Frankie Cosmos and Cat Cohen: 'All Comedians Just Want to Be Rock Stars'
It's Nice to Laugh

Frankie Cosmos and Cat Cohen: 'All Comedians Just Want to Be Rock Stars'

Mutualsis a new PAPER series dedicated to conversations between musicians and comics that we're launching as a part of It's Nice to Laugh. Why? Because musicians and comedians tend to be some of the most interesting people in the room and do very different yet remarkably similar things for a living. From navigating a stage persona, to the writing process, to their precarious industries, there's a lot to discuss. Plus, we realized they were all already hanging out.

Cat Cohen and Greta Kline met at Brooklyn's Union Hall on the line-up of a show hosted by Jaboukie Young-White. Greta is the founder of the indie rock band Frankie Cosmos, known for her prolific output and tender, pithy songs about her internal life. She's a link between many acts in New York's indie music scene, having performed with various monikers and bands (Porches, Fashion Brigade, Ingrid Superstar), and released over 40 projects on Bandcamp. Her most recent album Close It Quietly came out in September.

Cat is a staple of her own scene: New York City alt-comedy. Her singular musical act can be witnessed at her weekly cabaret show hosted on Instagram Live (previously at the Lower East Side's Club Cumming), or on Seek Treatment, the podcast she co-hosts with fellow comedian Pat Regan. She's also acted on High Maintenance, has an upcoming role in the rom-com Lovebirds, and will publish her first book of poetry, God I Feel Modern Tonight, with Knopf next year.

Since that fateful night at Union Hall, they've become friends and collaborators. Greta came aboard for a tell-allSeek Treatment episode about her rise to indie rock stardom, while Cat starred in the cooking show-themed music video for Frankie Cosmos' "Wannago." Lately, they can be found in the comments or sharing the screen of each others' Lives.

PAPER set up a Zoom call for Cat and Greta to catch up from their respective quarantine spots in upstate New York, and discuss everything being unbearable, the art of Insta Live and God.

Greta: I love that you have a full microphone set-up for your computer. I'm supposed to be a musician and I don't know how to do that.

Cat: Okay I can hear now! This town. These people! I'm choking myself in my robe! How are you? Oh my god.

Greta: I'm good! I was just impressed that you had a microphone and headphones.

Cat: Are you obsessed? It's my podcasting setup.

Greta: Of course.

Cat: Forever Dog [Seek Treatment's production company] sent us this, and these, my mom bought for me at the Apple store, if you can believe that.

Greta: Amazing.

Cat: What a rush, when your mom buys you something... Where are you? Do you feel vulnerable or do you feel safe?

Greta: I feel both.

Cat: What's your energy right now?

Greta: My energy's crazy right now.

Cat: Can you tell me or is it secret?

Greta: I think I can tell you. It's kind of cool.

Cat: Ok go off, quen. Can't wait till someone has to write "quen" in this transcript. That's Q-U-E-N, one N.

Greta: I thought maybe there was an accent, and another "E" at the end.

Cat: So what's going on with you?

"Ugh, I need God!"

Greta: Oh, I'm just having a spiritual awakening in quarantine because I'm so unstimulated.

Cat: Ugh, I need God!

Greta: [Laughs] I'm not into God yet. But I was journaling right before this. My goal is to try and dispel any negative stuff inside me fully and let it go, so my plan of action is to talk to my ex today.

Cat: What the fuck!? I'm obsessed that we're coming at this from literally opposite places. Minutes before this, I was having orgasmic sex. I sit down at my computer to the most annoying email I've ever read in my life. Then I connect with you, who has been journaling and reaching into the past.

Greta: Speaking of digging into the past, we have to talk about how we first met. I was thinking about it today because I was writing my questions for you. I was having this memory of you and Jaboukie, and even Charlie Bardey [a comedian] all saying at Union Hall, "We all want to be rockstars." There's something about this series that's making me think, "What is it, that all musicians just want to just get to do banter and not play the songs, and all the comedians just want to be rock stars?" There's a grass is greener thing going on.

