Do I like performing in stadiums and is it stressful? These are great questions. As you know from TNO, there is nothing else like the magic of a crowd feeling a collective and ephemeral joy, and in those moments, when I am onstage looking out at so many faces, I feel like a vessel in a way that’s an incredible privilege. For sure, touring can get repetitive…the hotels and transportation but also the performing. Yet I know that for anyone in the audience, it might be a big night out for them, the tickets were not cheap, maybe they hired a babysitter and paid for parking. So my job is to bring as much energy in Omaha as at the Hollywood Bowl.
At this point, I don’t usually feel stressed by shows. There are pros and cons to having “hit it big” early, and one that might be both is that by now, even as I recognize how much my career is a product of luck, it’s the only life I know professionally speaking. Looking back, I was in serious danger of flaming out almost as soon as I got started. After my first and second albums came out back to back, I was drinking a lot, acting like a jackass in my early 20s, and generally letting success go to my head. In October 2003, there was a horrible accident in Miami where my drummer, whose name was Christopher and who was the sweetest guy, fell off a drawbridge over Biscayne Bay. This was a huge wake-up call, and following Christopher’s funeral, I entered rehab for two months. I still think about him every day and wish I had stopped all of us from climbing the bridge. I considered quitting performing altogether. I wasn’t sure if fans or the media would blame me for Christopher’s death, and while this didn’t happen, I have always felt very conscious of being given a second chance.
About your question of if I work out three hours a day…I do not work out from 10AM-1PM, as I may have implied. I work out from more like 10AM-11:15AM. But since we are being honest, it’s questionable how healthy my relationship with exercise and food is. I am proud to say I have not relapsed with alcohol (and thank you for answering my question about drinking so straightforwardly), but I am pretty compulsive about exercising. This is not a humblebrag because I don’t think it’s good to be compulsive about anything. I was scrawny growing up and could eat whatever I wanted until I was about 30. At that point, as soon as I put on some weight, I stopped eating sugar and wheat. When I got Covid, I lost too much weight so I decided to start having bread again last spring and now, even though I’ve cut out grains again, I weigh 13lbs more than I did when I hosted TNO. Do you remember that sketch when I was wearing a very silly leather vest and shorts? I knew in advance I might be asked to wear something revealing for the show plus I’d be on TV and having my picture taken while promoting my album so I did a cleanse the week before. In the past, I have fasted in advance of photo shoots, but now that I have some distance on all of that, I think it’s a habit I want to be finished with. I’m sure this will result in me looking less fit, and people will make snarky comments, but maybe I can learn to be at peace with it.
OK…I am seriously considering deleting that last paragraph because I am scared of how vain you will think I sound…but I also am curious what your reaction is. And no, I absolutely do not talk about this stuff with most people.
I know what you mean about getting older and having a different sensibility than the people coming up behind you. I feel aware of that when it comes to social media, which seems pointless to me and which I don’t deal with myself but it is such a part of the machinery now. Another weird thing for me that’s been true since the beginning is that, although my recent album sales are respectable, it’s close to impossible that I will ever again reach the sales of my first album (even accounting for all the shifts in how music is sold during the last 20 years…which is, as you might say, a story for another time). Earlier in my career, this made me worry that I was failing the people at my label, but over time, it has helped me recognize that the one thing I can control is my music…not sales, not market trends, not critical reaction. I just can try to put my best work out there.
I swear to you I was a freaky goth, and for proof here’s a picture of me from age 14. Please enjoy my way too long bangs, horrible-fitting jeans, and black nail polish. I was terrified of girls, worshipped The Velvet Underground and The Cure, and hated having to wear a coat and tie to my all-boys’ school almost as much as I hated the mandatory sports.
I suppose the style of my side project band is…rockabilly? It’s less poppy than my solo work, as I’m sure you will be sad to hear. I often wonder when I will play again before a crowd. I miss it like crazy and also, thinking of people pressed up against each other, sweating, singing at the top of their lungs…it’s so hard to imagine that ever feeling normal.
I bet every version of your screenplay is great. I can’t wait until I’m in a theater watching a movie you wrote.
from: Sally Milz <[email protected]>
to: Noah Brewster <[email protected]>
date: Jul 24, 2020, 7:22 PM
subject: Actually
You’re definitely my best pen pal! Without question! I was just trying to play it cool.
There have been 3 others: