. Come back. Read it again. Get drunk. Read it again. Wait a week. Read it again.
Just so that, you know, from every state and every position, the wider the lens is going to be from an audience perspective. You want things to mean multiple things.
So there's one line I read somewhere that he regrets putting in the song. So I've got to ask you about it. It's pretty edgy. It's about giving me head on the unmade bed.
Yeah.
You think that's a good line or bad line?
I think it's an amazing line. It's one of the best lines in the song.
Yeah, right.
When he put that song out, obviously he didn't regret it or he wouldn't have put that lyric in the song. I think what happened was that eventually word got out either from him or from somebody else that the song was about Janis Joplin.
Yes.
And so at that point, he regretted the indiscretion. So it wasn't that he regretted how great the line was. It was just, you know, the privacy factor. But then again...
leonard's known for rewriting his lyrics and in his live shows you'll see a bunch of songs where it's like new lyrics and he didn't do it because he didn't like the old lyrics he just did it because he could because he's leonard and it's like why not have fun with words the way musicians have fun you know improvising solos on stage and he could have changed that line in chelsea hotel after in retrospect and he never did
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel. You were talking so brave and so sweet, giving me head on the unmade bed while the limousines wait in the street.
It's so powerful.
It's a powerful line. It just kind of shocks you.
Well, that's what's so great about it.
Yeah.
But also heartbreaking because it doesn't last. Especially, actually, to me, it adds more meaning once you know it's Janis Joplin. It's like, okay, these two stars kind of collided for a time.
Yeah, but why is it heartbreaking? It could also be just beautiful that they had a little fling.
Yeah, everything's beautiful. Thank you. Even the dark stuff. What's not beautiful? Everything is beautiful if you look long enough and deeply enough. What were we saying? Oh, what do you think about Hallelujah? What do you think about the different songs of his? Why'd you choose Chelsea Hotel to perform?
Because I lived there and it was like, it meant something to me to sing that song. And actually, when I put that song out on YouTube, that's when he sent me an email. He's like, hey, do you want to come over?
So this is how you guys connected.
No, we met in a rehearsal studio. I ended up watching their whole rehearsal and sitting there next to Roshi, his like 105-year-old monk, which was really great. I remember when I was like shaking his hand. So I was like, it was just me and Roshi on the couch watching Leonard with his band. And we're shaking hands. And he grips my hand like this, like doesn't let it go.
Yes.
Wow. You passed the test.
Passed the Roshi test. And then what's funny was that the next thing that happened about five minutes later was Leonard Cohen got down on his knees and opened up a jar. I'm not kidding you of caviar. This is not a callback.
Well, it is in a way, in a deep fundamental way.
He started feeding the monk caviar.
Yeah.
And that healed my Montreux Jazz Festival sadness forever.
The end. Do you think there's a kind of like weird, like there's a sense of humor to it all somehow? Like why does that happen? Why does that happen? Like why stuff like that happens? Or that the Jeff Bass speaks to you?
Why do we need to know?
You believe in that stuff? In what stuff? That there is a rhyme to the whole thing somehow. Like there's a frequency to which magical things of that nature can happen.
I'm divided about that answer because... I think just things are flowing. I don't think anything's kind of like planned out.
Like through time, it's like an orchestra playing of different experiences and circumstances that are somehow connected.
I think everything's connected. So, yes. But predetermined means like... I don't believe in the predetermined stuff necessarily, which is different from... Whatever your previous karma is. And karma is a whole other kind of conversation. I don't mean karma as in like good karma, bad karma. Just karma meaning the collection of things you've acquired over this lifetime or other lifetimes.
Just whatever that is. whatever that is, is going to influence your future.
Well, you had a really interesting trajectory through life. Maybe I just read it that way because I've had a lot of stuff happen to me that's like lucky, feels lucky. And sometimes I wonder like, huh? This is weird. It does feel like the universe just kind of throws stuff at you with a chuckle. I don't know. Not you. The proverbial you. One.
Yeah.
You said you sometimes watch classic movies to inspire your songwriting. And you mentioned watching Taxi Driver. I love that movie. And I think you mentioned that you wrote a love song based on that movie. So Travis Bickle, for people who don't know, is a taxi driver. And he's deeply lonely. What do you think about that kind of loneliness?
I think that loneliness is a product of feeling separate from the world and separate from others. And that the less you experience that separation, the less you'll feel lonely.
How often have you felt lonely in this way, separated from the rest of the world?
It's less and less every single year. Because I work very hard at it.
