The One-Way Ticket to Ibiza That Built Hot Creations ft. Lee Foss | EF EP 163

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1:32 That's Track Stack dot app code elevated. Let's get started. First of all, I want to say happy birthday. Thank you. It was. It was yesterday. It was yesterday I was excited to be able to play in Chicago and have family there. It's yeah. To do like an evening, like daytime event is great because family can come. And for my mom, she can't do the late night stuff anymore. So it's pretty special to be able to be home and do like something different, play on my birthday. Yeah. I loved it. It was really, really nice experience. Your parents, are they in the suburbs? My mom lives in DeKalb, That's where I grew up. My dad passed away in 2020 right before quarantine. But yeah, my mom still lives in the same house I grew up in in DeKalb, Illinois.

2:24 No kidding. So I went to DeKalb high school, then went to UIC. Oh, you went to USC, not Northern. No, no, I ran track and cross country at UIC. I I love being from DeKalb, but Northern's not a very good school. Yeah. Listen, I went to Illinois State. I mean, it's all the same. The state schools are pretty much all the same. Yeah, but UIC is actually in the city. I mean, DePaul and Northwestern are like, to me, I was already going to excel and to raves and my my freshman year, there was a guy in my dorm that had been in the military who kind of look like me, but he was 23 and I was able to buy his state ID and that looked exactly like me. So to me living down, you know, Greek, like Little Italy, like be able to go out in the city, you know, Lincoln Park had no appeal to me like Loyola.

3:19 I mean, also my family couldn't have afford, you know, I was on partial track scholarship. My family couldn't have afforded. I wanted to go to hello my Wesley and I have no idea why, which is by ISUI think a girl I liked was going to ISU and I had like some this wasn't valid. I had some idea in my head that I was like or I just got it in my head that that was something I wanted to do, but no, I was really fortunate. I had considered going to Iowa because of the writing program, because at heart I'm a writer. Let's you know, but I was something in my gut told me that being in the heart of the city because because of how much I was starting to get into music was the right move.

4:08 So yeah, I was I went from coming up summer after graduated every Sunday morning or Saturday night going out and going to Excel, which is here on Halsted in Greektown was like an after hours teen club. It was in the news. It was like Psycho and Terry Bristol would go play there after Crowbar. It was insane. It opened at six. There's all these kids outside even in the freezing cold in the winter too. You know, there was like this DJ Honey Honey song, Donna, Donna, Donna, you have like 500 kids outside. Like, like I'm not waiting to get in.

4:49 It was well, but I mean, my dorm was like 2 blocks from that because I was at Halsted and Harrison, two blocks from Excel. So yeah, it was exciting. And I was definitely, you know, I was somebody who wanted to do everything. So maybe I didn't XLS much as I could have been in running because I want, you know, because I was going out every, you know, almost every night. But I got, you know, carrying a 497 out of five GPA. But you know, to still be a Division One athlete and competitive and, you know, basically get straight A's and becoming a DJ.

5:31 You know, it's to do 3 sports, cross country in the indoor and outdoor track. It's basically three seasons. You know, I think it really prepared me to defer like what it takes, you know, to have the physical discipline and the physical stamina to be a DJ and the lack of sleep and the touring to have your hands and all the pots of you know, you have in this day and age, you have to be a producer and a DJ and a record label owner and a social. I mean, not that I do a very good job of it, but a social media, not influencer, but and you have to, you have to create content. You have to be some level of content creator and you know, you should have all 2 alternative streams of income and other interests.

6:17 And I do. And you know, writing TV and film is something that I'm, I'm starting to do and do now. And like, I think for me to, to have done this for so long, especially being a functional, highly functioning drug addict for so long, to be able to do that and you know, not miss not miss any shows. And you know, I was getting by, but I think part of the ability to and now to thrive so much that prepared me for it was coming and being in the city and having these diverse interests. I would go out Saturday night, every Saturday, I'd run a track, you know, a tracker cross country meet and then go out to a rave every Saturday, take like take a pill and then stay out all night.

