Greta Morgan is a founding member of The Hush Sound, touring with Fallout Boy when she was still a teenager, releasing records via Fueled By Ramen, before moving on to being a touring member of Vampire Weekend and performing with Jenny Lewis. After contracting long Covid she developed spasmodic dysphonia - a neurological voice disorder characterized by involuntary spasms of the muscles in the voice box. I.E. it is nearly impossible to sing. After writing nearly 350,000 words in journals, she turned her work into a book - "The Lost Voice" (out now via Harper Collins). We talk with Greta about this life altering change, and it's effects on her creativity and creative practice, our evolving identity coming from self, not from others or our output, the worthiness shadow, acceptance, longevity, and more.
Greta Morgan is a founding member of The Hush Sound, touring with Fallout Boy when she was still a teenager, releasing records via Fueled By Ramen, before moving on to being a touring member of Vampire Weekend and performing with Jenny Lewis. After contracting long Covid she developed spasmodic dysphonia - a neurological voice disorder characterized by involuntary spasms of the muscles in the voice box. I.E. it is nearly impossible to sing. After writing nearly 350,000 words in journals, she turned her work into a book - "The Lost Voice" (out now via Harper Collins). We talk with Greta about this life altering change, and it's effects on her creativity and creative practice, our evolving identity coming from self, not from others or our output, the worthiness shadow, acceptance, longevity, and more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of the Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss,
Michaela: and I'm your other host, Michaela Anne. And we are on episode 110, and this week we're featuring our conversation with Greta Morgan.
Aaron: Greta Morgan is a singer songwriter who started with her band The Hush Sound at 16.
She said, leaving high school to go on arena tours opening for bands such as Fallout Boy and that. Career then morphed into her being a side musician, touring member of band, such as Vampire Weekend. And then in 2020 as Covid hit, she developed long Covid. And with that developed Spasmatic Dysphonia, which is when your vocal chords clamp shut at random.
And it makes it nearly impossible to sing or to hold out a note. And as you can [00:01:00] imagine. Drastically changed her art form and her ability to sing and perform and make music.
Michaela: So following that, Greta wrote, she said over 360,000 words on her life, exploring what could have emotionally caused this loss of ability to sing.
which then became a book. Her debut memoir called The Lost Voice, which is out now and available for purchase on Harper Collins. We had such an in-depth conversation with Greta We talked a lot about her daily practice of how to stay grounded.
One thing that we both really liked was her. perfect moments Practice.
Aaron: It's basically the moments that are life at the most life. So you hear the word perfect moments and you think, oh, the perfect day. It's a great day. And it's like, no, it's like one life is very much life when you're in your feeling, in your experience fully.
this exploration and intentional observation of her life is something that kind of permeates this entire conversation and being very [00:02:00] intentional, being very.
Present with your experience and your perception of what's going on. And in that, as you can imagine, grieving your former self, grieving a former dream or plan. But then also like being present with the art that you're making right here and right now, and not letting ambition put your point of view like way off in the very future horizon.
and so with that, this conversation, obviously, as they all do, follows their own natural path as a conversation between a bunch of creatives. But there are also some topics that we cover that come as direct suggestions from subscribers to our Patreon.
And that's because they get advanced notice of our guests before we have these conversations. They can submit questions ideas, comments. Concerns even though nobody has yet. But that's an open call to submit concerns. It's also the sole way that we are able to support the production of this show in a financial sense.
so if that sounds interesting to you, there's only one level involvement. It's like a yes, I'm involved, or no, I'm not involved. Kinda situation over there. And there's a link below in our show [00:03:00] notes.
Michaela: And if you're a visual person, this conversation as well as all of our other episodes are available to watch on YouTube.
Aaron: But without further ado, here is our conversation with Greta Morgan.
Greta: I just finished your book too so, I'm super excited for so many things to talk about, so let's dig in.
Michaela: and so we really like to start off the conversation just with. How are you today and where are you
Aaron: physically and creatively?
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: Great questions. I today am feeling very centered and anchored after a kind of multi-day social and work storm.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: And so today I'm feeling particularly just, grounded, happy. I slept well last night. I feel like this is the kind of the moment of a storm ending.
and then physically I'm coming out of I've been navigating long COVID for the last few
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: and uh, I'm coming out of. A month long setback.
Michaela: Mm, had five months of really consistent [00:04:00] health and then kind of overexerted myself and there were a number of stressors and had a really big setback and I just feel like I'm finally starting to get back at my feet. So I'm so grateful for just health and more capacity and that's making me feel more creative.
Greta: So, To answer the creativity question, I am feeling very inspired. I just started writing my second book,
Michaela: Mm.
Greta: be
Michaela: Cool. far in the future.
Yeah.
Greta: but it's a book that has a musical component, so there's both songwriting and music as part of it. And a creative project I'm really excited about is such a bolster.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Makes me feel so buoyant and happy and carries me through my days
Mm-hmm.
Greta: how I'm feeling today.
Michaela: did you just wake up feeling grounded or do you have a practice or something that you do to help you, especially when you're coming off of what you call a, storm?
Greta: I have a devoted practice, so I wake up in the morning. I try not to look at my phone for at least three or four hours.
Michaela: Oh, [00:05:00] wow.
Greta: in that, I'm slowly moving away from the iPhone. I just bought a flip phone, but for now, I do these like long interims without looking at it. so when I wake up in the morning, I make a matcha. I've become a mean matcha latte
Michaela: Mm,
Greta: I meditate for between 15 minutes and like maybe an hour. And sometimes there's movement or stretching in with that. And then I usually start writing. And sometimes that's music.
Sometimes that's a book project, and sometimes it's just other things that need to be completed. Like If I'm teaching a workshop, I know I need to prep for the class or that kind of thing. I journal every day and my main journaling practice is called Perfect Moments.
It's this project that my friends Bianca Ver and Irvine Molik and I started in 2016,
and Wow.
down one moment from each day and we send it to a text thread when we say perfect moments, it doesn't mean they're good. It just is like whatever the most emotionally resonant moment of the day is
Michaela: Okay.
Greta: that down. [00:06:00] And doing that over the course of now almost nine years, that's how I learned to be a writer who could write a memoir
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: of starting to find, tune these moments of. Life starting to capture dialogue and feeling and sensation and kind of recognizing what is a moment worth remembering?
like in a say, three hour visit with someone, what is the one single moment I'm gonna walk away remembering? So every day, this is a real run on sentence, but
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: I journal, I do the perfect moment combo of music and writing. yeah, that's kind of how the days begin.
Aaron: I love that. Amazing. Could you if you're comfortable, give an example of a perfect moment that wouldn't be like a stereotypical perfect moment that like, maybe it was like really painful or really hard, or like if there was, you know what I mean? Like what would be classified as like a negative moment, but, 'cause I love that idea like, I, I'd love to hear what that would look like.
