Talk It Out with Jodi Leib
August 2003
McRed's in Studio City, CA
All*Access Magazine Musician Showcase

  I'm at McRed's for the All*Access Magazine Musician Showcase for the upcoming First Annual All*Access Music Awards, where I had the pleasure of speaking my mind with a beautiful. talented and inspiring young artist...TEAL!

Teal:  Jodi Leib...a very, not astutue, that's not a good word for it, more like...um...powerful.
Jodi:  Powerful?  My name is powerful?
Teal:  If I were to see that it print anywhere, or in four feet lights would be better.
Jodi:  Ha, I'm ready for that!
Teal:  That would command respect.
Jodi:  Thank you, thank you so much.  Why?  What is it?  Is it the ring?
Teal:  Your first name completely goes with your last name.  It's very straight forward and the way that you spell Jodi too...J-o-d-i.
Jodi:  Well, I owe that all to my parents.
Teal:  Exactly.  I owe Teal to my parents too.
Jodi:  Teal.
Teal:  Everyone's like "Are they Hippies?"  I'm like, "No. They're complete squares."
Jodi:  But they like color.
Teal:  They do like color, and, or Duck.  It's actually a duck too.
Jodi:  Huh.  Okay, so, I am so happy to be Talking It Out with Teal right now, with you Teal.
Teal:  I'm happy to be finally talking to you too.
Jodi:  Because you don't understand what it's like sometimes to interview musicians.  Sometimes, it can be so challenging to connect with people.  And, I'm a musician and I'm an artist. 
Teal:  You play too?
Jodi:  Yeah, I sing.
Teal:  Nice.  So you play the throat, now what do you play?
Jodi:  Play the throat.  I am emotional.  I play my emotions. 
Teal:  (Laughs)  You're emotional!
Jodi:  I dabble on the piano certainly and I dabble on the guitar but I could not play a song, except for what I make up on my own.
Teal:  Well, then that means you can play a song.
Jodi:  I know, but I wouldn't really perform it.
Teal:  I mean, just because you can't play Freebird, it doesn't mean you can't -
Jodi:  I can't even play other people's songs.  I play my own music.  I can't do anything that anybody else has already done before.
Teal:  Not that you'd really want to. 
Jodi:  I know.
Teal:  I hear you.
Jodi:  I sing other people's music a lot, you know, when I'm just dabbling, when I'm doodling with my muse, my words.  Can you doodle with words?
Teal:  Where do you sing?  Doodle with words, just ramble on about -
Jodi:  Instead of doodling with a pen and paper, I find myself, like, musing...
Teal:  Now, would you do it acappella or would you try to do some kind of a melody and just kind of go along with it and just start purging words out of yourself?  Is that how you do it?
Jodi:  Well, when I'm singing, I just sing other people's songs acappella.  Totally acappella.
Teal:  That's hard! 
Jodi:  It is?
Teal:  That's freaking hard to do!  Yeah.  Totally.  Do you have a pitch pipe or something you can start with and at least find the key you're going to start in?
Jodi:  No.  I hear it...and I've been called Tone Deaf.  Do you know what I'm saying?  But, I can really hear it.  I do everything by ear, I guess.
Teal:  That's how I started to play guitar.  It was completely by ear.
Jodi:  My fingers don't move!  I can't play guitar!  So, basically, this interview's about you.  So I'm trying to tell you that you're so fascinating because availability in a musician is by far the sexist, most important quality in order for a musician and an artist to be successful.
Teal:  Gotta make his or her oneself available.
Jodi:  Especially to the interviewer. 
Teal:  Must, must to the interviewing.
Jodi:  Especially to the Jodi Leib.
Teal:  Absolutely.  Cracking the whip.
Jodi:  Cause if you're not available, I think the band is a loser.
Teal:  Cause they're not gonna put - Why should you sit at your computer in the next couple days and write something out on somebody who's not going to take five minutes, ten minutes, something, to talk to you?
Jodi:  Right.  And especially if they say they're interested.  It sucks.  You know what I'm saying?  It's no integrity, and I think to myself, well, "this band doesn't want publicity, this band isn't going very far."
Teal:  Well, I want it.  And the reason I wanted it so bad and to the point where I wasn't willing to wait for a drummer and a base player just yet, not that I'm not working with any, I am, currently.  They've got their own grinds going on and I'm not going to demand of them, "Hey, we're going play five shows this weekend, right?"  "Well, we haven't rehearsed, Teal"  I'm like, "Well, I've been rehearsing all week, if you guys want to show up, it's cool, if not, I'm going to go play these shows."
Jodi:  You can't rely on anybody but yourself.  You can take people for their word, but I find that it's so impossible sometimes to just have to be the Ring Leader.  It's not worth it sometimes.  It's either going to be beautiful, artistic, passionate, expressive, communicative, you know, or it's going to be bullshit.
Teal:  You have to be your own Ring Leader.  You have to be your own Band Master.  If you're going to be writing your songs and I'm going to be writing my songs, I totally going to take coaching, and advice and production advice and if someone wants to co-write something with me, absolutely.  But, I'm gonna be the one that's gonna get up that morning and restring my guitar, and I'm gonna make that call to book that show, right now cause I don't have any kind of booking, and yeah, I'm gonna be the Band Master.  I'm gonna be the Ring Leader.  Yeah, it's hard.  But at least right now, I can call the shots.
Jodi:  And that's why I know you're going to make it. 
Teal:  It's true.
Jodi:  Cause, I know people who don't.  You know what I'm saying?  I know what it takes to make it and I see what it takes to make it.  And I know people who aren't going to make it and they don't make it, because they're caught up in the bullshit and they block themselves.  You're totally unblocked.  You're unbarricaded.  I know that because we're Talking It Out.
Teal:  Absolutely.
Jodi:  You wouldn't be Talking It Out if you were blocked. 
Teal:  Thanks for asking, by the way.  I think you held the door for me in the front, alright, or you were like, "Can I come in through this way." 
Jodi:  Oh my gosh, yes.
Teal:  And I was like, "Yes, you can.  Come right this way."
Jodi:  You lead me to it.  You gave me the access. 
Teal:  Your face does look familiar, now you saw me at Pat's?  Or where did you hear me?
Jodi:  Yes.  I just saw you at Pats.  I also host a TV show, maybe you've see that.  My face is kind of out there, for better or worse, being well-received or being slammed in the door, but um...
Teal:  What TV show?
Jodi:  Talk It Out!
Teal:  Talk It Out...on?
Jodi:  Cable.
Teal:  I have bunny ears.
Jodi:  Oh, that's okay.  I've had bunny ears.
Teal:  I live in my rehearsal space.
Jodi:  I want to ride the bull at Saddle Ranch tonight.
Teal:  I know the manager over there.  I could drive to San Diego late.  We could go hit the Strip.  It's not like San Diego is going anywhere.  We could go to the Saddle Ranch and have a couple pitchers of whatever your poison is and ride the bull...and I'll say  hi to my friend.
Jodi:  Alright.  Can I drink water?
Teal:  Sure.
Jodi:  Can I do it sober?
Teal:  I was about to say if I start drinking pictures of Vodka Tonics, I won't make it to San Diego.
Jodi:  I would barf on the bull. 
Teal:  That's why they have that leather ring around the bull.
Jodi:  I know, right?  Really, what I meant though, I mean I would really love to ride the bull and I'm gonna do that someday, but really what I was meaning to say was that I've got to get back on the horse, to get on my computer and get these interviews going.  I took a little vacation for like a day or two and I've got to get back on the bull.
Teal:  Rest periods are good.  Otherwise, you'll go nuts.
Jodi:  Yes, rest periods are really important.  So, tell me, what inspires you?  What is Teal all about?
Teal:  What inspires me to write and what motivates me in general is seeing, not the lack of heart in the world, it's just I look, I see individual people's situations and I see my own situations and I realize, "Wow!"  That person has kind of had the same thing happen to them as happened to me.  So, I'm not gonna sit and try to write a song that has, "Oh woe's Teal.  Oh, she broke my heart, this happened to me and I got mugged here and that's my life and this is my song, you wanna hear it,  here goes."  You know?  I'm more inspired about things that touch all of us and the things that all of us can relate to like, yeah, like broken hearts, but more like a song I didn't get to play tonight.  It's a song called "Lesson."
Jodi:  Oh, wow!
Teal:  It's a song about the first thing that I remember learning to do.  And, unfortunately, the first thing I remember learning to do was to lie.
Jodi:  Oh, my gosh!  Why, who taught you that?
Teal:  My Mom.
Jodi:  What did she say?
