0:03

Welcome to Why I'm Voting, a production

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of I Heart Radio. Listen.

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You already know this, but it's an election year.

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You might already be tired of hearing about it.

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But here's the thing. Democracy

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doesn't work without you. I'm

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Holly Frying, and I'm sitting down with

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many of my fellow podcasters, from Will

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Ferrell to Stephanie Rule, as well as

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other luminaries, to find out about

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their relationships with the ballot box and

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ultimately just to find out why they

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vote. I hope you're

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exercising your right to vote, and if

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you're not, I hope that their stories inspire

0:39

you. Welcome

0:45

to Why I'm Voting Today. I am joined

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by singer songwriter musician Adam

0:49

Met. He and his two brothers make up the indie

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pop trio A j R. Which released its

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latest and very very catchy single Bang

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in February this year. He is also

0:59

very very interested in a lot of important

1:01

issues, and most importantly, he is

1:03

a voter. Adam, thank you so much for joining

1:05

me. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

1:08

You are the eldest of your

1:10

brothers. Correct, So

1:13

as we do this, I'm gonna get to some

1:15

leadership questions. But

1:17

first I want to ask you if you remember when

1:19

you specifically learned as a kid about

1:22

voting and that this was a responsibility

1:25

you would one day take on. Yeah.

1:27

Absolutely, my first

1:29

memory of just learning about

1:31

the election process. I think I was in fifth

1:33

grade and it was the Bush Gore

1:36

election, and it

1:39

was such a contested election that everyone

1:41

was listening on the radio just to

1:43

kind of hear what was going on because we didn't

1:45

get a result until many days after the election

1:48

was over, and so I was constantly

1:50

listening on the radio and they were saying

1:52

over and over again what was happening, and that

1:54

they were still waiting and waiting for votes to come in.

1:57

So much so that my parents sent me downstairs

2:00

to practice piano because I hadn't practiced piano

2:02

in a bunch of days, and I didn't practice

2:04

at all because all I was doing was listening to the radio,

2:06

so just like kind of play a little

2:08

bit, but really just be focusing on the

2:10

radio, and so it kind of interrupted

2:13

my my music career so much so

2:16

that, you know, I started to have a little problem with

2:18

my parents. Did you

2:20

then, because clearly you were a kid that was very

2:22

fascinated by it. So did you register to vote

2:24

right away when you turned eight team? I did

2:27

when I turned eighteen. It was just

2:29

before the general election when Obama

2:31

was running, so I wasn't able to vote in the primary,

2:34

but I could vote in the general, and

2:36

that was such an amazing experience

2:38

for me. I mean, I studied a little bit of kind

2:41

of political science and a bunch of other things

2:43

in school, so it was such

2:45

an honor for me to walk into a

2:47

public school, first, which is a really cool thing that

2:49

you can go and vote in a public school, And second

2:52

that I could actually vote and pull the

2:54

lever. I went with my dad the first time because I

2:56

had no idea what to do, and I know now they're like

2:58

electronic voting machine means and all this stuff,

3:01

But to actually pull the lever and

3:03

poke the little holes in the ballot, that was such

3:05

a rewarding experience for me. That's so

3:07

cool. Now, as I mentioned, you

3:10

are the older brother, So did you

3:12

feel a sense of responsibility to encourage

3:14

your siblings to get registered when they turned

3:17

eighteen or what? Did you not have to you? Were they

3:19

also like you ready to go? They're pretty

3:21

on it. I had to push a little bit. But

3:23

I mean, we travel all over the world so much and

3:25

see so many different kinds of people and the issues

3:28

they're facing in the United States and

3:30

you know, in Europe, in Asia

3:32

and Australian all these other places. So they're

3:35

very much in touch with the

3:37

you know, the successes of voting and

3:39

what voting can do to actually make change.

3:42

So the last election, we voted by

3:44

absentee, but they were actually really on it.

3:46

They got their absentee ballots send out to them

3:48

on the road and and we voted from a tour bus.

