Zach Sang Show

Dior Goodjohn is an exuberant human with a capital E. Sit her on the couch, she just goes, goes, goes, so it’s not surprising that she’s been modeling and acting since she was in single digits… and now she has her sights set on singing too.

We chat about being raised in West Hollywood, her Iranian roots, and of course her biggest role to date, as the spiky Clarisse La Rue, who’s evolving fast and getting more screen time as Disney’s Percy Jackson & the Olympians heads into season 2 (and 3).

Jessi’s back! It’s been a minute since we last talked to her and about a year since she was in the public eye in a serious way. She had to take a break, the situation got cleared up, but she’s still clearly feeling the repercussions — and here, for the first time, she sets the record straight. Now she’s back with her new EP P.M.S., kicking off with her addictive new single ‘Newsflash’ with Jadakiss.

She’s as fiery, funny, and unconventional as ever, but for all her feistyness the 36-year-old...

Argentinian-born, Barcelona-based creative powerhouse Nathy Peluso joins us in the studio to talk about it all: her beginnings studying theatre and writing poetry for cash, on the spot on a typewriter on the streets of Barca, and how she moved from rapping to singing to her latest salsa EP, MALPORTADA, a genre that’s been a guiding force for her since childhood. We discuss her thoughts on what salsa purists might think, male rappers getting riled up when she swooped in and snagged the Latin Grammy for ‘Aprender a Amar’ back in 2024 (she’s won four in total).

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A very welcome return to the couch for Kevin Jonas, who after Nick and Joe, is finally entering the solo scene with his single ‘Changing.’ He joins us to discuss the new Jonas Brothers movie, A Very Jonas Christmas Movie, plus the future of the band, Nick’s new solo work, how they make it all work after 20 years in the game, what it was like for them to get back together, and the response from fans now. Plus Kevin talks about the tough times with his brothers, that time they got dropped (so crazy!), what it was like steppi...

Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless came by to talk about her new Christmas EP "Taylor Momsen's Pretty Reckless Christmas," filming the Grinch and reuniting with Jim Carrey after 25 years while honoring Sound Garden and the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, the band's new song "For I Am Death," and more!

Stream "Taylor Momsen's Pretty Reckless Christmas" ►► https://tinyurl.com/524tu32d

Chapters:

01:24 - Growing Up with Rock & Roll

03:02 - Acting Career & Gossip Girl

04:23 - Forming The Pretty Reckless

08:36 - “Where...

Little Miss came by talk about their new single "Little Miss," going from 6 to 4, rebranding away from VCHA, potential fandom names and their experience on A2K!

Stream "Little Miss" ►►https://tinyurl.com/4m2et383

Chapters:

01:38 K-Pop Training & Performance Focus

02:49 Creative Control & Songwriting Process

04:44 Little Miss & Musical Direction

07:03 Group Relationship & Bond

07:58 Defining Moment as Four Members

09:59 Rebranding & Name Change

14:58 Future Music & Album Plans

19:42 Personal Stories & Emotions in Music

21:43 Korean Culture & Training Expe...

It’s a been a minute — or six years — since we last caught up with Rita Ora and a lot has happened: she got married (to director Taika Waititi), she release an album (2023’s You & I), she’s hosted so many TV shows, and really gone deep with the acting (Queen of Hearts in The Descendants, opposite Brandy no less). We talk about all this plus her early years from interning at a London record studio to getting signed by Jay Z and moving to NYC, not to mention her dance roots, this new era and — oh my god — collaborating...

It’s only been 18 months since we last had Allie X on the couch talking about her third album Girl with No Face, but she’s already back with her new, fourth record, Happiness Is Going to Get You — a quasi-concept things of wonder, a repetitive piano note which begins the album and rings out as its closing coda. A record that centers around the time traveling hirsute character that is Infant Marie, with songs that examine male emotional repression, reuniting with oneself, a shitty uncle as a metaphor for the music industry, and so much more.

Duration: 00:47:57

Marcus King is back with us to unpack the making of Darling Blue — his first reunion with the Marcus King Band since 2018, and a heartfelt ode to the mountains of his home, his roots, his wife, his struggles, and everything in between.

The 29-year-old’s as laidback, candid, and funny as ever. He talks about what he learned from Tyler Childers, panic attacks, depression, and microdosing, the appeal of tough love and his spitfire wife Briely (and covering her in honey), being the black sheep of Nashville, and so much more. Make sure to chec...

Last time we had Noah in the studio was 2022 so there’s a lot to catch up on.

We talk about her deeply collaborative, deluxe version of Americana-country album, I WANT MY LOVED ONES TO GO WITH ME — which features collabs with everyone from Fleet Foxes to Bill Callahan, Blake Shelton to Ella Langley, and her brother Braison and her dad Billy Ray and even her grandad. We talk about all this plus working with her bestie Orville Peck who jumps in on pod via phone, stepping into a co-production role, her fiancé Pinkus, her horse Constantine (and h...

Hot on the heels of our interview with Audrey Nuna — the singing voice of Mira in KPop Demon Hunters — we’ve got Ejae in the hot seat. Her journey to become the singing voice of Rumi is pretty different. The Korean-American singer spent 11 years as a trainee and was dropped before she debuted, ultimately finding her way into songwriting, via Tisch School of Arts, and even returning to the very KPop company who dropped her to pen hits for other acts like Red Velvet, Twice, and Le Sserafim.

We get the skinny on what it was...

Kathy Griffin needs no introduction. This fiery redhead has been making people laugh and causing a ruckus with her unapologetic tea-spilling celebrity anecdotes since the 90s. A self-proclaimed stand-up addict, she joins us in the studio for the first time ever — on her 65th birthday — to talk about her weekly YouTube show, Talk Your Head Off, and her new comedy special, also on YouTube, My Life On the PTSD List. The title is of course a play on her groundbreaking, Emmy-winning reality show My Life On the D List, which was one of the genre and era-defining Bravo shows in t...

Faouzia’s been on the brink for a minute, having first started dropping songs ten years ago and with a catalog that boasts collabs with everyone from David Guetta to Kelly Clarkson to John Legend.

And yet it’s only now that she’s releasing her debut album, Film Noir, independently. It’s an album steeped in the 25-year-old’s classically trained background, her Moroccan-Canadian roots, and her romantic trials and tribulations. She joins us on the couch for the first time to talk about all this, plus her move from Atlantic to her own label...

