Pucks, Politics & Pure Rock ’n Roll With Sheepdogs Bassist Ryan Gullen

Jann Arden  0:07  
I just want to say gracious Good day, and welcome to the Jann Arden podcast. I am here as always, week after week after week with Caitlin green Sarah Burke. They are in their Toronto homes. I am in my spring bank Alberta home, and so glad to be here. I look forward to this every week, and I also look forward to what the girls have got going on that's good, because we're going to dive into some really shitty stuff once again, because it just we're going to hear the good and then we're going to talk about the US Men's hockey team, because I'm so fucking raging about it anyway, Caitlin, tell us something good before we launch people off into anger world.

Caitlin Green  0:46  
I'll start us off by saying that we had a wonderful weekend trip to the nation's capital. We went to Ottawa to see some really good friends of ours who have kids who are similarly aged to will. So it's kids playing, it's parents having some wine. We went out to some really great restaurants, and we took the train. And we haven't taken the train. We always drive, and the last few drives we've had have been particularly torturous, and also with just winter weather, everything like that, we thought, let's take the train. Will loves the train. He was so excited. And we got on board, and I'll just say it was the most relaxing, civilized experience, especially if you're traveling with a kid. You don't have to worry about getting to an airport. You arrive, you walk right onto your train, load your own luggage. We decided to splurge, and we did via one so it's like a little bit more comfortable, and it wasn't that much more expensive. And I think we got a pretty good price overall on the seats. And it was one of the new cars. The bathrooms are nice and like, Will can get up and walk around. He can talk to people. What she likes to do you get a hot meal. Like, it was really, really nice. And it made every it made the travel days feel a lot more relaxing. So yeah, I think just if you, if you have a city that you want to go to, it's close enough that you can take the train. I really think if you're traveling with a kid, it's a nice thing to do for them. That's kind

Jann Arden  2:04  
of an Ontario thing. I don't we don't have that here. We have a train that goes to Banff. You cannot take a train. There's no train tracks for commercial trains that go to Edmonton, which I think they've talked about for about 400 years, since Henry the Eighth was in power. They've talked about that, but, yeah, we don't. We don't have trains that take you up to Peace River. I think you can still get, I want to say a red arrow.

Sarah Burke  2:30  
I thought there's a train that goes across the country. No, it

Jann Arden  2:33  
goes across the country. But there's nothing really that you can go inter city in Alberta. And I don't think there is in British Columbia as well. I think this is an Ontario thing. An Ontario thing. I think your population supports that kind of travel. You guys might remember this from a long time ago. I went on Via Rail from Toronto to Ottawa, but I had my little but my little dog, MIDI. And halfway in Oshawa, the ticket guy came up, and he goes, What's in the bag? And I said, my dog. And they stopped the train and I had to get out in Oshawa. It made the national news. People were raging that I was trying to kill people that had dog allergies. My dog was sound asleep in a bag, and I had it sitting there. I didn't know.

Sarah Burke  3:18  
I didn't mention she was hypo. People need to go down. It was

Jann Arden  3:23  
so ridiculous. Anyway, I thank God I had the wherewithal and I had a road manager, Chris who called me a limo to pick me up in Oshawa. I had to wait there two hours for the

Sarah Burke  3:34  
Ontario's armpit.

Jann Arden  3:36  
Don't say that. I already had to apologize to Oshawa because I said I was dropped in the middle of nowhere. Let's not revisit this. Oshkosh. I love you. I think you're a fantastic town. You are progressive, and it's filled with great people and cafes and I mean, I've been there, and I didn't know where I was, yeah, Oshawa generals. So anyway, Sarah, what's going on? Good in your in your world?

Sarah Burke  4:00  
I'm just, I'm happy to be on the other side of a terrible cold. That's my good news right now. I have been, yeah, I've been sick. I picked up something from Dance kids last week. Yeah, it's, it's not been fun. I've coughed up a lot of things. And this is like, following the, you know, the family day outing, where I loved the outing, but I was like, I was so tired. I don't think it was the parenting that made me so tired, it was the cold that was brewing. Yeah, so I

Jann Arden  4:27  
loved it. Our worlds are so different. Now I know we're taking the kids skating. I've got this. I'm the one that gave the kids the cold from hell when I visited them. And thortis is like, that's families. We just trade off. She goes, don't feel bad about it, you know, you can't avoid it. So we're all in the same boat for that. Things are going great with Dan, and that's

Sarah Burke  4:52  
his mom. Had a had a hospital visit last week, so we're set. We're sending her our love. She's recovering from like a. A lung thing right now. But while we were there, you know, I spent some time with, like, one of his childhood best friends. It was really nice to stay, you know, at their place and help, you know, his dad out with a couple things. We did some snowboarding. Because what else do you do when you're in Huntsville? So all my very tiny muscles that I don't know how to use normally are like atrophy.

Jann Arden  5:21  
Today, it's going good. I love it. Well, that's good. I mean, my good news is my friend Leah is here visiting. She's doing some CBC pitches. Leah was one of the writers and partners on the Jann show. We were partners on that, and so we're having a visit and doing fires in the morning and coffee and just talking about life. And that's always fantastic. I love it when she's here. Later today, we're going to go do Value Village. Yes, she is a professional Thrifter, and we're going to talk about that on the show sometime.

Sarah Burke  5:51  
Yes, she has to come to the Bachelorette. She has to, okay,

Jann Arden  5:55  
well, there you go. Agree. Yeah, we're still going to do that. You're you're playing. I'm going to give you some dates when I'm going to be there. Toronto. We've got lots of time.

Caitlin Green  6:04  
I have so many thoughts. Did

Sarah Burke  6:05  
you guys watch the hockey game, the gold medal games on

Jann Arden  6:09  
the weekend? I don't. I bit my nails down to my first knuckle, so I just had blood spurting all over the living room. I had to tap out.

Sarah Burke  6:16  
What about like? Will was, will, like, up for watching this kind of

Caitlin Green  6:19  
stuff now too. Well, doesn't care. Will was, like, very he'll, he passively wants stuff on. But if it's like, if a TV is on and it's not playing, like, Paw Patrol, he's just annoyed. Okay, so, yeah, so, but my, my husband and our friends watched it. We watched it in Ottawa in the morning before we left.

Sarah Burke  6:34  
And Jan, did you wake up at, like, it would have been, what, 6am you had to wake up for the game.