Greta: there have been a lot of really hard ones lately. Uh, Let me think what's
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: to share. You know, like, one, for example, I have been feeling really strong. For [00:07:00] weeks. And with long covid, one of the ways it manifests is like a nervous system disease. So you can be very overwhelmed by sensory stimulation. I haven't attended a live concert in over eight months because of that. And I went to see one of my friends play locally, and the next day I just woke up feeling like I had been completely drugged. Like it felt like I had taken a roofie.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. acknowledgement of oh, I've been knocked back down.
Greta: Like
I've been set back. And just kind of that acknowledgement of it's five steps forward, three steps back. I'm in the step back moment.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: would've been a
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: another one is like being broken up with,
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Greta: another is, you know, I have this book coming out and the team asked, can you gather a bunch of your performance videos?
Michaela: Mm. pitch them for publicity stories.
Yeah.
Greta: I, I kind of intentionally have not watched videos of myself performing since my voice has changed.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: And I went back and watched some of my videos from [00:08:00] 2017 and 2018 and I was just so surprised by how much emotion it brought up. And I was just like sitting in bed crying.
Michaela: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Greta: Think when I had that voice, firstly I didn't appreciate what I had. I didn't appreciate the ease and the effortlessness. And also I was so critical of it. that was one of the things that felt so sad and also was just looking at myself and going, wow, look at that person who has so much energy.
Michaela: Yeah. Mm.
Greta: Bouncing around stage and she's like playing for an hour and singing her heart out. And to have that now to me would be such a dream come true.
that moment of sitting and watching this old video of myself, that would be like
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: that's
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: happy.
Aaron: I love that. haven't, I mean, I'm, I'm gonna steal that and start doing that myself. It's something that I've done close to the same amount of time. I would say probably like 2018, I became aware of How these stereotypically like negative emotions, negative moments, less desirable, I guess is what I mean by by negative are [00:09:00] equally life and that experience, basically it's all stemming from this kind of realization I had that life is a timeline, quilt of experiences, one after the other.
And to lean into that. And so having this experience of intense sadness or intense discomfort is like experiencing that fully is living as much as like the highest joys is also living to the fullest. So I love, that as like living as perfect moment. That's really cool.
Greta: That's such a beautiful way of saying it too. And one thing that's so comforting is when I read them back, I
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Greta: seeing like, okay, on Tuesday I was crying in my bed. On Wednesday, I went for a walk and a black cat followed me for three quarters of a mile
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: away from me, and it was pure magic.
And then on Thursday, like I had a, terrible fight with someone. And then on Friday I had the best Indian food I've ever tasted
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: like. And then on Saturday, my mom said the most hilarious thing to me on the boat. So somehow seeing the moments woven into the rollercoaster
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Greta: it helps me [00:10:00] contextualize that when a bad wave happens, it will pass.
Michaela: Yeah. Is
Aaron: that something that you notice in the moment as well, like your perception of the moment as it's happening?
Greta: I, I wish I was that enlightened.
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: I wish I could be
Aaron: Cool.
Greta: I'm sobbing. It's just a moment it'll pass like That's where I want to be.
Aaron: Yes. Heard.
Michaela: I know. It's so interesting that because it, reminds me of, we do this thing with our, we have a three and a half year old daughter, and we got it from my friend. I don't know where she got it, but she told me she does it with her kids. we say, what was your rose and your thorn? So like under the understanding that a you can't have a rose without a thorn. So you have both things. So like, what was something that was hard or less desirable today and what was something that felt really good or, you know, we should start writing it down 'cause Totally. You know, Sometimes it's crazy what she says, and it's like the purpose is to like try and teach her like, yeah, all these things are part of a day.
the goal isn't to [00:11:00] try and push away the thorns. There's always a thorn and that's okay. That's a part of it.
Greta: yeah, that's such a beautiful way to say it. my meditation teacher has this, it's not an intentional catchphrase, but she says it pretty often, which is. a better problem than last year?
Aaron: Oh
Greta: Like I'll be complaining about something. She'll be like, oh, but this is a better problem than last year.
No.
Aaron: yeah. I love that.
I'm gonna totally botch his name 'cause I always do, but Khalil Giran, And I think he writes about it in the prophet. He talks about this, about like joy and, sadness. Share the same bed, and you can't have one without the other. And to feel one, you need to be able to feel the other.
Because how would you know what joy is if you don't know what absolute sadness is?
Aaron: shocker. He says it way more eloquently than I did.
Michaela: Well, there's, there's also like a million, I referenced it in the conversation we had with Maggie Smith, I think. no lotus, no mud, From Tik, not Han. Just like the constant practice of like, for whatever reason I feel like in, Westernized American culture of just like, and in today's [00:12:00] society and like we can go deep on all the reasons, but if I have felt like in my young adult life, and especially as a musician and a touring musician who's been on this path to achieve and get more and, you're always chasing like the better show, the bigger audience.
it just trained my mind to be a hedonist in a way. To just be like, I am seeking the pleasure and the positive all the time, and I wanna avoid anything that doesn't feel good. And the last several years of my life I feel like that's been my biggest lesson is just I can't push it away.
It's, there and how to grapple with it, essentially.
Greta: that totally makes sense.
Michaela: I wanna talk about your book. This is kind of like a different episode for us in a way, because we don't usually talk about any guests, like one project. But your book is so much about what we talk about. So I won't speak for you. If you wanna share just like a snippet of what your book is about and then I have some questions.
Greta: [00:13:00] for those who don't know me, I have been a lifelong professional musician.
Aaron: Mm.
Greta: I got signed when I was in high school with my first band, the Hush Sound. I went on an arena tour opening for Fallout Boy while I was still a Catholic school, Virgin Senior in high school. Like I skipped my high school graduation. To go on tour in England and the principal said, absent due to being a rock star, like it was very almost famous. Like it was deeply, deeply, almost famous. And so I started very young and music was the greatest love story of my life. And over the course of 16 years, I kept cultivating my voice, cultivating my writing abilities. In 2018, I joined Vampire Weekend as a touring member and was just having the wildest high life of music experience one could imagine, the Hollywood Bowl and Red Rocks and Madison Square Garden. And then in 2020 I got Covid and my voice basically started shorting out in ways that were hard to diagnose and explain. I was [00:14:00] diagnosed with Spasmodic Dysphonia, which is a neurological voice disorder. For most singers when you're singing, you fate a word and your vocal cords know to stay open while you're saying that word. And with spasm dysphonia, your vocal cords slam shut involuntarily. So there's like a glitch in the brain. And so it makes it very hard to hold a pitch, hard to sing steadily, hard to project. so my voice just changed very dramatically. And during the time, kind of the year after the diagnosis, started writing on the page as a way of trying to uncover any stories of my life that could have been somatically affecting my voice. I was like, am I silencing myself? Is this unmetabolized grief?