P1Harmony returns to the studio (it’s been about a year since we caught up with them), to talk about their latest EP — and first full English language collection — EX. The title track includes the line: “Every girl deserves to have her exploration / Have a little fun without an explanation,” and we couldn’t agree more. We discuss the songs on this new EP, meditation and stress management, their songwriting process, aspirations, and of course the Harmony Adventures on their YouTube channel. Let’s just say Princess Theo’s been busy…

Stream "EX" ►►https://p1h-official.l...

Lesbian Jesus — so anointed by her fans — is a force to be reckoned with. Artist, actor, director, dancer, New York Times bestselling author. It’s wild! And we’ve finally got her on the couch to discuss her newest novel, the Victorian-set, YA page-turner, Where There’s Room For Us. She discusses the novel’s inception — inspired by her meet-cute with her now fiancé Becca Tilley (of The Bachelor) — and we find out all about her proposal too.

We also do some deep dives into her acting catalogue from Disney’s Lemonade Mouth to Jem and the Hologra...

CORTIS are not like other K-pop crews. Yes they ultimately trained like idols, but the quintet spent years within Big Hit Music as songwriters/producers for others — they knew of each other before they were actually brought together as a group (more on that in their interview). They only just debuted with their first EP Color Outside the Lines this past September and the collection pops. Featuring a stellar collaboration with Teeezo Touchdown, their songs like ‘FaSHioN’ (inspired by a trip vintage shopping on Fairfax in LA) showcase a harder edge, a certain nod to heroes Brockhampton, Odd Future, and AS...

Justice Smith has been carving a name for himself since his big break in Baz Lurhmann’s The Get Down (2016) as an actor who balances big blockbusters with hefty legacies and built-in fanbases (Jurassic Park, Pokemon, Dungeons & Dragons), with subversive indie films such as A24’s triumph I Saw The TV Glow with its broader trans metaphor, The American Society of Magical Negroes, and high school TV series Genera+ion.

Now he’s joining the Now You See Me franchise with its latest instalment Now You See Me: Now You Don’t — alon...

Lukas Gage is everywhere. He’s in everything! White Lotus, Euphoria, Smile 2, Love, Victor, Fargo, the film of the year, Companion… and now he has a memoir out, I Wrote This for Attention, which, as you might imagine is a page turner. The San Diego-born actor only turned 30 this year, but he’s definitely lived a life so far.

In the book (and on the couch) he covers his tumultuous upbringing, rebellion, drugs, rehab wilderness camp, and sadly abuse, plus his first decade in Hollywood, hustling hard and dealing with Borderline Personality Disorder, with the sa...

Long Island-born Julia Wolf has been dropping intimate confessionals since 2019, making waves in 2021 with catchy, synthy-pop cuts like ‘Resting Bitch Face Pt. 2’ and ‘Falling In Love,’ before signing to a major label and dropping her debut full length Girls In Purgatory that same year.

In 2025 she surprised everyone by dropping her third album, PRESSURE, via AWAL. Not only was she back on her DIY hustle — she’s often produced her artwork and creative direction from her bedroom base — but Julia Wolf 2.0, with the help of producer Scro, has pivoted away from her smooth pop grooves to a t...

Tis the season! Well not exactly, but it’s always that season for Pentatonix, the jaw-dropping a cappella crew who spend around 11 months of the year thinking about the next holiday season. And this one incoming will bring you a new album — Christmas In the City — and a tour.

They stopped in to discuss their reality TV origin story, getting dropped, virality, when’s that evolution of Taylor Swift dropping, cellist/beatboxer Kevin Olusola’s life-changing time in China (his fluency in Mandarin is a delight to behold), and of course they serve up a little s...

Mary Elizabeth Winstead has, so far, had a wildly diverse career, but there is one genre that continues to crop up again and again — horror/thrillers are definitely in the 40-year-old’s sweetspot. From her early days on witchy soap Passions to Wolf Lake to Final Destination 3 to 10 Cloverfield Lane to Black Christmas, Winstead loves the rush of being creeped out and freaked out.

The North Carolina-born actor joins us on the couch to discuss her filmography, in particular her latest work, a remake of the 1992 classic The Hand The Rocks The Cradle, this time...

Actor Madeleine McGraw joins us on the couch for the first time to discuss her return as Gwen — Finney’s protective younger sister from 2021’s Black Phone — now back for Black Phone 2. Ethan Hawke’s horrifying character, The Grabber, might have died in the first film, but he’s back too. Turns out his malevolent force can’t be contained by the grave.

Originally based on a short story by Joe Hill — horror maestro Stephen King’s son — this sequel finds the siblings several years on from the first installment, now in a wild winter at a kid’s ca...

We’re joined by Ashnikko IRL for the first time ever — prior to this it was a pandemic zoom — and she’s a trip, a delight. Decked out in all her finery, the 29-year-old discusses her latest album Smoochies, easily her best work to date. It’s smart, sassy, sexy, give no-f**ks pop, full of wild wordplay, vivid imagery, and hooks to high heaven. But for all its in your face-ness, Ashnikko’s the absolute master of sneaking vulnerability and realness into her party-pop juggernauts.

We talk about all this, the connection to her last rec...

We welcome Maggie Lindemann back to the couch for the umpteenth time to discuss her finest body of work yet: i feel everything; a title which just happens to be tattooed on her forearm. By all accounts it’s been a tumultuous couple of years and a wild summer of fun, and she’s poured all her experiences into this cathartic second record, out on her own label Swixxzaudio. This time round she's mining 80s darkwave and collaborating with Max Fry, The Warning, and Julia Wolf.

We discuss all this plus dive deep into the...

Nine years after Khalid joined us on the couch for the first time and he’s back with his new fourth album, After the Sun Goes Down, a hefty record (17 tracks!) that joyful, sexy, and explorative. Hot off the heels of his 2024 record Sincere, it was at the end of that year that Khalid was publicly outed online, thanks to a years-old ex who, in the 27-year-old’s own words, weaponized Khalid’s against him. The singer discusses all this — while he was out with his community, why his personal life wasn’t for public consumption and how his experience...

