Tyler Posey is the latest guest on the Artist Friendly podcast. This week, the actor and musician joined Joel Madden on the podcast to talk about his involvement in the pop-punk music scene, his mental health journey, and more.
The episode is available now wherever you listen to podcasts, but before you dive into the full interview, we’ve rounded up some key takeaways.
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blink-182 was very formative
After feeling a bit like an outsider in several avenues of his life, from pursuing a career as an actor as a child to being home schooled, Posey says that “music was really where [he] found [his] home.” The first band that made him really feel seen was blink-182 and their pop-punk anthems. He tells Madden that when he was 8-years-old and filming a project in Canada, he loved to go to the HMV record store to get all of their music. “I was the only kid on the show, so blink quickly became my only friends over in Canada,” he says. Later, into his adolescence when he picked up guitar, he says that he and his friend who played bass would pretend to be Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus when jamming together.
Michelle Zauner’s book Crying in H Mart is important to him
On the podcast, Posey opens up about how his mother died when he was 23 and how that affected him. He talks a bit about how he turned to substance use to cope, but also became closer than ever with his family. Because grief is a journey, Posey mentions how he’s still healing, and most recently really connected with Michelle Zauner’s 2021 best-selling memoir Crying in H Mart. He mentions that he’s a fan of Zauner’s indie-pop band Japanese Breakfast, and felt so many parallels with his own life in reading her book, from their lifestyles in the spotlight to the way he processed loss. “It was the first time in a long time where I’m reading this book and every other paragraph I had to stop fucking breaking down,” he says. “I felt like I needed that.”
In his acting career, he’s working on learning to “let shit go”
Posey and Madden discuss how acting is a self-conscious artform, which Posey says he’s pretty “forgiving in that.” He says, “I’ve tried my hardest over the years to not get wrapped up in that. I don’t want to be victim to having to do a take again because I didn’t like how my hair looked in a certain shot. I try my hardest to let shit go.” Still, he admits it can be very tough when a role he’s after doesn’t work out. But he’s constantly working on that by being confident in what he does and telling himself that he might not be ready for one role, but he can still get better.
Making music is just for fun
Between his stint on Teen Wolf and his various pop-punk projects, Posey’s had quite the career so far. But it’s important to him that creating music is “just fun.” “When I got with [John Feldmann]’s label, there was this added pressure to be something. Pop-punk is my heart and soul, but it’s not what’s gonna sell a bunch of things for me because it’s not the biggest in the world right now,” he reasons. “But with acting, it’s definitely one of the things that I’m [like], ‘If this doesn’t work out, I’m fucked.’” “You’re definitely not fucked, and it’s definitely working out,” Madden responds with a smile. Yet for Posey, there’s still that pressure where it feels like “it’s all or nothing,” so making music gives him more breathing room to be creative.
He’s turned into a bookworm
For the past two years, Posey’s been reading a ton of self-help books, including The Power of Now and A New Earth. “This gets a little heady,” he jokes of the latter before diving into a short explanation of how the book is “all about letting go of ego.” He also says it “bums [him] out” when he uses his phone a lot, so every time he has the urge to pull it out, he’ll pick up a book instead. He’s also expanding beyond self-help books and has been getting into memoirs lately, too.
Making an album feels like a rite of passage
Albums have soundtracked Posey’s life, so naturally he wants to stop making EPs and create one of his own. “Every band I grew up listening to, I never saw an EP, except for Flyswatter from blink. I don’t want to do EPs anymore. I want to do [an album] so bad,” he says on the podcast. Madden agrees, pointing out that albums “capture a time in your life” that you can look back on. Though he’s releasing it independently, Posey remains excited by the possibility and freedom of his new 16-track record, UNRAVEL, which is dropping this Friday.
