#988 - Nick Swardson

Nick Swardson (0:00)

Turn on the lava lamp.

Young Jamie (0:01)

He knows how to turn on everything, his name is Young Jamie. Three, two, one.

Joe Rogan (0:09)

I'm live with Nick Swardson, former drug dealer. Nick, tell us your tale. Tell us your tale of Youth Gone Wild.

Nick Swardson (0:14)

It's a tale of Youth Gone Wild.

SPEAKER_4 (0:16)

We are the Youth Gone Wild.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

How many people broke windows cause they heard that song?

Young Jamie (0:21)

Like, yeah, it's me, man, I'm fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_4 (0:24)

I'm wild, finally somebody labeled it. We are the Youth Gone Wild.

Joe Rogan (0:29)

Songs could be inspiring in a bad way sometimes, right? They can get you to do some stupid shit.

Nick Swardson (0:34)

Dude, you know how many people carelessly whispered?

I know. Fucking careless, dude.

Joe Rogan (0:39)

How many people woke people up before they go-goed?

Nick Swardson (0:40)

Yeah, they woke them up. They were not ready to go-go.

Joe Rogan (0:45)

Yeah, they don't wear a planet on going so low.

Nick Swardson (0:47)

God, yeah, man.

Joe Rogan (0:48)

We lost a lot of fucking people this year. When you stop and think about George Michael, Prince, who's the latest one? There was some big ones. Singer from Lincoln Park.

Nick Swardson (0:56)

Chester Bennington. Yes, that's right.

Joe Rogan (0:58)

Chester, that was a big one.

Nick Swardson (1:00)

Horrible.

Joe Rogan (1:00)

And Chris Cornell, both in the same way.

Nick Swardson (1:03)

And then Chester committed suicide on his birthday. Chris Cornell's birthday.

Joe Rogan (1:08)

Yeah. That was a weird one, man. That guy was 41 on top of the world. The lead singer, one of the biggest rock bands of all time. But it's hard to say what caused him to be so fucked up, but most people point to he was very sexually abused when he was a young kid.

And that just, he just never recovered from that. And then, you know.

Nick Swardson (1:30)

Yeah, I never knew him, but I had friends that were really close to them, and they just said he was like the most gentle, sweet guy.

Joe Rogan (1:35)

Fucking powerful voice, man.

Nick Swardson (1:37)

Oh, yeah, that guy would shred.

Joe Rogan (1:40)

Powerful.

Nick Swardson (1:41)

Yeah, no, it's horrible.

Joe Rogan (1:43)

It's so hard for people to understand that you could be the lead singer of like, I mean, arguably one of the biggest bands of our generation. Yeah. Giant, huge arena filled up. There was a photo of him standing on stage with no shirt on in this massive arena show, and everybody had their cell phone lights on. You know, people do that now in Stella Lighters. Back when I was a kid, back when I was a boy, we didn't have cell phones.

Nick Swardson (2:07)

We burned our bodies.

Joe Rogan (2:09)

We had fire, and we had fucking fire hazards. But he was standing on stage, and I was like, yeah, that's the photo. Like, look at that shit, man.

Nick Swardson (2:17)

That's sick.

Joe Rogan (2:17)

No one could ever possibly imagine that that guy would not be insanely happy. I mean, look how many people love that guy. You're just getting a tiny fraction of the love that guy must have gotten, and it still wasn't enough.

So hard to understand.

Nick Swardson (2:38)

I mean, yeah, that level of just inner sadness and darkness. I mean, good Lord. It's just awful to think that that guy went through to get to that point.

Joe Rogan (2:45)

And he had six kids.

Nick Swardson (2:47)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:48)

So, I mean, it's just like, it had to be so much that even having kids and being with his kids wasn't enough.

Fuck, man. That's a crazy picture, though.

Nick Swardson (2:58)

That's a sick photo.

Young Jamie (3:00)

Oh my God.

Nick Swardson (3:00)

I mean, all the way up in the rafters.

Joe Rogan (3:02)

Yeah, I mean, that's probably like 30,000 people or something crazy.

Nick Swardson (3:07)

Yeah, well, look at all the people that don't have phones.

Young Jamie (3:09)

Yeah.

Nick Swardson (3:10)

What's their deal?

Joe Rogan (3:11)

Losers.

Maybe they're just cheap. Maybe they're like Ari. Maybe they just went flip phone. I can't handle it. Can't handle all the apps. It's just too much. Too much, too much temptation.

Ari's resisting it. He's gonna be chopping his own wood soon. Ari's gonna have a well. I guarantee you, Ari's gonna, he told me he wanted to buy land, and I was like, do you wanna like build a house?

Young Jamie (3:32)