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: this somehow? through my whole life and I was trying to look at. The moments when I had been unable to speak or sing or [00:15:00] articulate myself, and I wrote something like 350,000 words
Aaron: Mm-hmm. Wow.
Greta: like six novels, seven novels. Not saying it was good, but it was a lot.
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: and then just been writing as of a process of spiritual inquiry and healing, but eventually it became clear oh, this is actually a story I want to share. And one of the reasons I wanted to publish it is because I had had this very life altering diagnosis, I was looking for stories of other people that experienced life altering changes.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: all the stories I found were very, encapsulated. You know, What I wanted is like, okay, well what does someone do in that year?
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: thing they love the most is taken away from them what do the days look like? How do the people in their life understand them? What is the grief like?
yeah.
So I'm publishing my story just in the hopes that there are more offerings like this for people who are [00:16:00] experiencing similar
Michaela: Mm-hmm.this is what I love about art in any form. And why nonfiction memoirs are art to me, where I know there's like debate out there sometimes. Ignorant debate I think. I did not lose my voice, but the pandemic, I had a lot of life altering experiences of my mom had a stroke, we had a baby.
So much change. So as I was reading your book, I was relating as we do when we read other people's stories or listen to their stories in a song, we translate them to our experiences and it makes us feel empathetic and understanding and learning about another person's life, but also Oh wow. I feel less alone because I feel that and I did that and, all of those things.
So your story is very specific to your life, but the way that you share it. universal, I think for any life changing experience no matter what the actual [00:17:00] loss is or what the grief is, but just the navigating, especially when you can pinpoint the moment in time where, you've been a changed person or your circumstances have changed, or your life changes and processing, letting go of your former self and getting to know, and being open to, and not resentful of this new version of your life that you're entering into.
So that was just my compliment
Greta: Oh
Michaela: to,
to you of the way that you shared it.
Greta: Thank you. I'm that. And thing that feels so good is, I know when people read memoir, it's not really to find out about me. it's to find out about themselves.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: just the fact that you could relate to your mom's stroke and to having a baby, even having a baby, what a joyful, beautiful experience.
But it certainly changes your identity
Michaela: There's so much grief with becoming a mother
Greta: right.
Michaela: I'm sure I'm not gonna speak to him, but Yes.
Greta: Yeah. I just, I really appreciate that sentiment. [00:18:00] Thank you.
Michaela: this same way that you mentioned that you were searching for these other stories I remember so vividly at and when I was in the throes of my mom's stroke and early motherhood, I was reading like Michelle's honors book crying in H Mart
and I always feel like I'm gonna butcher Sue Lekas last name Jo. I think between two kingdoms and all these memoirs and stories of navigating illness navigating loss drastically changing identities the common thread through a lot of these was how important a creative practice or a creative approach to life how like lifesaving it is essentially.
Can you talk a little bit about, where you are right now in a lot of what you write about in your book is how your voice was your main instrument for your creativity, and that you've had to really work and alter where you have that outlet. And obviously writing prose has become a thing, but where you are today in that [00:19:00] journey of where and how you exercise your creativity.
Greta: Yeah certainly I do really love writing on the page. It feels so different than singing and playing music live, but it is a wonderful art form. The other thing, there's I forget, maybe from the Dao de Ching, but it's like whatever's in the way is the way.
Very famous eastern
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: but I've started really working with the limitations of my new voice. So I can sing pretty reliably in what would be like the bottom 15 to 20% of my old range.
Michaela: Mm.
Greta: been writing songs that feel more like Lou Reed songs, or
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: Cohen songs as far as how they're structured. Whereas I used to like, sing these sky high belting choruses. Now I really have to rely on the lyrics to carry the meaning. In a way, my musical creativity is so much freer because I'm no longer trying to make a living as a musician. And [00:20:00] also at the moment I am not performing. I think it would be quite impossible to perform. there's no pressure. And in a way I'm like reclaiming. A kind of creativity that reminds me of being a teenager discovering music for the first time. ' cause I'm like, okay, I'm working with this new instrument and there's no pressure to do anything with it. I can really just play and see what's possible.
Aaron: I love that I've noticed that you've used the terminology like, new instrument or my new voice, I assume that that wasn't an immediate shift that you made. So what was that journey like coming to like a realization that like you still have your voice, you still have an instrument that you can use?
Greta: Yeah. That's such a good question. you know, I will say, I heard something recently that grief is like a stone and it remains the same size, but you become stronger at carrying it. So you sort of notice
Aaron: Mm mm-hmm.
Greta: that's the experience of working with my voice. I've had the same speech therapist for now, almost five years.
Michaela: Hmm.
Greta: out to Lori Sonenberg. She's [00:21:00] amazing. Um, But in the beginning when we were learning our first workarounds, skate the air out on the breath wheelbarrow, why? When I was first learning, like posturing for dysphonia and trying to sing pitches every time I tried to sing and my voice didn't work, I felt like whatever was holding my heart up, whatever foundation was, it just kept crumbling and crumbling. And over the course of years of finding different outlets of singing, different ways of, getting some voice injections and having more access and then having them wear off and having less access, I've just started becoming accustomed to this new norm. Where I no longer expect to have my old perfect voice. And so I'm not disappointed when it happens.
Michaela: Mm.
Greta: of have wrapped my head around, okay, some weeks I have more access. Other weeks, especially if I'm stressed or if I'm sick, or if I drink too much caffeine, I have less [00:22:00] access. There's a softness and a kind of sense of unconditional love that has been created I've started treating my body more like I would treat my best friend.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. If my best friend came over and they sang out of tune, would I yell at them? Would I, would I tell 'em to just like, fucking get it together? Why can't you be perfect?
Aaron: Yeah. Um, I would like have fun singing with him,
Mm-hmm.
Greta: out of tune. So that's more the attitude. I also have started listening to. Singers with less traditionally beautiful voices and that's helpful 'cause it just creates a sense of expansion of what's possible.
Michaela: this morning before we were having this conversation, we were recording. I had some backing vocal gigs and the, second song for some reason was just like tripping me up so hard, and especially being two months fresh postpartum, I'm like, my brain's not working, my voice isn't working.
I was getting so frustrated and Aaron was just like, I don't think this is helping. Like, Do you think [00:23:00] like yelling at yourself is helping you like relax and hear and like perform and I'm like. No, but it's what I'm doing right now. So it's a good reminder of yeah, how would we treat, we had another guest on here that, said, you know, he and his partner, they as a reminder to each other, when they're being hard on themselves, he'll say something like, Hey, don't talk to the woman I love like that.