Jann Arden  6:38  
I think I was up around 630 Yeah, but I, you know, I enjoyed it, and the athleticism was great, and it's amazing. And we will move on to this hockey game, the the gold medal match between Canada and the United States and and, you know, let's keep in mind, these are young men, okay, they're mostly between 20. And I'm going to say 30. I'm going to safely throw that out there

Sarah Burke  6:58  
40, if you want to include Sidney Crosby, who was kind of a big deal, but

Jann Arden  7:01  
anyway, yeah, and who got injured, which was heartbreaking. But anyway, the the Americans won, as you know, in a nail biting game filled with athleticism. It was wonderful hockey on both sides. The women were absolutely effing amazing. Both teams played with such poise, professionalism, camaraderie. You know, it was just great to see them at the end hugging each other and just being sportsman like which is what the Olympics should be about. Yeah. So anyway, everything was going well. I think the Americans were gloating. We kind of have a huge rivalry going on right now, ongoing gloat. Yeah. And then, and then, what happened, girls? Please take it from me, because I will just spew hatred. Trump calls them. I must tell you, we're gonna have to bring the woman's team.

Sarah Burke  7:57  
I guess it's like, sort of prompted by cash Patel, who's in there with them.

Caitlin Green  8:03  
Inexplicably, cash Patel, the director of the FBI, who is woefully unqualified for this job and objectively terrible at it. So there you go. He decides that what he's going to do with taxpayer money is fly his ass on a private jet over to the locker room to chug beer with Team America. Because, my goodness, gracious, he's not busy enough. Nothing going on right now. Don't worry about the remaining 3 million pages of Epstein documents. Don't worry about all the redaction screw ups you have. Don't worry about the litany of other things facing the US on a national security basis. You should definitely be in Milan chugging beer in the locker room with your hockey team. What a What an idiot.

Jann Arden  8:44  
There's lots of people on online, you know, women, women and men, so let's go there right now. There's so many men that are disgusted with this, but they're saying that's why women choose bears. If they were faced with being in a forest alone with a man or a bear, we choose the bear. But you know, cash Patel pounding on his chest and spraying beer all over the front of him, acting like he was on fucking MDMA or something, or, I don't know, acid,

Caitlin Green  9:12  
acting like he was on the team, acting like he had anything to do with this win, like, in addition to being under the influence of substances, which, when you watch him in some depositions, he might be like so I just want to say that the the vibe was bizarre, because to see the director of the FBI acting like he was the coach of the team is just so weird. It's just such odd behavior.

Jann Arden  9:35  
And then a lot of laughter when he talked about inviting the women's team, you know, we're gonna have to invite the women's team too, and I'm gonna get impeached this giant guffaw of that broligarchy Bullshit, patriarchal, disgusting treatment of women and that gender inequality that is so prevalent, but it was. So disappointing to see these young men play. You expect

Sarah Burke  10:04  
it from Trump. You expect it from cash Patel, almost. But like these other guys, had an opportunity to do something. And you know, hopefully by the time this podcast episode comes out, there's a massive apology or in some sort of proper statement. But, you know, look at Jack Hughes, Jack and Quinn Hughes, their mother is an Olympic athlete and was a coach, and was a coach like, Are you laughing at your fucking mom?

Jann Arden  10:31  
I hope she is not condoning their behavior. I hope there's been some words. But like I said, these are young men, and we all know, and Caitlin, we've talked about this before you made a really good point, you know, when the election first happened, of why young men that felt marginalized cast their vote for a guy who was a known felon who had, you know, who had been bankrupt a million times. And, I mean, I'm sure you see shades of that in this behavior.

Caitlin Green  10:57  
Still, they're probably mega themselves, like that was the part where it's like, I almost don't want like, I mean, they can give the apology. It's PR infused anyways. But what you saw was a moment of authenticity where many of them are likely in for this behavior. Could vote for it could be a very like. His voting base was well reflected in that clip. And so I think that I found that this was just, it felt like the clip, all of a sudden, was in black and white to me. Yeah, like, I just was like, what year is this? What year is this that we have a bunch of like, spineless, boot licking professional athletes who could have done anything but what they did acting like your mom isn't an Olympic athlete, acting like you don't have a whole team of champions in their own right, coming right alongside you on the podium, acting like the majority of the gold medals weren't won for the US by women, and so I just thought, this is such a self congratulatory circle jerk of bullshit that I was like, it's just losers congratulating losers. And I don't care if you won the gold medal, you're not acting like winners, you're acting like losers, and you're classless. And this is such a low point for you to take your high point of the win and erase it and then bring it down to here. And I also want to say on a petty note, you're not as good looking as our team. Sorry. Like I just was, like, I looked around that locker room and I said

Sarah Burke  12:19  
they look like goofy children, those American boys face

Caitlin Green  12:22  
cards declined all the way around. You're not competing with Tom Wilson. You're not competing with Sidney Crosby. So I don't know. I'm like, You know what? And you're, you're your leader who's like, laughing at your other winning team about, oh, I guess I'll have to invite them to the White House or I'm gonna get impeached. Look him up in the Epstein file, but also you're laughing with

Sarah Burke  12:42  
not to mention with the women's team. They matched your medals in a third of the time. Okay, like the women's team has medaled in every event since women's hockey was a thing in the Olympic Games, and how classy the women's team dealt with it. We should also mention just whether or not that invitation to the White House was real or not, putting a public statement out there right away, being like, because of other engagements, we're not gonna be able to make

Jann Arden  13:07  
it a little update on that flavor slave, if we can harken back to the 80s. So he has offered to like, let's throw these women a party. There's so many people stepping up. There's all kinds of airlines. I wish I could name them off right now, Alaska in particular has come stood up and said, We will fly them there. We will cover their flights. There's a hotel chain in Las Vegas that's saying we'll cover all their hotels food. We will throw in a spa treatment for them. And I think it's going to happen. You know, Flavor Flav is sort of the underdog of this story. I haven't really thought about him for a long time, but he's just like, No, let's show these women a great time.

Caitlin Green  13:48  
So take that snoop. I was gonna say he's like, the opposite of Snoop Dogg now, yeah, yeah.

Jann Arden  13:53  
Well, there's a lot of there's there's good things that come out of bad things, but we are having the opportunity in real time to see the behavior of these people, and I'll tell you what heated rivalry just resurrected a hockey culture that was really in trouble, even in Canada, here we had five or six young men who were in a hotel room. They were all let go. Every one of them was exonerated. They once again, did not believe the testimony of the witness and felt she was unreliable. Anyway. They were talking about new fans that were coming to the NHL, that they were very excited about. That has been demolished all the things that I'm seeing online now with people going, I ain't fucking watching hockey. I would rather watch reruns of Little House on the Prairie.

Sarah Burke  14:38  
Viewership down 38%

Jann Arden  14:41  
Yeah, so almost 40% of viewership down. The hockey culture is a very in trouble culture with young men and their behavior. This was a nail in the coffin, I think, of where sport should be headed. And we've spent, you know, 11 minutes talking about this, and I just said to the girls, let's spend five but anyway.

Caitlin Green  15:00  
Okay, no, but, like, it's clearly ticked me off to know

Sarah Burke  15:03  
us off where this is the biggest conversation in Canada this week. Like, hard stop.

