"I Ratted Out a Mobster": Forest Blakk | Ep 101 - Gent's Talk

[00:00:00] I remember watching my stepdad beat my mom. I was five years old, and I remember my mom saying, call the cops. So I ratted out a mobster at five. Forest Blakk is the popular music artist with over 18 million listeners in over 184 countries.

[00:00:14] His song Fall Into Me has gone gold in the US. I always meet every single person that wants to meet me. I always tell the audience, I'm a fan before a band.

[00:00:22] I know what it's like for somebody to tell you something and for it to change your life. Can we start with your dad? Oh man. I decided to take a leap of faith and I tried finding my birth father.

[00:00:36] I called every single name in the phone book that I could that had his name in it. And eventually I reached him. And that's when he told me, when your stepdad gave me 10 grams of coke and made me sign you over.

[00:00:45] I felt locked out and isolated by that person to the point where I was almost beyond repair. It shaped the whole course of my life. Do you ever consider finding him and having this conversation with him? Forest Blakk, welcome to the Gens Talk podcast. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:27] I'm really excited to have this conversation. You too. On the way over, I was listening to your song If You Love Her and it evoked some pretty strong emotions in me. And you were saying right before we started recording that it has a different effect on different people.

[00:01:40] Yeah, it's been really interesting to see how some people take it and it almost breaks them in a way. Whereas other people take it and it almost motivates them or pushes them in a direction to seek love.

[00:01:54] So it's been really interesting to seeing what I call the echo come back. Well, you've had an interesting... I'm going to dive right into it. You've had an interesting... Interesting as Ardia. An interesting word. Yeah, exactly. You've had an interesting relationship with love.

[00:02:08] I find I've had tons of conversations with different artists and some of the things that I've learned from them was there are people out there in the music industry who will try to find difficult situations in their lives to try and create something from that.

[00:02:27] They'll go and they'll seek it out and others who just have had things happen to them. When I was looking into your backstory, your origin story we'll call it, I found some... An interview you did with peoples, I think it was,

[00:02:42] where you talked about a long-term relationship that you were in, your relationship with Nana, your relationship with your fiance. Are you married now? Married now, yeah. Congratulations. And your relationship with your father. Those are all things that I really want to dive into with you

[00:03:02] because I think it's such an interesting story to form the current version that's sitting in front of me. Can we start with your dad? Yeah. Listen, at any point, if there's anything you're like, I don't want to talk about that.

[00:03:19] No, listen, I think for me it's been an ongoing process of trying to figure out how to start talking. You know, I feel like my whole career, I've made music about things I don't really know about. You know, a lot about love.

[00:03:32] I'm realizing as an adult that I didn't really know much about love growing up and I think it was the antithesis of it that brought me to this place to want to discover it so much. I feel like I've been at sea my whole life

[00:03:44] and I'm just trying to write songs about land. I don't know what that looks like. I didn't know what trees looked like. And my wife was like an island in the middle of the ocean that my boat landed on. And it was like, whoa.

[00:03:57] And all the things that I had written about, I didn't fully know how to process when I saw it because it was slightly different than what I had imagined. I think a lot of people do that. We have expectations, hopes, beliefs, dreams that we put up

[00:04:11] and some somewhat of a facade because we don't know any better. And again when you run into it, you have to reinterpret it. It's like almost like learning a whole new language. So for me growing up, I lacked all that.

[00:04:24] Like I said, I feel like I was lost at sea and now I feel like I'm discovering land and I'm learning all the textures of it and I'm experiencing things differently. I feel like my feet are on solid ground for the first time and that rocking is gone.

[00:04:37] And I don't know what to do with it. And there's also a weird part of that because the lack of love was something I'm so comfortable with. Love is the foreigner. So I'm having to have a whole new world play out in front of me

[00:04:54] and again I'm having to try and process every single day and it's complicated because I'm very comfortable. I think like a lot of people with trauma, I'm very comfortable with pain. I know those feelings so well. Like I can deal with things that people can't deal with.

[00:05:10] I've always been able to do that. But when it comes to normal things that are typically great I've struggled with. So the starting point is dad. It's a really big word. Yeah. Or lack thereof. Well in the article or in the interview with people you said

[00:05:28] he sold you for 10 grams of coke. Yeah that wasn't an easy pill to swallow. So my stepdad is the one who bought me. My birth father, I don't really have anything to do with him. I don't know him.

[00:05:43] Like I met him a couple times and it was hard because when I was about 15 or 14 maybe well let me backtrack a little bit. When I was 12 my stepdad got arrested and was put in jail

[00:05:56] and my mom wasn't equipped or mature enough to deal with having three kids and a gangster for a husband in prison. So life got really hard real quick. It was already hard but then it was like the house of cards fell. Right.

[00:06:10] You know the big gust of wind came through. And so I was alone. I was very scared. I didn't really know what to do. I was coming into being a man, a young man and I'm already hardened without realizing it and that shell is fortifying

[00:06:24] and I have no clue that's happening. And so I start trying to figure out what I need to do with all these feelings that I have and there's no one around to talk to about them. There never has been.

[00:06:33] And so I decided to take a leap of faith and I tried finding my birth father who I didn't know. I knew nothing about him. All I knew was that I carried a name that wasn't the same as my brother and my sister

[00:06:45] and I was made very well aware of that as a child. So you felt different right from the beginning? Right from the beginning. At a very young age I felt very different. Yeah, I mean there's a lot. It's so heavy and so loaded

[00:06:57] and I don't know if we have enough to fit in into an hour but to predate even that I remember watching my stepdad beat my mom. I was five years old and I remember my mom saying call the cops

[00:07:08] and I remember my stepdad, the person I called dad a mobster telling me not to and I chose my mom and so I ratted out a mobster at five and I was made to pay for that my whole life and I had no clue that was happening.