Teal:  Her and I talked about this, when I wrote the song, when I finished writing it, I called her at like, four in the morning.  I'm like, "Mom, you won't frickin' believe this song that I wrote."  And I actually drove up to her house in Redondo Beach the next day and played it for her. And she got it right away, because the chorus gives it away, it's like "I'm only as good as you treat me.  Disbanded, silent, complete me.  Remember I was the honest one first, you taught me to lie."  I'm like, "Mom is it okay if I play this song?"  Cause I either learned it from her or my Dad.
Jodi:  Some people lie.
Teal:  She cried.  She broke out in tears.
Jodi:  How did she feel?  What was really going on for her?
Teal:  I think it was a big point of her realizing that my songwriting, and she's my biggest fan, I've been playing for my Mom since I was 12 years-old when I could just play three chords in a row, and she's heard all my stuff, and it was the point where she finally heard a song that I had written that really could strike a chord with anyone.  It wasn't just such an individual kind of song, that was just about me, it's something that a lot of people can relate to.  I think music is really lacking that.  There are definitely some bands that I love listening to, that I can relate to.   I love Pete Yorn, John Mayer, The Ataris, Incubus, Jack Johnson.  Really good singers and songwriters.  Those are things that really inspire me.  Good days, sunshine, bad days, rain.
Jodi:  Are you moody?
Teal:  Fuck yeah!
Jodi:  With a name like Teal, how could you not be?
Teal:  I'm really moody.
Jodi:  So what is the mood of Teal?
Teal:  It's hills and valleys.  Yesterday at work, I was the most pissed off person you'd ever met.  Didn't want to be there, just wanted to be back in the studio rehearsing my set, restring my guitars, get ready for these next three shows, and be who I really am.  My environment really facilitates what my emotions are, so me sitting in the back of McRed's with the all-mighty powerful Jodi Leib makes me feel good.  And I feel good that someone else is interested in what I've got to say, to the point that without the guitars, and the effect pedals, and the sound system you want to hear what I have to say.  So I want to say, thank you for that.
Jodi:  God bless you!  The thing is, is that, first of all, Teal is green, which is the color of the heart.  Leib means love and that's pink and I'm all about pink and green and so I think our hearts have connected here.  And I think what you're talking about with music and that songwriting can transcend humanity.  It can transcend all that pettiness.  You just, please, don't do drugs.  Please don't get into drugs and alcohol.  Please don't let that bring you down in life. 
Teal:  I've seen way to many episodes of VH1 and all those TV shows about these bands that did XYZ and fell apart, went bankrupt and lost 100 pounds and almost died.
Jodi:  It's such a waste of time.
Teal:  I can't.  I don't have enough time to do this.
Jodi:  Exactly.
Teal:  So, Jodi, hear me out.  I will definitely wet the whistle every now and then, but Teal doesn't do drugs.
Jodi:  I'm diggin' it!  I'm so down!  You're healing me.  I just had the worst experience trying to interview a band that just didn't show up.  I try to help people.  I'm am the channel for you to express yourself as an artist.  That's what Talk It Out is for.  It's to hear what you have to say and to bring that to your people and to all the new people out there who may be interested and that don't relate to their own lives.  They don't even know who they are. They look to you to teach them, who am I?  That's what a musician is for.
Teal:  Mentors and teachers and idols and icons, I definitely didn't get into this whole game to do just that.  I do agree, that people will listen to songs to get some kind of guidance.  I'm gonna definitely make my own decision.  I'm gonna take what I hear as advice and something to facilitate me opening up my emotions for them to not be so biased when they come out.  For me to be able to write down whatever's on my mind and be able to conclude my own decision, and I wanna be that song for someone else so bad!  Isn't it the whole fricken' point that a band plays out everywhere and talks with people and communicates with people?
Jodi:  Yes, and you will be!  You will be.  Some people are really in it for the wrong reasons, I think a lot of people are in it for the party.  I think a lot people are in it - but I'm not here to judge anybody.  If I don't talk to someone, I don't know what they're thinking, and they obviously don't want me to know what they're thinking.
Teal:  Last I checked, you're not a mind reader.
Jodi:  Yeah, and I'm never gonna be unless I have a really deep intuition about the person.  It just feels so liberating to have a great conversation with an enlightened being.
Teal:  Likewise, Jodi.
Jodi:  I need it.  I need it like I need yoga.
Teal:  I just run.
Jodi:  Great!
Teal:  I just run to do something and clear my head.
Jodi:  I just don't have time.  And I'm available to these people, don't get me wrong.  I'm available to everyone.  I really am, I don't shut people out, but I'm so sick of the drugs getting in the way and blocking people.  I'm sad for them, I'm sad for me.  It's a waste of my time.  It's a waste of their time.  You blow your life up your nose. God doesn't give you something to say when you do that.  You don't have power when you do that.  A musician loses their power.