7:10 And then every Sunday we had to do a 13 mile loop of Argon National Lab or easy day or at least turn cross country. That's a long way to run for like a middle distance runner. And I had to keep up with everybody, but I hadn't slept. I had to do that. And if if you didn't show up, they'd call every dorm room, every apartment till everyone was there. And I think my heart was going to explode. But like I would do it and I would keep up because it's a loop. So everyone's going to wait for me for an hour if I walked. So, you know, I like that kind of discipline and, and, you know, having all, you know, still fostering my love for music. In the end, it wasn't a mistake.

7:50 You know, I, I, I think Chicago really kind of sharpened me for, you know, going to Ibiza and like meeting JB and like, you know, discovering my true interests. But having, you know, the determination when things get down to to continue to push forward in music, to to be out for long hours and enjoy it. So, yeah, I owe a lot to the city, owe a lot to my experience as a student, as an athlete. It was obviously a long time ago, but it comes full circle now because, you know, I do. I do want to go back someday and coach, coach track at the university level and like come back to Chicago. Moonlight as a as a track coach, I like that. I guess I mean, I did.

8:41 I came back and I guessed assistant coached Thumb last fall and I enjoyed it because I I actually ran did. You still maintain like the the same ability to run even through all these iterations. I don't run, I just lift them do Pilates. I but I, I do plan to start again like I do. Maybe I shouldn't announce it here. I do. I plan because I've been really into to getting back into fitness. I'm enjoying using my body. So I I have a plan. Maybe. Yeah. OK, I'll say it here first. I guess I'm, I'm holding myself accountable.

9:24 So today's July 19th, 2026. I want to run at the USA track and field National track beat Masters division at my age division. This is day one of me trying to win that race. Wow. Thank you for the exclusive. Exclusive I'm going to try and I think that would be really cool and I appreciate you know, John Summit and Diplo and so many people going out and jogging marathons and showing people like that it's cool to to to to balance and to have health for me I love the competition so to me it will be way littered like the the the adrenaline I would get to do a real race to build up to that to race.

10:11 You know, obviously they're not running as fast as the, you know, you know, and they're people in their, you know, 40s aren't running, but they're running in their 20s. So I don't think, I think it's achievable to be competitive and to do it as hard as I've worked lately on fitness. So yeah, yeah, I would like, I will run again, but I think I resented it for a while. I resented music for a while. I think anything you do for a long time, you know, you have to foster like a marriage. You know, you have to find ways to be sustainable. But that's what I've been really successful in the last two years is well, the last year really is being finding what's sustainable for me. I don't want to harp on your sobriety journey because I feel like that's what everyone probably does with you now, but how long has it been? It'll be two years at the end of August. Wow.

11:00 And I, I, yeah, I really enjoy it. No, I know I've done a interview with Will recently where we talked about it a lot, but I think it was. An interesting person who talked about sobriety because he's never touched anything ever. I think that that's interesting and I think, you know, a lot of us have different paths when we get into music and that's OK too. They're, you know, mind altering substances are tools, But you know, we often often people can't be reliable narrators to themselves, especially musicians and D JS that are their own bosses and everyone works for them. Eventually things can go down the wrong path, but I also don't think I was a particularly good role model for a long time because I I am kind of built different.

11:46 I don't say that as a conceited person, like I've been able to handle a lot, but it's probably not being a good role model to to show people that this bendering and being up for days and you're still successful and getting by is attainable or a good idea and it always detracts from eventually from you. It's like I had cake yesterday and that's great. I've been eating super healthy. It's my birthday. I should have cake with my mom, like, you know, with my family. Like that's what it's for. If you're waking up every day and you're eating cake as soon as you wake up and all you do is eat cake, it has no meeting and it's going to kill you, inflamed you. So I think that that's the, the line that we ride with substances in this, in this world and this genre that it's so connected to.

12:42 But yeah, this these last two years have been super rewarding. I may have said this in in that other interview, but they did, you know, in my month in rehab, they did say, just think if you just put a quarter or half of the energy into anything that you've been putting into attain, you know, by go getting the substances to get, you know, coming down off the substances route, like recovery, like, you know, the work, the money you have to take, like all these things, if you spent a 10th or, you know, half of the that energy and those resources, just think what you'd have. And I was like, especially as gifted as I am, I just thought that is absolutely true.