Caitlin Green  15:08  
And I think, like, you know, you just see how Mark Carney handles this. The congratulations he's passed along to all of our teams. I just am like, this is gross now how tacky and trashy this whole brand is for the US at this moment, and it's, it's just, it's remarkably embarrassing, and when you saw them, they got off their plane and they landed back in the US, there's like five people waiting for them to go, like, and I just felt like this wouldn't in Canada, we would have celebrated them, because we feel like we have something really worth celebrating. So I just thought for all of the like locker room laughs and the boot licking and all that stuff that we saw happen, what was it for? What was it for you to sidle up to? How does this impact your brand? Like you did it for nothing. You did it for no one. Your fans don't even care. Hockey is not as big of a deal in the US as it is here in Canada in many parts. And so I just am, like, you know what? I don't care. And the gloating, that's the other part, the gloating on social over beating us Trump posting an AI slop video

Sarah Burke  16:10  
in the Justin Trudeau tweet from like, oh, you can't take our game. He like, brings it back up and retweets it like a friggin child.

Caitlin Green  16:16  
I'm like, just drew is not even the leader of our country. He's just, he's busy living his best life with Katy Perry and also Trump is posting himself like an AI slot version of himself fighting a Canadian hockey player, like fist fighting. And I just thought your diaper would be so full if you were up against one of our like, NHL

Jann Arden  16:35  
players can't walk a straight line. Caitlin, what are we doing? I just was

Caitlin Green  16:39  
like, this is just so laughable. Let's

Sarah Burke  16:41  
take a deep breath. Let's take

Jann Arden  16:42  
a deep breath. Okay, deep breath. First of all, I'm just gonna do a little tease, and then we're gonna move on and find out what's going on in the scroll. But our guest later in the show today is one of the coolest fucking rocker guys in the country, Ryan Gallen, take a look at the sheep dogs. They are just awesome. They're so stylized, and their music is so authentic, and you cannot help but move your body and listen to this and bob your head. It got a new album coming out. Yes, they have a new album coming out. So we were so happy about Ryan Gullen, and he's the bassist for the sheep dogs, which is the best instrument as far as I'm concerned. And of course, they're going to have a whole lot of touring in their future. So we're glad that he had some time to take with us, but he has a really interesting story to tell. I'm not even going to tell you what that is. It does involve me, and no, I did not have relations with the sheep dogs.

Sarah Burke  17:31  
I wish you left it up to the listener, or maybe

Jann Arden  17:33  
I did. You

Caitlin Green  17:44  
I do want to talk a little bit about Eric Dane, the passing of Eric Dane. Now this is kind of not, I don't want to say old news, but it's not completely fresh, but I'm still seeing a lot of conversations around his passing, and I wanted to talk to you guys specifically about this because of his participation in the Netflix series, Famous last words. And I think because he did this, there are so many viral clips happening right now and and so to sort of set the stage here, of course, you you might know Eric Dane. He was mixed steamy on Grey's Anatomy. He was in euphoria. He passed away only at the age of 53 and he had had a struggle with ALS, you know, might know it as Luke Eric's disease. It's a it's a crushing illness, and he seemed to really face it head on with bravery, with a lot of strength, which with a really positive attitude. And I think that he captured a lot of the essence of his character in this Netflix famous last word. So if you haven't seen this already, it is the US take on a Danish show that does the same thing, where they have public figures come in and record messages, sort of like a living obituary. Shows I know and in the event of their passing, this is released right after they pass away, and it is a massive hit in Denmark, people wait with bated breath to see if one of their favorite public figures has recorded one of these if they pass away. And I think it's it's more common, I think for you know, older, I guess, public figures, you know, Jane Goodall did one with the Netflix, the new Netflix series here in North America. And so now, obviously, Eric Dane, very aware of his own impending mortality, decided that he would record one, and he directed it specifically at his daughters, and he wanted to give them pieces of advice, but pieces of advice that I think are so fabulous for anyone to have, and they were really moving and compelling. And because this is such a touching, emotional kind of morbid piece of content, I don't know that the show is necessarily for everyone, but I have to say, I love it, and I think it's because we are, we seem like as a society, to avoid the topic of death, and I certainly appreciate why, but I think it leaves people really under prepared when they are touched by it in their own life. And so I kind of like that this show is introducing that to people in a new way. And man, I'll tell you. Eric Dane's words were not a bummer. Jane Goodall's was also excellent. Jane was feisty. She was feisty.

Jann Arden  20:07  
She was very adamant that this could not be released till her death. But she finally goes after right wing bullshit, and she calls it like it is, like. Jane always came across as very, you know, politically correct for the most part, and just not she just wanted to concentrate on animals. She didn't want to ever make it about her or her political opinions, but, man, she swings the bat pretty darn good.

Caitlin Green  20:29  
Wuthering Heights. Have you guys seen anything about Wuthering Heights? I do want to

Jann Arden  20:33  
see it. I read the book. I mean it. The book is not really, it's not really a romance. It's a very, very dark story. But it has been, I think, shot something like 15 or 16 times in Hollywood. There's different versions of this as early as, you know, the late 90s, going into the 2000s there has been versions of Wuthering Heights. But this one is a little different, because Barbie is is has been cast, and there's been a lot of controversy about Margot Robbie playing this role and having an English accent, and is she too beautiful for the role? It's so funny, because the way ms Bronte describes the character in in the actual book, is nothing. It's not Margot Robbie. It is a a rugged, you know, woman who's, you know, part of the marshes and the the wind and the trees. And I don't know, I just Hollywood tends to take beautiful, beautiful people that are not portray people as they really are. So it's kind of disappointing any trailer that I've seen. I will watch it, but I'm going to watch it when it's on a rental for 699 I would say that

Caitlin Green  21:42  
that actually is, like a great way to go about it and that. And I think it's because, you know, so it's an endlessly trending story right now, because it has arguably the two hottest people, maybe in the world, fuck me, Margo Robbie and Jacob elordi. But also because it's like this composite of everything that's trending all the time. The soundtrack is by Charlie XCX. It's directed by emerald Fennell, who did promising young woman and then salburn. So it's very, like, catchy, and it's very, very stylized, and it's supposed to be like, dark and sexy, but you're right, Jan, it's constantly portrayed as a romance, and it's really more of a revenge movie. But I wanted to point out that the reason why a lot of people are discussing it also is because allegedly, and I'm putting in a big allegedly here. Warner Brothers studio paid more than 2000 influencers to post nice things about the movie, and so there's a larger conversation right now about organic and inorganic marketing and how much you can trust when you see your favorite influencer posting about something online, whether it's skin cream or a face brush or a haircut or coat or whatever it is, or a movie or a TV show, you really do have to call into question if they're being paid to like this,

Sarah Burke  22:48  
the American Hockey team could use some influencers telling them that the game is Good.

