146 Cody Simpson _Swimming Saved My Life_ From Pop Stardom To Olympic Dreams

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free app today and find your next outdoor adventure i'm my boris and this is straight

talk

cody simpson welcome straight talk

swimming was the first thing i remember being good at the coaches and the people that i had

there really believed i would be able to go all the way with it but at the same time i was

loving music and practicing guitar and so i had these sort of dual interests and then i cut

swimming short because i was given a massive opportunity at a young age to pursue music

i started traveling and touring by myself from 16 it did wonders for me as a musician but you

know i'm not a musician i'm not a musician i'm not a musician i'm not a musician i'm not a musician

you start going out to clubs because they're letting you in you know drinking and drugs and

that's a serious level of freedom for a kid that age that's a time for mistakes to happen they did

happen did you ever get like chronically close to stuffing things up yeah yeah a few times it was

sliding and what pulls you back swimming saved my life in a sense when i left entertainment to

go stare at the black line again having gone from doing nothing to that in nine months time it was

a lot of vomiting in that period i said i'm gonna go for it because if i don't it's gonna be too late

you know i'm gonna live with those what ifs you know if you've got your now partner emma yeah

two great athletes i'm just sort of imagining the genetics

our coach is waiting for you i can just see it i can see it

cody simpson welcome straight talk thank you very much how you going yeah i'm doing all right yeah

yeah and how are you feeling now that uh you you were at the olympics so you weren't competing

but you're at the olympics you've come back from um from france um you probably stopped training

after the golf games or after the trials this year about two months ago three months ago now

have you been have you done any training oh gym and just i i've built such good habits over the

last three or four years that you know it was it felt strange to just stop entirely so you know i'm

still sort of regularly exercising in that but nothing like i was it's not as hectic no no a lot

of things so i i guess it's probably fair to start off um because a lot of people don't know how it

all works so what's the routine look like for someone who's preparing for olympic trials um

then let's let's go back now let's go back come with games yep you did very well thank you very

very well um and and then then you hear that well you know i'm one of the contenders i'm gonna i

want to go i i want to make sure i go to the olympics

in paris yeah um i've got to get to these times yep you know you know what the times are when do

you start training you have a break after a couple of games or you just get straight back in the pool

no not really like you you swimming is one of those really unforgiving sports where

if you take more than we're probably allowed two maybe three weeks a year of not training

and that means seven days a week or six days a week sundays are always off but uh if you're

on sunday you're begging for you're begging for that sunday yeah come and you kind of need to

then be doing very very little on that sunday to kind of be ready to go again on that monday

morning because that monday morning through saturday is uh pretty nasty yeah so let's give

me a bit of a taste of this so we're talking about during the build-up of just getting

kilometers on your belt is that a thing still you still got to get k's on your belt in a sense like

um it's it's probably less vital for a sprinter you know 100 meters and and down uh but still

even for the 100 meters and aerobic a good a solid aerobic base um and a solid uh cardiovascular

system is is very important when it comes to being able to withstand the the training required even

when you're doing sort of the more lactate producing work or your sprint work and stuff

you you want to be able to move oxygen through your body pretty

pretty efficiently and the aerobic stuff can help um support that uh so i still did a lot of

um a lot of aerobic slash um distance swimming as in okay cody 1500

no but maybe you know 15 100s on time or whatever you like things like that um a lot of kick a lot

of pull uh just explain what it is kick you mean the actual kickboard yeah so just sort of

legs on the

own pulls you know the pool boy and maybe some paddles arms on your own so you're sort of

building up your upper body as well and tight feet um yeah you have a little band on the feet

to stop you kicking um we sometimes you know do a little you know cheat one here and there um

but yeah it's it's it's this really gnarly regiment like for your average sort of not

average you for your typical uh elite swimmer or competitive swimmer um

at this point

it's kind of you don't really have time for anything else um and i i had to make that

sacrifice in my life if i was going to be doing this again full-time where i had to sort of

give up my the life that i was living um at least back in los angeles when i um left uh

left entertainment to go stare at the black line again yeah a little morning and night

totally different life yeah

there's a discipline that's for sure polarizing lifestyles completely different

get going to sleep at 5 a.m versus getting up at 5 a.m well because i i just want to just uh get

into the weeds a little bit on in terms of the training thing because most people don't have

any idea i'm lucky because i had a kid who did it so yeah i sort of i was one of the dads that

would get up at four o'clock every good morning good on you good on you and take the swimming

training yeah and then then again in the afternoon like it and then and then saturday then there was

there was um um after squad there was you know racing yeah on saturday carnival or something yeah

something there's always a carnival on especially in the summer yeah the worst time because you

i don't know why the hell i'm in january february march april that's usually all through the day

sitting under the tent and everyone else on holidays and uh and your your you and your

family and i'll come back to your family in a sec but so just give me a typical morning if you can

remember a typical week so let's say monday up at 4 30 what time you jump in the pool

and we're talking about where were you training southport where i was training the gold coast

fortunately it wasn't 4 30 it was more like 5 15 which was good we didn't have to be uh in the

water till six um but monday was always a really big day because we did um two two full swim

sessions and a weight session in between what's a full swim session look like um for me it was

standard five pretty much five kilometers sometimes a tad less sometimes a tad more um average of

uh um and that'll be morning and afternoon the morning will be more sort of aerobic zones some

threshold kind of training um to sort of dust the cobwebs out of the the day off so there's a pace

that you when you say zone you're looking at training at a pace pace or heart rate zones

yeah yeah um so what are we looking at we're looking at 80 percent of um max heart rate yeah

you're pretty much on a monday morning we didn't want to be

above say 30 beats below maximum heart rate right so if your max is you know 200 you don't want to

you don't want to be above that 170 too much um you often did you get above that for the whole

session because my coach my coach often be like i want you to hold these times and but at this

heart rate i'm going i'm going to be above you know but um that's that's what you're working

towards is being able to hold certain times with relative uh

relaxation yeah of heart rate i suppose relative comfort um and when you're at your fittest you can

do that but um that's what you're building towards i suppose is being able to withstand

that kind of work and find some measure of comfort within the discomfort that's sort of

like a baseline training i mean that's that's but yeah baseline stuff yeah so you do that 5k's in the

morning morning and you're pretty much straight into about 90 minutes so what would you straight

like food wise like uh a little snack pretty much like uh

i don't know i'd do you're pretty much trying to just replenish glucose um after that because you

you know fairly drained so hydration and and fueling uh so i'll just have a snack sometimes

we do a little more of a um you'd sort of take half an hour to an hour to have a bit more of a

breakfast and then go into the gym and do 90 minutes in the gym when you're in the gym what

are you doing like i mean i mean i can't imagine what i swim with that way i sort of can't but

what does a swimmer do in the gym some uh fundamental i did three main lifts a week and

they were all full body so upper and lower and you're doing a few key lifts for the upper and

lower mine was like a weighted chin up um and either like a front squat or a sometimes leg

press if my back was bad but often a front squat um and then you have a lot of other stuff a lot

of other things and um strengthening all the little muscles around the shoulder because uh

shoulders are the first thing to go typically when it comes to injuries for swimmers for overuse

yeah overuse because you're doing you know tens of thousands of rotations um on those shoulders

a month you know so uh it was always that always core always some sort of functional and um

connectivity core connectivity stuff um so that was monday morning

which pretty much and we'd often be at the pool from uh 6 till 11. um because i between the two

hours in the pool 90 minutes in the gym i'd often have a little bit of physio therapy or something

afterwards and wouldn't get home till 11 sometimes 11 30 um and then you're smashing lunch and trying

to lay down for two hours because you're back at we were back at the pool at three for the arvo

session and that would often be a really big

monday arvo would often be my least favorite session of the week it would be a few k of

butterfly um which butterfly was my stroke i absolutely loved it but i hated doing more than

you know a few hundred meters of it or 200 meters of butterfly you'd be feel like you're pulling a

piano on your back yeah yeah like so you you would so the so the morning session would it be

freestyle mostly freestyle yeah sometimes a bit a little bit of pacing of your stroke yeah um often

it's a bit of under you know race speeds you wouldn't be doing race speeds that morning but

yeah you'd be doing a little bit of butterfly sometimes and in the arvo then you rip arvo yeah

you break up into um you know the medley guys would be doing their set the backstroke has been

their set the butterfly was even at their set and i was always um i was never a 200 flyer i was a

bit more of a sprinter but on the monday nights my coach had thrown me in with the 200 guys um

