Brandi Carlile & Tish Melton: Behind the Scenes of Making Tish’s New EP
March 5, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.
Today is a really special day for me and I hope that it will be a very special hour for you. The reason is that we have today two of my favorite people on the entire planet, Brandi Carlile and Tish Melton, and they are here today in conversation with each other and us to celebrate Tish’s first EP called When We’re Older, and also to celebrate music and collaboration and friendship and community, because these two have a very special musical friendship. It’s really been incredibly inspiring to me, and I think it will be to you too.
Brandi Carlile is an 11 time Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, performer, producer, number one New York Times bestselling author, and activist. Brandi is truly one of music’s most respected voices.
Aside from the production of her own work, Carlile has been increasingly in demand as a record producer, helming albums by Tanya Tucker, Lucius, the Secret Sisters, Brandy Clark, and Tish Melton.
Carlile has collaborated closely with Joni Mitchell, Elton John, The Highwomen, Soundgarden, Alicia Keys, Marcus Mumford, Dolly Parton, and more.
When not on the road, she spends time in her home studio in rural Washington State where she and Catherine raised their two daughters, Evangeline and Elijah.
Tish Melton is an 18-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who wears her incredibly perceptive heart on her sleeve. For her debut EP, When We’re Older, she has teamed up with 11 time Grammy Award-winning artist Brandi Carlile, who is a mentor and friend to Melton and joins Tish as the producer of her first EP.
Their musical chemistry is undeniable, rooted in mutual respect, shared taste, and an appreciation for good songwriting and musical catharsis.
Her work has received praise from Variety, V Magazine, FLOOD, and Magnet Magazine.
When We’re Older is a bold and generous opening statement from a newcomer who is destined to share her stories and it’s available to stream or download now.
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things, Brandi and Tish. How are you both?
Tish Melton:
I’m great.
Glennon Doyle:
You are? Why are you great?
Tish Melton:
I just turned 18 a couple days ago, so that was fun. It was scary but fun and I get to miss the day of school to do this, so that’s really fun as well.
Brandi Carlile:
That’s awesome. I’m really good too, Tish. It’s happy to see you 18. You look different somehow. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you remember being 18, Brandi? What were you like?
Brandi Carlile:
Vaguely. I think I was about the same.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s amazing. I could see that.
Brandi Carlile:
Just very serious. Yeah.
No, I remember it. I had already been living out of my parents’ house for a year because you could do that back then and now that’s not a possibility.
And just as laser focused on making a path for myself in music as Tish is. We have a lot in common actually.
Glennon Doyle:
Like what?
Brandi Carlile:
Well, we have that laser focus and that steadiness, there’s a knowing that I feel that Tish has. You don’t seem to be overly anxious about the speed upon which you deliver your impact because you know you will have one.
Glennon Doyle:
Just pod squatters, just all you anxious parents, just note that it can happen. You can be your anxious self and raise a kid who is not.
That’s a nice little fact. Thanks, Brandi.
I want to not talk during this because you are the two most interesting people I know, and so I would like to not take any time from you two, but let’s just start by, Brandi, you tell the story of how you even found each other, how you started working together, your origin story, and then you can just jump in when you want to, T.
Tish Melton:
Cool.
Brandi Carlile:
I started seeing Tish through you guys and I was like, “Wow, that is a talented kid.”
And you were really young, Tish, when I started seeing videos of you singing and playing guitar. And again, you had that same focus, the same dead eyed thing that you do now, but just like you’re not going to be fazed by your surroundings. You’re not embarrassed, you’re not worried you are going to deliver your inner knowing through music. And you had that even then that and I was like, “Man, that kid is formidable.”
And then, Glennon, when you reached out to me and asked me about getting involved for some music with the pod when you were first starting it, and me and Tish did that project together where we were working on the song We Can Do Hard Things, and I was starting to understand what kind of energy Tish was putting out there, what she was going to do lyrically and musically, getting involved with changing it and sculpting it.
And then sensing a really healthy friction and resistance from Tish around making certain changes because she really feels that she knows who she is then and now. And right or wrong, that friction is a really good sign of a budding artist, an actual artist.
And since she ages in leap years, it wasn’t only but a few years later then, or even two, I don’t even know how many years later, I’m getting these demos of songs that are very real songs with real hooks and writing that is happening that is in the moment writing, in the present writing, not mimicking other artists and is just centrally focused on this person’s life experience, which is incredibly, I’m going to try really hard and not use this word more than once, mature.
It’s an incredibly mature outlook to write about your right now because what young people do and what artists do is they in an attempt to look mature, they write about their future self or they mimic an older artist. And this person’s just not doing that and I was like, “There’s just something really formidable and steady about this artist.”
And I can hear it in lyrics, I can hear it in the music and I became intrigued and interested and started just trying to get involved with the conversation of where Tish wants to go and what we decided to do.
Tish was just go for it, just record music because why not? And I’m really pleased with what we came out with.
Glennon Doyle:
What was it like recording with Brandi, Tish?
Tish Melton:
I was really nervous walking to the first day at Shangri-La, which I found myself being nervous about the wrong things I think.
That’s a thing that I feel like you and Brandi both say about me a lot is how steady I am and not anxious about things, which is true. I feel like a lot of things that people should be anxious about like playing with a band for the first time, I walked in there and I saw the band and I was like, “Wow.” I have never, ever played guitar or sung around anyone else before.
And I walked in there and I was nervous about, “How would I get lunch,” or, “Well, I don’t know what it’s going to be like. I don’t know where I’m going to sit or what I’m going to talk about.” But I wasn’t really nervous about the actual music part of it, which I feel like is really common for me.
So I was really nervous walking to the first day, and then I was more nervous when I realized how many things I had forgotten to be nervous about.
