Margo Price

Summary

You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes – Margo Price Release Date: February 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively, sprawling conversation, Pete Holmes welcomes acclaimed country singer-songwriter Margo Price for a candid, deeply human, and very funny dive into her music, creative process, struggles, and triumphs. They dig into weirdness, the tension of artistic success and failure, industry realities, the impact of grief, and the joy of simply making art for art’s sake. Both share personal experiences, swap stories, and keep the tone authentic, open, and engagingly offbeat.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Ice Storms, Spouses, and Being ‘Lame’ Now

• The episode kicks off with Margo describing surviving a Nashville ice-apocalypse, setting a tone of “weathering storms” literally and metaphorically (03:40).
• Fun exchange about Margo's husband Jeremy Ivey—his role in her life and music, their collaborations, and comic misunderstandings about his place in her band.
• Both Pete and Margo riff on how their wild “rock star” days have been replaced by early bedtimes, health routines, and “magnesium-talk.”

  “Now if someone has a third cocktail, I’m like… you’re going to be feeling that.” – Margo Price (05:57)

The Grind Before Success: 12+ Years in Nashville

• Margo details her 12-13 years hustling in Nashville, crashing on couches, juggling odd jobs (vinyl siding, waitressing), and facing years of rejection (21:00).
• Pete and Margo bond over the outsider feeling and how people underestimate artists until they’re “established.”
• They discuss the misconception that creative careers are ‘lottery tickets’ and the societal discomfort with non-traditional paths.

  “‘You’re still doing the music thing, huh?’ …the kind of condescending, like, you guys are still doing it, huh? …There’s such a misconception with art and music… it’s because you love it.” – Margo (21:38)

Creativity, Streaming, and "Inshitification"

• They analyze how the music industry undermines artists with streaming, resold tickets, and venue fees. Both relate to the struggle for the “middle class” in music and comedy (12:08).
• Pete brings up “inshitification”—the deliberate making of essential services worse to maximize profit (12:56).
• Margo laments how streaming and post-COVID touring costs threaten musicians’ survival:

  “The middle class of music is going to disappear… Streaming companies, everything… made it nearly impossible.” (14:42)

AI, Art, and Authenticity

• The rise of AI in music—songwriting, stolen voices, fake artists, and synthetic demos—is a major worry for Margo (30:15).

  "They take everything that I've done and then… just use all of the art that's already been made by humans." (31:40)

• Both bemoan auto-tune, click tracks, and how technology sometimes erodes the ‘human’ element of music.

  “When you listen to Al Green and you autotune the note, it’s missing something.” (33:20)

Tragedy, Drinking, and Writing Through Grief

• Margo shares her personal tragedy: losing one of her twin sons after birth (44:48). She opens up about coping through drinking, ending up in jail after a drunk driving incident, and writing the song "Weekender" in lock-up.

  “Instead of getting therapy, I was just like, I’m in Nashville, I’m gonna drink whiskey every day.” (46:08)

• She explores the relationship between pain, creativity, and overcoming fear and shame.

Turning Point: Making “Midwest Farmer’s Daughter”

• After pawning her wedding ring and selling her car, Margo self-financed her debut record, recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis (54:13).
• After rejection from numerous indie labels, Jack White’s Third Man Records eventually said yes—a full year or more after the album was finished (55:39).
• Pete marvels at the resilience required to sustain faith during endless ‘no’s and long waits.

On Unique Voices and Musical DNA

• Discussion turns to unique, “non-blending” voices: Margo, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton (19:41).

  “My choir teacher never gave me a solo… she said my voice didn’t blend.” – Margo (19:34)

• Margo emphasizes her wide range of influences, from 60s/70s rock to Americana, and shares details of working with legends like Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench.

Highs of Success: SNL, Farm Aid, and Getting Political

• Margo recalls major career highlights (playing SNL, late shows, Farm Aid board with Dave Matthews and Willie Nelson), and her shift to more political songwriting during the Trump era (26:08).

Famous Friends, Heroes, and Musical Legends

• Star-studded stories abound:
  • Hanging with Rodriguez and smoking a joint after his documentary (25:02).
  • Drinking with Bill Murray and doing vocal warmups (71:09).
  • Opening for Dave Matthews Band (72:02).
  • Playing with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson (“like a grandfather,” Thanksgiving traditions) (80:25).
• On Bob Dylan:

  “He keeps to himself. But he’s my favorite songwriter. Hands down.” (81:54)

  • Dylan’s awareness of “the portal” period of genius; the creative process as “conduit” (82:28).

Family, Parenting, and Compassion

• Margo speaks candidly about surviving grief, the reality of a “rainbow baby” after loss, her family’s healing, and the wisdom grief brings (63:01).
• Pete relates with stories about heartbreak and how society struggles to handle real conversations about loss.

  "It’s never a bad idea to remember all the people around you... people are having their hearts broken in a million different ways.” – Pete (65:12)

• Margo: “None of us has to be here. It’s all this weird experiment… everybody could just give each other a little more compassion.” (65:17)

Humor and Quick Bits

• Throughout, Pete and Margo riff on band names (“Elephant’s Gerald,” “Sally Parton”), improv games, and the uniquely weird world of artists.
• Recounting the “Irish hello” (leaving or avoiding parties suddenly), swimming as re-centering, Kid Rock as her unfortunately close neighbor, and stories of stage banter gone awkward (75:48 – 76:48).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On unique voices:
  “My choir teacher never gave me a solo… she said my voice didn’t blend.” – Margo (19:34)

• On the grind:
  “Twelve years until Jack White signed me… that was the turning point.” – Margo (10:31)

• On drinking and pain as inspiration:
  “I was drinking a lot… Instead of getting therapy, I was just like, I’m in Nashville, I’m gonna drink whiskey every day.” – Margo (46:08)

• On AI and authenticity:
  "They've literally taken all of humanity… they're using all the art that's already been made by humans." – Margo (31:40)

• On waiting in limbo:
  “The amount of sensitivity required to be an artist and the amount of anti-sensitivity you need—you know, be told no a thousand times before you ever expect a yes.” – Margo (56:02)

• On grief and compassion:
  “You live long enough, you're going to go through something difficult. And it gave me a completely different perspective on life and just compassion.” – Margo (64:41)

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Timestamps for Essential Segments

• Nashville Ice Storm & Life Now – 03:40–08:00
• Early Career Struggles & Rejection – 20:52–23:31
• Industry ‘Inshitification’ – 12:56–14:08
• Streaming and Touring Woes – 14:42–15:11
• AI, Autotune, and Artistry – 30:15–33:47
• Losing a Child, Grief, and Drinking – 44:32–47:46
• Making Midwest Farmer’s Daughter – 54:13–55:39
• Being Signed by Third Man Records – 69:30–70:13
• Famous Encounters & Music Legends – 70:25–75:10
• Compassion and What Grief Teaches – 63:01–65:44
• Closing: Family, Career, Spirituality – 79:16–84:34

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Tone and Style

• Warm, genuine, open-hearted, and often side-splittingly funny.
• Both Pete and Margo bring self-deprecating humor, warmth, and vulnerability.
• The conversation frequently wanders (by design), embodying the show’s titular “weirdness.”

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Final Thoughts

A beautifully meandering episode—part music industry tell-all, part personal memoir, part philosophy class, and always full of laughs. Margo Price’s journey offers both aspiring artists and fans a vivid look at resilience, authenticity, and the meaning found in the cracks of life, not just the spotlights.

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Margo’s Touring:
Catch Margo on tour across US cities in 2026 (Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and more).

Closing Quote:
"It’s the cracks and everything. That’s how the light gets in." – Margo Price, quoting Leonard Cohen (84:34)

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Keep it crispy!

Transcript

[Margo Price]

Lemonade.

[Pete Holmes]

You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes what's happening weirdos? Sorry for the bad audio quality here in the intro, but the episode is pristine. We're so glad you're here. This is Margo Price, the American country singer, songwriter, producer and author. She is incredible. We had such a wonderful chat. We are releasing this week because I'm traveling in lieu of the we made it weird episode. But this chat with Margo is a normal you made it weird episode and it is a delightful one. We'll be releasing the video a little bit later. Again, things got complicated cause of my travel, but check her out if you don't know her. Her debut solo album Midwest Farmer's Daughter was released on Third Man Record. We talk a lot about this in this chat and her newest record Hard Headed Woman was released in 2025. I listened to her so much leading up to this interview. I'm so glad I'm a fan. I'm so glad that she came on and I'm so glad that you all are here. Dare I say y' all are here and go to Pete Holmes. I guess I second guessed that joke. I regret it. Go to peteholmes.com for my tour dates. Coming up is Miami followed by Los Angeles, Royal Oaks, Michigan, Tallahassee, Florida was just added. Irving, Texas is in here. Some of these I'm just finding out about Madison, Wisconsin, Denver, Colorado, north and South Carolina. I'm so happy have been rescheduled and your tickets were transferred or get tickets on PeterHolmes.com in June is the new date and the final one on there right now is Portland, Oregon. Hope to see you out there. This new hour is my favorite that I've ever done. Also speaking of my favorite hour that I've ever filmed. Different topic is Silly Silly Fun Boy that's gonna be out on YouTube in March but I'm gonna start promoting it right now. So if you're listening to this late, check out YouTube maybe. I have a new special on there called Silly silly fun boy. March 23rd I believe. All right everybody, in the meantime, enjoy my chat with the wonderful Margo Price. Get into it.

[Margo Price]

Hey there, it's Julia Louis Dreyfus. I'm back with a new season of Wiser Than Me. The show where I with remarkable older women and soak up their stories, their humor and their hard earned wisdom. Every conversation leaves me a little smarter and definitely more inspired. And yes, I'm still calling my 91 year old mom Judy to get her take on it all Wiser than me from Lemonada Media is out now, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Pete Holmes]

Hey, it's me, Steve Burns. And I'm so glad you're here because you and I go way back, right? Yeah. And look at us now, like we're all grown up. We've got this new podcast where we talk about all this grown up stuff and there's special guests like Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Nye, but for the most part, it's about you. I mean, it's always been about you. From Lemonada Media Alive with Steve burns is coming September 17th. Wherever you get your podcasts or you can watch every episode on YouTube.

[Margo Price]

To Birmingham, Alabama, to fly Ice Storm last night.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, say that again.

[Margo Price]

We'll start with yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Nashville is like. Looks like the apocalypse right now.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no. Well, the ice apocalypse.

[Margo Price]

The ice apocalypse. Dr.

[Pete Holmes]

Freeze Apocalypse.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like a Batman.

[Margo Price]

It was intense. There was just like trees cracking, snapping, falling. Like we had. I mean, I was worried we were gonna be hit. We. When we exited our home on the main road. We live kind of in the country. And I drove under a giant tree that was just.

[Pete Holmes]

I know this.

[Margo Price]

It was insane.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know that, but like it was breaking or it was.

[Margo Price]

It was raining. It was just hanging there. And I was like, oh my gosh, are we gonna drive under that? And my husband, who's your biggest fan.

[Pete Holmes]

No, yeah, the guitarist for the Price Tag.

[Margo Price]

So he. Yeah, his name's Jeremy Ivey.

[Pete Holmes]

It's so similar to Jimmy Iovine. For a second I thought you were mar. Super producer Jimmy.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, no, that'd be cool, but.

[Pete Holmes]

But it's Jeremy.

[Margo Price]

Jeremy. Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Please tell him I said hello.

[Margo Price]

I sure will.

[Pete Holmes]

He's not with you?

[Margo Price]

He's gonna be out here in a couple days.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. Yeah, he's still under that tree.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Seriously, he gunned it on the ice. It was like.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, the way he plays guitar. Real talk.

[Margo Price]

Well, okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. Not him.

[Margo Price]

It gets confusing when I listen to you.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not him.

[Margo Price]

He. He's not my lead guitarist. What? He co writes with me.

[Pete Holmes]

This is.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, he. It's confusing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's. He plays harmonica. He plays. I mean, he plays like finger picky guitar. He.

[Pete Holmes]

But he's not the.

[Margo Price]

No, no, no, no.