and be doing a bit more endurance butterfly work um and i

absolutely hated it so you would rinse absolutely basically this is a repeat set

repeat this every day of the week until maybe saturday when you might have done a few right

bit of racing yeah yeah so like a tuesday morning is quite similar except we don't do gym we do um

like a spin bike or a like a some kind of body weight circuit before we get in the water in the

morning well um and then you're kind of doing tuesday morning we're doing a bit more like power

or um pulling like buckets of with weights in them that kind of thing um as well as some of the

aerobic stuff so a bit of that and then tuesday night it'd be like a more of a fast fast session

like more race pace session so that monday tuesday like you know even for 100 meters

swimming like we're fitting 20k into that monday and tuesday plus gym and spin bike so it's

pretty buggered by by wednesday and then it starts all over again yeah yeah fortunately we get

wednesdays just the morning just morning swim and another weights and then wednesday arbo is

sort of like your recovery um window which isn't long enough but but um yeah so it'd be just

relaxing sleeping trying to do maybe a little ice bath or um often just literally sitting on the

couch eating food and you're doing this like for months and months yeah and and there's no

so you kind of that monday tuesday wednesday block is kind of

repeated very similarly on that thursday friday saturday right and then you have the sunday off

and that's that's months on end yeah and yeah mentally i mean how do you it's a grind man like

you you find and that's part of the reason i think i was attracted again to swimming at that level um

and i built up to that amount of work from doing absolutely nothing in about a period of about

nine months which was a pretty

steep on-ramp if you can imagine going from doing very very little to doing you know get being

training with uh you know olympians training with emma training with other people um and having gone

from doing nothing to that in nine months time it was a lot of vomiting in that period you know and

just trying to have my body adapt to what it had to try and withstand and my mind i suppose as well

it was a mental and physical game and what did you what things did you notice about your body for

like um i mean i don't know did you drop 10 kilos or did you build muscle no i put on about 10 kilos

really yeah i was quite i was quite uh quite skinny before i because i didn't do much weight

i didn't do a whole lot of um i surfed a bit and i went to the gym but not with a proper sort of

regiment and you know went for runs and stuff but yeah i wasn't pushing myself in that sense or

trying to build muscle um so i actually probably put on about 10 kilos and lost a bit of body fat

and what did you notice about your mind i mean like i mean do you start playing does your brain

start playing tricks on you the the mental side of it was the most noticeable uh the physical

changes were just a byproduct of what i was doing i wasn't going my goal is to you know build

get bigger arms and you know whatever it was just it just sort of happens because you're doing that

the the side that i had to battle with most because you're moving from a life of relative

comfort day in and day out to a life of consistent discomfort daily morning and night like it's you

don't you don't sort of get to and this is something i've had to had a chat with a few

other musician buddies of mine that were sort of so curious about what i was doing because i'd gone

from this life into this you know another one and then so

you're just absolutely absolutely exhausted and you got to train again the next morning you just

have to go i was like no yeah you can't just not show up you know there's that's not uh there's no

negotiation and you learn to not negotiate with yourself as much as your mind wants to negotiate

with yourself because excuses always sound the best to the person making them you know so you

have to really battle with not listening to the mind as it wants to play tricks on you

how important is a coach in that regard then like uh so i mean do you do you not make excuses

because you have a coach who just won't cop them and and who was your coach i think that's

important yeah my coach was uh a guy named michael bowl he is a renowned australian swimming coach

has had success for decades now um probably what put him in the map on the map was uh

a guy named stephanie rice i mean i know well

yeah she she uh won many gold medals broke many world records and um he has then had

podium success with his athletes at every olympics since then um most recently with uh

emma and um kaylee mckeown and he had our group was amazing for a couple years there we had

um in 2022 he had 10 maybe 11 athletes on the team so it was like almost his whole squad was

a team at one stage and that was a really special thing to be a part of that i'll always look back

on and go wow i was part of that that group at that time um that would keep you going too i guess

yeah yeah and you're looking around you're looking to your left and looking to your right and just

seeing people do these phenomenal things day in and day out like and it just makes you rise

to that level like i get goosebumps thinking about it now as inspired motivation or use or

as a more competitive thing i actually want to be like them there's both yeah it's inspired as in

you know they make me want to be like them and i'm like i'm going to be like them and i'm going to

want to be my you know do and reach my potential because i'm seeing them reach theirs and also like

i want to i want a piece of what they have yeah you know so so and so you had one coach just one

coach one coach through i had i had one coach uh in la when i first started who i was um got hooked

up with over there pretty much told him um that i was interested in pursuing swimming um again he

was a former coach

australian coach that was coaching over in college in the states and um who was that former

olympian himself brett hawke oh the 50 yeah freestyle boy yeah yeah yeah i remember yeah

yeah he was around when my son was around i know yeah i know the guy yeah so he um he ended up

becoming a coach and living in the states he's in the states and we got connected um because he was

funny enough doing a podcast a swimming podcast and he goes asked me to come on his podcast and

i liked swimming and had a background in swimming growing up and was now a musician he just wanted

to talk about that and i said well i'm actually looking to train again and he thought i was kind

of taking the piss you know um but i convinced him i was serious and we we met up and he kind

of tested me out a little bit and we started during covid he started sending me little sessions

to do in my um little community pool that was i was hopping the fence because it was shut you know

lane ropes no no flags or whatever no blocks just 25 yard pool like in in the states and

started doing that and then we got hooked up and he coached me for the first probably nine months

until i moved back to um australia yeah and why is it help me out here but why is it i mean

queensland particularly that part of queensland where you were training the southeast part of

queensland why is it we have so many good swimmers from there australia wide i'm talking yeah

relative to the rest of the country well a lot

a lot that aren't from their move there i think it's just because um

makes sense because uh one of the programs that are available like the couple of the best

coaches in the world are there yeah um and to uh the weather and being able to train outdoors

year-round in a 50 is great in a 50 meter outdoor pool because we have such good facilities so i

think it's a mix of that because a lot of the a lot of the guys from

uh sydney

melbourne even like tassie and stuff end up just coming to the squads in gold coast and brizzy

i thought it was a queenslander thing there from my god it's in the blood it's in the water yeah

state of origin you know where it is but yeah we just i think i think it's just the weather and

the programs that place attracts the swimmers and the coaches too probably probably because

the facilities are pretty good though the ex-comal games yeah facilities that's where we

they're very good train was at the gold coast con games

yeah yeah facility they built yeah so your regime is hectic um you know you're building up to

get into the to get into olympic trials we'll get the trials to go to olympic games

you've already done very well in the commonwealth games you're uh at that age we're 26 or so

25 yeah i was i was 25 at con games 27 now yeah so relatively speaking compared to some of the

other younger people who've got you know you've got a lot of young people who've got a lot of

young people who like with a great respect they're only late teenagers early 20s sort of don't quite

have a life yet you know i mean like because they've been swimming since they're nine yeah

and they haven't really had a taste of what the world's like out there you've had a good taste of

it okay good taste you've had a well-rounded well well so that that process of going and also like

your body shape i mean how many years had you had off 10 10 years my god didn't didn't touch water

really from 10 years ago yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

13 to 23 okay so yeah that's hectic yeah that that really is because anyone who knows anything

about the the swimming world or just the world athleticism generally speaking um what you're

going to compete against in terms of you know the tidal wave you're trying to take on like

you probably are the guys in your case who have not stopped swimming since they were eight or

nine years of age and sweet swimming at the absolute elite level yeah and like they're

all within a hundredth of a second of each other

sort of thing and a lot of them train with each other and they meet each other you know they're

all at n swiss or ais or something like that one of the yeah one of those equivalents yeah um and

they all either train together or they're all meets the whole time everybody knows what everyone's

like yeah and their body shape never changes because and but here you are um uh you haven't

swum for a long time that was a quote unquote yeah pop star i suppose people people yeah that

wanted to go to battle with them it was pretty pretty weird though like

i'm thinking because that i mean i don't mean weird in an intellectual sense i mean like it's

it's a massive call yeah well why it was scary because there was no there there was no blueprint

to what i was trying to do no because no one had ever done it before um and so when i talked about

it with people some said it's funny like everyone that i spoke to that had done something themselves

in the sport um and i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know

i was fortunate to have mentors in thorpey uh phelps like the all these guys sort of

lent their mentorship to me which was really special um and they all said go for it like

what do you you know what do you get to lose kind of thing um but everyone else uh pretty