Brandi Carlile:
You compartmentalized them behind the lunch.
Tish Melton:
And then we just started playing the first song, and I remember we walked in there and then we got started right away and we started with every song. I would sit on the couch and play it to Brandi and then she would pick up her guitar and start playing or thinking of a way we could switch up a melody or one tiny lyric to make the hook better and we would just play together, just us. And I felt like that was so special to start that way because I think that also created a chemistry just between us.
And then we introduced the band after that. They were just such pros that it went super smoothly. We got all five songs in one day, which was super cool.
Brandi Carlile:
All the basic tracks, which I hope that steady is not to be confused with placid or that you can’t be riled because you’re also deeply emotional and a seeing person or whatever. But it’s the steadiness that you have made itself really obvious in that day.
Leading a drummer, a drummer playing to a 17-year-old guitar player, that just doesn’t happen every day. And it was really just fun to watch those guys furl their brows and watch you and be like, “I’m following her. I’m following her. She’s square, feet are on the ground and she knows where we’re going with this.” And I was like, “Wow.” What must that feel like to you to know that, yeah, the house of cards is built on your hands, your steadiness.
Tish Melton:
Yeah. I talk about it a lot because I think that it wasn’t relief when I started playing and it all gelled and I was able to lead the drummer. It was more like I was exhaling. But anyway, it’s like this whole time that’s how I felt it was supposed to be like. Or this is my first time doing this and I’m going to be doing it for a long time, and it just felt right and I’d also gone in there, I was super sick too.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah. You were really worried about your voice but it was perfect.
Tish Melton:
And my voice was completely gone. But then we found that when I had gotten my voice back when we were back at your house, all of my vocal takes were just worse because I didn’t have my guitar.
Brandi Carlile:
They weren’t worse, but-
Tish Melton:
They were though.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah. You do lose something. Something happens. You didn’t really lose anything. And some of the takes that we did here, we did wind up keeping, but that again is another indication of an innately gifted artist is when you wind up keeping scratch takes, accidental takes, those instinct moments. Make the record that you’re dealing with somebody who’s sanctioned in a way.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s talk about the songs a little bit.
Tish Melton:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
When you said instinctual moments, I was thinking about the story you told me about Sober, when you’re recording Sober. Talk to us about the song Sober and then what the moments were recording that with Brandi because you guys were at Brandi’s house. Explain where you were recording.
Tish Melton:
Oh, okay.
So Sober, I think that’s one of the songs that I’m most proud of because I think it’s the only one that I had the very clear vision of how I wanted it to sound. And I feel like in the beginning, I don’t think Brandi even understood, I was trying to explain it about how I wanted it there to be such a long outro with no words-
Brandi Carlile:
Didn’t understand.
Tish Melton:
… that was the only thing we were not on the same page on, but I was so clear in what I wanted and then it ended up how I envisioned it when I was writing the song, which is it’s the only song that ended up that way because I had no idea what to expect when I walked into the studio. So I didn’t have a real clear vision of how I wanted the songs to sound production wise besides Sober.
So walking out of the studio from the first day, I felt really proud because I knew that we had the long outro that I wanted and felt like a montage for a movie.
And then in the studio, at Brandi’s studio, we were sitting around one day and Brandon was mixing the end of Sober… Sorry, not mixing, just trying to figure out what it was going to sound like and he had his headphones on. He was just locked in and we were talking for an hour.
And then I was just looking around the studio and I picked up a poetry book, a Leonard Cohen poetry book, and I opened it in the first poem that I opened it to was the Thousands poem, which is basically all of us were fake artists and we’re just pretending to be artists and no one really belongs, but I’m going to choose to tell my story anyway. And I thought that was so cool.
And I think that’s such a cool way to introduce myself to the world of just promising people that even though I feel like we all feel like we don’t belong most of the time, but I’m just going to choose to tell my story anyway.
And so that’s the talking at the end of sober. And then Brandi is speaking lyrics of a Joni Mitchell song.
Brandi Carlile:
The very rare occasion that Joni writes in an observational but uplifting sense when she’s talking about you got to shake your fist at lightning. We had a vinyl of For the Roses, and neither of us really vetted either of the poems that we read. It was about a 30-second decision. I said, “I’ll read this one,” and you said, “I’ll read this one.”
And if you actually look at the exchange at the give and take that happened between those two pieces of poetry, it’s just another one of those things that just was really meant to be that way.
And you communicating what you wanted in that outro and just a lot of what you communicated musically came through you playing me things by other artists. And I think that’s really important for a producer to know and a younger artist to know, even when there’s not an age difference between the artist and the producer, is that sometimes that’s the only real language, especially if you’re just getting started with the music and you’re not counting bars and using studio terminology.
And in my past, working with producers that are different than me or older than me, playing the wrong thing could get me laughed at, if it was in a different key or it didn’t have the right production and I would play this thing for a producer because I couldn’t get my point across or I wasn’t speaking on their level. And I would notice as I was playing it that it didn’t sound like I remembered it, that it must have been a feeling and not a sound.
And because of how much I think I understand you as a person, Tish, even when you played me things that weren’t in the key or the tempo or didn’t have the instrumentation that were using and they were just totally different and out of left field, I would try and listen for the way that that music felt and see if we could speak to that instead of the exact instrumentation.
So when you were playing me those long outros and there were these cinematic things happening and messages buried inside of ambiance and ether, I knew that that’s what you were going to be going for with the end of Sober.
And I think we nailed it. Now I think it’s better than any of the outros of any other songs that you played me as an example.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s insane. It’s so beautiful.
Brandi Carlile:
It’s my favorite.
Tish Melton:
It’s like worship music.
Brandi Carlile:
We stayed up so late too. Some of this stuff you can only do very late at night.
Tish Melton:
Yeah. I’d love [inaudible 00:14:59].