Jann Arden  22:59  
We've got one of the coolest low key rockers this country has produced, other than, of course, myself, Ryan gullen is the basis for the sheep dogs that retro riff, heavy, Harmony soaked band that has never strayed from their classic rock roots, from Saskatoon, no less, Saskatoon bars to Rolling Stone covers. The sheep dogs have built a career the old fashioned way, kick ass songs, tight musicianship, and a whole shit pile of touring, touring, touring, and then touring some more. And right in the middle of that is Ryan holding it all down on the base. We're going to find out if he is indeed the most responsible person in the band or not. He'll have to tell us that himself. Ryan Gullen, I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to the Jen Arden podcast. Yeah, it's great good to be here. Not a lot of bands have come out of Saskatoon. I'm just thinking of what sort of inspired me in the Calgary scene. I'm gonna say early 80s, and I'm older than all you guys, but I mean, they had open mic nights in Calgary. They didn't have a lot of stuff going on, but what was going on that sort of said to you guys, let's put a band together. I know you've answered this question before, but I'm just wondering, like, Did you see something somewhere on television? Was there bands that you aspired to be like that were playing in bars around Saskatoon, like, what the hell? What? What was that I mean? I mean that earnestly, like,

Speaker 1  24:30  
no, no, I totally know what you mean. Yeah. And I think that there's, like, no shortage of bands that also break up because they suddenly realize how far away everything is geographically. We know once you start touring and how hard it is to come from Western Canada. You know, initially it was really just like, sort of a little bit of, almost like escapism. We were like 19, and we weren't really sure what to do. I mean, it's almost sounds like a country song or something like that. But, like, un broke up with his long term girlfriend, I got fired from my job at block. Buster video. I'll tell you how old I am too. That'll date me as well for some people. And we just decided to do something different. We'd never really played in bands before. We kind of knew, like I'd never played the bass before. I played guitar and piano and stuff. And so we just got together and started jamming as something to do. And it sort of eventually became like a way to do something different. Where did you jam? Our drummer, Sam's parents basement. So Sam's dad, okay, was a musician, and they encouraged us to do it down there. And, you know, we took it pretty seriously. We were terrible, but we took it seriously. We'd like, get together every single day for, like, I don't know, almost a year, probably before someone had to, like, go away or be at work or something. So we we always made time from it. And we went from being like, trying to figure out how to play our instruments to, you know, writing songs, to playing at open mics, like you mentioned, open stage was a big thing, and then playing shows and recording music and going on tour, and it sort of just snowballed from there. But, you know, it was. It really did come from a place of like, you know, when you're like, kind of like 1819, and you're like, stop kind of wanting to just hang out with your high school friends, and you're trying to figure out life and figure out where you want to go. And it, for us was sort of that escape, and we've kind of continued to escape with that rock and roll music ever since.

Jann Arden  26:14  
Tell me about the esthetic. I mean, all you guys are looking really cool, like,

Unknown Speaker  26:20  
really, like, that's a goal, right?

Jann Arden  26:23  
YouTube, it's a 70s vibe. It's an 80s vibe. Once again, Saskatoon, I don't think they were a fashion forward, kind of a cool place. Maybe they're cooler now. I mean, if chapel Rowan can write about Saskatchewan, I guess you know, there's got to be something going on. But there's a real esthetic to you guys. I mean, ask Rolling Stone magazine, but there really is,

Speaker 1  26:45  
yeah, well, I think that, like, it's just we sort of were all of us when we started playing together, whether it was like playing covers or the music we all listened to, it really gravitated towards that sort of vintage 70s rock and roll. It's just kind of like what, you know, we make the music we like, you know, we're talking about sort of 2004 2005 there was a lot of bands like, you know, black keys, white stripes, you know, jets, all these bands that were kind of doing rock and roll white, you know, at the time, I think that was also inspiration. We would like, dug that. But I don't know, weirdly, I often think that a big part of this was I contribute to, like, Napster, like, when we were in high school, no, like, okay, hear me out on this, okay. Like, I'm not gonna promote pirating music, but it was like, you know, used to be had to have, like, someone's like, cool older brother to turn you on to music. Like, if you didn't have that, you were just listening to, like, Chumbawamba or whatever, and so, like, we didn't have, necessarily, none of us had cool to brothers. We were all the older brothers. So we, thankfully, in high school, had access to, like, Napster and the later versions of that, where we could kind of do what people do now, like, go down a rabbit hole, find, like, I would put an artist and then, like, find another artist and use the internet to do that. So we were able to consume so much music. And it really did influence us. We were the Find that thing. It was less about finding that thing that people were telling you you should like, whether it was like, what was on much music or on the radio at the time, and more so what we could find online. So both you and I got really into like, sharing like, Oh, here's this song. Oh, check it. I found this. I love that high school.

Jann Arden  28:18  
No, it. You can send messages to people, literally through music, like, if you have a mood going on, I often will get tracks from all kinds of friends from all over the place. On my whatsapp, they'll send me a track either on Apple or Spotify, and I know exactly they're like, this is what I'm fucking feeling like today. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. That's low, that's really deep. I really love it. I love it so much. Caitlin, I'm going to throw it over to you, because I always hog the questions. Ryan, I'm very known for that on this podcast.

Caitlin Green  28:44  
She also always says this on her own podcast, like, how dare I, like, I grew up listening to a lot of rock, and I think the bands that you just cited, they had their you know, it was like, there's a big rock push, and then it feels like it kind of went to sleep in terms of, like, mainstream dominance for a minute there, whether it was like pop or hip hop or just production changed. But I feel like and I could be wrong, and I'm wondering if you get the same sense that it's coming back a little bit right now. Because I was at, I was at a show. I went to go see Mac DeMarco, and I kind of thought that I was going to be like, my husband. I were like, we're going to be kind of the median age, or maybe a little on the older end. We were the oldest people there by so much, I couldn't believe it. It was crazy, like there were kids crowd surfing. It was like a cultural resurgence at that show that I wasn't familiar with, and I kind of we, like held hands, and we were like, there's hope for the youth. They had digital cameras. None of them were on their phones. It was really different. And then I read an interview with him, and he said, I don't know what's happened, but, like, my songs keep getting introduced to kids on Tiktok. I expect to see people my age at my shows, and they just keep getting younger and younger. And then there are bands like geese, and there's like, there's just this cool moment happening right now. And I'm wondering if you guys in the band feel that too.