much thought i was nuts and said well why would you leave behind what you've built you know in

your career to do something that's so so not guaranteed

um probably not possible at all you know even their thought of making an australian team

just sounded so far out to to them um but oddly for me i had this

and almost looking looking in retrospect it was this naive almost ignorant self-confidence

at that time when no evidence helps sometimes and it helped me so much because probably because i

i didn't realize what i was getting myself into

i didn't

realize

the odds that were stacked or i didn't i didn't acknowledge the odds that were stacked against me

based on you know how uh how it should work in the sport of swimming um when what you should

have had to have done from 13 to 23 those ages that i didn't swim in order to get to that elite

level i said you know f all that stuff i'm i'm gonna go for it because if i don't it's gonna be

too late you know i'm gonna live with those what-ifs and all through those years of being a

musician i'm gonna live with those what-ifs and all through those years of being a musician

there was this little spark in me that never died about the sport

because i competed at quite a high level for my age at that stage um and the coaches and the people

that i had there really believed in me then as though i would be able to go all the way with it

um and then i cut it short because i was given a massive opportunity at a young age

to pursue music and i pursued that and sort of didn't look back until um i got a little older

and i thought if i did want to swim again like i'm gonna have to do it soon um and it was this spark

and turned into this flame that just sort of grew into something that i couldn't ignore um and i had

to at least at least uh explore the curiosity i had for it so it was just a curiosity it sounds

like it was a well no it was more than that must be much more than that yeah i mean do you remember

the time it was an it was a dream it was it was a dream that i like i loved the sport so much i'd

watch i'd watch videos of the aussie guys in the freestyle relays and just cry like i'd cry

watching them this was back when i was before i started swimming again i'd watch these things and

it'd make me feel ways that i'd never felt or don't get from anything else and i said well

i have to follow that and i have to

try and pursue that for myself because this this obviously does something for me that nothing else

does both your parents were smooth weren't they yeah yeah was it is it was there something in

that that you felt like you needed to you know push a little harder on the like the genetic

inheritance yeah um uh no because they if anything they almost tried to talk me down from it because

i think they both understood what it takes because having done it themselves my mom's

in the 80s

um and they they sort of said well it's freaking hard like it's and you're you're living such a good

life and you know all those things and i'm going do you want to you know really do that for no

guarantee of of success you know um but when she heard how passionate i was and seemed about it she

she then didn't ask questions again she she supported me but no it wasn't it wasn't that

i felt i owed them anything i felt like i owed myself

me was there a moment where you can you think back was a moment at 23

or around that time you think you just watched the commonwealth games you just watched olympics i'm

trying to do a quick calculation what was on at the time but we're just what maybe the nationals

or you watched something in the u.s that you thought that's it i'm doing it

yep it was 2019 world championships i watched i watched uh caleb dressel break the men's 100s

butterfly world record which was always my event growing up butterfly was my favorite stroke one of

the toughest events yeah and then i watched christoph milak break the 200 men's 200 butterfly

world records um guys that were both my age um do and and it was the first time i'd had a really

visceral really really intense reaction to watching that going why aren't i there you know

why wasn't why wasn't i training for the last few years to be there um and i just had this it was

you know that epiphany type moment of okay well i know i know what i need to do now and i i

this is too much for me to ignore anymore um and pretty much started trying to find pools

from from that stage onwards and and because i was just pre-covid yeah it was 20 2019 it was

like the middle of 2019 um and then it wasn't until i didn't swim

a whole lot through the rest of that year i started to kind of pop into usc which had a

little program happening and was was jumping in the sessions there but hadn't really swum much

it was i was starting from from scratch um and then covert hit uh and then i was hooked up with

um with uh brett hawk and and expressed my interest and just pretty much got started

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like when you're a you're a you're a you're a you're a you're a you're a you're a you're a you're a

young fella yeah maybe 9 10 11 12 and you were swimming it's a pretty typical thing i presume

you're training in queensland but it's a pretty typical thing in australia for a lot of families

put the kids in the pools particularly in queensland because you know you got to learn

a swim safety factors correct yeah you got to learn a swim and then they go well the kid's

got to do a sport of some type like he's not bad at swimming i'll just put him in a little

training squad yeah you know and or her put him in the training squad

and then they go training me the whole the whole lot of kids become friends you get a bit of a

system and parents get used to the the rhythm of it the next thing you know there's a little swim

meet and um parents say oh come on carly let's we're going to go down on saturday morning there's

a race and your first race is on do you ever do you have a recollection of that i remember

i remember pretty vividly some of my first competitions so it was probably

it was probably eight or nine

because swimming was the first thing i remember remember being good at uh

i think it was i was probably i don't know it was this local competition and i broke like all

the local records for that eight you know nine years old yeah it doesn't mean much but i was

going oh you know i have a natural feel for this i um you know i'm good at this is something i can

work with um you know even at that age you sort of you recognize that and you get that little hit of

it about yourself kind of thing and then your parents put you in the nippers because then you

go to swim events and you win that too because some of the kids are good at the beach on the run

yeah so i did nippers and i was yeah started i went in the you know ocean swims yeah

back back around back out and around the boy and back yeah and so i said okay well well this is

good and i was shocking it i was wildly uncoordinated at land sports yeah wasn't

interested either like i didn't played a bit of rugby at school but never really liked it that

much uh

got asked to leave at like the local soccer team so they could make room for someone else because

i just stand around had you know looking at the sky you know singing humming little songs in my

you know doing a good swimmer yeah i'm in the water to yourself yeah yeah and it's funny back

in the day i used to um i started writing songs about that age too um oh really 10 years old yeah

and i used to come up with these little ideas and i'd ask my coach if i could get out and write

them i used to keep a little notebook in my bag and i'd ask my coach if i could get out and write

did you learn an instrument as well yeah you learned a guitar yeah i was already playing

guitar at that age taking lessons and um that was a sort of my primary hobby outside of um

swimming i was swimming started training uh at that age 9 10 start to do a few more sessions

a week and get really into it and that was sort of my first year i did the school nationals um

that's the combined and i think that was the that was probably the first time i said i'm into this

um yeah you go through like you do your you get top two at your school you go into your district

and then top two you go into your region and then state and then you get to the australian

school nationals wherever i think i i won every event there at the age of 10 um i think it was

like eight i don't know it's not a cocky thing it's just you know yeah i won like eight gold

medals at when i was 10 that's enough that's enough to motivate you to get back in yeah and

And so I was going, okay, well, you know,

I think I still have an 11-year-old's Australian record

for the 50 Fly or something.

It's hilarious.

It's like still standing.

So I was good then when I was young.

But at the same time, I was loving music and practicing guitar

and doing all that.

So I had these sort of dual interests that I juggled, I suppose.

And when did you find that, because I want to find out

about the music side of things,

when did you find that music was going to take over from the swimming?

And how did you become, how did you realize you're good at music

or that you had a tune or a sound that people want to listen to?

I started, I saw kids were posting themselves singing online.

YouTube.

YouTube and MySpace was a big thing at the time.

And that had a real big music component.

But how did you see it?

Like your parents said, hey, mate, check this out.

No, it was just me, like being 12 years old, you know,

going on the computer, I suppose, and saw that this was a thing

that was happening.

It was a new, this was a new medium that was popular.

People were able to just upload their own stuff

and share themselves playing.

It totally democratized, you know, the music industry in a sense.

And...

Yeah.

And I asked mom to film me because I said, oh, these kids are, you know,

people are watching these kids' videos and it seems like a fun thing to do.

It was totally a very low expectation thing.

It was just sounded like a fun hobby.

And I enjoyed kind of singing and playing guitar in front of the camera.

Your own songs or covers?

A bit of both, yeah.

I was uploading some of my own stuff to MySpace

just for little audio recordings.

And just covers on YouTube and me singing like Jason Mraz.

And Justin Timberlake and, you know, did a bit of Johnny Cash.

I got a lot to do with country music back then.

It was funny looking back now as a 12-year-old me, you know,

doing those songs.

But they garnered some attention quite fast.

And I was getting a fair amount of viewership.

What does that mean when you say a fair amount of viewership?

Back in that period, what did you look at?

Did you say like a thousand people look at me?

Yeah, it was like a thousand and then it was 10,000.

And then it was sort of 50 and then it was sort of 100.

100,000.

So you got a mum saying mum.

Okay, well, this is more than just, you know, our friends.

Like this is more than just our friends and, you know,

the Gold Coast community.