Glennon Doyle:
So you have to be almost delirious. Is that what you guys were almost delirious?
Tish Melton:
Yeah. Or it’s like last minute. It’s things that… It’s like, “Okay, it’s getting so late, let’s just do this and we’ll figure it out tomorrow.” And then we did it and then the next day we’re like, “Oh, that’s good. Let’s just keep it.”
I feel like a lot of times the things that we thought that we would end up replacing were the things that just stayed because… I don’t know.
I’m an overthinker. And so when I started thinking about… That’s when we were recording the vocals for Damage and I could not hit the notes even though they’re not even that high, I was just overthinking and overthinking. But then we ended up keeping all of the takes when my voice was shaky or cracking because it just sounded very real.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah. Very cool.
Tish Melton:
I feel like that’s the case.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Very cool.
Brandi Carlile:
You can be taught to sound perfect. You can’t be taught to sound cool.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, that’s good.
Okay. I’m going to think about that for the next decade.
Can you talk about Long Drive? And I want you to tell the story of how you wrote it, but then what it became when you produced it with Brandi.
Tish Melton:
Okay. I’ll just start at the very beginning.
I was at soccer practice at school, and there’s just some drama at school and I was feeling very stressed, and I called you and I was like, “Mom, I’m freaking out. I’m spiraling.” I was walking around the track, I was hurt so I couldn’t play, and things were building on top of each other and I was super stressed out.
And then I got in my car to drive home and I was stopped at a red light, and I had this moment and I was thinking about my life and thinking about how old I was, and I was looking to the passenger seat of my car and there was no one there. I was driving myself and I was on the highway on PCH.
But anyway, I was at the red light and I just realized that I am the age that I used to dream about being when I was little. I was 17. I used to think when I was little that I would be perfect when I was that age and it would be just like this movie and I have the perfect life and I would be super popular and cool. And I realized that I was none of those things.
I think I’m cool, but in that moment, I was spiraling about stuff.
And so I just literally pulled over my car and wrote Long Drive in my notes app, and it was just like a dump. It felt like I was throwing up all my feelings onto this Notes app thing, but I don’t think I changed anything about that song when I went into the studio lyrically, which was cool. There were some tweaks that we did in the other songs, but Long Drive just really stayed the same.
And so we went into the studio and tracked it the first day, and then when we were in Brandi’s home studio, it was literally 3:00 A.M. and we were recording these harmonies and my brain just wasn’t working. And so Brandi was like, “I’m going to do these harmonies for you, and then you can go in there and just copy them exactly,” because we were done. We did so many vocal takes of that song.
And then when we listened back to the song with Brandi singing the harmonies, it just sounded like this conversation between us and we decided to keep it.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah. There was a generational bridge that just matched the lyrics.
That’s why I love the name you chose for the album, because I think it’s really an interesting thing to be aware of who you are and your age.
And honestly, I’m not going to try to get too broad with it, but I think that that’s one area where you’re really lucky is that a lot of the people that you admire are writing like that too. They’re not projecting themselves into another time and age. They’re just very aware of where they are.
And I noticed that with the people that you were hipping me to, like Lucy McAlpine and boygenius and Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus specifically. But then even through them and through you, I’ve gotten hip too and gotten to know Gracie Abrams and Noah Kahan and the way that they’re writing. Noah Kahan says, “I’ll call your mom.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, God.
Brandi Carlile:
It’s like you don’t say that when you’re 40. You don’t say that when you’re 30. It’s just very unashamed to be 23 or however old these artists are. And I don’t know if I’ve seen that awareness and a centeredness in a generations like songwriting since Laurel Canyon. And even then, I don’t think it was as warts and all.
Emily, I’m sorry, I just make it up as I go along.
It’s so unpretentious and yet not dumbed down. I’m actually really keen on the way young people are writing songs right now.
And you, I think, are leading that charge.
And it’s so weird because while we were doing Long Drive, I think I got a call, I had told you I had a call scheduled with one of my great idols, Sarah McLachlan, who is responsible for so many of the ways that we congregate as women and artists, or at least was part of the architectural plan to make that possible for all of us within the industry. And I have a ton of respect for her.
And when we get to talk and things can get really complicated really fast, we’re strategizing and we both have these kind of big minds. And then when we sort of retreat into our artistry, we were discussing on this call, “What do we write about?” Because we’re concerned with the big things of the world and we’re concerned with describing love from both sides now.
She’s divorced and has adult children, and I’m a lesbian and I have two children, and we have all these complicated things we can write about.
And in the background of all of this is Long Drive, is this 17-year-old brilliant songwriter that’s writing about an experience she had in the front seat of her car where she recognized that she was at an age that felt make or break to her.
And I wonder sometimes if people like me and Sarah McLachlan couldn’t benefit from the whole stop, get small, and what’s a foot around me right now and write about that. What’s within arm’s reach? Is that a song or not? Yeah, yeah. It’s a song to your generation, it’s a song. And I really like that.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s always one little thing. I’m thinking about the Noah Kahan song about… I’m obsessed with him right now, but there’s orange juice in the fridge. He’s writing about a friend who’s getting sober, but the line is, There’s orange juice in the refrigerator for you. It’s the little thing.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah. Because he actually said that to someone.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Brandi Carlile:
There’s a school of thought that yeah, if you’d actually say something in a conversation, it’s not a song, it’s a conversation. And I think I really disagree. And I don’t know if I had as much of an opinion about it before I started working with Tish and getting involved in some of those lyrics.
Actually, I remember in the ’90s when Globe Sessions came out from Sheryl Crow, and this is the first time I ever witnessed it. She’s singing the song Crash and Burn, and she says, “In case you ever wanted to track me down, I’ll take my cell phone to bed.” It’s just like… That was a very…
Technically, that’s an unhip line at the time. There’s no metaphor. It’s really industrial. It’s really right now and taking you out of the story, and I’m making you picture me having a cell phone.
But that was the first time I remember hearing a lyric that’s just so right now, even in Americana music, we still sing about hopping trains in the dust bowl and shit. We’re not where we are.
And I just love that about Tish’s music and all the people that Tish is listening to and hip to. This is a whole movement I can really get behind.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. They’re taking their lives seriously too. They’re like, “I don’t have to pretend that life starts when I’m an adult. My life is important right now.”
Brandi Carlile:
God, that’s true.
Glennon Doyle:
Taking their feelings seriously. There’s so many of your songs that are about friendship, about love. Tell me what you were saying to me this morning.
Tish Melton:
Yeah. Someone asked me what they think sets apart teenage crushes and love and heartbreak from adult and why teenage love songs or just teenage feelings in general are so impactful in the music world. And I was thinking about it, and I just think that…
I guess a lot of being a teenager is first, but it’s also you haven’t lived long enough to know that the world doesn’t end when you have a certain feeling or you have a certain experience or a heartbreak or any of that.
So when I’m writing about that, I feel like that resonates with a lot of people my age because, I don’t know, a lot of the feelings that I have feel like the end of the world. And I think when you’re an adult, you’re expected to understand that everything will be okay and that the world doesn’t end, and if you have a certain feeling, the world goes on.
And then I also was asked how it feels to have people of all ages resonating with my music. I love it, but also, my hope for that is that if people much older than me can relate to my music, then they’re also taking teenage girls’ feeling seriously because they also can resonate with what I’m feeling.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah. That’s absolutely true.
Glennon Doyle:
Brandi, how is being a producer… Watching you do this, it’s such a beautiful thing to watch, you going into these people’s lives and music. What is it to you and how is it different than being an artist? And also you’ve taken so many people who have such strong legacies and who are older than you and who have trailblazed, and are you intentionally now also reaching back for the younger ones and why and what does that feel like?
Brandi Carlile:
It’s really different for each person, and I almost think it’s more interesting when other people comment on whatever the heck I’ve been doing than when I comment on it because I’m so clouded in mission for each individual person that it starts a process of rambling that I can’t really stop.
But what I’ll say is that artists are really pure conduits of goodness in the world, and those portals, they can get foggy and clogged in our perception of those artists, whether they’re younger or older or disgraced or underappreciated or ostracized for whatever reason. Clearing out those windows, unclogging those conduits just allows a really pure and profound goodness to come into the world through them.
Joni is obviously a really good example of that and ties into what we’re saying about taking young women’s feelings seriously, is that Joni, the work that she did, the foundational work that she did in songwriting, what it really did for women, whether they were artists or not, was it started to de-stigmatize having feelings and started to dispel myths of hysteria.
And as soon as people start taking Joni Mitchell seriously and Joni Mitchell’s legacy seriously, they’re going to start taking you seriously, Tish, and they’re going to start taking your peers seriously. And that’s why Gracie has river tattooed on her arm. That’s why she’s Taylor’s hero, because people know that this person, however flawed, however uniquely flawed started the process of de-stigmatizing feelings and bringing songwriting into the first person, which is one of now the ways that we communicate as a culture, whether we’re artists or not.
So to get involved with that kind of heady shit, that kind of work is as interesting to me as writing music. And I’ve had to come to terms with that. Am I a real artist or do I like facilitating these moments better? I don’t even know anymore.
But I love the idea of women and marginalized people being taken seriously and adding to the annals of culture. I love the idea of working with a young person. I love the idea of being involved with someone like Joni, who’s legacy has been a bit miscommunicated through the years, and now that feels all really cleared up, and this is an exciting time for me.
Glennon Doyle:
Tish, why were you… I won’t use the word hysterical now. I should stop using that word [inaudible 00:27:37].
Brandi Carlile:
I love that word though.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so good.
Brandi Carlile:
I know because I feel that way all the time.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Same.
When we were watching the Grammys, this last Grammys-
Tish Melton:
Oh my gosh.
Glennon Doyle:
… when the moment came that Brandi came out on the stage. So you walked out on the stage, Brandi, to do the unbelievable introduction you did for Joni, which was so beautifully written where you spoke of her so beautifully, and you said she was like the one who goes skinny-dipping first and then the rest of us, I’ll never forget that.
Tish started crying when you walked out on stage and then it didn’t stop. It just kept getting more hysterical to the point where it was interrupting.
Brandi Carlile:
Well, we’re sisters.
Glennon Doyle:
And then Joni, and then Allison and Sistastrings and all the people, and then you all started singing. So then I started in, everybody just freaking… It was a nightmare. Okay. We just…
But can you, Tish, try to put into words because I actually haven’t asked you this yet, why, why the immediate tears when Brandi starts saying things and why it continued so much when they were up there with Joni?
Tish Melton:
I think first of all, in this past week, I’ve been in a very fragile state anyway because I was refusing to let myself think about turning 18.
And then I don’t know. I think that the tears came from I’m always so proud of the people that I know and being able to be close to people that make such a difference. But then also, I don’t know, it feels like at this point the people like Brandi and the people that I’m surrounded with and her world, they’re all like my family.
And so seeing them all on stage together with Joni who feels like she started everything, it feels like she’s the root of all the songwriting, that all the people that I love and the people that I call my family and my world, it feels like she started it.
Are you crying?
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah. Just keep going.
Tish Melton:
And then she just started singing Both Sides Now, and I was thinking… I don’t know. I feel like I am at the point like I’m starting to experience the thing that she’s talking about in that song from the first side, from the less mature side, it feels like turning 18 or starting to have a lot of the first experiences like life and love and cloud. It feels like I’m looking at it from the first perspective. So I realize that as I get older, I’m going to start thinking about it from the second perspective also.