[Pete Holmes]

When I listen to you, I'm like, that's her husband.

[Margo Price]

I know. No, it's not. But he writes a lot of the, like riffs and stuff.

[Pete Holmes]

Like some music as well.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, he co writes a lot with me. And he watched Crashing Tw. Watched it all by himself. Cuz I usually go to bed earlier than he does and then.

[Pete Holmes]

So lame. Can we put a pin in that and talk about how lame we are?

[Margo Price]

Yeah, we're pretty lame. Please.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you?

[Margo Price]

I am lame.

[Pete Holmes]

Let's put a pin in it.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. I used to be a rock star and be cool, but now.

[Pete Holmes]

Me too.

[Margo Price]

What? Look, go to bed and I.

[Pete Holmes]

Now if somebody. I'll do. We will talk about it. Now if we go out and somebody has like a third cocktail, I'm like.

[Margo Price]

You'Re going to be feeling that you're going to hurt.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm just sort of. I. I don't know when I became like Ned Flanders. I'm like, don't you have to.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, don't you have some parenting to do later or whatever? Because they're all parents.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But I don't like that. I'm so tight. But I've become so tight. When I used to be not a rock star, but you know.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

We were out there.

[Margo Price]

Like to cut loose in the mix. Yeah. Experiment with things.

[Pete Holmes]

People like to experiment. Now I'm like the magic mind. Magic mind. Oh, worse than magic mind. Like, oh, you gotta do like sunlight exposure and you gotta walk after a meal. Like, what the fuck happened?

[Margo Price]

I know, I know.

[Pete Holmes]

Gotta walk after a meal. And fiber is important before the meal.

[Margo Price]

I'm on my magnesium.

[Pete Holmes]

Magnesium, you need it. But it's something. Val just told me something about magnesium last night that it, like, helps you. It's something. It might be sleep, but it's some. It's focused sleep. It's everything.

[Margo Price]

Magnesium glycinate at night. It's a muscle relaxer. It helps that. Yeah, I just. I don't like.

[Pete Holmes]

I take that.

[Margo Price]

It's such a geriatric thing to say.

[Pete Holmes]

So. Yeah, it's like I'm made out of wood all of a sudden. Like that tree.

[Margo Price]

Like the tree is fall.

[Pete Holmes]

Are we writing a song right now?

[Margo Price]

Let's do it.

[Pete Holmes]

The tree.

[Margo Price]

The tree.

[Pete Holmes]

Don't call it the tree. After the rose, you can't call anything the. In a plant.

[Margo Price]

Oh, the rose. I sang that in junior high. For sure.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, just remember, in the winter. I mean, anyone can rip the.

[Margo Price]

Yes. It's. Yeah. Any poetry? It's pure poetry.

[Pete Holmes]

Pure poetry. Okay. Sorry.

[Margo Price]

No, yeah, stay on track.

[Pete Holmes]

Your husband something nice about?

[Margo Price]

Yeah, no, he. He watched the whole entire series and we're friends with Kenneth from Milk Carton Kids.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh. Yeah.

[Margo Price]

So he's like, you. You gotta see this. It's so good And I think it's just as anybody who's, like, toured.

[Pete Holmes]

It's funny. I love Kenneth. I see him frequently, but he's never told me he's a fan of Crashing.

[Margo Price]

Oh, my gosh. Did he not even watch it? I still like him.

[Pete Holmes]

I always assumed because we had Joey on and not him that he was mad at me.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.

[Pete Holmes]

That's not. Although that is the thing.

[Margo Price]

They're both. They're both wonderful.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, they're great. But. And look, I just became enamored with Joey first, and then later Joey cuts.

[Margo Price]

Loose a little bit more.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, for sure. And he's very silly. Kenneth silly too, though. Kenneth is the sleeper. Sleeper, meaning Joey's so dreamy. I used to say he's like a Japanese sex robot. And then Kenneth is, like doing things that. It took a little research to realize just how special he is.

[Margo Price]

They're like such a good comedy duo.

[Pete Holmes]

And they're great.

[Margo Price]

Like, they're dry humor.

[Pete Holmes]

I see him alone. Either one of them alone. They're all. They're. They can do it alone.

[Margo Price]

Nice.

[Pete Holmes]

They can do it alone.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

No Garfunkels. They're two diamonds.

[Margo Price]

That's a great compliment.

[Pete Holmes]

Two Guard. Two. Two. No Garfunkels.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, no Garfunkels.

[Pete Holmes]

Milk garden Kids. A. No Garfunkel.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah. We're gonna rename them two.

[Pete Holmes]

Simon sounds like a publisher. Like a publishing house.

[Margo Price]

Simon and Simon.

[Pete Holmes]

Simon and Simon.

[Margo Price]

Sounds like a.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, so Patton, Gail.

[Margo Price]

So. Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Ken Paton, Oswalt. Like the show. Told your husband Jeremy about it. He watched it.

[Margo Price]

Well, I. Yeah, they. He watched it all alone. Watched the whole series and then rewatched it with me like a month later because he liked it so much.

[Pete Holmes]

That's a great compliment.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

There's only a few things that I've been like, I will start this over with you with my without. And that's a very nice compliment.

[Margo Price]

It was so funny. And I. I mean, just the self deprecating humor in that. I see a lot of that because I spent also. Yeah. Ten years, like, crashing on couches and.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you really?

[Margo Price]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

A little bad. By the way, sorry to make it about me, but because people really do what my character did and I didn't do what my character did, but I think people think I did do what my character did.

[Margo Price]

It was believable that you did. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I seem like a. I have. You slept on a couch energy.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, we did. Unfortunately. Probably magnesium energy couches covered in cat hair and like just, you Know random people at the bar, at the venue, like, oh, don't get a hotel. Come stay with us.

[Pete Holmes]

It's really nice. But is it. Seinfeld has that great bit where he's like, you never know. He's like, I want to stay in a hotel. You never know what the hot water valve is. Like, where do you put it?

[Margo Price]

The water pressure.

[Pete Holmes]

I just want to know all the way. Get in there.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. There were some dodgy places we stayed. Weird, weird people and. And nice people, too. Lovely people. Yeah. I'd. I was in Nashville almost 12 years until Jack White signed me.

[Pete Holmes]

Nice.

[Margo Price]

And then that was like the kind of turning point, but from the Proud Boys.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just kidding. What if I thought the White Stripes was the Proud Boys? Ooh, that would be just like a weird mix up. Like, White Stripes, White Power, Proud Boys.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. He's very, very opposite of that.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Margo Price]

Very opposite.

[Pete Holmes]

Energy person.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And a wonderful person.

[Margo Price]

He really is.

[Pete Holmes]

I've never met him. I was in his office once in Nashville.

[Margo Price]

Yes. It's the coolest office. All the taxidermy.

[Pete Holmes]

And I said, may I take a photo? And they said, you may not.

[Margo Price]

No, no. They do not want you taking photos back there.

[Pete Holmes]

Fair.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And they have that record machine that you go in and sing and it records you on a record.

[Margo Price]

Totally. It's. And they have. Like, when I first was about to be signed with them, I felt like I was kind of being put through this, like, a little bit of a testing process that I didn't know, like.

[Pete Holmes]

In what way it was.

[Margo Price]

Like, I sent in my record and they were like, yeah, we really like this. But, like, they had never put out, like, a full record by an artist. They always just like, singles and stuff like that.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, why is that?

[Margo Price]

I don't know. I think, you know, it was like he was just kind of started Third Man Records to like, put out his own stuff, you know, and then he had like, well, keep more money in your pocket.

[Pete Holmes]

What's that?

[Margo Price]

You keep more money in your pocket. For sure.

[Pete Holmes]

See, it's sort of like a high level self publishing. Like, I'm tired of these labels pleasing us. Yeah, Motowning us.

[Margo Price]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

So I'm gonna make my own.

[Margo Price]

I like that as a verb. That's good.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Motowning us. Well, I. So many venues. Venues do it. Labels do it. If there's money, they're gonna take it. The flies.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. You know how that merch cut goes.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, bro. And the ticket fees now.

[Margo Price]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

So I. I had to cancel dates, and Rory And I were texting. She's like, do you see what the fee is? And I'm like, it's a lot of these venues. I'm not pointing fingers. So many of them. But it's just like, when did this happen?

[Margo Price]

It's unreal. And then people resell them. You got all the pirating. It's. It's a mess out there. It's really hard to.

[Pete Holmes]

It is, but it shouldn't be. $300 to go and see me talk about my soft baby butt. Whatever it is depends on.

[Margo Price]

Is it front row? You know?

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. Well, now they didn't used to do that either. I know. We're all over the place. We're gonna get back to you getting signed at Third Man Records. But like sitting in the front wasn't a vip. And look, you know, world's crazy. I can see from both sides. I can be a venue owner and go like we gotta totally. We're not making any.

[Margo Price]

They're struggling to make a dime.

[Pete Holmes]

So many of them go under. I mean they go under. So I get it. They make VIP sections and they put on fees and all that sort of stuff. And everybody's doing it. Just a weird world that we live in where like we're used to. Have you heard the term inshitification? It's like the deliberate. Deliberately making things shittier. So like a company will make themselves essential. I didn't make it up. It's a book. But it's very. And I'm blanking on the guy's name but it's a brilliant idea that he's exposing that. Like something like Uber or Amazon or whoever it might be. Make yourself essential. So all the competition goes away. Buses go away, taxis go away. And then raise your prices. So there was a time when they all operate at a loss. They. They'll let. They'll drive you to the airport for $12 just to be like what the fuck is this? And then when everything dries up around them, you. You raise the price and then everything gets in. Like Google is a good. And shittification example is they don't want you to find what you're looking for on the first search. They wanted to take five.

[Margo Price]

They don't want people to get well, bro.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that real?

[Margo Price]

I think so.

[Pete Holmes]

You think?

[Margo Price]

I think so.

[Pete Holmes]

But they're just like, here's a little congratulation package. It's like, why is this weed? We're proud of you.

[Margo Price]

Good job.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Or the is a classic. Like I've never really bought that. But like People don't. Healthy people don't make money. I guess doctors, I guess might be a better one.

[Margo Price]

Absolutely. Yeah. The medical industry is pretty corrupt.

[Pete Holmes]

So anyway, we're doctors is where we're landing on that.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You and I are doctors. Essential workers.

[Margo Price]

So what is the word?

[Pete Holmes]

Againification. And ification. And ification.

[Margo Price]

I like that.

[Pete Holmes]

You could do it. You could work it in.

[Margo Price]

I think a lot of things are.

[Pete Holmes]

And ified.

[Margo Price]

They're in shittified.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, let's not even get into music, bro. I mean, that's a whole other.

[Margo Price]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. The middle class of music is going to disappear if people don't. I mean, just, you know, streaming companies, everything the way that they have, they've. They've made it nearly impossible to. I mean, and then you have. You go out, you tour. That's how you make your money. But even that, like post Covid. Like tour buses are insane. Like, we all know what it's like to fly and how much flights cost and everything and.

[Pete Holmes]

And tour buses went up.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. And like more people needing them because like there's more artists, I think, than there have ever been.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Margo Price]

Better or worse?

[Pete Holmes]

It's hard to find one that Bert Kreischer wasn't shirtless in. They actually charge more pubes hanging around. You find you hope they're pubes.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You pray for pubes. I don't know why it's better. No, we love Bert. We joke because he's gonna be on the show in a couple weeks. He's on my mind.

[Margo Price]

I just saw him last time I was in la.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, really? Topless. Oh, you did his pod.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, I did his pods. He had a shirt on, but he had no shirt.

[Pete Holmes]

Disappointing.

[Margo Price]

Okay, appreciate.