It's not.

This is gone.

Well, how did you know that when you were a kid?

So you got a mum.

You start to get comments from, well,

we'd have the little desktop in our living room kind of thing.

And we'd go on and you'd see someone's commented from Canada

or, you know, from Argentina or going, I like this.

And then started getting messages from producers.

Like record labels.

Hey, kids, give us a call.

Yeah, yeah.

Going, would you consider us flying you over to cut a demo and blah, blah, blah.

And at first we kind of, my mum thought it was pedophiles.

That was the thing that got her mad, yeah.

That's her first thing.

Yeah, she's going, no, we're not going to respond to those.

Yeah.

And, you know, people were following up with us and we started to,

I said, I was really keen to entertain.

If they were real, you know, and saw that there were young people getting signed

and, you know, it was not just sort of the Disney route anymore.

There was, you know, kids were getting signed to labels off their music

and, you know, videos and fan base and that alone that they'd grown.

Justin Bieber had just gotten signed and blew up.

And so that whole thing became, you know, I think labels

and that was sort of.

They were looking for more of those kids.

Do you think they're looking for a blonde hair Aussie kid?

Like, you know.

I don't know.

If they weren't.

Did you come across as that though or you could have been from anywhere?

What do you think?

No, I think I came across as a bit of a young blonde haired guitar playing Aussie kid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kind of thing, you know.

And that's sort of, at least once I got signed and started,

that's kind of what they marketed me as in a way, you know.

And I was flown over to the States.

I did my first trip to New York City when I was, it was on my 13th birthday

because I remember I had a meeting at Warner Brothers in Manhattan

on my 13th birthday.

A 13-year-old boy meeting Warner Brothers.

Yeah, in Warner Music.

I was in their office all day.

Started with the low, you know, the low level sort of executive

and ended up at, you know, at closing hour in the president's office.

I was singing and playing guitar for him.

With your mom or your dad?

My dad.

My dad took me over and, again, still I'm so thankful

that they even considered doing that for me

because I was ambitious young and I sort of said to them,

you're not going to take me.

I'm going to go, you know, I want to go over there

and see what this is all about.

And I was always driven from a young age and whatever it was I was doing.

And so when I saw that that was,

a possibility, I said, I want to do that, you know.

And they fortunately listened and were sort of generous enough

to help me pursue it.

That's pretty full on though.

Like a 13-year-old kid gets signed up by Warner Music.

And I guess money is.

It was kind of unheard of as well, you know.

In the, it's such a rare thing to occur.

Like I don't know how many Australians,

that's happened to in the past.

And so we didn't know what, we were in uncharted territory.

So what happens?

You just all go home and have a family meeting or?

Yeah, we went home and they've got my demo.

They've recorded me a bit.

Well, we went back after the first trip and then about six months later,

they flew us back over to cut demos and stuff.

There was a producer there that was cutting demos with me

that was one of the ones who discovered,

they discovered me originally and then they sort of said,

well, if you want to do this for real, you're going to have to relocate.

And because they'd offered me a substantial record deal at,

I was probably almost 14 by this stage.

And they said, well, if you want to do this properly,

we need you to be based in LA.

And again, it was one of those things that I said,

my parents, well, if you're not going to come, I'm going.

I'll meet you over there.

Yeah.

So that's what we, that's what we did.

So that's a big deal for the whole family.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dad gave up his work at the time and I had a young,

I had two younger siblings and I think they thought it would be

a six to 12 month adventure.

I don't think they expected it.

I don't think anyone expected it to sort of take off the way it did.

At that stage, had your voice broken?

No.

No.

I was gone.

I went through.

And it's funny now because I look back at recorded music from me from recently,

the last couple of years, all the way back to my first tune at 13, 14.

And, you know, I sound tiny.

Like a little boy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A little boy.

You had a sort of quite a cute melodic sound to you.

Like, you know, it was like a boy sound though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was.

And I was, you know, prepubescent.

And how important was that to the record labels, et cetera?

I mean, were they, because there must have been a period where you started to,

your voice would break.

Yeah.

And you get, do you start to get nervous or does anyone start to say,

hey, mate, you're not the same deal anymore?

Well, no, they, and they were good at sort of,

because they knew it was going to happen and they were good at coaching me

and working me through that.

I had vocal coach, a vocal coach, and it was, it was a,

a big focus as I started to go through that 15, 16 years old

was to kind of make sure it was somewhat seamless, I suppose.

But yeah, I had voice cracks on stage and all the, you know, the whole nine.

So like I had to go through all that in front of thousands of people,

you know, all the time.

So it was kind of, it was a lot.

I mean, if we were talking about the intensity of swimming,

but if I,

if we go back and look at the coaching for music or singing and,

and, and instrument, instrumentality,

the two things you were doing like playing and singing at the same time,

whilst one is a totally different discipline, was there,

what parallels could you draw though from what you learned as a 13 year old,

14 year old, 15 year old, et cetera,

having to compete with a pretty crowded market, a global market actually,

in terms of being, your records being sold or your music being sold.

I mean, what do you reckon the parallels are?

I wasn't, I was never scared to put the time in.

So there isn't a lot of time required.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, give me an example of that.

Well, I had to, I was still developing my craft at that age and I still am,

but I, I, at that stage was like figuring it out as I went, you know,

and figuring it out.

In front of people.

So I was still, I was still learning to,

to play my instrument well at that age.

And I was still learning how to sing and project and do all these things.

So I was in, you know, almost what you'd call like performance coaching,

how to hold and carry yourself on stage.

I was just doing a bit of dancing, choreography.

It was when I was younger.

So it was learning that stuff, learning how to do videos.

Like how do you, learning how to, yeah, learning how to do, learning how to sit and do an interview.

Yeah.

Uh, you know, I went through media, media training, I guess, at that age.

Um, learning how to, uh, learning how to be on stage, learning how to be in front of people.

An audience.

An audience.

Yeah.

Managing an audience is pretty difficult.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And that's an art form in itself is, is managing an audience.

So I sort of had to figure all that out over those years that I was doing it.

Was it coached to you though?

Do they, did someone sit down with you and say, okay.

Partially and partially, and a lot of it was experience.

You just have to learn it out.

Walking into the fire.

And that's what it was for me in swimming too, in a way, because I had a coach, but it was, you got to figure things out for yourself as well.

There's no, there's no better coach than, than, than you at times.

How you feel in the water.

Yeah.

How the water feels with your body shape.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And, and that, that's purely instinctual.

That can't be taught.

It has to be felt and experienced.

And especially in butterfly, I think.

Yeah.

It's a flow thing.

It's a, it's such a finicky, uh, combination of power and flow.

Crazy little details though.

Like, because if.

The pitch of your pinky and your hand and the, you know, the shape of your sort of elbow and whether you can kind of carry, you know, find, uh, viscosity and find, find shape within something fluid.

It's like a very.

And your breathing.

Strange thing.

Yeah.

And your breathing.

Yeah.

Especially when you start to get a bit.

A bit tired.

A bit tired, keeping your head flat, like, so that you're, it's a chain reaction of your hips staying high enough in the water and there's a whole technical side to it.

So the same would have applied to music though.

Absolutely.

Walking on the stage, engaging the audience.

Yeah.

Remembering the words.

Watching videos about going, okay, well, I can't do that anymore.

That looks awkward, you know, all that stuff.

Um, and I, I always enjoyed and have always enjoyed the working at something and then feeling the progress of it and getting better at it.

Like, and I swimming taught me that from a young age.

And so it was a nice skill or it was a nice thing to have going forward that I understood the work to progress rule, you know, that you have to put that time in and you have to get uncomfortable before you're going to be comfortable.

Would you, would you say that you say Cody is a person who is quite, has a, quite a, a strong.

Kinesthetic power, like within your gut, like you can feel things, you know, like you, it's something that's important to you.

It's a nice way to put it.

Yeah.

And I've never really.

Because I think swimming is a lot about that.

Cause you've got to know yourself and you've got to know how to like, just being able to pace yourself in a hundred butterfly, you have to be hyper aware of your body, hyper aware and not feel the same every day.

So today I'm going to be hyper aware of how I am today.

I'm going to compete.

I'm going to be hyper aware today.

I'm not feeling the same.

Yeah.

I'm not feeling the same as I was yesterday, but I want to win.

Yeah.

And when you are hyper aware, you, you, you feel those, those minuscule shifts and changes in how you're feeling.

Um, so that's, and that's quite a kinesthetic power.