13:27 You know, I'd, so I'm, I'm, I go, I wake up grateful every day and I have a renewed excitement for my shows, a renewed excitement for making music and for the labels. But you know, motivation, motivation for everyone who does this for a long time. It comes and goes. We're human and that's what's scary about AI. So it's about building what's sustainable. And I think because my problem was a reliance on desire to do the work through drugs, you know, like a reliance of making it fun. So it's like making it so.

14:10 Yeah. It's that compromise of a marriage, of making it fun. I love that comparison. And it is hard when the music that you've made throughout the years is so incredible. And, you know, obviously there's some influence in there whether you're on or off substances when you made it that have existed in parallel with the with the substance use. And so I feel like that's a place where a lot of artists get stuck because if you're able to function and you're able to make amazing music while doing these things, but it's deteriorating your health. Yeah. How? How do you? Find, I mean, correlation is not always causation because you could correlate. Oh, I had these good ideas. And you, yeah, I mean, they've, they've shown that, you know, psychedelics and kind of, you know, especially, you know, they've shown it opens up your creativity, you know, 300, four, 100%.

15:00 Well, that's fine. But if you sit there and do the work, you still have the same creative ideas. I play just as much good stuff. It's also, you know, the showing up. But I think it's yeah, that line is just very blurred. So it's it's easy to have that correlation in your head that, oh, this gave me this good idea because you want to keep feeling that way, right? What the ideas. And you know what Jamie would always say to me? The ideas are already there, but I didn't want to stop, you know? So your relationship with Jamie dates back to 2001. Is that did you move to Ibiza just to pursue music and how did you 2. Meet did you just stumble upon? Well, I graduated from UIC, took the LSAT. I cancel my score because I didn't know how to do the logic puzzles because I don't start.

15:50 I've never studied for anything. I mean, I don't want to put this the wrong way, but I can get straight A's without studying like but I could pass any, I could ace almost any standardized test, but I didn't know I didn't study for the LSAT and I didn't I did. There was like these logic puzzles and like I think I might have messed that up. I don't know what to do. So I cancel that score. But I deep down I also do like, I don't really know if I want to go to law school, if I want to spend, you know, whatever, it's three more years of school and then be like the underlying out of, you know, you know, working 80 hours a week at a law office and find out in 7-8 years when I'm finally making more money.

16:31 This isn't even what I want to do. I think my, my gut has always been really good at that. So I think it was just something because my grades are good and I, my aunt was a lawyer like, oh, you know, that makes sense. I'm not 100, but I knew that I was a writer, but I just didn't have anything to say yet. And I knew about Ibiza from, you know, I was, I was reading mix mag and DJ mag and things like this already and had seen like not anything Ibiza relay, but you know, like 24 hour party people or what's it? No, sorry. What's the one with a nice one brother? Human truck, human traffic.

17:12 I think that's what it was with Danny Kaye. But I'd seen like some of the UK rave movies. They weren't at a time, but like, you know, I knew what Ibiza was and I have, I loved the Chicago rave scene, but I was aware that there was this place where they worshipped house music and young people are into it here. I could barely, I couldn't get my friends to go to rave's or get my brother or like the softball girls that live next to me. My friends, they didn't want to go. I'd go by myself. So I knew there was this place that really that house music was, you know, it was the Mecca of house music and all the big DJs were going and had beautiful weather and I hadn't, you know, lived anywhere with palm trees, you know, lived on.

17:58 I mean, I'd gone to the Caribbean, but like, so I, I've, I've bought travel to Europe, to London, then to Paris, to Barcelona, the Eurostar train and ferry ticket to Ibiza. So we can each the first few places and then no return, no ticket leaving Ibiza. So no particular plan. But I think, you know, I was hoping what would happen is what would happen is that I would find people that were like minded, that would find my tribe. And Jamie was at Bora Bora one day. I think I talked to his friend, Welsh girl Rhian or something like that. So we're in the water and she introduced me. So we we talked briefly, but he knew a lot of the English people that I met that I started hanging out with and going to space.

18:54 And so he became a part of a group of friends that first summer. And then I came back for New Year's. I came to Birmingham and then to London. And we all went out for New Year's to Ben Watt, to Lazy Dog. And then the next summer, Jamie and my friend Nathan, our friend Nathaniel and I all live together starting that season. And we, yeah, it was just, you know, we were like a little crew, you know, worker crew. And yeah, go to Sundays at Space then till midnight. That was, that was an open air terrorist back then that originally that was everyone's favorite thing.