Speaker 1  29:56  
I think so. I mean, I think to like the modern version of what I'm talking. About, like, it's really interesting to see younger people now, because they can get into things and they can consume it. They don't need to rely on what's around them in order to consume it. So, you know, I think there's way more niche listening, watching, I know, all the all the different things. And I think what's actually cool about that is, I think also, like, as we become a more digital world, younger people are more drawn to analog, whether it's experience or even just music. I was staying with a friend of mine a couple of months ago in Spain, and his son is 18, and he really wanted to hang out and talk about music to me, because he wants to. He's a bass player, and I heard him like playing bass and stuff at the house. And it was really interesting. He was just, he's he was obsessed with the idea of analog. It was like, tell me about what it's like to go on tour before Google Maps existed. And so, like, he just wanted to hear about this world, which I'm, like, sort of straddle the line of, because I'm, you know, old enough to have gone on tour a little bit without, like, you know, with, like, a book of maps. But like, also in the modern age. And I just have discovered, like so many young people are just so interested in that. And I think at the same time you have, yeah, people don't have to rely on, like, what's trendy around them, necessarily. They can discover things on their own, which is, you know, you see that even in just like, younger people's interest in, you know, environmentalism or something like that, like, people can learn so much about whether it's the environment or, you know, any of that kind of stuff. And they can get, like, get like, get super deep on their information, whereas, you know, when I was a kid, you had to, like, still had to go to little drawer at the library and pull the cards out and take books out of library and all that crazy stuff that people used to do. So have you

Caitlin Green  31:33  
had any sort of, like, success on Tiktok? Have any of your songs taken off there? Or that, is that a conversation that ever happens?

Speaker 1  31:39  
No, I mean, it is not really, but not to the extent of some people. Like, there was one recently, Julie dorah, you know, the artist, like, she had a song, like, blow up on Tiktok, and all these young people were covering her song, and she was just like, Whoa. What's going on here? Like, there's stuff like that that happens. We've never had that, but we've sort of, we've had moments at times, but not, not to that, like big extent, but I'm okay with that too. I don't not gonna. I think it's a bit of a fool's errand to chase some of that stuff sometimes, especially when you're 40 years old too.

Jann Arden  32:10  
Just wait till you're 63

Unknown Speaker  32:14  
I'm waiting for Jann to go viral. Let's do it.

Jann Arden  32:18  
Yeah, you had a little one. Well, I just a little bit. It was something to do with getting rid of Diet Coke. When we went by Canadian, yes, they fine and good mother, worn out goddamn miseries or something, thrown out with all the worn out goddamn miseries, and they just, I'm like, what is happening? Why are they using one fucking line of this song that's about my parents. It's suddenly about diet coke. But I was all in for it, and I think I made over $4 it was really great. I would be remiss not to flip a question over to Sarah, because I know you guys are friends. So Sarah, do you have any questions for Ryan that you haven't been able to ask him over the years? This is your chance.

Unknown Speaker  33:01  
And is it related to the Christmas bar?

Sarah Burke  33:04  
Oh yeah, Ryan took me to a great Christmas bar that got like, all tinseled up last year. Was that last year, two years ago, I don't remember,

Speaker 1  33:11  
and maybe possibly the most intoxicated I've ever been in my entire life. I'm honored. It was, Oh, my God, I've been, like, off. I've been off the sauce, like, for the most part these days, like, and I think back to that, I'm like, oh my god, that was a wild night we had at the Christmas bar.

Sarah Burke  33:27  
So, yeah, the Jew at the Christmas bar was, you're kind of like the dad in the band. You take care of a lot of stuff behind the scenes, and you have your own management company. And it's been really cool. Like, you know, I was sort of telling Jen that we grew up on the radio at the same time. Like, you know, me getting my radio gig and being able to interview you guys. And then, like, every time we would see each other, would be better pals, you know, than the last time. And is there anything now on the management side of things and working with other artists that you wish you told, like, younger you, or your younger version of the sheep dogs.

Speaker 1  34:02  
Well, I try not to, like, get all like, hung up on what I should have done or anything like that. But I think the advice I do always give to young people or other artists is, like, learn as much as you can. And like, understand that no matter like, how much money you make, nobody's gonna care as much about what you than you are. And so try to learn as much as you can, because even when other people are working for you, you want to be able to, like, make sure that they're doing so in your best interest and and make sure that you're making decisions that are in best interest. And that was something that I learned the hard way at times. And also have learned, you know, been proud of what we've done, because we've always sort of maintained a hand and what we've done, I mean, at this point now, like, I also run our we run our own label. We bought our catalog back from Warner, and good for you. Yeah, we started our own label. We're investing money back into making music, rather than buying someone a car or something, like, I don't know, whatever, whatever label people buy these days. Yeah, no. So that's. Is a big thing. It's just like, I feel like I had to learn sometimes that even though, like, there's these fancy people, they'll tell you all these things that they're gonna do for you, it's always eventually gonna come back to you to be responsible of making, either holding them accountable or also just doing it yourself too.

Jann Arden  35:16  
So the more you can control, the better off that you are. I mean, it's just that just makes sense. In any endeavor that you undertake, you've kind of, kind of got to have a hand in in pretty much every aspect of what you're doing. It just, it's not like the old days where you didn't know what was happening. You didn't know what your income stream was. You didn't know they were selling songs, you know, in the 50s for 100 bucks that made them hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of dollars. And the artists would have like $400 like these stories still happen when people are naive. I mean, Ryan would know this. There's, you know, these 360 deals that labels kind of concoct now, which includes taking like half of your touring and your merchandise sales and your publishing. And I always caution young people. I'm like, Listen, you need to really have someone look at what you're being handed. And most of these TV shows, like the voice and American Idol and every different franchise of those variations all over the globe, when they when, when those young people won, they had no fucking idea of how they were going to be pillaged of their art, their any opportunity to make money or to continue their careers, which is why, you see, you know, let's say there's been 100 grand prize winners of all these shows over the last five or six years. You can't name 10 of them because they just, they get absorbed into the ether and and those kinds of careers are not they're not sustainable. Anyway, I could go on about this stuff, because, unlike you, Ryan, I was in an analog decade. I That's all I lived with is was the analog aspect of it. Digital recording hadn't really taken a hold at all. You know, when I first started making records, when

Speaker 1  37:02  
was the first time you were in a studio where you first saw digital recording? Because, I mean, there's obviously, it's been around

Jann Arden  37:08  
for everybody. It would have been the mid 90s. Yeah, it would have been the mid 90s, because we did most of my recording that first 10 years of my career was all in Los Angeles. I was at groove masters. I was at Jackson Browne studio in Santa Monica, and it was live off the floor. It was Jim Keltner and all these fucking crazy, amazing musicians playing with, you know, just Ed Cherney was producing some of my early stuff. It was just crazy days where I just would sing these songs five or six or seven times, and then we'd have a record, and I could see them cutting tape in half to put two passes together, like it was like, what is happening? So digital seems you could record a record in your bathroom now,

Sarah Burke  37:50  
oh, my god, trying to edit this podcast from tape would be, yeah, there would just be

Speaker 1  37:54  
more happy accidents. I think that's what always I mean, there's so many records you listen to where there's just, they just left mistake song because they had no choice, and the band was all hammered, and they had no more takes left in them. Oh yeah,

Sarah Burke  38:05  
I have a

Jann Arden  38:06  
lot of my records have lots of little mistakes on i There's a song called, will you remember me off my very first record, and there's a fucking whistle in there. Jim Keltner was so high. He had smoked so much weed, and he just kept blowing a whistle like he'd be playing this great groov. I mean, this is a man that was with the Traveling Wilburys. Like, I say no more the man.

