hey taiwan i'm lao and i'm chatting with
joey chow on icrt fm 100.
what's up fam i'm joey you know and
today we're speaking with someone uh
perhaps for the third time in the last
two or three years the first time we got
to speak with him was in hong kong at
one of his shows then
and then of course the pandemic has kept
us apart but in the meantime we're still
listening to our favorite smash hits
from him songs like i like me better i'm
so tired and my personal favorite
paris in the rain today we have loud
once again
what's up man how are you great how are
you very well i'm so glad that we can do
this all over again and i'm so glad that
you got new music out uh but first off
congrats on the new album another
beautiful body of work and a double
congrats on your birthday just a couple
of days ago did you mean to put these
two together no it kind of landed that
way but i loved it i was like this is
perfect when i heard that that's that's
the date that we wanted to go for for
the album i was like this is perfect so
did you have a some sort of a double
celebration for the album and your
birthday yeah lots of cakes
too many cakes yeah way too much lots of
happy birthdays i did a couple of
signings on my actual birthday
um it was really cute so since you're
someone who has never shied away from
cerebral
conversations and philos philosophical
conversations i want to ask you a couple
of big ones to start okay so
27 years on planet earth
what's the one thing that you like the
most about planet earth or being here
and what's the one thing that you like
the least about it so
what i like the most is just vulnerable
connection with people so like
feeling true emotional connection with
another human is really
my favorite feeling on planet earth
um it's just so i don't know it feels
like connecting to the higher source
so i love that
my least favorite thing is probably
um
i guess just how much how much
pain and suffering there also is
on the planet you know obviously i guess
you can't have
good without bad but yeah there's yeah
without getting too far into it no
you're right you can't the two things
you just mentioned you can't really have
one without the other it's the pain and
suffering that makes us connect in a
sense right yeah and yeah i think that's
why we love you
and not just your music but the way you
conduct yourself you really let your
fans into your life i do um wonder
though why is this album um it seems to
be talking a lot about you know your
life
um more it's a lot more even more
intimate than the previous bodies of
work but there is a lot of you know
falling in love involved why is it
called all for nothing for the first
part of the title yeah i mean it's
called for nothing because i mean really
like the big theme that i was
experiencing in my life
was sort of like um
realizing that everything on the outside
it because it kind of has dual meaning
it has the meaning you know like pulled
from the single all for nothing and it
has you know a bigger meaning for the
album and the album
really for me is like without being able
to stay in touch with that part of
yourself that you have as a little kid
that free and loving and innocent and
like wild and whatever part of yourself
that like growing up is all for nothing
like it doesn't even matter like
i was at a point when i started this
album where i was just
i was so so anxious and so negative and
just
feeling a lot of stress and
regardless of the good things that i had
tangibly in my life and i was like
without feeling okay on the inside that
none of this stuff really matters until
i feel better
um
and then you know there's love in there
obviously love is you know one way that
we
tap into that frequency of of healing
and feeling better and everything so the
first part of what you said is the
sentiment that i recently had actually
it's it's weird that
you go through life you learn so much
you think you matured so much but then
you really miss
that moment when you were a kid and
sometimes you come full circle and you
just kind of want to come back to that
that's where comfort really is is that
also part of this album 100 it was just
me trying stumbling around trying to
find that feeling trying to find that
sense of
existence again that's so weird that we
do that isn't it yeah no it is
interesting because you gain so many
experiences but you also gain so many
chips on your shoulder and so much
anxiety and fear and overthinking and
and all this identity molding stuff that
actually
it's it was almost better when you
didn't know who you were you know what i
mean when you were just a kid having fun
okay so uh the title track i hear that
someone very special helped to write
this single yeah this friend also helped
you uh contributed a couple of verses to
your first track 26
um which
can you tell me when you wrote this one
like did you read it when you just
turned 26 and then released it later or
what's the timeline on this um 26 i
wrote yeah like pretty soon after i
turned 26 i feel like okay yeah and yeah
that song was an interesting one to
write because i was sort of like all the
lyrics were falling out of me in this
very
intense way that i was kind of like is
this really what's happening is this
really how i feel about my life you know
and i was kind of like shocked
so um
but i'm glad i feel like that was a
great place to progress from do you
think you might write a 27 or 28 kind of
like adele except as track titles yeah i
don't know who knows maybe when i turn
30 because yeah now i'm 28 which is
crazy i have full confidence that you
can actually embrace aging and take the
whole journey and take us with you now
