Here we are in the studio again. There, Joyce and I feel.
Like we did a whole show already on there, and there's so much more to talk about.
The behind the scenes stuff that goes on here in the studio.
It's pretty amazing.
We'll have to do like a behind the scenes clip type show at some point.
Both of you guys have the camera on all the time.
What's good with Janet Joyce is sponsored by woodwinds Wedding and Special Events
Venue in Branford, Connecticut, and Silvio's award winning Italian sauces,
which you can buy any time online at silvio's.
Sauces.com.
That's silvio's sauces.com.
Without further ado.
Hey, welcome to What's Good with John and Joyce.
And it's just been, a lot of fun doing this choice.
We have had so many great guests, but I'm really pumped up about this.
We had a, meeting this morning on the phone,
and people were saying to me, Chinese sound really riled up today as well.
We had this guest coming in.
This guy's amazing, you know, TV star.
I want a reality show, like, I think a year ago about this time.
Claim to fame, claim.
To fame, social entrepreneur
which I love uses music is healing and we know the power of music.
Being in the music business as we are.
And he's, Michael Bolton is his uncle or a he is Michael Bolton's.
Nephew. Whichever way I'm prefer.
That's pretty big stuff, but but this guy is amazing.
I've known him for a while. Joyce, I know you have as well.
It's a real honor and privilege to have this gentleman here
who's making a lot of positive impact in the world today.
Adam, welcome. Adam Kristofferson.
Yeah, welcome to what's good with Johnny Joyce.
Thank you very much for such a beautiful intro.
You burn up a little bit of. It.
Looking at you, man.
I'm almost tearing. Up.
No, you weren't an amazing guy, Joyce.
And I think the world of you
and what you're doing to make this world a better place.
That's what we're trying to do with the show and represent the show
in so many ways.
Well, I'm starting to feel your show.
I was I was listening to it on the way over.
I listened to a little bit during the week, and that's what it is.
You're providing this incredible platform for people to sit
with themselves, without the nonsense of the outside world
and the distractions, and just soak in what what's really going on?
Well, like you said, it's a safe haven.
Yeah, it's a safe haven, right?
Absolutely. Yeah.
And I selfishly want to do one because I've loved you for a long time.
You light up a room. I mean, from years ago.
I mean,
you just had this special energy about you
that I don't even know if you realize that you have.
But it's the creativeness also that I respect so much within you.
Well, Joyce, you have always been a safe haven,
in my life going to these events that we, we, we shared.
And, I was left to my own devices to go
find out where I can go, how far I can go to get away from my parents.
And, and it was always you and Wayne that really just gave me this place
that I felt very safe and very welcoming, very hurt.
I'm glad that you felt that.
I mean, I love when we would just sneak off and sit on the steps.
Yeah. Talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And those are, those are like, pivotal moments that I needed.
And of all of this,
like, wide range of experiences that I was going through at that time.
Well, Adam, let me ask you this, for
some people that are tuning in right now, a lot of people listen to the podcast.
Some people watch, some people do both,
but some people that may not be familiar with you.
I mean, the 2 or 3 people that may not be familiar
with you in this, in this area, but also, you know, nationwide, globally.
Give us a little Reader's Digest version of who you are
and why you do what you do. Now.
You know, I was very, very fortunate.
To have two loving parents, both struggled in their own way.
My mom has paranoid schizophrenia.
My father's a Vietnam vet
with some serious PTSD and some mental stuff going on there. And,
that afforded me, a wide range of experiences in my life.
I've gotten to meet so many people
from so many walks of life, just, whether they're living with us
or just environments that I was brought into.
I had a lot of experience in the mental health world.
I just realized, and I don't know if you know this, but,
I was admitted into a child psychiatric hospital at four years old through my.
Really? Yeah.
At four, slightly after that, I was I was brought into, foster
care, taken away from both of my parents because it was just too much at that time.
And the blessing came along with my father's mother, Bertha
Bertha Florence Wickstrom.
Christopher the Swedish. Yeah. Yes.
And she was quite a person.
And she opened my eyes to, poetry
and, Swedish pancakes.
And a real safe place to to dwell.
And, she really got me started on something really special.
I feel like poetry was a real godsend that she had given me.
That exposure as a young, as a young kid.
And so, you know, time goes by.
I went through a lot of challenges having these kind of labels.