Sarah Burke  38:28  
Oh, my God. I know how he smelled wonderful.

Jann Arden  38:32  
He's wonderful, but he just was one of those guys, and he wore John Lennon's jeans, like his jeans. He goes, Yeah, John Lennon gave me these jeans. And he wasn't kidding. He was fucking not kidding. But anyway, he kept blowing a whistle. I felt like it was a dawn of summer, beep, beep, beep. You know those things, and we just left it in there, and we just memory forever. Dip it down. But it was, it was on the overheads of the drum kit. So it's, there's this whistle all the way through, and every time I hear that song anyway. Back to you, Ryan.

Sarah Burke  39:04  
We should say, just because he's a pal, that's that's not how this podcast episode happened. Yes, Sarah, you go. The publicist wrote us a note being like Ryan has a great story to tell Jan,

Speaker 1  39:16  
even if I ever meet Jann Arden, even if I ever meet Jann Arden, this is going to be my story. I'm going to tell I love it. I feel like we met maybe one time at a thing, but it was like, very quickly, and I was like, I still got to tell

Jann Arden  39:27  
her this story. Yes, I did meet you guys. I feel like it was in Hamilton at a Juno's thing. I really do. I can't remember my the city's wrong. I've been sober for 10 years, so if it was before and we might have slept together, I don't know you did you ever go to a Christmas bar, Ryan, going, what is your story? Because do I need to be afraid?

Ryan Gullen  39:50  
Honestly, it's one of these things that it's kind of those, something I clocked when I was younger, and it like, kind of stuck with me, and like influenced me. I'm not gonna. Selling too hard here, but influenced me as a person when I became an artist myself. So I'll take you back to 1997 this is like peak Jan, right here. Oh, yeah, I looked it up. It was November, 1997 you played Saskatoon Centennial auditorium. We'll call it what it was called. I would have been in grade six, I guess grade six, grade seven, something like that. And there was a girl in my class named Lindsay, and Lindsay was a huge Jann Arden fan, so she was whatever age you are, in grade six or grade seven. And I know I'm not gonna throw shade here, but I wouldn't say there was a lot of grade sixes in your audience, this is an anomaly. And I think if you think about, like, what, if you think about what like was going on, then it'd be like, the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack, or something like, like the that would be what was hot for people in grade six Backstreet Boys, don't forget, yeah, wow, yeah, that wouldn't like, anyways, but so she was, she kind of maybe God made fun of a little bit for maybe being a Jane Arden fan. And again, this is, I

Jann Arden  41:07  
understand, yeah,

Speaker 1  41:09  
but she wrote you a letter, and she wrote you a letter, and you wrote her back. And so she came to school one day and was like, Jann Arden wrote me back, and she's telling everyone about this, and that was kind of cool for her. And then you came through Saskatoon, and you know, this is not the days of email. You wrote her a letter, you tracked her down, you reached out to her, and you invited her to the show. And I don't know if you remember this at all, but she came to the show, and you gave her, like the backstage pass, the whole treatment, you know, took a non digital photo with her, all that stuff. And the next day she came back to school and she had all the swag from the show. She had all this stuff. And like, everyone was just like, not making fun of her. They're just like, oh my god, you got to meet Jann hard, and that's so cool, like, and so you can imagine being like a pre tween girl, whatever age, and having this moment where, you know, it just like, blew her mind. I mean, I haven't, I don't know if I've seen Lindsay since, maybe, maybe something on the show. I know I sort of joke that we should have brought her in, but you know, it's always stuck with me. And I, like, I clocked this when I was however old, but it struck me as, like, a wild thing, that something that was probably relatively insignificant to you, but just that you took that little bit of time to, like, make this person feel seen and make them feel important. Like, I don't know, I'd be curious to get her take on this, because, like, literally, she got to come to school and be super cool and and show off all this stuff for this, because she's a Jane Arden fan. And I always thought it was, like, wild a that you replied, but also that you, like, solder out and all that stuff. And so I kept this with me, and I honestly, it stuck with me. And as I became like a popular musician, I always remember this that it's like sometimes what might be insignificant amount of small time that you can do to pay attention to someone, give somebody time can go so long, and you never know, like, what that impact could have on that person, especially like in that situation, like, you know, you could imagine that someone at that age probably doesn't have the most self esteem or whatever, and so, like, honestly, I wanted to thank you for kind of instilling that in me indirectly, not knowing that you were having impact on me. But I've always made a point to give people the time a day to stop and talk to people, you know, give somebody a backstage tour, or give them a lanyard, or give them, you know, that kind of stuff, because you never know, like, what impact that could happen. This is a story that I've been dying to tell you for all these years, that I never forgotten, that

Jann Arden  43:37  
I appreciate it so much. No, I remember that I've done it a few times in my life. I wish I could do it for everyone, but what it does for me, it's probably super selfish. It just makes me feel like I have a hot liquid inside of my chest, and it just, it just moves around like just a heating pad. It feels otherworldly. And I think I've always sort of lived in a place of gratitude, because I am that kid. I am Lindsay from Spring bank, Alberta, who could never have fathomed that someone who looked like me and where I was from, such a small community could have, you know, gotten into the music business. You know, I just it seemed so far away. But I think she probably did more for me than I ever did for her. And, I mean,

Speaker 1  44:32  
it'd be interesting. I mean, you never know. That's what I'm saying, is you never know how much of impact that could have on wild.

Jann Arden  44:38  
Yeah, we all benefit. And sometimes it just works out that you can do it. I remember Corey Hoban. Hi, Corey Hoban, if you're listening, she was 15 years old, and she was in Ottawa. It was a similar situation, and I received a letter, and I tracked her down in Ottawa and brought her to the show, but she was in a really tough time in her life. But I remember ringing the doorbell at her house. I think I took a taxi, or maybe one of the showrunners took me to her house, and I was by myself, and her mom answered the door, and they had ordered Chinese food that night, and they were having, like the family together for Chinese food. And I said, Hi, is Corey home? And her mom just looked at me like, What the hell. And I sat and I had Chinese food with this family court the hobans in Ottawa. I still Corey is married now, and they have a beautiful daughter and and we've kept in touch. She's in her 40s now, and it's it's done so much for me over the years, just to like, I'm I appreciate you telling me, because I you know, you don't know what they're gonna think, but it takes so much energy to be an asshole. I can't even tell you it is a premeditive, purposeful to choose meanness or cruelty. You have to choose it and kindness you don't. You just have to let yourself go into it. You just have to lean forward and you're already there. So when you run into people that are idiots in the industry, in the music business, that are mean spirited, treat other people like shit, I've seen it time and time and time again, and I just roll my eyeballs and I'm like, wow, fame is fleeting. I really can't wait to see what happens to you just in your own personal life. Never mind, never mind the career that you've chosen for yourself. But in the spirit of what music is, it's about kindness, connection, thoughtfulness, heartbreak, overcoming grief. And I've said to these guys so many times, you're not going to hear me at a rave or any but you'll hear me in a minivan, you'll hear me in somebody's fucking minivan, and that's okay, but thank you for telling me that, Ryan. It means a lot, and I'm glad that there's a little spark of that that rubbed off on you, because I had people where it rubbed off on me too. I'd hear stories about, you know, back in the day, things that Anne Murray did, or bet Midler or that they'd show up or sign something or wait. And I just thought, that's what I want to be like if I ever get anywhere. I want to be, you know, I dropped my partner off at the airport today, and someone was calling my name. I was at the West jet counter, and I thought, Do I turn around? And I turned around. There was a lineup, you know, people trying to check in, and it was this woman, and she was waving, waving. And I said to thornis, I'm just gonna go to this woman, because she's just making a little bit of a scene. So I I walked 15 feet over, and I said, Hey. I said, as I said, Do you need a picture? She goes, No, I'm going to see brandy Carlisle. And I love you so much, and I'm so happy, and I can't believe I'm seeing you with thortis. And we just hugged. We just hugged in the West jet line, and she hugged me so hard, and I just everyone was looking, and I just thought, what a gift that I just got. And she was so excited to go see Brandi Carlile, and it makes me emotional, because people just want to do good. They just want to feel good.