[00:07:23] So fast forward, yeah, I was made to pay for the fact that I wasn't his. I was made very well aware that I was the rat and so I started a lifelong journey of trying to earn affirmation and love that never came in

[00:07:36] and I risked my life for it and I'm very frustrated about that. Still? Yeah, yeah, the older I get it's a complicated thing. The more I forgive my mom I don't have a relationship with either or but I forgive her completely.

[00:07:50] I am older than she was when this was happening and so I struggled to take care of my dog so I can't imagine what it was like for her being an uneducated woman born to a poor family out in the world trying to compete

[00:08:05] and be a normal person while you have a mobster as a husband and a piece of work as a husband. So I don't hold any resentment or anger towards her I'm hurt and that's about it but I have to have this buffer, this barrier now

[00:08:19] because I don't know how to relate to her I've grown way beyond her and I don't understand how to go back it's too dangerous for me but with my dad it's a struggle because I feel like if I ever saw him in public

[00:08:32] I don't know how I would hold back because I'm a man now and I can carry myself and I'm very scared of this it's a feeling I'm very afraid of You're not that little boy who couldn't help himself Yeah, but that boy is stuck inside

[00:08:43] and I see him, we're two people I'm the thing that came out to protect him but I grew up into the adult the boy is in there hiding and I'm working every day to work through that and work through talking to him and having him come out

[00:08:56] because I need to be calm and gentle and docile that's what I'm trying to project into the world and it's taken a long time to get there So fast forward again, I don't remember how old I was between 13 and 15

[00:09:10] and I take the leap of faith to try and find my birth father because I know nothing about him all I know is that my mom would tell me he was gay and she would tell me all these crazy things and I was like, who cares?

[00:09:20] why are you telling me this about him? maybe he's to keep me away from him or make me not like him or what have you and so I called every single name in the phone book that I could that had his name in it

[00:09:30] and eventually I reached him and I asked if I can go see him and he told me no and so it was like a gut shot I was knocked out from that one Yeah, I can only imagine Yeah, it sucked

[00:09:42] I was like, I'm gonna go see my dad's and so he said you can call him when you're 18 and so I did and there's a crazy story about this I went from, you know, I bounced on and off the street to the kid and you know, different houses

[00:09:54] and always trying to find places to crash I wasn't homeless and like the living in a dumpster homeless, it was just no real home and so my nana took me in when I was 15 and she was like, you need to go to school

[00:10:06] and you need to get a job so I went and worked at this little french fry place in Montreal and I was there for maybe like six months and I was flipping burgers and fries every day and there's a big bay window

[00:10:18] the size of like maybe two big giant trucks like big and the only thing that you'd see outside the bay window was like a brick the giant brick wall, there was a highway to the right and there was one house in the middle a little tiny house

[00:10:30] and so when I reached out to my my birth father when I was 18 and he said okay you can come, that was the house he lived in so it meant I would have spent six months staring at the house that my birth father was living in

[00:10:40] while serving fries as a really messed up kid trying to get my head out of the weeds and so it was there when I met him, when I had those questions of like why couldn't I talk to you because it's a struggle to feel like you're not worth

[00:10:54] something, that you're not good enough to be picked by somebody who gave birth like who made you so it's like I had all these fundamental questions about why am I not good enough what's wrong with me? he told me, your stepdad gave me 10 grams

[00:11:08] of coke and made me sign you over and told me I wasn't allowed to talk to you until I was 18 and I was like wow that makes sense you don't have a relationship now with either no, I haven't talked to my stepdad in 20 years

[00:11:22] I have nothing to say to him if he sees this anywhere go fuck yourself go learn something, do better it's not my job to come and make his life better it never will be I don't say that with malice or even anger actually it's just an honest statement

[00:11:38] I think a lot of people feel like they're responsible for other people's actions when they're not I'm responsible for mine my debts are owed to the people I've hurt my debts are owed to the people I've made mistakes with but I don't owe him anything

[00:11:52] he owes the world for the debts and the mistakes he's made with raising kids he was terrible he ruined my life, he ruined my brother's life he created an angry person he created a drug addict and he ruined every beautiful sparkle that my little sister had

[00:12:08] that's what he gave us in his pursuit of riches he forgot the gems that laid right in front of him and that breaks my heart for him because I can't imagine what it would be like to be the father staring at your son

[00:12:20] who's now on podcasts and tv shows whose music has reached almost a billion people you must really feel like you lost and it's a tragedy so if you're a father out there listening to this and you feel like you're doing a shit job change course

[00:12:36] the beautiful thing about being lost at sea is that a slight change in direction changes everything on your course a millimeter can bring you to a whole new destination 100,000 miles away from where you started but if you're my father I feel you're capsized your ship's done

[00:12:52] there's no recourse you can't turn that around how's the relationship with your siblings it is... it's an evolution I don't have contact with my little brother my little brother became a drug addict and he's holding a lot of pain I think the same pain that I had but

[00:13:12] for me it never manifested in drugs what makes you different I don't know it's a question I have a lot of times where I'm like how can I reach him and I don't know how I always thought that if I made it and I was much or successful

[00:13:28] then I would have all the tools to go and solve that but I don't think it can it's just sometimes damage does its work and then that's where you are and again, same way my brother convinced me to put my fists down as a teenager

[00:13:42] same way I can't convince him to put the drugs down it's something he has to find within himself are your fists down now? yeah, for a long time how did you get there? I didn't like who I became

[00:13:56] it took me a long time to figure that part out especially into my mid-20s I felt really lost I felt like I was I felt like I was becoming like my father and I hated that because you hear that you hear from a lot of people

[00:14:10] like, be careful you turn into the thing you hate the most and I really started to see that in the mirror the thing about being the son of a mobster is that there is a charm and a charisma in those people that is wild and it's incredible

[00:14:26] to see if they would have used it pardon? oh yeah, immediately they learn you, they learn that you want love is really what I think it really boils down to and they learn that you'll do anything for it

