George A: Songs for my Children

In this refreshing and energized conversation, Chelsea sits down with George Ajjan—a "regular dad" by day and a singer-songwriter known as The Ajjancy by night. George represents a vital but often silent minority in the parenting space: the dads. He opens up about the "scary as hell" moment an infant is first placed in a father’s arms and the unique challenge of supporting a partner through postpartum struggles while navigating your own feelings of being "clueless".

Whether you're a parent or a creator, George’s message of "not being alone" and the power of finding your own voice will resonate deeply.

Key Takeaways

• The Dad's Internal Pivot: While society expects dads to be "in control" (the IKEA-crib-assembly mode), the actual arrival of a human life often leaves fathers feeling frozen and unprepared.
• Music as a Processing Tool: George writes songs not just for his children, but as a way to "unburden" and process his own complex feelings about being away for work or feeling disconnected from an infant.
• Modeling Whole Personhood: It is a responsibility to show children that parents are whole people with lives and passions apart from them; "rest as resistance" applies to creative output, too.
• The "No Regret" Philosophy: Life is like a game of billiards; every previous move, no matter how much we wish it were different, aligned the balls for the family we have today.

Sound Bites

• "Dads try to play it cool... and then when they put that human life in your arms, you realize you don't have it."
• "The love songs become dedicated and inspired by my children or even the idea of parenthood."
• "Every single thing in your life, if you regret it... you're basically saying the kids I have today, it would be okay for them not to exist."
• "We owe it to those artists to create blasphemy on their works because if they didn't do that... they never would have become what we loved."
• "I'll teach you all I can and you might think that I'm a hero, but I'm just a man."

Relevant Links & Resources

• The Ajjancy Official 
• Music: Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube
• Instagram: @TheAjjancy
• Recommended Film: About Time (A reflection on time, family, and no regrets) 

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (01:46)
Hello, today I'm here with George. George, how are you?

The Ajjancy (01:50)
Chelsea, I'm doing great, glad to be here with you.

Chelsea Myers (01:52)
I am so excited that you have high energy. ⁓ No, it is something that I am going to feed off of because I need all of it that I can get. my gosh. ⁓ I'm always especially thankful to have dads join the podcast.

The Ajjancy (01:57)
Never been a problem for me.

Good. Very good. Here to serve.

I was gonna say that when I was scrolling through my, hmm, I'm really in a very kind of minority group here.

Chelsea Myers (02:18)
Yeah,

we have had dads, but ⁓ I think I can count on two hands. ⁓ So in six seasons and over 100 episodes, ⁓ not many dads. we, I love it. I love it. We love it. ⁓ And it's great because again, we're all about smashing stigmas and there is a big stigma for dads and talking about their journey and their mental health. So.

The Ajjancy (02:25)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I'm here representing, so yeah. ⁓

yeah,

big time.

Chelsea Myers (02:47)
Happy, happy, happy to have you Rather than me go down the list of things that I know about you, I would love it if you could introduce yourself to my listeners and let us know a little bit about who you were before you were a parent.

The Ajjancy (02:55)
Right.

Okay, so my name is George, my last name is Ajjan and so as a, I'm here in the, I'm here as a parent, first and foremost, but the reason I reached out to you was in my capacity as a musical artist, and we'll talk a lot about that, and the work that I do creating music, and how that reflects the journey of parenthood. And so as a musical artist, my name is The Ajjency which is a play on my last name, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'm a regular dad named George, ⁓ and so, ⁓

Chelsea Myers (03:30)
You

The Ajjancy (03:33)
Yeah, I was keen to come on here and chat with you and I've reached out to a bunch of parenting podcasts and short of it as a musical person, when you're younger, you write love songs. Starting when you're a teenager, oh, who's the person I have a crush on and let me write a song and all that stuff. And then when you reach the point where you're a parent, what I found is that the love songs become dedicated and inspired by my children or even the idea of parenthood.

and less about a significant other or a lover or in a romantic context. And so I thought that's an interesting angle to pursue and parenthood being a subject. And there's wonderful songs over the years that have been dedicated to parenthood that have meant a lot to people. And so whatever I can contribute in that genre, in that vein is really a pleasure and ⁓ it's something I enjoy doing, something I find a lot of meaning in and I hope others will as well.

So yes, I'm here because I write songs and I record music and I'm what you would call a singer-songwriter. But first and foremost, I'm a, I mean that's a passion project and a hobby, but I'm a father. I have a regular job and regular life and I gotta get my kids to soccer practice and help them with their homework and punish them when they're misbehaving and all the good and challenging stuff of parenthood is all part of it.

Chelsea Myers (04:53)
fun stuff.

The Ajjancy (04:57)
And as a dad, I mean, you there are men and there are women. And ⁓ yes, we try to break from the idiotic stigmas of gender roles, but know, dads do certain things and moms do certain things. And so it's important, I think, for dads to be aware of that and to be a backup and a support for the moms. mean, I guess we can go into great detail on that, but you know, there's a lot of times where it's like, wow, you know, I'll discuss with.

my co-parents like, God, so, she's like, it's so much easier for you because you're the dad and you say a certain thing and it just happens. Whereas the mom has to, you know, like that famous meme where it's like kids asking the mom, why are you always yelling? Because nothing happens until I start yelling.

Chelsea Myers (05:39)
Nobody's listening to me. Yes. Or they're or

they're running around dad to get to mom like mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. It's like your dad's right there. Yeah. Yeah. So music plays a huge role in your life and sounds like it always has. Is that kind of so pre parenting? Was that just your your path?

The Ajjancy (05:48)
Yep, yeah, I've seen that movie quite a few times.

Yes.

It

was a hot, no, it was never my path. It ⁓ was a hobby. was going back to second grade, know, okay, you're gonna take piano lessons because that's the aspirational thing for middle class American people to do, okay. So I took piano lessons and learned, you know, okay, the C scale and I learned how to read music. I learned all the fundamentals. I was not very talented at it.

Chelsea Myers (06:08)
Okay.

I did it too.

The Ajjancy (06:27)
and I didn't practice very much. was like, know, had that log where you're supposed to write how many minutes you practiced. And it was like my mom yelling at me, the teacher's coming in 30 minutes. You need to practice. Right. That was. Yeah. Yeah. So that was that was me learning music as a kid. And then, OK, it was the 80s and ⁓ the saxophone had replaced the guitar as the instrument of a solo and a pop song. so all the it was a huge saxophone section in the school band.

Chelsea Myers (06:31)
Mm-hmm.

I had that same message from my mother, yes.

The Ajjancy (06:55)
And so, you know, I played the saxophone for a few years in the band and then I joined the choir when I was in high school and I was involved in musical theater. but that was Chelsea to me always like an extracurricular activity because you're supposed to, you know, be a good student and go to, you know, go to a good college. It wasn't like drama or music was a career path that was viable in any way. And that was the box that it was put in for me. But I stuck with it as a hobby.

Chelsea Myers (07:13)
Mmm.