19:40 But DC10 was becoming really cool. That was an after hours. So we'd go to, we love Sundays at space. We would wait until people came out kind of by the high grass where the parking lot along high is now across from Bora Bora. There'll be like 10 of us and we just asked because it was 1. You had a wristband for one inch. Like you could leave once and go back in and we just ask people with the wristband, oh, are you going back in? Until all ten of us had a band. Some of us will maybe go back and dance at Bor Bor until everyone had a band. Then we'd all get into we love Sundays at space and you know, it was, you know, it was really amazing times and go to after we'd go get this place called Ancient Peoples and Playa Embossa.

20:24 Until 6:00 AM then we had unlimited guest list to circle loco from this guy Charlie Chester who is going out with Joe Mills was on the resident DJ so he's a promoter for Antonio could bring like 100 workers. So that was like our religion was we love Sunday space, go DJ at ancient peoples and then PC town all day Monday and. And were you you were producing at this time too? No, no, not yet. No, we were just workers. I could barely mix Jamie, Jamie and Nathaniel were starting. They got like maybe 1 show at Amnesia and one show at Space. That summer was like we were, we were just partiers, we were workers, we were on, you know, we were the ravers at every cool party Jamie would make.

21:14 He had the music game on PlayStation. He would dink around and play do that sometimes and like make little ringtones. And I was, you know, I was starting to get better at DJ ING. But I think it was just a breeding ground for take, you know, our taste and everyone you know, our music influencing each other and then a breeding ground for for taste of taste making and you know. It's hard to get that at that time because there was no social media. You couldn't get that unless you were there in the environment. Exactly. But it also, I think it was heartening because I never lacked for confidence and I didn't hear many thoughts where I didn't think we couldn't do better. I couldn't do better.

22:03 So I think I I loved the experience and you know, I loved as things changed because, you know, this music's very cyclical. So the first summer I was there was like kind of the end of the peak of disco house, funky house, and then 2002 boom, Felix the house cat, Miss kitten and all of this Electro clash blows up. So, you know, for me, that's very exciting to see it, you know, to change so quickly because it goes from my first second to second season. It's like almost this whole new sound. So I think. Yeah, that was very energizing and very exciting.

22:44 I know. Yeah. I think having the taste to go there back then put me ahead of the curve for sure. But also even here in Chicago, you know, the fact that I was into house when so many people, I mean, I'm not from the suburbs, I'm from decal. But you know, the reality is that like not even urban youth, the house wasn't cool in the 90s. So I think that having the taste to like nuanced but classic, like music that could be a classic early on really set me up and sought to be ahead of the curve.

23:25 And being an Ibiza, that was, you know, a huge advantage, you know, down the road and like the diversity of my taste coming back to Chicago, becoming truly actually starting to be a working DJI. Want to skip ahead a little bit to Hot Natured because there's this clip that goes around like once a year of BPM Festival in 2013. You're DJ ING Annabelle is singing reverse skydiving, and it just evokes this feeling of nostalgia, even for the people who have never gotten to experience that or weren't partying in 2013. It is almost like painful for people because they feel like we're never going to get that back. And I'm curious to hear your take on it, especially every time it goes viral.

24:14 Well, I mean, it was a great moment. That was her first time ever singing live, you know, I really believed in that song. I knew it could be like our second single, well, from the album obviously, for we had had forward motion before Benediction, but I believed in the song and that is the first time it had ever been played, the first time she'd ever sang live. So there is a lot of freshness to it and obviously that sound, you know, what we were doing at Hot Creations, what we're doing at Hot Natured did sound fresh to people. So whether anything can sound fresh anymore, as much and as much as things are constantly faster and faster being recycled, it's hard to say. But I mean, that's I'm also older. So like to young people, lots of things can sound fresh even though they're interpolations.