Greta: Oh, that's beautiful.
Michaela: Yeah,
Greta: a song.
Michaela: yeah, yeah,
Yeah.
Aaron: you said you've been spending time listening to like, not traditionally beautiful voices. There's so much to be said there behind like the intent and the delivery. I spent a lot of time in the northeast of Brazil, I was in a city about the size of Boston, probably a little bit bigger, but where it sits in the culture is probably most comparable to New Orleans.
There's a lot of like folk music from there, from the area, and. 95% of the singers are traditionally horrible. It's not like samba or bossanova, all these beautiful voices, you know, from like Rio and [00:24:00] Sao Paulo.
When you think of Brazilian music, it's like very raw, very like guttural, very some might say atonal, like a, there's a lot of like, you know, like yelling. There's a lot of yelling. There's a lot of just like, percussion and voice and, claps and stomps. It's like, it's much closer to the music that came over from Africa than like, came from Europe.
But it is so impassioned and the delivery the emotion that's in it is incredibly moving. Even though if you hold it up against like, what, we in Western societies would claim like a perfect voice. Not there. Very small range, very like raw, tonally, all that. But it's still incredibly moving to me it's like the intent behind that.
It's the words too, I mean, hits me different. It's all obviously in, in Portuguese which I speak functionally. But being folk music is talking about a culture that's not my own. So it's not resonating with me the way it would somebody that has lived there. But just thinking about like how we're able to deliver and convey all of this in so many different ways [00:25:00] beyond the very stereotypical western, like here we go.
Talking about like perfect again, it is still a perfect voice. Well Just maybe not what we would say in a Western textbook
Michaela: and what we think is. A beautiful voice is so informed by where we are in the world culturally, even time. Like I feel like if you listen to music through different eras in history, there's trends of what's considered a pretty voice and wouldn't be as popular, you know, in 2010 as it was in 1950 and So it's, such a challenge to remember that for ourselves when we're judging ourselves, when we are our harshest critic. But especially for you, when you've been so intimate with your voice and it's provided so much for you in your life and your identity and your validation and your work, your livelihood, your financial stability, all of that stuff to then be open to the change.
And restructure that, mindset [00:26:00] is really challenging and I think it's a beautiful gift when you are able to go through that process. And obviously I would love to hear like how that feels like a daily practice. I know you said it's become more normal. Not to keep like referencing my mom's stroke, but it's been like the most informative thing in my life.
My mom's voice is very different now than when she had her stroke. She lost her ability to speak and she lost her whole right side. And when it started to come back, it was like a very tiny raspy whisper. And it's gotten stronger. it's now been four years. But she sounds like a different person.
It's just a different voice and it's Still some days strikes me like on both sides, like sometimes she'll say like, Hey Mikayla, and I'll be like, whoa, old mom. And then she'll slip, you know, back into her current voice and I'm like, oh yeah, this is now the voice that I'm used to.
But it was so shocking before, and now it's shocking when I hear glimpses [00:27:00] of her old voice.
Greta: wow, that's so interesting. I'm wondering what's happening in her in those moments.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: that's really fascinating.
Greta: you know, one thing I'm thinking about as we're talking is just flashing back to what you said about how every era has a different standard of what's beautiful. And I was thinking about how with the age of autotune and recorded perfection, like singers are so used to hearing autotune voices that now I hear a lot of pop singers the way they sing, almost imitates, autotune.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. It's like they're imitating the sound they're hearing, which has already been perfected.
Greta: in some ways, like metaphorically, it's a comfort to me that I will never be able to do that.
I'm never gonna fit the times. I feel so just like a mountain hermit outside of culture in a lot of ways.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: I'm en I'm enjoying that part of my life right now. But in some ways, it's like a relief that I have been pushed out from the group [00:28:00] in that way.
I'm never gonna have a voice that sounds perfect. I'm never gonna have a voice that sounds, I'm not say never, but voice now has this strangeness and this character that I have never had before.
For me, it's a comfort to just lean into that. And now I'm five years into this experience. Two or three years ago, there was just so much grief and pain. And even a week ago when I was watching my performance videos, I
Michaela: Mm-hmm.'
Greta: cause I was like, I miss that person.
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: able to sing with effortlessness and joy and to be able to like dance around on stage and to just feel It feels like flying. You know? It's like
Michaela: Yep.
Greta: thing I can feel to flying. I do miss that feeling, but also as an artist, I'm like, this is a force to detour and I'm gonna make the most of it.
I'm not gonna stop making music because it's not perfect anymore.
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: I'm gonna just use the circumstances to sort of dance with what's happening.
Michaela: Can you talk about the kind of emotional, mental work [00:29:00] that you've done in the last five years of, you know, I know from reading your book that you talk about how you were so career achievement path,
Greta: Mm-hmm.
Michaela: also your friend groups were all high achieving in the music industry and what that process has been like to be so in it, and like what kind of like ego work had to be done to, process that shift in identity and like you just said, like being pushed out of the group and even like stylistically, but also logistically of not being on tour all the time and jumping back on the road with everybody and what that has felt like for you and what you've done.
Greta: Yeah, that's such a good question.
So I think in Western cultured, we are kind of trained to build our self-concept based on what we do professionally, who our friend group is, the way we look, how much money we make. It's a very status oriented, way of [00:30:00] belonging in the world.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: the water most of us grew up swimming in.
Michaela: Yep.
Greta: when I lost a lot of that kind of connection to the old group, this sense of identity lost, my livelihood, my income, all of these things to rebuild my sense of self, I just started asking the question, what do I love? So instead of having it be about like, who am I, what am I making,
Michaela: Mm-hmm. perceiving me, it was just like, what do I love? Okay. I love sitting by the creek and reading like I'm a creek reader. like, that became, that was my identity for eight months. I love I love listening. Like I love, for example, in the Hudson Valley, I would walk around after every snowstorm and every snowstorm had a unique sonic kind of fingerprint. So I would like crunch the ice and feel how different ice felt. And I would like crack the ice branches. And That's what I am.
Mm-hmm.
Greta: And I think I just started building a sense of identity that was not [00:31:00] so wrapped up in how do other people perceive what I'm doing or what I'm making? And so, you know, yeah, I'm, I guess I'm a writer now, but it's not because I'm publishing a book. It's because I love writing and I've shown up to write every day for the last five years, or last, you know, four years. So that's how I think more about building a life that is more focused on internal and fulfillment and luminosity rather than the external achievement oriented things.
yeah. And when I was younger, I really wanted and needed the achievement. I had a little hole inside.