Teal:  You completely give it up.  You forfeit all -
Jodi:  The right to have fans and say things to people.  To reach out to people.  God takes it away from you, and I wish people could get that.
Teal:  Well, I mean, I've done my share, and I will say this, the reason I did what I did was because I was missing something at the time.  I've had lulls in songwriting and lulls with relationships in the past with friends and circles of friends.  When those things had their highs and lows, sometimes my moods, well a while ago, my moods got the best of me....when I didn't believe in myself enough to the point where I could be performing on a regular basis and fill that void with something else for myself and simultaneously without even realizing it, give something to somebody else, because that's what the artist does when he or she's on stage, given.
Jodi:  If they don't, get off the stage.  If you've got nothing to offer, you know what I'm saying?
Teal:  People -
Jodi:  If you don't have anything to offer, if you have nothing to share with people, find something else, do something else with your life that's productive.  And I'm not knocking people, I'm really not.  I'm not here to do that.  I'm just really saying that as a fan and as an audience, I wanna hear your soul, and if you're not going to give me your soul, if you're gonna sell me out of really learning who you are as a person, the artist I mean, it's like, why bother?
Teal:  Who are you kidding?  Why?
Jodi:  Why?  Who are you kidding?  What's the deal?  Maybe there are people that are less deep and less interested in really hearing the things I'm hearing out there and maybe they are perfect fans and the perfect fit.
Teal:  Maybe they're not even prepared to receive stuff like that.
Jodi:  Maybe.
Teal:  I know people that can't listen to a Joni Mitchell song.  They're like, "What's this?"  They don't get it.
Jodi:  Right, they don't get it.  That's okay.  There are people out there and I hope they find each other, because I hope they relate in some way.  You know, because, I mean, I want to be there too.  I want to relate too, help me.  Help me relate, too.  You know?  Cause, I don't know how otherwise.  I don't know how to relate to a person if they don't share with me how to relate to them.
Teal:  Last I checked, again, you're not a mind reader.
Jodi:  Exactly.  So, it's like, I want musicians to relate to me.
Teal:  I can't complain.  You're a musician yourself, too, shit.  I want to hear you sing.
Jodi:  "All our love is mystical, sexual is mystical.  Love, love, love, all our love is mystical.  Love, love, love, love, love, love, sexual is mystical"
Teal:  Your voice is really subtle.
Jodi:  Thank you.
Teal:  It's really smooth, nice and linear.
Jodi:  Thank you.  It's a dance song.  I never sing it as a dance song, cause I'm much more into the ballad, I think, as an artist.
Teal:  Is that yours or someone else's tune.
Jodi:  That's my single.
Teal:  Do you have like beats and stuff?
Jodi:  Yeah.
Teal:  How did you produce it, who, what, where, tell me more.
Jodi:  Um, well, the beats were made by a guy named J. Knox, who's a rapper, who I've interviewed and I became friends with through this.
Teal:  Very cool.
Jodi:  And I'm giving it to a keyboard artist tomorrow.  I just pass my CD around, and they take it home and work on it and then give it back to me.
Teal:  Like, add their own stuff or - 
Jodi:  Yeah, I just put their name on the credits and we're good to go.
Teal:  That is so hot!
Jodi:  So, I'm excited.
Teal:  You should be.  Sexual Is Mystical.
Jodi:  Yeah.
Teal:  Absofuckinglutly!
Jodi:  It is.  I think so many people take for granted the sexuality, and I think they want their cake and they think they can have it too, and they can't always sometimes, and they shouldn't always.  I think men think that women, they're theirs.  Women wanna do whatever they wanna do, and I just think that if we can all realize that sexuality is just a God-given blessing, there would be a lot more respect out there for people.
Teal:  It's too bad that the sick, sad things we keep hearing about, all it really stems from is lack of love.
Jodi:  Exactly.
Teal:  Or not understanding it.  And sex in itself for me is a completely mind-numbing thing.  It's a fucking great thing.
Jodi:  Yeah.
Teal:  It's just, you know, love is its own insanity.  Sex, just starts to kind of, yeah, people talk about how guys can immediately separate sex from love and girls can't or vise versa.
Jodi:  I don't think men can separate sex and love either.  I don't think anybody can.  I don't think it was meant to be separated.