25:04 And I think we all have a tendency to look at the Rose colored glasses at the times that were special or emotional to us. But of course, I believe that was a special time. But I'm very hopeful with Hot Natured. We are recapturing a lot of that magic and that our live, you know, I'm obvious. I don't want to spill the beans on too much with what's going on with the band, but you know, we have been recording and everything the wheels have very recently been turning towards, you know, the the release is starting to come and, you know, rather return to touring. So I believe, you know, we certainly have the capability as a live act to, to, to, to bring that energy. But I think people always point to the phones thing. And then even now, even if you have a no phones party, people's attention spans are shorter.

26:02 I mean, I don't know how much of that is just glorifying an era. But yeah, also from a songwriting perspective, you know, I'm a great songwriter and we're all, you know, as a as a as a group of great songwriters. And I knew, you know, like I wrote reverse skydiving that vocal in like 30 minutes, Like it just poured out of me. But I knew that that was that that was a hit. And I think we have the capability, you know, to do fresh and interesting things that hopefully will bring that energy again, you know, and I believe we have the charisma as a group and individually.

26:46 So yeah, I mean, I then she you know, a lot house music is locked for great live vocalists and acts. And it's, it's getting better, but still, you know, it's very DJ centric and people, people want to see performers, you know, people don't just want to there's nothing. I mean, obviously they love to see me lip sync along, you know, by myself too, but. But you looked so busy in that clip, like you were so locked in. Like, you're in the corner, right? Because like, the camera's on her, but you look so locked in. And I think that was kind of part of the magic. You're right. Like it was so cool to see just this amazing woman singing standing on top of I don't even know what it was. I think she was on her knees actually. She was and then I think she got up, but it was just it was a very captivating moment and it is different now because now you have the multi cams or whatever.

27:41 There's just a lot more going on. So I think that's but you're right. We I talked to Jamie about this as well. People tend to romanticize the no phones, the whatever and look, look at it through rose colored glasses. Now it's you're celebrating 10 years of repopulate now to next weekend, right? Well, I mean, I think it was May, but in. Yeah, no, this was a. Celebration. This. This year? Yeah, this. Is a big year for. This is a big year. I think maybe it hasn't dawned on me. You know, we are doing some remixes and I'm going to, I'm launching like a short film. I actually shot it a couple of years ago, but I'm finally releasing it this year and like kind of like a mission statement short film.

28:27 It's but I mean, it's, it's really great. But like we, I guess, like I'm all, I'm all running a little behind on celebrating this year, but we're getting to all of it like well. It's just you and Cason, right? Yeah, Cason. Yeah, Cason is my and our today's my only true employee. That may change. I may look to to grow things just because of the level of competition now as you have so many majors getting involved and spending money or I mean, I'm a part of 360 from a management team's perspective, but they're you know, coming in and spending lots of money on advances, you know, defected lies.

29:08 Labels were always taking music that I had signed and undercutting me and paying large advances. So the more and more and like every new artist, the second they have success starting their own labels. So the competition continues to grow. And at various times, I'll admit, like my motivation has waned, which is tough when everything runs through me. You know, Casein is, you know, it could bring me a bring me stuff, but I make the art. I pick everything he can. You know, he put, you know, some percentage of songs that are signed. You know, he does go through the demos and bring to me. But at the end of the day, the bucks if the buck stops with you and everything and you're, you know, being type a personality about the label. But sometimes your motivation wanes in the face of companies with 6080 employees and huge, you know, millions of pounds, tens, 20s, millions, 40 millions of tons in budgets and or, you know, purchase purchasing power. That's be more on the major side. But you know, even these companies, you know, there's still, you know, that might be, you know, offered 20,000 LB advances.

30:14 That's a lot of money for something that probably will never recoup. So I think it's a special time. And like, I think that this my focus on getting right with myself has been important to me getting the excitement up to the second-half of this year, celebrating it because there's a lot to celebrate. You know, we, you know, I've, we've been instrumental in, you know, helping launch so many amazing careers and, you know, really elevating the sound of house music in in America and what a label, what, what a label can be that, you know, still reaches Europe and is respected in. I mean, obviously there's there are other house and deep house labels, but I think you know, from a label that's had a tremendous amount of commercial success too, but maintained underground credibility.