But I really wanted that achievement and recognition when I was younger because there was a little wound in me that said, you will never be worthy of anything.
Like you are unworthy and you will never be wanted. And I just thought if I sell enough records and if I play enough shows, and if I like, if I win the thing,
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: you know, all of a sudden the worthiness wound would heal
[00:32:00] Completely not true. That's just not how it works.
Michaela: I love that.
Aaron: What you said is, I guess I'm a writer now, and that's not because I'm publishing a book, there's so much wisdom just because you've done it. Yes. Yeah. That's
Michaela: because sc, you're writing.
Greta: yeah, and I think also that can intimidate a lot of beginners. Songwriters are afraid to identify as songwriters because they feel like it's too audacious. But if you love something
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: it every day, are a songwriter.
Aaron: as McKayla mentioned, we have a three and a half year old, and her go-to Medium is painting she can paint for hours. She's a typical and a year old. So she has the attention span of a fly until you get her painting. And she's, and she loves
Michaela: every, she loves singing and dancing, anding, all that.
But painting is like,
Aaron: and she won't bad an eyelash. She's like, I'm an artist. Period. She's never sold a single painting in her life. You know what I mean? She definitely doesn't pay her bills by painting,
Greta: Yeah.
Aaron: but you know,
she immediately is like, yeah, I'm an artist. And you know, she'll come in here and sing into a microphone.
She's like, yeah, [00:33:00] I'm a singer. And she doesn't batten eyes. So there's, between what you're saying and, all of the experience that we've lived like that needing to have external validation to be able to hang the name card around your neck of like, I am this, I am that. It's something that we absorb through life.
You know, I think innately we're like, we identify with our passions. And that, just hearing you say that and that groundedness I perceive in the way you say that is really refreshing
Greta: Oh, good. also will say, you know, I've had the experience of meeting all sorts of very famous artists and actors and authors, and everyone who is not a psychopath has, has said a version of, yeah, I'm afraid I'll never be able to do it again.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Greta: I don't really know how I did that.
So I think no matter how many achievements people earn, you kind of are always starting back at the beginning and always starting from, I wanna make something I love. So everyone's really starting in the same place, regardless of how much kind of [00:34:00] public experience a person has.
Aaron: that's such a great little shift of like, what was running through my head, as you were saying, all of this is like with this, worthiness shadow or this sense of achievement, this like very strong ambition. I've noticed in musicians and creative types and self-employed people in general we spend a lot of time in the future and thinking like, what about what's next?
What's this? What's this? What am I going, how am I gonna get here? Like, have you noticed a change in your point of view?
Greta: Oh, a huge one.
I would say I used to live 90% in the future.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. of friends who are nostalgic and I was like, I just don't get it. Like, why go back? An ironic thing to say for someone who's written a memoir, but um, but yeah, I used to be, very future oriented and now I'm just so agnostic about the future because I don't know what's gonna happen.
Yeah.
Greta: for example, you know, I'm publishing my book in a little less than two months.
there's a part of me, like the kind of programmed part is like, if the book is successful, I will be [00:35:00] happier.
the thing that Western culture has fed
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: One of my best friends who's an author. The year her book came out and became a major huge bestseller, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, was the worst mental health year of her entire life.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. And so there's a part of me that's just like, I don't know, I don't know what it's gonna be
Mm-hmm.
Greta: book out. I certainly have poured my heart into it, and I hope that it reaches the people it's meant to reach. But I have no wishes. I don't know what will happen. I don't know how I'll react to it. What I do know is I'm really enjoying talking to you two right now,
I feel like all of my energy is here
that's what feels really good, and that's the place to create from
Michaela: Mm-hmm. me.
I'm curious with so the balance also for many of us when we've turned our creativity into a profession,
Greta: Mm-hmm.
Michaela: the trick of like then inevitably seeking validation and self-worth from the outside, how working through [00:36:00] that so that that's not your go-to how you can be. Quote unquote, successful at not chasing success, but still be ambitious you wrote a book and then you still had the desire to want to share it publicly and want to go on a professional path or maybe you didn't, I actually don't know your story of if you sought out publishing or if it, just landed in your lap.
And what that now, in this professional path, if you are noticing kind of like a new version of yourself
Greta: Right. How can you have a very healthy. and have a desire to bring a big dream into actualization,
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: not pin yourself worth on it so
Michaela: Yes. Mm-hmm. And also not think your ability to create more is dependent on your success. So like not thinking well, this book has to do well, otherwise I won't be able to get to publish another book,
Greta: right. I have thought
Michaela: mm-hmm.
Greta: started writing my second book and I'm so excited about it and that is, I'm like, oh, I hope I [00:37:00] get to do this again. Wow. That would be amazing if I get to do it again. I think the difference in. I relate to it now as opposed to 10 years ago is now it's a little bit more like a game and it's a little bit more like everything's a test.
for example, in the process of getting my book deal and publishing this book so many people said disparaging things. One agent said, no one will ever publish a book that takes place during Covid. You know, Not for me. Thanks.
Michaela: Oh, nice.
Greta: and then uh, someone else said, oh, maybe this will help five or 10 people who have Spasmatic, dysphonia
Michaela: Send them the clip of me telling them.
Greta: yeah. And then um, you know, even people who love me so much, like my dad is my number one supporter. He loves me so much. At one point he said. Should you really be writing for like four hours a day? You know, You're not a proven author. Maybe you should try to pitch a song for Lady Gaga. and it was like so loving
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Greta: But all this to say, [00:38:00] no one can really see your big dream,
And all I knew with this book was like, this dream was burning in my heart. Like I woke up in the middle of the night writing for 10
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: I would wake up and be writing and it happened until the day I delivered the final draft.
So in that sense, I knew I had this big dream and I knew I wanted to share it, but it became a lot less about, ambition and a lot more about this is the thing that is happening through me
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: I have to just become a vessel for
Michaela: I love that.
Aaron: Yeah. I'm just caught on responses from publishers and all of that, and just like the audacity basically. I'm wondering if on the industry side, if you see parallels with your experience in the music industry, like in what happens and also like in your approach and in your own, like in internal reception and reaction to that.
Greta: Totally. Yeah, that's such a good question. So, Firstly, to contextualize, [00:39:00] this particular agent said nothing that takes place in Covid will ever be published. That was about a year before I formally wrote my proposal and my book went to auction and had bids from multiple major publishing houses.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. it's a reminder. You are the only one who can see your vision and
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Greta: expect other people to get it.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: I tell myself all the time, passed on the Beatles.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Went to a and r meetings
Mm-hmm.
Greta: someone was like, yeah, not for us.
