Lewis Capaldi with Kennedy

Audacy Music

Lewis Capaldi joins Kennedy for an important talk about his new song, "Survive," and the work he's done on his mental health.

Transcript

00:00hello my good friend lewis hello how are you my name is kennedy i know

00:06i know i know and amen i'm so honored and grateful that you're spending this time with

00:13me today so uh thank you so much so i guess i think first and foremost the conversation we need

00:19to have is 2023 you walked off the stage at glass and berry because it was just too much

00:27and then just a few days ago we watched you walk back on the stage at glass and berry and you had

00:34arrived yeah what was it like to walk on stage but not just to walk on stage but to stop singing

00:42and have everyone be there with you in that moment yeah it was great i'll just um it'd been a long

00:48two years as you said like from 2023 and 2023 didn't go the way i wanted it to in any respect

00:53um so yeah to be able to come back and do glass and berry the way we did it and felt really

00:59special and just like a really full circle um moment so i'm really i just feel lucky that and

01:08really grateful that we got the opportunity to do it again because when i uh came into work that

01:13morning and i watched the video i was sobbing all right yeah yeah sobbing so was that so we're all

01:19we're all everyone i think it's one thing to like you know walk away but to come back in the place

01:25where you walked away and to have those thousands of people say yep we got you baby we got you that's

01:31what it felt like for sure so i met yeah so so speaking back to that time in 2023 i i feel that

01:39we've seen a lot of people take steps back simon biles uh you we've seen people zayn malik we've seen

01:46people say i need to take a step back and i feel like that can be very un understood if that's a

01:54word yeah by people who don't live in this world yeah how dare you what's wrong with you whatever but

02:01like life-saving for other people who might have seen you do that so as you took that moment and as

02:08you've taken that time away in those two years what did you learn about yourself and what gave you

02:15the strength to come back i i don't know i think it's a big old question that i learned

02:20that i'm probably more resilient than i thought i was uh i always thought i was someone who and i

02:26still am in some respects someone who bends at the slightest don't we are but yeah inconvenience

02:31around that but um yeah no i probably i i really i'm someone who i don't really see things through

02:38quite a lot i'm quite bad like making promises to myself that i don't keep but this time around

02:43um with this with doing therapy and focusing on getting better i was really saying to myself

02:49i'm going to do this thing and i'm going to get to the end of it and i'm going to um yeah make sure

02:54that everything that i promised myself i'm going to follow through on so yeah i think um that was

03:01just a big a big thing for me that sort of getting to no and i suppose i i'm not at the

03:08end of my it is a marathon yeah we will never be done with exactly yeah so it's a it's a case of

03:14just um yeah i haven't seen i've seen it through for the last two years and i've stuck with it and i

03:21think that for me has been the biggest thing that sort of um consistency with uh i guess i don't really

03:27like this uh phrase but like showing up for myself i guess in big ways it's an important

03:31statement yeah yeah for sure so there's a uh a statement tale as old as time that says

03:39the fire that warms us also consumes us and i think people who work in the public eye this speaks to

03:46more than anything i feel this a lot too that i feel it's important for me to talk about my mental

03:52health to people i feel it's important for me to show up for those people but it can be exhausting

03:57at times and i feel like your fans have sort of been a beacon through this very rough sea you

04:05traveled so what could you say to those people who just sold out every concert you just announced

04:13and will sell out the ones that come to america i'm sure but what would you say to the people that

04:19have lifted you up during this time uh just thanks for still being there i guess i was really worried

04:24when we went away for that long time that when we came back people wouldn't um care or people would

04:31be a bit i mean music moves so quickly now and so many people come and go and there's music that

04:37with so much like a hundred thousand songs or something are being released every day i don't

04:41know it's something mental that's that but um i uh yeah i just uh i just i just am grateful that

04:46people are still there people still seem to care about the music that we're putting out

04:50and uh yeah the outpouring of um support that people have showed me over the last two years has

04:56definitely not gone unnoticed it's been really lovely and that yes the response to the like you

05:02say the glastonbury stuff was just um was really touching so um we just thank you for for still

05:08being there and still um still buying tickets to things because the money is the money is this

05:14i think it's so far past buying tickets i think it's so far past a concert i think it's so far past

05:19any of that and so i i'd like to talk about the song survive and i was uh we took the train in from

05:26boston this morning with my sister and i put one headphone in here one in mine and i asked her to listen

05:33to it because i felt it spoke so much about my journey and sometimes it's hard to explain to people

05:38what that feels like and she kind of looked at me and she was like yep and i feel like what you did

05:43was a remarkably bold statement like we can all say i'm gonna try and you said no i'm gonna wake up

05:51on monday and i'm gonna get out of bed and i swear to god today i will survive and as someone who has

05:58woken up on a monday and said nope today is not the day and i might not like i want to say thank you

06:07for that oh thank you cheers but i also would like to know like putting that to paper bringing

06:15that into a recording studio singing it bringing it to people because we still have to protect our

06:23spirit a little bit sure when we're those kinds of people how did that feel and how did you make

06:28it happen it was a bit um when we were writing in the show i wrote it with a guy called sam romans

06:33who uh i've written uh i wrote like someone you loved with him and stuff so we've that we've worked

06:38together but this is the first time we me and him sat down in a room and wrote a song since we wrote

06:42someone you loved um yeah so it was one of those things of just um i'd been in rooms with people

06:48a lot over like other writers other producers um people musicians or whatever who were all very keen

06:57on writing a song about my mental health or were keen on writing a song about what had happened at

07:03glastonbury and i get i get where they were coming from they were trying to draw on something real and

07:09stuff but i wasn't really ready to talk about it or anything that i was kind of avoiding it and then

07:14yeah just with sam and i've known sam for since 2016 i think so um yeah i just really i felt very

07:23comfortable with him so um we were just it was much more natural and sort of um uh it came a lot

07:31easier than being like let's write a song about your mental health that fit sometimes that felt a

07:36little bit um uh prescribed yeah yeah yeah or like i was like i don't know if i can say hi you've been

07:42spending tears alone and had mental health problems let's write a song exactly yeah yeah

07:46yeah so i think this time it just it just felt so natural and so uh easy and i wasn't even

07:51this the lyrics came quite especially the chorus lyric came very simple and it wasn't i i didn't really

07:59feel wasn't even a case of oh let's write this song it just sort of the the line i swear to god i'll

08:05survive if it kills me to kind of came out first and i wasn't really thinking too much when i was

08:10writing i was just like letting things be and writing whatever i wanted to write and that came

08:16out so it was like a really um uh it's a bit of a blur writing it but it felt really important and

08:25special once it was finished not even like i don't actually think it's um the best song i've written

08:31for stop it no no no but i don't mean it's not about best good bad or different what you have done

08:37yeah yeah i'm telling you right here right now what you have done people are going to hear it

08:42and might have not heard something before and they'll be like i can be alive today yeah that's

08:47what you did well that that was the thing it felt like i've really screwed if it's a number one what

08:51you did yeah is that yeah yeah yeah i wanted to say another word but but i think yeah it was like

08:58that thing of um i really felt that it was important that that was the first thing that people heard

09:03from me because i didn't want to come back and be oh you know woe is me or this has been really

09:08tough and sad and i've got songs like that don't get me wrong about what happened the last two years

09:13and some of them will come out but today yeah this monday yeah this monday yeah it was about getting up

09:19and resilience and i wanted that to be the message as opposed to you know sort of being down and down

09:24in the dumps a bit all right now let's get into stupid questions okay what brings you joy i'll go

09:31first watching kids roll down hills when they're little i really like tech talks of people doing

09:38embarrassing things like people not like people who are sort of um it's like i don't know what the

09:47nicest way is they'll say however you want they're just like um doing stuff that there's this girl

09:53that i saw on tiktok today who's just doing these pickup lines and she's like for more pickup lines

09:58follow me and it's that's like i can't remember her name but it's going to annoy me but who doesn't

10:04need a good pickup line but she's amazing she's so fun like it makes me laugh so much she's brilliant

10:09um so um yeah if you're out there thanks uh for the laughs she's brilliant what do you pack in your bag

10:17that you don't need i'll go first my sister has said three times while we've been together she was

10:22like my eyes hurt i'm like i have eye drops like they're really a mary poppins i have a bag full

10:27of everything what do you pack that you don't need i just think extra underwear always always

10:31you can never have too many more underwear than you need always at least five times yeah you can

10:36throw them out later for sure all right let's just say you were a baseball player in america or a

10:42wwe guy what's your walk-up song oh i was listening to uh smooth sailing by the queens of the stone age

10:49this morning i like that song i think i'd walk out to that we are going deep yeah yeah i like that

10:55song i would be uh prince i would die for you nice yeah great all right and what is in your lewis

11:02capaldi survival kit uh anti-psychotic medication so i'll go first right anti-psychotics

11:09antidepressants earplugs a kindle i don't even know what i wrote there oh wow i had to rewrite

11:18them three times look how hard i'm shaking what's in your kit uh yeah my my sort of medications

11:23various medications oh do you have a meprazole here is that a thing here uh yeah that's like for

11:29my for my acid reflux huge yes baby yeah that's massive i need that i had to get four new teeth

11:35because of that oh really yes i went to the dentist sorry for taking too long i went to the

11:40dentist and she's like your teeth are tiny why are they so tiny my teeth are getting and i said i

11:45don't know what you're talking about and she goes no trigger warning here did you have anorexia in

11:52your life and i said no and she goes do you have acid reflux and i'm like maybe i kind of get a

11:57little whatever she goes yeah acid is eating your teeth away so now i have four brand new teeth

12:01aren't they pretty wow yeah that's i'm because i'm looking at the composite bonding i had to

12:06because they were falling apart yeah yeah that's mad so yeah i would maybe get some

12:11a measure pop an episode i mean you know just an episode that's all i need

12:15that's all anything else i'm good yeah well i thank you so much i think if you're honesty

12:21i think if you're a bravery i don't necessarily know how much you see what you've done i think

12:27when you go on tour you will i ask you to protect your spirit i ask you to take time to make sure

12:33that you're not giving everything away to everybody else but understand that you coming back speaks to

12:38so many people who think that they are all alone in the way that they think and what you've done

12:44is massive and brave and huge and i'm honored to have sat here before you today so thank you very

12:49much likewise thank you so much for taking the time anytime i'll drive from boston anytime to see you

12:54appreciate it lovely thank you so much

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