[00:14:38] and so as long as they don't say the words I love you you'll keep doing anything you need to do for it so I carry some of that I think naturally if you're the son of a carpenter you're probably going to be good with wood

[00:14:52] if you're the son of a mechanic you're probably like engines so for me, seeing that power as a young child it did something to me and so I've always had an interesting relationship with that part of me but again my father on the other side of that coin

[00:15:08] would use that power in ways that would affect people tragically he ruined people's lives and so I never wanted to become that and I always had something slightly different about me than him, I didn't have that thing that wanted to push over the edge I cared too much

[00:15:28] and I think you're not really good at being a mobster if you have a little bit of empathy in your heart so the course that my stepdad set me on was a course I couldn't live into and that's when my life changed and I made a decision

[00:15:42] it was either time to really tune into that part of life and become that big, angry gangster to be who would probably be dead or in jail by now or leave and never come back and I left and I never came back

[00:15:58] and then music found me on the way out where does Nana come into all of this? so my Nana is my stepdad's stepmom no blood she is the kindest challenging encouraging she's the most incredible woman I've ever met in my life, next to my wife

[00:16:20] those two are my queens my Nana took me in, I had nowhere to go I was in Ottawa I was trying to forge a relationship my dad had just gotten out of jail I was trying to connect with him and the games were starting

[00:16:34] and I had nowhere to go it was a pretty scary time so I called her and said can I come live with you? how old are you? 16, 15 so I grabbed a train from Ottawa to Montreal two garbage bags and a backpack

[00:16:48] and she let me come live with her and so she owed me nothing my grandfather had passed a few years before she was just trying to figure out her life I think so she invited me into her home and let me live there it was an interesting thing

[00:17:02] because she didn't parent me she didn't like helicopter parent me there weren't like these triumphant moments of wisdom that were passed down and she was just so worried about me and I was like, I'm not going to live here I'm going to be a little bit more quiet

[00:17:16] it wasn't chaos for the first time in my whole entire life so I could rest my head at night and feel like at least a human for a minute and I started processing things and maybe not so much at times as well

[00:17:28] have you had this conversation with her as you got older? yeah, we talk a lot about it she always calls me intense which I've learned to take as a compliment it's confusing to see how I think I think all of this is very confusing for her because

[00:17:44] she brought me into her home and I think for her she wanted me to become a doctor or lawyer like the classic things that your parents or the people who care about you want you to do

[00:17:52] sounds like in her mind it was just how do we course correct and give you just something stable just something to keep me on the right path and music was never an option there was no music around me there was nobody musical in my life

[00:18:04] this is a whole accident she bought me a gift on a whim it was a guitar and she had no clue that this would do this to me neither did I scared the shit out of me when I got that guitar I can't fully explain it

[00:18:18] because it's something that's I don't understand it myself but I picked up this guitar and I strummed it and it felt like I was throwing up emotions something in that was always connected to something inside of me and that opens a door somewhere

[00:18:36] in the world for my brain my soul for the first time I had a 300 foot view of an emotion I had never experienced that before I think I was always locked in place ready to protect and defend myself and then all of a sudden out of nowhere

[00:18:52] there's you know whatever you want to call it God, amuse, life, the universe I don't know I don't know what it is the source but something punched a hole through it was like I heard stuff in my head that I'd never heard before and it felt like vomit

[00:19:08] it was so visceral it was like gut wrenching and I started to cry and I literally I remember putting the guitar down being like what the fuck is that and it scared me and I couldn't touch the guitar very often

[00:19:20] every now and then I'd pick it up and I would start learning what that was I guess and over time that developed into me feeling confident enough to just make stuff up on the spot so I'd always freestyle something that's how I write music

[00:19:36] I let it all come out and then I go look at it after I go what is it trying to tell me and I'm an editor of whatever that is downloading into me so again for her to get me that gift

[00:19:48] it shaped the whole course of my life like I said the course that any father out there or parent or anyone listening to this even a spouse it doesn't matter if you are still at sea even if you're lost all you have to do is course correct

[00:20:04] a little bit everyone thinks they have to like hard turn this ain't black ice just an inch change course you will end up at a completely different destination and that for me was the starting point it just kicked my ship to the right just a little bit

[00:20:20] and all of a sudden it was a whole different world ahead of me incredible how something so seemingly so random can alter your entire entire life you said she bought it on a whim yeah she came to me she goes I just want to get you a gift

[00:20:38] what can I get you and I didn't know how to answer the question I love telling the story to people when I was 5 years old my uncle David came to my house and he opened up one of those toy catalog books

[00:20:48] and he goes I want to get you something and I remember there was a black acoustic guitar and there was an electric guitar with a mic and I was like oh there's two things I was like 5 so I was like I want the two things

[00:21:00] so he bought it for me and I remember in the first 2 minutes it broke I was always like so at like 15 to have that question being asked to me I hadn't had that question asked to me I don't think you were asked at all for a long time

[00:21:14] no I wasn't allowed to have birthdays growing up my mom would have to wake me up at midnight to sneak me into a kitchen where she'd hit a piece of cake in the back of the freezer and I had to give 10 cents to give to me

[00:21:24] and I had to go back to my room and hide that was my life so it's not that it was all terrible there were moments but there were a lot of heavy things that most people wouldn't be able to deal with you know and so

[00:21:38] again I fast forward to have someone go and I want to get you something all my brain did was just don't get me the thing with two things because it'll break get me the one just the guitar it was the only answer I had and so again yeah

[00:21:52] that one little thing she had no clue is your relationship with your Nana your first encounter with love yeah I would say so I would say so what did that teach you well it wasn't love in the conventional sense I understand it to be love completely and wholeheartedly

[00:22:12] but it wasn't like that coddled love it was almost and maybe this was being a man not that I like to label things and put them in those boxes but I think for a lot of men or masculinity respect equates to love and my Nana respected me

[00:22:30] she spoke with respect to me and commanded that respect so I respected her and to me with hindsight now fast forward you know, I'm teen years that was love I listened to everything she said I trusted her

[00:22:48] and so if you were to break down the components of love if love is the engine or the vehicle, what are the parts trust, respect kindness, patience kindness is a big one massive especially given your story growing up and the lack of

[00:23:06] yeah certainly not very much kindness going on yeah so she was the first experience of those pieces and I didn't know it I didn't understand it but it wasn't this like you know coddling hugging and kissing I love you oh my god but it was something way

[00:23:22] deeper and I just didn't understand it at the time so it's like a beautiful natural thing that just brought you two together and happened and seems to that thread seems to weave through the course of your life it still carries with you, it's the sense that I get

[00:23:42] no I think you're right using that analogy about being a boat at sea my nana, she was a dock my feet were still wobbly from underneath of me there's too much happening around that she could never solve it was never hers to solve either

[00:24:00] but she was a place where it felt like my boat wasn't adrift any longer and that was a whole new feeling as well there was a constant for a moment and that was like whoa there's something stable to a degree and she is

[00:24:16] I mean I get to drive to Montreal and play a show to 3,000 people with my nana in the audience what a trip it makes me emotional like wow it's crazy man you know the failure to a stage wow do you still see yourself as a

[00:24:34] do you still see that version of you as a failure no failure isn't an outcome but it's a moment and so failure is an idea it's not the epitome of one's existence failure is just yeah it's a moment in time I was the failure

[00:24:52] it's a good way of checking the ego yeah I'm proud of it I'm proud that I exist the way I do I'm proud that I have the mind that I have and the heart that I have I'm not proud of the things

[00:25:06] that I think about in between getting here there's a lot of things I hold a lot of shame in things that I think about regularly and a lot of there are people out there in my life who I've fought and sent back to their mothers looking like

[00:25:25] different people it was a consequence of the world I was born into and the world that they grew up in as well I don't feel good about that I wish I could go back in time with the love and kindness that I have now and the nurturing

[00:25:43] and the wisdom that I've taught myself over the years through life I wish I could remove the things that hardened me that caused me to travel in the world with armor on because it affected people there are conversations I've had with people in my life

[00:25:59] where I didn't know how to be tactful or soft I was speaking to normal people in the way that I knew how to speak I didn't have the language yet I hadn't learned it I was speaking through the language of mob and gangs and violence

[00:26:15] not through kindness, love and patience and acceptance and so for me I'm very aware that I can't go back the consequence of life and the consequence of the actions that you have for me at least lay inside the way those people carry you the rest of their lives

[00:26:33] and there's nothing I can do to fix that I've always struggled with that concept of knowing that in some person's life out there I am the villain in that story 100% when the current version of me would strive to do nothing but just be kind yeah

[00:26:51] and when you look back on that version of yourself and you almost shiver a little bit it's I mean internally your reinforcement of what you are today but it's still if only I could have that conversation if only I could undo so I'm not the villain

[00:27:09] yeah a therapist once told me that when you're climbing through your world of growth the thing to be mindful about is that the air becomes thin and a lot less people are up there she said you know

[00:27:19] you have to be mindful that not everyone's on the same trajectory not everyone's growing in the same place and that's not a way of saying anyone's better or worse we're just on different levels or steps of our progression and so I can forgive those who have hurt me

[00:27:33] I'm in that place but I have to accept the fact that other people may not be there yet and they don't need to be that's their journey and I have to accept that but you're right like it does suck you know I'll have

[00:27:47] a thousand people share a post and say how kind I am and how much it means to them that I connect with them the way that I do but there'll be one person out there who goes oh that guy's an asshole

[00:27:55] I met him when he was 15 and he said stuff to me that I can't forget and I hate that but then again those experiences I hold and maybe those people there's the other side of it, maybe they actually don't think about me

[00:28:07] maybe it's only me thinking about it I don't know but I think about it does it make you feel like a phony? no, no, no, maybe for a minute it did maybe for a minute there was a bit more of an imposter syndrome now it's more

[00:28:21] I have grace I hurt somebody I could sit here and have a conversation with them and I can accept what I've ever done to anybody you know and I don't need their forgiveness I would love it but it doesn't

[00:28:35] change the way I'm going to travel in the world like I'm working on not hardening anymore I'm working on not putting the armor back on how much of that armor is off? whew I don't know I mean you've been pretty forthcoming with a guy before we started recording

[00:28:53] if not for this and for what? if you're going to say your story or don't say it that's the truth part of being an entertainer and a professional musician going out on stages is that that's what I do now

[00:29:09] it's not to play martyr but it's to be honest I can say here and say this is what's happened this is what has not felt right this is where I'm at how much do you think is off at this point? again I don't know it's something trigger

[00:29:23] you where you then suddenly close back up? I don't think I'm at a place where I'll close back up but I don't know there are experiences that I haven't had I don't know how I'm going to be when I lose my nana

[00:29:35] I don't know what that's going to do to my world if it's going to shatter me or if it's going to encourage me I like to think that I'm fortified I'm thinking already in those terms I like to think that when that day comes

[00:29:49] I'll be a better version of myself and carry myself with grace you know I like to think that every day I spend with my wife and every day that I get to love her and she loves me is the day that more and more armor comes off

[00:30:01] I think the thing about it is I don't know how much is there to begin with what I know is that I've had multiple revelations in my life that have revealed that there was armor on and that's been a time shocking it's been very confrontational

[00:30:15] I bet, I mean you mentioned earlier how the events of your childhood forced this armor on that you didn't even know was happening just constantly hardening around you yeah when you're a kid what you think is normal I was in the first grade I think it was

[00:30:35] and my dad had beat me so badly with a fishing rod that I couldn't sit down in class and so the teachers kept getting upset with me telling me to sit down and I didn't want to rat him out again and so eventually they carried me

[00:30:47] to the principal's office where it was revealed that I had these welts across my body and then they called Child Protective Services and my stepdad fled with my family to Florida for two years to evade them like, I don't a kid doesn't know how to process that

[00:31:03] because that's my dad that's supposed to be your hero that's supposed to be my hero and I looked up to him most people don't have the experiences most people aren't driving to the Laurentian mountains in Quebec and a guy is you know, tailing them too closely

[00:31:17] and then my dad and that guy are getting in a car grudge and all of a sudden we're at the side of a road and my dad pulls a gun out as this man's coming to confront him and he puts the gun into his head

[00:31:25] and I watch a man beg for his life most people don't know how to deal with that I didn't know how to deal with that that was dad wow that's what I saw so I understand that I was hardened I understand now

[00:31:39] but it's taken a long time to get there it's been yeah, it's taken a long time to process it and I think the thing is as I go through this and the more I talk about it the more I sit with professional people and talk about it

[00:31:51] the more I'm trying to understand my own story the more I'm understanding there's a lot more stories in there there are things that I never believed people could black things out but now I do because the more I speak about it I'm like oh yeah, that story

[00:32:05] and I'm realizing that those are my conventional stories those are like, you know, oh yeah we went to Lewis's pool party and I remember that these are my versions of that they're my normals but my normals were very chaotic it's like being in a war-riddled country or anything

[00:32:25] when that becomes your normal you're almost shell shocked and so now I have to learn about mental health I have to learn about PTSD bipolar disorder I have to learn about depression and mania I have to reach the depths of me to figure out how to correct

[00:32:43] all these things that have happened so again, going back to that boat analogy it's like there are holes that have been plugged in it and I've grown up knowing that I just have to keep getting water out of the boat

[00:32:53] I didn't even know I had to plug the holes I didn't know I knew how to do that and I'm learning that now and I don't know how that stops so when you say how much armor is on there

[00:33:03] I don't know, I just know there's still water in it but there's less than there used to be what an incredible journey you're on and I say on present tense because to your point it's still happening yeah, five years ago I was homeless in a car

[00:33:20] in Los Angeles again what was that story I came home to an ex who was falling in love with somebody else I was living in Germany and I was out of money I'm signed to the biggest record label on the planet life's looking good

[00:33:38] I just finished playing Red Rocks but I was broke and all my time was going into this career to build my ex and I had planned to get married and it was like, okay we're doing this but all my time and energy

[00:33:52] was in trying to make things work and I wasn't paying attention to where she was I wasn't paying attention to our story, our love and that's on me if anyone hears this it's not on her but she fell for somebody else in the midst of that

[00:34:08] somebody from Toronto she was in Germany and I came home I was out here in Niagara Falls trying to take care of my brother for a minute trying to at least connect see if I could attach to his mind and help him out

[00:34:20] and while I was over here I got a phone call from her being like, yeah I don't know I was like wait a second I live in Europe with you it's not something you just don't know anymore

[00:34:30] it was a really tough moment so I flew back to Germany and again I was out of money I think I had 300 bucks in my pocket and she's like, yeah I don't think this is going to work, we can't do this

[00:34:40] I was like what the hell do you want me to do I don't even have I've never known there was even a problem I didn't even know there was anything to fix I was like, yeah there were so you didn't figure it out

[00:34:54] next thing you know I'm on a plane flying to Los Angeles and I was like, yeah we can get you a car I was like sweet and I didn't tell them I had nowhere to go I didn't know anybody really so I ended up in Los Angeles

[00:35:08] living in the back of a rental car with a bag, a guitar and a busted heart just hoping that my ex would take me back and she didn't so the next eight months of my life were bouncing around from couches therapy sessions

[00:35:24] the Pacific Coast highway staring out at the ocean hoping my life would change I didn't know then that life was changing you know it was pretty wild I wrote a hit song and I had no clue, that was massive but the biggest thing to be honest

[00:35:40] is my wife so I did all this therapy I put myself through like hell and back to just try and connect with myself I started learning more about myself learning about what was going on I was trying some hocus pocus stuff in LA I was doing breathwork classes

[00:35:56] man I'm such a... that's it, dude funny story enough yeah man I was trying to find the breathwork place on the first day and I'm walking next to this guy and I'm like man this guy looks familiar

[00:36:06] and it was one of the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings oh no way it's the twins, the dudes and so I was like oh my god this is a trip and so next thing you know I'm in this breathwork class

[00:36:16] and it's like a meditation thing I guess and you know if anybody sees me I'm covered in tattoos you don't look like a guy that goes into the breathwork no not at all man and even still I have my limits with it but anyway

[00:36:30] I was confronting a lot of stuff I was going in and actually deep diving in with the trauma I was in this meditative breathwork class where it's just your breathing and then meditating and the guy who is running this thing is like hey

[00:36:44] I want you to go back to the last time you were happy and in my mind I don't know if it's just the way I process I was like really happy and mentally about stuff with being an artist but it was like a rolodex

[00:36:56] of memories flipped through my mind and it wouldn't stop and then it stopped and all of a sudden I was staring at this kid at the back of his head he was on a big wheel flying down the street and his hair was in slow motion

[00:37:10] from right to left and then I can't really make him out it was almost like there was a plastic film in front of me it was a little bit like that was me I was happy and I get emotional talking about it

[00:37:24] it was the last time I felt happiness and that was a really challenging thing to confront I was like oh that was the end of my childhood it was that day and I snapped out of it and I was a wreck

[00:37:36] just like right now I can go back to that place there's a powerful tool to be able to look at because I was like oh my god I've been completely not present for like 30 years thank you for sharing that I'm curious about the willingness

[00:37:56] to do all of this because you had every excuse in the book to say what was me life sucks fuck it I'm out but there seems to be this consistent awareness of I need to do something to make me better where did that come from

[00:38:18] I don't know why do people climb Mount Everest I don't know it's just for the view for 10 seconds I'm gonna climb back down and you gotta pass dead bodies on the way up and on the way down and you know that the whole time

[00:38:30] I don't know if it's the same thing that's in me it just or maybe I don't feel like I've ever been able to reach me I'm in self-discovery mode you know so it's like when you know your full potential and it's not being reached that's on you

[00:38:46] my potential I don't even know what that is there are no boundaries in there so I'm testing all the time I'm addicted to the feeling of getting better I'm addicted to the feeling of figuring things out I'm addicted to the feeling of processing you know I love the

[00:39:08] it's like a songwriting there's a writer named Dorothy Parker and somehow at some point somebody asked her what is it that you love writing or whatnot and she I'm paraphrasing terribly but she says I hate writing this is a very successful writer she goes I love having written

[00:39:30] and that's how I feel writing a song is like awful writing poetry is awful but I'm so addicted to reading the outcome of it I'm so connected and attached to watching a song go out in the world and feeling like I did my muse

[00:39:48] service like I honored that thing it's the one thing that's never left me and I served I call her her but I served her and then all of a sudden there's something out in the world and I've been telling people it's an echo

[00:40:02] I feel like I've been climbing this mountain and I felt alone all my life and at some point I started singing and you know yelling my words out and at one point in time I heard it come back to me but it wasn't my voice

[00:40:14] and now I'm in a place where I hear thousands of them a day and it comes back to me does it concern you or worry you when you think I went from having nobody to suddenly having thousands of people sing with me say my name follow me

[00:40:32] where you go to the other side of that spectrum no because to me it looks like one entity it's a nameless thing it's a faceless thing it's a relationship with an energy so it doesn't go to my head I don't know how to process it quite fully

[00:40:50] but to me I know the relationship with my wife the relationship with the couple people around me that's where I really feel different but with everybody else it's like I don't know it's like being in servitude almost like every night I do these acoustic shows

[00:41:10] at the end of the concert go out into a parking lot and whoever wants to come out I'll play a couple songs I always meet every single person that wants to meet me I always tell the audience I'm a fan before a band I know what it's like

[00:41:22] for somebody to tell you something for it to change your life so my currency is time I trade it they give me their time they listen to my music they listen to my 3 minutes and 30 seconds hundreds of millions of times so I'm eternally in debt to them

[00:41:36] so I stand outside and I do my extra 2 hours every night I meet every single person I can I hear every single story I'm the last to leave and that makes me feel something very special but again it's it's big but it's a nameless faceless thing

[00:41:50] it's the ability to provide something it's to give people what I've always looked for so I'm very aware that the immediacy of it is very selfish and I don't want anyone to take any I don't want there to be any misunderstanding or misconceptions it is always selfish first

[00:42:08] because I feel seen but the selflessness that I think that births from selfishness is that they too feel seen and that to me breeds a community that I've always dreamed of having I didn't have much for friends I didn't have much for real family growing up

[00:42:24] and I feel like this entity is my family so it's not what what I imagined it's not what I've seen as a child but it's what I have and I love it and I genuinely love it so every single story and every person you meet

[00:42:40] I can hear the worst shit you have inside your heart and I will be the person who can hear it and be okay with it and I feel like that's a gift that comes from my birth my life that not many people can have

[00:42:52] I've sat with therapists so don't know how to hear the things inside my heart but I know how to I feel this nuclear room to hear the worst of the worst and still love you through it the tradeoff is I just don't have to love my dad

[00:43:06] and that's a very complicated thing but it's true do you ever ask yourself do you ever consider finding him and having this conversation with him no it's a hard no yeah and it's not for a lack of the ability to be carried no I used to be

[00:43:31] sometimes you have to ask yourself what the boundary is and you really have to respect that boundary and so the thing is I felt locked out and isolated by that person to the point where I was almost beyond repair and so it is not

[00:43:51] my responsibility to invite them back and I think in any normal circumstance let's say if my dad is just an alcoholic or not the best person sure it's a different thing but I don't know how to better explain this so bear with me as I say this

[00:44:10] it's like finding out your dad's a serial killer and they almost killed you do you have to have a conversation to know how you feel it's kind of I don't know how else to explain it right man the implication is that what I have built beyond him

[00:44:32] is far beyond him and he's not owed anything and I will never give him an ounce of it he stole everything from us and so he doesn't deserve that and so it's not for a lack of empathy I have empathy I hope he finds

[00:44:51] what he's been looking for his whole life but I certainly know that it was never me and it was never my mother it was never my brother and it was never my sister so whatever it is that he's seeking I hope he finds it

[00:45:03] and I hope that whatever confrontations he has to have as an older dying man he'll have to have that confrontation with himself I hope that he finds that as well but I've made my peace I hope he has as well but that's about the extent of it

[00:45:19] I know it's a complicated thing and I know it's a very heavy thing when people do those things to you it's okay to not have to owe them give that energy to people who actually want to come around but I can tell you in 20 plus years

[00:45:35] he's not the one he's never wanted to be around either and frankly I don't want him around so when you talk about finding peace it sounds like you found that in your wife yeah I would say so to a degree I mean sometimes

[00:45:55] maybe a little bit more chaotic she brings me a lot of peace and I think peace is a really interesting synonym for perspective the thing I love about my wife more than anything is I love the lens

[00:46:09] that I get to look through with her in front of me I get to see the world through her lenses I get to hear how she interprets things and how communication affects her I get to learn about how I can be better as a man, as her partner

[00:46:23] as a person how I can nurture the femininity in me as much as the masculinity in me how I can balance she brings I always describe when people talk to her about her to me or when I try to talk about her to people

[00:46:37] she's the place where sunsets and sunrises meet she's the improbable you know my biggest gripe now is the fact that I won't live long enough and I'm very frustrated about that like I wish I could live in eternity with her and then some and so that's my biggest

[00:46:55] I used to never be afraid of dying this is another revelation for me, this is like the armor coming off I never thought that getting married would do anything you know, I never thought I would feel anything different but I could tell you this

[00:47:11] the day I said I do something changed I was like she's first, not me anymore like it's the first time in my life I put someone before me and it's like I would take every piece of armor I have off of my body

[00:47:25] and put myself in the line of any fire to make sure she was okay and I've never experienced that before I've always protected me above anybody and anyone so for her she is the fuel to my existence at this point

[00:47:41] and I don't mean that in a codependent way but at least I am enamored by her I am in awe of her I can't tell anybody how much I love her it would take a million times a million songs to try and figure out how to

[00:47:57] even scratch the surface of how I feel you know, watching her and coming into my life man it was like, yeah I saw nothing until I saw her How have you been together? Five years. What's the biggest lesson five years? Love? Solid ground There's a whole other world

[00:48:17] Oh my god, yeah I became a man Again, I never thought I never thought I would find anything like this There's a lot, I'm sure if I sat and thought about this for days on end I would have a lot of different answers for you

[00:48:35] but the things that come to mind right away are just that to see it to see a kid like me grow into an adult and write these songs and sing about her and then get on stages, it's like even last night we played history in Toronto

[00:48:51] I'm here opening for James Arthur which is crazy in itself and I do that outside concert after the show so I've played my set, James has played his set I come out, I'm doing this thing and my wife and I are standing in a circle

[00:49:03] and there's a couple hundred people around us in a big giant circle and we're singing our song to each other and the thing that's really powerful is watching other people believe in love every night fans will message me saying man dude, I really was kind of

[00:49:15] done with love and all of a sudden I'm feeling some stuff and I'm like oh man it's spreading that's pretty cool It's the best kind of message to spread Yeah, especially because it's lived it's spoken or said we're not telling the audience feel more love

[00:49:33] it's just her eyes love her it's really special and I think another thing, especially for people listening to this because people roll their eyes at this kind of stuff I know, I used to be one of them but I was having a conversation with a friend of mine

[00:49:47] in Nashville who's always looking for love in the wrong places and finding the wrong types of guys and I said well why are you always looking for flames and sparks it's such a waste of time and she's like what do you mean by that

[00:49:59] and I said well flames get knocked out by wind and sparks are a fleeting moment they're pretty, it's fun to look at but I'm like if you're really looking for love look for the coals find your coals, get those real red and hot start the fire

[00:50:13] let the sparks be the start let the flames burn but make sure you have coals in the base you want those to be nice and toasty and she's like well what do you mean by that I'm like because those hold if you think about it as love

[00:50:27] the sparks and the flame that's the immediacy it's lust really you caught me yeah but the coals are real love because the coals aren't pretty you know but it is a bit mesmerizing if you actually look at it but the thing is if you take anything

[00:50:45] and put it on top of those coals it immediately lights up so I'm like that's love to me the kind gesture you say to your husband or your wife in the morning or your partner or your person or your family member

[00:50:57] that's something that you put on the coals and the thing with coals is they can go a really long time without having anything on it they're stable wind can't knock them out a downpour is going to do its damage but for the most part they can still last

[00:51:13] even with you pour a bunch of water on it man there's still it takes a long time to put them out anyone who's been camping knows that so it's like all you have to do is serve the coals not the flames not the sparks

[00:51:25] and I think that's a big thing that people get wrong I know I did for a very long time so now I get to say that on stage every night and tell that story and it feels pretty cool to see people connecting with it I bet

[00:51:37] I can imagine that feeling of being able to share this journey and this message and have it reciprocated at that volume that many people as you were talking I was just picturing outside of a concert with your wife a couple hundred fans

[00:51:57] just sort of together in the moment how beautiful and impactful that must be it's unreal and then when that's done they all line up in a very long line and we get big hugs to each person we take pictures when I was 17 years old

[00:52:13] I worked up in Montramenblanc as a doorman knocking heads and working for some rough people and at that time I'd had like a little tape cassette where I had a little song on it and I was pretty enamored with bands

[00:52:29] I didn't really have much music to listen to as a kid so this was like they were really important for me I was like I really liked this and I was an angst and so at this bar though there was a band called Cold

[00:52:41] I would always sing their songs at the bar before the bar opened and like a couple people in the mountain would know that and so one night the doorman from the adjacent bar comes over singing and stuff but there's a band at the other bar

[00:52:55] and it's a band called I Mother Earth from Canada and they're like a small medium band think a bunch of people would know them but not everybody but I did know them and I was like wow it was like Our Lady Peace and I Mother Earth

[00:53:11] and I was like damn that's so cool and so I went to the bar and there were these two guys Brian and Bruce and they wouldn't know anything about this I'm sure they don't remember it but I went over there and again I was like 17 years old

[00:53:25] it was really a rough time in my life and I was like I went and talked to them and I was like hey you guys are musicians and I was like can I get you my tape with me singing on it and they're like sure kid

[00:53:39] and so I raced down the mountain got in this car raced at this house had to get a cassette to put onto another cassette I had to like find the spot like record it put tape on the cassette and then I brought it back

[00:53:51] and it took me probably an hour and I was freaking out I was like oh man they're gonna leave and I still remember like the adrenaline and the angst and like the nervousness and sure enough I got back to this bar and they were there and they'd waited

[00:54:05] and so I couldn't tell you that they waited for me but they were there and so I came in and I gave them the tape and they gave me a few minutes of their time and that was another impactful moment that changed my life

[00:54:15] so I mother earthed that and then Billy talented that for me had a whole other story at a random wolf road mall in Albany, New York while they were opening for a band called finger 11 and I bumped into them and the mall was empty