The Ajjancy (07:22)
and even in college was singing in choirs and then my cousin who's a year younger than me, went to Manhattan School of Music and studied jazz saxophone and so he was on the sort of professional track for a musician. And so it was always in my orbit. And one summer in college we played in a band together playing covers and we started writing songs. So it was always like I had this dream of one day I have these songs and these little old cassettes and I'm gonna have millions of dollars and I'm gonna go into a recording studio and

and make an album like I always dreamed to do. What I found out in the last few years is that just the state of the industry and the way technology has changed has lowered the bar so far so that professional musicians are very accessible to ordinary people. And you can make an album for a small fraction of what it would have cost back in the day when we were growing up and you needed a record deal and a record company to invest millions of dollars into you. That's not the case anymore.

Part of my message when I talk to other musicians on podcasts is anybody can do it. you want to do it, go and, you're not gonna do it every month, it's not for free, okay? But if you want to make an album in the traditional way of a band or a singer-songwriter going into a studio with professional musicians, it's actually reasonable to be able to do it. And so I always encourage people, if you have that passion, you can make it happen, you really can. And that's something that once you have those songs,

Chelsea Myers (08:26)
No.

The Ajjancy (08:46)
whether they're printed on a disc or just out there somewhere on YouTube or on Spotify or whatever, it's there forever and you live forever by doing that. there's a great quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astronomer, who said, okay, look, yeah, you can say I did impressive things in the context of space and astronomy and all that stuff, but if I wasn't here, somebody else eventually would have discovered them. But anybody who does anything creative, it's 100 % unique and no one else will have ever.

Chelsea Myers (08:50)
in the cloud or whatever.

The Ajjancy (09:14)
or could ever do exactly what you did. And as a singer, that's a comfort because singers always doubt their voice. Even John Lennon hated his voice and thought it sounded terrible and always wanted to find ways to trick it and mask it and stuff like that. But what you realize is that you have a voice, every human being has a voice and it's unique. No one else sounds like you and therefore that in and of itself has value and so you have to learn to lean into that. It's hard because you get imposter syndrome as a creator.

Chelsea Myers (09:23)
Mm-hmm.

The Ajjancy (09:42)
I'm sure even as a podcaster you say, should I really be talking about these things? But that's part of it. And if you don't have that, you probably should be checking yourself. Frankly, that's...

Chelsea Myers (09:44)
yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I, things that you said resonated in ways that I'm not even sure you intended. like, no, truly. talking about music as a hobby, even growing up and into adulthood and talking about how like going for that and doing that and how accessible it is now, that speaks to parents who put their passions on the shelf when they become parents, because

The Ajjancy (10:00)
You

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (10:18)
Right? It's all consuming. Morning, noon, night, even when you're sleeping, you're thinking about your kids. ⁓ And it is important to still do those things that you're passionate about and finding ways to make them accessible. I was literally just talking to my husband saying like, my gosh, I have to record today and I have to record tomorrow. And he's like, Chelsea, you love doing this. Like, why are you saying that? like, I don't.

The Ajjancy (10:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (10:45)
I don't know, actually. I don't know. Because you put yourself at the bottom of the list. And being creative, and I am also hugely passionate about music. And ⁓ there's an episode that will be earlier in this season that you'll have to check out from another musician who is also a dad. ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ And I just think it's really important to highlight that.

The Ajjancy (10:47)
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a it's a good point

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Yes. Okay. great.

Chelsea Myers (11:12)
that if you have a passion and there's something that really brings you joy and fills your cup, you have to make the time for it.

The Ajjancy (11:17)
You do, and that's, I think, also part of being a good parent, because your children need to see that, wow, mom and dad are not just slaves to us. Of course they're gonna see that. I mean, kids are inherently selfish. They just want what they want when they want it. And we were the same way, and I mean, that's practically bred into the species. I think that's probably a biological instinct. Just give me what I want now that it's your responsibility to give it to me. But if you break out of that, you realize that it's important to show the kids that, wow, mom and dad.

Chelsea Myers (11:30)
Yup.

The Ajjancy (11:46)
love doing the things that they do apart from us. And that gives them a sense of aspiration, like wow, I can look up to that. That's a role model for me. Not just, okay, one day I'll just be a slave to my kids. No, of course, I wanna have kids too and raise them. That's an instinct, it's a human instinct, but also I wanna do things that make me fulfilled and happy and give back to others as well.

Chelsea Myers (11:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Unless you're my nine year old who says she doesn't want to get married or have kids and just wants to have a hundred dogs. So, you know, there's that. Yeah. There's a place for that. ⁓ I'm like, cool. Sounds good. Have fun with that. ⁓ Anyway, back to you. Let's talk a little bit about your journey into parenthood. Was that something that was always a lifestyle you envisioned for yourself? Did you always want kids?

The Ajjancy (12:22)
Okay, there's that too. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, I think I

grew up in the pretty conventional way. I was the oldest, I had two younger sisters. So, go to school, do well in school, go to college, get a job, and then have the house with the 2.3 kids and the picket fence. That was it. That was what you're supposed to do in life. And I didn't really rebel from any of that. I think now, later on, going back and saying, no, I'm gonna go and make music because that's what I love to do.

in my late 40s, I mean, that's my rebellion. I guess in the old days we would have called that a midlife crisis. Call it whatever you want. I really don't care, that's fine. I'm happy doing that and I'm doing it for myself, not for anybody else or because I think I'm gonna become a rock star or whatever. mean, no, of course not. I'm doing it for myself, for my own sense of satisfaction to leave something else behind. yes, but to come back to your question, yeah, being a parent was always kind of expected of

Chelsea Myers (13:13)
Yeah.

The Ajjancy (13:38)
others around me and myself as well. Yeah, of course, I always wanted that. I have two boys, one is 14, the other is 11. So the older one has just entered high school. He's a freshman in high school. The younger one has just entered middle school. He's in sixth grade. And so I think the subjects you cover on your podcast frequently about postpartum depression, I mean, that phase is kind of way in the rearview mirror for me now. But having just done a little bit research on your podcast, just prepping for this,

It's like, God, I remember those days and how challenging it is and how worrying it is. And that's a lot of weight to carry. And then also, as the dad, you don't biologically have that problem, but you try your best. Even today, say, I know I can't understand, I'm trying, I qualify, was like, I'm trying to understand as best I can what's happening here. I think that's a responsibility of a dad.

Chelsea Myers (14:36)
Yeah. And I think that was also what kind of like when you reached out to me and when I learned a little bit more about you, I think that was what intrigued me most was your attention to your partner's experience while also acknowledging your own experience. there's this there's this kind of stigma doesn't feel like the right word to use, but it almost feels like dads are told to kind of like

put up and shut up a little bit, like, mom is carrying the weight of this and you should be supportive. it feels like you held that mentality of like, okay, I need to be there for my partner, I need to be that support system. But dads need to be held to parenting isn't easy at any stage. And just because we're called Quiet Connection, postpartum mental health, like we've covered the gambit. We've

The Ajjancy (15:08)
Yeah

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (15:30)
gone all the way up to adult children. Parenting, I say it doesn't get easier, it just evolves. But in the vein of bringing it back and going back in time a little bit, you said you always wanted to be a dad, you always envisioned that. When your first son was born, or maybe even like when you were prepping for that birth,

The Ajjancy (15:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (15:51)
What were those moments like for you? Did they meet the expectations of what you thought fatherhood would be like?

