SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome to the Better Two Podcast. I'm your host, Donna. Today's guest is Bryn Holmes. Bryn is a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, guitar player who has a seller record out called Rush to the Start Line. This is a sophomore record. Back in the 80s, he was based in Dublin and he had a dream of coming to the States. And he did so. But that's a story that we talk about in the podcast. So tune in. Hi, Bryn. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hey, how's it going? I'm doing fine. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Good. So you are out in LA, correct?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

I have a friend who lives in Florida. Her son, it got in the 40s, and he has like full face mask on and everything. And I'm like, dude, no, no, this is not.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

I just closed my door only because it's just with this noise out there, dogs barking and stuff. It wasn't because it was so warm, yeah. So my my I'll tell you my my sympathies for you in Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

I live here. I've lived here for 30 years. Some winters is this great, some winters it's not so great.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Represent this or Los Angeles, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Nice, nice, very nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

The symbols.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Uh-huh. I see that. There's nothing wrong with that. So um you are a guitar player, obviously, because look at all the guitars behind you.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Oh, yeah, I've got a f I've got a few. I've got my bass guitar. Yeah, we got this, yeah. They're all over the place. Yes. This is my little music room. Yeah. This is where it all happens.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

This is where the magic happens, as they would say. So you you are not originally from Los Angeles, though.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

No, uh from Dublin, Dublin Irons.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

And the weather's not always great there.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

No. It's like Chicago, actually, yeah. A lot of rain. A lot of rain.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

So, what made you decide to move to Los Angeles? I know music, obviously, but what made you really gave you that push to say, okay, I'm doing this? Because that that's a lot to pack up your life and say, I'm moving overseas, and here I am.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

It really was, yeah. Just just, you know, young and decided, you know, the opportunities were here. They weren't in Ireland. I mean, that changed over the years with YouTube being on the scene. It helped a bit, put Ireland on the map for music. But uh, yeah, it was just the opportunity of coming to Los Angeles. Uh, we had a band, I had a band back together with the the singer, the M Dubliners. We had a little pop band together, and we had a dream, you know, his sister was over here, so we moved over here within six months of each other and was trying to get a band off the ground here, but didn't go very well. That's another story.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

But that was the dream to come to America, of course, yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Well, and then the the back then Ireland had a lot of strife going on too.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yes, we were all yeah, yeah. We were we were like almost like a third world country before we joined the EU. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

I mean, most people don't think about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, the economy was terrible. Yeah, everybody immigrated. We were a uh a nation of immigrants. Now people are immigrating to Ireland.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yes, yes. A lot of people I know want to go over to Ireland from here. So being an immigrant, how do you feel about what's going on here? Are you still wanting to stay here or are you thinking maybe I need to go back home?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Well, it is a dream some days to be, you know, to have a I think that the best place would be uh, you know, have a house in Ireland, have a house here. That that'd be the dream. But uh no, no, I'm fine here in California.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

And I understand that because I mean there's times like I'm originally from New Orleans, but I've lived here for 40 years almost. And it's like, yeah, there's certain things I miss, like the food.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Sure, yeah, the food, yeah. Food, the drinks.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Guinness. Yeah, I mean, that's the home of Guinness. So Guinness here is so let me ask you this as a true Irish native, is Guinness different here in the States?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't they say they know it doesn't travel well, but there's more alcohol in the one in Ireland too. So that's that's probably that probably helps a little bit. Yeah, some better than the water. I don't know what it is, you know, because they they do, but they do have, I think they do they do um distill it in and distill it, brew it in Connecticut, I do believe, on the East Coast. Maybe the water's different there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

And that comes into play a lot. Nobody nobody thinks about that, but it does, because water sources have different minerals in it.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah, and the ingredients too, probably you know, they're locally sourced in Ireland than they are here, you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

