← The Good Sex Project
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ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.
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Hello there. I'm James Richardson and I host the Tony Football Show. Now this summer, the biggest sporting event in the world, the football Men's World cup, is heading to Canada, Mexico and especially the United States. We're going to be there too. We are packing up and heading to Los Angeles for the duration. Which means that every day straight after the last match has concluded, you can catch some hot takes, instant reaction and insightful analysis from ourselves sat around the pool in la. Sounds like we're going to have a lot of fun doing it. I hope you're going to be joining us too. It's from June 10th all the way up to July 19th, the day of the final. Just search for the Tony Football show wherever you get your podcast.
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Foreign.
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ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.
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Welcome back to the Good Sex Project. I'm Melody Thomas and if you've listened to our last episode, Things Fell Apart, which was about rupture and repair or what happens when relationships crack and whether you can put them back together, then this conversation is going to feel like the other side of that coin. Tom Scott's a musician, a father, a really thoughtful and entertaining person to yap with about everything, but especially about love. Tom's first solo album, Anitya, was released last year and it's gorgeous. It's one of my favourite things that he's ever done. It's split into two halves. The first half is about the wreckage of a 10 year relationship ending and the second half is about the redemption of falling in love again. So rupture and what comes after and the putting back together of yourself when the relationship is unsalvageable. In this conversation, we get into the patterns and cycles that we inherit, the ways that we run from pain and call it living, what accountability actually looks like, male vulnerability, and why yearning is severely underrated. This one went long and deep and into some unexpected places. I hope you love it.
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C
Kia ora. I'm Tom Scott and I'm here with the lovely melody. And this is Garden Hose.
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E
Is it okay?
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C
Is that what you call it?
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E
Yeah, this is Garden hose.
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C
You just said it.
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E
It's the Good Sex Project is the podcast, but Garden Hose is part two.
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C
Okay, cool. I got some hoes in the shed. There.
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E
You did it.
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C
You started. You wanted me to do the dad joke. There you. This is not my.
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D
Okay, serious.
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E
Okay, sweet, because I want to talk about your Album.
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C
Okay. Yep.
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E
Is it fair to say it's your most personal and vulnerable album?
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C
It feels that way, sadly. I think it probably is, yeah.
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E
And it's an album of two sides. Can you talk to us a little bit about what those two sides are, how they're kind of different and how they came to be that way?
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C
Yeah, sure. So I was with my ex partner for 10 years. You know, we had a family together, we bought this house together, went for a lot together, and then we broke up. And instead of getting therapy, I wrote an R B album about it. Now I got therapy too. But, yeah, there's a lot of stuff I was going through that I just couldn't really get through without music. And I guess that's why we have so many breakup albums in the world. And so it started off as that, and then I fell in love again. And then I just started writing songs about this beautiful woman that I'm with currently. And it sort of found a balance in, like, heartbreak and the opposite of heartbreak. And then that kind of made a bit of sense to me because, you know, like, things never really conclude like they do on the movies. You know, they sort of just merge and. And blend into each other. And the concept, Anitzha, is exactly that. It's like impermanence. Things are always in flux and flowing into each other.
- [04:24]
E
I love it.
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C
Thank you.
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E
I think it's my. You know, I've loved a lot of what you've done, but I think it is my favourite. There's a lot of love on it, but there's also a lot of pain and regret. And I think at your album listening party in Wellington, you talked about learning to sit in the pain. That's kind of on here as well, is like, what was your approach prior to learning to sit in the pain,
- [04:46]
C
run from the pain. Why would you sit in it? That my friend said to me the other day, like, try driving home with the radio off and the longest drive of all time, like, just with your thoughts, dealing with them. But that is what we all do, you know, we try to medicate through the pain and try to find ways. It's like natural instinct, right? You know, just to avoid pain and run to pleasure, physical or otherwise. And you can really use it as a way to soothe pain, but it doesn't solve the underlying problem. And for me, I found, like, as a ex addict, you can change the substance but still have the. The wiring. I mean, you can just find yourself addicted to sex or addicted to spending or addicted to. Addicted to working out. But so now you're still doing the same habit. You just fucking replace the. The bottle with whatever. So, yeah, where I've been at in the last however many years, I've been trying to just sit with pain a bit more. And also, like, when habits keep repeating themselves and cycles keep repeating themselves, at some point you got to go, like, how do I stop this one? Like, I don't want this to. To rule my life. And there's still so many negative things that rule my life. I'm not some kind of, you know, Buddha sitting under this tree right now telling you I found enlightenment. It's like, I still got, you know, old habits that I. I break into every now and then, and, like, ways I react that are negative that I learned in negative situations back in the day that still show themselves. But there's a few things that I've definitely broken. And on this album, like, I was proud to admit, like, bro, I've broken my habit of, like, resorting to. To love as a drug. I've broken my habit of resorting to alcohol, weed, whatever, substances as a. As a way to run from things. I'm, you know, two years sober at the end of this year. So, like, there's things I've really done well with and I'm proud of and. And other things I still got to work on, but it's just been human in it.