[00:54:27] and I was like these guys look cool and the guy with the leg down straight up there and they just talked to me in the food court there was nobody there they talked to me for a few minutes and what they didn't know about my life is like

[00:54:37] I was wrapped in some really heavy shit and was starting to become a bad person and those so these two moments were really impactful time has always been something I'm aware of as a currency and the lack of having time given to me as a child

[00:54:53] was something I've always been really precious with when people do give it to me I've always been aware and so again with I mother earthed never forgot that with Billy talent I never forgot that and so something I've always maintained is I don't care how big this gets

[00:55:07] I will always trade time I'll never be able to pay back the amount of time if you take I'm at I think today 940 million streams and the wow you times that by three and a half minutes that's how that's what I owe the world that's the exchange

[00:55:23] so that for me is what I'm doing every lineup every person is the trade for that and to think you could have that kind of an impact on someone else who might be going through something yeah just by giving them that few extra minutes some humility some kindness

[00:55:41] the ability to listen to them you make people feel seen and that's the most important thing is feeling seen I think so because I know selfishly first I need it when I'm standing at the front of the line I feel very seen by hundreds of people

[00:55:57] and then they feel seen and then we feel seen and that's a community I want to be in so I gotta ask you we've talked a lot about young forest and how the man sitting in front of me today is a byproduct of

[00:56:15] the circumstances of your life as a child from growing up in that home to having a mobster for a father to all of these different things that have happened in your life that sent you down a dark path only to find yourself shifting your boat ever so slightly

[00:56:35] but enough to get you to where you are today if you were able to magically go back in time you walk into a room young forest is just sitting on a bed there what would you say to him oh man, I did this in breath work

[00:56:59] I don't know so much of what I would say to him but I would definitely want to ask him some stuff I'd have questions for him about how he sees the world the thing I don't have is the ability to see through the lens of innocence

[00:57:13] so I'm missing it and I know that and so selfishly if I could go back and sit with him I'd love to add that to my repertoire probably would have helped me figure out how to take the armor off a lot sooner rather than protect him

[00:57:25] and then for what I would say to him is that you're gonna get me with this one that I'm oh man, that we're gonna be okay but it's gonna take some it's gonna take some it's gonna take some time you know life even though I had my dad

[00:57:50] and my mom and the way life went the thing I've realized is that it's all excuse me it's um it's all a relative experience you know I write these these spoken words expoetry and there's one called Wildfire and I write in it that

[00:58:14] the scars that we carry are ours and to wear them like badges of honor and I really believe that you know I don't know what you've gone through the thing about being interviewed is

[00:58:26] I don't have the chance to get to know you in the same depth that you get to know me and it's the tragedy of moments like these because I wish I could I have lots of questions but time doesn't give us that nor does this platform

[00:58:38] a single person has the same stories they're just in different languages and the order of the words are slightly different but there are wounds in you that you carry there are scars that you carry there are experiences that you carry there's tears that you carry

[00:58:56] there's a laughs, there's things about you that nobody knows and you're afraid to tell them those are there and I have them too so who am I to say anything it's not that my experience is a one-off that's the beautiful thing about being connected

[00:59:12] to a lot of people it's the beautiful thing about standing in lines people tell you some real shit and you're certainly not alone and so you can't play this cat and mouse game of who's had it worse so again for me

[00:59:28] that little version of me is locked up inside of me and I was the thing that empowered him to take the beating and I was the one who did it he couldn't and so and it's a strange thing to express like this

[00:59:44] but in a lot of ways I feel there's two of me there's a version of me that's very protected and I'm very protective of him I'm learning to try and let go of that so that he can be at the controls more but I feel like

[00:59:56] I'm the representation of those two people coming together now merging but I can take the beating and also keep my heart there they're both now together and I don't know how to give up either or if I should or if anything

[01:00:14] but that's who I am and that's what I have so again I don't know if I would change anything because it's a very complicated thing the grass is always greener on the other side this is my story and it has empowered me

[01:00:30] to want to climb the Mount Everest of my life or it's empowered me to not give up at sea I feel like I have that same thing that a lot of people have when you hear those crazy stories of people who've been lost for a long time

[01:00:42] and are eventually found when you're the cast away so to speak and that's where I'm at right now like yeah do you want to have children? no my therapist will tell you that's the terrible answer my therapist said that people like me make the best parents

[01:01:01] I was literally going to I'm not a therapist but I was going to say you would make an excellent father yeah I think so I think you'd give a young child all of the things that you craved yeah but sometimes I think that's the wrong thing potentially man

[01:01:23] these are the things I'm nervous about I think especially in today's day and age the way the world looks and my career is quite selfish I never want to make I would never want to be

[01:01:35] a place for a child to not feel like they had all of me I think some people are really special in how they go about having children like they want to be parents man if I became a parent then I would do what I need to do

[01:01:49] sure I imagine yeah I imagine to be the same thing as how I feel with my wife I feel like I'd probably find a continent more than an island you know I'm aware of that but I do feel like the way I give myself

[01:02:01] to the world is very important to me and I feel like that's where I'm best suited if you'd asked me this 20 years ago I would have had a different answer so I don't know where I'll be in 10 years from now

[01:02:13] but frankly I don't know where I'll be tomorrow so Forrest thank you so much for sharing your time with me thank you for sharing yours with me thank you for sharing your journey I think the only word that it leaves me with

[01:02:27] if I had to pick one would be inspired because to hear you talk so eloquently about the challenges of your life but then sit in front of me a comfortable confident man saying this is who I am this is who I was

[01:02:41] and this is who I want to become it it just inspires me to want to become better be kinder to express kindness to the random stranger on the street please do, they need it no thank you so much thank you for having me

[01:03:01] the next time you're in Toronto or I'm wherever you are episode 2? absolutely I would love that amazing Forrest thank you so much thank you for listening everybody