You know, it's not an easy kind of transition to just, it's.
Just so sad. People have to label people.
Well, yeah.
Yeah. Especially during the early special education days.
That was a very difficult time.
Went through, quite a bit of, growing
pains in the school system and, made it out,
found this really incredible, family,
the Feldman's and, Sue Feldman.
She's a social worker.
She, she thought what I was doing with music,
could be used in mental health places.
And so she invited me to work with these women who had Aids, substance
abuse, dual diagnosis, all kinds of things going on.
And she cut me a check, and I was like, well, I get to do what I love.
And, and, you know, help people. So,
yeah, I got my degree in recreation therapy.
I was convinced to go to college, even though I didn't want to go to.
Yeah.
And I started working at a Yale child psychiatric hospital.
Now, my wife
thought that this was just crazy when I told her recently that,
you know, I was impatient.
We read the, we read the, the medical records from that time,
and it said that Adam responded really well to music.
Right in the hospital, as in the inpatient psych.
And the first thing that I did when I got to work at when he was one
child psych at Yale, was I asked my supervisor
if I could bring my recording gear and make music with the kids there.
And it was in that moment that kids began to experience
the power and the place of music and the safe haven of music,
and I'd put the headphones on them and a microphone in front of them and
start creating music with them,
and they would be immediately caught and captured by the power,
music and medical director was like, whoa, like, what's happening here?
This is something special.
That is a common language.
Joyce, you and I've talked about music a lot, and our passion for it
brings people together.
Generations, all parts. Of.
All people, ethnic backgrounds, big time.
It is really the common healer.
It is, it is.
It's so healing, you know, bring up a lot of emotions.
And if you're able to do that and for you to able to accomplish
what you've done, to take the adversity and use it as an opportunity.
Yeah.
It's also out of necessity, the mother of invention.
Right.
So music, in the hardest of times, when my father bought me a drum set
at about eight years old, me right here in Branford
and, is a pearl blue drum set, and he put it in the basement
and I just conducted, I thought I was on stage with my Uncle Beau, and,
maybe it was even further spiritual.
It could have been like, you know, in the presence of the creator himself.
I just felt like I could I could slam on these things
and conduct a symphony in my mind.
I'm buddy Rich, I'm John Bonham.
Let there be drums, right? Yeah.
And so those that was that was my exposure to music.
I mean, I had that and I had this very strange experience of
living in section eight housing with my mother and
being around incredible, poverty with violence and all kinds of things.
And then a limo would come
by, pick us up, and bring us to a Michael Bolton concert.
This huge,
experience that was phenomenal.
And be, we'd get there, we'd open
up, the envelope, and I would grab you all access pass as fast as possible
and and leave everybody with, you know, backstage pass.
Even though I knew that the all access was for Helen,
I grabbed it, you know, because I wanted it.
And, we would be at this the show, and my grandmother
would be on and, on my side, and my father would be on my right.
My mother would be over there.
And it's just women going crazy
with this rock and roll huge sound with Michael Bolton's voice going off.
And I'm looking at this experience as a kid
and they're like, that's your uncle right there, right?
And his big hit came in 83, the year I was born.
Right. The year I was born here. He was born to.
You was born.
This game.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
How am I supposed to live without you?
Well, my fool's game was like the big one off the album.
But how am I supposed to live without you?
Right, Michael Branigan?
Yeah, yeah.
And then he.
Yeah, he came and he covered his own songs. Yeah.
And that's what he. Yeah.
They were all wondering, like, why are you why are you trying to make it in
rock and roll?
It's not going to work like singing, writing the ballads already.
You know. There's always naysayers. And and he's, Well.
And it was very good.
I think Columbia is the one who convinced him to basically
go from saying, all right, well, we'll give you a two album deal.
We'll do you rock and roll that keeps flopping over every major record label.
Or you can do these things that all the secretaries there's.
Yeah, like, this is the voice, this is the sound.
This is what we want, right?
And so he he was making hits for all these other people,
Cher and Laura Branigan and all these people kiss.
Right?
And countless, products selling, you know, trying to make a dime.
He was broke, you know, he was just trying to make.
And that's what love is all about.
Oh, my gosh, get me started.
Yeah. These songs are huge in my body.
I mean, these were songs that I was in the middle of of chaos and turmoil.