But then I also realize how young I am in that moment too and how I haven’t had enough perspective to understand the song yet. And so I was thinking about all of these things while my family-
Brandi Carlile:
Don’t do that. Don’t.
Tish Melton:
… was on stage.
Brandi Carlile:
Don’t do that. Do you know what I mean? Because that’s the thing you’re so good at, Tish, is going I don’t need perspective. I don’t need to question whether or not my feelings are valid and turn on the news and make myself squash them down because other people are experiencing different things than me. That’s exactly actually what Joni did.
Not to go off on the Joni thing, but for all of us is like, yeah, you’re right. When she wrote Both Sides Now, she was totally humiliated by the public and laughed at, and they wouldn’t even really accept her recording her own song.
And then here she is, two trials of learning to walk later and an aneurysm and just a life of just battling stigma and…
Listen, she’s a white woman in the music industry. She’s done really well too. But again, this disclaimer style culture comes in where if I voice any pain, if I’ve voiced any turmoil at all, then I have to voice that turmoil isn’t justified at the exact same time. Do you know what I mean?
And that is the thing that you get. You already get it. You get it in your songs. You don’t need to justify who you are and where you are. You just sing about it because it’s true for you and then it’s also true for thousands of other people who are going to hear it and feel like through you, they have a way to speak.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re in an interesting place, the two of us, because we’ve never done this before. Parenting has always been pretty intuitive to me, but now I’m so out of my league and I am parenting a kid who when she first played at the Troubadour that night, Linda Perry asked her to come do a fundraiser. I had never seen her play anything anywhere. Just in her bedroom. And now she’s going to go up at the Troubadour. And the day before I was like, “Should we get an outfit ready? Should we do…”
Brandi Carlile:
By the way, it’s the Troubadour, like, oh my God.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s big deal, right? Yeah.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And she looked at me like, “Why would I do that? What are you talking about?” And I’m like, “Oh, because see, what you do is you just turn into a different person. You just get really upset and then…”
Brandi Carlile:
“Because it can’t be you. You’re-“
Glennon Doyle:
“No. What are you going to do?”
Brandi Carlile:
“You’re my child.”
Glennon Doyle:
“You’re going to go out and be yourself. That’s not what people do. Okay? You create a persona and then you…”
So watching her get up on that stage and the whole place just go silent. And then it was an amazing experience because the whole place erupted afterwards and it was really beautiful, and we were all stunned.
And when I went up to her afterwards, she was surrounded by people and all the… And I said, “My God. Do you believe what just happened?” And she was like, “Yeah, I do believe it. That’s what I planned to happen. I’m not surprised by any of it.” She’s not surprised. She just is doing this thing and she never changes who she is to do it.
Tish Melton:
Which… I was playing guitar for maybe two years before I really started working with Brandi and playing guitar and writing. And every time I would play something, everyone would be like, “Oh my God, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. Can you believe this happened?” And I feel like that was one thing that felt like an exhale when I started working with Brandi because I would play something and she’d be like, “Yeah, I believe.” It’s like she believed that it was right from the beginning.
Which I think that’s the difference in reactions between other people and Brandi. I just felt like from the beginning she had this belief that what I was doing was right and took me seriously from the beginning. When the other people, it was the shock, and I was so annoyed with people being just shocked at me. I was like, “No-“
Brandi Carlile:
I bet.
Tish Melton:
It’s like everyone could not believe that I could do this. And so I think Brandi was the first person to believe that I could do it and be like, “Okay, now we go and record this because it’s good.” That was the change, I think.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, you really needed that. You really needed to be taken away from our-
Tish Melton:
Shock.
Glennon Doyle:
… anxiety and shock into Brandi’s just vibe.
Tish Melton:
That night at the Troubadour, you and Mandy the whole time, they would come up to me before I was about to go on stage for the first time ever and be like, “Oh my God, are you freaking out? We’re freaking out. We can’t believe you’re doing this. We can’t believe it.” And I was like, “Okay. I wasn’t nervous,” but now I’m like, “Wait, maybe I should be more shocked at myself.”
Brandi Carlile:
That’s how cool your job is though. You have a job and a skill and ability that’s so cool other people cannot even fathom it. It’s not something everybody can do.
And not only that, it’s not even something everybody can understand. It’s so unique and your ability to do it consistently is so unique to you. And you and I have that in common.
I remember being young and wanting so badly to be taken seriously to the point where I would only have older friends. I dropped out of school.
My manager said to me recently, she realized that she had footage of me in the nineties as a 16 or 17-year-old on stage in a contest that she just found because she ran the contest and didn’t realize it was me. And we had this huge moment and she’s like, “Do you want to see the video?” And I was like, “No. And I don’t want anyone else ever to either.” I’m in my forties and can’t reconcile my need to be taken seriously, and I’m raising a child like that too.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, you are.
Brandi Carlile:
So we just have this in common where we’re like, “Everybody, calm down and believe me, I’m a captain. I’ve got this.”
And I really see that in you, and I know that, yeah, you don’t want encouragement in the form of enthusiasm. You want encouragement in the form of allyship maybe.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow.
What is your goal? What do you want?
Tish Melton:
I feel like I answer this different every time, but I always answer it most honestly, when Brandi’s there because I feel like she validates me in it, but I think I just want to do music with the rest of my life and be able to do it in a very sustainable way and create a community around me, which is my wholesome answer to it.
But I also would really like to win a Grammy or sell out an arena. That’s what I really want. So I think there’s two sides of that answer.
Brandi Carlile:
Do you ever picture it? Do you ever visualize yourself like-
Tish Melton:
Oh, yeah. All the time.