That's a power that you develop over time.

Yeah, I suppose so.

Knowing every little change at the margin.

And I, when I was growing up and I'm still somewhat this way, uh, I was growing, I grew up a massive hypochondriac.

I grew up a massive hypochondriac because I felt things in my body that probably helps very, very much from, from a young age, I'd make my mom take me to get routine blood tests because I was like, I think I've got something wrong with my, you know, because I just felt things everywhere all the time.

That might not have been a hypochondriac, that might not be a maniacal, maniacal type thing in your brain as a, as a mental health thing, but maybe it was just more, you are very aware of how you feel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Probably more so than anybody else.

Perhaps.

I don't know.

I don't know what it's like to be anyone else.

I don't know, but, but, um, I always, I knew that I was always hyper aware of how I felt and that did, that was a curse in some sense.

Cause when I was younger, I used to worry about that and go, I think there's things wrong with me cause I feel changes and blah, blah, blah.

So I wasn't sure that's calmed down as I've aged, but it was a blessing in the water.

Definitely.

And probably in your music too.

And it's been a blessing.

Yeah.

In my music as well, I think.

What about school?

What do you do?

What happens to school during all this period when you're up there training for, for, for the stage?

Yeah.

I, I let, I went to school on the Gold Coast till, uh, I went through grade eight.

Yep.

And then we moved to the US.

So I, um, part of my contract was that the, and I think it was probably a legal thing then too, the record label had to pay for my tutoring.

Yeah.

Homeschool.

Homeschool.

So I did nine to 12.

I've homeschooled through a US curriculum over there and, um, graduated through a US high school that I never went to or visited, but.

But you're still homeschooled.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I, I had a teacher on the road, uh, through tours and wherever I had to travel, I had to, um, they had to have someone with me.

So when you, he's a kid from Queensland.

I mean, as you said, probably not many people have ever done this.

I don't know any of anybody's ever done it.

But, um.

Um, you sit back today and you think of the mission that you and your family's on and all your support group.

Yeah.

Everybody.

Yeah.

Music teachers, um, guitar coach, blah, blah, blah.

Someone's engaging the audience.

You've got to book a venue.

I mean, there's a lot of people involved in this.

Yeah.

A tutor.

Um.

There were more than I knew at that time.

There would be.

You know, my family would try to sort of.

Shoulder you a bit.

Yeah.

And, and, and.

And made an effort of keeping, tried to keep a level of normalcy amidst the chaos, which

was at times impossible, but they tried.

Um, but yeah, it was, there was a lot happening.

Do you think about it?

Do you think, my God, that was like, that was mad.

When I look back now.

Yeah.

I was, I was 15 doing three CDs a day in a van, visiting radio stations and doing shopping

mall, uh, concerts.

And I was mad to think about, you know, I'd hit three cities in Connecticut in one day,

you know, at 15.

Would it be anything you would regret?

I don't mean, I don't, I'm not trying to pull it down, but it wouldn't be anything you go,

oh shit, I wish I hadn't done it or that was a pain in the ass.

No.

And I say no, because it taught me so much.

So at times I wish I didn't have to grow up as quickly as I did.

How do you mean you had to grow up quickly?

Cause you got exposed to things you wouldn't have got exposed to on the golf course.

On the golf course, for example.

Yeah.

You had to, I had to, I had to carry myself in an adult world from the age of 14.

So you're sort of forced to learn how to carry yourself in that, in that world and sit in

meetings and do all these things that you, you don't have to do when you most, you know,

you don't have to do when you're 14.

Is that like a loss of innocence?

I don't mean in a, in a, I don't mean in the, the, the normal sense of loss of your innocence,

but I mean, just acting like an adult.

Yeah, I suppose so.

But I, I, I was, I believe quite mature from a young age in that sense anyway.

So I was, I was, it didn't feel strange to me.

I was ready to do it.

I wanted to do it.

So there's no force.

No, no.

And I was down to, to, I was down for the grind of it.

I was excited about jumping in that van and doing three gigs in a day and, you know,

visiting radio stations and performing.

Like I loved being busy and I loved that because I've always loved the feeling of forward momentum

and it felt, that felt exciting.

It felt like I was going someplace.

That's amazing.

Like your ambition for a young kid.

Yeah.

Crazy.

Yeah, it was.

And it was, it was very self-driven.

Like I, even though I was on this rollercoaster, this train that just took off and didn't stop,

I still felt somewhat.

I felt somewhat in control from that age.

And, and when I started not to feel in control, I, I sort of took back control, which is a

whole other story about, I left my record label at 18, I think it was, and went independent

and sort of built a new team at that, at that age and sort of shifted musical direction

a little bit.

But I've always liked to and have felt in control of my, my story and my life.

Have you ever been out of control then?

In your life?

I mean, that industry, generally speaking, is out of control.

Yes.

You know, it's pretty, it can get pretty mad.

Yeah.

And that's, there was a dark side to it all as well.

You know, as, as sort of fun and fast paced and glamorous as I am making it sound, there

was a dark side to it all.

What is, what is that?

Which was having that level of freedom at that age is probably not the healthiest thing.

Yeah.

I think that's a good point.

And I think that's, that's, I think that's what I think about.

I think that's the thing, I think that's the thing, I think that's the thing that's

the most important thing.

I think that's what, I think that's the most important thing, is being able to, you know,

being able to sort of go and do whatever, whatever you want from an age where you don't

know what you want or what's good for you.

So, you know, starting to, I, I lived on my, I, I, you know, I bought my first place

in LA and lived on my own from 17.

Started traveling and touring.

Actually on your own?

Yeah, on my own.

Yeah.

I had a, I had a, I had a.

sort of a tour manager who was a young guy that i became really good mates with that was

that sort of had to spend most of the time with me because we were always working and traveling

but he he ended up living with me for for a while but i was i wasn't i was a sense in a sense living

on my own i wasn't living with my family scared but jesus out of me if i was your parent yeah

it i did it scared scared the hell out of my mom um and i started traveling and touring by myself

from yeah 16 so i can imagine what goes on so yeah you start going out to clubs because

yeah they're letting you in you know that kind of thing um and uh that's a serious level of

autonomy and freedom for a kid that age that's a time for error to mistakes to happen they did

happen yeah they did happen did you ever get like did you ever get like chronically close to

stuff and things up yeah yeah a few times yeah um and what pulls 17 18 from about 17 to 20

i'd call those my sort of party years yeah i suppose you'd say um i was still working a lot

and i was still i made a ton of progress as a musician and as a guitarist like as an

instrumentalist in that game but i didn't make a ton of progress as a musician and as a guitarist

but i was still i made a ton of progress as a musician and as a guitarist like as an instrumentalist

period because i was so i was loving music and i was practicing and all that but at the same time

i was so i was exploring a lot i was finding new styles it worked it did wonders for me as

a musician but at the same time i was going out every night and you know had discovered

drinking and drugs and all these things that were just in hollywood are just accessible to you at

that age and you had money and i had money um which doesn't help um and i also didn't i also

didn't care to listen to guidance i was a bit i was going through a rebellious thing because i

there was a part of me that felt like well i've been told what to do for these last few years

you know in work i want to make my own decisions it's my time now it's my time and but those

decisions you make for yourself aren't always the best

you just think that they're cool or rebellious at that at that age you probably don't care really

no i didn't i didn't give a shit you know i said well i built built all this i'm gonna go do my own

thing and i'm gonna leave my label and i'm gonna just go and party and put the people around me

that are going to enable that behavior and you know it's just you get a bit carried away did

your parents move back to australia um they did by the time i was i was uh 1920 when they moved home

um i think they started to feel like they didn't have a whole lot of control of me at that stage

because i was in that period of my life i almost didn't allow them to um if they tried to it made

matters worse yeah um conflict yeah i'm sure you can imagine you know you've had probably those

experiences as a father and four sons so you have to yeah i'm sure you know like it's uh it's tuning

keys parenting i think probably at that age i've never been through it but that's what i imagine

you know um so they had to do it and i was like yeah i'm gonna do it and i'm gonna do it and i'm gonna

just sort of do their best to manage it um but there was a couple years that were it was sliding

yeah it was sliding and what pulls you back um family's one fortunately they were always there to

as sort of far off the track as i strayed they were always there to talk to me and catch me and

um tell me how they felt and i think that there were

money many times if i

didn't have them i probably would have just kept going um they were quick to they were always quick

growing up to sort of make sure i didn't get i'll get too big for my boots because it's very easy to

in that scenario you had a big head about you because all you're hearing is is good things um

and then also in in those years was expressing their concern and um wanting me to

come back down to earth i guess is a good analogy

yeah it's a it's a because i was floating i can imagine i was floating for a good three or four

years there but then did did swimming have anything and that's that's number two that that

in a sense the thought and the the idea grew uh in that period of time um through my sort of