And I'd go to these concerts
and that the songs of love and Hope were just pouring out.
You provider.
I've been performing well. He broke my heart on that one.
Oh yeah.
So I remember having the soul provider, flier in my hand.
And Michael has a way of, every concert.
He'd be in the audience
halfway through,
and then he would kind of
walk through so people can, like,
live out this fantasy of Michael Bolton walking up to you. And.
But he was my uncle, and I wanted him to walk up to me.
And so when I saw him, I would be like, I would try to get his attention.
And I remember one time, you know, obviously I need pay attention everything.
But like, he walked past me so devastated.
I ripped it up right there. I just ripped it up.
Just totally devastated, you know, and then wait to get backstage
and all that stuff.
And but that was the my thing was like,
I believe that Michael was the the Savior.
I thought that he was somehow going to swoop in and just make,
you know, my mother well and make, make everything better.
Yeah, right.
And like to his credit, like, absolutely.
He got my mother to a better apartment.
He got my grandmother
into a beautiful condo, and and they didn't really need for money.
Like, my mother is permanently disabled.
And so she's always had state insurance.
But anytime there was something that she needed, right.
There wasn't a hesitation, from his camp.
But those times that we were backstage when,
you know, I said a lot that you had to take me.
I got to go with you.
Never happened. And so
I had to do a lot of soul searching.
There's a lot of things that happened to somebody
who believed that, like, you know, your family.
So you got to take on. So are mixed feelings.
Oh, that's what that's what love is all about.
You're right. Oh, nice segue.
But yeah, I think, it took me a long time to,
to realize that it was the music that was going to set me free.
Right? Right.
And so him being an inspiration to me
as far as his work ethic and his tenacity to pursue
what he was going to pursue at all costs, and that's what he did.
And he won. He got there. Yeah, he made it.
He put the blinders on straight.
It and he went for it. Yeah.
And he and he made it. And there's a legacy there. Yes.
And so to me, those are certain work
things that I have instilled in me that I know that are there.
But I also know that he sacrificed so much time with family
for the pursuit of a career which is no stranger to an industry like that.
Are so many other industries of people, climbing Mount Olympus right.
You have to put the blinders on.
There's always a cost somewhere.
And that's fine, because, you know, there's no possible way that
anybody is going to get there by saying, well, you know, I really got to stay home
and make sure that my kids are doing, you know, got their dad time with them.
And so, I know for a fact that he,
he tried his best to do that, but the calling was just so great.
Yeah.
You know, and that's that.
Yes. From expectations. Right.
Expectations. And so
you know he's he's
he's got a lot of people who expect a lot from him.
And it's hard to to meet those needs, you know. And
I have his music, you know.
And the music spoke to me.
And that's the message that really resonated with my heart.
To get me through, and focused because I had plenty of opportunities,
to get into drugs and, and and go the wrong way.
And I've lost lots of friends to drugs and all of those terrible things.
Right.
But for some reason, I'm, I'm part of something very special.
And and, an oh 1
in 2001, really trying to figure out who I was.
I mean, I had quit drugs, I got heavily into songwriting and music making,
and then I found spirituality through a relationship with God.
And in that place I saw a vision of musical intervention.
And at the time, it was like Cafe Cave Performing arts center for the youth.
Right? That was the whole idea.
And so I started working with politicians.
And once I had that vision, right, once I knew that I was in charge, entrusted
with something that had to happen, had to manifest in this world.
Right. Well, I just I had my blinders on.
And so I started working with politicians to try to make cave work.
And that's when I was encouraged to start going to college.
And then, you know, go to college, figure it out.
And then it just became musical intervention.
And now it's it's brought me all over the world.
And what a story.
I mean, watching your videos and how this impact has had
so many people, whether it be in the inner city or people that are battling
kind of, diseases or, you know, people with Alzheimer's.
I mean, music is the common enemy for the same war.
And look where you are in 2025. Yeah.
The impact you're having now. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, the ripple, the ripple, the. Ripple effect.
The ripple is crazy.
I mean, I opened up a space in downtown New Haven ten years ago,
coming up on ten years.
And this was really the vision.
It was the space, it was the performing arts space.
And I had the opportunity to work with Project Storefront.
At the time.
So they gave me I keep in mind at this time I'm on state insurance.
I left Yale to run for mayor of East Haven in 2013.
Real.