Brandi Carlile:
… everything’s dark and you’re standing there on the stage, the microphone’s in front of you and there’s a spotlight and there’s all the dust particles floating in the spotlight, and everyone’s silent because they’re waiting to hear what you have to say, and then you just let the words come out of your mouth. Do you ever visualize it?
Tish Melton:
Yeah.
Brandi Carlile:
Because I think that’s how it happens. You have to start rehearsing your Grammy speech now and in 20 years you’ll get one.
Tish Melton:
My Grammy speech is rehearsed. I rehearse it all the time.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God. What would you say? Please just tell me something.
Tish Melton:
No. I get stressed and I’ll be in bed at night and dreaming about my Grammy speech and I’m like, “Oh my God, I totally forgot to mention my best friend.”
Brandi Carlile:
That’s what happens too.
Tish Melton:
I’m pretty stressed about forgetting to mention someone that I love and care about. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
What’s one thing you’d say?
Tish Melton:
I just think I have an order in which I thank people. It goes family and then Brandi and Catherine, and then everybody else just in an order.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Because they’re like family.
Tish Melton:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
What about you, Brandi? What is your goal after you’ve already done all the things? There’s nothing else to climb, is there?
Brandi Carlile:
I remember being Tish’s age, and I specifically visualize myself at the Troubadour. I would visualize myself on stage at the Troubadour with… This is so embarrassing. It’s totally dark. There’s the club lights and the place is totally packed, and it’s like they’re screaming and my head throws back and I’m like, “I’m a rock star.” I scream that into the microphone.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s good. I like that.
Brandi Carlile:
It’s like a total ego maniac 16-year-old. That is the kind of shit. I just dreamed it. But I dreamed of weird other small things too like record stores full of people there to see me. You couldn’t even walk through the aisle because I had my acoustic guitar and I was busking.
It’s like visualizing scenarios such a crazy thing because I don’t know if it does anything cosmically or if it changes your trajectory molecularly or any of that horse shit, all I know is that it makes it seem very possible. It just gets more and more real the more you see yourself in the places that you want to be.
And I’m not sure that was your question or not, Glennon, but I got really excited about what she said.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you still have those things?
Brandi Carlile:
Oh, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
What is something that you’re visualizing now? I can’t imagine what is still out there for you.
Brandi Carlile:
I get really just to see now. I’ve always wanted to win one of the big four Grammys, the kind that takes place at night on TV and everything. And I always picture myself marching up there and thanking the Indigo Girls and just being clear about who put that road down for me and how I don’t think it’s fair that they’re not standing there, but not in a self-righteous way, but just in this reparative way.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Setting the record straight. Yeah.
Brandi Carlile:
Among few things, yeah. So I guess I still think about those kinds of things, which is nearly all that excites me anymore.
Glennon Doyle:
Why do you trust Brandi so much? You have told me some crazy things about if a million people tell you that something is bad, but Brandi Carlile says to you, “No, it’s good,” you will go with that.
The other day, she said, “If Brandi said you have to do this one thing that’s going to cost you all of the money that you’ll ever going to make in your entire life, you’d be okay.” So why? Because you are a person who your entire life, you don’t trust easily. You keep it very tight. So why? What is it?
Tish Melton:
I don’t know. It’s so hard to explain. I feel like Brandi is so carefully cultivated her own circle and her own image as an artist and her own music, it feels like everything she does is so thought out and staying true to herself while also being in the best interest of the people that she loves and cares about.
I think we also just connect. We have this mentorship going on, but we’re also just buddies. It’s like I trust you as one of my friends. So that’s part of it.
It’s also just like… I’m so lucky to have literal legend as my mentor. How do I not trust her when all she’s done has led her to where she is now?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Brandi Carlile:
I trust you too, man.
We need each other. I need you have helped me keep things fresh and keep things in perspective in really, really profound ways.
For instance, you get to know that you’ve planted seeds in me that will show themselves in the next music I make. Tish will be in the next music I make because I trust you too and need your energy and perspective. You’ve given me a lot. I can’t wait to show you.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, you’re making music right now?
Brandi Carlile:
I’m getting ready to lean into it and there’s all these little pieces and fragments starting to come together. And what I think because I’m a visualizer when I’m thinking of a lot…
Tish, you’ll recognize this as the sounds I was making on that flying V fender with that amp that we had dialed all the way up to where it was just all it was doing was feeding back and I got out of control and I had three pairs of headphones on, so it didn’t make me deaf, and I was just floating around all the cords and that ambiance that’s behind a lot of cool moments like Long Drive and Sober, I think a lot about that, how I never would’ve made that sound without you, and that feels like it makes its way into the next things that I make.
And the piano, the way that you taught me to translate Damage onto piano is that those really open chords in that space that just leaves nothing but room for brutal honesty. Yeah, that will be coming from Tish. When you hear that, you can credit Tish for that. If it’s good. If it’s not, she’ll tell me, and I won’t release it.
Glennon Doyle:
You do tell each other the truth.
Brandi Carlile:
But I don’t want to gloss over how much that meant to me, the things that you said, Tish, thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
When you picture your relationship with Evangeline and Elijah when they’re 18, what are you planning and hoping for? What will it look like?
Brandi Carlile:
I think we’ve talked about this. You… By the way, also, gee, you show up in my songwriting too. As you know, I just wrote that song based on what you and I talked about backstage.
I don’t know because I’m starting to only now get glimpses of it. I have an oldest daughter that is just so special. In fact, I happen to have a photo of her right here. This is…
Glennon Doyle:
Oh God. Oh my God.
Brandi Carlile:
And a younger daughter that’s so special too. But that younger daughter doesn’t cater to me in the way that my oldest daughter does.