So you you you come over here, you start this pop band, the pop band doesn't do well, and then you end up forming another band that you stick with until 2019, and then you decide, hey, I'm playing a solo artist.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah, playing Irish rock music, yeah. Never it was the last thing in my mind was to play Irish rock music. I didn't particularly care for it growing up. And it's only when I guess when I stood back from it, you know, you really thought, oh wow, and there's a huge market for here with the Irish American community, you know. So yeah, I did that for like 28 years. Uh wrote wrote stuff, performed it, didn't uh nine albums. Wow. Nine albums toured around the world with it. And uh it's only yeah, my my first album, if you um it kind of hints that I did Irish stuff with the the new my latest album. I kind of moved away from it.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yes, you did. Uh and that that's the your new new album is very diverse. You know, a rush to the start line, which I wanted to ask you why why that? I mean, especially because this is your second album. I can understand maybe the title if it was your first album, but why the title this time?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Because it's trying to basically say yeah, trying to get a solo career off the ground after having success with my last band, you know. Now I'm on my own, it's it's it's it's a different ball game. The first album was called Everything You Never Wanted.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Fair. So how how stressful is it that I mean, you obviously had some success in your other band? And so you leave the band, and now, especially because you launched this record in 2019 and then we had the pandemic. So I've talked to several artists that it's like, yeah, we had these deals going, we were gonna tour, and then nothing. So I I mean, that kind of that kind of fits the title of your second record because it's like, yeah, here I am, I'm ready to go. And sorry.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

It's it's it's getting harder and harder for bands to you, like I said, it's for bands to tour, for the bands to make money to get paid for performing. It's like musicians are like the afterthought, and something needs to be done about it. It's terrible. AI is, of course, trying to take over everywhere, too. Any the only place you can make money is by touring, it's by selling like selling merchandise at a live and getting paid for live performance. That's it. There's not unless you're huge, like you're like, you know, what's your name?

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Which which is scary when you think about it, because it's like this, you know, I can look back at my old concert tickets, the very first concert I went to was Olivia Newton John. And it was like it was like$12.50. Even live A, because I got to go there. It was a$50, yeah. It was a fifth. I won the contest, I didn't pay for the ticket. But face value on the ticket was$50.$50 to see all those bands. Now, can you imagine how much that would be?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I just saw garbage, the band garbage said that they can't tour in the Midwest anymore. They can do the coast, and that's it. It's too expensive for them.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

And I've no I I've noticed that with bands not coming to Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah. It's it's uh, and I want to get out there. Um I'm currently working with it, uh, getting an agent together. Um, so that's that's the hard thing is getting an agent and getting out there. Obviously, I can use the coattails of my whole band to say who I am and stuff, but it's still very hard, you know. I'm trying to get airplay and trying to make video basically your own record label, everything combined in one is what I'm doing. I just did my ads, yeah. Sorry. No, go ahead. I just did my an ad for my my you know, on Photoshop, do my ad. I'm working on uh on AI for part of a video, shoot my own videos and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

So but see that's the fine line because a lot of people are rejecting AI now.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

No, it's not a little animation within the video.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Well, and and what I'm getting at is like even as an author, it's like because that's what I do, that's my side hustle. But AI has infected that, AI infected pod has infected podcasting, and there's a lot of pushback, especially in the author world, the writing world, that if you can have an AI cover or you're using AI to do your ads, they're they're rejecting it.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Good, good.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Yeah, I mean it's a scary thing because you you have to find a balance where there's generative AI is the problem. It's not so much the other things, it's the generative AI.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

The theft maker.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Right, yeah. I do I do photography. I'm a photographer on the side, and this AI is crippling that too. It's like I don't know which way to turn, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

And for what? And for what? Because this is part of your creativity and part of who you are, whether it's photography or music, it's it's still part of creating. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about the record. So you did a song about the topsy turvy life of Sinead O'Connor. And is that because you know, she was the when you think of Irish singers, you think of Sinead. But is that why you did it, or was it just because you just connected with her on some other level?