3:51

I love it. In my head, I'm

3:53

hoping there's a photo of all of you filling out

3:55

your ballots together. Now, you

3:57

are very engaged in

3:59

a lot of issues, so I

4:02

am presuming that you are

4:04

also very active in local elections.

4:07

So when it comes to researching

4:10

for local elections, which takes a little

4:12

more effort, and also again, I know

4:14

you have a whole level of information from

4:17

your previous work. Will you talk about

4:19

how you synthesize all of that information,

4:21

your research process, etcetera. To make

4:23

sure that for every time you fill

4:26

out that ballot or go to the booth, that

4:28

you are informed and you're selecting the people that

4:30

are gonna uphold the values that you have.

4:32

Absolutely. I mean I talk about this

4:35

all the time. Funny enough, I have a podcast

4:37

coming out called Planet Reimagined where we

4:39

talk about all different kinds of sustainability,

4:42

and a few of the episodes have been about

4:44

mobilization and voting and finding

4:47

out who you should be voting for and

4:49

how you do that research. So we've spoken

4:51

to Andrew Yang about this, We've spoken to the founders

4:53

of March for Our Lives, and they

4:55

all have really interesting perspectives, and

4:57

so I've kind of created my perspective out

5:00

of an amalgam of all of these different people.

5:02

And the first thing I always think about

5:05

is the change that can be affected on the

5:07

local level. Like you said, yes, you're

5:09

voting in a presidential election, and your vote

5:11

absolutely matters. But let's say that's three

5:14

million people. At the state level, you're

5:16

also voting, and let's say on average, that's

5:18

somewhere around ten million people, So your vote matters

5:21

a little bit more. On the city

5:23

level, you're voting and there

5:25

could be you know, around one to two million people

5:27

in your city. Your vote matters even more at

5:30

the very local level, you could

5:32

be voting among a pool of a few thousand

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people, and those are

5:36

the elected officials that make

5:38

the decisions about things that are so relevant

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to you today, everything from police

5:43

funding, whatever side of the issue you fall on

5:46

on. That that is very much done

5:48

at the local level. Climate initiatives,

5:50

and that's something that I'm extremely passionate

5:52

about. Cities and states.

5:54

They are some of the biggest funders

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of climate initiatives. New York City where I am, they

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have amazing wind and solar program So

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you don't necessarily need to just rely on the

6:03

federal level for that to happen. And

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to answer your question, where you

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find these answers are from

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the individual people, because you're voting

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for an individual person and

6:15

at the same time you're voting for their policies.

6:17

So there are a lot of organizations that

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I work with. One is called Sunrise and

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they're really fantastic on climate. So

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if you go and research the Sunrise

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movement, they will tell you exactly

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where every single official sits

6:30

on all of these issues. And so my

6:33

big thing is that your vote absolutely

6:36

does matter, because you're not

6:38

just voting for the president. It is so

6:41

important that everyone understands you could be one

6:43

of just a few hundred people in your district

6:45

that are voting for somebody and whether

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you care about education, or climate,

6:50

or healthcare or inequality, and hopefully

6:52

you care about all of those things, the local

6:55

people are the ones that are making those big changes

6:57

well, and I think to right like, the local is

7:00

what you feel the most immediately and directly

7:02

in your day to day life. Definitely, we've

7:04

had some very fun conversations on the show of people

7:07

going, you're mad at the wrong people, like, you have to vote

7:09

for your local people. Those are the people

7:11

you need to talk to. Absolutely in elections

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where people think they already know how it's going to