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E
Can you tell me how the, like, running from the pain affected your relationship, your romantic relationship? Yeah, well, effects or.
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C
Yeah, well, a friend of mine was saying the other day, like, his baby mama. I think your baby mama tells you the ultimate truth, because they don't have no fucking time to be massaging your ego, so you should listen to them. Sometimes there's truth within every insult. But his baby mama had told him, like, when are you truly happy? And he goes, you know, when I'm on stage or when I'm having sex. And she's like, bro, those are, like, the most extreme cases of, like, pleasure, you know? And he had to question himself. Like, if I'm really only running to the extreme heights of pleasure and not enjoying the rest of it, what am I doing? So, like, for me, whenever there would be pain or disagreement or just an uneasy place, I'd be like, how can I find the extreme happy place If I drink this, boom, straight to happy place. Or if I call her straight to happy place, it's just medicating. And, like, I went to aa, na ssa, all the A's. I had to look at it for a while. My dad just got out of rehab. He's 72. He's been in and out of that place his whole fucking life. I'm like, I don't want to end up like that. And I just realized there's millions of different ways to get high, and sex is sometimes one of them. And then you got a question, like, what made me think of sex as a drug? What made me think of sex as the ultimate height?
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E
Yeah. Can you answer that question?
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C
I think, yeah. I think, like, there's flaws in what it is to be a man that you have to think about, like, what you think being a man is about this sort of, like, conquest for woman. There's like, I don't want to blame it on music, because I'd like to think that music doesn't influence you that much, but it kind of does. When you grow up listening to certain. Like, your idols are talking about this and that, and you think that's what it is. And then watching the role models that were in my life, not to blame it on them either, but my dad was cheating on my mum while my mom was cheating on my dad. And.
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E
And the industry, music industry, kind of
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C
music industry, makes you think you're supposed to bag this girl after the show, and that's what makes you cool. And I remember one time I. I went home with this girl after the show. I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna go home with someone. And I danced with this girl, and boom, bam. We went back to the hotel. And then yada, yada. Then she left. And then I was just sitting there. Like, I feel used. Like, I was like, this isn't as cool as I thought it would be. Like, having the experience and the hindsight later to realize this shit don't fix it. But, yeah, I think, like, even the way sex is presented and advertising, it confuses us. Like, it makes us think it's currency. It's like the ultimate prize, and it is what we're here for. You got to address that, too.
- [10:14]
E
That's why we're here.
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C
That's why we're here. Like, nothing feels. We were just talking about gardening and how it feels like the most natural form of, you know, a dopamine hit. Yeah, because I'm here growing my food. This is like, what I'm here to do. Same with sex. Like, I'm here to reproduce. I'm here to repopulate the planet as well.
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E
Like, connect with another.
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C
But then we've broken that, the point of it. And now we can have sex Just for leisure and pleasure. And it's like there's consequences to that.
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E
Yeah, there can be.
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C
There's a line in the homebrew somewhere I said like something about I thought true love lasted 12 years and you thought it lasted 10. Something like, you know, like it was gonna be over, but you've made it last.
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E
Yeah. So for, for 20 years.
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B
Yeah.
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E
Yeah.
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C
And see now I look at like people in my old situation and sometimes I see them at the zoo like pushing the kids around like that. I'm like, they look miserable and I'm jealous and.
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E
You're jealous?