Teal:   It really can't be.  Some guys might say that they can, "Oh yeah, it doesn't affect me."  Bullshit.
Jodi:  That's bullshit.
Teal:  I call bullshit!  Cause when when that dude's home on a Tuesday night and he can't find his, whatever the fuck, he's going to go do what he's going to do to fill that void.  Of course he can't separate it, if he could, you wouldn't have brothels, and you wouldn't have -
Jodi:  Lonely people out there.
Teal:  "Guys night out."  People on coke.  You know what I mean?
Jodi:  Totally!  Sometimes the sex is so bad, because the love is so bad, and that's so tragic to me.  I never want to be in a relationship again where I hate the person I'm fucking and sleeping with.
Teal:  Cause there's no soul.
Jodi:  And that sucks, that's the worst feeling in the world.  It's so victimizing.
Teal:  Totally.
Jodi:  It's so disturbing and disrupting to life when sex is the complete - 
Teal:  It's fodder.
Jodi:  Drug.  It's a use.  Fodder, fuel, whatever.  If sex isn't celebrating the love, I personally don't want to have it.
Teal:  You don't until you can find somebody that you can have that kind of energy with and that kind of bond with, because that's a lot for you to give at the same time.
Jodi:  Exactly.  I don't want to waste my time with people who don't love me.  I understand if - you know, I go through stages and phases where it's got to be the most perfect union ever, or else I'm not having sex, and I get really blocked that way.  So I lighten up.  I have this whole theory about Antisexuality and Antisexual Discharge.  There's the whole level.  There's the sexual and then there's the antisexual.  The antisexual is where the crime and victimization and the violence happens.  So, obviously, I have tried and tried and tried over the years to completely rid myself any kind of antisexual energy, antisexual - and it creeps up.  It's natural.
Teal:  Cause it's not passionate.  I encounter so many people and it's like, I'm not gonna say it's like a hit or miss, but shit, I wish I could set those standards for myself.  It's hard.  It's a big thing.
Jodi:  Yeah, that's the thing. It's really hard to stay celibate or whatever, because I've tried to stay celibate and then I get abused that way too.
Teal:  Right.
Jodi:  People try to force me into things and it's like, I get this real ugly side.  I see the uglier side of people.  I've seen more violence - 
Teal:  You have to defend yourself and at the same time they feel, "why?"  And, yeah, God forbid some kind of violence, that's fuckin' horrible.
Jodi:   It's horrible.  It's horrible.  It's horrible.
Teal:  Isn't it a trip how it all comes full circle where it's all about that whole lack of love.
Jodi:  Totally!
Teal:  Or that whole lack of understanding of love.
Jodi:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  And, I think father figures are really important for men, you know, because I think, it's great to have a mother figure who teaches you to have respect for women, but it's another thing to have a father figure who teaches you how to be a man and how to respect a woman from the male's perspective, and respect a woman's boundaries.  Respect a woman's fragile energy, the feminine energy.  We all can be broken in a second, you know?  Unfortunately life is very, very delicate, and I'm learning that more and more through loss.  I just learn so much about how fragile life is in a moment.
Teal:  Have you lost anybody recently?
Jodi:  Yes, I had a family member pass away.  Here I'm thinking, "Oh wow!"  Death is glorious, like it's an exaltation.  I'm like, I'm happy for the person who dies, because they go on their journey and I feel kind of exalted as a result of the death.  Like, it's weird.  And I say to her, to the widow, "Are you happy?"  I'm just fucked up.  I have this crazy perception of death.  But, I say to her, "Don't you feel like one with the universe?  Isn't that a spiritual thing for you?" She just lost her husband, and she's like, "Absolutely not!  It's the worst, most painful.  This life is so fragile.  You take so much for granted.  There's so much you forget about when you have somebody that you love, that when they're gone, you realize all the things that you just missed when they were there.  You realize how imperfect you are as a person, and how, completely in one moment, life is fragile."  She kept saying that over and over..  "It's fragile!  This world is so fragile."
Teal:  It's very grounding, isn't it.  We break really easy.  The things around us are so hard and so - 
Jodi:  And we think they're gonna be durable.  We think they're gonna hold up and sometimes they don't.  Maybe they do, but sometimes not everybody can withstand pain and pleasure and beauty.
Teal:  It's funny that you say that not all people can withstand pleasure, because not all people can.  Pleasure or how to react to it.
Jodi:  Right.  I know sometimes I don't.  I freaked out when I've had the most pleasure I've ever had.  I've been like, "I don't deserve this!"