Last night’s a great example. We went clam digging, which is very much my thing. I love fishing and crabbing and shrimping and clam digging, and this child pretends to fish because she wants to do those things with me, and she wants me to think she’s like a mini me, and we have this thing about it. Watching her try to choke down those clam last night was as funny as it was heartbreaking.
But I’m only just starting to see glimpses of who she actually is without me, without being tethered to me. And instead of finding ways to move forward in tandem with Evangeline when she reaches the age that Tish is, I am trying to seek out guidance from people like you guys about how to move forward in support of her even in places I don’t understand.
You guys having to tell me I can’t get out of the car at soccer practice. I wouldn’t know that. I’ve never seen a soccer practice in my life.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah. There’s just things like I hope that my relationship with her is authentic, let’s put it that way, and that she doesn’t feel like she still has to choke down razor clams to gain my…
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, God.
Tish Melton:
But I think that takes a while.
It wasn’t until this year when my mom and I’s relationship actually became two separate people having a relationship.
Brandi Carlile:
Really?
Glennon Doyle:
We didn’t know we were two separate people.
Brandi Carlile:
Tell me about it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, tell her what happened on the stairs.
Tish Melton:
It literally all-
Brandi Carlile:
Was there a point? Was there a turning point?
Tish Melton:
It literally all came from me arguing over my curfew with her. I didn’t have a curfew for a while because it wasn’t until this year when I really started going out with my friends because we used to be the same person. So I used to stay home every single night and be in bed by 8:00 P.M. and read my book and then fall asleep.
Glennon Doyle:
It was perfect. I had it all under control.
Brandi Carlile:
That sounds exquisite.
Tish Melton:
It was great.
And then this year, we just started disagreeing over stuff and we had never done it before. And it was so weird to-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so weird.
Tish Melton:
… disagree about stuff.
Glennon Doyle:
I remember one day you being on the stairs and me saying, “I think I have to say to you…” This is me, “I think I have to say to you, you can’t go.” And she’s looking back at me going… She just looked actually confused and she was like, “What’s happening?” She goes, “Are we having different opinions?”
And the next morning, Brandi, I went to her and I said, “Okay, I think here’s what’s happening. I think we’re doing something called individuating.”
Brandi Carlile:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Brandi Carlile:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
“I think it’s good. I think we’re supposed to be doing this. We’re supposed to be disagreeing. We’re supposed to be separating.” We’re supposed to be getting to that support thing and not pretending that we like clams and we have to be okay with that.
Tish Melton:
But that happened after 17 years. You don’t have to stress about this happening anytime. Obviously, everyone’s relationship is different.
Brandi Carlile:
It goes really fast.
Tish Melton:
But I’m a lot like my mom. I think Eva’s a lot like you, so I think it’s just like… I don’t know. Maybe you just take in the time when she pretends to like clams because I feel like-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s sweet.
Tish Melton:
… I’ll probably pretend to like-
Brandi Carlile:
Okay. I will.
Tish Melton:
… clams a lot.
Brandi Carlile:
If you’re giving me permission, then I totally will.
We went to the boat show the other day. There were 2000 boats, and her and I just, we went on boats together, just me and her. She just pretended to be interested in boats for four and a half hours. It’s like I am so enjoying it and I don’t want to feel guilty for enjoying that she wants to be like me right now, even though she’s probably really not. But I super am enjoying it.
And also for what it’s worth as a triangulation to your mom’s and also your friend, if I were your mother, I would vote for you to not have a curfew just out of concern for other people’s children, just knowing that if you were there, other people would make better decisions.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s true.
Tish Melton:
That’s a good point.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s true.
Brandi Carlile:
I would consider a service to other parents to let Tish stay out so that she can make sure her friends get home okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And having set rules was just always strange for us because we just talk through everything. Everything’s like, “How do we feel? What’s happening right now? Who are your friends?” It always just felt like we should feel it out as opposed to making rigid structures.
Brandi Carlile:
Do you feel ready? This is something I’m interested in.
I was at Bonnaroo on a golf cart with this guy that was working the festival, and he was like, “Oh, yeah, my 17-year-old daughter’s here with me.” And I’m like, “Well, where is she?” And he’s like, “Oh, she’s probably out in the festival making out.” And I was like, “How can you say that? How are you okay with this?” And I had a three-year-old at the time, and he goes, “You will be. You’ll be ready. Things will happen that will make you want them to be out in the festival audience making out.” And I’m like, “No, I don’t think so.”
Tish Melton:
But that’s a difference… That’s a very… I don’t know. I think that there’s a difference between-
Brandi Carlile:
There was a dad vibe, yeah?
Glennon Doyle:
That’s dad vibes.
Tish Melton:
… the connection between a mother and a daughter.
Brandi Carlile:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
And also that’s just like a cliché thing people say is different with every kid. But I don’t buy into the American idea that we’re supposed to reach a certain age and then it’s like, “I guess our relationship is over or something.”
Brandi Carlile:
No, I don’t like that either. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous in everything about the living situation, everything about how we transition into… Yeah, I think it’s insane. It’s Western ideal that just we for some reason hold onto.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Tish Melton:
Which I feel like part of our disagreement was me being like, “Mom, this is horrible. I’m just a baby. I’m only 17. Please pay for my lunch with my friends.” But then I’d be like, “Mom, I’m almost 17. I cannot believe that I have a curfew.” There’s that disagreement that I think I may be used both sides of.
Glennon Doyle:
“I am an adult, so just buy my ticket to the concert.” I’m like, “Well, it goes both ways.”
But I want our relationship to keep evolving… And she’s always going to be one of the most important people in my entire life. And I think it’s just a matter of…
Honestly, Brandi, I’m not supposed to say this too often my therapist says because it’s too much pressure for her, but I truly channel her as somebody that I’m trying to be more like.