Speaker 1  48:13  
They just, they just now more than ever. I feel like people are like, searching for

Jann Arden  48:17  
now more than ever, and I thought, and I could hear my mother's voice, would it kill you to walk over there and say hello? And thorn has said, go see what she wants. And I've walked over a lot of people wouldn't.

Sarah Burke  48:31  
And it sounds like you had that split second where you were like, because anticipated,

Jann Arden  48:35  
yes, I was trying to get her in. But I swear to God, my mom comes into my body. Would it kill you to sign that little piece of paper? And she's right, it wouldn't.

Speaker 1  48:46  
So I appreciate it. Well, I appreciate you. I wanted to say, thanks.

Jann Arden  48:49  
Well, I don't always get it right, but I do try, and I I fumble. But you know you, if you take responsibility for your fumbles, you're you're halfway there, it's when you just throw your head back and think that you are entitled, that you deserve to walk above everybody else. Apathy, it just fucks us over. And in music, of all things, my God, you're in the you're you're doing the work of angels for God's sakes, like, just appreciate what people are handing you.

Sarah Burke  49:17  
Lindsay, you hear this? You got to get in touch.

Speaker 1  49:20  
Yeah, I was gonna say, I probably am friends with her on Facebook. I should have looked that up, but it's always that thing. You gotta figure out what people's like. New Names are. New Names are I was gonna say, to your point, I think something I've always thought about is like, there has to be a certain level of narcissism for musicians to be, like, I have something special, and I'm going to go stand in front of like, a room full of strangers and perform it. But the key to like, success and longevity is to be able to dial that like, to dial that back and have gratitude and have understanding that it's like, it's not all a given. You're going to have to work hard. There's going to be ups and downs, and I think the people that I know that you know there's. Was a strong correlation between people who have long careers in music and people who are, you know, kind and, you know, good to the people around them, and not, you know, assholes, not just like being, being, you know, that narcissistic thing, because there is the tendency, and you've all seen it like for the people that go way, the other way, and just get so full of themselves. And most of the time, those people kind of just slowly disappear and you stop hearing about them. There's definitely there's definitely a correlation between, like, longevity and in music, and, you know, being, being kindness and kindness and gratitude.

Jann Arden  50:31  
I have a lack of narcissism. I do not have it. If anything, it's the antithesis. And I have, I have confidence and I have but I have no self esteem. So it's a weird thing, but it's been a nice balance for me in what I do, because I don't know what I'm doing in anything that I do, I'm not great at anything,

Sarah Burke  50:51  
hence hogging the podcast questions.

Jann Arden  50:56  
That's right, that's right, and that's why I need you guys to, you know, make me fly, right? But I have the absence of narcissism. I don't have it, and it could be a contributing factor to how far like, I didn't get in the United States, or how far I didn't get.

Speaker 1  51:11  
What's really interesting in, like, the world of people are talking about, like, AI music, and what's that? What's that going to mean for musicians in the future? And I think it's like, what's really interesting to your point, is doing shows like post covid, when everyone, like, finally got to be back in a room, like, sharing a moment together. Like there's something that's so, like, magical, and like the feeling of that when people were just so excited to be back having, like, shared experience, being in public, experiencing something, I mean, people just went crazy on spending money on that when they didn't have it. And I think that that's going to be the part that's going to prevail over all this, like digital, you know, stuff is that people want experience, they want to be in a room with, you know, 1000 other people

Sarah Burke  51:49  
speaking of which, what's your band doing?

Speaker 1  51:53  
Well, funny, you'd ask, we have a new album coming out on February 27 and yeah, we're going, congratulations, Ryan.

Jann Arden  52:03  
That's exciting. Oh yeah, always, always. And the label owners, you that you're the owners. We've been just

Speaker 1  52:10  
like, trying to put out as much music as possible because we can now. The album's called, keep out of the storm. And it's a, yeah, I said February 27 and then march 13, until the end of April, we're going all across as well, to Calgary. We've been touring a lot in Europe the last little while, so we're back across the country and coming and going

Sarah Burke  52:30  
and always a good time. So don't miss a show if they've gone in your area.

Jann Arden  52:33  
If I if I can come and see you, I fully expect comp tickets, Ryan,

Speaker 1  52:38  
if you write me a letter, maybe I'll show you about you a letter.

Jann Arden  52:41  
I will write you a letter, and I'll bring my Polaroid camera.

Speaker 1  52:44  
Yeah, actually, we're doing, we're doing, like, a VIP thing, and we're doing Polaroids as, like, the band, like, get a Polaroid with the band thing, which is, I

Jann Arden  52:53  
love that. And I'm telling you, kicking it old school. There's nothing like standing around a piece of, you know, film and just watching it develop right before your very eyes. One of the greatest inventions of the last 100 years is a Polaroid camera, and they're all coming back. Ryan, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show sharing a great story. Congratulations with all your amazing success, you make Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and all of Canada proud. I have seen you guys play before, and I thought you were fucking kick ass. And just as a sidebar, bass is my favorite instrument. You can ask my band, my guy, Norm Fisher, who's played with me for years, is fantastic player, and he's the only guy that I really have cranked up in my in ears, because he's the only guy in tune. But congratulations on everything. You're a great guy, and I wish you guys nothing but success. You deserve it, and just keep kicking ass and keeping being entrepreneurial. It's great for young people to hear about you guys taking that financial risk and investing in yourselves and re looking at an industry that, you know, for decades and decades, kind of sold one way of doing things, you know, the big label system and all of that. And digital stuff has changed the game. Obviously, the internet streaming has changed how we release music. So it's great that people have someone to look up to a really cool band and go, Fuck if they can do it. We can do it too, and that's awesome. But I appreciate your story so much, and appreciate you guys, and you're welcome anytime back in the show.