LANY join us on the couch for the first time to discuss their sixth album Soft, a collection which reckons with the big stuff that comes along with being in your late 30s. What does acting one’s age really mean? How do you balance the passion for music and your career, and your personal life and family? How do you stay vulnerable and in touch with your emotions — yes, soft — in a world that can harden you? And, what happens when you stare death in the face, as singer Paul Klein did last year when he got in a Vesp...

David Henrie — best known as Justin Russo on Wizards of Waverly Place — joins us on the couch for the first time to talk all things Wizards Beyond Waverly Place Season 2. The new series reunites Henrie and Selena Gomez as adult versions of their beloved characters, while introducing a whole next-gen cast of young wizards.

Gomez pops in for a few episodes each season — and yes, David teases what’s up with her in Season 2 — but she’s also been instrumental behind the scenes, helping bring the reboot to life from casting to marketing. We dive into th...

Joining us on the couch for the first time ever is Zac Brown, the lynchpin of the Zac Brown Band. For over a year he’s been hunkering down, ideating and prepping for the biggest shows of his life: a residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas kicking off December 5. At the same time he’ll be dropping his eighth album Love & Fear. It’s a record that delves into his personal story and his fraught childhood for the first time ever. What it was like to deal with a family grappling with mental illness, moving out at just 14, and th...

As Artie Abrams in Glee, Kevin McHale graced our screens for six seasons and we’re thrilled to have the much beloved, seriously funny and astute actor on the couch for the first time. We get super nerdy — and bring in head Gleek Kelsey — to dive into the cult of the culture-shaping show, the particular era it existed in, the unique bond of the cast and crew, and the tragedies they experienced too. McHale, who as a child dreamt of being weatherman and was once in boyband called NLT (look it up), hosts the podcast And That's What You REALLY...

Zara joins us on the couch for the who-knows-what-time. The 27-year-old Swedish pop powerhouse has been stopping by to chat for the past nine years and it’s always a joy.

This time round she’s in to chat about her newly released fifth record Midnight Sun, her best long player yet. Celebratory, sexy, cheeky, and deliciously honest, we talk about its creation — alongside her longtime collaborator MNEK; largely in Jamaica — and find out the stories behind hits like the drum ‘n’ bass leaning title track, ‘Puss Puss,’ the house-influenced ‘Hot & Sexy,’ ‘Pretty Ugly,’ and how Tiffany Pollard...

Former Why Don’t We member Corbyn Besson joins us on the couch again to talk about his forthcoming EP (out early next year), and his brand new era of artistry. He’s been working hard on his choreo! He’s been spending time in Seoul and writing with Twice’s Tzuyu on their banging collab “Blink,” he’s been jumping on Two Friends’ dance track “No One Else” and playing Red Rocks and Lollapalooza! He’s been writing for BTS and working with R&B king Jeremih. 

A lot to get into. Plus we get the latest on hi...

Arguably one of the best Aussie exports since Tame Impala, along with artists like Amyl & the Sniffers and Spacey Jane, duo Royel Otis are breathing new life rock music. Having made waves back in 2022 with the Surf Curse-esque bop ‘Oysters in My Pocket,’ their covers of classics like ‘Linger’ by The Cranberries and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s early-Aughts disco devastator ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ sent them to the next level. 

Back with their second record hickey, written in a pressurized few months off from the endless tour of PRATTS & PAIN, with a raft of the top songwriters in t...

Back with her first album in eleven years — Better Broken — we’re so thrilled to have Sarah McLachlan on the couch for the first time. A trailblazing, confessional, slice-of-life songwriter whose music goes for the jugular and resonates to this day, McLachlan broke in the 90s, rising up with the likes of Jewel, Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow, and Alanis Morrissette, to name a few. As artists they had to work ten times harder than their male contemporaries. Imagine a world where the powers that be said: two women on a bill? Nah. Two female artists played back-to-back on the radio...

Icelandic singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Laufey has carved out a singular space between jazz bossanova and Gen Z pop sensibility, and she’s back on the couch to talk about her new, third solo LP A Matter of Time. It’s the next chapter in her coming of age, still whimsical and heady with love (‘Love Girl’), but more lyrically wry — check ‘Mr. Eclectic’ for her cheeky pillorying of the performative, man-splaining dude on a date. She calls this record the marking of the end of her girlhood. 

We also talk about her Icelandic-Chinese roots, advice f...

Once upon a time David Archuleta was a cherub-faced boy with a big voice and a bigger dream. As the runner-up of American Idol season 7 back in 2008, he had 40 million people vote for him. Wrap your brain around that. Since then he’s released solo records, guest starred on Hannah Montana, completed his Mormon mission in Chile, toured, got engaged and unengaged (x3), all the while grappling internally with his sexuality.

We dive into this journey, in particular the last few years as he really came to terms with not only his sexuality (bi to...

Former Why Don’t We member Jack Avery joins us solo on the sofa for the first time. It’s been a minute since we’ve heard from him and by all accounts — his own — he’s really been through it. From struggling to find loyal collaborators post-WDW, to suffering debilitating anxiety attacks, to financial struggles, to finding out his life might be in danger, to co-parenting his six-year-old daughter with his ex, Avery has been dealing with a lot.

He’s gone from being one of the most reticent interviewees (as part of WDW) to being...

Mimi Webb is back on the couch for the first time for the first time since 2022 and boy, has a lot changed. At that point, still riding high from the smash that was ‘House on Fire’ and Mimi hadn’t even released her debut album. Now the British 25-year-old returns with her long-awaited sophomore effort, Confessions, a record that sees her collab with the likes of Julia Michaels, Meghan Trainor, and Amy Allen; a record that’s risen from the ashes of a scrapped second album (only two songs from that collection are ‘Side Effects’ and ‘You Don’t Look At Me The S...

Strap in because a conversation with King Princess is an unstoppable stream of top-notch banter, whipsmart quips, real talk, and tea. Brooklyn-born Mikaela Strauss joins on the couch for the first time to discuss her third album, Girl Violence, her hookiest, most vulnerable record to date. Since dropping ‘1950’ back in 2018 when she was still a teenager (it became a viral sensation; Harry Styles tweeted about it), the singer/producer/multi-instrumentalist has upped the ante with every release.

With Girl Violence the 26-year-old holds a magnifying glass to drama, heartbreak, and “emotional warfare” of lesbian relation...