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C
Yeah, a little bit. Because it's like, it's cool. It's cool watching people stick it out and, and hold it together. I don't think there's, that there's. There's green grass on either side. I don't think there's the right way to do it. Yeah, breaking up is hard to do.
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E
Yeah.
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C
Like I'm glad she did it cuz I wouldn't have done it. Men just go, yeah.
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E
And then they go, oh, that came out of nowhere. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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C
What's wrong? Is it cuz I've been cheating on you for the last. What's wrong with that? Yeah, no, I seen a thing the other day that women do way better in breakups than men.
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E
I've been reading a bell hook's book called the Will to Change, which is a really gorgeous book about. Mostly about how the patriarchy wounds men and hurts men and the people that they end up with by cutting them off from their emotions. There's a quote I'm going to read to you. Is that all right? And then we'll talk about it. So she says the first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence towards women. Instead, patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self esteem. Does that, does the like idea of self. Emotional self mutilation and cutting off access to emotions that aren't. I guess anger. Does that resonate with you or with your conditioning, how you're brought up?
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C
This sounds like poor me, but I definitely grew up around a lot of violence and I learned violence from violent men. And then my peers were violent kids who had learned violence from violent men. And that's some real shit. And there's like times where men are alone, where we resort back to animal, like, violence. And that's the code of our, like, you know, and sometimes part of me enjoys it because I'm like, let's fight this out. I don't want to talk to you about this. Let's just fight. Like two giraffes. Watching giraffes fight. So beautiful.
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E
Crazy.
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C
You know, sometimes it's cool, but it's like lizard brain, and I hate when it wins. And then I seen this primatologists speak about these baboons one time. Baboons are crazy baboons, right? And this guy didn't even like the baboons. He's like, not the ones, bro. There's no hope for them. And then, so anyway, these baboons are living near this. This resort gets built, and these baboons are going to eat out the dumpster. And it's only the strongest ones that go there, the. The alphas, and they're eating the stuff out the dumpster. And then turns out they get tuberculosis from. From it. And so all the. The alphas are down, die out. And what happens is the other members of the tribe are, you know, chill, they're not violent, and the woman start digging it. And then later on, these alphas from another place turn up and they're like, boom, boom, boom, boom. And the woman are like, we don't mess with that.
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E
We're not into that anymore.
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C
We're not into that anymore. And they change. And for me, that was a huge one because it's so easy to say, we are what we are. We're men. We're, you know, we're wired how we are and blame it all on evolution. And to hear that these animals had the capacity to change, that really woke me up and made me realize, nah, this is like, yeah, I mean, maybe you have to have evolutionary pressure on you where women enjoy that.
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E
Yeah.
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C
And sometimes as a man, I'll say this. This is, like, so weird to say, but sometimes as a man, I feel like my woman wants me to protect her physically, and I have to prove to her I can fight the giraffes.
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E
Yeah.
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C
But then she's also asking you to
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E
be soft and holy and those things as well. Yeah.
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C
There's a tangle, like, going on at times.
- [15:37]
E
Whether or not anger is, like a natural disposition for men, for all of us, like, it's. Obviously, it's. It's part of the emotional range, but I guess the point in here, the point.
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C
Yeah, she's this big, and she's like, want me to go back and tell her like, no, don't stand down. Don't tell that I'm.
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E
Exactly. Anger is like, it's. It's emotion available.
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C
There's something about you feel protected. I know that's what she's trying to do, but I have seen enough situations to realize that one doesn't help.
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E
Yeah, that's cool. Getting.
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C
Growing up, that's called being old.
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E
So anger on the spectrum of emotions is one, but what about the rest? Like, that's what I want to know, I guess, is like, how your socialization as a boy, as a man, how it either encouraged or limited your access to the other emotions to, like, vulnerability, joy, play, whatever.