7:16

shake out, and they might not be as motivated

7:18

to get out there. What are your thoughts on

7:20

that and why it's still important to do

7:22

the thing. Now more than ever, people

7:25

are reevaluating how our election

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system works, and so right

7:30

now what you're voting for is

7:32

not just the person who's going to be in office, but

7:34

the potential of rebuilding our election

7:36

system. So voices count more

7:38

than ever. There's so many ideas of how we're

7:41

going to reframe the electoral college, or there's

7:43

this idea called ranked choice voting, which I'm

7:45

a really big fan of, and I think it allows

7:47

kind of third party in different candidates

7:50

from different parts of the parties for their voices

7:52

to be heard even more. And so by

7:54

voting for one candidate today,

7:56

that means your voice is going to be able to be heard

7:59

even stronger and even more prevalently

8:01

in the future. So it's not just about your vote

8:03

today. So I'm wondering what your

8:05

election day rituals are, since you're probably

8:07

gonna be once again doing a mainland

8:10

vote as our many and since your

8:12

siblings are also engaged in voting,

8:14

do you guys do stuff together? Do you have

8:17

a meal? Do you discuss what you voted

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on? Like? How does that day play out for you normally?

8:22

It's interesting this year because we talk about

8:24

it all the time. We talk about

8:26

everyone from the local officials that we're voting for

8:28

all the way up to the presidential election, and

8:31

there will be some sort of ritual. But

8:33

I can't emphasize this enough. It's

8:36

not going to be on election day

8:38

because you need to vote early,

8:41

you need to register early, and you need to vote

8:43

early because we don't know what's going to

8:45

be happening. With the postal service, so

8:47

it's going to be happening a few weeks before. But I

8:49

think that's gonna look like probably

8:52

a meal of some sort. We're big fans of

8:54

Chinese food, so we'll probably do like a

8:56

big order in take out Chinese food

8:59

meal and discuss us everything and see if

9:01

we're on the same page. And you know, you don't

9:03

necessarily have to be on the same page. I might

9:05

not be on the same page as my brothers for everything.

9:08

I think generally we agree, but there

9:10

might be some you know, local officials that prioritize

9:13

one thing over another, and that's totally

9:16

okay as long as you're having the discussion

9:18

about it. I now want you to write a handbook

9:20

on how to talk to your family and disagree about

9:22

political issues, because it seems

9:24

like you all adore each other just the same. If

9:28

you were in a position

9:30

where you were talking to someone who is eligible

9:32

to vote but is not using that right and

9:35

you wanted to try to just make clear to them

9:37

how important it is, what's the one thing you would

9:39

tell them? I would say, the one thing

9:42

that has been the most convincing for me

9:45

is at this moment, you're not voting

9:48

just for the next president of the United States.

9:50

You're voting for a few Supreme Court

9:53

justices. And if you think about

9:55

the history of the court decisions over the last

9:57

hundred years, there have been

9:59

so many incredible advancements.

10:02

And if you think about the people on the court that are

10:04

promoting those advancements, that's what

10:06

you're voting for. You're voting for education,

10:09

You're voting for gender equality, You're voting

10:11

for you know, climate, You're voting for all

10:13

of these things. And a president

10:16

has either a four year term or an eight year term,

10:18

but a Supreme Court justice has a lifetime

10:20

term. So you have to make a decision

10:23

now about what you want that lifetime

10:25

term of a Supreme Court justice to look

10:27

like. Perfect, Adam, thank you so much

10:29

for talking to me about voting today. Tell us

10:32

the name of your podcast again. It's called

10:34

Planet Reimagined and it's coming out September.

10:37

I'm so excited. I'm going to be all over

10:39

that. Are you kidding? Thank you again for spending

10:41

this time and for voting, and for making it a

10:44

family affair. Of course, you're like the dream.

10:46

Thank you for having me today.

10:52

Hey, are you not registered to vote yet?

10:54

But you think it's something you want to do, you

10:56

may still have time. Voter registration

10:58

deadlines vary by date, so to find

11:00

out the scoop for where you are, check out

11:03

a nonpartisan registration voting site

11:05

like head count dot org or fair

11:07

vote dot org. Why I'm Voting

11:10

is an I Heart Radio production. For more

11:12

podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit

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the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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or wherever it is you listen to your favorite shows