Teal:  Where'd that come from?
Jodi:  I'm like, "I don't deserve this! This can't be real.  This can't be what's happening.  This can't be what's right for me!"  And I block myself.  I'm like, "I don't want to look at that bright light...ah, it's too bright.  Keep me in the darkness.  Close!"  
Teal:  "Close, no.  Let me be how I was before!"
Jodi:  Yeah, miserable.
Teal :  "It was much easier that way."  
Jodi:  "Let me not be happy.  Let me be miserable."
Teal:  You've spent the most amount of time, you adapt to your surroundings and your emotional surroundings and if that's what you feel and see and hear then most , well then, yeah, you're going to be used to doing that.  So as soon as something changes whether it's for the good or for the bad, whatever that really means...
Jodi:  Nothing.  It really doesn't mean - 
Teal:  Of course you're not going to know how to deal with it.  It's gonna be complete culture shock.
Jodi:  Complete culture shock.  You know, I have a lot of teachers in life, and one of my teachers has been sharing with me that there are these Gremlins.  I call them Smurfs.  Smurfs were always so cute as a child and now I have berated them to - 
Teal:  Gargamel and Azriel we're exactly - 
Jodi:  - The devils of my mind.
Teal:  I fancied Smurfette like any other six year old boy....
Jodi:  Well there's negative thoughts, and I have been known to second guess myself and beat myself up over and over again for the choices and things I've made or said, or whatever, I've done.  My teacher tells me, and has guided me and through my own healing work I've learned we all have a higher power, and it's not even, you can call it what you want, but there's a guiding force that everything is okay, and that we are gonna be okay, and that these are lessons.  We're all here to learn lessons.  And you have that song.  In fact, it's your hit single!
Teal:  (laughs) Almost.  Maybe.  It's obvious you take mental pictures.  It's obvious that things that really strike you, you're gonna remember.  The compact disc is such a fascinating thing where it gives us that nice instant gratification where we hear that one song that we like, and how much faster is it now that you can click it back and hear it again.
Jodi:  Right.
Teal:  Isn't that a trip?  It's a trip how it went from records where you really could do that instant gratification thing, "Oh, there's the line!"  and find it or the tapes, "Oh, I went over" and "shit!"  Isn't it a trip how you can now almost instantly gratify your mental pictures cause you're gonna find something in a song that you're connecting with, that really strikes that chord.  And you think, "Whoa, someone else saw that picture too!"  "Look what the fuck they did!  They wrote a song about it!"  The lessons.  The lessons that we all learn....until we die, so to speak.
Jodi:  What are you here to say?  What are you here to communicate?
Teal:  I'm definitely not here to convince someone of something.  I'm not a politician.
Jodi:  Thank God.  We don't need any more of those.
Teal:  Don't want to be one.  I'm not trying to sell a scene.  I'm not even trying to really even portray an image.  I everyday wear blank T-shirts and one colored pants and I don't choose to really be a billboard, so to speak.  Now I understand that the business I've chosen is really kind of all about that.
Jodi:  It might have you on a billboard.  
Teal:  Yeah, it just might.
Jodi:  I'll have you on a billboard...if I had my druthers. 
Teal:  I'll have your fucking name in lights before you know it!   I shit you not.  Your name is so kick-ass!
Jodi:  Thanks.  
Teal:  Yeah, once again - 
Jodi:  It's so funny, you know, I didn't get the meaning of my name.  I think our names have meaning.  Our names are so meaningful, of course, right?  You know that, cause you're name is so meaningful.  Your name is way more meaningful.
Teal:  Oh!  You've go two of em' so what are you talkin' about?
Jodi:  My name is arousing.  "Jodi" is...
Teal:  I didn't know you long enough to say that!  I would have picked that.
Jodi:  "Jodi" is a 3 in numerology, the arousing number.  So, and "Leib" is love, so it has a softcore...quality.
Teal:  Softcore, shall we add the word "porn"?  No.
Jodi:  No, we shant!  So, but I love Teal.  I'm wearing teal, especially for you and I didn't even know it was going to be you because that's the magic of synergy.  How do you like that?
Teal:  Synergy is a good thing.
Jodi:  How has synergy influenced you?  Or what have you notice about synergy?  Do you notice synergy in the world?
Teal:  I don't want to speak too much about something I'm not totally familiar about.  I know about energies, now, help me understand about synergy.  What do you really mean by synergy so I can respond?