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C
Vulnerability, I think, like, men are not good with amongst other men. I was saying to a friend of mine the other day, like, you know, we gotta tell our bros we love them. And he goes, I can tell my bros I love them, but I can't tell them that I'm down. And I think that's the difference. Like, we've got this whole movement where we're like, tell everyone you love them. But telling someone that you love them when they're down can almost be a kick in the face. It can almost be pass ag. Because you're like, bro, I'm so down right now that I don't even believe in love. Like, and now you're rubbing your good mood in my face. Like, bro, I just want to tell you I love you, man. It's like toxic positivity. And it's way harder for us as men to tell each other what we've been going through. And I think you're not. You're not gonna defeat that too easily because I think it is evolution. I think it is about survival. If you, you know, on my best days, I can tell people how low I am. And I've also built my art on that, so I've been encouraged to do it. But I think for the normal man, it's like showing your Achilles. And then the other dude might come along and, you know, because we are
- [17:51]
E
all competing essentially, I don't see that as evolution. I see that as, you know, the bell hooks to me that, like, that's. That's society and policing. Like, well, I just, I feel like,
- [18:00]
C
because I don't have the problem. Yeah, I'm. I'm an anomaly. I'm lucky. I'm very privileged to be able to talk about my people pay me to do it, bro. Like, I'm very. I'm not the person to ask about it, but the average man feels, like, threatened.
- [18:16]
E
Yeah.
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C
But I think it's ping pong. You got to serve. Like, you got to start the conversation and then people will hit you back.
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E
Yeah. So in the first half of the album, you're coming to terms with the ways that you have contributed to the relationship breakdown. I guess I'm wondering, like, how you've balanced the, like, facing up to, like, the harm you've caused or the ways you fucked up while also, like, you know, not getting to that point of like, I'm a piece of shit.
- [18:43]
C
Yeah.
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E
How do you do that?
- [18:46]
C
Maybe get to the I'm a piece of shit first and build your way up from there. It wasn't like, I'm feeling great. I'm gonna admit I'm a piece of shit and deal with it. It was more like, I think, like, had no choice. Like, I was at the bottom of the well. You're like, well, I gotta climb out of here now.
- [19:05]
E
Yeah.
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C
And I think, like, the only way out of there is, like, accountability and admitting what he did and then breaking down why he did it. And to be honest, I wrote a whole album before this, and it wasn't as well thought out. I hadn't quite come to the true conclusion of, like, this is your fault. So it took, like, a lot of journaling and, like, a lot of figuring it out and questioning. And I. Yeah, I think, like, it does get Freudian and there's so many layers as to why you do anything. Someone said the other day, why do you like Cadillacs? It's because of this movie. So, you know, there's no, like, accidents. You might get to a point where you feel like you're a piece of. But two things can be true, I think. And then I also got to the point is cringe as this sounds, where I stop calling myself a piece of shit. Because I do think just on a cognitive level that grows neurons and you start being the piece of shit guy and you don't look for good in yourself. Like, you know, and then you, you make your decisions based on that. Like, what you think of yourself. You're like, well, I'm a piece of shit. You know, if you consider yourself caterpillar, you're gonna be like, well, I'm a caterpillar. I eat these leaves. If you consider yourself a butterfly, you're like, well, I fly. You know, if you consider yourself a decent human that makes mistakes, then you can work through things and, and, and, and you can accept when you fucked up. I think the funny thing is once you start, like, getting on track and things Start moving a bit better when they go wrong, you're like. You're shocked.
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A
Oh, no.
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C
I thought I was over ever doing anything wrong.
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E
I know.
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C
Yeah.
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E
Yeah. It's not.
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C
It's not like that.
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E
It's not linear. Nah. The song, is it Message for Message to Miles. That's the name of the song. There's the line, hurt people, hurt people. So, you know, in other words, unhealed pain and trauma gets passed on. When you think about your kids growing up and your boys growing up, how do you hope to interrupt that cycle?
- [21:28]
C
Oh, honestly, I need to put. I need to put some more trauma in their lives.
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B
Look at this.
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C
Look at this shit. Trampoline over here, bro.
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E
They don't know how to use.
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C
Can't be out here learning. This is life.
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A
This is.
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C
This is not life.
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E
You say before that you're, like, practicing vulnerability in front of your kids.
- [21:50]
C
Yeah, I do.
- [21:51]
E
They.
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C
Honestly, my kids. My kids are so well adjusted. I'm so happy for them. I'll say something like, my kid didn't eat his avocado bagel I made him the other day. And I was like, oh. And the kids go, oh, dead. Like, dada must be bummed out that his food's not good. You know, like, that's how in tune with their emotions and how empathetic they are. They're brilliant.