I tried to run for mayor and it was during the taco incident and all that.
Okay, okay. And, you know, just brought up all these issues.
And I was like, you know what? I'm going to change my town.
I'm going to I'm going to this is what I'm going to do. Right?
So I got my political hat on which Grandpa George was a politician
for the Democrats, and he's a, an Alder in New Haven.
So I'm like, let me put my hat in.
So I started my own my own party called the Trolley Party 2013.
Right? Oh, yeah.
Quit my job.
I'm like, I'm like, all right, I got to raise money.
So we raised $250, right?
For the our campaign fund was $250,
and we got more votes than any independent in 16 years. Wow.
Democrats offered us money to get out of the race because it's a 5050 000, yeah.
Yeah. Right. So I'm like.
And then I realized politics aren't for me in any way, shape or form
because I'm not interested in like the payback thing.
I want to see the thing get done.
And so it was like very obvious.
Like it's like, that's not how the game is played.
Like, this is all about do the person a favor so they can get you reelected.
So I'm like, okay, well, I don't know how to work in that in that world.
I just know that I have a vision and I'm going for it.
You put your blinders on. I had my blinders on. Yeah.
I thought politics, right?
I thought politics was it.
I thought I said, through politics I can make this thing happen. Right?
And then I realized quickly that, no, no, that's not it.
There's a machine behind.
So I became a mayor of musical intervention.
I had a conversation with God. That's good.
Yeah. Yes, I had a conversation with God. And God said, you know, choose one thing.
You got your music that you could pursue, you know, to Nashville.
I used to live out in my car in Nashville, try to pitch songs.
I did that for a while.
You could do music intervention, or you could do, a combination of both.
And I said, you know, let me focus on musical intervention
and see what I can do.
So we got a couple of small grants to work with the homeless.
I was doing open mics at the soup kitchen.
I was working at the homeless shelter writing songs and recording songs
with everybody there started working.
I mean, by this point I had contracts with a variety of agencies.
I was working in so many different places, like drug rehabs,
like the AB Foundation.
I was working in homeless shelters, I was working in school systems.
I had worked at the Arden House and the dementia unit.
And so music was just moving in so many and everywhere.
I went, it was just this like reaction to music, right.
All right.
Let me let's do this.
And then all of a sudden, I had these people with me,
and the guy we were renting from is like, oh, we can't have these people here.
Like that said, like, you know, we can't have homeless here.
I said, well, then give me my deposit back.
And he's like, you're not getting that back either.
I said, well, fun to do business with.
So at this point, it's December.
We're trying to rehearse for a showcase. Right.
And a suit and a suit pantry and we were like, okay, we need a place.
And so just this opportunity arose through Eleanor slumber.
She was doing some work at the time with New Haven and Project store franchise.
I have this place.
It's about to be vacant.
We can give you six months rent free.
We'll cover utilities.
I'm on state insurance.
I'm living with a girlfriend.
Okay? Yeah. No money. Right? Like I'm just.
Just barely. Who needs money?
But putting put put myself together, right?
Right.
And, I said yes,
because that's what you say when you're just turning 30 and you have this vision
and there's an opportunity and you say, yes.
And you figure it out later.
Well, I had to submit some kind of business plan, but
there was okay, now what?
So then we start building, well, I got to get a business.
I got to get a building permit.
I gotta figure out how to do a scale floor plan.
It's not easy that it takes forever. Oh, yeah.
You gotta learn all that right now.
You're dealing with politics again in the city and city hall.
So we get it all.
We get it.
Like now, ten years later, this door is open, swung
open to the most diverse group of people you'll ever know.
You'll ever know.
Everyone is represented.
Every single person is represented.
Young, old everyone.
Right.
And the common bond is, you know, we want to help people.
We want to come in and give music a chance to live.
We want to celebrate each other.
We want to be heard.
Right. Yeah.
A lot of what you're talking about
in your friendship conversation, we want someone who needs to be heard.
And in this environment, in a sober environment, coffee shop environment,
the common place is music.
So the person who's busking or asking for money on the side of the street,
you might not feel comfortable in that moment to give some money.
So it's a negative vibe for a moment, right?
If you do give, it's a great moment, right?
But then all of a sudden you're at musical intervention.
That person's on the drums and you're playing the guitar
and singing and you're vibing. You have a deep connection,
and in that moment you can communicate what's going on.