[Pete Holmes]

As long as something. There's only one smell, you know what I mean? Yeah. As long as we're getting some of it in the room.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. You know, he was very sweet. His wife was too.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. There's a lot to cover, a lot of excitement. I didn't. I said it as we walked in. I think you're fabulous. I was listening to your music the whole way down. So that's a good hour and a half of just listening to you. And it was awesome. I never once tired. There's just so much. It's a little bit cheap to. Not cheap, but let's go with cheap and then we'll fix it. It's a little bit cheap to call you a country artist because when I'm listening to you, I'm like, there's blues and there's rock and there's all these different things going on. And there is country happening, I guess, but it's also. And I mean this in the good way. There's like pop happening and then. And then there's things that are more soulful. Like it's. It's the gamut. It made me feel all these feels.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, I just. I like a lot of old music. I like a lot of music from the 60s, 70s, all the way up to the 90s. I mean, a huge Tom Petty fan. My second to last album, I had Mike Campbell.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, his piano player played on it.

[Margo Price]

Oh, so he's the lead guitarist. And then Benmont Tench, he played on a record of mine, too.

[Pete Holmes]

Benmont, but you played with.

[Margo Price]

I've played with both of them. Benmont played on my third.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. Benmont is the pianist who's always at Largo, who I've seen. Yes, and then you. But you played with Tom Petty's guitarist.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, and then Mike Campbell recorded on my album Strays, which was like a little bit more rock psych leaning.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Margo Price]

And I got a show on Tom Petty Radio, too. I know you're Tom Petty fan.

[Pete Holmes]

How do you know that? I love your podcast. Yeah. Did you hear this story where my friend has a house in Malibu that's right next to Tom Petty's house? His. He's not there anymore, obviously, but, like. And he wasn't there at the time. And so he had passed. And we're sitting there and we're listening to music just sitting by a fire, and a Tom Petty song came on, and for no reason, the volume just went all the way to 10. Isn't that crazy? Right by his house, and we're just sitting there and, like, nobody's by the thing and it just jacked to 10.

[Margo Price]

Like, it's very cool.

[Pete Holmes]

And not just at the beginning. Like, there was something wrong with the song. Like, it kind of, like, faded up.

[Margo Price]

And we're like, wow, he was the greatest.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you know him?

[Margo Price]

I did not get the chance to meet him. I put out an album called All American Made. It came out the day he passed, I believe. Or like, it was on his birthday or something. I remember my band and I were touring in a van at the time, and I had this song. There was, like, a question in it, and it was like, tell me, Tom Petty, what do you think will happen next? It's All American Made. And it came out on the day that he died. And I've gotten to know Mike Campbell. Like, you Know who co wrote a bunch of songs with him and was in Heartbreakers forever. I've hung with Stan lynch, who is his drummer, for a long time, and know Ben Mott really well, and I know his daughter Adria, but I never had a chance to meet.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, that's a lot of TP in there, though.

[Margo Price]

I love that. I mean, that's what I remember, like, hearing on the radio, that I really connected to me, too, because it was. You know, there was a lot of garbage on the radio in those days as well.

[Pete Holmes]

And I couldn't put my finger on it when I was young, but I remember growing up in Boston, there was just. And I'm not putting other kinds of music down, but you would hear, like, a pop thing, and it just kind of sounded very produced. And then you. I remember they were doing the top hundred songs of all time, and number one was American Girl.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I heard it, but I heard it through the lens of someone was like, this is the number one song. So, you know when someone's like. If I was like, this is the best water in the world. Like, it's actually. So I had the story going, and this is good. And it made me pay more attention to it. And I was like. And also, he's such a weird. Like, I'm obsessed with weird. And I think you have a weird voice in the way that. I mean, unique voice.

[Margo Price]

Unique, absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

You're not a good choir member.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah. No, actually, my choir teacher never gave me a solo and never gave me an ensemble because she said my voice didn't blend.

[Pete Holmes]

Your voice doesn't blend.

[Margo Price]

No, it doesn't.

[Pete Holmes]

And neither does Tom Petty, and neither does Bob Dylan, and neither does Johnny Cash.

[Margo Price]

I mean. Yeah. And unique.

[Pete Holmes]

The Kings of Leon. Boy, Caleb.

[Margo Price]

Nice. Yeah. They live in Nashville.

[Pete Holmes]

Do they?

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

How are they?

[Margo Price]

You know, I know like a. I.

[Pete Holmes]

Know now that they're older. That's how I ask.

[Margo Price]

I'm like, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

They're in their 40s now.

[Margo Price]

How are they?

[Pete Holmes]

I think it's funny that the guys.

[Margo Price]

That are like, we share a lawyer, but I don't know them. I don't know them really well.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, you're a lawyer. Well, he's got one of those voices that I'm like, that doesn't blend. I haven't heard that. Doesn't blend. And your voice doesn't blend.

[Margo Price]

Doesn't blend these voices.

[Pete Holmes]

Dolly Porton. You don't want those voices to be with 10 other voices. But that's a good compliment.

[Margo Price]

It's. Yeah. It's worked out for me. I guess. It sure didn't in choir.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Margo Price]

But that's fine.

[Pete Holmes]

Was it. Did you not feel. Speaking of crashing, one of the things that I wonder if you relate to is, you know, once you've become established in something, people are like, well, you're a musician, but that period of 10 years when everyone's going like, you're not. I'm assuming you're not a musician or saying to me, you're not a comedian or what? Yeah. And you feel on the outside of it, everything makes sense after it's done. Does that make sense?

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Would you speak to that? Like, did you feel like you were, like, what. How hospitable was the music scene?

[Margo Price]

Well, yeah. I moved to Nashville when I was 20, and it actually was more like 12 to 13 years before.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wow.

[Margo Price]

I got signed and I. I remember people from my hometown especially because I'm from a really small town with like 3,000 people, and it would just like.

[Pete Holmes]

I wrote down cred because I want to know if, like, country girls need cred.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like. Well, it was very small and you did vinyl siding, so that's good. That's good country cred.

[Margo Price]

You know, every odd job. I mean, waitress for years.

[Pete Holmes]

Waitress is essential.

[Margo Price]

You've got a wait, heat up the pie. I was never gonna do it, but did it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

And, yeah, I'd be like, so you're still doing the music thing, huh?

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Margo Price]

It'd be like the kind of condescending like you guys are. You're still doing it, huh? I'm like, well, I enjoy singing. I feel like there's such a misconception with, like, a lot of art and music and things that aren't normal jobs. It's. You do it because you love it. And then there's something that kind of makes it. It not sexy when you have to depend on it for your finances, you know? And I have. I have a lot of friends that still haven't made it and that are wildly talented.

[Pete Holmes]

Me too. I mean, who have to certain degrees. But I listen to somebody. Like, my friend Lisa Gunger is an established musician, but she'll play me something, a new song. Like, this is the greatest thing. Like, I'm not just. I don't even like so much music. If you listen to the podcast, you know, that kind of a tricky sell on music.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'll listen to it. I'm like, if Billie Eilish or Taylor or whoever put this out, it would be a huge hit.

[Margo Price]

Absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

Now we're getting ahead. I don't want to talk about the business, but, like, what is the difference?

[Margo Price]

I know. I think that there's something really beautiful about just making art or making music. Because you love it.

[Pete Holmes]

Because she loves it. Yes.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Regardless of whether it's successful or not. But. Yeah, it was.

[Pete Holmes]

But they. I think people. Sorry to. People think that when you say, I'm going to be a musician, or worse, I'm going to be a rock star, which I don't think is what you said, but they think, oh, she's going to try and be a. A rock star. I feel that people think you are buying a lottery ticket, like, you're gonna go wait in a certain line and see if you get into, like, the better group and the money and the fame and stuff. When I'm. I'm totally in agreement with you. When people were like, oh, you're still doing comedy or whatever, I think they were thinking like, oh, your. Your bell hasn't been rung yet. Like, it didn't work. You didn't do it.

[Margo Price]

You're still doing it. That's embarrassing. Yeah, it's.

[Pete Holmes]

I guess maybe you should have gotten married and had kids and got a job or whatever it is. Because you're idiot.

[Margo Price]

Oh, absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

When really you're following a compulsion, you're following something that's.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Because it just makes you tick. And I think that. Yeah, I have a lot of friends that still do it, and it's like, man, that's more beautiful than, like, when somebody makes it. And then. Because then a lot of times, success just ruins people.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, look, you're far younger than I am, but I just feel like this is the kind of. We're not that far. I was trying to be very sweet. You do seem very young.

[Margo Price]

Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, there you go. But I'm just saying that's one of the things that's coming with age is I'm like, oh, you can pop and be so successful, and it's just not correct at all. Or you could never. And. And. And it's still something that I struggle to make sense of the fulfillment of doing it. I do it and I love it, and it's pure. And the more I sell little pieces of myself, the more I'm like, oh, that is fucking cool. I never understood, like, my friend Rob Bell did a podcast. Never did a sponsor, never did. Never tried to monetize it in any way. And I was always just like, well, you're an idiot, and I'm not. He's my One of my dearest friends. So I didn't say, you're an idiot, but I would. In my mind, I was like, well, that's just foolish. But then, you see, there's this purity that comes with these people.

[Margo Price]

Absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

Like Rodriguez. Remember him?

[Margo Price]

And, oh, I love Rodriguez. That Searching for sugar, man, is such a great document.

[Pete Holmes]

Used to drive me crazy when I was a young man. I'd be yelling at the screen going, you're a fool. And now I watch it, I'm like, oh, this guy's living his life. He's not playing a song, hoping it goes viral.

[Margo Price]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

He's just playing that song for you.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Here I got.

[Margo Price]

Actually, I smoked a joint with him.

[Pete Holmes]

One time with Rodriguez.

[Margo Price]

I played a festival with him and had a very long conversation with him in Canada.

[Pete Holmes]

You smoked Sweet Mary Jane?

[Margo Price]

Yes, I did. I have a photo of it. I'll send it to you later. But no. Yes, I did. I was like, it was insane because it was kind of right after that documentary blew up and. Yeah, I've got to meet a lot of really cool people.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Margo Price]

That's been the. That's been the cool thing for me is just getting to meet, like, heroes.

[Pete Holmes]

But loving it while you're doing it and.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

Because it does. It's. It is hard to stay true to yourself when you start thinking about what everybody else wants to hear. And, you know, what should I do that will make me successful? And I've definitely done things like almost self sabotaging, like, kind of behaviors when I feel like, oh, this is good. You know, I played Saturday Night Live back and I don't know, what was it, 2016. Thank you. And, like, did every single late night show. And it was just. Everybody was like, oh, she's the new Loretta Lynn. She's this and this and this. And then, like, my second album was, like, highly political and it was like, during Trump's first presidency and was one of the first people in Nashville.

[Pete Holmes]

Big pro. Trump rallies.

[Margo Price]

Yep. You know, with the mega hat.

[Pete Holmes]

You and Kid Rock, that was.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, me and Kid Rock. He's my neighbor. Unfortunately, he is not. Yes, he is.

[Pete Holmes]

Kid Rock cannot be your neighbor.

[Margo Price]

He's my neighbor. I saw him riding down the road on a Segway one day.

[Pete Holmes]

I was like, kid Rock riding a Segway.

[Margo Price]

A Segway in White's Creek, Tennessee, is where we both live.

[Pete Holmes]

He lives leaning forward ever so slightly.

[Margo Price]

He had on his little shitty hat.

[Pete Holmes]

But if Kid Rock has a party, aren't you having a party?

[Margo Price]

You know, he used to be a little bit more inclusive. He wasn't totally off his nut. It's like, if you remember, he had a duet with Sheryl Crow back in the day. And my friend Brittany Howard, who used to crash on my couch. From the Alabama Shakes. Yes, B.

[Pete Holmes]

Walk down the aisle to the Alabama Shakes.

[Margo Price]

Oh, my gosh. To.

[Pete Holmes]

That one.

[Margo Price]

I love this.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not trying to make fun of that woman's voice.

[Margo Price]

I did know what you mean.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I can't hear that song without.

[Margo Price]

No, she's the coolest.

[Pete Holmes]

I met her about a non blender dude.

[Margo Price]

I just get chills every time I think of her. I met her. We were both so young. We were singing BGVs on a Australian guy guy's record whose name was Turk, and he kind of sounded like, yeah, BGVs. And she was a post woman. I did BGs. That's. That's actually kind of a fun sentence.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's a great sentence. Put me in a good mood.

[Margo Price]

BGBs for the bee Gees.