Cat: Musicians are always like, "What you guys do is so cool" and I'm like, "No, literally what we do is absolutely mortifying. You guys are actually cool." Everyone wants to be a rockstar. I am so sick to death of my own voice. I wish I could just sing sing sing sing my little tunes. Also, you write literally ten thousand songs per album.

Greta: But you do this amazing thing, where your songs feel off the cuff, the way they're written. Sometimes you are literally making stuff up as you go.

Cat: Do you ever make stuff up when you're singing?

Greta: Not on stage! Not in front of an audience!

Cat: Oh my god. Is everything unbearable right now?

Greta: Yeah, right?

Cat: Whenever you're somewhere, don't you just long desperately to be somewhere else? Okay, wait, so what were you journaling about? Tell me about God. That big guy up in the sky! That straight, white man who controls us.

[Laughter]

Greta: I was journaling about my conversation I'm going to have after this with my ex and just like what I want out of it.

Cat: What do you want out of it? Can you share that or is it private?

Greta:[Laughs] You know, it's getting down to the wire with how much I don't know what I want from it. I've been putting it off every single day. I've been putting it off for years, actually. But finally, I was just like "I've got time now and I feel really spiritually ready to just do a big… let-go thing." Quarantine and all the people dying in the world is making me feel like you wanna not have shit unsaid. Like if someone dies, you don't want to have something unsaid between you.

Cat: Fuck, you're so much more evolved than I am. Literally all I'm thinking about is, "Oh my god, I can't believe my work is on hold, I'm so fucking pissed, and it's not fair and I can't believe it." I literally have to quote myself, "I can't believe this is happening to me."

Greta: I'm cracking up [laughs].

Cat: I tweeted that and someone was like, "Classic white girl shit." I was like, "I'M JOKING!" [laughs]. People are so fuckin' stupid, that's why I love 'em.

Greta: That's a good comedian versus musician thing. You have a persona. You have a character.

Cat: Yeah, but mine's pretty close to how I am. Don't you think?

Greta: Does the fact that someone can't tell that you're joking with something like that — does that freak you out?

Cat: I was thinking about this. I do more of a persona on the Instagram Live, because it feels better to act like I'm just doing a play, rather of pretending I'm trying to talk with you.

Greta: That brings me to something I thought might be fun to talk about with you. I've been doing a lot of thinking about gender in quarantine.

Cat: Oh, go on!

"People are so fuckin' stupid, that's why I love 'em."

Greta: And how... there's two ways it could go.

Cat: [Laughs] I thought you were going to say "So, there's two genders."

Greta:[Laughs] The first gender, is that right now, everyone is nonbinary because, in quarantine, our gender just like doesn't matter. We're all just words on a screen. So much about gender is about performance and being seen. So everyone's getting this taste of, not dressing like you're going outside, which I think is a huge part of gender.

Cat: Yeah! I think that's why I've been trying so hard every week, dressing up even more than I normally would even for shows. I'm doing it over the top.

Greta: Right, 'cause on the other hand, there's like this extreme tunnel vision of gender, where, when you do show yourself online, that's all of you that there is. There's no real life version of yourself to balance that. You're just on a screen. It used to be that there's this on-screen self, and then there's your real self me, and that's how I really am. But now… I don't know. I've just been thinking a lot about it.

Cat: One of my questions is: have you been feeling sensual?

Greta: You're so brave.

Cat: Why? I'm so stupid that I'm just like, "Did you shit and fuck and eat?" And then you're like, "I've been thinking about gender constructs." I'm like, "I had a egg in my face!"

[Laughter]

Greta: Last night when you and Bryan were singing, "I can make myself cum with my hand" I was just thinking about Bryan's parents and your parents watching it.

Cat: I know! I've really dragged him into my world in way that would have not happened without quarantine.

Greta: I love it! His parents aren't there, right?

Cat: No, it's just us in this gorgeous little cabin. I'm numb to my parents seeing my shit that's raunchy or whatever. But I don't know what he's ready for. How do you feel about that? Especially since you've been writing songs since you were so young. Like how did you feel, first exposing your inner life to your family? I think it's so fucking embarrassing.