With songs like ‘Santeria,’ ‘What I Got,’ and ‘Wrong Way,’ ska-punk band Sublime’s music is a forever slice 90s SoCal, their songs ultimately becoming the soundtrack to pop culture from the era and beyond. Tragically, in 1996 singer Bradley Nowell died from a heroin overdose at 28-years-old before the Long Beach trio made it big.

In the subsequent years the remaining members, Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson, joined forces with Rome Ramirez to form Sublime with Rome, but in 2024 they revealed a whole new line-up, making their official live debut at Coachella with Nowell’s son, Jakob tak...

Meet The Runarounds — both the cast of Prime’s new YA series and an actual IRL band comprised of singer/guitarists William Lipton and Axel Ellis, guitarist Jeremy Yun, bassist Jesse Golliher, and drummer Zendé Murdock. We unravel their origin story: who’s known each other since they were kids, who got involved thanks to casting call for a band for the series Outer Banks (another YA series created by Jonas Pate, who also helms this show), and just where do the real life band and the characters they play begin and end. Spoiler alert — there’s a lot of overlap...

Perhaps you know KUN from the reality show Idol Producer and the band Nine Percent. Maybe you’re an OG fan from back in his SWIN days thanks to the Chinese reality show Super Producer. Or maybe you’re a latter day convert from his work on season 2 of Youth with You alongside Lisa of Blackpink, Ella Chen, and Jony J. Any which way you slice it — whether on reality shows or part of a group or as a solo star in his own right — the Wenzhou-born artist has packed a lot into his 27 years. A big deal, a fashion...

Incredibly — given the breadth and heft of his career — this is the first time Tom Odell has hopped on our couch. The English songwriter’s been soul-searching and plundering his own emotional depths to sett to piano-driven pop since 2013, signing to Lily Allen’s short-lived Sony imprint (more on that in the chat), and releasing instant smash ‘Another Love.’ It’s a song that’s taken on a whole new meaning and had a whole new lease of life thanks to TikTok, finding uplifting resonance for many amidst the ongoing Ukranian-Russian war.

Now an independent arti...

He’s a prolific country star who first emerged in 2017, but has been really hitting his stride in the past couple of years, solidifying the buzz with endless tours, high profile collabs with Ella Langley, Luke Combs, Thomas Rhett, and his latest, third album Don’t Mind If I Do (the deluxe just dropped).

The Jacksonville, Alabama former football star joins us in the studio for the first time to talk about building his grassroots fanbase, his time working in construction, his time on Redneck Island (twice!), and getting pelted by bras (and Spanx) onst...

Hall & Oates are the biggest selling American duo in music history. Let that just marinate for a second. The iconic pair made waves through the 70s and 80s with songs like ‘She’s Gone,’ ‘Rich Girl,’ ‘Private Eyes,’ ‘Maneater,’ and ‘I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do),’ to name a scant few, and while they continued to release albums well into their fourth decade, by 2023 they were locked in an acrimonious lawsuit with regards to Oates wanting to sell his stake in their business partnership. As of August 2025 the charttopping duo have resolved the issue, but this is of course a topic we...

John Fogerty will go down as an artist who’s written some of the most enduring songs in modern music: ‘Proud Mary,’ ‘Fortunate Son,’ ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain?,’ ‘Centerfield,’ the list goes on and on. Equally, as the leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival, he’s part of a quartet who will go down in history as having signed one of the most exploitative record contracts ever inked (Fantasy Records, headed up by record exec Saul Zaentz.

Much of Fogerty’s life, while ablaze with creativity and music, has also been colored by the fact that his cata...

Don’t worry — no spoilers here — but the final season of Amazon Prime’s Upload is upon us. The surreally, funny, tech-prophetic series left us all on a cliffhanger at the close of season 3 with Robbie’s character cloned and one of them bites the dust: BUT WHICH ONE!? And who is Robbie Amell? The Canadian actor is commercially successful, prolific, and widely swooned over. He’s been part of big shows that are a part of fabric of people’s childhoods, True Jackson, VP, Scooby Doo, Life with Derek, but he’s also highly motivated and indie-minded: the runaway success...

Self-described as the funniest dude in his high school, Kyle Gordon hit the viral jackpot back in 2023 with his Euro dance spoof song ‘Planet of the Bass,’ inhabiting the character DJ Crazy Times. He’s collabed with Ed Sheeran, shooting a video with him at Courtney Cox’s house (we talk about this), parlaying his clicks into 2024 comedy album Kyle Gordon Is Great. He returns this year — both to the studio and with a new album, the wildly iterative record Kyle Gordon Is Wonderful. On it he parodies everything from nu metal to UK Garage.

In this...

Filipino girl group BINI — made up of Aiah, Colet, Maloi, Gwen, Stacey, Mikha, Jhoanna, and Sheena — join us in the studio for the first time to talk about their early years, how they incorporate Filo culture into their music (OPM = original Filipino music), along with the country’s various dialects. Having initially broken through thanks to 2019’s competition TV show Star Hunt Academy Girls, the eight-piece have released two full lengths and are wowing P-pop fans (and beyond) on the world stage. We talk to the girls about their different roles within the group and we dispel some myths, learn Fi...

Meet CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso, aka Catriel Guerreiro and Ulises Guerriero, an Argentinian duo who have been buds since finding themselves in the same music school as kids with the same last name.

Although the pair first emerged in this iteration back in 2018, it wasn’t until Autumn 2024 when they headed into the NPR offices to reimagine their music for the Tiny Desk Concert format that C&P became a global concern. It’s a performance that forms the basis of their latest EP, PAPOTA, a performance that distills both their cheeky attitude and wry...

You might know him from the 2016 viral sensation ‘Dat $tick,’ but Rich Brian is understandably keen to leave that infamy behind. The Indonesian rapper’s been out of the spotlight for six years so we find out what went down (it’s relationship related), his epic new record WHERE IS MY HEAD?, and the meticulous world-building that comes along with it. We also discuss his early years in Indonesia as part of a family Christian rock group, learning English (and pretty much everything) from YouTube, his collabs and run-ins with everyone from Ski Mask The Slump God to Pharrell Williams...