- [22:15]
E
I. I was playing Guess who with our little guy the other day, and he. We play a version where you don't ask about what they look like, you just ask about, like, their vibes.
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C
Yeah.
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E
And he was like, does your guy look like a little sweetie?
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C
That's so dope.
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E
And he's like. He just wants to snuggle. He's like a little. He's a jock, but he just wants to snuggle. Like. And I.
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C
Boys do, bro.
- [22:36]
E
Boys do. But that's what I mean. Like, you. What I'm scared of is that this society is gonna.
- [22:42]
C
Yeah.
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E
Do that emotional mutilation and he's going to lose that part of himself.
- [22:46]
C
It's on us to remind them. I just remember this Erica song. At the end, she's talking to Puma, her daughter, and she goes, you know you're beautiful, right? It's making me emotional thinking about it. But I always tell my kids that, you know, like the other day I said to Quincy, what's your superpower? And he's athletic, like his mom. You know, uncle was Maori or black dad. And he's like, probably running. But this kid's very smart. Super clever. Knew every whale there Was on the planet when he was three years old. You know, like, can draw with memory, just has all these gifts, but he doesn't even see it. He thinks his gift is running. So I had to remind him the other day because I think this is all it is to feel intelligent, is that someone's told you it's about, like, reminding your kids who you are. Like, you know, you're a softie, you know, you're beautiful, you're gentle, you're. You know, otherwise they start making up answers for themselves with the pieces of the puzzle.
- [23:41]
E
And running as the currency for running is the currency.
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C
And he's the, you know, second fastest.
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E
School had crushes on the fastest.
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C
The fast kid.
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E
The fast kid.
- [23:51]
C
But that's evolution too. Like, I want someone who could provide for me.
- [23:54]
E
Yeah.
- [23:56]
C
But, yeah, I think, like, it's on us to tell our. Our boys what they are and to remind them, like, hey, you're loving, gentle kid. The other day we drove past this. This homeless dude, and we got out, went to the bakery and Miles, for no fucking reason, went and got his, like, $4 20 and gave it to him. I didn't even ask him. And I was just so proud of him.
- [24:23]
E
And I guess it's also that saying, I'm proud of you when they do that. Like that positive reinforcement when they do those things.
- [24:29]
C
Yeah. And we're so lucky to be from a generation that have the vocab for it all, because now I can do that to my kids and I can be a father figure that's vulnerable and. And feminine and all of those things, and my kids get to benefit from that. But my dad didn't know how to do that. It's not his fault. He just didn't know his dad wasn't there. He grew up with a lady that was traumatized from her appearance being blown up in the war. And, you know, now I get to be the person that's like, I've got my shit. I'm still. There's a little bit of the intergenerational stuff left over in me, but basically I'm stable and my kids get to. To enjoy that. And it's pretty cool. Yeah.
- [25:15]
E
Do you ever talk to your, like, child self?
- [25:19]
C
I've had to do this for therapy.
- [25:21]
E
Yeah. What was that experience like?
- [25:25]
C
Like, yeah, I had to take him out of the house. Ever done that one? They, like, make you go back to a traumatic moment, and you go in as an adult and you get that boy and you take him out the house and say, it's okay. But I still am that kid. You know, I always wondered, like, would you one day look in the mirror and see an adult? But I still see the same person I saw when I was eight. So it is Buzzy, when you have to go and see your childhood self as the adult that you now are.
- [25:59]
E
Did it make you emotional?
- [26:01]
C
Hell, yeah. It's funny. We're, like, way better at raising our children than ourselves.
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E
There's an author named Scott Galloway who's been talking about how young men are kind of increasingly being convinced that what they can experience online is, like, a reasonable facsimile of life. And, you know, why would you go through the pain of a real relationship when you can have an AI girlfriend that validates your every move? And I guess I'm wondering, you know, as someone who, you know, has gone through and written about the pain of real love and heartbreak, what you would say to that in terms of, like, what is in it? What's in it for young men? Why would you want. Because it fucking hurts when it fails.
- [26:42]
C
Everything's got a price tag. Like, why would you not want real love? But I think the problem is we first got to discuss what is real love? Because what I used to think was real love was just my own Disney idea of love.
- [26:58]
E
Okay, what did you think love was, and what do you now understand it to be?