The Ajjancy (15:55)
boy, well that's, I mean that,

cut, well I didn't realize it, you cut right to the core of why I reached out to you in the first place, which is to talk about the songs that I made and the first song dedicated to my older son. Now, I wanna clarify this for, because other creators will understand this. People always say, who did you write that song for? And I'm always very explicit about this. The songs are for me.

Chelsea Myers (16:05)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

The Ajjancy (16:21)
They're for me and me alone. Now other people might find meaning in them or take pleasure from them or take comfort in them and that's wonderful. But I didn't write the song for my son. I wrote the song for me to process the feelings that I was going through. Whether that was having a crush on the girl when I was 16 years old or dealing with that awe inspiring moment when they put that infant in your arms when you're in your 30s or whatever. ⁓ The songs are for the artist to channel his or her feelings or their feelings into.

Chelsea Myers (16:36)
You

The Ajjancy (16:50)
the world and they're inspired by or dedicated to other humans or whatever or dogs or whatever it happens to be, right? In this case, humans. Yes, if it's your nine year old with your hundred dogs, that's a lot of songs. That'd you know, that'd be a, that'd be to be a, you know, an album with a very short tracks or, you know, a really a box set as we used to have. Yeah. So, ⁓ but that song is called proud to be. It was really inspired by that moment when that

Chelsea Myers (16:51)
Mm-hmm.

If it's my nine-year-old, it would be a dog. Yeah.

or I was gonna say it would probably be a boxed set, yeah.

The Ajjancy (17:20)
that infant was placed in my arms right there in the delivery room or in the whatever, the maternity ward or whatever it was at the hospital. And it was just like, okay, dads try to play it cool. We try to act like we're in control. before that, we went to, at the time there was Bye Bye Baby, right? We went, we had the whole list and we went to Ikea and assembled it, figured out how to use those wrenches and assemble the crib. Like, yeah, I'm a good dad. I'm doing all this stuff I'm supposed to do. And you think that that's what it's all about and you have it under control.

Chelsea Myers (17:39)
You

The Ajjancy (17:47)
And then when they put that human life in your arms and you realize, have it. And this is part of why I'm here. Because not I'm a saint, that I'm better than other men at understanding what the mom is going through. Not at all. I'm just like everybody else. Just maybe I'm more willing to admit that, guys, we have to admit that was really a massive moment. And if we're being honest with ourselves, we weren't ready for it. Because you're not. And you can go into a long discussion about this, but.

The moms have a biological instinct. mean, we're mammals, right? Moms have, for hundreds of millions of years, they're, you mammals breastfeed. And so there's an instinct there. Dads, at least at the beginning, don't have necessarily the instinct to know exactly what to do. And I was just frozen there, like, oh my God, am I ready for this? Like, this is a lot harder and more complicated than following the Ikea instructions and, you know, putting the crib together.

Chelsea Myers (18:39)
Ha

The Ajjancy (18:42)
And so you have to, that also as a dad, have to lean into that. some dads just, I mean, there's a million stories of dads who were 18, 19 years old and just couldn't cope and just freaked out. But if you're mature enough, and I think most dads probably do find a way to cope with it and ideally each generation should get better than the next in terms of.

Chelsea Myers (18:55)
Yeah.

The Ajjancy (19:06)
doing the right things, being more aware, communicating better. ⁓ And so I always say that. I'm very grateful to my parents for all that they gave me, but I have more skills and knowledge available to me than they did at their time. And my kids will have more skills and knowledge available to them when it's their turn. And so just look at it like that. It's not to judge. It's just to be aware and to do, as you said, it's an evolving task. It's an evolving responsibility. And we cope. learn. We don't regret.

We have this discussion all the time. There are no regrets because my personal philosophy is I look at life like a game of billiards. You you can't say, but I missed that shot. But because you missed that shot, the balls are aligned on the table the way they are today. And so maybe you're going to clear the table the next time you have the stick in your hand. Whatever. I that's just the analogy that I use that, no, cannot, particularly as a parent, you cannot regret because every single thing, even as a guy, every single movement you made in your life up to the time that

your last child was conceived and that egg was fertilized by that particular sperm cell, every single thing in your life, if you regret it and you wish you had done it differently, you're basically saying, well, the kids I have today, it would be okay for them not to exist because I wanted to take that other job or I wanted to score that goal or I wanted to whatever. You can't. This is just the reality of physics and biology.

a sperm and an egg to come together and there are millions and millions of permutations of that. And those ones were the ones that made it happen. there's a, you and your listeners probably have seen the movie About Time. If you haven't, go watch it. It's a wonderful, wonderful film about a guy who comes to a certain age, he's probably in his early 30s, and he realizes that in his family there runs this trait where they have the capacity to move back in time in their own life.

And so he realizes that this happens and he panics and he goes to his dad and his dad says, well, now son, let me explain it to you that this runs in our family and these are the responsibilities that are attached to this extraordinary ability. And he goes and does that. He wants to fix everything. His sister ends up in bad, he wants to go fix everything and make his sister's life better. And then at some point he goes and he fixes it, but then he comes home and he realizes like, who is this kid? This isn't my kid anymore. And then he goes to his dad, he says, no, you have to go back even further than that and not do what you did. And that's...

Chelsea Myers (20:58)
wow.

The Ajjancy (21:27)
that's part of what you have to live with. And so I think that as a dramatic expression of that and as a film and artistic representation, I think it does a really, really good job of hammering that point home that, can't, as a parent, can't regret things. You can only learn from them and try to do better next time around.

Chelsea Myers (21:44)
Yeah. Yeah. And again, so many things that you said hit little alarm bells in my head, which is perfect. But I'm to let you in on a little secret. Moms don't have it figured out either. ⁓ We may be biologically kind of like wired a little differently, but ⁓ it is super common. And a lot of my guests will tell you they put that baby in your arms.

The Ajjancy (22:04)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (22:14)
And you're like, what the heck am I supposed to do with this baby? I do also want to acknowledge that that experience is different for dads. didn't carry that bit. Some dads carry ⁓ if you are ⁓ a gestational parent who also identifies as a dad, but most dads did not carry a pregnancy. And so you didn't get to grow and evolve with that fetus and that baby. ⁓

The Ajjancy (22:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (22:43)
And like you said, you're not body feeding or breastfeeding. And so yeah, that's a shock. I like to say, like when I met my first daughter, it took months and months and I just felt like she was just a little monkey that lived in my house. Like, right? Like, I don't know you. I don't know who you, we have to get to know each other.

The Ajjancy (22:58)
Okay, interesting.

Yeah, well that was the feeling as a dad and the song is dedicated to that and the lyrics of the song basically it's asking questions. When I take you in my arms, do know who I am? When I look at you, do you recognize me? When I kiss you, do you feel better? Do you get all that? Because I know what you mean to me and I'm trying to process that and do everything that I can but yeah, you just seem like ⁓ you're not able to communicate to me. You're not able to.

respond in anyway, other than the, like you would take care of a pet, like, okay, feed the pet and now it goes to sleep or whatever. And that's your, but when things are not going well, when you're crying and I'm trying to make you feel better, like, is it, it helping at all? I don't know. I don't know. And, you know, of course the mom is more attuned to that because there's a, there's a, kind of bio rhythm and some kind of connection there where, and she's like, he's screaming, you know, something's, something's wrong. And I'm like, well, he, you know, he's crying. He's a baby. Like that's the dad's, he's crying. He's a baby, whatever. She's like, I'm telling you.