If you’re of a certain age you grew up with Alyson Stoner — the dancer in the Missy Elliot video for ‘Work It,’ the little girl in Mike’s Super Short Show, Cheaper by the Dozen, Camp Rock, Step Up, and so many more. For a time they were a Disney darling… until they weren’t. Behind the scenes Stoner was struggling to grow up and find their place in an industry that they didn’t even have ambitions for in the first place.

Now retrained in mental health and working hard to improve child labor laws...

Mark Tuan didn’t grow up with dreams of being a singer or K-pop idol — which makes the success he achieved with GOT7 and now as a solo star even more bananas. He joins us in the studio for the first time as a solo artist to talk about everything from his beginnings getting scouted at school in LA to the reality of being a K-pop trainee, juggling school work, vocal and choreo lessons, and learning a new language in a foreign land. The self-described homebody and fan-described Quiet Savage tells us the story behind his 2022 solo album The Othe...

Manhattan-born Chilean singer Paloma Rocío Castillo Astorga joins us in the studio for the first time to discuss her second album CODiGOS DE MUÑEKA, meaning Girl Codes. Just as her 2021 album, Sueños de Dalí, explores the many facets of Paloma Mami, so this follow-up digs deeper, but finds her in a looser, freer, more confident state of creativity. This time round she opened her up R&B-reggaeton-urbano grooves to collabs with everyone from Puerto Rican superstar Rauw Alejandro to Chilean innovators like Pailita and El Jordan 23 and Ithanny, to Brazil’s Marcianeke, to name a few.

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Joining us in the studio, just before he jetted off to New Zealand to film the hotly anticipated new Evil Dead movie, is Hunter Doohan, the 31-year-old Arkansas-born actor that you undoubtedly know best as Tyler Galpin, the barista-turned-Tim Burton monster in Netflix smash Wednesday.

He settles in to chat season 2, discussing his character’s evolution — and how one even preps for the role of an orphaned murderous monster-cum-love interest — Lady Gaga joining the cast, his audition with Jenna Ortega (and working with her generally), baby oil application, and seaon 2’s dom-sub undertones.

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He needs no introduction. He’s in 5 Seconds of Summer. And he also has a solo album to talk about. (If you haven’t heard ‘give me a break!’ ft Waterparks, do so immediately.) So he’s joining us on the couch, all on his own for the first time ever, to talk about SIDEQUEST. Except actually this is the second time solo on our couch. Clifford popped in four months ago to talk about the record, and we get into why we’re doing a little reshoot.

In this conversation really runs the gamut: the 2...

We caught up with Quadeca a little bit last month when he crashed the Kevin Abstract interview with Love Spells, and thanks to overwhelming demand, here he is solo and in-depth. Still just 24 years old, Quadeca, aka Benjamin Fernando Barajas Lasky, has been extremely online for almost half his life. Starting his YouTube channel back in 2012, putting up Fifa videos, then becoming known as a YouTube rapper, getting in spats with KSI, and eventually swerving into more experimental sonic territory, releasing his own brain-bending records as well as working with others like Abstract and Danny Brown.

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A whole 10 months since she last sat on our couch and Jessie Murph is back — all in pink with a Priscilla Presley bouffant — to talk about her new album Sex Hysteria. It’s a collection that flays with its honesty, filtering the 20-year-old’s relationship experiences — familial, romantic, and otherwise — into lyrics that are searing, sassy, and sad too (‘The Man Who Came Back’ we’re looking at you).

There’s some solid good-time bangers too ‘Touch Me Like a Gangster’ and ‘Blue Strips’ with Sexyy Red to name a couple. We talk about all this, the Alabama-born s...

It’s been a minute or six years since DJ and internet prankster Dillon Francis dropped by. Since then a lot has happened — endless Vegas residencies, sobriety, and, it seems, he’s developed fatigue of The Drop. Naturally the LA-native is still busy crafting drops: he has a new release with German house DJ Marten Hørger for one, and a whole punk-pop project popping too (no drops there).

We also talk about Diplo, his falling out and reconciliation with DJ Snake, the young artists he’s buzzing about, reality TV, plundering Splice, and how after...

From being a sportsman in his youth to leaving it all behind to be a Kpop trainee, to touring the world with GOT7, to going solo and independent, Jackson Wang’s many phases could fill a memoir and he’s only 31.

Fresh from traipsing round Mumbai, India, Jackson joined us again — for the first time in five years — to discuss this new era of his career and his third album MAGICMAN 2. It’s a record preceded by a year off, a necessary reboot, a recalibration — in short, Jackson took control. His sound is different and so is hi...

Keshi joins us IRL in the studio for the first time — last time was peak-pandemic vibes — and it gets real, real fast. He maps his beginnings as an oncology nurse and the moment he decided to make the leap to music and we go deep into his process — now on his latest LP Requiem versus his debut Gabriel — his tricked-out home studio, his abiding John Mayer nerdery (right down to the style of tattoos), and the striking the balance between his public and private spheres.

The 30-year-old Houston, Texas-born artist also speaks movingly about the loss...

Lauren Spencer Smith returns to the studio for a third time to talk about her latest LP THE ART OF BEING A MESS. We go deep real fast with the British-born, British Colombia-based, American Idol alum. Just like her music, in conversation the 21-year-old is candid, raw, and funny, unpicking the true-life stories behind ‘IF KARMA DOESN’T GET YOU (I WILL),’ ‘Looking Up,’ ‘things you never say,’ and more. Her emotions are close to the surface; her songs, small exorcisms. The pain of grief, the disappointment of divorce, the fiery rage of being underestimated.

We also talk...

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We are so excited to welcome the cast of the latest Zombies installment, Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires: Meg Donnelly as Addison, Milo Manheim as Zed, and new characters Freya Skye as the day walker Nova, and Malachai Barton as Victor, the vampire.

We get into the new movie, which takes place outside of Seabrook for...

Amazon Music is offering Prime members a 4 Month Free Trial of Amazon Music Unlimited! Sign up here: https://www.tryamazonmusic.com/zach and enjoy your favorite music, podcasts, and audiobooks all summer long!

Dream-pop band The Marías have captivating audiences since their nimble, lush EPs Superclean Vol. I and II, in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Led by frontwoman Maria Zardoya’s slinky, sultry vocals and anchored by Josh Conway’s cinematic grooves, their music feels instinctual and familiar, with lyrics that go for the emotional jugular. Slot them seamlessly between Cigarettes After Sex and Mazzy Star...