Greta: Yeah, it's terrifying. But there's more of a vagueness to my songwriting. Anyway… I'm feeling actually weirdly normal. My way of coping is I don't think more than a week in the future.

Cat: Will you soon long for the spotlight?

"Quarantine and all the people dying in the world is making me feel like you wanna not have shit unsaid."

Greta: Not if I keep doing my Insta lives.

Cat: I know, right? How does the rush from during your Insta lives compare to your fucking sold-out rock shows?

Greta: Well, I do think that more people watch Insta live than a normal show.

Cat: Yeah, even when my Instagram numbers are low, they're still six or seven times what comes to my weekly show.

Greta: Your numbers are fucking crazy.

Cat: I've literally been beating myself up calling myself a piece of shit and I have nothing good going for me. Isn't that psycho?

Greta: I'd feel really proud if five hundred people watched my Live.

Cat: That's a lot of people.

"It's easier for me to stress out about my weight than the fact that the world's ending."

Greta: No, but you have like a thousand in ten minutes.

Cat: Sometimes, it depends. I miss live performance so, so, so much, that something about the Insta lives, it really does make me immediately happy. But I've been so hard on myself lately and so worried about not being successful, because it's hard to remember that everyone else is doing nothing. I feel like I've been marooned.

Greta: That's so crazy. It's amazing for people to get to hear that even you feel unsuccessful.

Cat: I literally think I'm a genius, and all the time I'll think that I'm disgusting. Don't you get that? That gorgeous dichotomy of being alive?

Greta: Totally. I also know that I'm a genius. And think that I'm a piece of shit.

Cat: Really?

Greta: Yeah. I was talking to my friend yesterday about how I feel because we went to a very intense, grueling all-girls, girl-boss school... like, we're never going to feel successful. You're never going to feel like you live up to whatever it is those people are doing.

Cat: I know. Once a week I'll go on a really long run by myself once I've been driven absolutely mad, and I'll always try to think of all the good things about myself when I'm running.

Greta: It's honestly so shocking, that you have any negative self thoughts.

Cat:[Laughs] Honey, if these walls could talk... the things I say about myself... it's wretched. It's stuff I normally ignore because I'm busy and feeling good and vibing off of other people and being extroverted. But now that I'm alone, I'm confronting all the stuff I've always dealt with, but now it's really loud.

Greta: Totally.

Cat: You saying the gender thing, I feel like I've been especially tuned into my body dysmorphia and stuff, because one, I have this extra time. But two, I read this online, but like it's easier for me to stress out about my weight than the fact that the world's ending.

Greta: I'm really having a hard time balancing "having thoughts." It spirals really fast. So I try not to have thoughts and just like watch bad TV and just sleep a lot and just pretend I'm on vacation. And then once I think, I'm like "Oh shit." And then I think about "my career won't exist anymore because music won't exist anymore." You can just go crazy. That's what makes me spiral, so I just try not to go there.

Cat: I know, the word "career" is so triggering for me.

Greta: It's crazy. But it seems like you're doing a lot. You just got a freakin' book deal!

Cat: Yeah, I know! And guess what? It's never enough! That being said, I actually am super, super proud. The book is actually something that whenever I think about it, I feel so proud and psyched. It's a total dream of mine. At the same time, it's like, "This makes perfect sense" but then it's also like "Fuck, I can't believe I'm doing this." For those reading this absolute beautiful poem of an interview, I want to share with you that my first collection of poems called, God I Feel Modern Tonight is going to be published by Knopf early next year. I'm sitting next to a manuscript right now. I've sent Greta many of the poems.

"I'm really having a hard time balancing 'having thoughts.'"

Greta: Yes!

Cat: I actually feel like, what I will say is, meeting you, it's so rare to find a friend like you where I feel like I can just share whatever and not be embarrassed and not have to be funny or whatever all the time. Like I can earnestly show you the watercolors I'm making, or the poems that are truly serious and not be embarrassed about your reaction.

Greta: Yeah, well, while I think that you're a really funny comedian, I also think you're a really serious artist.

Cat: Ahh! Stop.