[Pete Holmes]

No worries.

[Margo Price]

It's a tongue twister. Like, you did it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that'll be here in studio. I can't.

[Margo Price]

Like some Ron Burgundy. The arsonist has oddly shaped shoes. Whatever it is, thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Human Torch was denied a bank.

[Margo Price]

Lord, yeah, I love that one. You know, he'll read whatever's on the teleprompter.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, lanolin. Lanolin. Like sheep's wool.

[Margo Price]

So good. I could watch that movie over and.

[Pete Holmes]

Over because it's footage of people having fun.

[Margo Price]

I know it's not getting into AI.

[Pete Holmes]

But you're like, it matters that you're watching grown men, men in particular, being silly and funny men. Because I grew up with such serious men with stress and bills, and there's a guy going, lanolin. And I was like, I knew you could keep the light alive.

[Margo Price]

God, you know, we need comedy more than. Than ever right now.

[Pete Holmes]

And not just jokes. Sorry.

[Margo Price]

No, absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

We're having a real free form, a real humanity.

[Margo Price]

I love it.

[Pete Holmes]

You already get the gold star for being a real humanity.

[Margo Price]

I like a lot of side tangents I will take.

[Pete Holmes]

That's all they are.

[Margo Price]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, Similar. Similar minds. You. I was thinking about this coming in. We think we're going to hear. I say it all the time. People come to your show to. To hear the songs. You might go, like, what songs? What's the set list? Or what? What is she going to play? It's not really why you're going. You're going to, like, merge into this thing. I try to Remember that when I'm doing comedy. So when we get into AI, which I. Maybe we'll talk about, maybe we won't. It doesn't so many people.

[Margo Price]

AI. I don't even have any kind of AI on my thing.

[Pete Holmes]

No opinion. What do you mean?

[Margo Price]

I don't have, like, chat GPT.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you don't have it on your phone?

[Margo Price]

Yeah, I just don't subscribe to it because they're tearing down forests to make it, I think.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, really?

[Margo Price]

Terrible.

[Pete Holmes]

Yike. A day.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, it's. It's a hard project because it's coming.

[Pete Holmes]

And it's coming, but I need a picture of a cat with a big nose. Okay, sorry, there's, like. That's the counter argument, but cat with a big nose. Yes. But also the. The way that, like, when you're watching Anchorman and you're seeing human beings, there's like a twinkle in Paul Rudd's eye that he's trying not to laugh. You know what I mean? Like, we're tuning into so much more. And when I watch a music show, so there's this Garry Shandling line that I love, you don't go. Nobody cares what songs Elvis plays. That's not entirely true, but we can say nobody cares what songs Elvis plays. They want to see Elvis. You just want to be in the room with Elvis. Yeah, like, if you were having lunch with Elvis, I would just want to see where he puts his napkin.

[Margo Price]

Totally.

[Pete Holmes]

Or how he holds his fork.

[Margo Price]

It's not about playing all your favorite songs or.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, just about being there, being a part of something. So AI could make Anchorman 3, and it could be hilarious and, you know, great jokes and stuff, but I'm not making any new point. Something would be left cold. And because we're on it, like, have you heard any AI covers and stuff?

[Margo Price]

Oh, man. Yeah. I've seen a couple people be, like, ripped off, and somebody will. You know, they'll take somebody's voice and then. And then just, like, make a fake artist and.

[Pete Holmes]

With their voice.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah. There was this girl that I. That I follow. She plays banjo, and she's just. Just a. Like, Appalachian songwriter. And. And it happened to her just, like, last week. It's. It's wild.

[Pete Holmes]

They just ripped her and. Yeah, now there's a fake artist, made.

[Margo Price]

A fake track that sounds just like her with her voice. And I don't know how she found. I guess people sent it to her.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no.

[Margo Price]

I mean, yeah, we're getting like. Like, Spotify accounts with, like, you know, people that are that are not real people, and they have hundreds of thousands of followers.

[Pete Holmes]

It's right.

[Margo Price]

Scary. It's really scary. I think it's scary for session musicians as well. I have talked to a few producers and they say, like, some young upcoming artist comes in and they're like, I made these demos with AI and people get, like, kind of married to their demos. They, like, want to hear. And then they'll be trying to tell real artists to play these, like, AI like, licks and.

[Pete Holmes]

And, oh, wow.

[Margo Price]

Parts.

[Pete Holmes]

And it's kind of going backwards.

[Margo Price]

Hard.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Starting with a synthetic thing out of shit. Yeah. Yeah. And is the punch. I was anticipating a punchline like. Well, you can't actually put your fingers on a guitar like that. Or. It's not that. It's not that AI knows well enough to not play chords that a human could play.

[Margo Price]

I mean, I don't know, because it's like they've literally taken all of, like, humanity and all of, like, if you can just go to AI and say, write a Margot Price song, and then they. They take everything that I've done and then they just. So they're using humanity.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Margo Price]

You know what I mean? They're. It's not completely void of humanity because they're using all of the art that's already been made by humans.

[Pete Holmes]

No, that's when I've gone, like, you can see them on YouTube and listen to, like, a soul cover of a 90s song, which was very interesting to me. For an afternoon. I would play it for Val. And what we thought was really weird was you wanted to have sex with all of the voices. Like, they. They dialed into something not erotic. And that's an exaggeration, but there was something sort of like. Well, sex is. They were singing sexy. You wouldn't think they're a robot. You know what I mean?

[Margo Price]

Yeah. You wouldn't think.

[Pete Holmes]

You would think that would be the last thing to carry. Carry over. Yeah.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But it's like, it keeps being good in quotes at things that we would think would be the last thing. Like that feeling you get when you're listening to a. Like they can't quite get the note and it. Their voice cracks and it's like, why did they know to do that?

[Margo Price]

I mean. Yeah. Auto tune and all of that has already been slowly stripping the. Like.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

I have my producer, Matt Ross Fang, who has done a few of my records. He does. He did a TED Talks in Memphis, and it was all about how autotune.

[Pete Holmes]

Ted's Talk. I'm just kidding.

[Margo Price]

Did I say it right? Did I say it right?

[Pete Holmes]

You did great. I just wanted to flip the plural. That is talks.

[Margo Price]

Ruth's Chris.

[Pete Holmes]

Ruth's Chris.

[Margo Price]

Excuse me, Who's Chris is Ruth. No. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Finals Club, not Final Clubs. It's from the Social Network. Great soundtrack. Yeah, There you go.

[Margo Price]

It's just, it's weird when that people put a S on something.

[Pete Holmes]

TED talks. He did TED talks.

[Margo Price]

He did TED Talks. And he, you know, he was just talking about like when you listen to Al Green and you auto tune the note, it's like, ah, it's like missing something or like.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, because he's a little flat, you mean?

[Margo Price]

Or a little sharp. Yeah, it's like he's bending up to the notes and it's like. Like Rolling Stones, like Honky Tonk Women. It starts really slow and they're not on a click track and by the end of it they're like four times the speed. And it's just, just when you're on a click track, when you've auto tuned the. Out of everything, it's.

[Pete Holmes]

I remember noticing, doesn't have an edge. I'm so with you. This is exactly what I'm saying. They go to see Elvis and the band. What is a rhythm if not a heartbeat? And it's like they're syncing up. You know that there's like science to that. When, when we're all listening to the same beat, our hearts start syncing up with it. That's why you can amp a whole stadium of people up with that. So now the band is getting more excited as it goes. I know it's not as cool, whatever, who care. I still love Rancid. I don't know why I'm saying I can't love Rancid. I don't listen to them as much as I used to when I was a teenager. But there are certain rancid songs. And punk rock is all about like their instruments are out of tune and whatnot. But it would start in a certain pace and by the end it was like three times faster. Because they record. They were playing a song.

[Margo Price]

They were playing a song, not a click. Musicians are all like your minds get synced up with people. Like my last band, I was with them for some of them 10 years, 13 years. Just recently broke up, parted ways and. But we, we could communicate on stage. It's like, it's. It's a form of telepathy, right?

[Pete Holmes]

Of course it is.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, the, the instruments or your voice is asking, can we go a little faster? Here. Or can we slow it down?

[Margo Price]

And the crowd feeding into that. And same thing with comedy, I imagine, where it's like, yes. You know, you have your nights where, like, the crowd is, like, really giving you something. And then other night you're kind of like, I couldn't quite get off.

[Pete Holmes]

And you don't want to look desperate. Yeah, exactly. And you don't want to look desperate, so maybe you will play it a little bit slower. That's what I do as a comedian. There was this book I read about stand up comedy where they're like, on an off night, just go for bass hits. So the. The guy that really. Or the person that really bombs is the one that's like sweating and, like going for it, even though the room is just kind of harder and harder. Too tired. They're just fine. Just go slow.

[Margo Price]

So scary.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Margo Price]

I hate talking in between songs. Like, sometimes I have things planned and I have some jokes, you know, that I like to tell too. But it's. I cannot imagine. Just. It's got to be like you're naked up there, you know, it's just.

[Pete Holmes]

It is. And they're waiting for music. When music is good, it's so good. And then there's this weird in between time.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[Margo Price]

I don't like to have a lot of dead space. I like to build a lot of transitions and like, you know, how can we make ambient sounds?

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I like that.

[Margo Price]

Go up. Because then it's. You just don't want to have to depend on the crowd to clap. A lot of people have drinks in their hands.

[Pete Holmes]

It's also a disappointment. I mean, a lot of times people who are incredible singer songwriters aren't great at talking to a crowd. And you're just sort of like, oh, like, I saw. It's not that. Scott Stapp, Stone Temple pilot. Yeah, it's not that he was bad. I just remember being like, oh, he sounds kind of tired. Sounds kind of bored.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah. You just seem kind of like autopilot.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Stone Temple autopilots. And you could only tell when he was talking.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That he just sounded sad or whatever.

[Margo Price]

I love little names like that. Like my husband Jeremy, he's always coming up with jokes. He had Elephants Gerald.

[Pete Holmes]

Elephants Gerald.

[Margo Price]

Good, right?

[Pete Holmes]

I. Val and I are always finding that's a great improv name. It's like Tequila. Tequila Mockingbird. I'm not making that up.

[Margo Price]

Or like Sally Parton.

[Pete Holmes]

Salvador. Dolly Parton. This was a Doug Loves movies game, trying to blend these words. Yeah, I can't do one. But like Superman on Fire or something, you try to bring two movies together.

[Margo Price]

I like that.

[Pete Holmes]

I said to Val, firmly worded email is a good. Not a band name. It has to be a production company.

[Margo Price]

Oh, I like that.

[Pete Holmes]

It's at the end. Firmly worded email.

[Margo Price]

My. My sister's boyfriend that they live here, he did my last music video and he had a. A email that was Too hot for hotmailotmail.com Too hot for Hotmail.

[Pete Holmes]

I can't believe it was available.

[Margo Price]

And he sent his. All of his friends messages the next day. He's like, do you guys get any fun emails? I think it got bought out. So it was like, wait, someone bought it for Hotmail? No, like, hotmail got bought out, so it wasn't Hotmail anymore. So it was like too hot for [e-mail] which is nice.

[Pete Holmes]

I've probably said this on the joke. Ian. Respect and Elephant's Gerald is very good.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

When I was in high school and Hotmail just came out and I'm also from Boston, people thought it was kind of gay sounding, hot male. Only in Boston would people be like, what am I hot? You're writing hot mails. If that's where your mind went. Maybe it's time to watch Heated Rivalry and Explorer. You've seen that show?

[Margo Price]

Yeah, it's always been. No, I have not it. Heated rivalry. Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

It's erotica. Gay male erotica. Women are loving it and men check it out. But in particular, I feel like the females are loving it and the gays and some men. What is this? Why am I taking a stab at who likes it? My wife. I'll tell you. My wife likes it. I like it. All right.

[Margo Price]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And it's not because of that anyway.

[Margo Price]

Does it have good, like, storyline?

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, no. Not in my opinion that I was so ready because I'll watch a very homo. Not homoerotic, but just erotic. I. I love queer stories.