20 early 20s and that almost

saved my life in a sense like it it shifted my path for the for the better because you can't do

you can't leave that hollywood life let's call it that no and swim and there were times it was like

the sobering thought was that okay well i i can't keep doing this i can't if if that's what i want to

do i can't be wrecking my body until 3 a.m you know four times a week it's not what this is dumb

if i if i want to do that you know and and that sounded like

that sounded like where i needed to go and it it was the shift it was certainly was there a voice

in your head like is there some little person in your life yeah yeah yeah when you know it just

says amidst the haze was going hey what are you doing what are you doing yeah and as i got old

like the first couple years it was guilt free it was like you know having fun not thinking twice

about it and then the voice grew you know it's sort of a naivety actually yeah there was yeah

which was great then to be able to do that and then i was like oh my god i'm gonna do it again

do it with with that guilt-free feel but then i got the voice in my head going it was it was it

was a mature voice amidst the immaturity i was up to you know going this isn't you can't do this

much longer um plus you don't remember that you want that and so that helped me

um swimming helped me come out of that that that that hole i guess so when you say it saved your

life do you mean saved your life as you live it today or save you actually actually really say

yeah um if i if i kept going down that path and didn't have swimming to i suppose clean me up

get me healthy i i don't know where things would have gone so in a way it did literally save my

life but it also gave me life and it gave me new life it gave me um built me these beautiful

healthy habits it like gave me a great partner it gave me my life in australia again that i

i didn't feel connected to australia um anymore when i was over there like that was la was my

home i didn't care to come back here and i

didn't come much um and so it helped me reconnect with my my homeland in a way as well and the

people here and so having since swum here again and lived here again and been around family and

built my base here like I don't see I don't see myself living or being based anywhere else ever

again like I love it in Australia again and I'm glad it helped me reclaim that love for

where I'm from and you you you and you mentioned earlier you know you've got your now partner Emma

yeah who actually came in here but I like I had my head really swung off my shoulders when I saw

walking into the studio but yeah um if you want to just quickly talk about that because like it's

it's it's the talk of the town mate like like two great athletes um you know everybody's I'm just

sort of imagining the genetics our coach is waiting for you I can just say like you said

um

I mean is marriage sort of a thing you guys are talking about um it's not spoken about but it's

you know it's one of those to an hour it's not something we've spoken about but it's um you know

we have something that is beautiful and honest and pure and it's it's been a real breath of fresh

air in my life certainly um you know I've had had a known more tumultuous relationships in the past

and um and it's certainly been something that's given me a sense of of calm and and and stability

and that that I I certainly needed um and wanted um so that along with swimming and we met through

swimming so it because you're trying the same place yeah yeah that's how we met I could join

the group and so like who's this yeah and I didn't know who she was or what what she had

accomplished prior because I know now yeah I know now and I've had the chance to see it every day

and um be inspired by it every day too because she's you know she's just a beast like in training

and you know she's she's sort of this uh she's so graceful outside of the water and she gets in

the water and she can just you know she just goes and pushes herself and it's amazing you know and

and so to see that and um be inspired by that is like it's you know it's an attractive trait

in a woman to you know see see her do that yeah so yeah

can I ask you just maybe just on her parents athletes yeah yeah what's her mother's father

swimmers her parents were both from Australia her dad was her father Ron McCann Ron McCann yeah he's

swimming against my brother okay yeah I remember him really he would be in his 60s yep 60s he's

from Maroubra yeah I remember him he um he was a tall guy yeah he's probably I don't know he might

be six four or five he was a he was a freestyler as I recall yeah he was in the Olympic final he

was Olympic finalist uh he was in the Olympic final he was in the Olympic final he was in the

uh in I'm gonna get this wrong but it was he went to Moscow and um Los Angeles Olympics I remember

there was a guy called Max Metzger and there was uh Ron McCann there's a guy called George Venados

they were all around George from Gunnedah I remember these guys um because I like I used

to take a lot of interest in swimming in those days your brother swam and uh and uh but I remember

that these guys are winning the nationals all the time my brother's like fifth six but these guys

are winning the nationals all the time my brother's like fifth six but these guys are winning the

nationals all the time my brother's like fifth six but these guys are winning the nationals all the time

so like and your parents are swimmers too so there's some heavy genetics going on there dude

yeah my dad was do it for Australia yeah please her parents both met through swimming my parents

both met through swimming that our parents knew each other back in the day because swimming was

a small community then and you know they were swam around a similar time um my dad and Em's dad

were both at the AIS at one stage um

at the same time one of them was coaching and one of them was swimming I don't know who it was

but yeah funny funny kind of um history there with with with um connection and in terms of um

your musical career um do you you write songs now yeah and uh do you get any inspiration from

from your I mean sometimes you write sometimes as you sing songs

that have the love theme involved in them and uh do you get inspiration from your relationship

with Emma in terms of what you write yeah yeah definitely because there's one song I'm dying to

ask you this one I mean I I gotta if you don't mind uh that's right it's called on my mind and I

I just want to ask you about okay I just want to ask you about that song for a second yeah

it might have predated um Emma I'm not sure I don't know when that song was written well I did a

I did a remake of it recently I'm talking about the more recent one the recent one yeah so and

I want to ask you when you were a kid when you were a kid when you were a kid when you were a kid when you

write a song do you write the write it as a piece of poetry first sometimes sometimes because if I

feel like that song was a piece of poetry I felt like it was written as a piece of poetry then you

in other words you wrote the lyrics but as poetry then you added the music to it

yeah I mean I'm like I don't know I'm just imagining things but what do you it happens

in different ways yeah and that does it does I can't remember with that one to be honest because

it came out when I was 15 maybe it was it was an early but I really did it as a sort of piano

piece not yeah because you're playing piano that when I when I was watching it okay yeah so you

obviously learned to play the piano as well as a guitar that was me faking it right I can't play

piano my god I was trying I was trying like you know I was no I was playing but that's all I know

that's it but you weren't sort of you're not a classic I can't play yeah I can't play and that's

in the the proper sense but um

I I do write I like to write poetry and bits of prose and things as well so like sometimes

lyrics come from that um and how does it work though like are you sort of like you know I don't

know sitting on a train and going through the country and you know and you had you know you're

sitting in the carriage where the food's being served and you're sitting there by yourself and

you're missing your girl and you just start you know writing a bit of poetry yeah yeah

no no no and you're romanticizing it but in a way that's that's uh

the reality of it sometimes because you're missing somebody or you want to you're thinking about

somebody yeah yeah what they bring to the let's call it the table yeah those those things inspire

me all the time she inspires me my I've been writing a lot about what I've been through

the last few years as well so sort of non uh I suppose non-romantic or non-love themed stuff more

say uh reflective or inspirational um but yeah I draw from everywhere

and it starts in two ways it starts either as just words or it starts as and this is more common for

me when I'm writing on guitar just a few chords and uh and a tune a melody I like the sound of

that I like the sound I'll start humming and then like words kind of evolve from from sound just

from humming that's pretty gibberish in a way yeah but that's pretty cool or I'll have a piece

of work some words and then I'll kind of meld into what you know a tune I've got and you have

solitude to create to be creative I find I have to have space and solitude which means space means

you need to be being by myself somewhere on your own yeah sort of thing for multiple hours yeah um

and I think that's why sometimes I'd have ideas and get little pieces when I'm when I was swimming

because you've got plenty of space because you're just in even though it's kind of intense you you

are in your own world yeah and you're not just you know there's no distraction

and yeah yeah well singing a song in the pool in your head whilst you're going up and down the

pool is common amongst swimmers a lot of swimmers do it because otherwise you go nuts so I do it

and it helps me get through those long sessions yeah because you're sitting there for you're in

the pool of your head in the water you can't hear anything yeah except when you turn your head perhaps

and you're you know the hour and a half session whatever the case may be you've got to have

something to keep your mind active yeah absolutely it's not just you know because and you're so

well tuned physically like if I did that I wouldn't have any time to think or sing on it

because I'll be just trying I'll be just trying to survive the lap or the distance whereas you're