from 26 where you mentioned things like
um the more i get older the less i want
to be sober which i think is something
that a lot of people go through you know
i could feel that
to a song that kind of resonates with
that thoughts uh the song hey ari where
you ask yourself it's been days since
you've been sober and you're not getting
any younger
um i want to ask you now in
at this moment
are we are you happy yeah i'm feeling
happy right now which i know like i can
only really
expect moment to moment i can't really
expect to be happy all the time
but i am happy in this moment so i'm
thankful for that i hear you're spending
a lot of time with family too right so
you're reconnecting
yeah i mean well family friends just
my dogs a lot of meditation
what's up with billy yeah
yeah billy and harry um
i think they've both been great
and yeah now i'm on tour or i'm just
starting my tour so it's crazy i want to
talk about the tour right now actually
so you uh had a few dates you got a feet
uh you got to see your fans again what's
it like man after what 20 because 2021
was you didn't have us any song or any
new songs released right and now to have
this body of work and just present it to
your fans what's it like it was amazing
like i've done a couple of like acoustic
things so far
and just reconnecting with everyone
feels so good like i i missed everybody
so much and
um i missed the shows i missed
giving hugs and getting hugs and just
screaming the words together and just
being goofy and having a great time
so yeah i'm i'm i really can't wait for
these all these shows hey you took
somebody else on tour with you right
haley or is it is that the right way to
put it haley kiyoko was sort of on a few
dates with you yeah haley kyoku is
coming on the tour yeah and that may
have something to do with she just
recently dropped her album
uh panorama so how did this collapse
like did you talk to her about it or is
this a sort of a management thing like
yeah the funny thing is we haven't even
actually met in person yet so i'm really
excited i think we're gonna meet
like in two days
yeah but we've just been talking on the
internet and stuff um so i'm really
excited
and it's going to be it's going to be an
amazing tour and yeah we have some other
people
coming on the tour too so it's going to
be great
is there anybody you could tell us or
you're keeping tight-lipped about it oh
yeah well let's see i mean um we have uh
david kushner
and payday
oh um
yeah yeah there's there's a few other
artists that are kind of doing some
split dates and stuff so i'm i'm really
really excited it's going to be sounds
fun it sounds fun you used to do this
thing where it's uh my blue thoughts
right it was a box where people can slip
notes into it then it turned into a
booth where people can record into it
what's the new are you going to do this
again so i'm starting a new thing it's
going to be called laos meditation club
where um and we're launching it yeah i'm
super excited because i've just been
super into that and i found it's been so
helpful for me
so um
details about it are coming super soon i
don't have the details that i can share
yet but there's going to be yeah laos
meditation club and i'm trying to launch
that on the tour and outside of the tour
so it's going to be really cool all
right everybody look out for that one uh
now we i see that your dates are pretty
busy all the way up to say october
then in november it seems like you
already have a fixed date for thailand
are you going to do a whole asia leg
what's have you heard anything from
management and what are your personal
plans we're definitely working on way
more asia dates for sure so
um anything that's announced is you know
is up right now but yeah it's definitely
working on way more
and i can't wait it's going to be so fun
i just feel like
i'm i'm so excited for the tour that i'm
doing right now but i feel like it feels
wrong that i don't have every i don't
have every single place yet so that's
working really hard on that to secure
all of it yeah we we love for you to
come to taiwan i can't tell you how many
weddings i've been to in the last two to
three years where they played paris in
the rain as the british
is that amazing how does that make you
feel about using your music as their
wedding songs that's so cute i mean
that's amazing because i actually wrote
that song like reminiscing
on a relationship that passed yeah so
it's amazing that people are like at
weddings getting married to it and it's
like working out that's so beautiful
yeah yeah they're fixing
the hurt that you had while writing that
song by having their you know their
their bond in marriage i think that is
beautiful that's a full circle thing
yeah i'm just that's that's when any
anytime people use my music that's like
specific or something like that like
that's just gorgeous
yeah congrats to all the lovely people i
think your music is is great for healing
really i mean especially during the
pandemic last year as we said no new
music but like a billion streams i think
people really need your music as
consolation during those time
all right the feels if you got the feels
from that please make sure that you uh
wait patiently for hopefully the whole
asian leg of the tour may maybe come
into taiwan
yeah look out for laos meditation club
which is another cool thing that i can't
wait
it's going to be sweet ari thank you so
much for joining us here today thank you
thank you so much for having me and
everybody else go listen to every single
single from all for nothing i'm so in
love have a good day
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