Feeling a part of the world.
Yeah, just meditating and studying scriptures.
Don't you think that, I mean, isn't there a fundamental loneliness to the human experience?
In what sense?
That all the struggles, all the suffering you experience is really experienced by you alone?
Is it?
Maybe at the very bottom it's not. It's kind of all the same stuff. You didn't feel alone in 2016, 2017?
I felt like I lost a piece of myself that I had given to somebody else. And I feel like people feel that in romantic exchanges, whether it's long-term, short-term. You give a piece of yourself, and then if that person dies or you break up with that person, you feel like you've lost that piece of yourself.
Which I feel like is a very different experience than if you just are opening yourself rather than giving a piece of yourself. You're just opening yourself to somebody or something.
So opening is fundamentally not a lonely experience.
No, it's a loving experience.
And then losing a piece of yourself can be.
Yeah, because you can't lose a piece of yourself if you are the same self as every other self.
Right, right. So if you see yourself as together with everybody, then there's no losing. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a beautiful way to look at it. You said that there's something healing about being in an empty hotel room with no attachments except your suitcase. You know, a lot of people talk about hotel rooms being empty.
fundamentally lonely experience but you're saying it's it's healing it's healing yeah because i just get to sit there and not worry about all this stuff that like this these meaningless attachments i've got my suitcase with my necessities or my three suitcases sometimes and uh I can just sit there and meditate and just be with myself. And it's so awesome.
And usually like you plan your touring for like, you know, you kind of get the business aspect of things taken care of in advance. So you can kind of just really be flowing day to day on a tour. And it's a great feeling. It's funny because this last tour that I did, we didn't have hotels every night. We had hotels maybe like once a week. And I hadn't done that before.
Usually, I'm frequently in hotels. So I didn't get that space that I'm really used to getting.
You missed them.
I very much missed it and had to be very creative. And I ended up like... going into the back lounge when everyone was asleep and like meditating back there or like before everyone woke up. And I actually like joined, there was like an online meditation retreat that was happening. It was like 12 hours a day of silent meditations. that happens once a year.
And I love this, this particular group of people. And they knew I was on tour. So they're like, just join when you can. And so I was on the tour doing the meditation retreat at the same time. It was so fun. It was so fun because I was like in the back lounge, the bus is like moving around like this. My laptop, the zoom is like, and I'm just like sitting like meditating.
It was like, yeah, this is the shit.
Silence. So they're all connected to Zoom and just doing silent 12 hours a day?
Yeah, yeah.
That's cool.
These particular retreats that I started doing, it's not straight silent. There are, you know, silent sits every hour for 50 minutes. And then there's some talks. And like these people that I've been working with are really cool because they're integrating spiral dynamics into Zen. And it's like the coolest combination.
What's spiral dynamics?
Like Ken Wilber. Do you know Ken Wilber? Integral theory?
Yes. Can you explain a little bit? So I vaguely know him because of kind of this notion that everything is one, like everything is integrated, that every field has truths and falsehoods and we should integrate the truths.
Yeah. It's hard to explain how it applies to this type of meditation because it's in the guided parts of the meditation that this whole like holonic theory is like brought in about like transcending and including everything
um aspect of your being um because he talks about like levels of development and like it in consciousness and how like this applies to like every single religion or non-religion that there are these levels of development and from all that go all the way up to enlightenment no matter what you start off with it could be you know, Christianity, Buddhism, Vedanta, it doesn't matter, like anything.
Then I just like, I like it when everything is, and everyone is taken into account. It doesn't matter where you're coming from, that there is a way to be self-realized, self-actualized. There are self-actualized beings from all walks of life with very, very different paths. There's no one path.
I mean, in this particular retreat I do, there's like a lot of silent sits and then there's some guided meditations. Um, but I've tried a lot of different avenues and they're all great. So I wouldn't just say, just try this one thing.
Like I've studied like the Upanishads, like with Vedanta teachers and like gone through those texts for months and months and stayed at monasteries and like how they break it down makes total sense to my mind and heart. And like my, more importantly than my mind, like my inner knowing, like it resonates.
Inner knowing.
Yeah, because like, Your mind is like the thinking tool. It's not you. You're not your mind. You're not your thoughts. You're not your body. So it's like just the you, like that knowing that you have. When something resonates there, that's usually when you go with something.
What's living in a monastery like?
It's the best.
What are we talking about?
It's just an empty room with a tiny single bed and a sheet and a pillow, and that's it.
That's it.
You have to eat the same thing as everyone.
What's the food like?
What is it? Very plain, cheap, basic food, which is funny for someone like me because I'm pretty particular about my diet.
Yeah, you brought over like 20 different ingredients.
Yeah.
So what was the day in the life of Tal in a monastery?
You wake up at 5 a.m. to the bell and you go and meditate like constantly till bedtime other than two meals.
how are you sitting? Are you in a group? Is there other people there and you're just sitting there?
Well, if you're talking about the Zen monastery, cause I stayed in a Zen monastery, um, and I did a thing with that. Um, the guy was telling you about that kind of, uh, the integral Zen thing where he uses Ken Wilber's work in combination with Zen, that that's a little bit different cause he does talks. We talk about things. Um,
And that's very separate from the Vedanta monasteries I've stayed at, which there's very little meditation in terms of sitting silently. Instead, we are meditating on the scriptures, like the Upanishads, and we're diving into that.
What were the differences that take us from the experiences, the two different, the integral one and the meditating on the scriptures? Yes.
They both have been incredibly helpful to me because the Vedanta, anytime I go into my head about something, the answer is there based on this knowledge. with the Zen monastery, it's like, you just gotta put your butt in the seat and sit and wait. And maybe something will happen, maybe it won't, but just keep sitting. And it's very disciplined and you go through a lot. Your body's purging a lot.
There's a lot and you don't necessarily have the answers as to what is happening. And so I think for somebody like me, I need both. I need to be in a place where there's complete uncertainty, but complete discipline and just doing the regimented thing.
And then there's the me that feels very satisfied from an analytical standpoint, understanding what's happening, like what is the gross and the subtle body and the, you know, like I want to understand these things about what it is to be a human. So I like them both.
Understand what it means to be a human. So that like having that patience and just sitting with yourself helps you do that.
Yes. More so like the analysis part.
Oh, so the analysis, the actual, okay, got it.
But sitting with yourself, there's no better education of like facing every demon and it's all going to come out and it's not going to be pretty. But then there's things that happen on the other side of it that are so profound.
Have you met most of your demons?
I've met the demons that have come out.
Oh, there might be more.
Who knows?
Yeah. Okay, well, to be continued. Since I think I heard you say that you wrote a love song after Taxi Driver, what kind of love songs do you write more of? So you're a songwriter first, for people who don't know. They might think you're... primarily a basis, but you're- But they're wrong.
So do you write mostly broken heart ones or like hopeful love songs, in love songs, about to be in love songs, soon to fall in love songs?
Well, the last album I put out is pretty self-explanatory as to what that is.
A lot of pain though?
There was, yeah. Some of it was storytelling and Some of it was real experience, and it's always like a combination of things. I serve the song. So sometimes you use your own life experience to tell a song, and sometimes you may watch a movie. and part of that script merges with your own experience, and that tells the right story for the point you're trying to make in the song.
So it varies from song to song in terms of what a biographical it is.
Yeah. I was stuck at the end of Taxi Driver when, what's her name, Betsy, because Travis becomes a hero. She tries to get with him, and he rejects her. So that was powerful.
My favorite love songs are the ones where you're not sure it's about romantic love or love of God or love of life or just pure love. I was thinking George Harrison writes songs like that, like What Is Life? Or like Bob Dylan's song that George Harrison covered, If Not For You.
Yeah, just grateful, grateful for his love.
Right, right. That's kind of like where, well, what I'm experiencing now. And so who knows what will end up coming out.
Do you've been writing this kind of?
Yeah, I've been writing. A little bit? I don't have an intention of putting something out in any particular time frame, but I'm just writing and letting things flow. There's a bunch of Leonard Cohen songs, too, where you're like, there's so many ways to interpret this song, and there's so many ways... I just love songs that aren't so specifically about one thing.
You know, I really love the song To Play It, To Listen To, Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton, and I thought it was pretty straightforward.
Yeah.
And then I had a conversation with Eric Weinstein, who's a mutual friend of ours, and he told me it's not about what I thought it's about.
Oh, yeah? What did he say? Okay.
It's a more complicated story. It's actually a man, so Wonderful Tonight is a story about a man being just finding his wife beautiful and appreciating it throughout. But he said it was actually a man missing his wife. He's imagining that she's lost because of the decisions he's made in his life. So it's pain. And he had a long, beautiful, Erich Weinstein-like explanation of why.
I love those.
Have you and Eric played music?
No. We just hung out and had very long conversations about everything.
He's a bit of a musician, you know?