Michaela: Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: it's, important to remember that in all, ways. You know, If a friend of mine has a disappointing date or feels underappreciated, romantic, I'm like, yeah, the Beatles didn't get signed. You
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: amazing. It, doesn't change
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Greta: so I will just say it's similar in music and in publishing that the people who don't get it will never get
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: worth your time to try to prove to them why you're amazing.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. more worth your time to devote your care and attention to what you love and trust that you will find the people [00:40:00] who understand it. For example, the. person who did edit my book and who purchased it at Harper Collins, he's a singer who loves singing, who now has bowed vocal chords and couldn't sing anymore. when I talked to him on the initial meeting, I went, you're my person.
Yeah.
Greta: why it didn't work with this other person, because I actually needed someone who knows what this is like,
Greta: and so contextualizing the kind of wins and losses as a process of finding your authentic people and your authentic path can be really helpful.
Michaela: Yeah, and I think it's so helpful to hear all the time because in today's world of social media highlights, we think like, oh, someone's publishing a book, or someone got a record deal. Wow. so easy for them we don't see like, yeah, but do you know how many rejections I got or do you know how long it took me?
how many emails I had to send out pitching and doing the really uncomfortable work of putting myself out there and getting turned [00:41:00] down and not letting that inform what I feel about my work. that's something I, really like about today's world in a sense.
In contrast to social media, I see more and more like on substack and different articles of authors and musicians being like, this is what it's like to query agents. If I'm saying that word correctly. And, and this is how many times I got rejected before I finally found that my champion.
And you know, I think that stuff is really helpful and important because it's so easy to think. Oh, it just happens for other people I've been a music teacher forever, and then songwriting coaching, and a lot of my students, so much of what comes up is always, I have this burning desire to share my songs, but I'm so afraid of what the response is gonna be, that it will be a negative response or a no response.
And every time I tell them, I guarantee you, you will get some responses that are disappointing because you cannot share any creative work and put it in a public forum and not get [00:42:00] disappointing responses.
Greta: Yeah,
Michaela: I'm like, it's not possible. The most successful, you know, famous musicians out there get trashed like, and they see that stuff.
So it's always coming back to, being so deeply. Into what you're doing and believing in your dream and finding ways to sustain that.
Greta: Totally. There's a moment in the book when I'm taking a songwriting workshop with Mary she shares this story about how she once posted on social media, a photograph of her with the baby of some of her fans in Canada. And one of the commenters said, I just don't get it. What's the big deal about babies? Like, why do, why are people so crazy about babies? And Mary opened the workshop by saying if there's a baby hating contingent out there, you have to expect that no matter what you make, people will hate it.
Michaela: Yes.
Greta: And, and so, often,
Michaela: Yes.
Greta: often when a person is critical of your work, it is their shadow.
They have something [00:43:00] unexpressed in them.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: only people who have said things to me like what's up with 35 year olds writing memoirs, shouldn't you
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: more? I'm just like, oh, I hope you'll go write your book one day. Please.
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Greta: I want this for you too. You know?
so, so often it's just, not about us.
It's not personal when people say things like that.
Michaela: People really confuse memoir with End of life autobiography. Like, That's not what a memoir is. It's a memoir, not
Aaron: an obituary. Like,
Greta: Yeah.
Michaela: yeah. Mm-hmm. But Mary Gaucher been on a guest on this podcast and we, see her around town and she and I taught at a, songwriting camp this summer and spent every evening a bunch of us instructors having dinner.
And I'm just like, her wisdom is just something you wanna, I'm like, can I just record you and listen to it every day to like, boost my morale? And she has all these phrases that I've been collecting. And one of the she'd
Aaron: have a great bumper sticker company.
Michaela: Yes, she would. She said one on here, which was, what was it?
Patience.
Aaron: Patience with your art [00:44:00] and persistence with your business.
Michaela: And then when we were at camp, she said, to me at one point don't pay attention to the cool kids. Focus on the kind kids. And just talking about, you know, getting caught up and like wanting to be accepted. And she was like, don't do that.
Like focus, focus on like who's kind, who has a loving heart, but she has these quips that are just like, yes, Mary.
Greta: yeah. One one of hers that drew me to her work in the first place was If your voice isn't shaking when you're singing a new song, you're not being honest enough.
Michaela: Hmm.
Greta: I heard her say that on a podcast, I was like, I need to look up every one of her songs right now.
Michaela: Yeah.
Aaron: It's just so good. Yeah. you said that ultimately just to kind of keep it on like the industry side for a second, you said that ultimately your book ended up at auction and those bidding and all of that, how long in your process of writing pitches and all that did it take
Greta: Okay. Here's my pitch story for all of the authors out there. So as I said, I had written like almost 350,000 [00:45:00] words of just my entire life, and I whittled that down to like a 250 page, what I called shitty first draft.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: always have like a shit mountain
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: expectation for it to be good. This guy Chris Duffy, who hosts How to Be a Better Human, which is a TED podcast. He invited me on as a guest and I told him my story and he, this is in 2022 And he said what are you working on now? I said well, I actually have been writing a book, but it's like a real pile of shit at the moment. And after our podcast ended, he sent me a message. We kind of became friendly. We followed each other's, Substack and Patreon, and he said, if you ever want someone to read your book, I just sold a book. I just went through the process and like, I think you would have a great story. I'd love to read it. I sent him the rough draft and he said this is very, I. Complete. Like he was basically like, it's much more polished than you think it is. It's all there. It
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: like tightened a little bit. But that's what writing a book will
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Greta: Love to connect you with some of [00:46:00] the agents I met with 10 agents when I was pitching my book.
And there's three people in particular who I think would really like you and really like this story. So he introduced me to all of them and I sent each of them like a 20 page sample. it might have been the first 20 pages of the book. spoke to each of them on the phone and I was very grateful that all three of them said, we wanna represent you.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. could tell just intuitively one Alice, who's now my agent, I just was like, she's the one.
Greta: you know, She had listened to all my interviews. She had listened to my music from 16 to 30. She just came in with the most wonderful energy and attention and care and it was. obvious to me.
with her, we kind of re went through the book and built a proposal.
So tightened it up and I built an 85 page proposal. So it was a, overview of the book, kind of an outline of what each chapter would be, and then a sample chapter. And the reason it was 85 pages is 'cause I've never been published [00:47:00] and I sort of had to prove here's what I could do. I think a
Michaela: Yep.
Greta: book proposal for published authors, maybe it's 20 or 30 pages.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: but it was a really big, lift
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Then she sent it to publishing companies in October of 2023. And I remember she was like, it'll take about two weeks to start hearing back if we're gonna hear back from anyone. And I went to the creek every day and I was just like, gonna happen?
Mm-hmm.