so physically well tuned that you actually can combine everything you can sing and you can breathe

and you can yeah you know uh fill your heart rate you know what your heart rate is pretty much yeah

within a couple of beats yeah yeah um and at times especially in the easier sessions like in the

recovery sessions or

two to three of the uh of the nine swim sessions we did a week were sort of

easier recovery based and there you just sort of fall into that second nature

um where the physical part's taken care of and your mind's just floating around and um that's

when I'd often get a lot of ideas and yeah great and I mean you can get great ideas and speaking

of great ideas I'm actually keen to find out what does someone like you do now

and I'm not going to say post swimming career because you know for all I know you're going to

continue on are you going to continue I should ask the question are you going to continue yeah um

as far as I'm aware at the moment within myself probably not I'm really excited about other

things again I want to tell you what the other things are yeah what are you going to do I see

you got Dr. Hydro written on there what's that that's a fun I started that while I was swimming

with uh Queensland yeah something I've co-founded with uh a few guys up in Queensland it's a

hydration supplement um can we talk about your little tub

today hydration is a big deal yeah and it's been underplayed for a long time yeah swimming it was

a vital part of my last few years well because let's just talk about that for a second in terms

of swimmers um particularly you're at when you're in the open um you know you're in an open pool so

you've got the sunshine and all sorts of stuff in the elements and you're in the elements um but

you're breathing you know a lot yeah and you're sort of um transpiring you're still losing I was

also losing a lot more fluid than I than you think because you're in the water you don't see yourself

when you go for a run or in the gym you can see yourself sweat sweating in the pool like that's

happening as well but you don't doesn't feel like you are and the breathing too I mean you breathe a

lot when you swim I mean it's like if you're in the gym you don't breathe any when you would

breathe you're transpiring um you know carbon dioxide out of your mouth all the time it's

constant just you know all the time yeah so would you how did you get onto hydration was that but

that's something the medical people at the you know yeah told you to get on yeah that we did a

lot I mean the doctor did a good job um yeah I have not explained it to the doctor but you know

I got to go on the gym with a lot of weight on my body I had a lot of sweat on my back my back

but I hadn't really got on a gym at all just because I was so stressed out at the time but

I just did it because I was so stressed out about it you know so it's really it's really

a whole question of how it affects you how even the slightest uh level of dehydration can

significantly affect your performance um and so that was stressed that's stressed to us a lot because

um things that could help you know recovery uh and vitamins b vitamins like all the things that

you know support energy systems um and that's kind of what dr hydrate is it's like all of that in one

so as i was like i'm gonna have to take bloody five different tablets and do my you know

hydration electrolyte powder and you know gluten like l-glutamine for sort of muscle recovery amino

acid type thing probiotics um and that was sort of the idea around dr hydrate was putting all of

that in one so it's not just a hydration it's not just putting magnesium potassium back in the

system it's a few other things as well no it's got yeah it's got b vitamins probiotics it's got

c minerals like 72 c mineral like those minuscule sort of things you don't really get in other ones

like um we use like a seaweed extract from the north atlantic i think yeah um

and uh and where do you guys can't elkana team glutamine uh queensland it's good oh wow australia

yeah that's all in queensland noosa noosa yeah yeah so um yeah it's uh it's like a really nice

thing to have been able to be part of developing and it's going amazing in australia people everyone

that tries it loves it and it's it's just started starting to go gangbusters because hydration has

become a big deal yeah some reason i've last i mean the only time you ever heard about is when you

you

had diarrhea or had gastric problem and your mom would go down the chemist yeah come back with a

little pack of stuff you'd have two or three of them and you know that was usually how that how

we roll with that although and sometimes my dad used to come back with little salt tablets and

give you a salt tablet yeah so sodium's a key like a key electrolyte is it yeah in in what you're in

yeah you lose a lot of sodium and sweat and if you don't have enough in there you'll be

cramping like that in some of the workouts you know we're doing like you need it and

um it's yeah it's in it's one of the like what about something like me like i mean i train but

i don't train to the level you train but i train every day um but i'm talking a lot i'm gonna do

this sort of stuff a lot i mean i'm you know you're perspiring even though you're not yeah

i'm not doing much but i'm still perspiring all the time how do you work out how does one know

if they're dehydrated or they need hydration and they get do i get a headache or is there

some symptoms or apart from cramping yeah uh lethargy let you feel tired feel yeah like

you know maybe headaches um yeah general lower energy yeah uh can be a variety of things um

but the the electrolytes it just supports the key key like bodily functions and it's also like a

vitality thing as well like you kind of feel feel peppier you feel better because a lot of the water

and i didn't really know this before but a lot of water is sort of stripped of

what it's dead water especially like bottled water yeah it's it's stripped of like the the

natural minerals from the earth that you'd get when we used to you know just drink out of springs

and rivers and stuff you know before we had all you know what we have in the world now in society

so the water we drink is usually void of all that stuff and so you have to put it back in

yeah so and why did you call it dr hydrate i mean how the hell did you get that name registered like

it's

a good question pretty cool yeah it is cool um felt felt like i don't know i felt semi-medicinal

but also kind of groovy yeah what is this sort of it is groovy but it's yeah it's also semi

it is sort of it's actually probably fully medicinal um because i think what i mean i

think we're all run off doing protein powders and all that sort of stuff it's all great yeah but

this is a pretty basic thing hydration yeah we do not drink enough good water yeah no one does i

don't and and that's i learned it through swimming but i that's something that i now will take with me

into my life even when i'm not you know i'll reg i'll i'll exercise going forward for general

well-being but i'm not going to be doing anywhere near what i was doing but i'll still be taking

hydration in the morning pre-post exercise and what other things you're working on now

apart from that um music yeah music right starting to write and record a different style work again

um guitar based yeah so a bit of guitar based stuff um and also i'm really into uh i'm really

into the jazz and blues kind of stuff favorite um so i love i love and drew a lot especially

last few years a lot of um inspiration from a lot of the sort of 40s 50s kind of crooners all those

kind of those kind of guys i got up i got up when i was in paris actually last month i was at the

this like underground jazz bar at two in the morning and i got up and sang the way you look

tonight by sinatra with the band up there and i just it just gave me the bug um in in the past

i've done a musical theater i did a show on broadway in 2018 wow um and uh so i'm interested

in a bit of that again i enjoy the stage acting and performing um as well as my own stuff so i'll

be trying to find fun projects to do

in on stage and with with musicals and acting and that but i'm also looking at uh writing and

recording another another record so more is it more the singing in the jazz territory and more

the um instruments in terms of the blues and where you're putting yourself like i play um

i gotta i gotta develop i suppose the sound for for the next the next thing um but a lot of the

the guitar style that i'm playing at the moment is is

blues and sports

um and uh i really enjoy writing my own stuff but i also really enjoy singing the kind of um

the jazz standards in that as well so i'm trying to find a nice like little blend of

how i can do my original thing but also sort of pay a bit of homage to styles that i love as well

i lived in chicago for a while i worked in chicago for a while and there was like no joke it was a

jazz bar yeah and a jazz band that would jazz singers and or musicians on there

every night in some bar yeah it was yeah mental it was chicago and new york just have those that

feel yeah yeah and i got stuck there i remember once i was due to fly it and the and the massive

snowstorm happened overnight i woke up in the morning it's like five foot of snow outside the

hotel he could everything was stopped and i had to stay in um chicago for a full week had nothing

to do so um i couldn't even get to work to the office so i just i was very close to the jazz

bars and every night they'd be like oh my god i'm gonna go to the jazz bar and i'd be like oh my god

they plowed a like a track from my hotel not for me but for everybody else um and i tracked

straight to all these bars and every night i went there was so cool it was like the best yeah the

best um i i love um it's kind of a dying you know it's kind of a dying why is that dying arcade i

don't know i think it's just genre wise it's not as not as popular among young people there's there's

new genres but it's it's a it's a fear it's got a feeling that you know you can't get from anything

else that i want to actually got a feel to it in a way

keep alive in some sense for for younger people so that's that's part of my goal yeah you'll end

up getting a record player and you get you put muddy waters on the record and you'll be you'll

be playing muddy waters yeah yeah it sounds like you're getting old i am getting older yeah yeah

i feel it happening yeah in real time yeah yeah but it's crazy because you just you know like

you just went to the commonwealth games and you know you meddled and you're going to the you know

you went to the train for the olympic trials and uh you know like it doesn't you're only

seven it doesn't sound that old but but in terms of the life you've lived you are sort of old i