Chelsea Myers (23:38)
And then it goes, then it poops and then yeah.

Yeah.

The Ajjancy (24:02)
The way he's crying right now is not normal. I'm like, you know, and then again, you're in the stress of all, and then you start arguing about it. And then of course, in the end, she was right, that there was a major problem with digestion and he had go on special formula, et cetera, cetera, in order not to go into the whole story. But yeah, like dads are clueless about that stuff. And probably the moms are too, but you're at least a little bit better ⁓ equipped to...

Chelsea Myers (24:23)
Yeah, we do have we do have we like,

like you were saying, like evolutionary wise, we are attuned in a certain way to recognize certain cries. But ⁓ I also I love that you're so ⁓ just your candor in describing like, well, I don't know, he's a baby. He cried. He's just crying. He's just upset. Or and like the song lyrics like

The Ajjancy (24:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean...

Chelsea Myers (24:51)
I love that curiosity. Like, do you know who I am to you? Like, do you know that I'm trying to love you and to comfort you? And I think that's a universal feeling.

The Ajjancy (25:01)
Yeah, exactly. And so that, it

is. that's, I mean, that's, know, and I hope others, I mean, I did it because that, as I said, I wanted to put that down and have it. And even as a kind of a time capsule for him that when he gets old, like now he can, I actually released this song on his birthday this year when he turned 14. And so it's like, okay, this is what it was like, this is what I was.

Chelsea Myers (25:22)
⁓

The Ajjancy (25:27)
experiencing when you were just a baby. You don't remember it, obviously, but I remember it, and even if I don't remember it, this song will remind me how I felt exactly that moment. And then, you know, there's his younger brother, the song that was dedicated to him was a little bit different. That one I wrote when he was two years old. Now, at this point, he knows who you are and can communicate a little bit, but still not to the point where you can tell him, I just want to tell you how much I love you and how much I would do. Like, they can't process...

They can't reason through anything. know who you are and they can laugh with you. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ And so that song was just about, this is a, you I love you so much and I want you to know that. But even though I'm saying this now when you're two, when you're older, you're like, you know, he turned 11, now he can listen to it and he can say, wow, you know, that's what my dad was saying. And then there's bits in there. I mean, there's four verses in the song. The first two are just kinda talking about that.

Chelsea Myers (25:57)
They're like, they're like, cool, can you put on Blue's Clues, please? Like.

The Ajjancy (26:23)
communicating to him and then the chorus is just saying, hey, I'm always there for you. I believe in you and just however hard it is, your dad is behind you. And then the second half of the song, there's a verse dedicated to the mom saying, moms are gonna mom you to death. I mean, my mom still moms me to death. I'm gonna be 50 years old next year, right? It's never gonna go away. That's the way that it is and you gotta learn and I'm...

You're still rolling your eyes. I still feel like a teenager sometimes. Like, okay, mom, know, you know, like those moments. But that's a mom. And you got to learn to respect that. And it's hard because, you you get annoyed, but it's not worth getting annoyed. You have to you have to learn to respect and to appreciate the over momness of moms.

spoiling you and worrying about you and taking care of you and all of that. And then there's a verse saying, you look, you have a brother, you guys gotta stick together. ⁓ And so it's a bit of trying to impart ⁓ whatever wisdom I could muster to him and to any other parents or kids who happen to listen. ⁓ Because ⁓ I really liked when I was, again, doing the research in your podcast and it's saying, you know, it's just, you're not alone. You know, we're here because you're not alone. And I think...

People say, why do you make music? Yeah, okay, I make it for my own, for me to feel good and to process things and to feel a sense of accomplishment and all that. But it's also to make somebody feel less alone because you hear a song and think, wow, that, and I think of it two ways, like either to bring, like what is the goal in life? To bring joy or comfort to other people. Like when it comes down to it, it's that. And I think music is one of the best ways to do that.

Chelsea Myers (28:08)
Yeah.

The Ajjancy (28:13)
because everybody has songs that they go to when they're feeling good or when they're feeling bad too. it's not, ⁓ you know, I'm a happy person. By nature, I'm happy, upbeat, optimistic person. But sometimes you, yeah, but sometimes you listen to my songs and be like, that's pretty dark and melancholy and sad. that doesn't, know. I'm like, well, yeah, but even when we were in the studio making the songs, we weren't dressed in black and whipping ourselves. We were being ourselves and having fun because that's who we are. But the...

Chelsea Myers (28:21)
I'm getting that impression. Yeah.

The Ajjancy (28:42)
the sadness of life, like that's part of life. And sometimes you want to feel that because it gives you a sense of comfort when you hear a song that makes you want to cry. And afterwards you feel like, well yeah, I don't feel happy, but I feel unburdened somehow. And so I think whatever I try to do musically always has that goal in mind. Because it's there for me. Like I feel, when I listen to my own songs, like I'll feel like, so why did you make it, like that's, you know, how did you come up with that, or why did you do that? I said, because I wanted

Nobody ever did it like that and I wanted to hear that. I wanted to create what I wished existed. And I think probably a lot of creators feel that way.

Chelsea Myers (29:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And I think that while again, I am a huge music lover, so this resonates with me particularly, I think that what it is ultimately is just putting down and unburdening yourself with what it is that you're trying to process. And that can come in the form of journaling, that can come in the form of writing music, that can come in the form of playing a sport.

The Ajjancy (29:41)
Yes.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (29:49)
⁓ it's kind of, again, it goes back to those passions and

The Ajjancy (29:53)
Yes, yeah, I

was gonna say, it goes back to the thing, know, also that's a lesson to your kids. Do things that illustrate to them that you have your whole person. You have a life, you have to be happy, apart from being mom or dad.

Chelsea Myers (30:03)
Mm-hmm.

Because that's not all you are. You're not right. You're not just a dad. You are a musician. You are also a working person. You are a son. are all of these things. ⁓ Just like...

The Ajjancy (30:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and look,

just like anything, it's like, well, there's a balance. I if you're gonna be a total selfish narcissist who's like, well, know, I'm sure we all know examples of people, we look judgmentally and say, you know, don't they pay any attention to their kids? Don't they, you know, we've all noticed correlations between certain kids who are, you know, ill, behaved or socially not adjusted correctly and parents who seem to be checked out, although nobody lives in anyone else's house, so it's...

Chelsea Myers (30:26)
you

Right.

The Ajjancy (30:48)
But sometimes, like, okay, well, where there's smoke, there's probably fire. So you don't want to take it to an extreme. But yeah, there's definitely a healthy area that's not on either extreme, where I'm just 100 % an employee of my kids, Inc. well, just, yeah, I had the parent, but I became a parent, but I'm still all about me. There's a very healthy middle ground there. And I think it's probably a good thing for any parent to consider that a responsibility to find where he fits, he or she fits.

Chelsea Myers (31:10)
Yeah.

The Ajjancy (31:16)
or they fit on that spectrum.

