Renee Santos is a stand up comedian who grew up in Massachusetts where she found herself in the foster care system by the time she reached her early teens. Still she managed to get a full scholarship to college before migrating to Los Angeles to chase a career in acting. She describes her moment of reckoning as a spiritual bottom where she found a path to help in an awesomely unlikely way.

Lyle Lodwick was a famous international model and toured the world with several well known bands before the wreckage of his life eventually caught up with him.  But after a stint at an in patient rehab and a fastidious commitment to his own recovery, he has found a new path devoting himself to helping others get well, too.

Kari grew up in Santa Rosa California where she fell hard for the theater scene - a passion that took her to Emerson College and on into the South for acting after. The bug then brought her out to Los Angeles where she eventually found that same vital sense of energy and community in the world of stand up but not before she first endured a couple of dark phases and before the discovery of a form and method of recovery I've never encountered.

In Part 2 of this interview with guitarist and song writer, Anthony Rossomando, it all stalls out and the money dries up. But what in retrospect looks like a long quest for meaning somehow leads to sobriety and the now legendary collaboration with Gaga, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt. I had - in truth - forgotten how powerfully Shallow hit me when I first heard it in A Star Is Born, but man— this conversation brings it all back and reveals the crazy magic that led to that song.

Anthony Rossomando is a song writer and guitarist who is perhaps most famous for his work with the English rock band The Libertines and for writing (with Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt) the achingly beautiful song "Shallow" which became the centerpiece of the most recent remake of A Star Is Born. In this first part of a two part interview he shares stories of the early years: his musical influences, his time in the Boston area band The Damn Personals and tales of fear and loathing and excess on the road as a rock star.

You can support this podcast at my Patreon Page:

https://www.patreon.com/thedrunkalogues

Katherine Wyrick hales from Little Rock, Arkansas where she first learned to party in her early teens and while life took her to boarding school in New England and on the road with her husband's band, it was only when she returned to Arkansas, had children and found herself on a kind of spiritual quest that she ultimately made her way to sobriety

Rami is a rapper who performs under the stage name Kosha Dillz. He grew up in New Jersey and spent some time in and out of jail before getting sober and finding his calling in the world of music. He won the 2009 Hot 97 Rap Battle at Giants Stadium. He has performed with Snoop Dogg, RZA, Matisyahu to name a few and appeared at Sundance and SXSW. Follow him @koshadillz

You can support this podcast at my Patreon Page:

https://www.patreon.com/thedrunkalogues

We recorded this in the Sundance Festival's sober space with special thanks to the Harmony Foundation. (www.harmonyfoundation.com)

John Gillen hails from Glasgow Scotland where he grew up in a family of coal miners. Small in stature he left school at an early age to pursue a career as a jockey which eventually led to a very successful stint as the head trainer and manager of a prestigious thoroughbred stable in England. But when his drinking eventually got the best of him, he found himself homeless on the streets of Glasgow before finally finding the humility to get help. Now, 19 years later he runs a successful recovery operation in the UK and Spain and shares here the journey that brought him there.

Learn more here: https://oceanrecoverycentre.com/about/about-john-gillen/

This is a very special episode. Zander Schloss - the bass player for the seminal punk band The Circle Jerks - brought his guitar to this session, and he not only tells an amazing story of his career in music, the steep toll of addiction and his hard fought journey thru recovery but he also plays original songs that reflect the long, complex path of his life. This is a story of acceptance and surrender but also of persistence.

You can support this podcast at my Patreon Page:

https://www.patreon.com/thedrunkalogues