Greta: It's like how a lot of musicians have a hard time doing karaoke. You feel like you have this thing that you do, and you don't want to stray from it or show your friends the other side of your thing. I can see how with other comedians, you have a hard time showing your "serious artist side." But I view you as a renaissance woman.

Cat: Well, likewise. I feel like we should go into more of how we met, which was that we were both on a show that Jaboukie Young-White hosted at Union Hall. I had known your music. I remember very vividly. The year is 2015. I'm in my gorgeous loft that I shared with 10 million people in South Williamsburg and my friend showed me your "Outside With The Cuties" video. I literally was like, "That girl is so cool." The way you were dressed, the music, the way you sounded. I was just like, "This is so good and effortless and I want to be like this person, I feel so far from being that kind of person."

Greta: Oh my gosh.

Cat: That's why, when I met you and you were so warm and funny, I was like, "Wow." Usually cool people are like mean... I mean, I don't know [laughs]. What is "cool?" [Laughs].

Greta: What is "cool?"

Cat: Jaws are on the floor at this point of the interview.

Greta: That's a heavy question. That's funny because I had that same thing. Watching you perform, I remember saying to my bandmates, "This is what I want to see before I go onstage."

Cat: Awwwww.

Greta: As a performer, watching you, it's like, "This is someone who is really, in your body, enjoying performing" in a way that I often struggle with.

Cat: Really? You seem like such a natch.

Greta: Thank you. I think honestly, since getting to know your work and since being a fan of yours, that it's changed me as a performer.

Cat: NooooOOOOOOOOoooooo.

Greta: Yes! I think it helped me go into performing with a more positive, confident view, or to try to get something out of it in a different way.

Cat: I would love to know how you rattle off these songs so quickly. Because I feel like I kind of sit and stew until something comes to me. What's your process like?

Greta: I've been like, not inspired. Obviously, right now because there's nothing going on.

Cat: I know.

Greta: And because I'm not letting myself think. It gets hard to write a song obviously. So I've been using it as a time to go back to my super old voice memos and super old journal entries and find songs I've never finished to try and finish them.

Cat: That's something I'm very bad at. It's like the ADD thing we're talking about.

Greta: But sometimes when you have enough time and space away from it, it feels new.

Cat: That's true. It's hard for me to write a song about something I'm not going through. I tried to write a song about a breakup a few months ago, but I wasn't going through a breakup and I was like, "There's nothing coming to me." Like it's not good.

Greta: It's funny because I've been in this relationship now for almost three years and I'm still writing breakup songs from my last relationship.

Cat: Well it sounds like that one was... I mean, when it haunts you, it haunts you. What a gift!

"The word 'career' is so triggering for me."

Greta: That's true. It's a gift. I was writing songs before that breakup even happened for years, you know?

Cat: I wish I was better at guitar. How do you know about guitar... the instrument?

Greta: I think that we are equally good at guitar.

Cat: It's so funny because I only came back to guitar… I got a guitar after I went through a breakup in February of last year.

Greta: You mean, the breakup with [Cat's current boyfriend] Brian?

Cat: [Laughs] Yes, he's sitting across from me. Basically, I was dating this guy, who I'm still dating, but we went on a break and when we broke up I was really sad.

Greta: Hi Brian!

Cat: It was the first time I was living alone and single, so I was like, "fuuuuuck." So I got this guitar and then, as we all know, I started dating my, say it with me, guitar teacher which did not end well-el-el-el but now quarantine is getting back into guitar.

Greta: I'm just going back, thinking about vulnerability and how, the people that listen to your podcast, myself included, have pieced together these relationships. Like, when you said "breakup in February," I was like, "Wait is Brian the one that helped you put together a couch?"

Cat: Yeah... [laughs].

Greta: I feel giving us all these glimpses takes such a confidence. I'm so afraid of really baring my soul, my real experiences, telling the world about what my breakup was, because I don't want the story to overpower who I am. I'm not confident enough in myself, just being "me" enough. I feel like there's something with women where you become defined by the men around you, by the men in your stories.

Cat: Say that again, you broke up. Oh god, we're laughing, laughing, laughing at that pun.

[Laughter]

Greta: When you're a woman... a businesswoman,

Cat: We're literally businesswomen.

