Ted Leo Stops Beating Up File Cabinets, Songs, Self

The Hilarious World of Depression

American Public Media

Comedy, Comedy Interviews

4.8 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's hard to settle on a musical description for Ted Leo. We ended up going with "if The Beach Boys were '80s skateboarders" to summarize his melodic intense post-punk sound. Similarly hard to nail down is whether Ted's longtime issues with depression and anger stem from his brain's built-in wiring or from abuse he suffered as a kid and barely ever talked about since.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm Cameron Espazito and I have a lot of jobs. I'm an actor. You've seen me on ABC's and a million little things.
0:04.8	I'm a stand-up comic bestselling author, but I am no expert at survival.
0:08.5	On my new podcast Survivor Diet trying, we're going to learn together from shark attacks to
0:13.8	tsunamis and bad breakups. This is your one-stop shop to prepare for the absolute worst-case scenario.
0:20.0	Join me and some special guests on Survivor Diet trying a comedy podcast that prepares you for anything.
0:26.4	Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
0:30.4	Is depression funny? It is funny. It's literally like that kind of, you know, we can look back and laugh
0:37.0	kind of funny sometimes when you smack yourself in the forehead and think, what a fool.
1:00.9	It's the hilarious world of depression. I'm John Moe. On this episode, a comedy adjacent musician,
1:18.4	singer, songwriter, punk rocker deals with trauma and mental illness in part by flinging his
1:24.0	body at things. Life deals this person plenty of reasons to give up and he doesn't. He sings.
1:29.9	My name is Ted Leo and I am at my home in Southern Rhode Island.
1:35.3	Ted Leo has been playing in bands and putting out records for going on three decades. Wikipedia
1:40.1	lists 26 releases over the course of his career. Ted's music often manages to be intense,
1:46.9	pretty and fast, which is a tricky combination. His latest album is The Hanged Man, came out last year.
1:53.9	And it's the first Ted Leo record in seven years. This song is Can't Go Back.
1:58.8	Oh, that shot it on this stretch of sea. How many times I stood here mapping things out
2:07.6	differently, but I can't go back. No, I can't go back.
2:19.3	Ted's been building his comedy chops in recent years too. On stage, on podcasts and videos,
2:25.2	here is an sketch on my old show Wits. Before I played bass, I was a criminal.
2:32.4	The bass saved my life and I help out using these.
2:41.3	The scales of justice. It's also known as one of the nicest guys in music. People love Ted.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.