SPEAKER_00 10:10

I can after she passed away, it's just something that it just hit me, you know, it really hit me. It's like, oh my god, such a talent and what she was talking about. Oh no, she was right. 99.9% of the time she was right. People that were listening to her, I was one of them, guilty. I even saying the song. I um I watched you weeping. I I sympathized, but I never wiped your tears. Me, meaning, like, I didn't, you didn't really care what you were saying. And I was only after the fact that all this stuff came out, documentaries about these, I don't know if you heard about like children putting into into orphanages with nuns and stuff and died, taken away from young from young kids that have kids. It was all buried in the Catholic Ireland, you know. It's like, and she was talking about all that stuff and she was writing about it. So I had no idea where it came from after she passed. I was writing that particular song about something. I was just an idea, and then it just came to me one night like, oh my god, I should be writing about her. I think it's it's um to give her to give her some honor, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

But in a roundabout way, there's there's some things that are being hidden right now that are coming to light sideways because you know, everything's been redacted in certain files. Um, but there's other people that are stepping forward with information that is making it even more horrific than we even realized. So I think by doing what you're doing and people starting to wake up and recognize that maybe maybe the horrors of the world are way worse than we ever thought.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, yeah. I I heard hints of it, you know, growing up in our, but it's only stepped away, it was over here. As you know, on time it always starts oozing out, squeeping out bit by bit. But she was talking about that, and you know, and then like think back, oh yeah, that and that, like, okay, yeah, she was right.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

I mean, when you think about her Saturday Live appearance and her ripping the picture, you know, we don't at the time it was like, oh, oh my gosh, and now it's like Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Nothing that's nothing nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

And and it's a shame because sometimes when people speak the truth, they're basically ostracized and treated as absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

And so many people like you know, went cut down very, very quickly, you know, a lot of celebrities and stuff, but but you like, you know, I'd love to talk to them now and ask themselves, so what do you think now? You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Well, there's like there's a model, Karen Mulder, who was very popular in the late 80s and 90s, and she started complaining about sexual abuse. And she was they locked her away in a mental institution because they would not believe her. Everybody was saying she was a liar, but we all know the truth eventually came out about John Casaplanka's organization.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Oh yeah, I yeah, I dated a model that told me the same thing that she was very young, like sent to Milan when she was like 16, you know, the story she was telling me. Like, yeah, I believe it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

But we all want to look at things and go, no, no, no, that didn't.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

She was with elite models, actually.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

That's well, that's that's the organization he ran. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Her name will be redacted.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

So when we look at need some time, what what inspired that?

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Need some time. Yeah, I just thought, you know, well, why not why not write a song the perspective of Mother Earth talking to humanity? So I just thought it was a good twist, good twist on words, you know, and like if the earth could talk to humanity and what what what we're doing to the earth, you know. I'm no activist or anything, but I know it's not good to sustain what we're doing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

No, and it's very it goes back to that AI topic too. Because when you look at the data centers about how we're polluting this the air and the water and for what to see a cat do something that it's not supposed to do anything. Or to see somebody fly a plane and drop shit everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

But I mean, we're we're harming the environment. It's like you don't have to necessarily be an environmentalist to look around and go, wait a second, maybe we need to make some changes.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

No, exactly. I'm not an extremist, you know, but I think it's just common sense. Like we can't sustain this. We're we're polluting with plastics, especially. Plastic is the worst. We all have plastic inside of us, we know that. Uh yeah, this time people people have heard it that oh, it's a lovely song, it's a lovely song, it's a break. It's a breakup song, right? With no, it's not a breakup song. Indirectly kind of is, you know. But I think it's like it's a love song.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

But well, you know, sometimes when you when you have all these volcanoes and earthquakes and everything, maybe you know the world is trying to break up with us. Very true. I always like the analogy. It's like Earth's, you know, we're like flea, Earth is a dog, and and we are the fleas, and earth is trying to shake us off.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

It's a good analogy. That's a good song there. There's a song in there.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

I'm sure. And you're the songwriter, so there you go.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Okay, right wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Fine, it's it's free.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Give me credit, I'll give you credit. Don't worry, I'll give you credit.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

