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John Gallagher Jr. spoke with Kyle Meredith about his new EP, Almost Okay, a ragged little snapshot from the middle of a life reset. The actor-musician — known for The Newsroom, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Spring Awakening, American Idiot, and the Avett Brothers’ Broadway musical Swept Away — digs into the record’s live-band spark, the strange currency of indie music, and what happens when the industry gives you a shove back toward the guitar. Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts.
Gallagher calls Almost Okay “a little sort of postcard from an in between stage,” born after a breakup record, the hard landing of Swept Away, and a need to find something that felt good again. “This is what one must cling to in dark times of doubt,” he says of taking his five-piece band into the studio, where the songs arrived loose, alive, and unpolished in all the right ways.
He also talks about “Tough Spit,” a sardonic rocker written after too much scrolling during the 2024 election season. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” he says, describing the whiplash of promoting a show online only to tumble into shootings, conspiracy theories, and algorithmic garbage. Still, Gallagher finds the joke inside the panic, channeling heroes like John Prine, Todd Snider, Paul Westerberg, and Jackson Browne while admitting, “I love mining the personal for the public.”
Gallagher later discusses having “a small part” in Mike Flanagan’s upcoming “retooling” of the Exorcist franchise. Of working with Flanagan, he says, “He’s an amazing filmmaker. It was really cool to be on set with him and see him have the keys to this big franchise. He’s going to do some very cool stuff with the material; I think people are going to be really surprised and pleased with it.”
Listen to John Gallagher Jr. talk about Almost Okay, Swept Away, the new Exorcist movie, and more in the new episode above or by watching the video below. Keep up on all the latest episodes by following Kyle Meredith With… on your favorite podcast platform; plus, check out all the series on the Consequence Podcast Network.
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