don't mean that in a bad way yeah no no i know what you mean yeah i feel like i've lived two

lifetimes already or condensed lifetimes but lifetimes nonetheless yeah like seriously because

now you're saying oh well you know i'm gonna move on from that uh from that swimming thing

and my athletic career and that kid riding a bike on music videos uh singing while she's

going down there in l.a and then uh later on you know singing to big audience

performances and now you're talking about uh jazz and blues um you know next thing you know

you're gonna tell me you're gonna get yourself a harp and you're gonna start playing like you know

you know real bluesy stuff yeah yeah how cool was that stuff i love it yeah what the fuck i mean

i did lessons on it like it's the hardest thing to do it's really hard to get to get that one sound

yeah yeah to get that one note notes yeah because yeah because you keep sort of mixing it up all

the time yeah and in the end i just i was working pretty hard so and i'm

giving it up i gave it up but i might go back to it because i just i just love the sound of it like

it's good fun and it has a feel yeah you know i don't know if it's nostalgia or if it's

what it is but it's it's a happy sad yeah it's a happy sad yeah but ultimately it's comforting

yeah i mean do you feel as though you can't do it properly particularly the blues bit

um and i often think this to myself i can't appreciate probably because i've never lived

that 30s period when it was sort of introduced

to us uh the blues um you know with people you know very poor particularly the black people

yeah like and they used it as an outlet for themselves in a sense yeah like you know there's

part of that that you're never going to experience firsthand but i think um you can find the spirit

of it and try and capture it if you love the style and you love the feeling you know of the music you

can try and find the spirit of it and capture it because i wonder whether you know people like me

can only ever be an observer as opposed to be a participant because you're actually trying to

become a participant in it i can observe the feeling yeah but i can never claim i can be a

participant because i feel as though i'm an i'm not that musical for a start but and i don't play

the instrument like you know the guitar like you do and you can play blues guitar but to really

participate in it you nearly feel like you've got to be like sitting in one of those places you know

in south south south south south south south south south south south south south south south

of the united states where you know the black community was actually singing the blues

and playing the blues in order to to get that sense of feeling i mean yeah i mean you you've

gone through a lot of stuff in your life and you've mastered by the way you've mastered so

many things it's mental if anybody's going to be able to do it it's you um do you feel as though

you can get that sense of it from australia or do you feel a thing maybe i'm going to go back

over there for a bit that's a really good question uh i've spent a bit of time in

through the south yep uh i've spent a bit of time in memphis a bit of time in nashville recording

and that kind of stuff um but i don't know i think that i think uh i'd like to i'd like to

think i can stay here and capture some of it you know and have it here but uh you know i do plan on

i do plan on being somewhat of a traveler you know my future um and being able to do that and i'm

going to spend time in different cultures and cities and and that so i will and want to spend

more time in some of those places the music history type talents yeah um just for sake of

yeah feeling feeling that and understanding where you know those a lot of that stuff comes from

because even the jazz like even even you know the big band jazz like that stuff all comes from

from there too it comes from america um it's obviously all popular popularized by

by you know the sinatras of the world but um there's roots to it yeah um i i remember

especially jazz big bands like um people like herb albert and the tier one of brass

yeah um he's like it's fun music it's so good it's so good yeah and and i mean i don't want

to get any private life but do you think um well emma from here on end at some stage like if you

go the next to the next level um do you think she would be the same sort of person with you

like you travel as a family because your mom and dad did yeah you supported you both they but they

supported you yeah but they're also supporting each other in terms of what they want to do for

you for their kid right right and that's a big deal yeah absolutely and and that's that's an

important um that's an important factor for me going forward is you know and i know you have

those thoughts about well i'm going to be you know i'm going to be you know i'm going to be

you know the father and sort of you know the patriarch i guess of a unit eventually you know

and that's that's an exciting idea like that's that's also you know there's pride in that there's

i like that you know that idea and being able to do that with with a woman like it's beautiful

and and and it's something that i don't want to neglect in you know my travels or my exploration

of you know music or an art form right like it's something i'd i'd i want to and we've had that

chat you know about traveling together and you know her coming along for the ride and some of

that stuff and because it's an exciting thing because it's hard not to be selfish i mean to

be good at something yeah you have to be a bit selfish you do and um you know to some extent

what you're you did in terms of your swimming career and your musical career you were um goal

focused and those were selfish pursuits like i was alone a lot for those yeah and you had but

to get to where you had to get to that there's no other way yeah um in terms of um living a life

a full life um either you know from now on either with a partner without a partner you again must be

selfish but at the same time we've got to start to compromise a lot there's a lot of compromise

involved and in particular if you have kids you have to be considerate you have to consider other

people a lot of compromise feelings and are you ready for that you think yeah yeah that's cool

and i think that's part of growing up too um and i you know i've been in the music industry for a

you know you see i've seen and been around a lot of people especially in entertainment it's quite

common that you see older people that didn't want to make those compromises and you get to that age

of 40 50 years old and um there's something missing there you know that's that that sense of

of family and that part's missing and i don't want to be one of those those musicians that

yeah is older without that and that sort of

didn't didn't consider or prioritize that and only was i was strictly selfish i don't think

that's for me you know i had my years of that and you know when something means enough to you and

and you know family does and will mean that much to me it will always be part of part of the picture

and do you mind me asking you this as a parent and i i won't ask you to speak for emma but as a parent

given your

genetics and let's make an assumption cheeky assumption you've got emma's genetics there too

would you encourage your kids to become swimmers i've thought a lot about that especially lately

because i'm going oh i swim and is that something i'd want especially with the experience i've just

been through is that something i'd want for my kids and it's hard it's hard to say like i think

the the most you can do is what my parents and probably emma's parents did for her which was

put you in learn to swim yeah for safe

the reasons you know because i want my kids to be able to feel comfortable at the beach you know

if we're living in australia obviously we're going to be going to the beach you know i want

them to be able to learn how to surf and do surf life-saving all that stuff that i enjoyed doing

growing up and you want them to feel competent enough in those scenarios to enjoy the ocean

and then if like pool swimming and competitive swimming is uh

of interest and of you know if they if they enjoy it then then i'll encourage it but if they don't

it's definitely not going to be one to make them because you would have seen it you would have seen

growing up as a swimmer and i definitely would have seen it because she swam for a longer period

as a swimmer but that she didn't have the musical intervention like you did where you've got

parents and i've seen it football i've seen all sorts of places who push their kid and

i mean it's good look it's a great sport it's a great discipline they learn a lot of stuff about

themselves that that push sometimes you need sometimes kids don't know how to swim they don't

you need a little tough love at times a little bit yeah um but i mean that's going to be a great

question for you a great dilemma yeah for you guys to have to deal with at some stage because

you're definitely going to have the genetics there and it will make sense and you're going

to be thinking to yourself i don't want this kid to waste what god has given them through you know

through the multitude of um probabilities of someone coming out a good swimmer

if anybody or a good athlete generally if anyone's going to have the the that genetics

is going to be would be the combination to you too then you feel as though an obligation

should i am i obliged to help them garner that and cultivate that and how hard you push

that's a that's gonna that would be a really tricky thing to do yeah yeah it'll be something

to balance for sure because that you know you you want to you want to be tough to the point of

um teaching you know that that it's important

to that you need some measure of discipline right to to do anything in life and so and

you see a lot of kids these days and just that's they don't have that you know they're not taught

that because because there is that element of oh we don't want to be tough on our yeah kids you

know and i can't speak for parents i don't know what it's like but you don't want to go too too

soft but at the same time i don't want to force my kid to do anything that they don't want to do

um and i was lucky that my parents never forced me to train

me to get up and sounds like you forced them to take it i forced them to take me yeah so if anything

hopefully if my kids anything like me they're going to have a little inherent drive and so

i'm hoping that's you know enough to then be able to nurture um in whatever path they choose to take

they could be a you know anything biologist or a tennis player or a you know it could be musician

for all i know so i don't know yeah cody simpson um i hope i'm doing this in 10 years time and i

hope that you come back in 10 years time

with your little little one yeah and uh and you can tell me how your kids going um in relation to

that part of your life because i actually think that would be fascinating yeah i'm fascinated to

experience it so i'm excited to experience it and i want to say thank you very much for coming in

today like it's been awesome um congratulations on by the way on your life thank you everything

you've done in your life and the way you've done probably more importantly thank you well done

thank you i appreciate the time and the chat today it's been great

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