[Margo Price]

And I was like, have you ever seen that one?

[Pete Holmes]

Which one?

[Margo Price]

It's a German vampiros lesbos. Lesbos.

[Pete Holmes]

No. Are they vampires?

[Margo Price]

Yes. Lesbian vampires.

[Pete Holmes]

But is it just erotic or is it like.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, I. I haven't watched it in a long time. It's kind of. I feel like it was a like film noir.

[Pete Holmes]

But I mean, is it just pornography? Is my question.

[Margo Price]

You know, it's been like 15 years, so I don't.

[Pete Holmes]

It sounds like pornography.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I think you just recommended it. Your first porno.

[Margo Price]

Theater in Nashville and We all watched it together on the big screen. On the big screen? Yeah, at the Belcourt Theater, actually, before my kids were born.

[Pete Holmes]

So, yeah, that's when we were cool.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Now we're lame. Now we're taking magnesium. This episode is brought to us by our friends at Element. You know, I love Element. I start every day with a lemonade salt element. It jump starts my system and gives me the hydration that I need without all the sugar and BS that are in most electrolyte drinks. Zero sugar, zero bs. Optimum ratios of magnesium, potassium and sodium to flood every cell with healthy hydration. And it feels fantastic and it tastes fantastic. And there's no sugar. I can't stress that enough. The people that use Element are. It's wild. The community. We got Olympians, we got pro sports teams, we got Navy Seals, neuroscientists, we got pudgy comedian podcast hosts that absolutely are addicted to it. Not just in the morning, but after a workout, after a sauna. Also to just encourage me to get, get more water. But you also need electrolytes with that water to fight off headaches, cramps, fatigue, brain fog. It's not just about water, it's water plus electrolytes. And Element has you covered. And right now they have a deal just for weirdos. You can get a free 8 count sample pack of elements, most popular flavors with any purchase. Just go to drinklmnt.com weird drinklmnt.com weird and use promo code weird. Totally risk free. They have a money back guarantee. No question to ask refund if it's not for you. Customer service will take care of you. Try it. Go to drinklement.com weird. I don't drink alcohol, but I still love the idea of a cocktail. I like the end of the day ritual. The clink of the glass, the sipping of something savory, smoky, interesting. And that's why I've been really loving Little Saints. It's all the fun of that ritual without any of the bad stuff, the messing up your sleep, the fog, the weird emotional sequel, all that sort of stuff. It's elevated non alcoholic cocktails and spirits for people who want that ritual and that, ah, the day's done feeling. And this isn't just sparkling juice pretending to be fancy. That's not interesting. This is a real cocktail experience without alcohol. The first time I tried Little Saints, I was like, oh, this is so interesting. It's gotta be packed with sugar. It's not. Not, it's zero sugar, it's five calories and it's non intoxicating, designed for evenings, for winding down, for hosting or just having something grown up in your hand on a Tuesday night. They're crafted to taste like top shelf cocktails and enhanced with functional botanicals like lion's mane and reishi for a bonus layer of calm and clarity. I stay present now. I sleep better at night and I still have the fun of a cocktail at night. So. So if you love cocktails but not the aftermath, check out Little Saints. This is real. It is legit. And discover your magic hour. Go to LittleSaints.com and use promo code WEIRD to get 15% off your first order. That's LittleSaints.com promo code WEIRD. Little Saints products are non alcoholic. Functional ingredients are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any condition.

[Margo Price]

Only 18 states require sex ed to be medically accurate and relationship classes. Let's fix that. I'm Shan, an ASEX certified sex educator with a master's in psych. And on my podcast Lovers by Shan, we make learning about love as mind blowing as making it. Celebrities and fascinating people share an intimate story. Then we uncover the lesson for all of us. Watch Lovers by Shan from Lemonada Media on YouTube or listen wherever you like your podcast.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, we were talking about the period 12, 13 years before you were signed and was getting signed. The tipping point was that is that I feel like that's what I would guess the tipping point is, but I don't think it is.

[Margo Price]

I had all these like other little glimmers of hope, like, you know, another little indie label that picked me up and they, they tried so hard, but it. And there was like managers that would come along and then they'd be like, well, we have a retainer. And I'm like, what's a retainer? And they're like, well, you just pay US$250 a month no matter what. And signed a lot of bad contracts and. But yeah, then I sold this. My husband sold our car. I pawned my wedding ring. We put. We'd been in I can.

[Pete Holmes]

When you said I pawned my wedding ring. I heard the table. What is that?

[Margo Price]

Oh yeah, the pedal steel.

[Pete Holmes]

I heard the pedal steel.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Sold my wedding ring upon the wedding ring. We did soldiers, everything. Yeah. And it was to make a country record. Before that I'd been like in soul bands. I had been in rock bands. Like, I did want to be a rock star, but rock's dead. Like, give me a break. And so I had written all these country songs. I had went to jail. I wrote a song While I was in jail.

[Pete Holmes]

What did you go to jail for?

[Margo Price]

Drinking too much and hitting a telephone pole in front of two cops and trying to outrun them.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God. In Nashville?

[Margo Price]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

So you were drinking a lot? Very drunk.

[Margo Price]

Drunk professionally.

[Pete Holmes]

And then you. Drunk.

[Margo Price]

National drinker.

[Pete Holmes]

Drunk. Drove right into a telephone.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, I took a little left hand turn and hit this telephone pole. And then there were two. It was like 2:33 in the morning and. But I was going through a rough time. You know, my husband and I, we. We lost a baby. It was really tough on me, and I was like, therapy. Yeah. So can I.

[Pete Holmes]

That's very hard. I feel like that's even. I don't know what the word is. But even more uniquely devastating to have two and losing one or.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, it was just like.

[Pete Holmes]

Tell me.

[Margo Price]

Because, you know, you still. You had this like, joy. I mean, I remember like the first day we gave my son a bath was like, you know, the day that my other son died. And so it was like all of the joyous moments were kind of overshadowed by severe grief.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. I've had. Look, I'm only trying to relate. Certainly never compete, but I've had rough moments, like. Like a big family kind of fight. And then I'm with my baby. When you're with something that has no concept of your grief or your anger or your sadness or whatever, it's. It's. It's weird. It's like crying with the lights on or something. Are we writing a song right now?

[Margo Price]

That's a good line. I'm gonna steal that.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you feeling this?

[Margo Price]

Change a word. Get a third cry with the lights on. That's good.

[Pete Holmes]

But you know what I mean, the baby is there, there's. The dog's happy.

[Margo Price]

They live in the moment. Kids live in the moment.

[Pete Holmes]

And.

[Margo Price]

And yeah. And so it was like. Yeah. Instead of getting therapy, I was just like, I'm in Nashville. I'm gonna drink whiskey every day.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's kind of encouraged in your.

[Margo Price]

Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I'm sure in comedy too, you know, it's like people just think that we run off of beers.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

And for a while I did, and it worked very well.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Just numbing yourself saved my life because.

[Margo Price]

It was just too much pain to be in, you know, and. But yeah, then when I hit that telephone pole, like you would have thought that would have been like a rock bottom. Like, I went to jail. I was in there for the weekend with. It wasn't a white collar jail. Like, my lawyer told me it Was going to be. It was like I was in there.

[Pete Holmes]

With the, with the riff raff with.

[Margo Price]

Some hard living hardened guys.

[Pete Holmes]

Hard living ladies. I'm just picturing men.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah, thanks.

[Pete Holmes]

God, walk me through that. If you hit the pole, they're the guys you run.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, Yeah. I was like, I'm just going to. Cuz they were parked. So I was like, you're like, I have a headsert. Yeah, I'm like, I'm going to go pull in someone's driveway and turn the lights off. Turn my lights off.

[Pete Holmes]

My family. A lot of booze in my family. There's a lot of stories like this. I won't say who, and it's not my parents or anybody like that, but there's stories where they're running from the cops drunk and they get ahead and they pull the car up, up, get out, open the driver's side, open the passenger side, sit on the lawn and go. He ran that way, genius. That's. So he ran into the woods.

[Margo Price]

You got to catch him.

[Pete Holmes]

You got to go.

[Margo Price]

Oh my God.

[Pete Holmes]

Did they. I don't know where he went. It worked in the 70s.

[Margo Price]

Oh, cool.

[Pete Holmes]

Cops with sideburns tried in a different way.

[Margo Price]

Mustaches, they're like, we're cool. We party. It's fine.

[Pete Holmes]

They're. Yeah, they're fine. They're fine. Doing lines off their batons.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, totally.

[Pete Holmes]

70S cops respected the game of like, you can't prove there were no ring cams. You know what I mean?

[Margo Price]

There were no ring cams. He's over there.

[Pete Holmes]

He bailed the car and he ran. It's like Tommy boy bees.

[Margo Price]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

That shit used to work.

[Margo Price]

Oh my gosh.

[Pete Holmes]

Now it doesn't work.

[Margo Price]

No, no, they're on to you.

[Pete Holmes]

Once robots get into law enforcement, it's gonna be really interesting when something is completely. We've scanned the woods. There's nobody there.

[Margo Price]

We don't see anybody heat. It's just a deer.

[Pete Holmes]

Total police state, basically. Okay, so then they caught you.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, they were like, you pulled over, walked along. I finally pulled over in front of a Baptist church. I was like so close to my house too. I was like, could have walked to my house and I was only like a mile away. So this like happened within a mile span. Hanging out with a friend and. Yeah. Then walk the line and Johnny, they. Yes, exactly. They were like, that's not what he meant. You are very. But you probably did that.

[Pete Holmes]

A couple could have been what he did.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Can you imagine being a cop giving Johnny Cash the drunk test and he's walking the line.

[Margo Price]

And you're like, have you seen that footage of George Jones when he gets pulled over and he's like, like, yelling at the cops in their face and everything? It's really. It's pretty entertaining. Oh, you can't even believe that. It's not a comedy bit.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, okay.

[Margo Price]

I'll send it to you.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, cool. Please. Okay. So you walk the line. You couldn't do it.

[Margo Price]

They were like, all right, we're taking you in. So I spent the night in jail that night. And then.

[Pete Holmes]

Alone.

[Margo Price]

Crazy. Yeah. There was maybe a couple other people in there. They give you a paper bag with, like, a peanut butter jelly sandwich or, like, a ham and cheese sandwich. And so I stayed in there, but it was crazy because in the back of, like, in my purse, like, right in the passenger seat, there was, like, a giant bag of weed and a pipe. And then there was. And. Which is. It's legal still to this day in Tennessee, so.

[Pete Holmes]

What? Weed?

[Margo Price]

Weed? Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And it was then, too.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It just wasn't.

[Margo Price]

They just didn't find.

[Pete Holmes]

It wasn't a good look.

[Margo Price]

I think they saw the, like, car seat in the back and they, like, took pity on me. Piece of mom I was. But at least I didn't have him in the car. And so, yeah, they called my husband. They were like, there's been an accident.

[Pete Holmes]

That's a whole business. Sympathy car seats.

[Margo Price]

Sympathy car seats.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't need kids to have a car seat.

[Margo Price]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

To just have the cops be like, get out of here.

[Margo Price]

She's a mom.

[Pete Holmes]

Go raise that lady. Go raise that little lady. All you need is an iPad, a few toys, stickers on the window.

[Margo Price]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

All right. Get out of here. Razor, Right?

[Margo Price]

Tough job. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then the slide.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. The pedal steel.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. My God.

[Margo Price]

Been a lesson in country music.

[Pete Holmes]

I do pedal steel.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Val will know what's up when I start saying that. She'll know I learned it from you.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. So you're in this tank. You have your PB and J. I'm.

[Margo Price]

Assuming I got the pbj.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

You know what? No one's gonna eat.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know how the refrigeration is going at the. No, at the law house. And then the next day, they released you.

[Margo Price]

So my husband came and picked me up. We went to Hermit.

[Pete Holmes]

How's his feeling? Is he pissed?

[Margo Price]

He actually thought I was, like, hurt or dead. Because when the cops called, they were like, there's. Your wife's been in an accident, and he's like, is she okay? Like. But no. The trial was, like, a couple months later, and I got a really good lawyer. He looked like a Disney prince. And he.

