What is the backstory to this?

Well, you know, some people like to paint a different picture.

The Los Angeles Tribune, 'cause I'm gonna throw them under the bus, you know, uh, made me believe, led me to believe that they were a true publisher.

So I was like, "Okay, publisher.

You know, I got a good deal.

I hold everything.

I'm control everything, you know, but I have a true publisher.

Yeah.

Okay.

Walking in my shoes.

I was angry for a long time.

I wanted to hurt people, but that didn't work for myself.

I wanted to hurt the producer badly, you know? And then when my partner died, Rob Pilatus, God rest his soul, I was angry, and the only way to just get out of that was either you do the deed or you find a solution.

And there are no problems, only solutions.

So once I started to forgive, then I freed myself from all the baggage, from the anger.

How, how y'all meet?

Yeah.

But in the process of, of going to rehab I learned a lot of things, and I walked away with those tools and kind of further my education on the issue.

And, um, it made me better, and year after year I got better.

But the one thing that got me to, to, to survive is music.

Because through music I was able to, to take that pain, that sorrow, that pressure that I had felt, and write about it.

So then because I was making music, I wrote first, because I like to write text first.

That's one of the system that I use.

Yeah.

Is that still the case tonight?

It's not the case tonight.

This is why I'm here.

I'm here to talk to you about this whole thing.

So, uh, you know, at first when this idea came to me, I live in Europe, so my team in Europe received the date.

We looked at the date.

Okay, the great American State Fair, and the, the cherry on top was 250 years anniversary of America.

... was that told to you? They, they told you that it was going to be just a performance to celebrate the United States of America? What changed then?