No credit needed because I don't even somebody else said it. So, you know, when we when we look up, you know, the way I wanted to talk about that for a second. The way has this big sound to it, where the other ones don't have necessarily they some of them have a folky sound, but most of the tracks are all different. But the the way has this bigger sound to it. Why what made you decide to go in that direction with that song?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

I you know, it's so funny, it's a good story. It got me that song got me signed to a sync licensing agency, believe it or not. And I just thought, oh, it's a little Diddy pop song, didn't think much of it, you know. But you just never know. Um, I'm glad that you brought up. I tried to not write cookie cutter songs. Everything is different. That's great. Love to hear that. Because people, different people like different tracks on the album, so it's it's a mishmash. I love that. Uh no, it was. I just had written a whole brass section for it, and I wrote it on the keyboard, and I said, This has got to have the brass section. It can't be on guitar or something like that. That riff, so yeah, it went big with it.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

But that's the thing, it's like big section.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Big music, it it moves you, it inspires you, it it makes you want to get up and move.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yeah, it's a feel-good song. You know, this it's about uh the song is actually about touring, just touring around the world and like you're missing your loved one. I'm actually thinking of doing a video for it for uh, but for pets of everybody chime in and holding their pets singing the chorus. If they have a dog, cat, giraffe, I don't care what they have. We put it all together on on the screen to have people sing along to it. That would be cute. Yes, so the way I feel about you. So yeah, I think a cat or a dog, and somebody with their pet, not necessarily a loved one, a human being, you know. It's a bit of a twist to it.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

But this brings up a value you brought up, you know, touring. So let's talk about that for a second. And I understand now touring is different. What was it like touring when as a younger man? I mean, touring as an an older person is different than touring as a well, I'm not saying you are, but I kidding. You look fine. You look fine.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Um, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

But did you understand touring as a younger person? You have different ideals, different views. Um you have more stamina.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, you've got the whole world ahead of you. Yeah. Yeah, no, it it's it's definitely hard. I I haven't done as much as I did then, so I don't know what it's going to be like, but it'll be more on my terms this time. But it was very tough. Yeah. Obviously, good and good than bad days. You know, you'll have you'll have you know stays at airports for 12 hours, you know, you miss flights get canceled. There's not a losing, you you do a show, you get back to the hotel one in the morning, and you're up again at like 6 or 7 a.m. to drive to the next show. So a lot of that stuff. Losing sleep and not eating, not eating right through. Now we, as I got older, I definitely was, you know, less partying, more about sleep and eating healthy. So it made you make it work, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Well, and also as a younger person, you have the stage high you got to deal with. You're coming off the stage and and you can't go to sleep right away, even though you have this light. You got adrenaline.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah, yeah. You got adrenaline, you want to stay up and you know, you go to some of the guys who go to hour, but I used to do it, go to after hours, you know, you go to a pub somewhere, start drinking, good god, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, you know, as you get older, that just doesn't matter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

I already sleep, sleepy, you know, exercise.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

But the party is different, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

And I mean also touring, I think now you would have a more if you have the luxury of time, you have more of appreciation to go and see the city. Instead of, okay, I'm gonna sleep in because I have got a hangover and I gotta get to the show the next day.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

That's what I used to do. I've been as a photographer. No, I would be walking the city. That's all I'd do when I get there on my photography. Like a that's what I do all are from around around the world. I'm able to sell pictures and stuff, have tons of pictures. That was that was my thing, yeah, to explore the city. Even though I'd be there for one day, you make the most of it. You don't worry about the sleep later. When you're younger, but yeah. Yes, yeah. You're burning the candle at both ends, basically, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