Chelsea Myers (31:18)
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ And I think just like you said, it's a perfect way to ⁓ set an example for your kids ⁓ that life is multifaceted. You are not just one thing. obviously, I loved hearing about the songs that you wrote early in your son's lives.

The Ajjancy (31:30)
Yeah.

Yes.

Chelsea Myers (31:36)
and how

music has sort of played a role in coming to terms with who you are as a parent. How did that evolve over the years? Have you written more about your sons? I know you said you traveled a lot and had to be away sometimes. Like, did that come out in your music later in life?

The Ajjancy (31:53)
definitely.

mean, there's even lyrically, like it's explicitly referred to in there in the song dedicated to my older one. I mean, I wrote it when I was away. Actually, I wrote I usually not to go too deep into the musical and aspect of it, but I played the I learned I took, as I mentioned earlier, to piano lessons as a kid. So I'm comfortable enough on the piano to be able to write songs. I'm not and kind of concert pianist or anything. And then when I went to college, I got a guitar and I taught myself

the chords of the guitar. So I have horrible technique on the guitar, but I know musically how the guitar works and I can use it to write songs and to do, usually I'm not gonna be playing any solos, I have terrible technique, but I can strum along, you you invite me to a barbecue and hand me guitar and I'll entertain people playing any number of pop songs that people like to sing along to. So that's me on the guitar. But I was away.

Chelsea Myers (32:25)
Hahaha

The Ajjancy (32:49)
and I happen to be in Africa. I definitely didn't have a guitar with me, but I had, for whatever reason, it was the first generation iPad, and when they had on GarageBand where you can point chords, and now you can just tell AI, make me a song about parenthood, right? Whatever, we could spend three podcast episodes just about that, so let's not even go there, Chelsea, but at the time it was, wow, this is amazing, you can just point the chords and it will.

Chelsea Myers (32:58)
Yes!

my god, yes.

The Ajjancy (33:15)
it had loops in there of piano or guitar or organ or whatever you wanted to have in there. And so I actually wrote the song on the iPad. And yeah, it was very much about, you know, I'm away. And the lyrics say that, you know, there's times when I'm be away, but I've got to provide for you. That's part of my job as a dad. And that's the career that I have requires me to be away sometimes. you know, I wish that wasn't the case. I wish I could be all places at all times, but I can't. I'm only one physical...

and I only have a certain number of hours in a day. And so yeah, I want you to know that. And also, as I said in the second song dedicated to my younger son, the chorus is saying exactly that. ⁓ Know that I believe in you and ⁓ hang on, the plane is coming soon to bring me back to you. And so yeah, it's very much the traveling dad. I think that's ⁓ going back in, I mean the idiom, musical idiom that I work with is basically rock.

Chelsea Myers (34:02)
Mmm.

The Ajjancy (34:14)
a band, guitar, drums, keyboards, bass, and a singer. that's the way that I function. So of course I think back to all the bands that I loved and you hear those musicians from the 60s, 70s, 80s, talk about, because most of them are dads too, and what it was like to be touring the world. And again, not like nowadays, like in those days, bands were putting out an album every year and they were touring the world every year. Those guys were away, all the time.

Chelsea Myers (34:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

The Ajjancy (34:43)
⁓ And so you hear them talk about what it was like to be a dad and still be on the road they weren't there when their kids were born and stuff like that and so that funny enough also Reverberated in my head in terms of wow, you know, I'm I'm somehow like them. I'm not on the road making music but ⁓ You know their music meant so much to me, but also like their experience as dads having to have been away and missing their

kids and just hearing interviews with them and how they dealt with it, how they coped with it, and a lot of them have big regrets. I famous stories. ⁓ Eric Clapton's son, you know, in the song Tears in Heaven, which was inspired by that, and Robert Plant's son, lead singer of Led Zeppelin, whose son passed away. And so there's, you know, there's a lot of heavy stuff there ⁓ if you look into it. Now, okay.

Chelsea Myers (35:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

The Ajjancy (35:38)
I'm not putting myself in the league of those musicians and that's fine if that means that my kids stay healthy and alive and don't have any tragic deaths. I'd be perfectly happy that nobody ever hears my songs but my kids grow up healthy. I definitely wouldn't trade that. ⁓ But yeah, that's in there. Being away and having to travel for work. Now look, it's easier nowadays because we have FaceTime and we have all these tools at our disposal and texting them and whatever. you're at least aware of what's going on day to day.

And ⁓ that helps. So when you come home, it's not like you're coming back and you have no idea what had gone on. You're still minute to minute up to date of what happened, just as if you had been home. that's a sense of ⁓ relief and comfort as well.

Chelsea Myers (36:24)
Yeah, that I think that's a benefit to this generation's kiddos. We were just looking this up this morning. The current generation of kiddos is Gen Alpha. Yeah, our kids are Gen Alpha and they will always know connection. ⁓ They will always, I mean, they've never lived in a world where you can't get a hold of someone or can't see someone's face.

The Ajjancy (36:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

Chelsea Myers (36:52)
And I just think that that's so interesting when you talk about these other musicians as well being away. yeah, there's, my brain's going down a rabbit hole, but like they've never known a world without connection, but it's also digital and it's not always physical. ⁓ So there's a place for that as well. I just keep going back to your music though. ⁓ And I do encourage listeners to go check out your music and

The Ajjancy (37:10)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (37:22)
Your links will be in the show notes. Like you say, like, well, if nobody, if nobody listens to my music, no, I want people to listen to your music. ⁓ yes.

The Ajjancy (37:23)
Lovely, yes, that'd be...

Oh, I want them too as well. by the way,

whether they love it or hate it, mean, that's fine too. Fernando Perdomo, the guitarist that I work with who runs a studio in LA, he's played with some of the biggest names in the world. And he's also like the worst thing as an artist is indifference. That somebody hears your music and be like, eh, whatever. Whether they love it or they hate it and say, no, is blasphemy, this is terrible. One of the things I did, I mean, apart from...

Chelsea Myers (37:44)
Mmm.

The Ajjancy (37:53)
writing the songs about my kids, the first album dedicated to my kids, the first album that I did was an album of covers, but they were mashup covers, like taking two songs that don't necessarily belong together and creating a new arrangement that combines, like let's say the baseline of one song with the melody of the other song laid on top of it. That's what they call a mashup cover. And so I did a whole album of those, and obviously the purists of...

Chelsea Myers (38:17)
Blasphemy!

The Ajjancy (38:18)
fans of those original artists, some of them, yeah, were

not very happy about all that. And I'm like, thank you, but your anger makes me so happy because it means that you love the originals as much as I do. I just chose to express it in a different way. And again, this is veering into musical territory here, but all of the, anyone who likes bands from the...

up through the 80s, even up through the 90s. I nowadays, the way music industry is functioning is a little bit different, but let's say the big acts that we grew up with, all of those guys started by doing versions of other people's songs that had come before. And a lot of times they were as blasphemous in the way that they did those songs. And if they hadn't done that, they would never have developed into the artists that meant so much to us. So I flip it on its side and I say, no, we owe it to those artists to create blasphemy.

on their works because if they didn't do that with the artist that inspired them, they never would have become what we loved. So that's part, you can't separate it. You can't just.

Chelsea Myers (39:18)
Mm-hmm.

You can't discount it. And I will say two things. One, I love a good mashup. I mean, I am a music, like, ⁓ just total randomness. Like, I love everything across the board. And some of the things make no sense as to why I like them. But yeah, I love a good mashup. But, and you were saying like, this goes into the musical realm. I can...

The Ajjancy (39:25)
You can't.

Chelsea Myers (39:50)
I can literally say the same thing that you're saying about musicians about parents. Right? So we had our parents or our parental figures that we looked up to and they were emulating the parents that they had and that they were looking up to, but they were doing things differently and trying things differently. And maybe someone was saying, that's not the way you do it. And that's not how you're supposed to do it, but you have to do it that way.

The Ajjancy (39:56)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (40:18)
to figure out who you are as a parent. Right, see? I can bring it back. I can do it.

The Ajjancy (40:20)
Yes.

Well, you remind me of, it's a wonderful example of that. It's a ⁓ commercial, whatever, one of these short content things, it contained a really, really good lesson. was ⁓ something, it was sub-title from a country in East Asia, I don't know which one, Vietnam or China or whatever. And it was a girl who's, I don't know, eight or nine years old, and ⁓ her mom is preparing fish, and so she takes the fish and cuts the head and the tail off and cooks the fish. And the kid's like, well, why are you?

Why are doing that? She goes, well, that's the way my mom did it. So she goes to her grandma's house and knocks on the door like, hey, grandma, ⁓ you know, why are you, why, you know, I asking mom, she's making fish. Why does she cut the head and tail off? And she said that that's the way you did it. And the grandma's like, well, that's the way that my mom taught me how to do it. So she goes and finds her great grandma somewhere who was like, you know, in her nineties or whatever, or in her eight, no, probably in her eighties. ⁓ And she goes to the great grandma and she's like, you know, my mom was making fish and she just,

Chelsea Myers (41:13)
You

The Ajjancy (41:24)
you know, she cuts off the head and the tail. you know, I asked her, she said, that's why her mom did it. And I asked grandma, and she said, that's the way her mom did it. So I'm coming to you, like, why do you do it that way? And the grandma's like, the great grandma's falling on the floor laughing. She's like, honey, in the 1940s, I only had a pan this big. Right, so, right? So, I mean, extrapolating from that, yeah, we have, there's certain things that seem obvious to us, but now with what we have available to us now, we can adapt.

them and improve upon them. And it doesn't mean that we disrespect what we were taught. It just means that, no, we can take the grain of truth that's there and cultivate it in a different way. At that's what I try to do. And my kids will be the judge of that. They'll look back on things and say, no, I'm going to do things differently than what my dad and mom did on this particular area, or I like this, or I didn't like that. I I explicitly tell my kids, for example, I was not very gifted athletically.

Chelsea Myers (42:01)
and build on it. Yeah!

The Ajjancy (42:19)
Chelsea, okay, so, okay, but I was obliged, just like obliged to take piano lessons second through eighth grade, I played soccer in the fall, and I played baseball in the spring, and I rode the bench, and I sucked diddly-ucked, as Homer would say to Flanders, but my parents were like, not that they were super-athletically inclined either, but they're like, you know, you are a kid in school, and you are gonna be on the team, because that's part of your social upbringing, that's what you're gonna do.

Chelsea Myers (42:20)
Neither was I.

The Ajjancy (42:46)
Whether you like it or not. We're gonna go to your games and cheer for you the three minutes that you're on the field or whatever. ⁓ And so, yeah, I look at it the same way with my kids. I'm like, I think that was good that they said that. Because, okay, we complained that our kids are on their iPads and their screens and all that stuff all day long. But okay, but we were on Nintendo all day long too. mean, you know, right. So, right, so, ⁓ yeah, it's maybe worse now because it's in their hand. ⁓ But still.

Chelsea Myers (42:46)
Mm-hmm.

We were our Game Boys and our Ataris and yeah.

The Ajjancy (43:13)
if you give them the choice, they're most likely just like to sit on the couch in front of a screen all day. So it's like, no, you're gonna get off the couch and go play soccer or go play baseball or go take music lessons or whatever it is. And so I look at, as an example, especially like, yeah, okay, my parents said through eighth grade, through middle school, once you go to high school, you're becoming an adult, then it's for you to choose what you want to do. You have to choose something, but you know, have, then you'll be able to pick your own activity because there'll be more options available to you.

So that's an example of things where I say, yeah, that's what I, I'm gonna copy exactly what they did. I'm gonna cut the head and the tail off the fish and not even question the size of the pan because that's just, I think that makes sense for me. Other things where I'm like, I look at it and I like the little girl in this cute example, go back and say, why, why, why? And ask myself, say, no, I don't feel an obligation to continue it the same way I'm gonna do it the way I'm gonna do it. And that, I'm gonna.

segue to a discussion of another song which is not dedicated to either of my kids, but it's kind of dedicated to young girls because I didn't have any young girls and I I was going back on this is it is it a blessing or a curse that didn't have young girls and I think I was just saying this to somebody the other day the poor thing if I had had a girl because I would have Turned her I would have used her as a stone on which to grind my axe against grind my axe of ⁓

of ⁓ traditional roles, yes, yes, yes, okay, like my kids, every Christmas we used to do like a rock song arrangement or the younger would be on the drums and the older one plays the bass guitar and I'd be playing the guitar or the piano or whatever. We would do a Christmas song that everybody loved. was like our little band of dad and two sons. But I thought if I had a daughter, she'd be listening to Led Zeppelin and playing the drums too. To hell with the pink.

Chelsea Myers (44:37)
Like gender stereotypes, yeah.

You

Yeah?

The Ajjancy (45:04)
dresses and all that stuff. And I remember vividly a friend of mine from college who became a pediatrician and we were talking years later and she said, you one of the things I learned as a pediatrician is that it's very important the way that you talk to girls. And she said, I make a point whenever a girl comes to the office, I never make the first remark about how she looks. Like you're so cute or you're so, that dress is so nice or whatever because you're reinforcing that your value is based upon

Chelsea Myers (45:25)
Mmm.

The Ajjancy (45:32)
how you look, which is pretty terrible. Okay, it's hard to completely, ⁓ we're all little bit narcissistic creatures, so it's hard to get away from that, but I thought, ⁓ and so I took her advice, and at times I would meet other parents, kids, before I had kids even, and I would meet a girl and be like, wow, you seem to be very curious, or very brave, or whatever, and they're like, well, that's an odd thing to say. I'm like, well, would you rather just me tell her that your dress looks nice?

Chelsea Myers (45:34)
Mm-hmm.

The Ajjancy (46:00)
you you look so cute and so pretty. ⁓ So that really hit me. And so that song, there's a song that's ⁓ my niece. She was, again, we would sit around and I had the guitar and it was just, it was a song about ⁓ how just a cute baby with chubby little thighs and you you just want it like, you know, like just a silly song that you have about, that you sing with your kids, you know.

Chelsea Myers (46:19)
All the rolls yeah.

The Ajjancy (46:26)
And ⁓ so that was the content of the song. That this girl's so cute, you just wanna eat her up. ⁓ later on I took it and I transformed it. said, and that particular, my niece, she ended up being a girl who has a certain girly side, but she's also like, ⁓ her dad is a bit of mad scientist type. ⁓ she took after him, very curious and very brave and all that kind of stuff. And so I thought, okay, this is gonna be a song about a little girl who

Chelsea Myers (46:47)
You

The Ajjancy (46:55)
breaks the mold and becomes a superhero just because she can. And so I think that's, I don't have any daughters, but it's a fun, it's kind of a funky, a yacht rock funk vibe to the tune. And yeah, it's all about a girl who decides to hell with the rules, I'm gonna become a superhero and I don't need, I'm not gonna need a man to come and give me jewels and golden diamonds. No, I'm gonna do whatever I wanna do.

Chelsea Myers (46:59)
Yeah.

The Ajjancy (47:21)
because I can, because I want to, if I want to save the world, I'm go and save the world. And I think, okay, it's just a song. Nobody's gonna actually fly through the sky, but girls should be, in my opinion, should be taught to believe they can, at least they can do anything the boys can. If not, they can do anything at all.

Chelsea Myers (47:38)
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ I love to I always say I love I need my two words in my podcast are love and beautiful and I really need to come up with some new ones but I mean they're good words. I could but I so one I love the concept of the song because again like I'll tell you I have two girls I don't and I always pictured myself having boys and now I'm like what would I do with two boys I don't know what I would do with two boys but I can tell you that

The Ajjancy (47:47)
Well, those are two pretty good words, Chelsea. I mean, you could do a lot worse, right?

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (48:07)
My girls, especially the younger ones, can wear a spinny dress and then also rock hard on the drums or right like or get in the mud and dig up worms. Not my oldest because she would probably cry. But my youngest, absolutely. So I mean, the older if she has 100, she's got enough to deal with and the fleas, I don't know. But my youngest anyway. ⁓

The Ajjancy (48:17)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

You

Well, mean, having a hundred dogs, you you would think that, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (48:37)
I so I love that you explored that even though like you said, like you don't have girls like, I think it's okay. I think it's okay to explore those things. And what I love the most about when you talk about your music, specifically the songs that you've shared with us today, is it's like a chronicle of your journey as a parent and as an uncle and as and so and your kids and your nieces and

The Ajjancy (48:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (49:04)
nephews or whoever, they're gonna have that. They're gonna have that forever. Do you talk with your kids with your boys about like, hey, this is how that maybe not but like, this is how this is why I wrote this song or like, this is how I was feeling when I wrote this song.

The Ajjancy (49:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

You know, when, I mean now they're professionally recorded and mixed and produced and they're out there in the world on Spotify and YouTube and Apple Music and whatever. But when they were just in demo form and I would put them on in the car and the kids were younger, they were like six or seven at the time and they would get very uncomfortable listening to it. Very uncomfortable listening to it. Because it was kind of like overwhelmed, they were old enough to understand what.

the song was about and it was kind of emotionally overwhelming for them. But now I think because they see me doing music and making other songs, like they understand that, oh, dad is making these songs in the context of creating music and he's on podcasts interviewing with people because he does music, not that they see me as some kind of, I mean, I've got like less than 10 months to listen to this on Spotify. I'm just getting started with all these. there's no illusion that like dad's a famous musician or anything like that, but.

Chelsea Myers (50:04)
Hahaha

The Ajjancy (50:16)
They see that I'm doing it, and so it's not like, Dad is doing that just, again, it comes back to the thing, Dad is not doing it just because of us. He doesn't make songs just because he's a dad to us. He makes songs because he makes songs. And just these ones happen to be ⁓ about us. So they're old enough now to get that.

Chelsea Myers (50:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

think it'll be interesting to ⁓ down the road how like the conversations that you may have about that and when they're in their 20s or when they're in their 30s ⁓ because we know we know things that ⁓ we cringed and like you were saying like my god mom leave me alone like those things when we were younger now as adults and as parents ourselves we look at those moments be like that's why you did what you did or like ⁓ okay you weren't trying

The Ajjancy (50:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Chelsea Myers (51:08)
to make me miserable or embarrass me or...

The Ajjancy (51:09)
Yeah, well,

mean, there's like a number of memes that pop into my head right now when you bring that up, but you know, it's a very valid thing, and frankly, when I see, forget about seeing that our parents' generation is fading. mean, know, people are leaving now. ⁓ And so ⁓ I'm very aware of that, saying, okay, you don't...

Chelsea Myers (51:29)
Mm-hmm.

The Ajjancy (51:34)
If the day that they're not there anymore, you're gonna miss the things that annoy you or have historically annoyed you. But then frankly, Chelsea, even people in our generation who are passing away and leaving behind young kids, I wanna say I think about it every day, but there's people who I think about a lot, several times a week and...

Chelsea Myers (51:41)
Yes.

I about it a lot.

The Ajjancy (51:59)
And I'm always like, okay, yeah, I'm really annoyed right now about whatever, but I have the pleasure of being alive to be able to be annoyed about this or, know, ⁓ but yeah, that's a real thing. Like as bad as it is, okay, but you know, but you're alive and you'll figure it out, whatever it is, whether it's a work problem or a parenting problem or a scheduling problem or whatever, you know, burn the casserole or whatever. I mean, all the things that happened in the house that just...

Chelsea Myers (52:26)
Yeah.

The Ajjancy (52:29)
seem like that in that moment, like the end of the world and you know, how much more can I put up with but, ⁓ you know, we're here.

Chelsea Myers (52:36)
Yeah, yeah, and you're leaving a legacy behind. ⁓

The Ajjancy (52:40)
Yeah,

that's an important thing. As somebody who creates, even creating this podcast, this lives on beyond you and some, even hundreds of years from now, somebody might come across it and listen to what you said and say, wow, that lady said love and beautiful a lot. that really...

Chelsea Myers (52:53)
What's a podcast? don't know.

They'll be like, how do you play this thing? That's like my kids being like, what's a DVD? And I'm like, they're the things that we're replacing Disney Plus with. So get used to them. ⁓ But yes, yes, it's something that we're leaving behind. And yeah, you talk a lot about legacy, especially in the realm of parenting. ⁓ And there's a lot of pressure that surrounds that too, but there also doesn't have to be.

The Ajjancy (53:02)
Yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (53:28)
Just be you and that's what you're doing. Be you, be creative, be passionate, be there for your kids and you're creating a legacy through doing that.

The Ajjancy (53:39)
Yeah, and that's again, that touches back on a lyrical theme which is I'm just doing the best I can. I'm your dad. I'm not, you know, there's a verse in the second song where it's saying, after I say, know, just respect your mom because she's moming you to death, but then it says, you I'll teach you all I can and you might think that I'm a hero, but I'm just a man.

Chelsea Myers (53:46)
Yeah, that's all you can do.

You

Yeah.

The Ajjancy (54:03)
And the first song, it flips the idea of pride on its head because we're always saying, we're telling the kids, we're so proud of you to build them up. But part of it is thinking back like, okay, years from now, are you gonna look back and say, I was proud of you as a parent. I was proud to say you were my dad. And it's kind of morbid in the song. says, one day will you stand before my grave and say, dad, I was proud to be your son. But yeah, look, getting back to what I was just saying, limited time only.

Chelsea Myers (54:32)
It's the reality of the situation. mean, none of us, right? What's the saying? None of us get out of here alive. Like, right? Like that's just, and so yeah. And for you in particular, I guess like, yeah, I guess like you're saying like me too, like we're just, leaving something behind for them to hold onto. And yeah, we hope that they're proud of us just as much as we are proud of them in everything that they do. ⁓ So.

The Ajjancy (54:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes, yes, yes.

Chelsea Myers (55:00)
I'm gonna wind us around a little bit. And I'm gonna want because I always get to a point where I feel like like a D I call it the deep sigh moment. And I feel like I'm at the deep sigh moment. I don't know about you. But but before I go too much further, I want to give you an opportunity to tell listeners where they can find you where they can find your music and also remind them I'm drilling it into my listeners this season.

The Ajjancy (55:02)
Okay.

Okay.

Okay. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (55:27)
check the show notes. Some people are like, what do mean show notes? Show notes are where all the good stuff is. ⁓ So if my listeners would like to find you in your music, where's the best place to do that?

The Ajjancy (55:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

I would just go to Google and type the ajjancy A-J-J-A-N-C-Y, and it's the only thing in the world that's called that, so you will quickly find my Instagram, my YouTube, my Spotify, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or if you're in any of those apps, you can search for it directly. Just Google that word. It's a one of a kind word. That's my artist name, and you'll find me and the songs that I do. And I'd be delighted to hear from anybody, even if say I don't like your song or whatever. That's great too, you know?

Chelsea Myers (56:04)
I love it.

The Ajjancy (56:10)
But it's really wonderful, again, I haven't reached the point where have legions of adoring fans, but even just seeing people leave comments on YouTube, say, wow, that was really lovely, or I listened to that song a few times and I favored it, it's like, wow, okay, it's working. What I wanted to happen is happening, and it's great. It's really a wonderful feeling. Now, yes, yes, there you go.

Chelsea Myers (56:27)
Right?

It's not about the numbers. It's not about the numbers. It's about those individuals. And that's what Quiet Connection is all about. If it touches,

if it resonated with one person, then that's all I care about. See, there it is, the deep sigh. ⁓ So I'm doing things a little different this season.

The Ajjancy (56:42)
feel a deep sigh coming on Chelsea. ⁓

Chelsea Myers (56:52)
and how I end my episodes. For five seasons, I ended my episodes the same way, and now I'm challenging my guests a little bit. ⁓ and I think you might like this too, because you do, I proudly identify as a Gen X dad. I am an elder millennial. We remember back in the days before texting and voice memos, and when you wanted to reach someone, you had to call their landline and leave.

The Ajjancy (56:52)
Okay.

Okay, bring it on.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (57:22)
message on the answering machine. Okay, so you called Quiet Connection today. You called. You have no idea who my next guest is going to be. You don't know if they're a mom, you don't know if they're a dad, you don't know who they are. But you called and you got to leave them a message because they're not here to answer. What message would you leave for them?

The Ajjancy (57:24)
Uh-huh.

Okay.

Okay, so what message would I leave for the next guest on your podcast? In general, about me or about your podcast?

Chelsea Myers (57:48)
My next guest. Yeah.

it's a message for them or you can interpret it however you want. I'd like to give as few guidelines as possible because I love the answers that I get.

The Ajjancy (57:58)
Okay.

Okay. Okay.

All right. So my first thing would be before I even leave the message, would be just to pray for back in the days of answering machines, just to pray that my mom or dad doesn't pick up the phone on the middle of leaving the message and saying, who's on the phone right now? Right? And if there's one thing in my life that I'm grateful for, it's that I was never calling a girl's answering machine when I was 16 years old. thank God it never happened that they picked up the phone when I'm in the of like sweating through

Chelsea Myers (58:09)
You

No, yes!

Yes

my god.

The Ajjancy (58:31)
Trying to leave that message. God, God, God. Yeah, right, okay. So, all right, so I, yes,

Chelsea Myers (58:31)
Or if their mom or dad answered, can I speak to Jenny, please? Yeah, yeah. my god. So no, you got the answering machine.

The Ajjancy (58:41)
all right. Nobody's, nobody, I picked a good time when nobody can interrupt me. I would say, know, Beep, ⁓ it's wonderful to have a forum where we can discuss these things and we can share because like Chelsea said,

and the branding of the podcast. You're not alone. And if we're able to talk and you're able to have the discussion with her for an hour or an hour and change and anybody can listen to it, even nobody listens to it. I she's got listeners, but even if listens to it, just the fact that you were able to express what you wanted to express and she was able to hear it and you were able to come to share some things, share some wisdom, and hopefully then impart that to others, whoever will hear it, even if it's hundreds of years from now, like that's a wonderful thing. So share.

Share, don't be shy about it. Don't feel your opinion's not valid. You know, you're there, you have experiences, and if you have them, even the richest, most famous, most spectacular person probably has the same experiences, and so don't discount what you have to offer others. Beep. Thank God, and then after that, who's on the phone? Yes, yeah. Phew.

Chelsea Myers (59:29)
I love it.

Beep. Love it.

Yeah, or if you're in my generation, I was trying to get on the inter-

The Ajjancy (59:57)
I remember that.

Chelsea Myers (59:57)
Yes, no, see,

my god, you get the time. Anyway, back to those days. ⁓ No, what I really am liking about this question is that everyone's interpreting it a little differently. Yeah, and the fun part of it, I'll say fun in quotes, is that to get your message, you have to listen to the episode before yours. So it's kind of like my little con to be like, you got to come back so you can get your message.

The Ajjancy (1:00:05)
Yeah.

That's good.

Mm-hmm.

Right, there you go. huh. Yes, yes, yes, yeah.

Chelsea Myers (1:00:27)
Right?

But I just want to say it has been an absolute delight chatting with you. I love chatting with dads and especially when they can be vulnerable like you've been and share their honest journey. yeah, so thank you. Thank you for

The Ajjancy (1:00:35)
Same to you.

Yeah, and look,

I'm not weeping and wailing as I say these things. It's just like, come on, dads, own up to it. It was scary as hell when they put the baby in your arms, and you struggle to try to figure out how do I support the mom, or when am I feeling like, okay, I don't get what's going on here. This seems ridiculous to me. It just seems like a baby crying. Those are real things that happen.

Chelsea Myers (1:01:05)
Yes.

Yeah, that's the reality. And it's okay to feel those things and it's okay to talk about those things. And hey, I'll sit with you and I'll listen. So yeah, I love it. I thank you for joining me and yeah.

The Ajjancy (1:01:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I thank you for having me and for having

all your guests and doing all that you do. It's really, you know, usually I'm on music podcasts and I always say, you know, we don't have the big record labels supporting us and you don't have, you know, a huge publishing contract with Rand McNally, you know, putting you on, you know, on Good Morning America to talk about your book or whatever. But you have a community of people that listens to you and gets value out of what you do. And that's to be appreciated. And we have to support each other at the level that we have to support each other.

Chelsea Myers (1:01:46)
Absolutely, and I'm happy to support you and yeah, thank you so much.

The Ajjancy (1:01:49)
Likewise. Of course.