Jodi:  Synergy means, "Here is Teal performing tonight, and here comes Jodi wearing a teal shirt."  Synergy would be two people knowing each other from distant lands.  Or two people knowing each other for whatever reason and running into each other at the right moment in time, bringing you a message from the soul.
Teal:  Didn't Sting write a Police album, oh yeah, "Synchronicity"! 
Jodi:  Synchronicity.  Yes.
Teal:  Is that kind of like synergy?
Jodi:  It's a brilliant album.  Synchronicity.  Yes.  Synchronicity is the exact moment in time.  Synchronicity is a timing measuring.  I think a timing mechanism, like you're absolutely in timing sync, that would make me think of synchronicity more.  I mean, it doesn't have to be.  It can be a synchronicity of minds.  You're in sync.  You're connected mentally and spiritually.  
Teal:  I got what you mean.
Jodi:  Synergy is on an energetic level, where, and this is just my perception.  Synergy, it's probably the same thing, but I think synergy conveys more of a flowing river of movement.
Teal:  It's not just a coincidence.
Jodi:  Right.
Teal:  Not to say that synchronicity is or isn't a coincidence.  I think that everything happens for a reason.  Everything is substantial, everything has meaning.  These things that we remember the most, whether it be dropping your toothbrush in the sink that one morning, or meeting somebody at the front door of a club, who happens to be wearing the color of your name, and that ten minutes or twenty minutes later you're going be able to do this really cool, in-depth interview and really get to know this person.  So, thanks for letting me interview you!
Jodi:  You have been interviewing me!  I got interviewed tonight.  But, that's okay.  Talk It Out is a conversation.  It's about you, but I end up in it somehow.  
Teal:  It's great that my first taped interview has been with somebody who is as interesting as yourself, and interviews as easy.  I'm an easy going guy.  Yeah, I'm emotional.  Yeah, I can be a bit intense and high strung, and yes, it kind of goes with the territory, but if the person that I'm talking to is just a blank slate and doesn't have those rivers, and hills and valleys, rivers and lakes and streams and oceans and tidal waves...
Jodi:  Ha!
Teal:  Then fuck it!  It doesn't help the conversation along.  I can sit here and tell you about songs all night long.
Jodi:  Right.  Shoe sizes and what not.
Teal:  But if you're really gonna dig deep into my head and ask me about things about what inspires me as far as the energy, and synergy and the synchronicity, that's - .
Jodi:  Yeah.  I'm interested in exploring.
Teal:  Exploring is a good thing.  Writing is an exploration.
Jodi:  Totally.
Teal:  You don't know what's going to happen when the pen hits the paper.  You're moving your hand in these certain ways that you're making these little symbols and lines that tell us, "Oh, that's what that means."
Jodi:  See.  You make Talk It Out worth it.  You make me remember that it's worth it for me to do this.  
Teal:  How long have you been doing this?
Jodi:  I've been interviewing musicians officially, professionally...for about a year and a half I've hosted the TV show, Talk It Out.  I started do these interviews, like not on camera, just checking it out with a tape recorder, just a few months ago.  I did my very first band interview in 1999.  I interviewed a band called Octopus, and we talked about gun laws and gun control.  It was right after Columbine.  
Teal:  Oh, wow!
Jodi:  It was fascinating.  It made me really realize that musicians are very important people.
Teal:  We wear our hearts on our sleeves.
Jodi:  Yep.
Teal:  We're completely susceptible to society and susceptible to things that happen in our surroundings.  We can't help but not only evoke emotion about but try to paint the picture of that emotion.  Write and draw symbols that remind us of that feeling right when we felt it.  It gives those other people that don't necessarily maybe even have the time to set aside to do things like that, to paint a picture, to write a story, to sing a song, write a song, write a poem, dance it, dance a jig, whatever you're going to do.  I guess it's just an ability.
Jodi:  Music is the guts in life.  I think.  Music is somewhere deep in the stomach, it exists for me.  Somewhere deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down.  I love Courtney Love.  You know, she gets a lot of rap from people but-
Teal:  Her circumstance when she got into the game was horrible.
Jodi:  Well, she says in her early music, not her earliest, but her first Hole album.
Teal:  Was it Miss World?
Jodi:  Yeah, I think.  I can't remember what it was.  Something " deep in me."  But it's Courtney, so it's piercing.
Teal:  Right.
Jodi:  I'll think of it.
Teal:  In that not quite off-pitch voice but she's kind of screaming and kind of rasping at the same time.