But we all do, and because we realize we we think at that point in our life we're invincible.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Right. That's see, that's it, yeah. Yeah. So slow down a little bit. But if I get to tour, it might happen, and you know that I'm dying to get back on the road and promote these songs and get out there. So maybe somebody out there.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Where would you where would you like to tour this year? Uh I mean, this there's nowhere I don't want to tour. Have you have you thought about doing with some some smaller artists and even a couple fewer larger artists have done witches living room shows?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah. Um, I need to I need to invest my time into the look. I did start looking at that late last year and then I forgot about it. If you know anybody, let me know.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

I really don't, but that doesn't mean anybody know somebody listening. I have I have a German audience that usually listens.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Good. I want to play Germany. I played, I toured Germany uh with my old band. We did about I think 15 cities with a band called Jethro Tull, I'm sure you're familiar with. So Jethro Tull over Europe with Jethro Tull. Germany has a huge Irish, uh, Irish population, they're a load of Irish bars, so yep, I will go anywhere. You know, on my own, as a duet, or with a band. I've got three different choices.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

So when we talk about the song Dreaming, is that the dreams of a young man or the dreams of your life now?

SPEAKER_00 20:50

It's I kind of really because I've I don't know, I took it from all places. I basically it's I'm it's kind of a guy looking at his his loved one falling asleep beside him and she's moving rap REMs happening kind of stuff, and seeing what he's imagining what she's dreaming about is basically. So I mentioned like you know, the stereotypes of dreams, obviously. The Dolly, you know, Dolly Lava, Pinterest Melting, you know, the white rabbit, you know, with Alice in Wonderland. Yeah, that's nothing too deep about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Well, I since you're talking about so my late husband, when I'm I'm laying down, we're sleeping one night, and he wakes me up out of a sound sleep because he has to say really loudly, set phaser is on purr. I woke him up, I'm like, what are you dreaming about? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm like we had that, we had I discovered the black pearl, but my favorite is him thinking that he is in an uh an arena sitting on the the row but the stairs, and he decides like. He has to roll out of the way to get out of somebody's way and he rolls himself out of the bed. So dreaming is not always a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

No, no, no. So yeah, that's that's that's where it came from, is the melody I'd had, you know. It turned out really nice. And it builds, I don't know if it builds very slowly to a big crescendo at the end. Yeah, that's that's what it's about basically.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

So how often do melodies come to you at the weirdest times, whether it be driving in the shower or sleep, you know, waking up from a dead sleep.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

You name it. It's never really in my sleep sometimes, and I I should do the old I used to. I should do it. A lot of musicians do. They have a they have a pen and paper or they have their their memo on their phone nowadays. It's the new new thing on your nice down. Paul McCartney obviously, I think he mentioned that's how he wrote um not Hey Jews, but what was it? Mother Mary comes to me. Let it be. Let it be. He woke up during the night, whatever. I thought I thought it was somebody else's song, the melody. But uh, yeah, I I have my memo. Smart. Memo on on the phone. I've got I could go through too. We can spend like hours going through all these ideas that happen all the time. They come at the weirdest places, they really do. I I hike a lot in in the park here, but I I'll go there and listen to ideas and get more ideas, but they just they come from nowhere. Uh it's it's it's a it's a beautiful gift, I guess. Well, it's it's be it's it's being connected. It's it's yeah, and it's it's getting the ideas, but then making them into a song. I think it's a next that's the hard part because you'll have tons of ideas. It's connected to like, oh, I have a great verse. I have a crappy chorus, like I have a great chorus, shitty verse, you know. So that's the frustration of it. It's it's it's stitching it all together to make it a song. You know, I come up with melodies every day, constantly hearing noise, a door squeak. Oh, there's a melody there.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

But but see, for me, it I understand that because for me, dialogue or storyline comes to me. But that's much easier to put somewhere and put in a little piece instead of having to place music with verse, with that, yeah, that's a lot more complicated.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Yeah, the words are always the challenging part to me. I'm always very worried that people are watching words. Some people say people don't listen to lyrics anymore, but I feel they do, you know. I want to be somewhat make an attempt at it, you know. That's that feels my weakness. And I I I spend I worry about that the most. The music can come easily, usually. If it does, great, you know. Um, but the words, yeah, the words are always the hard part for me.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