Amazon Music is offering Prime members a 4 Month Free Trial of Amazon Music Unlimited! Sign up here: https://www.tryamazonmusic.com/zach and

enjoy your favorite music, podcasts, and audiobooks all summer long!

Belinda Peregrín Schüll — known mononymously as Belinda, or Beli to her inner circle — has been famous for longer than she’s been alive. The Madrid-born, Mexico City-raised multi-hyphenate first rose to fame acting in telenovelas like Aventuras en el Tiempo and Cómplices Al Rescate (in which she played twins separated at birth, including the iconic Silvana), rising to...

Kylie Cantrall is now forever synonymous with the character of Red — the headstrong daughter of the Queen of Hearts — thanks to last year’s smash hit Descendents: The Rise of Red, the latest installment in the Disney Descendents franchise (and of course a new one is on the way). Now 20-years-old, LA-born Kylie has been laser-focused on a career in music, dance, and acting since she started her YouTube channel Hello Kylie, at just eight years old.

Joining us in the studio for the first time she was also super excited to discuss her 90s-earl...

Alert! This episode does contain Ironheart spoilers!

In the space of eight short years Dominique Thorne has gone from her big break in Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, to starring as RiRi Wiliams in Disney’s Ironheart series, with roles in Judas and the Black Messiah and Wakanda Forever along the way. The Brooklyn-born, Trinidadian has featured in hard-hitting, critically acclaimed smashes at every step.

The 27-year-old joins us in the studio for the first time to talk about her early years, fallin...

You will know Jenna Davis as the cheeky but saccharine-sweet but totally lethal voice of AI robot M3GAN, now back in M3GAN 2.0. But Davis has been on her grind since she was just 10-years-old, building up her credits not only as a voice actor, but in front of the camera, all the while honing her skills as a singer too. Now, at 21, she’s dropping her debut LP, Where Did That Girl Go?, a sassy country-pop, coming-of-age collection with cuts from the likes of Kelsea Ballerini and plenty of co-writes as well.

We...

Frankie Grande has been on one heck of a journey. From reality shows to Broadway performances, cocaine addiction to eight years sober, wild nights in dark clubs as his alter ego Ferosha to throuples to meeting his hubby line-dancing and having a Star Wars-themed wedding.

He joins us on the couch for the first time ever to discuss all this, and go deep on his riotous, smutty, sexy debut album Hotel Rock Bottom — which as Zach rightfully points out, has a song on it for every gay — and features many personal stories from Grande’s colo...

Charlotte Lawrence has had a crazy life. The 25-year-old daughter of actor (and music supervisor) Christa Miller (Scrubs, Shrinking) television producer and showrunner Bill (also Scrubs, Ted Lasso, Spin City), Lawrence has grown up in a rarefied environment. The kind of environment where Ed Sheeran can plausibly gift her her first guitar because he showed up at the Lawrence house for her parents’ Sunday night hootenanny. True story. She talks about it.

She also talks about what it’s like going out — and sometimes collaborating with — Andrew Watt, her boyfriend of five years, who also hap...

Calum Hood has always been the quietest, most reticent member of world conquering, chart-topping power-pop band 5 Seconds of Summer, but today we get him on the couch solo — for the first time ever — and it turns out the 29-year-old has plenty to say.

His debut solo album ORDER chaos ORDER is an intimate journey during which Hood takes in the whirlwind past 15 years, his first love, his first heartbreak. It’s introspective and it’s raw and it’s the soundtrack to his life. A collaboration with producer and songwriter Jackson Phillips, aka Day Wave, that...

Actor Emily Alyn Lind joins us in the studio for the first time to talk about the hotly anticipated book-to-screen adaptation We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, which was a bestseller back in 2014, becoming a booktok phenomenon during the pandemic.

It’s a series that’s a hotbed of wealth, deception, rivalry, and intrigue, and she unpacks it all for us. And yes, there are some spoilers, so beware!

Plus we discuss what it was like growing up in a showbiz family (her mom is an established actor known prim...

Benito Skinner is having a moment. The 31-year-old first captured the internet’s attention back in 2018 with his on-point impressions of everyone from the Kardashians to Timothee Chalamet to Billie Eilish, not to mention original characters like Jenni the TMI hairdresser and realtor Deliverance Richards. But all the while, between the online skits and the stand-up nights in Bushwick, he was gestating the script for what is now Prime Video’s Overcompensating.

Based on his own experiences as a closeted football player heading to college, finding his people and grappling with his sexuality, Overcompensating is a...

The last time 28-year-old Kevin Abstract joined us in the studio was as part of BROCKHAMPTON way back in 2019. At that point he was already three solo albums deep (if you include his 2014 mixtape MTV1987), but as the founding member of sprawling, genre-splicing “boyband,” BROCKHAMPTON were still the centripetal force. By 2022 the group which was formed partially with friends in high school and partially via a Kanye West fan forum, were on permanent hiatus. Never say never, the members are still collabing here and there, and that includes with Abstract, but in the meantime the rapper/singer/producer/creative dire...

Best known as Lizzie McGuire’s pesky little brother Mike (and his role in Cory in the House), these days Jake Thomas isn’t only an actor, but a director, writer, photographer, Japanese speaker, and Pokemon aficionado with a social media presence that’s both genuine and nostalgic. Now, after working on the video game MindsEye for the better part of five years, utilizing state of the art performance capture technology, the 35-year-old is expanding his skillset again, playing tech billionaire mogul Marco Silva. He joins us in the studio to discuss this latest project, plus we take a trip d...

These days she needs no introduction, as the magnetic co-star in Wicked, breathing new life into the character of Elphaba, but Cynthia Erivo has been wowing audiences on the stage and screen (and in the ears) for years. With a knack for inhabiting and redefining iconic characters she’s been Celie in The Color Purple and Harriet Tubman in Harriet, not to mention also playing Aretha Franklin. She’s almost EGOT-status (only the Oscar has eluded her thus far), and now she’s back with her ambitious second album I Forgive You, which took a staggering 396 days to make — often in...