Greta: Yeah, when you're literally a businesswoman who, part of your job is being in front of a camera and showing yourself and being partly yourself and partly a twisted, fake, bizarro version of yourself... It's scary to define any part of yourself by the men around you because people cling onto that so much.

Cat: Interesting... I feel like I'm so much more powerful than any men I know so I'm just like —

Greta: — you are! That's why you do it so well.

Cat: But to me, when I think of you I'm like, "Wait, you're so powerful, you've been building a huge community, this band since you were what, how old?"

Greta: Like 19.

Cat: That's crazy. When I was 19 I didn't even know where my clit was.

Greta: Same.

Cat: I actually did know where my clit was... but I was scared to tell someone that I knew where it was.

"There's something with women where you become defined by the men around you, by the men in your stories."

Greta: Yeah [laughs]. Exactly. Same. Still! I'm 26 and I'm afraid to tell anyone that I know where my clit is.

Cat: Wow, to be 26... in a time like this. I'm famously 28 but that's okay. Wait, but you never answered my question. How did you first get over baring yourself to your family and friends through songwriting?

Greta: I just pretend. If there's something really serious in it that I don't want to talk about, I pretend that it's fake.

Cat: Yeah.

Greta: I'm like "Oh no, that's just a songwriting thing!"

Cat: Yeahhhhhh.

Greta: That's what I do. You can't do that. You're too real.

Cat: People always ask, "Was that true, what you said onstage?" and I'm like, "Yeah." What I will do is change the timeline of things, or I say two different funny facts about two people but I say they're about the same person. So it's not 100% true.

Greta: Yeah, same. I mean, nothing we're doing is like pure truth. My mom still makes me send her the lyrics whenever I make a new song and I send it to her. She wants to read the lyrics along.

Cat: Woahhhhh, that's so sweet

Greta: When I was younger, the first probably five years that I recorded music I would bury my vocals, do a megaphone effect, whatever it was so that she wouldn't hear the words.

Cat: Oh my god.

Greta: And then, something switched where now I'm just like, I ran out of that system and now I'm putting my vocals at the top of everything really loud and I don't care. Part of my spiritual journey right now is that I truly don't care what anybody thinks.

Cat: Wow. So yeah, outline your spiritual journey for us.

Greta: I don't know I think it's this weird thing where the world is changing and I'm just kind of letting it happen and trying to be really zen. I've been doing this weird chi moving, moving my chi around.

Cat: What is that? Tell me how to do that.

Greta: I'll send you a YouTube link.

Cat: Please, god. Because I feel like I'm resisting this change.

Greta: Yeah, you can't resist the change. It's like going to happen. People who resist the change are going to get hurt.

Cat: When I zoom out, I'm like "You're going to be okay." I just feel so close to all this stuff I want and I don't want this to get in the way, but it's like, no this is actually, I know it's going to bend me in the right direction.

Greta: I think you have to let it happen and take this time and use it. The universe is making you use it this way. You're finding new ways to express yourself and sit with your thoughts.

Cat: You live with your boyf normally right?

"When I was 19 I didn't even know where my clit was. I actually did know where my clit was, but I was scared to tell someone that I knew where it was."

Greta: Yeah. But it's sort of like living alone.

Cat: Why?

Greta: We're really good at like, not talking. We do our own thing. I don't know, have you been to my house?

Cat: No.

Greta: It's amazing. It's like a one-and-a-half bedroom. So there's this little bedroom that we call the "Room of Sin" because it has like a twin bed in there. It's like Jilian's [Jilian Medford of IAN SWEET] room when she comes to town, but we also just keep all our shit in there, guitars.

Cat: [Laughs] The room of sin.

Greta: It's just sort of our little time out room. [Laughs] Like one of us will disappear in there and it's just a really easy space to share. We're not in each other's way. He's just very chill and he doesn't ask for a lot of me. The only way in which I'm not alone, is that he takes care of me in a way that makes me afraid to lose that. If I were too alone, it's like, "Who would make me breakfast?" You know?

Cat: I'm obsessed. Ok so one of my questions is: I'm so curious to see how everyone is filling their time right now. Before this call today, you've opened your eyes, what have you done?

Greta: Stop, that's like, my least favorite question, when people are like: "What do you do with your days?"

Cat: No! I don't know — I just don't know what I do with my days, I don't know what anyone does.

Greta: I slept until like 11:30.

Cat: That's amazing! I normally would do that, but my lover wakes early and it disturbs my soul.

Greta: I was up really late with my parents watching Ozark.

Cat: Is that good?

Greta: Not really, but it's really fun.

Cat: We've only been watching Love Island. It's all we could watch.

Greta: Wait have you watched Too Hot To Handle though, Catherine?

Cat: No! But I've been told by you and a few others that I need to.

Greta: So funny!

Cat: [To Brian] Too Hot To Handle, she says.

Greta: You guys need to watch it.

Cat: Too Hot To Handle. Brian's earphones are in.

Greta: Does Brian like me?

Brian: Yes!

Cat: Brian loves you. He was literally like "Greta was being so sweet on the Live saying that I was the lucky one." He was like, "She's right." [To Brian] She says, do you like her?

Brian: I do, yeah!

Cat: He says yeah.

Greta: I love Brian. I do. I do, I love Brian and I'm really jealous of him getting to be quarantined with you. I think that he's the luckiest guy in the world.

Cat: [To Brian] Awwww, she's jealous of you being quarantined with me.

Greta: I think he's the luckiest guy in the world.

Cat: Awwwww. [To Brian] Do you think you're the luckiest guy in the world?

Brian: Totally.

Cat: What I was going to say is that, because we've never lived together before, he is literally bearing witness to some of my horrific mood swings and it's really embarrassing for me.

Greta: I love that. I love your song "My Moods."

Cat: It's hard though! I feel like we joke about it, but I can be really difficult to be around.

Greta: Really? Do you like living alone though? Did you like living alone before this?

Cat: Yeah. Because I'm always around people otherwise, so I know if I go home, it's like, "Okay." It's never like there's never no one to hang around if I'm lonely. I can just call someone or whatever.

Greta: Were you that moody when you lived alone? Did you go through as many mood tallies?

Cat: Yeah. The scariest thing about this whole experience is that I don't know if I'm even being more moody than normal. This might just be that way I am.

Greta: You're in a vacuum, so it's magnified.

"I don't know if I'm even being more moody than normal. This might just be that way I am."

Cat: And also, there's a single other person who's seeing all of them, as opposed to like "Ohh, I complain to Pat about this thing, then I go away, then I call my mom about this other thing." So people think I'm ok. Do you feel moody, or are you pretty chill?

Greta: Oh no, I'm moody. I get really irritable in quar. That's definitely my mood fault. Sometimes my mom will be like: "Hey, can you help me with this thing in the computer?" and I'll just be like "WHAT?!?!"

Cat: The things that moms have to deal with... it's actually insane.

Cat: Do you experience exercise?

Greta: I have been doing yoga with my mom almost every day.

Cat: [Gasps] What time of day?

Greta: Well morning, which means like after breakfast, which sometimes is like 1PM. So like, you asked what I did today. I woke up, then my mom and I did yoga, then I started journaling and then I had this call. It was like, I journaled for five minutes and then this call happened.

Cat: That's perfect. You know what, maybe I'll do some yoga today. Today is exciting because we're going to the store after this, and I have to record a voiceover audition, and then I'm going to cook. And then tomorrow, tomorrow is exciting because it's our 50 day quarantine anniversary. So we're do something special, I'm making chicken tikka masala!

Greta: Wait ok. I could interview you forever. I want to ask what you think about inventing an entire language that people now speak in.

Cat: [Laughs] I would say it's all Pat.

Greta: Yeah, but you guys just pioneered it, I feel.

Cat: Yeah, Pat just like... I've always liked making up fake little words and stuff, but the way Pat structures sentences defies humanity. Even though he jokes people copy him, no one can because what he does is so pure. He's just so brilliant.

Greta: He's amazing.

Cat: I know, I really miss him.

Greta: I loved seeing him come on your show last night.