Speaker 1  54:30  
So hopefully I'll see you in Calgary. Well, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. I, like I said, you a very small thing you did in 1997 had a big impact on me, and I wanted to share that with you.

Jann Arden  54:39  
So Ryan Gullen has been our guest. We'll talk to you next time on the Jann Arden podcast.

Jann Arden  54:51  
Why don't we end the show, as always, with a few voice notes?

Speaker 2  54:54  
Hi guys. It's Sherry from Toronto with a question for you. I just listened to the episode with Jen. And Caitlin and Sarah and Kate and Sarah. Great episode, by the way. I just listened to that on my way home from work. And then when I got home, I pulled up the on your website the video, because I wanted to see Sarah Paulie and just re watch a little bit of the interview. And then I noticed that the scroll Caitlin's the scroll was on the video, but it wasn't on the podcast version that I listened to on the way home. So that made me curious about totally like, was it a length thing? Do you guys have your own

Jann Arden  55:34  
little rules or no, it was length rule. We're sorry Caitlin,

Speaker 2  55:40  
about how long it should podcast should be, and that's that's a good question. Yes, process. That's it for me today. You, all of you are awesome, and thank you very much for the great job you're doing here and for keeping us entertained. Thanks so much.

Sarah Burke  55:58  
Why don't we tease ahead? We'll talk about this in the process, in Patreon.

Jann Arden  56:01  
That's the first time that's ever happened. Quite frankly, we just started the scroll, yeah, and this is my fault. So I sometimes I drag these conversations out so long, and which I'm doing right now, again, anyway, shut up. Just shut up.

Caitlin Green  56:14  
Answer, short answer for her, in case she's not following us on Patreon, which you should be just saying,

Sarah Burke  56:20  
it is length. It is length, yeah, okay, we

Speaker 3  56:22  
got one more here. Always looking forward to my Friday night routines with the Jane Arden podcast and listening to so much joyous and uplifting experience tonight. It's brought me sadness, listening to Sarah and Caitlin and Jann talk about how it takes a village so many people to entertain children, take care of children. Some of us have had to do it alone as single parents, and not only single parents, but single parents who have lost their own parents and continued to do it alone. So some of us have limited villages, and just very disappointing tonight to hear that it came across as that the more people the merrier, and some of us have had to make the merriest for our children with so little resources, so with a heavy heart on a Friday night, very disappointed. Thank you.

Jann Arden  57:33  
Okay, well, I'll, I'll address that first of all, my heartfelt apology for making you feel on the outside of that conversation and looking in, we don't always get it right. I think sometimes we talk about our own personal experiences. I kind of had a single mom that had very few friends. She's married to my dad. My dad was an alcoholic. I was a kid that took a school bus. My mom worked, I came home alone. I had lots of chores. We didn't have help. There was no babysitters or things like that that came in. We really were on our own, and so I apologize, that is my experience. I grew up with a mom that did everything and then battled my dad's alcoholism. You know, when he decided to show up, it was always combative, and it was really hard, and there's a lot of stuff there that I'm probably still unraveling. So don't think I go into this blindly. I We didn't have a large extended anything. There wasn't a lot of friends that came over, like if my mom had a coffee date. It was very rare, because she was working and trying to look after us. So I apologize.

Sarah Burke  58:40  
You know what, Jen, you did bring up, I remember you said, Imagine the single moms You did say that.

Jann Arden  58:47  
Yeah, well, I think obviously we've heard somebody's feelings, and that was certainly not the case. I admire you and respect you. We all do, and I think it is unbelievably difficult. You know, I was in my 50s when I lost my parents, and I live kind of alone in the trees. I mean, I have a partner now, and I'm very, very grateful that I go back and forth to Iceland and she comes here, and I have great friends, and I've worked hard to create that circle. I've worked really hard to do that anyway.

Caitlin Green  59:18  
I also think, like, as a parent, you're just understandably so, so sensitive whenever you feel like you're hearing something that might, I guess, sort of like, reinforce, like, a fear you have in your own heart. Of like, you know, is the fact that I am a single parent and don't have this big village around is that going to be harmful for my kids? Or do people perceive that it might be not so great for my kids, even though it's not, and I hope you don't think that we feel that way at all. We don't like I'm sure. I know so many amazing single parents, and I see them just doing the lion's share of everything, like putting food on the table, managing Christmas, like

Jann Arden  59:52  
even ones that have partners Caitlin are doing the fucking lion's share.

Caitlin Green  59:56  
You might have lost a partner, you might have family, but maybe they're not playing an. Character role in your child's life for many reasons, but, you know, I think that it just single parents just know that, like none of us, believe, that your kids will be worse off for it. I see some of the most well loved children in a household of one. And you know, there's, there's so many versions of family. So I just don't want anyone listening to think that we were coming from this in any other way than just like we feel lucky, that's really it.

Sarah Burke  1:00:24  
And you know what? I prompted this conversation because I was talking about how exhausting the time with the kids was, even though it was so amazing and so worth it. And just know that I was coming at that from a place of like, I admire any parent, because I know how much work it takes, whether you have support. Or Sarah

Jann Arden  1:00:41  
and I are very new to kind of the extra Guardian role, step parent role.

Sarah Burke  1:00:48  
We're really call myself anywhere close, but I mean, I'm

Jann Arden  1:00:52  
exactly I'm not officially that yet, but I feel like I'm that anyway. Our apologies. I hope you'll keep listening. And for anyone that sometimes you don't feel included in the conversations that we have, we love having your comments. Please leave us a voice note. Let us know if there's things you want us to talk about or things that you're curious about with any of us. So we're pretty transparent of how we approach this podcast. We know that you know so much of our listenership are really a lot of women that want to hear our personal experiences, how we get through life, how we problem solve, and Caitlin has been our in house parent. So yes, we rely heavily.

Caitlin Green  1:01:34  
I'm still kind of new, right? Like, will just a toddler, so I'm like, I'm still pretty new. Yeah. Anyways, I want to send a big hug to that fellow mom, because I know lots of single moms. They're in my family, they're in my life. They do everything for everyone else all the time, as I'm sure you do, and the love of one great mom will outsize anything else in this world. I'm living proof Exactly, exactly

Jann Arden  1:01:57  
I am, living proof that my mom, she's so responsible for everything that I am. Anyway, our show today, thanks for all your your voice notes, as usual, folks and Ryan go thanks to him, and, of course, to Sarah and Caitlin. We will see you on the other side, on Patreon. Today, we're going to talk about, what are we going to talk

Caitlin Green  1:02:15  
about, underwear that measures your health using your own farts.

Jann Arden  1:02:19  
Jesus H Christ, do not miss this. You've been listening to the Jann Arden podcast. We'll see you next time. Totally Do you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai