Judd: You have two daughters, right?
Eddie: Yeah.
Judd: What’s your theory, going forward, regarding the war with kids to be a part of the digital generation? What will your boundaries be?
Eddie: Well, raising them Amish is maybe the answer. We’ve been doing a lot of calligraphy.
Judd: Farming?
Eddie: Yeah, farming.
Judd: But it’s a war with kids, isn’t it? They want to be a part of it so badly. My daughter always says, “That’s how we communicate, Dad, you can’t stop it.” But you can tell it’s hurting them. They are not comfortable in silence and you hate to be that groovy person who’s like, “It’s hurting their imaginations!” But you can tell that they don’t allow anything to come forward because they’re just constantly filling all the mental space.
Eddie: When we were kids, back in the day, it was like, “Don’t sit too close to the TV.” That was our only electronic boundary.
Judd: (Laughs)
Eddie: Ten feet back, at all times! But now I’m worried about myself and certainly worried for them. I’m not really sure how it’s gonna—I think it’s just giving them enough they can at least balance it out. Our freedoms are going up in smoke, but if you still like take a walk, or take a hike or have a surf—if you’re lucky enough to be in a situation where you do these things or go to the park or whatever, at least that can still feel free for a while.
Judd: Do you ever think about what, emotionally, you’re giving away in your music? When I make a movie I think, Oh, that person knows that I’m talking about them. Like if I made a record and there were three songs about being married and two of them were like, this is really hard or a drag, I’d get in trouble immediately for it—
Eddie: Well, no. If the emotion is real and the idea—I guess one thing you do is try to mask it slightly.
Judd: (Laughs)
Eddie: But if it’s the real thing, then you just do it and deal with the circumstances.
Judd: Are you happy, family-wise?
Eddie: My type of personality is that even when things are going really good, then I feel like something bad could happen at any minute. I think a lot about the fragility of life. From knowing people like Tomas Young, who’s a soldier who lost the use of most of his body due to a couple of gunshot wounds in Iraq, and the challenges he faces, or just having friends who are dealing with diseases—knowing these people has given me a great appreciation for life and the moment. I just see that fragility at all times.
Judd: When you start a record, do you have an idea of what it’s going to be, or is it something that evolves once you guys start working?
Eddie: Whatever the music is dictates what the record is, especially if I’m writing lyrics to someone else’s piece. What you’re listening for is, like, What does this mean? What is this? What are these sounds or what is this rhythm or momentum of it? I think the faster songs are easier, because it seems like there’s plenty of aggressive stuff to write about these days. But maybe the more atmospheric stuff comes, you know—those become a little more of a puzzle, trying to line everything up and then have it create a meaning for you, or a story or something that relates to the sound of the song.
Judd: Are you writing actively or is the music the beginning of your process in writing lyrics?
Eddie: It’s pretty much the beginning. I should do that more, you know, but usually it’s just something that connects all at once. Something lands on my shoulder and then it’s just a matter of waiting and getting it down. And then there’s this great writing tool—I don’t know if you’ve heard about it. It’s called a vaporizer.
Judd: (Laughs)
Eddie: And so, you put your tools out on your desk and then you just start, you know, bricklaying and then you see what happens the next morning.
Judd: I think my whole process is wrong. I’m just stressed all day long trying to think of things. I’m sitting there thinking, Why aren’t you thinking of anything? You’re behind. You need to get going. I’m going to try this “vaporizer” you’re talking about.
Eddie: I think we have a signature model coming out soon.
Judd: You should just be a sponsor of that. You could have your own brand, like the George Foreman Grill.
Eddie: Well, certainly in a few states, we could air those commercials.
Judd: But what will you tell your kids about the rock star life, and what your journey has been like? They can start googling you pretty soon. My daughter said to me recently, “You took mushrooms at a Frank Sinatra concert.”
Eddie: I think I need to get home and check on the kids.
Judd: (Laughs) No, no, but I never thought, Oh yeah, I did an interview five years ago where I told this story. I wasn’t prepared for my reaction and explanation—which was that someone force-fed them to me. It was a terrible, terrible incident. I was dosed. I guess it happens at some point that they have to understand everything you’ve been through.
Eddie: Right. Well, umm…
Judd: I just blew your mind. (Laughs)
Eddie: I’m a little paranoid about the computer….
Judd: Yeah.
Eddie: A crazy thing happened the other night. My daughter likes to listen to this ukulele record that I did—she goes to bed to it, and especially if I’m not around, at least I’m there playing her to sleep. There’s a sad song about sleeping by myself or something and it was pretty intense. She started by asking me, you know, “What’s that song about? Why are you singing that?” And I said, “Oh, that was before I met Mom,” and the whole thing. And then she started bawling. She said, “It’s so sad, it’s so sad.” I had to comfort her, but she really kind of lost it, it was pretty intense, so we skip that song now. It was interesting to see the empathy that she had for her dad. I don’t know if I ever had that, or an opening to have that. I was raised differently.
Judd: How much Disney Channel are your kids making you watch?
Eddie: I don’t want to say anything, you know, because there are certain good things about Disney.
Judd: Yes.
Eddie: But that channel is not one of them. I challenge you to find a single character, if not just even a single line in a half-hour show, that has anything of value and that isn’t said with an attitude other than, you know, being snarky.
Judd: Yeah.
Eddie: And it rubs off, you know. It’s a bad influence. I probably sound like my parents. I mean, I was listening to Country Joe and the Fish and George Carlin and, you know, Jimi Hendrix and all of that. We were pretty excited about this stuff.
Judd: You never went with the Shaun Cassidy records?
Eddie: Mmm, no.
Judd: No Partridge Family period?
Eddie: No. But Michael Jackson? Yeah.
Judd: I read somewhere that you could sing like Michael Jackson for a short period, a short prepubescent period.
Eddie: He’s an amazing singer.
Judd: Oh, absolutely.
Eddie: I had this period in Chicago where we lived with some foster brothers—it was like a home for boys kind of thing—and there was a basement and we had a lot of Motown records, Sly and the Family Stone and James Brown, and we had kids of all races and all—it was a really good upbringing in that way. It made you grow up and toughen up a little bit, even though I was only like seven or eight. But man, Michael Jackson was an anomaly. The stuff coming off of that record player. That wasn’t kitsch. He could really sing.