Cat: I just love seeing his face. I literally look at his face and think "You're so beautiful, you're so smart, you're so funny." Oh, a few weeks ago, Brian and I watched the David Sedaris Masterclass — you know that website, Master Class?

Greta: Sure.

Cat: It was so charming, but he talked about how he likes to ask people outrageous questions. He'll be like "Have you ever gotten punched in the face by a gorilla? And sometimes, they have! Brian was like "You should ask her a David Sedaris question."

Greta: Alright, let's hear it.

Cat: Okay let me think of one... Have you ever ice skated naked?

Greta:[Laughs] No...

Cat: But come on, would you?

Greta: Even if I had a frozen pond, and I had skates, and it was warm enough that the pond was frozen but it was warm enough that I could be naked, I still probably wouldn't do it. I would be more worried about the ice flying up and hitting my body or cutting my vagina. I have so many fears about nature getting inside me. I don't like the idea of being naked outside at all.

Cat: I like the idea of being naked in nature as long as my feet are covered. I really don't like stepping on stuff, as crazy as that sounds.

Greta: I loved your videos of you in a bikini in the street.

Cat: Oh, thank you. That was really traumatic because when I shot those, I was being really mean about my body and being really hard on myself and I had a little mini meltdown that day and then I was like, "You know, I think it's really funny and I'm just going to do it."

Greta: I'm sure that everyone was commenting that you look gorgeous.

Cat: I know, I just see... I've just been trained since I was five years old to want a different body.

Greta: Totally, totally. It's so crazy. Well, what you do... I mean the fact that you share it with us is. People need to see you in a bikini in the street.

Cat: Sometimes that's the medicine that we all need, I hope. I hope to play a part in that. What was I going to ask?

Greta: Would you ice skate naked?

Cat: Yeah, but only because I have a sick addiction to telling stories like that. That reminds of how, I once broke into an ice rink on a cruise ship with a lover and we got kicked out. But in the moment, it was actually kind of sad because this guy wasn't really treating me great but I was just so desperate to make him fall in love with me and I was like, "We'll just do whatever crazy stuff." So that he would be like, "I can't do this with anyone else but you!"

Greta: Wow. I really haven't done that many crazy things. I don't have that many good stories.

Cat: Your life is more exciting than the average person. You've travelled the world, you're a rock star.

Greta: I feel like there's this image of what this rock star is. We literally just play shows and then we just go to bed.

Cat: I know, but still, that thrill of being on the stage. Even just the thrill of walking into the venue and setting up and soundcheck and all of that, like that's the best part.

Greta: The thing about me is, I don't need to have done crazy things, 'cause in here [points to her head] is where all the crazy stuff is.

Cat: Has it always been wild and crazy for you inside?

Greta: Oh yeah. I'm only just starting to grasp like, putting it in words, you know?

Cat: You seem so much more well-adjusted than so many artist types that I know.

Greta: Thank you. I feel crazy all the time.

Cat: I think it's 'cause you're a family man. You retreat and you keep each other grounded.

"I don't need to have done crazy things, 'cause in here [points to her head] is where all the crazy stuff is."

Greta: My biggest fear right now is that I'm turning into a baby. Obviously I'm regressing because I'm just with my parents and my mom is taking care of me.

Cat: Sounds amazing.

Greta: But I'm just letting it. 'Cause like... whatever. In however many years, when my parents aren't around, I'm going to miss that.

Cat: I'm gonna kill myself when my parents die.

Greta: Same. I don't know if your parents told you this, but when I was a kid my mom told me that she was never going to die.

Cat: Oh my God, that's so funny.

Greta: I'm still holding her to that.

Cat: Do you want kids?

Greta: Fuck no.

Cat: That's so surprising! As a family man.

Greta: Oh my god, I'm so selfish, I could never. I can hardly take care of myself.

Cat: I think you're very generous. Think of the gifts you've given the world and your band.

Greta: Thank you. I love hearing that because it gives me an excuse to be even more selfish.

Cat: No, you really are! You're one of the most thoughtful friends I have. The kind of messages you send and the way you check in. It's like, 'cause I don't even know. The times we've even seen each other are actually so few... But thanks to the internet. Things are amazing.