And and that may be true, the statement about people don't listen to words as as much as they used to, but the thing is, when they need to listen to words, yeah, that's when it matters. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

It is nice to some, yeah. Absolutely. Something comes away with some meaning out or get some feeling from it, that great, that's wonderful. I love to hear that. Yeah. So it was worth it in the end, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Exactly. It's the connection between you and the listener, you and the audience.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Oh, I love that that song you wrote. Like that about the, you know. I don't know if you've done that, I got the completely wrong idea of a song. Oh, I love that song. It was so beautiful. You know, if you broke a heart. No, I wrote that about the transmission of my car. But whatever you got from it, that's okay. I was working on my car, and I said, That's that song's about like, what?

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yeah, you just you gotta let the interpreted let let the fantasy, let them have their fantasy.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

It's uh I have a character that I've been told is the vilest character that they've ever read, which this was years ago. And then I have some people, some women are like, oh, he's just misunderstood.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Yeah, okay. No, okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

You you do whatever you need to do to reconcile the character. I wrote him, uh, you play with him. Yeah, everything you want to think about him, you do that. I I resign. And I think I think that's the same thing with music. At a certain point, you put the baby out, and everybody else interprets it the way they need to.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

So, what's your favorite song on the record?

SPEAKER_00 26:26

My favorite song. I was gonna ask you that, but okay, well, I'll go, I'll go first. Uh God, I've done all of my babies.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

That's yeah, I know how that works. Uh huh.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Look at the CD. Uh I mean Gloria is is is my favorite. But the other ones are starting to grow only more, you know. Gloria is, which is gonna be gonna be coming out as a single, too. There's the track to the first track. Did you have a favorite? Do I you have a favorite?

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Do I have a favorite? Yes. I mean, there was a couple that I really liked. I liked Need Some Time, I liked Ordinary World, uh Shine Up Beat, Dreaming. I mean, these were the five songs that actually stuck stood out to me. In the way, those all kind of stood out to me, and they were all very different. And that's one thing for me as a listener. I like music that is not the same. I don't want to put on a record and hear the exact same song over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Which is yeah, which is common, yeah. That's what you hear, but that's why a few of my friends call me up and go, Congratulations, your sophomore album has blown away your your your second album. It's it's it's better and like great, it's different, isn't those two songs are the same. So I I don't deliberately that's just the way I write, you know. I'm sure the next album is go, oh, that sounds like this was some other track, you know. It's gonna happen. It's only it's only it's inevitable, it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

But do you think it's because this this album you had more of a footing? It's like, okay, I I put one album out, I did the solo thing for the first time, and I'm still this is now my second effort on it, and I'm more comfortable being a solo artist. I'm not sitting here going, well, whatever, you know, I'm more comfortable that this is what I want to do. Where the first one, did you have an idea, or were you just throwing, you know, stuff to the wall to see what stuck?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

The first one I had songs I had for years, like I said, I never played with the band or they didn't want them or didn't like them or whatever, they never came to fruition. The second one, yeah, I've had more time. I had more material, and like, yeah, well, I want to get away from the Irish stuff a bit, try and just try and go what I like. What I grew up listening to, you know. Well, you when you listen to here on the radio, here and back on, you know. That's that's yeah. No, go ahead. No, that's that's the the the that's the direction I'm going in. The third album I'm already working on as we speak, and that's gonna be more the same. I think different, different stuff, but no, no real Irish stuff again.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

I could come back around eventually, but well, do you feel like there's a reconciliation that you have to put through music as quick as possible? I mean, yes, you've already you're releasing your second album, you're working on your third. When do you see the third coming out? Do you feel that you have to continually release singles? Or have you the mindset of let me do the album and here we are?