Greta: I was like, I really, really hope. So I had weeks before I officially had to quit touring with Vampire Weekend, they invited me for the next album cycle. And I just had to admit my body is too fragile. at that time, I couldn't stand up for the length of a show, which was like
Michaela: Wow. Mm-hmm.
Greta: I knew I couldn't tour. So if my book hadn't sold, I would've been like trying to piece together a livelihood between teaching and potentially filing for disability.
I had lost my job because of long Covid and there was a lot riding on it
Michaela: [00:48:00] Mm-hmm. at the same time I knew I had no control over it.
Greta: So I just really Prayed for those couple weeks and was like, if this is supposed to happen, please let it happen the best possible way. we began meeting with publishing houses. The editor at the publishing company is the one who kind of chooses your story. And when I met with Rakesh, who is the person who became the editor, and we talked about singing and he told me this story about, you know, he had loved singing forever and now he has boat vocal chords. And he shared just some of his reflections on the book and the story. And again, I just knew it was like, the person I wanted to work with.
That's who I wanted to help me usher this story into the world.
once the book sold, I had a year to complete the final manuscript,
Aaron: Mm-hmm. really amazing. I feel like during that year, everything leading up to that, I had been cultivating the practice of writing.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. year of tightening everything up and making [00:49:00] each sentence beautiful, like that was one of the biggest learning experiences of my whole life. And in a weird way, having been incapacitated for some of that time, like I had to move home with my parents at one point because I had a couple, medical emergencies back to back. My world just became a writing womb. There were no distractions. I couldn't go to parties, I couldn't even really talk to people on the phone.
Greta: I couldn't watch tv. Sounds were too loud. I basically laid in bed listening to audio books at 60% speed because everything felt so fast
Michaela: Wow.
Greta: and watched light across the tree in the yard and worked on writing. And I would never wish that experience of illness on anyone,
Michaela: Mm-hmm. I look back, to me it was a kind of like creative illness.
Greta: It was a kind of incubation. It was like the illness was the most efficient way to force me into this new state [00:50:00] of being that I might not have otherwise chosen.
Michaela: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's so
Aaron: beautiful. the timeline is so foreign to me because the timeline of making a record, is lightning fast in comparison. The timeline of writing a book and getting signed and then between getting signed, then you're writing for another year.
Like you essentially took a year of editing more or less, and refining like that, unheard of in a, record sense. I mean, I'm sure Steely Dan did, but you know, outside of the hat, after you turned in the final manuscript was like another. Year until the release, or at least six months or,
Greta: let's see. Yeah, the final manuscript I think was truly finalized in December
it's December and it'll come out in May.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: it was like a year of editing there was a lot more writing than I had anticipated doing. So even though I, I thought I had written my whole life
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Greta: started asking me questions about my days with the hush sound or, particular relationships.
I realized, oh, there is more to write and
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Greta: So I wound up going down all of these kind of rabbit [00:51:00] holes, I'm sure of a year of writing. at least four months is like, I woke up every day and diligently wrote stuff that wound up in the trashcan,
Michaela: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Greta: Very big percentage. I saw something recently, it was a runner talking, and she was saying, when you're really devoted to something like for herbs running one third of the time, it'll feel amazing.
One third of the time it'll feel okay, and then a third of the time it'll feel terrible.
And I'd say that was my experience
Michaela: Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah. Absolutely. You know, Going back to you talking about your students that are like, just getting into it or, and all these conversations we've had it really is to become quote unquote successful at something. And I mean that like, not in the outside affirmation sense, but like in completing this creative task that you're looking to do.
all we see when we look at people's bodies of work that they've released that make it to the public, we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. And everybody thinks oh well, they wrote these songs, they made this record, they wrote this book, and then they put it out and that's it.
And it's like, no, you ostensibly starting at, what [00:52:00] was it, 360,000 words like you wrote six books and got one out of it, you know? and like that whole funnel, you know, you write 40 songs for a record, and you record 20, and you put out 10, it's just like that funnel, like really it just always intrigues me seeing like people's creative output to what is left of the sculpture that then gets released into the world.
Greta: Totally. That is a fascinating thing to think about. That's what I love about BSides collections
like rarities collections and people's catalog where I'm like, really? You didn't think this was good
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Greta: I like it better than your singles, or, you know,
Aaron: yeah.
Greta: Like, I feel like we know the least about our own work.
Aaron: Oh, for
Michaela: sure.
Greta: like every song you write is like a child. you can't possibly say you love one more than the other.
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Greta: make metaphors like that as a non-parent.
Aaron: It's, I mean, it's, it's true though, like Yeah. It, It works. It works. Yeah. So, I mean,
Michaela: So far we're only two months into having two kids. Yeah. But so far I would say, I can't just say I like one of them better than the other. [00:53:00] Yeah. But also
Aaron: like, when you get to songs and recordings, all of that, again, the timeline is so short, I know it's happened to us.
I'm sure it's happened to you where you do so many takes of a song and you leave for the day and you come back the next day and you're like, take two is pretty amazing. Let's just, we'll just go with that. Yeah.
Greta: and it depends like how crabby are you?
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: have for lunch? How's your
Michaela: All of that. Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah. did you get in a feedback loop of like, this shouldn't take this long and it's taking this long and like,
Michaela: What happened to me this morning where I was like, why is this so hard? This shouldn't be hard. And it's hard, and now it's even harder because I'm thinking it's hard. Yeah. just thinking about these different creative mediums in the professional realm as well of book writing, it feels like such a stretched out timeline compared to music.
Even though music, you know, making records can take a long time, but the time between making and releasing a record can take very long time. We all know this, but when you put a song out into the world, it feels like it's so fast. Where it's like people listen to a clip on social media and you [00:54:00] put a record out and you're supposed to get a bunch of comments and what are the streams and check all the numbers, and it's so fast, faster than.
I think is really possible for everyone to fully digest in a book. Some people can read a book in a day if they've got nothing else going on. My dad's a speed reader. It's insane how fast he can read, but I can't, and most of us, we have to take time and are, absorbing the book in a slower longer way.
And then so you as the author, you're receiving that in a delayed timeframe from what it was to be a musician and get that kind of faster. Or also compared to like performing on stage that immediate response of I'm delivering this to an audience and now they're clapping. I know we're almost at time, and we'll have one more closing question, but can you talk about that a little bit, kind of like delayed response relationship this creative format?