Jodi:  "I buried you baby, deep in me" or something.  Something like that.  I'll have to think of it.  I think it's on her first album.  You know, my memory is fading.  I can't even remember ex-boyfriends' names.  I forgot half my ex-boyfriends' names today.  I went to the Celebrity All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium and I couldn't remember half the celebrities' names.
Teal:  Wasn't that tonight?
Jodi:  Yeah, it was this afternoon.  I was only there for batting practice.
Teal:  Oh, wow.
Jodi:  Cause I was supposed to do this other interview and that kind of fell through.  But the person I went with is a Stand-Up Comic and he had to do a show in San Diego.  So, it was all good.  I needed to be here at this showcase anyway for All*Access.  "I buried you baby, deep in me."  Something like that. 
Teal:  Her, Stevie Nicks, are the really powerful female singers that don't just, I'm not going to say wear the stereotype of the female singer/songwriter, but they just get it.  Just like your Eddie Vedder -
Jodi:  Pretty on the Inside.
Teal:  Pretty on the Inside?
Jodi:  That's the album, sorry.
Teal:  No, you were thinking about it the whole time.
Jodi:  It just came out.  Pretty on the Inside.  Okay.
Teal:  Female singers like that definitely get it.  I listen to just as much, I'll say it again, Joni Mitchell, as I do, you know -
Jodi:  A lot of people love Joni.  There are some people that really, really love Joni.  I love her too, but I don't get her as much as some guys do.  What do you think it is about her that men love so much?
Teal:  She'll write songs about herself and about being a woman.  And I'm not gonna say that it's like a cheating into a woman's intuition.  I think, and then she's got other songs like "Car on a Hill", and songs that are very timely, obviously inspired by political unrest at the time, a lot of things she heard and felt and felt compelled to write a song about.  Janis Joplin is just that girl power.  And the fact that their voices hit a higher register, I feel more drawn.
Jodi. Hmm.
Teal:  I know I didn't really give you a concrete answer right there, but I-
Jodi:  So their voices were just so powerful or empowering or saying something important? 
Teal:  Comforting too.  They're comforting to listen to.  Very easy for me to listen to.
Jodi:  I feel a little bit like Joan Biaz, meets Madonna.
Teal:  Okay.  I can't wait to hear your beats.
Jodi:  I know.  It'll happen.  It's funny, because you think, like what we were talking about, like having to run a marathon really fast right away, and it's just not that way for me with my music.  I pursue it, if the universe will have me make it, but I don't just want to do one song, of course I want to communicate music throughout the rest of my lifetime as an art form.  I worry in my acting career about time and how quickly I need to make it happen and how the timing is now, and it's just because there's sexism and ageism that I've experienced.
Teal:  You're an actress also?
Jodi:  Yeah.  With music, it's gonna fall into the right hands.  If I can be as inspiring as I can be, it'll last the time. I don't know.  I'm just here to communicate with the universe.
Teal:  A buddy of mine that I was talking to last night said, "If you stick it in long enough, if you hang on long enough in whatever business you're gonna try to do, you'll win by default."
Jodi:  Right.
Teal:  "You're just going to be the last one standing."  You know?  So drive on.  It's cool that you're so multi-talented already.  You're so interested in writing as far as writing articles and interviews and getting into the minds of musicians, or whatever else you're interviewing.  And you're a singer and a songwriter...so-
Jodi:  Thank you.  Hats off to you too.  You're a very special person, and I know that.  I just wish you all the best on your journey with your music.  I know you're going to make it.  You're so young, and have such a powerful voice already,  strong mental frame, dedication and determination with your craft. 
Teal:  You've got to work hard.
Jodi:  That can only help you.  Like I said, there's a lot of riff raff people who've got a lot of fans too, you know, there's a lot of people that like them, but that doesn't mean that they'll have the opportunity to really touch lives, to really help people.  They probably will, they'll touch the lives.  Musicians will touch the lives of everybody and there's no hierarchy of who's better, there's just not, but what I want to say, is thank you for accepting the opportunity to Talk It Out.  I'm grateful to you.
Teal:  Absolutely!  Any time.
Jodi:  And I just hope you allow other interviewers the opportunity to get to know you and to help you and support you along your journey.
Teal:  Thank you!

Teal and Jodi in the San Fernando Valley

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Talk It Out with Jodi Leib's Teal Interview was taped in August, 2003.  Talk It Out (c) Jodi Leib, 2003. Reprint by Permission at talkitout@jodileib.com.