SPEAKER_00 29:09

No, I can do singles. Yeah, you gotta be prolific. Keep writing, keep writing, get the material, get more and more. The more material I get out there, I think better my chances of being heard, or being seen, you know. That's the way I look at it. Like I said, a rush to the start line.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

It's the that's the that's the craziness of the world we live in. While we have less gatekeepers, now you have to have more content.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yeah, yeah. I just want to keep writing. I know I want to have a huge set, you know, of original music.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

So that's important. So if you could play anywhere in the world, what would your dream gig be and who would the dream artist be that you would work with?

SPEAKER_00 29:47

It would have to have an effort. Yeah, I wouldn't mind touring with Coldplay in uh at the LA Coliseum, though. Not the Coliseum, no, there we go. There we go. Madison Square Garden. Oh god, you're telling me you're throwing me a because there's so many artists I love. I'm totally blank on the right now. But Coldplay is one. I like their pop music, whoever you love or you hate them, you know. That's one band. Uh Lord Huron, I'd love to play with those guys. You know those guys? They're from Michigan. Okay. No, I do not know them. Check those guys out, they're amazing. Lord Huron. Like in Lake Horan, yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, I'd love to play with Jeff Buckley. Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Buckley was was very good. But uh yeah, I'll play Dodger Stadium with the Coldplay and I'll open up for them anytime.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Nice, nice. So is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to add?

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Um no, I'm just you know with the social stuff if people want to follow me where they can find me. But I think you do that. Do you do that?

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Yes, I do do that. No, I do that. It's all in the show links, and and it's there for them to click on and check out.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