[Pete Holmes]

Simon and Simon.

[Margo Price]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

The law offices of Simon and Simon. Yeah.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, he was great. But, you know, I got out. I had a misdemeanor, which is not good. They were like, you're never gonna be able to work with children again. And I think at the time, I was, like, teaching dance lessons, and. And he's like, I really hope your music career works out, because you will not be able to work with children with this on your record.

[Pete Holmes]

Biopic. I'm sorry.

[Margo Price]

It was kind of.

[Pete Holmes]

It was a shameful thing.

[Margo Price]

I've got it expunged now. Thank God for good behavior. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Margo Price]

Because it was, like, yeah, 14 years ago or something now. Wow. But, yeah, then I had to go do that weekend in jail. And, like, all the ladies that were in there for, like, hard crimes, they knew that I was a weekender. Because of your shoes. Like, you had these, like, special shoes when you were in there.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, they give you shoes?

[Margo Price]

Like, I had to buy, like, Keds at Walmart to be in prison. Yeah. You. You have to have certain shoes with, like, no laces so you don't hang yourself.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Margo Price]

And, like, no underwire bras. And, you know, you can't bring in a book or, like, anything.

[Pete Holmes]

No books.

[Margo Price]

No books. It was tough. But I stole a. I stole a pencil and a pen from the. Like, when we were having our little, you know, free time, they would have crossword puzzles. And I took a pencil and paper and took it upstairs, and I wrote this song called Weekender. That was just about my time there.

[Pete Holmes]

Biopic.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. And it was just like, all right.

[Pete Holmes]

Everything'S Weekender and her Keds. So many things rhyme with Keds. No wonder why. Or bra.

[Margo Price]

I know it was sad, okay. It was a dark time. But then I had all these songs, and I was like, I'm gonna make country record. And.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, you hadn't done country until this point?

[Margo Price]

No, not really. I mean, I had, like. Like, played a lot of folk music. I was very into, like, Bob Dylan. John.

[Pete Holmes]

You got jammed up into country? Say it again, John. What?

[Margo Price]

Like, you know, like, Joan Baez and, like. Well, like, I always loved, like, John Prine and Kris Kristofferson and songwriter stuff, but I just. I hated the music that was coming out in Nashville, like, around the time of Nashville Star, around the time American Idol. There wasn't this kind of, like, counterculture scene, at least at that time of, like, what we call Americana and, like, I would say, like, what milk carton kids. Kids do or, like, even Lucius could fit into, you know, that category. Yeah. Chris Thiele and, like, bluegrass and, like, you know, Billy Strings and everybody's. Everybody's onto it now. But I think back in those days, it was just like, bro, country, beer trucks, songs about women in short shorts.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Which AI is very good at that.

[Margo Price]

Oh, my gosh. Those are funny. Those are very funny.

[Pete Holmes]

Those are good.

[Margo Price]

They really are. And really, that show shows you that a robot could ride it.

[Pete Holmes]

Right? I know. It's. Yeah, it's a little weird.

[Margo Price]

Bad stuff. And I didn't relate to any of it, so I was like, I'm not gonna play country music.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

That's lame. But at that point, I was like, no, I'm gonna make country record. But, like, old school. Like Dolly Parton. Johnny Cash.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

Loretta Lynn.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

And so, yeah, made that record. We sold the car, pawned the wedding ring, sold all of our music gear. We went to Sun Studio, where Elvis recorded and, you know, like, Jerry Lee Lewis, and it's in Memphis. And I was like, fuck, Nashville. I'm gonna go to. To Memphis and make this record in Sun Studios. And so we made this album in three days. And I thought it was so.

[Pete Holmes]

That's really fast, right? I'm not trying to be funny. That's incredibly fast.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, it was just. That was all the money we had. We had, like, $10,000.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, because you were burning money every second you were there.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, yeah. It was like to pay the musicians, to pay for the studio time and to pay the engineer and the producer. That was like, okay, we're done. And then I sent that record to everybody, every indie label, people in England, people in New York, people everywhere. And it just. And people all over Nashville, certainly. And nobody was biting on it. They're like, we know who Margot is. We don't. We just don't dig it. Like, some people didn't even listen to it. I think some of them.

[Pete Holmes]

The.

[Margo Price]

Some of the labels. But then Jack White and Ben Swank and the guys there, they got wind.

[Pete Holmes]

Of it, and Ben Swank is Jack White's porn name.

[Margo Price]

It would be a good one.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a good one.

[Margo Price]

It's a good.

[Pete Holmes]

Swank. Swank.

[Margo Price]

Ben Swank.

[Pete Holmes]

Ben Swank.

[Margo Price]

Yes. Yes, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

He's another producer at Third Man.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, he's like one of the guys that works there, and they're just like, yeah, we want to put this out.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Margo Price]

And then but that was like a year and a half, two years after it was made. Made. So it was just like this purgatory. Yeah. I was like, man, I don't even think it's good anymore, you know? Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

I can't. The. The amount of sensitivity required to be an artist and the amount of anti sensitivity. You need to be an artist, you.

[Margo Price]

Know, be told no a thousand times before you ever expect a yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And wait two years just going like, I guess it's awful.

[Margo Price]

It was. I think it was about a year, year and a half something. But yeah, it was.

[Pete Holmes]

We can call that two years.

[Margo Price]

It was unfathomable. It was like.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, Val is a very talented person, obviously. And she made a short film and it got into so many festivals and then it didn't get into one festival. And that was enough for her to be like, oh, I was wrong. I'm embarrassed I showed it to anyone. So you must have had that feeling of like, oh, I must be wrong. I thought it was good.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Turns out I was wrong. I'm one of those people which, if you're. If you want to get really down in there. One of my greatest fears is like, what if I'm just the worst?

[Margo Price]

Sounds like you have imposter syndrome.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's in the ballpark of imposter syndrome. That would also tell you that I don't because I'm like, I'm the best. Like, I put on, like, my own clips.

[Margo Price]

You need that blind confidence. Both.

[Pete Holmes]

Both. So it's not just imposter syndrome. It's in there. We kind of have to dig through some layers of manufactured grandiosity. Those are. Those are protectors to get to this very vulnerable. What I'm saying is if I meet someone who stinks and doesn't know they stink, I'll be like, do you tell them? I can't. I want to. I'm like, would you like me to tell you? But, like, it'll incite me in this way that I think it's like the least safe thing you can be. So I have to imagine it was a huge fear to be like, I'm one of those people. I'm bad and I don't know I'm bad.

[Margo Price]

It absolutely was. I would. I would. Like, before I would even get out of bed, you know, you open the phone, you look at the email, and it would be like another rejection letter. And it would be. Be the worst way to start your day. Like, you'd be like, I suck. Like, even the distribution company in town that Puts out anybody's doesn't want to touch me.

[Pete Holmes]

You're back at the liquor store buying jack and. Sure was.

[Margo Price]

I sure was. I was drinking through that whole year.

[Pete Holmes]

Can I have some Keds with that, just in case?

[Margo Price]

Just in case. Yeah, just buy them in a combo. That's really smart.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, we can. We have two business ideas. Car seats for people who don't have to. Kids and liquor stores that sell kids into it. Because you're going to jail.

[Margo Price]

You're gonna make a million doll hairs.

[Pete Holmes]

Elephants. Gerald, you devil. Very good. Okay, so a horrible drinking time. I love killed the angel on your shoulder.

[Margo Price]

Oh, thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Great. So many great lyrics. We don't even have time, dear. That.

[Margo Price]

During that time.

[Pete Holmes]

Was it really?

[Margo Price]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Because I think that's interesting when you drink to. You know, they call them spirits, right? I'm not trying to be that interesting. I'm just like, you can change. You can kill your higher virtue and become, like, dark and bitter, or it's. You can feel crazy.

[Margo Price]

It's called spirits.

[Pete Holmes]

It is, isn't it? Because it really takes you over. Well, when my first wife left me, I can't remember iron pedal steel. I can't. Every time I go iron pedal steel. When my first wife loved me, I remember I was such a. Like, my identity was so caught up in being sweet and good that I couldn't get angry or sad. And I would get. I'm not. I don't drink anymore. I'm just saying.

[Margo Price]

Me either.

[Pete Holmes]

It was useful in this. There were other ways to do it. A good friend would have been really nice. That would have made space for me to be angry or sad.

[Margo Price]

This was my good friend.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, exactly. Facts, though. I really thought it was. I was like, this is my buddy, and it's always there, and all I have to do is get it in me. And it reliably brings out this weird feeling.

[Margo Price]

Yes. No, I. I feel like I say some of my drinking days, obviously some of them were terrible and made me do terrible, horrible things that I do regret. But some of it was very fun, and some of it was just literally a painkiller. And, like, it helped me get through to the next thing. And now I'm like, I don't need it anymore.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, well, I don't. I'm not trying to. What. What was it? What did you go through when you lost the child? I mean, you lose a baby, this is the greatest nightmare. And it was. You did. Did it?

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not trying to be funny, but you did. Do It. You did. And I'm sure you still feel it, but you did something that no one thinks they can do. They're like, that would destroy me.

[Margo Price]

No, I. It was destroying me for quite a long time. And it was. It would just be like nobody wanted to hear about it. But a lot of times when I would start drinking, it would be like people was, oh, you have a son? Are you gonna have any more kids?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

And then I'd start talking about it, and it, you know, my husband would be like, nobody wants to hear about that. Yeah, nobody. Would you stop talking about it?

[Pete Holmes]

But you needed to talk about.

[Margo Price]

I needed to talk about it. I should have went to a therapist, but Jesus Christ, that would have been embarrassing.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm glad you brought that up. Is one of the weirdest things about all different kinds of grief. And again, to relate, not to compete, but again, when my first wife left me.

[Margo Price]

That is a huge.

[Pete Holmes]

No one wants to hear about it. And you're like, I'm sorry, am I in the Upside Down?

[Margo Price]

No, you should be able to talk about it.

[Pete Holmes]

And you should have been able to talk about it. But people. People are like, I don't know if we're superstitious. So uncomfortable, self conscious. We don't know what to say. We're gonna say the wrong thing.

[Margo Price]

Exactly. No. My husband's first wife, Jeremy, very badly. He married a Waffle House waitress. He did. He sure did. Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

She's got some kids.

[Margo Price]

Oh, she got in Florida. She had a heroin problem. And she had some. Some tough. Like, she had a tough upbringing. But yeah, it was like his first girlfriend. He was very raised, very religious. I think that's why he connects with. With you so much. And so it was like he. He just felt like he failed completely. It was like, oh, you're ashamed, you're broken. You got a divorce.

[Pete Holmes]

Nobody wants to hear it.

[Margo Price]

You're going to hell.

[Pete Holmes]

You're out. Yeah. You're out.

[Margo Price]

Yep. I think with me too, it was like, I tried. I just didn't understand that. It was just. It was a problem that he had. He had hypoplastic left heart syndrome. It was just genetic. It wasn't anything that I did, but I felt like it was my fault.

[Pete Holmes]

Hypopl. Oh. Oh, your son.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. He was born with half of a heart.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wow.

[Margo Price]

So they were like, if he makes it through these.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm sorry. One of these moments when is just like, what, is this a bad play?

[Margo Price]

It was so bad.

[Pete Holmes]

Half a heart, like. But it's a bad poem. It's obvious and brutal.

[Margo Price]

And he was never going to have a normal life. They were like, he probably won't live past 30. So, like, what would that have been for him? You know, like, that would have been even. Maybe even harder. I don't know. But I just felt like I didn't ever know that I was going to get through it. And I think it's almost like. Like, it's kind of like losing. I, Like, I imagine it would be to lose a limb.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Nothing's ever the same phantom limb stuff, but.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, well, you move on. And.

[Pete Holmes]

And how is the. The. Your son? So who's 14 now?

[Margo Price]

He's 15.

[Pete Holmes]

15.

[Margo Price]

He's taller than me. He's amazing. He. He's. He's such a good teenager. And we ended up getting pregnant by surprise again with our daughter Ramona.