31:14 There's there's a lot to be proud of and excited about South and yeah, when we just had the 10 year for hot creations not too long ago and then the 15 years. So yeah, it's it's remarkable how much the, how quickly the time is passing. But I'm I'm deeply proud of of the labels. It does go by so fast. I was thinking when you were on the way here that so I'm from Chicago suburbs, but I lived elsewhere when I was a news reporter. And when I finally got to move back to Chicago, the first show I actually saw was a Repopulate Mars show at Chop Shop. Oh, OK.

31:57 It was 2019 and yeah, and it was they don't use that venue anymore for for house music, which I don't know from your pers, like if it was not a great venue to play, but it's a bummer because now I live so close to it. That was a great party. Oh, thank you. I'm glad to have fun. And then Chicago seems to be losing a lot of the five. I don't know what the what the villa license was there, but I noticed a lot of the late night license venues seem to be closing. And I think Chicago has the rare has they compared to a lot of cities. It does not have a super antagonistic relationship with nightlife like LA, You know, 2O clock Closings. I think it allows for the freedom to book multiple artists, to do cool showcases, to have multiple headliners. I mean, if your venue closes at 2:00 and you're like a local promoter and you want a DJ or open, you know, you're very limited to how long you get heard. And if you can have multiple artists, could have a have a label showcase like Repopulate more. So, yeah, I, I think Chicago is a very important city for me to to, to come back and to showcase my brands. And I hope it continues to have, you know, a love and respect for the music that at birth, you

33:27 know, house houses from here. And I know sometimes the city pays lip service to I don't want to say lip service, but you know, I hope that it continues to understand how cool and how valuable that is. You know, house is the fastest growing. It might be the the biggest genre in the world now. And like that's, that's amazing, remarkable thing, something to be celebrated. What do you tell a producer from here, DJ, producer from here that is frustrated because they feel like the dance music centre of gravity is like anywhere but here?

34:08 Well, you know, I tried to, I tried to give those artists some priority. That's what I did with John, which helped give Summit more confidence. I mean, I won't take more responsibility than I need because he works very hard, but I know a lot of his confidence due from Repopulate Mars being a dream label. I mean, I think he did 12, at least 12 songs with us with Repopulate Mars and South of Saturn, maybe 14. So I know Early doors and obviously we learned a lot from each other. He learned a lot for me. But I gave him, you know, mentored him, gave him a lot of energy, partly because he was from Chicago when I felt he would be somewhat more reliable or more loyal than the next random person. And you know, we became friends and we, you know, we've had a long history of working together. But I think a priority I gave him because I've been working very closely with Eli Brown and he kind of, you know, was changing his sound at the time.

35:20 Because like right before John, I think, you know, Eli Gab had had like probably like 20. I don't know, he had a lot. He kept doing 4 track, 4 song releases on Repopulate more so he did probably more songs than John and I'm not John. And yeah, because he was from Chicago, I thought, yeah, maybe he'd want, you know, maybe he'd want to stick around. And he ended up doing doing a semi exclusive deal, you know, for for a year for releases after doing a few. So I think when I mean, like, I'm a bunch of new artists yesterday, you know, I think it's important to say, you know, being from Chicago rings out, you know, like you can't fall back on it. The music has to be good.

36:08 But yes, this is a city with a lot of DJs and not as big of a pie as New York and London and Miami. But it's a great place to live. It's a place to be proud of being from. And it's a great calling card. And there's there's great people from here, you know, you know, you can almost say you can trust every Chicago and that's not a fair assessment. But like generally you meet, you know, from the the people in the elevator at the hotel to the people at the events, you know, it's, you know, to your driver to anything, you know, people at the airport, people are good people. So be proud of that.

36:51 Work really hard and, you know, just continue to reach out because it's sometimes being in a Crucible like this, you know, forges you into the the diamond that you need to be. I love that. Is there anyone from Chicago or not that you have been keeping your eye on playing their music? I always forget to ask artists this question because I, I think it's important to know where you guys are, you know, pointing your sights on if you're, if you're seeing new fresh talent that excites you. Well, I appreciated this guy V Lo playing. He played some good songs at the after party last night. He's from here and he's been very really on top of supporting, you know, every post ID, every release. So I'll give him a shout out.