Ever since she emerged at the tail-end of the 2000s as Marina and the Diamonds, Marina Diamandis has been a blast of fresh air with her elastic vocals, indelible left-of-center pop hooks, and fantastical world-building. From her playful but probing explorations of female archetypes on second record Electra Heart, to the technicolor disco of Froot, to the apocalyptic pop of Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land, the Welsh-Greek singer is in a state of constant evolution. All of which we get into in this conversation.

Returning with her sixth record Princess of Power, her...

Still only 22 Finn Wolfhard is a prolific polymath. An actor, musician, screenwriter, director — he wears all these hats with ease, curiosity and enthusiasm. He first came to prominence playing Mike Wheeler in the much beloved Stranger Things, which wrapped filming last year after five seasons.

The Vancouver-born multi-hyphenate talks grieving the end of the series that has taken up half his life, that final day, the special bond with the cast (particularly fellow actor and musician Joe Keery), and what mementos he took from set. Not to mention what he learned, which he took in...

Julia Michaels is unquestionably one of the finest songwriters of her generation. She’s penned hits for everyone from Bieber to Selena to Sabrina to One Direction to Dua Lipa… the list goes on. And on. But in 2017, when she emerged with the raw, gut-wrenching ‘Issues,’ she also established herself as a solo star with a distinct voice all her own.

Since then the six-time Grammy-nominated star has released a debut LP, 2021’s Not in Chronological Order, and now she’s back with her new EP Second Self — her first released under the own label GFY.

S...

He’s one of the key architects of modern pop music who’s written smashes for everyone from Justin Bieber to Jungkook to Miley to Eminem to Maroon 5, while simultaneously launching a successful solo career (two full-lengths, four mixtapes). But at the height of his solo fame, the Long Island native took stock of his situation and his label contract and dipped, deciding to spend his most recent years writing for others. It’s been seven years since his second album Glory Sound Prep, and as long since we had him in the studio.

Finall...

As Zach rightfully quips in his intro, Justin Firstman is a TV writer-turned-center of attention. While the Long Island-born 33-year-old became a viral smash seemingly out of nowhere with his Instagram impressions series in the early months of the pandemic (biggest hit an impression of banana bread’s publicist), Firstman had been honing his craft for a minute, writing and starring in whip-smart, subversive shorts like Men Don’t Whisper and Call Your Father, as well as working as a writer on the acclaimed, five-season run of the series Search Party.

But just before the...

Early-Aughts mainstay Ryan Cabrera first hit the pop culture consciousness as Ashlee’s boyfriend on The Ashlee Simpson Show, but he was grinding as a musician way before Simpson’s dad Joe plucked him from obscurity, performing at a Hard Rock Cafe in Dallas, Texas. He joined us in the studio for the first time to reminisce about his beginnings, his experience on The Ashlee Simpson Show, 20 years of his breakthrough, Johnny ‘Goo Goo Dolls’ Rzeznik-produced debut LP Take It All Away, and coming of age (and fame) without cellphone photography, while intrusive paparazzi and toxic bloggers (hai Perez Hilton...

It’d be easy to assume Michael Cimino was an overnight success — he’s been everywhere the past five years. First as the titular character in coming of age (and coming out) series Love, Victor, then as the (not-so-bright) bad boy Ethan Morales in Never Have I Ever, and now he stars in Prime Video’s Motorheads, playing Zac Torres. The series follows Zac and his twin Caitlyn as they move to the small town where their parents first met. Here they navigate new relationships, rivalries, their father's mysterious past, while falling in with a crew of high school outsider...

Thanks to his brother and sister grentperez — the Aussie-Filo singer born Grant Perez — first appeared on YouTube singing covers at just five-years-old, but while his siblings eventually left singing behind (beyond family karaoke, obviously), the 23-year-old multi-instrumentalist became a full blown bedroom tender-pop sensation.

“Cherry Wine” popped off in 2021 and after releasing four tantalizing EPs, now we have his eclectic, silky-smooth debut LP Backflips in a Restaurant. It’s a record that blends 90s R&B, bossanova, a pinch of indie-pop, and a lot of romanticism. Hanni from New Jeans keeps covering his songs and Rex Or...

Michelle Zauner — aka the creative powerhouse known to the world as Japanese Breakfast — joins us in the studio for the first time ever to talk about her fourth, Blake Mills-produced LP, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women). A florid and fantastical record, it’s peppered with literary references and sharp observances with regards to both the world and Zauner’s own experiences achieving her wildest dreams in 2021. It was the year both her third album, Jubilee, became a critical and commercial smash, while her memoir Crying in H Mart, chronicling the loss of her mother to cancer, became a New York Tim...

There have been some tectonic shifts in Maren Morris’ life since her last album in 2022: she released her EP Intermission, contributed a couple songs to The Wild Robot, not to mention finalizing her divorce, coming out as bisexual, and exploring dating — and dating apps — and all the experiences that come with that; all of which we discuss.

Singing since she was in her teens, the 35-year-old Arlington, Texas-born artist also talks about her early years in the business, auditioning for various reality TV talent shows before going her own way, making it big first in the...

It’s been a wild 18 months for Tucker Wetmore, a former college football star turned country hopeful who moved to Nashville hoping to make it… and then he actually did, and in a big, big way, to the tune of roughly eight million monthly Spotify listeners. Before last year he’d never even played live, and how he’s hitting the road with Thomas Rhett.

The 25-year-old joins us in the studio for the first time to fill us in on how a small-town, Pacific-Northwest-born, grandson of a pastor wound up turning from sports to music...

PinkPantheress first emerged at the very tail-end of 2020, becoming a TikTok phenom in early 2021 thanks to songs like the Adam F-sampling "Break It Off" and the Sweet Female Attitude-sampling "Pain;" songs which never breached two minutes — and still don’t — capped off my PP’s candyfloss sweet vocals. No one knew who she was.

Fast-forward to now and PinkPantheress has since been revealed as 24-year-old Beverly Walker, and the Bath-born, Canterbury-raised singer and self-taught producer whose back catalog includes her 2021 mixtape To Hell With It, 2022’s EP Take Me Home, and her flawless 2023 debut album Heav...

Songwriters and actors Aly & AJ join us for the third time to discuss their new, sixth album Silver Deliverer, a record the sister-duo created in the hills of Laurel Canyon and those LA, Fleetwood Mac, sunshine and sadness vibes certainly permeate the collection… a collection they actually wrote and recorded while Aly was pregnant with her first kid.