Brandi Carlile:
I can see. I could see that. I do too actually.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. In terms of never changing herself, in terms of staying steady.
When I was frantically texting Catherine while you guys were in the studio together to ask her if she’d heard anything and how it was going, and Cath told me, “Brandi said something about no matter what happens, she stays at her own beat,” or something, it’s something musical, she keeps saying-
Brandi Carlile:
Yeah, musically.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Brandi Carlile:
To my dismay, sometimes.
Glennon Doyle:
Same.
Brandi Carlile:
Can’t rile. Could not rile you.
I remember being a kid when I was young and doing music, I was really influenced by whoever was listening. If they were excited, I’d play faster and sing louder. And there are good things about that because I’m an entertainer. And actually, I don’t know if that’s your path, Tish, if you’re going to be an entertainer or like Joni, like a poet, a writer, like an immovable force.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh. She is. You are an immovable force.
Brandi Carlile:
Is that more of your path you think? Or you ever think you’re going to be jumping around on stage, throwing up the goat horns and screaming, “I’m a rock star,” and stuff?
Tish Melton:
I think the most special thing about concerts that I go to are the opening, the bass and you feel in your chest. We talk about this and-
Brandi Carlile:
I love that feeling. It can make you cry.
Tish Melton:
My future tour intro is what I imagine the most me coming out on stage-
Brandi Carlile:
There you go.
Tish Melton:
… at first. So I feel like… I don’t know.
I think my love for concerts and the amount of concerts that I try to go to and every time, there’s a concert and I’m not there, then I feel horrible. But then if I’m at the concert, I also feel horrible because I’m not on stage. That makes me think maybe a mixture of the entertainer and the poet. Hopefully, I can just be both.
Brandi Carlile:
I love your preoccupation with intros and outros.
Tish Melton:
Yeah, it is. Every intro-
Brandi Carlile:
I think that’s super indicative of the kind of 360 artist that you are.
And also, I saw you witness a great intro when we went to see boygenius. Their intros are-
Tish Melton:
Oh my God. Epic. I cry every time.
Brandi Carlile:
Right down from the land acknowledgement to the walk in music of The Boys are Back in Town to them being off stage on the side and singing that first track. You’re right, you have to make an entrance. You have to make an exit. And sometimes, that’s all the entertainment a show needs. The rest of it can just be baring one’s soul.
Tish Melton:
Yeah. Because also I think the pressure of being a young artist is that, for me, everything right now feels like an introduction or a first impression. I think that’s why I play so much emphasis on it because most of the time when I’m playing live somewhere, when I’m releasing music, it’ll be the first time someone hears me or hears of me. And so that’s why I really want to start with something that sounds important. So I want people to remember how I’m starting, but then also I want to leave them with something, the intros and outros, the emphasis that I’m placing on them. I think that’s where the importance comes from especially now.
Brandi Carlile:
You have to obviously keep working, but I could really see you transitioning now into a band because I’ve seen two times of performing with you and I’ve performed with you a few times now, two times where just like your face doesn’t matter how steady you are, I see this total transcendence happen.
One of them was when we did Sober. I know you were probably nervous and maybe you felt like a bit out of body, but at the moment I could tell there was something in your brain going, “This is how I hear it. It’s happening how I want it to sound.”
And also when we were at Girls Just Wanna Weekend and we did Heaven is a Place on Earth, you love being in front of a band. You like it. Your face just goes weird.
So I think it could be really cool. And when you do that, if you grant me the privilege, I would love to be a part of helping you with the intro and the outro, just ambiance of it all, creating suspense, and then obviously release at the end.
Glennon Doyle:
What do you want to say last, Tish Melton? Do you want to say anything?
Tish Melton:
Love you, Brandi.
Brandi Carlile:
I love you too, Tish.
I’m so, so thrilled for people to hear when we’re older. It’s needed. It’s just needed. That’s all I can really say about it.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it’s needed too.
Brandi Carlile:
Your words and what you made that’s needed.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I think there’s a couple anthemy type songs that are going to… I think Sober is going to just crush people.
Brandi, thanks for who you are in the world. Thanks for being my little girl’s hero and friend.
It feels to me like you’re a creator, and so you don’t always just want to hear me gush about my gratitude to you. We’ve talked about it. If I could just dial it down a little bit, that might be good.
But I truly believe that of all of the artists, all of the writers, all of the people that I have met and worked with and known my entire career and life, that you are the most prolific in a million different ways and culture shifting, community exploding, life changer of other people, you and Cath together, I just… What you all do with your lives I think is the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen. And I get to say this to you because this is my podcast.
Brandi Carlile:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay?
Brandi Carlile:
I really deeply appreciate it. And I think anybody listening knows how much that means to me coming from somebody like you, because you could probably turn all that right back around, even though that’s not what I’m asking.
Glennon Doyle:
We love you.
Brandi Carlile:
I love you both so much. You guys are my family. And Tish, you’re just a beast, man. I can’t wait.
Glennon Doyle:
A beast.
Brandi Carlile:
They’re not ready.
Tish Melton:
Yay.
Glennon Doyle:
Hug the girls for us.
Brandi Carlile:
I will do. I love you both so much.
Glennon Doyle:
And write a song about pretending to like fish and clams and boats.
Brandi Carlile:
Okay. But that’s going to be-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s really good.
Brandi Carlile:
… really nautical.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, you’re right.
Tish Melton:
You can switch-
Glennon Doyle:
Pick one.
Tish Melton:
… the metaphor. Just make it a different metaphor.
Glennon Doyle:
Pod squad, we love you. Please go stream When We’re Older by Tish Melton. You won’t regret it. I think these songs are going to speak to all of us. I know they do me.
Brandi, we love you and we will see you back here next time. Bye.
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I give you Tish Melton and Brandi Carlile.
(singing)