Greta: Yeah. It's interesting, I saw a quote the other day from [00:55:00] Jeffrey Eugen, that's how you pronounce his last name. I'm so sorry, Jeffrey, if it's not, but he said something like, I care about the reader, not audience, not readership, just the reader. That one person alone in a room whose time I'm asking for. you know, You mentioned releasing a song and going to look at all the streams, and it's like the streams are an anonymous number.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. when I start releasing music again, I'm gonna try to imagine like who's listening to this falling asleep.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Greta: Or like who's putting their baby to sleep
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: who's making out to this.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Greta: and so as far as the delayed gratification of releasing a book, it's just I really have is my sort of fantasy that a single person will be reading it in their home and having an experience with it.
and it is, in a way, it's almost like time traveling
remote viewing or something like, because i'm not getting the feedback of playing a live show. I'm just sending it out like a message in a bottle and hoping that happens.
Aaron: Mm-hmm. [00:56:00] Mm-hmm. Will know that it happens is if people write to me or tell me,
Greta: what their experience has been. But I think I just have to give up the desire for feedback. I'm not gonna get it unless someone chooses to offer it to
Aaron: Yeah. As Mikayla mentioned, we had Maggie Smith on as a guest, and she said that she was the only one was surprised when her book became a New York Times bestseller because told her publisher and her agent to like, not send reports or anything. She doesn't wanna look, she didn't wanna read reviews like any, so they're like, Hey, your book is a bestseller.
And she's like, wow, check that out. And everybody else knew, 'cause everybody else saw it creeping towards her. But same thing, it's just, put it out. And I try to stay in that head space myself. I don't put things out really as a front person. I don't sing, but I have like a moniker and I have guest singers that I write with that will then be the voice on it.
But I always just try to think about the longevity of it. You know, I grew up listening to like, the band and the Talking Heads. I was like raised on that and the Grateful Dead and just these bands that like, you can [00:57:00] hear and it sounds like them immediately, and their music feels timeless because of that.
Because there's the intention there. they lean into the uniqueness, of it all. Longevity has always been something like my own measure of success and the art that I put out there. to me that seems more readily tangible in writing a book because you go to the library and you see books, that are 50 years old, and it's not a thing.
But if you listen to a record that's 50 years old, you're like, I'm listening to oldies. Oh, yeah.
Greta: right.
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: And, and I think we have to remember like there is so much art right now and it's being created with this intense speed. It's being created so fast that we're being programmed to think of it as like expendable
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Greta: Like,
oh, you don't like this song, or there's a million more behind
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: thing with sort of, the gamification of dating culture. It's like, oh, you don't like that one person. There's 10,000 more people
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: Um, but I think we have to remember, like art is about that heart to heart connection with someone you haven't met yet. You might not be alive when they're alive and yet [00:58:00] it can happen across time. And also some of my favorite artists were never recognized in their lifetime. Emily Dickinson and Van Gogh and Nick Drake,
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Greta: are so many incredible artists who were not received and acknowledged and validated commercially or culturally during their time, and yet their work has transcended the time in which they lived and touched so many people's hearts.
Have to trust that if we're making something really honest and authentic and we release it to the world, we just have to hope and trust it. We'll find the person that is meant to experience it, whether it's in 30 minutes from now or 300 years from now.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's such a beautiful sentiment to tie up our conversation on. But we like to have a kind of finishing question for everybody, and it's basically like the advice question. Choose your own adventure. It could be maybe something that somebody told you along your journey that continues to resonate with you today.
talking about longevity [00:59:00] or something you would tell your younger self, you 16 year olds, Greta, that's just leaving on tour. Just getting into like doing this as a career kind of thing. either one,
Greta: Two actually come to mind.
Aaron: go for it.
Greta: the first is something my dad always says, which is, don't make decisions when you're feeling super high or super low.
wait for the kind of stable, grounded version of yourself to come back online and then make your really big choices.
Aaron: Wise,
Greta: yeah, that's something I really follow. As far as advice to my younger self, I would say enjoy this 'cause it's not gonna last. Every show ends. Most bands break up. Most love relationships, end. Actually, I will say you two are giving me so much hope.
Aaron: that. I mean, We've been together for, it'll be 18 years this summer and like we would've never said that. We kind of stumbled our way into it.
Michaela: Yeah. I think the first, I don't know, maybe like 12 years of our relationship, even married, we were like, this was not our plan to meet and be [01:00:00] together at 2021 and like for the rest of time like, oh yeah, are we really?
And then I feel like the last
Aaron: we were, we were together for 15 years. Moved from New York to Nashville, bought a house, got married, and it wasn't until we had a kid where we were like, wow,
Michaela: yeah, we're
Aaron: really doing this.
Greta: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We are in, right? Yeah. We are in it to win it. Yeah.
Michaela: Yeah.
Greta: so on that sense, I would tell my younger self. This is
you're playing in Seattle. This might be the last time you ever play a show in Seattle,
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: you're singing with your beautiful voice. This might be the last time your voice sounds that way.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: with this band. This might be the last, I mean, I don't mean to be morbid. This might be the last day a particular band mate is alive.
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Greta: really don't know what can change. Life can change in 30 seconds in
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Greta: that make it so that you can never go back to what you
Michaela: Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah.
Greta: tell my 16-year-old self, this is it.
is not a dress rehearsal. This is your life. And be a little kinder to yourself.
Michaela: I just for whatever reason wanna contribute that. Like what you were saying [01:01:00] about even, you know, most relationships end even if a relationship doesn't end the dynamic of any relationship at any moment changes. Mm-hmm. So in that way, even when you're still in relation with someone for your lifetime, you think about your relationship with your mom, your dad, like each, there's so many different eras and phases.
So I feel like that same advice applies of like, this phase of our life right now, enjoy it because it's never gonna be like this again.
Greta: Right.
Michaela: might still be together forever, but way different. It's gonna be so different. We're on at least
Aaron: our third relationship. Yeah, exactly.
Michaela: It's very true.
Yeah. Yeah.
Greta: Yeah.
Aaron: but
Greta: beautiful.
Aaron: yeah, Greta, thank you for giving us your time this afternoon and sharing your deep wisdom that you've found and lived, and gathered, and held onto. So thank you.
Michaela: This felt like a needed conversation for me today. Erin always is like, these conversations are selfishly motivated for Mikayla.
' 'cause I, I've been so excited to talk to you and just timing wise, I'm like, yeah, this [01:02:00] is a good one. Yeah. Thank you.
Greta: Well, thank you for having me, and thank you for doing this. I feel like you're filling such a beautiful conversational space that so many people are gonna benefit from. So yeah,
Michaela: thanks
Aaron: We.
Greta: me.
Aaron: We literally couldn't do it without our guests, so thank you. People hear enough of us. Yeah. So, yeah.
Greta: Well, all right, Greta, thank you again so much.
Michaela: Thank you so much.
Nice to meet you.
Aaron: Yeah,
Greta: meeting you both. Good luck with everything.
Aaron: thanks. You too. Take care.
Michaela: Bye.
Greta: bye.