We discuss all that plus, their experience surviving a shooting while on tour and how that inspired both their activism and the song ‘Sirens,’ how maturation and loss informed some of their most potent new cuts, and wh...

The prolific South Memphis rapper returns after with his fourth LP Glockaveli, joining us in the studio for the first time ever. Still only 27, Glock started rapping in high school, before making waves back in 2017 signing to his cousin Young Dolph’s Paper Route Empire. Since then, as well as the four albums, he’s released seven mixtapes including two with Young Dolph, who was tragically gunned down in 2021.

Glock opens up about Dolph as an ongoing presence in his life — along with God — not to mention the music with the both of them that sit...

Alt rock heroes the Goo Goo Dolls join us in the studio for the first time to talk about the 30 year anniversary of 1995’s A Boy Named Goo. Crazy to think it was actually the Buffalo band’s fifth album that finally garnered mainstream success thanks to the still iconic slowburn “Name.’ It’s a long way from their beginnings as a scuzzy punk band, and even further from their first incarnation as Sex Maggots.

We talk all about their early years, pissing in a hole in the bottom of their tour van, who “Name” is abo...

Gigi Perez’s path to her current status of beloved, confessional alt-pop songwriter on the up-and-up has been anything but straightforward: full of twists and turns, and marked by unfathomable loss, grief, and self-made success.

Joining us in the studio for the first time, she discusses her 2024 breakout hit ‘Sailor,’ and her journey up to this point — from signing to a major, to getting dropped and going it alone and learning to produce, to signing to a major again, ultimately releasing her rich and wondrous debut, At the Beach, In Every Life.

Josh Groban joins us in the studio for the first time ever to talk about his greatest hits record Gems and his celebratory Vegas residency. Famed and acclaimed for the past 25 years thanks to his powerful, operatic chops that brought songs like ‘You Raise Me Up,’ not to mention a range of originals and standards (sung, in English, French, Italian, and sometimes Latin) to life.

An adult contemporary icon from the jump, but also a talented actor whose roles on Broadway (Sweeney Todd, Pierre in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812), and TV (Glee, The...

Hailing from Luton, England, Myles Smith cut his teeth playing open mic nights in pubs to disinterested punters before he even hit his teens (and yes he was underage; they’re not quite so strict over there). So when fame and acclaim finally found him in 2024, thanks to his now international smash and viral sensation ‘Stargazing,’ he was more than ready to get onstage and wow audiences the world over. Cue many lighters held aloft.

Now at 26, Myles is collabing with Shaboozey (on ‘Blink Twice’), touring with Ed Sheeran, and getting phone calls from Lainey Wil...

Unless you’ve been living without an internet connection, you know d4vd — the Texas-teen-turned-newly-20 whose 2022 track ‘Romantic Homicide’ now has 1.5 billion streams and counting. It’s a song that he made on his phone, in his sister’s closet, in just 30 minutes and it changed his life forever.

We last caught up with d4vd back in 2023. Since then the Fortnite-obsessed artist has performed all over the world, toured with SZA, released 40 tracks, written and recorded several LPs and scrapped them, before finally going back to his roots — or back to the closet — with a little he...

Way back in 2012, the Disney film Let It Shine, changed Coco’s life. But those dreams disintegrated when her LP was shelved and the movie sequel fell apart. Coco went back to school in Tennessee, and kept on grafting, auditioning, writing and releasing music independently while honing her craft. But when a fan tweeted “What happened to Coco Jones?” in 2020 she decided to jump on live and serve tea: where she’d been, what she’d been up to, plus her experiences with colorism and being a child star with a singing voice that belied her young years.

You probably know Joe Keery as Steve Harrington from Stranger Things, the zeitgeist-defining show that was Keery’s big — and honestly first — break, which then went on to define and change the following decade of his life. But the Massachusetts-born artist has been making music for as long as he’s been acting, first as part of Post Animal, with friends he made while studying theater in Chicago, and then under the solo moniker Djo (the D is silent).

We sat down with the 32-year-old to talk about his third album The Crux, an incredib...

Tanner Adell defies categorization. Raised between Wyoming and So-Cal in a Mormon household, this 28-year-old, bi-racial, country-loving singer who also embraces the syncopation and sass of hip-hop, moved to Nashville to make it, but not before she’d completed her LDS mission in Sweden. Nowadays she’s making waves not only with hits like ‘Buckle Bunny’ and ‘Trailer Park Barbie,’ but also as one of the harmonizing voices on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter renditions of ‘Blackbirrd’ and ‘Ameriican Requiem.’’

We talk about all this, plus her Rodeo queen mom, her experience with LDS and leaving the church, her s...

From her beginnings as a choir girl at school, to trying out for X-Factor, and honing her sultry tones and R&B runs, to moving from Florida to LA at 19-years-old — with her supportive Cuban-Puerto Rican family in tow — Sabrina Claudio has been laser-focused on her dream, making it happen with real sense of DIY hustle from the jump.

Now she’s a GRAMMY-winner who’s written songs for Beyoncé (‘Plastic off the Sofa’), collaborated with artists including The Weeknd, Alicia Keys, Zayn, and Tyga. She talks about her journey up to this point, (initially) si...

The Windsor, Canada-born, Montreal-raised actor joins us in the studio for the first time to discuss all aspects of Yellowjackets — a series which follows a high school girls' soccer team whose plane crashes, leaving them stranded in the wilderness and haunted for decades. Since its premiere in the fall of 2021, the psychological horror-cum-survival drama has gripped audiences with its twisted humor and dark, jaw-dropping plot twists. Not to mention the riveting interplay between the largely female cast whose storylines are split between two timelines.

As Shauna Shipman, Nélisse plays one of the central and...

LA-based indie rock band OK Go join us in the studio for the first time, back with their first album in 11 years: The Adjacent Possible. The band are perhaps best known for their iconic 2006 treadmill video for ‘Here It Goes Again’ — which was really one of the first viral videos, exploding barely a year after the launch of YouTube. They talk about this, the changing landscape of music and the industry, plus we discuss how they’ve continued to push the creative envelope with their videos, eschewing AI in favor of laborious practical effects and mind-expanding, how-the-hell-did-you-do-that concepts. And the mish...