- [27:01]
C
I thought it was, like, a dopamine rush every time you see them. And, like, you know, I thought it was chocolates and roses and all of that shit. But I think real love is more like what you and Patty have. It's just like two people working through stuff and supporting each other. What I really want is real support. I think that's what men really want. You know those stats that say that men need relationships more than women do? I think it's because we want support. And I also think you're stronger than us, and we need a strong woman in our corner. It makes life better. And I'm sure homosexual couples have the same companionship and camaraderie. Yeah, to have someone to confide in and to come home to, that's all I want. Like, at the moment, my gripe with my relationship. You know, we've been together two and a half years, and we see each other half the time because I have my kids half the time. She's young and has a life that I would have been living if I was her age, too. And I'm like, I just want to see. Why don't you just come through in the middle of the Night, like, wake me up after you've been partying. Like, come just come wake me up. But she's got her. She's got her things that she needs to do. And I think she's far more emotionally intelligent than I am and understands space is good. But, yeah, I just want that. Like, let's watch the Sopranos for the fourth time in our track pants type love, you know?
- [28:32]
E
Like, what did you say at the. You said something at the listening party about, like, bring back yearning.
- [28:39]
C
Underrated. Yearning is under. I stay yearning. Borderline begging. Like, yeah, bring back yearning. There's no yearning in R B now. It's just like, I your. And like, I want, like, where are you? Like, balcony type. Yeah, I missed it, I think. Yeah, my girl's definitely not a year.
- [29:06]
E
You're the earner.
- [29:07]
C
Yeah, I'm yours goes to camp.
- [29:12]
A
Yeah.
- [29:15]
E
I am curious and I. I was unsure if I would go there with you on this. But you just brought up your girlfriend being younger than you.
- [29:24]
C
Yeah.
- [29:24]
E
This album is about, like, finding salvation through love and allowed a large part towards the end. But there's also, I imagine, potentially some people would roll their eyes at. Are you the same age as me?
- [29:34]
B
40.
- [29:36]
E
Finding salvation in the arms of a very cliche. Yeah, I guess. I don't even know what my question is, but is this something that you're, like, aware of?
- [29:45]
C
She's not.
- [29:46]
E
She's like, why keep bringing this shit up?
- [29:49]
C
But she's, like, so much more mature than me, and it's embarrassing. But I think the hardest thing about being with someone that's younger than you or someone that's been. That's older than you is that your logistics don't match up.
- [30:01]
E
You've got, like, family calendars.
- [30:03]
C
I want just someone to hang out with and do the gardening with. And she wants me to be at her friend's party. And I try, but it's hard. But I love this woman. I don't want to leave her. She's like, when it's good, it's so good. But, yeah, what I thought wouldn't be a thing does turn out to be a thing. Like, age is definitely a hard thing to deal with. Cuz at first you're just like, yo, we. I really like being around you. We met in the studio, you know, we're just like. But I legit crashed into her car one night, you know, that wrote this song called Accidentally Cuz, like, we just accident. I crashed into your. And then her flatmate, like, came through in the morning and it's like, hey, Sub, someone smashed your car so you
- [30:49]
E
didn't leave a note?
- [30:50]
C
I told her the next day, yeah,
- [30:53]
E
but like, she was a babe. And you're like, you know what?
- [30:56]
C
But then, like, you know, like, it just started off as just, I wasn't trying to find love. And then I just. I fell in it. And now we got actual problems to deal with where we're like, where are we going to be in two years time?
- [31:11]
A
What?
- [31:12]
C
And all of that stuff. So, yeah, like, age is something that I, like, freak out about all the time. You know, I'm like, maybe you just need someone your age. She's like, just fucking grow up.
- [31:23]
E
Calm down. I love in the album how you kind of talk about how being loved by her and your lowest moments helped you to become better. Not even necessarily for her, but because she believed you could be.
- [31:39]
C
Is kind of 100%.
- [31:41]
E
So can you talk to me about that? I guess about how that kind of acceptance change the way that you show up in love?
- [31:47]
C
Yeah, for sure. I honestly don't think I've been challenged more in love more than with Saavi because she's got her shit together. She doesn't moan about shit. She doesn't, like, expect things.
- [32:03]
E
She.