37:38 The connect works for me, but he's doing some good stuff. There's a new guy, Beave BEABEAVE from the UK who made some some really good demos. But I'd almost, it's like it's so, so many producers and DJs, I almost have to look at my DMS to remember what I'm signing. But there's, this is a great city for for artists and, you know, obviously there's a lot of great stuff coming out of the UK at the moment from Brazil. I mean, they're not a new artist, but I've been enjoying, I'm enjoying what Lockie's been doing lately.

38:21 And obviously Luke and Max are doing great, but I've been enjoying hanging out with them lately and we're working on some stuff with Lockie. So shout out to him. He's doing good stuff. Obviously he's becoming a bigger artist, but I do feel like maybe in America he's not as known as the Dean brothers. But yeah, you're making good too. And send them. Send them my way. I'll remember your name if you send me a good one. Yeah. All right. Well, that's you heard it here first. So with all this that you've already accomplished and all that you're looking ahead to, you said that you have a feature film coming out. Well, I know I have a short film coming out, but I am writing TV and film. I started a lot of this the the most important Series A few years ago, but I was just working really manically with the drug addiction.

39:16 So it was very like manic then burning myself out with doing too much. And I'm finally wrapping some of that stuff up. But yeah. That's that's really exciting. What, What do you feel like you want people to understand about you that they maybe haven't in these past 20 years? Their artist career? Well, I mean, I wasn't careful with my reputation, but I don't know that that's a bad thing. I mean, it was a bad thing. Sure, it probably cost me some gigs and you know how people have certain negative perceptions of me, but you know, at the end of the day, that's not that big of a deal.

40:00 I do think it's good. It can be a good thing to be a redemption arc even if you weren't didn't really. It's not really truly redemption. One of the biggest frustrations when you are fanatic to have a drug or alcohol problem is you start getting blamed for things that didn't even happen. You know, which cycles, you know, it's like, well, I didn't, you know, these rumors come around these, you know, and like you, you may do more. I'll probably talk to Will about this. You may, you know, you might do more, you know, do not feel that or you know, like, screw them, I'll just do more anyway.

40:44 But there are there are all these rumors or things that go around and I think, you know, right or wrong, people love the redemption arc. And I think for me right now, I know what's coming because I don't have the same sense of urgency, which is I guess a good and a bad thing, but I don't have the same sense of urgency. I had, you know, when I, when my career started 2009, 2010 and then early on in hot nature, I don't have the same chip on my shoulder of like caring what people think about me or the project or reviews or things like that. But, but I also know what's coming because I'm making so much great music and the band's making so much great music. And I know what's around the corner and I know how big it'll be.

41:33 And then when you make, when you make things, people's when they make it their idea to like it and like, oh man, leads doing all this great stuff and it's just the tip of the iceberg. It's like it's a great feeling. Whereas before I just want, you know, I desire the recognition and the success and for people to know. And maybe I came off as conceited. Now I can be present and enjoy the journey of making the music and knowing what's around the bend and knowing, you know, what a sensation that will be. You know, for my album to come on next year, for Hot Natured's music to to come out. I believe our albums come out next year, but don't I'm not, that's not an exclusive quote.

42:16 I'm not, I'm not going to say any definitives, but I'm excited for all these things. And like, there's a, a great sense of like happiness and enjoying the moment. So I guess I want people that I'm happy for that to be their idea to to see me for what I am. You know, I don't need to tell them like, and I didn't need to fix their misperceptions of me before. I live in a way now that is so I know that I'm shining like I work. I worked so hard on myself and I am so dedicated now and I know, you know, when I'm in Ibiza, when I'm anywhere, you know, it's just super rewarding for all these people who know me, some for 25 years, some for 10s or it's like this come up to be like Lee, you look so happy, you're going, you look so healthy, you look amazing. I'm so proud of what you're doing that that reward is there and I know the work is there.

43:21 So I don't need to tell people what to what to think about me because they're going to think it anyway because I'm doing the work. Yeah, I'm really into the show. Don't tell policy, you know, and just living your truth and feeling good. So thank you for taking the time to do this. You're definitely on my bucket list of guests, you and Jamie. And now I've now I've hit both. Now I don't know what to do next. Well, maybe when all the hot natured stuff happens, get us in the same room. Please, that would be a dream. With his schedule, it might be a dream for me too. Thanks guys. Thank you.