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IE: Well, you easily could have lost your gift. But now you’ re stronger than ever,

AW: Yeah. That’ s a really good point. And I think that curiosity and fear may be enemies. So if you’ re scared – like we were saying before – and you’ re scared to go to that dark edge and look over, you’ re sure as hell not going to be an artist. Like Iggy Pop. Or Anthony Bourdain. And of course, food is an art now. And it’ s great that the whole idea of food and place has become more mainstream now, because that is real – it isn’ t some yuppie in their kitchen watching some Food Network competition show, trying to singing duets with James Hetfield(“ Beautiful Broken”) and even Robert Plant( on“ Stairway to Heaven,” at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012). AW: Well, I think if you hang around long enough, you are going to see some amazing things, things that you never would have been able to accept when you were younger. You just get more … more fluid. You just get more accepting, I think. Except for those people who get more crystallized and hardened, But I am certainly not one of those.

Heart promo photo, 1975 outdo them. It’ s to the place itself and seeing how the people live and how they cook.

IE: So how awesome was it to get the call from John Oliver to track that hilarious“ Don’ t Use Our Songs” video, alongside Josh Groban, Cyndi Lauper, and Mellencamp last year, with its message to Republicans about unapproved campaign song usage –“ It might seem appealing / But you’ re just stealing”?

AW: Ha! Yeah, that was awesome. And back then, at that point in the election, we sort of thought,“ Well, maybe this will help. In some kind of sill way, help to take some of the pressure off all of this, and we could giggle about it and not be so divided or polarized.” But it was a really fun experience to do – we did the whole thing in front of a green screen, and they( HBO’ s Last Week Tonight) just filled it in.

IE: What’ s the most important lesson you’ ve learned through all this? AW: I think the most important lesson, as of today, that I learned from all this is that it’ s not always what it seems. There is always room to pause and wait and let something unfold. Let something unfold before you freak out.

Tom Lanham

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