- [32:03]
C
All the things that I do wrong, she does right. And so, like, I just have to live up to her expectations and I have to grow up. And I'm sort of forced to sit with my shit and deal with my shit because she doesn't have those things. And she spent time with herself after her last relationship. And she's always like, I think you should have just been single for, you know. She always rubs those on my face. I'm like, well, I didn't. I rushed into love. And now here we are and we're going to deal with it.
- [32:35]
E
We're going to do it from inside this relationship.
- [32:36]
C
Yeah, but because of all of that, like, I've grown a lot in the relationship and I've been forced to just confront my. And be better and. But I think that's the point of a relationship. You should be, like, holding each other accountable. And. Yeah, I think, like, when I. When I first got into it, I was still in fight or flight a lot, and there'd be things that we'd disagree on and I just run off. Literally run off. You know, I love to run from my problems. Is like a line on that song. And then the other line on that song is like, what you see in me, it can't be that you love me. But I think she really sees something deeper in me. And yeah, I think, like, looking at yourself through your partner's reflection is a cool way to see yourself because you can see what they see in you. Like, well, if this lovely woman loves me, then I must be doing something right. And also on the other note, you're like, I want to keep this lovely woman around so I better continue doing things right.
- [33:46]
E
In the lead up to this album, were you scared about releasing it?
- [33:48]
C
I should have been. Hey, I was just.
- [33:52]
E
Were you not?
- [33:52]
C
You're like, nah.
- [33:54]
E
Even just like genre wise and stylistically, were you nervous about it?
- [33:57]
C
Yeah, no, I should have been. I'm more nervous now. I think I did something a bit out of there.
- [34:02]
E
Yeah.
- [34:02]
C
But I've always done that. And it's good as an artist to just blow your past work up and start again, rebuild it, but it's bad as a human. So I'm trying to find the balance.
- [34:13]
D
True.
- [34:14]
C
Like, keep reinventing yourself as an artist, but not, not in the other ways. Like, don't walk out on a. Walk out on a band, but not on a good thing. I'm definitely thinking of an exit strategy at the moment, to be honest, to. To live without music. Like to get sober from music or maybe just from like show business and from all the toxic parts of it. I just like applied for a course at Auckland Uni to do, like therapy and counseling and stuff like that. I'd love to do that.
- [34:50]
E
You'd be so good at that.
- [34:51]
C
I'd love to do that. You know, like, if these young men have built trust in me through these years, I'd love to help. I think like being old is like having fire that you could warm people with that will just burn in your hands if you hold it, you know, like it's wisdom's supposed to be given out. I think, like, maybe even to go one level too deep is that we've lost ankh status. Unk status. Used to be like, hey, that's a Kato or that's an elder. Like, I'm just about to have the bro Brandon Shiraz and Tahoya Light skinned John round to make music. They're a whole generation younger than me, but I need it. I can give them something, they can give me something. I think we've lost that. So, like, yeah, I'd love to be a drug and alcohol counselor.
- [35:39]
E
If you strip all of that away, all the, like, Tom Scott Bowling Club, all of that away.
- [35:46]
C
Who are you exactly?
- [35:47]
E
I'm asking.
- [35:53]
C
The same person I was before I started doing this. I think you gotta, like, surround yourself with people that know you for who you've always been or else you turn into Kanye or Diddy or some shit under that.
- [36:09]
D
Tom Scott, as always, an absolute pleasure. Thank you for being so open. Ehoa Anitia is out. Now go listen to it. Get it on repeat like it is for me.
- [36:18]
E
Keep an ear out for one of
- [36:19]
D
the funniest lyrics ever featured in R and b. It's at 1 minute 10 in the incredibly titled Baby. Let's have a baby before Trump. Do something crazy.
- [36:29]
E
Thank you so much for listening.
- [36:30]
D
Kaki Te Ano the Good Sex Project was made by PopSoc Media. It was written and developed by me, Melody Thomas. Our producer and audio editor is Kirsten Johnstone. Co producers are Kay Hecke and Elena Bates. Phil Brownlee recorded me in the studio and our sound mix is by Mark Chesterman. Paddy Fred did the music and some of the sound design. Thank you.
- [37:11]
A
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- [37:18]
F
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- [37:57]
A
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