[Pete Holmes]

And she's still Ramona.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, Ramona. And she. It was like I never planned on having another baby. It was right when my career took off.

[Pete Holmes]

And that must have been incredibly inciting for you. It must have been very hard to be pregnant again.

[Margo Price]

It was. It was. I was scared the whole time. And I thought, you know, I didn't. I didn't want to. I didn't want something to be wrong with her. I. You know, there was just so much grief around pregnancy and. But it was actually really, after somebody loses a baby and then they have another baby, they say that it's a rainbow baby because it's like this rainbow after a storm. And it was wonderful to go through all of those first milestones without all the grief attached.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow. And does your son. I'm sorry, I just read this book about Elvis and his connection to his twin.

[Margo Price]

We've told him a lot about his twin.

[Pete Holmes]

So you're not, like, tired of hearing about this? There's supposed to be, like, this bond.

[Margo Price]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And a life that you're, like, raised knowing you had a twin brother who died. Philip K. Dick also had a brother that died when he was born. And there. And they. They, like, stay connected. That's what they say. I'm just. And it's his experience. I don't want you to represent him, but I'm just curious. Is that.

[Margo Price]

Oh, I think he's. I think he's felt lonely for sure, you know, and we had my best friends, who I've been best friends with for 22 years. She had twin boys a year before me, so she'd given me two of everything. We had thing one and thing two onesies, and we had two cribs. And we had all the stuff, we were ready for two. But it would have been. It would have been incredibly challenging because you would have kept having to have surgeries. You know, it wouldn't just be one. But, yeah, it was. It was dark times. And. But I think it. It gave me this kind of. I think, you know, you live long enough, enough you're going to go through something difficult. And it gave me a completely different perspective on life and just compassion in.

[Pete Holmes]

A way that the brokenness, like, softened. Am I hearing you right?

[Margo Price]

Like, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Sometimes I find, like, even having just been sick, again, just relating.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

When I'm like, tender, like, things open up, like, I. I have more love for people. I have more understanding. Absolutely. And even just talking to. Talking to you about this, the reason I'm asking about it is, for that reason is it's like it's never a bad idea to remember all the people around you on the highway in a store. It doesn't matter. People are having their hearts broken in a million different ways. So true, right?

[Margo Price]

It's so true. And I mean, none of us has to be here. It's all this, like, weird experiment. We're just trying to figure it out. Nobody knows what they're doing.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Margo Price]

And, you know, I think after that, it just. My whole life. Perspective changed and. And it's even like you. You meet people in the grocery store, you maybe case them, you judge them, you know, like a book. But I don't know. I think we are living in times when everybody could just give each other a little more compassion.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good reminder.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that. This episode is brought to us by our friends at Apollo Neuro. You've probably seen me wearing my Apollo Neuro in hundreds of episodes of this podcast. Always on my wrist. Sometimes now on my ankle, sometimes now. I clipped my shirts. Shirt. What is an Apollo Neuro? It is not a tracker. It is a wearable that sends gentle vibrations to help support your nervous system by speaking to it in a language it can understand, which is touch. You can wear it on your wrist or your ankle. It's silent, makes no noise. You don't have to do anything. There's no breathing technique. No. Clear your mind. Apollo works through your sense of touch with specific vibration patterns designed to signal safety or activation to your body. That means you can get calm on demand. Demand. Focus on demand. Energy sleep. Depending on the vibe. If you want to wind down at night, you put it on unwind, relax, and it lulls your body into this wonderful digital hug. Essentially what's cool is it comes with the smart vibes AI in the app, so it adapts over time based on how and when you use it. You don't even have to manage it. Apollo adjusts with you. It's like having a nervous system coach built right into the device. I've noticed a huge difference with my stress management and a huge one with my sleep which is chemical free and a really nice way to fall and stay asleep at night. So if you want to support your stress and sleep instead of just tracking it, Apollo is worth trying. They even offer a money back guarantee so you can see how your body responds. You got nothing to lose. Comment Apollo to get 99 off this episode is brought to us by our friends at Olipop. This is their root beer, which I absolutely love. Olipop is a different kind of soda. The classic root beer tastes so good. It brings me right back to a carefree child day, child day in my childhood. Summertime sunburn, no responsibilities. It goes right into that center. But here's the difference. It's a different kind of soda. It's that classic soda taste, the kind that takes you back. But it's made with functional ingredients that support digestive health. Doesn't taste like it tastes fantastic, but it's supporting your digestive health. Olipop is high fiber, low sugar, which is huge. Two out of three Americans deal with digestive issues and 95% of us don't get enough fiber. Olipop is reimagining soda in a way that tackles both while tasting amazing. If you want soda that tastes like soda, not like a compromise, grab some Olipop and right now you can get a free can. Buy any two cans in store and they'll pay you back for one. Any flavor favor any retailer just go to drinkollipop.com weird that's drinkolip.com weird. Olipop is sold online and available nationwide in the soda aisle and chilled section at places like Walmart, Target, Costco and Whole Foods.

[Margo Price]

Hey everyone, it's Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin. You might know us as two of.

[Pete Holmes]

The lead organizers of the no Kings protests. We're also the co founders of Indivisible While the grassroots movement organizing against Trump's regime.

[Margo Price]

And this is what's the Plan? Your weekly guide to the state of our democracy and how we fight back. This is not canned talking points. It's a real live discussion space for the pro democracy movement. We wrestle with strategy together. We take your top voted questions in real time and we talk about the most impactful actions we can take right now.

[Pete Holmes]

Democracy is a participatory sport. The fascists win. When we sit on the sidelines. What's the Plan is about how we get into the game.

[Margo Price]

What's the plan? Available Friday, January 23rd, wherever you get your podcast asses.

[Pete Holmes]

Subscribe, recruit, discuss, organize and win. That's the plan. Okay, so you got signed from Jack White.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Of the white power group the White Stripes. Just kidding. And they're like, we want to put out this record that you were sitting for a year, a year and a half. Is this a phone call?

[Margo Price]

Yeah. So they took me in a third man. Where you've been?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

And they were like, like, you come in here and cut something direct to acetate, like, you know, make a vinyl. I think they wanted to see if I could sing without autotune and.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Margo Price]

And so he. I didn't know this, but Jack was there that day and you saw a.

[Pete Holmes]

Cigarette lighting up in the darkness.

[Margo Price]

They have two way mirrors all over the place. So he was watching through the. Through the two way mirror and like, wow. It was.

[Pete Holmes]

Isn't it kind of a gift to not. I mean, is there a cooler person?

[Margo Price]

I know I would have been so nervous. I wouldn't of.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Rory Scoville did a comedy record with them. And I'm like, I know, he's.

[Margo Price]

I love him too.

[Pete Holmes]

I couldn't. I mean, I. I like to think I could, but I wouldn't like to know that Jack White. I'd like to know. Jack White was at my show after I did my show. Totally.

[Margo Price]

It's so nerve wracking. And one time Bill Murray was in the crowd when I was doing a show and like, I. I didn't see him until after. They're like, Bill Murray was here. I was like, no way. What? I got drunk with him one time too.

[Pete Holmes]

What?

[Margo Price]

Ran into him, like up in Portland, Maine, and he was just, just hanging out.

[Pete Holmes]

And I went, what's he doing in Portland, Maine?

[Margo Price]

He was doing his own, like musical comedy show, traveling around. Yeah. This was like quite a while ago.

[Pete Holmes]

But I didn't know he was a music fellow.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, he was doing like a little. A little. I don't know, I think it wasn't a one man show, but it's kind of like a jazz thing. And he would probably, I would imagine, like tell some jokes and, and do a couple song. Song and dance stories and such.

[Pete Holmes]

Was he cool?

[Margo Price]

He was cool. He. He was so cool. He was very nice.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And, yeah, anything surprising? He got a banana split in the middle of the hang.

[Margo Price]

He was pouring everybody drinks behind the bar. And it was kind of like.

[Pete Holmes]

He went behind the bar.

[Margo Price]

He went behind the bar. He's like, what do you want? And then somebody would be like, oh, I want a bouquet. Or, you know, I want a Negroni. And he'd be like, you get a tequila. And he would give them a tequila. And then he bought my cab home that night. He was. He was so kind. We did a bunch of vocal exercises together.

[Pete Holmes]

You showed him your warm up.

[Margo Price]

He was showing me warm up ups. He was like, you need to put your hands up here. You need to clean out your sinuses. And I couldn't tell if he was, like, gagging me. But. Yeah, we did a bunch of vocal wars together.

[Pete Holmes]

I haven't heard this one.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. You know when you're sick and.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You drain it out.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. You got to drain it out.

[Pete Holmes]

But have you ever tried entertainer Secret. I just found out about it.

[Margo Price]

Is this the spray? I have.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. It's really.

[Margo Price]

I like it. I have. Do you ever lose your voice on tour?

[Pete Holmes]

I do.

[Margo Price]

I have a couple vocal exercises I can show you that are foolproof.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Margo Price]

That one time I had completely lost my voice. It was back when I was drinking a lot and smoking a lot of cigarettes.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

And I was opening for Dave Matthews Band, the Gorge.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, Tom, who set us up, knows that I've chased Dave Matthews for. I would love to have him on.

[Margo Price]

He's the coolest.

[Pete Holmes]

He's so cool.

[Margo Price]

I've got his phone number.

[Pete Holmes]

Concert.

[Margo Price]

Oh, I don't know if I did.

[Pete Holmes]

You gotta watch it.

[Margo Price]

Okay. I. Absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

Because you're like, oh, he's gonna do the 90s. He doesn't do one hit, and it's bangers the whole time. And you're like, amazing. I'm sorry.

[Margo Price]

He's such a cool guy.

[Pete Holmes]

Clearly just the real deal.

[Margo Price]

He really is.

[Pete Holmes]

And I. I've even made some jokes, I think, at Dave Matthews Band expense, trying to think of what it was. It doesn't matter. Nothing hard. Like, they became their own cultural touchstone.

[Margo Price]

They did.

[Pete Holmes]

I've always been a fan.

[Margo Price]

No, absolutely. I was in the. The way. In the nosebleed in the field seats with, like, ex boyfriends who were obsessed with Dave Matthews, you know? And now I'm on the board of Farm Aid with him, which is just insane. He's. He's been in there with, like, Willie and Neil, John Mellencamp and I was the first woman that came on the board. But, like, he's been. He's been so nice to me. Wow. He's really. He's the real deal.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I'm not gonna. Don't forget it. You are the guest. I'm so glad you're here. And it's fun that you know Dave Matthews. Don't you even do it.

[Margo Price]

You want me texting?

[Pete Holmes]

Don't do it.

[Margo Price]

You know what? You need to come on this podcast.

[Pete Holmes]

He has a podcast.

[Margo Price]

No, I will tell. I will tell Dave he needs to come on your podcast.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a great way to get someone on your podcast. Podcast is do their podcast. Okay. So Dave Matthews is gonna do the podcast. No. You have a vocal. What is it? I mean, I couldn't tell em.

[Margo Price]

I was like. Like, I had no voice. And Dave has this. This vocal coach. His name's Rob Stevenson, and he had me do. Yeah. All these vocal warm ups. It's like you blow through a straw. You do. You know, you do stuff that you're like, how is this working? This was not going to work. And. And one of them is kind of a weird. It's like. And you, like.

[Pete Holmes]

You grind with something from back there.

[Margo Price]

Yeah, it's like back here. And you, like, rub your vocal cords together, and if you're. If your top end's gone. I mean, by the. By the time I got on stage, I had almost 90% of my voice back.

[Pete Holmes]

What?

[Margo Price]

But I don't think Dave's crowd liked me very much, so it was, like, the biggest crowd I ever played for. With, like, the least amount of applause, but. But it's okay. They cheered when I got back behind the drum set and did, like, a Grateful Dead song. I think I did Casey Jones. And they were like, okay, we like that.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that would. I can't imagine opening for Dave Matthews.

[Margo Price]

Because they're there to see Dave Matthews.

[Pete Holmes]

The hell is this?

[Margo Price]

Girl?

[Pete Holmes]

You know who should open for Dave Matthews is Dave Matthews.