How do we help to get out to a town near you? Come come find me. Come follow me. Find me. Make me famous.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Well, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you, Don. So, Bryn, when we were talking, it's interesting because for me, when I have, you know, I wake up in the middle of the night or I am driving, I definitely return my phone and I record whatever information is provided, such as, you know, we're going to have, you know, this scene would be better. And I've talked about this before. You know, the end of my first book, it was like, I'm driving my husband to dialysis, and it's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. You think you're done. We're not. You're not. I got a better idea, and we're gonna show you what that idea is. And so you you say all the information out that you need to, and then you come back and then you write it out. For me, it's easy because, well, it's just dialogue or description or it's words. It's that's it. As a musician, and you don't really think about this. As a musician, you have lyrics, you have all the instruments you want to use, you have the melody, you have the chorus. And when these bits of information come to you, then you have to piece it all together. So it's a much bigger puzzle. Now, for me, yeah, I have characters that will give me a scene from a book that's six, seven books away. But it's up to me to decipher that. And as a musician, I would think that's much, much harder. Uh, when we talk about, you know, the song Ordinary World, when he was talking about the fact that Sinead O'Connor, um, that it was about her and that we didn't pay attention, and I think that's a lot of things that that's coming up right now in the world is that there's there's things that we kind of I don't want to say take for took for granted, but we didn't want to believe because it was kind of one of those things where it was it's harder to think about to wrap your head around it. And recently I had um, I don't want to say a memory because I I know this, I've never forgotten it. And I reframed this even in the mid-2000s. But it's funny because I I've come to the realization that I never really analyzed this, never really healed from it, never really unpacked it. And when I do now, it has a different meaning. It's like I'm being forced to face those those feelings, and and it's hard to explain, and I'm just gonna say it, you know, back in the early early, early 90s, late 80s, um, there was a time I got in a conversation with my stepfather, and I was 20, 21 years old. And my stepfather said something something, and I said something back, and for a long time, I would say that we had a physical altercation. It was never anything that was unpacked, it was always just it was a physical altercation because my mind would not allow me to think of it any other way. His hands were around my throat. Um and when I when I look at that, you know, when I fast forward to when I started to being able to when my mind allowed me to really see these things, uh, I was watching an SVU un uh episode, and they basically were the same situation happened. I watched this girl get thrown up against the wall, the hands are around the th the throat of her, and she's talking about this after the fact, and someone says, Well, that was attempted murder. And I remember pausing for a second going, how did I never frame it that way? I mean, even after this happened, my mother looked at me and said, Well, if you call the police and he wants to throw you out, then I can't do anything. Which that's a whole nother thing to unpack. But my mind would not allow me to look at it as anything else than a physical altercation. As I unpack that, as I said, after watching that episode, it was like, well, truthfully, that was because when you're somebody's hands are around your throat and not into some kink, uh, they're not there to, as my husband would say about anything, um, they're not there to bake you a cake. They're not there to be useful, they're not there to be helpful. What was his intention behind that? His hands around my throat were were to show, you know, his violent tendency. He wanted to harm me. And so it took me time to process that. Well, now, ten years later, this has been brought back up to me. And I think this is this is kind of like the Chine thing, because she said something, we didn't buy it. Eventually she was deemed this way, but the truth is now coming out. We look at this and go, well, in that horrific manner of, oh my gosh. So for me, I'm now packing the unpacking this, looking at it and going, Did you actually heal from this? Did you actually agree from this? Did you actually face it? And the truth of the matter is, and a lot of times when we're going through that trauma, we don't. And so going back to the song and going back to the point is there are times when our minds will not allow us to absorb this information and unpack it and see it for what it really is. We just kind of go, okay, well, that happened and let's go. And I don't want to think bad of somebody else. I don't want to imagine them to be such a horrific person. Because if I do, then that is going to repulse me. That's going to make me have doubts about everything. But the fact is, sometimes we have to strip down to the truth. And that's the only reason I brought up the stepfather thing is because I've watched it for me personally go from one thing to another thing to really realizing that you haven't faced this and dealt with it. And for the song, when you look at the song, it's like in a way it speaks truth. He's embracing that. He's seeing that she was right, he's seeing the truth of it, and and dealing with it in his own way. So I know that may seem crazy for some of you, but if you have a trauma that you haven't dealt with, if you brushed it over, if you, you know, it's like we don't want to speak ill of the dead. But if somebody was a bastard to you, then you need to look at that and and try to heal those wounds. You can't sit there and sugarcoat and say, oh, they were wonderful. See the person for who they truly are, because that's where the healing begins. And I'm not saying you have to hate them, I'm not saying you have to, you know, burn burn an effigy of them. What I'm saying is face it, look at it. I love my I love my dad's mom, my mama. I do. She was a great woman to me as a kid. As an adult, I saw who she really was. And as um, as of this past year, my aunt allowed me to see even more of who she was that I never experienced. And so look for the truths, look for the truth of the situation, look for the truths of the world. And if you can do that through music, i.e. the song, then do so. Because, and honestly, the ordinary world, there's many interpretations of that. What is your ordinary world? What is what is your life like, and how do you unpack it? Because my ordinary world is not what you see here. My ordinary world's different, and I think that's the thing that we don't realize. What we show people of ourselves in the world is not always what our real world looks like. We wear a mask, we wear a mask to fit in, we wear a mask to hide who we are, and sometimes we need to show the truth of who we are, the truth of a situation, and that's how you move forward and heal. And sometimes, even if we have a band that we are have been with forever, sometimes we need to branch out on our own and do our own thing and beat to our own drum and realize that we can't please everybody, that we have to do what we need to do for us. And that's part of healing, which goes back to the whole circle of what I was talking about about facing things. So today, find something that you have you haven't faced and have hope. Have hope to follow your dreams, have hope to pursue what you want to do. And if you know somebody that needs a band that wants to that listens to Bryn's record and and absolutely loves it and wants to have him come over and play it for you, then reach out to him or reach out to his agent. But on that note, I thank Brenn for coming on. I thank you know Fast Susie for the intro and outro music, and most importantly, I like to thank you for listening to my long ramble and for tuning into the podcast. I greatly appreciate it. Um, I had my doubts whether I was gonna come back this year and do it, but here I am. And I still enjoy it, and that's the reminder I need is that I enjoy doing this. So thank you for tuning in because it really means a lot. And if you love the show, if you like the show, tell your friends, leave a review, any support you can do for the show. Well, I greatly appreciate it. And well, as always, I'll catch you next time, guys. Bye.