[Margo Price]

I know. He really should. He do the acoustic set.

[Pete Holmes]

Him and Tim, like, Eddie Vedder would come out and play a song before the opener to encourage people to come. One of the coolest things ever.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you're. You're hanging out with Eddie Vedder as well.

[Margo Price]

I've hung out with Eddie Vedder, too.

[Pete Holmes]

That's pretty cool.

[Margo Price]

Doesn't get any better than that. I'll show myself.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Margo Price]

He was at third, man. He did a Blue Room session, and they were incredible. And then, like, afterwards, there was a. This seems like the Dave Chappelle, like, Prince. Basketball game type story.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

But Jack's crew challenged Eddie Vedder's crew to a basketball game.

[Pete Holmes]

So Jack White's crew said, I'm gonna take on Eddie Vedder's crew. Yes.

[Margo Price]

And they invited my husband because my husband balls, and he is really, really a great basketball player. But we just wanted to go back to the house that night, I think, and drink more. So we didn't even go.

[Pete Holmes]

You didn't go?

[Margo Price]

We didn't even go. We blew it. We still think about that. That was a little a. That was a huge mistake.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, this is how lame I am. I've never regretted not going to something. I'm like, I just want to leave.

[Margo Price]

That's called the Irish.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, the Irish.

[Margo Price]

The Irish hello is when you don't even go, oh, my God.

[Pete Holmes]

It's so funny that you said that. Somebody just said that. I do something when we have people over where I'll just start doing something, like, not watching a movie, but, like, I'll just start doing something I have to do. And he was like, it's not an Irish goodbye. It's. It's like an Irish hello.

[Margo Price]

I do that, too. Where it's like, I'm done with this party. Get out.

[Pete Holmes]

You just kind of like, is he taking a shower? Like, it's just a way of telling people, this is done.

[Margo Price]

I'm done.

[Pete Holmes]

I refuse to be uncomfortable in my own house. Yeah, you know what it is? I'll swim. Like, I swim for exercise sometimes. We'll have people over.

[Margo Price]

I love to swim. I used to be a swimming instructor.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. It's the only exercise you can do socially acceptable. To be like, I'm just gonna do it.

[Margo Price]

I'm just gonna swim. And you swim laps.

[Pete Holmes]

Just swim laps. Awesome. Who cares?

[Margo Price]

Leonard Cohen. I don't know if you know Leonard Cohen.

[Pete Holmes]

The cracks let the light in. Yes.

[Margo Price]

He used to swim naked in every hotel he went to when he was on tour. There's a really great documentary about him. And he's like, yeah, no, they weren't nude. He just.

[Pete Holmes]

No, the documentary is called Nude Pools. Yeah, Nude Pools. The Leonard Cohen.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Margo Price]

You've heard of that, right?

[Pete Holmes]

If he's nude, Cohen's going, Cohen going, Cohen's going. Cohen's going, nude. Cohen's going, he's.

[Margo Price]

He just liked to be nude. He liked to swim nude. I mean, you can't blame him.

[Pete Holmes]

You can. It's a law. It's a legal way of blaming someone. If you see it was the guitar in two picks you know, floating around. It's the 70s. Indeed. That's full bush.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[Pete Holmes]

There's no coinscaping going on. That filter is clogged. Yeah, yeah. The mesh is for us, not you. The lining of a bathing suit.

[Margo Price]

There's a scene in it where he's, like, on. In the documentary where he's, like. Takes acid and he's like, at Isle of Wight, and it's like, the biggest crowd ever, and he's, like, having a meltdown, and he's just decides to leave the set and shave in the. Like, he's like, I can't be out here. And he goes backstage and he shaves off his beard, and then he goes back out and finishes the set. You might have to do that at some point.

[Pete Holmes]

Shave my head, though. Oh, my. I can't believe it's one.

[Margo Price]

You got good hair. Don't shave your head.

[Pete Holmes]

Thank you. I almost said. I know. But, like, what do I have to do with it? Why can't I just be like. I know. Every day for a man is like, how's it going?

[Margo Price]

You need a pool here. So when you're done with your podcast, you can just go. Just get up and swim.

[Pete Holmes]

This is my old house. We used to put. We almost put a pool in. When we're walking out, you tell me where you think a pool could go. The answer is nowhere. And we got real close. Close to breaking ground on a pool that shouldn't be. Yeah, it would have been one of those. Like, you open a door to a room, and it's all pool.

[Margo Price]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So Kid Rock's your neighbor?

[Margo Price]

Kid Rock's my neighbor, unfortunately.

[Pete Holmes]

I can't believe it's 1:30. I.

[Margo Price]

Time flies.

[Pete Holmes]

I have to go.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. This has been a great talk. I should tell people I've got a tour coming up. I'm going to Boston. Tell your people.

[Pete Holmes]

Where are you playing?

[Margo Price]

All over. We're doing New York. Los Angeles. Oh, I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

The Paradise.

[Margo Price]

Top of my head, maybe. Oh, maybe the Wilburn. Those sound familiar?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, those are all great venues.

[Margo Price]

I never know till the day of. I'm like, where are we? Let's just wait for the tour manager to tell.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. No, I have to say again, I should have opened with this. And I kind of said it, but, like, just, like, a sound bath and a car is a great place to listen to a record, too. Right. So I'm just. Just really playing it quite loud, and it just changes your state and. And your voice is really special, and your lyrics are Incredible. And I know Jeremy writes some of.

[Margo Price]

The licks and a lot of the lyrics.

[Pete Holmes]

Eye roll. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Why now?

[Margo Price]

We've been together. We've been married for somehow, miraculously, almost 16 years together. I always forget. I'm not as good at remembering the dates, but we've been. I'm almost 43, and I've been with him since I was 20.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Margo Price]

Which is insane. I was a child bride.

[Pete Holmes]

Child bride? Well, val was. Wait, 17. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I think she was 23 when I met her. And I was 33. I know. And now that I'm a dad, I'm like, that's really.

[Margo Price]

How many kids do you have?

[Pete Holmes]

We have just the one. Seven.

[Margo Price]

That's enough.

[Pete Holmes]

So similar to. What is it, Ma?

[Margo Price]

Oh, Ramona. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Ramona the past.

[Margo Price]

Mona. We call her Mona. I loved those books growing up. Beverly Cleary. But I also love the Bob Dylan song, so. Oh, Ramona.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you have a Bob Dylan story to close us out?

[Margo Price]

Okay, so I did play. I did play some shows with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. Like, I go to Willie Nelson's house every year for Thanksgiving.

[Pete Holmes]

What?

[Margo Price]

He's like a grandfather to me.

[Pete Holmes]

No.

[Margo Price]

Yes. He recorded on one of my albums, on my second album that was All American, American Made. He. He did a duet with me on there.

[Pete Holmes]

All American braid.

[Margo Price]

All American braid. Oh, missed opportunity. Missed opportunity. But, yeah, when you.

[Pete Holmes]

As soon as he came up, I was like, pete, find a way to work in the word braid. The song was called.

[Margo Price]

That was good. That was on your toes.

[Pete Holmes]

I was gonna say, were you a braid? Yeah.

[Margo Price]

The song was called Learning to Lose, but the album was made. But. But him and Bob Dylan are quite close, and they've toured together a lot.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, they're friends?

[Margo Price]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

I just always thought. Thought Bobby D was kind of like a Daniel Plane.

[Margo Price]

He's a loner, but he likes. He likes Willie likes Willie. He. I heard a story that he smokes high wacky tobacco.

[Pete Holmes]

It makes me giggle.

[Margo Price]

I know. Good.

[Pete Holmes]

Willy, get over here. Table's boring.

[Margo Price]

He brought Willie up high on his bus. He had a towel on his head like a boxer. And he goes, where's the King?

[Pete Holmes]

He called him the King.

[Margo Price]

Called him the King.

[Pete Holmes]

He called him the King.

[Margo Price]

Pretty cool, right?

[Pete Holmes]

Bobby D called him the King.

[Margo Price]

I heard this, like, secondhand from Willie's band. But I don't need.

[Pete Holmes]

It's amazing anymore. That's a great story.

[Margo Price]

When he. When he played Though it was like we all had to. We were supposed to not be backstage and stuff, you know, like, they keep the side stage cleared and he had a whole police brigade like bringing him in. And we were on our tour bus looking out the window like it was like Santa Claus was coming, you know. And I have. Yeah. I haven't got to talk with him because he has a. He keeps to himself. But he's my favorite song writer.

[Pete Holmes]

Bobby D. Hands down.

[Margo Price]

Absolutely.

[Pete Holmes]

What a weird time. My favorite thing. I. I'm pushing the limits. You're. You were ready to rap and I'm pushing us here, but I'm.

[Margo Price]

Until you start swimming.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I know. That's the Irish. The Irish.

[Margo Price]

The Irish hello.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, the Irish.

[Margo Price]

When you don't even go.

[Pete Holmes]

When you don't even go. The Irish hello. When you don't even go.

[Margo Price]

You need to write that song with the lights on.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. What. When he talks about. He doesn't use these words, but the portal just being open for those, like years when he was writing all those songs and they were coming out very effortlessly.

[Margo Price]

A conduit.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, exactly. And now he can still do it, but it takes him years and years. And like the. And he's like, just try and write that song. And I love that he has that awareness that there was just Murder Most Foul.

[Margo Price]

I don't know if you remember that one that came out, like right when Covid hit really hard and it was like just weeping. He was talking about Kennedy and you know, it's like a seven minute song. He didn't get a Grammy for that. He should have. If.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, that came out in 2020?

[Margo Price]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Still got it.

[Margo Price]

He still does.

[Pete Holmes]

Bobby D. Certainly does. What about Jesse Wells? Do you like him?

[Margo Price]

I do. He has a duet with me on my most recent record. Yeah. It's called Don't Wake Me up because check it out.

[Pete Holmes]

You. You see the connection. I'm always like, oh, wouldn't it be great? See, Bob Dylan's still putting out great music, but we need like those new voices. There's something about a new voice for a new generation. And. And Jessica, he seems to be. I don't know, I see some great potential in him being that voice because you go like, oh, these are the times that a folk musician would love to write about. And you've done so much of that as well. I don't mean to end by.

[Margo Price]

No, not at all. I love Jesse. I really love Jesse. We met at Farm Aid and I was like, will you sing on this song? I have this song that's very Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues. It's called Don't Wake Me up. And Jesse sang on it.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Margo Price]

He's a good friend. He's a good guy. He is.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. Get me on a group. Text me. Jesse, Dave.

[Margo Price]

You got it, jk. Who else? Who else? We go to there.

[Pete Holmes]

Bobby D. Oh, yeah. Apatow is my way to Vetter. Yeah, I'll get him. Just kidding. You are a delight. Thank you. You're on tour. We'll plug everything you want up top. And thank you to Tom Osborne who made this happen.

[Margo Price]

I appreciate it. My husband was like, you have got to go on that podcast.

[Pete Holmes]

Please tell Jeremy I love your podcast.

[Margo Price]

We're both listeners. We love your stand up.

[Pete Holmes]

Thank you.

[Margo Price]

We love your show.

[Pete Holmes]

Really do appreciate that.

[Margo Price]

Yeah. And I love your outlook on spirituality and God and religion. I know. We didn't even get to that. That's fine. We covered a lot of good ground.

[Pete Holmes]

It's in there.

[Margo Price]

All right.

[Pete Holmes]

When I interviewed James Finley, I was like, we didn't even talk about the meaning of life. And he was like, it was in there. It was. It's always in there. Where else could it be?

[Margo Price]

It's the cracks and everything. That's how the light gets in.

[Pete Holmes]

Lenny Cohen. Dick up in the shallow end Dick up in the shallow end of the Holiday Inn.

[Margo Price]

Perfect way to end.

[Pete Holmes]

Thank you. Please come back. We have more to talk about.

[Margo Price]

Let's do it.

[Pete Holmes]

But would you say keep it crispy and thank you very, very much.

[Margo Price]

Absolutely. Keep it crispy. Thank you very much.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, no. I knew you were gonna do that.

[Margo Price]

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