We're fortunate enough to have free food there.
We work with,
this really,
really, innovative program called, Haven's Harvest, where they,
go to organizations that are throwing away
their food with with good enough time left and they're repurposing it,
getting to places that people might not have anything.
So we just provide all of this as food and drink for free,
air conditioned in the summer.
It's it's it's really a wild ride.
And we're recording people.
We're writing, they're getting CDs, they're getting their music online.
They're performing at the open mic every Thursday to a packed house.
You're giving people a purpose. Oh my gosh, so many layers.
That's crazy. There's so many moving parts here.
Oh my gosh.
And don't get me started, because a lot of the people I know
through working in different settings, inpatient psychiatric school
systems and the challenges that they have in their life,
and then all of a sudden I see the different pieces
coming together, working together in this environment.
And it really I mean, if that wasn't there,
their days would be going by searching for meaning, right?
And that's the place that they get to do it.
And I get to continue doing the thing that brings me meaning,
which is making music and giving people the voice. Right?
You're giving them a purpose each and every day.
It's crazy wandering off the reservation.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Just because if I don't write myself, I forget who I am as a creative person.
And then I start to think negative thoughts.
I forget who I am.
And it turns out that that's it's a common trait that people,
creative artists, have a hard time keeping up in capitalism.
And, you know, it's just a system that that feeds lots of people.
Starve some.
Yeah, but,
where's the room for the artists who aren't selling paintings
for, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, right?
They're dying.
And and you think of Van Gogh, the first person
in the psychiatric hospital not keeping up with capitalism.
But the brother believed in his work and saw that
there was something very special that needed to be preserved.
And so I get to surround myself with all of these.
Van Gogh's going into different settings.
But unlike Van Gogh, you're being celebrated in your lifetime.
In your lifetime? Yes.
To him. Yeah, yeah.
And we hope nobody drops there often.
You know, I go, oh, August.
Yeah, yeah.
So, the dream is it was given to me
and it's it's it's a just an amazing thing to watch it play out.
The thing about a dream is, you never know, what it's like to run
a dream and manage a dream or try to build a team around it.
So it's very much if you think of Jesus, you know,
you think of this Jesus having the vision, right?
This is I see myself on the cross.
I have to do this thing.
But we got to do some miracles first.
One of my favorite phrases
is, he wouldn't provide the vision without provision.
Oh, yeah? Yeah.
I love that. If you give him the vision, he'll prefer provision.
But in his time. Right.
And where does that provision come from?
Because, you know, even right now one of our
and NIH grants has done that was my salary.
And so I'm like, okay God, what door is going to open.
Right. And so I have to now, as I've learned
to, to
try to be patient and watch the miracle play out in front of you.
You know what I'm saying?
But I think of the character, the cast of characters that Jesus
put together, right?
These disciples that weren't your typical board.
Right?
They're not your typical like. Well, they have a very.
Particular, more savory group of people.
Yeah, right. And imperfect.
Oh, yeah. Like us. Yeah, yeah.
And and relatable and and and real and, you know,
non-judgmental because they're so in it you can't you can't help it be real.
And so that's so I, I really relate to it.
I really relate to that experience and being entrusted with the vision
and seeing people like Moises Vazquez we have right now,
did did his time right,
struggled through his traumas
and and and and tried to keep up with this world.
Yeah. Had a wake up call right.
Wanted to become a recovery sports
specialist to help people go through the things that he went through.
And he wants to use percussion to do it.
And so we link up and now,
you know, my whole musical intervention is covered in all percussion.
And he runs a drum circle that's incredibly successful.
He calls mic come make a Joyful noise.
Yeah, it's he calls it I love it.
And so he's got this circle that we've had Yale study and, you know,
looks at how this drum circle impacts people's anxieties.
And so this guy who could have died
right now comes into musical intervention, uses his drums as a way to
to heal other people and meet community,
get paid to do these things and survive.
Right. And,
pursue his vision.
Not just Healy himself, but healing other healing others.
Yeah, yeah. And so that's the goal.
The goal is to provide that platform for people who want to be able
to help people by utilizing their their skills and their talents,
to make a better world.
Because honestly, a lot of the people
that are really suffering want to help others.
It's their it's their whole thing.
And a lot of people, myself included, when times are good
and you got some money and some comfortable things going,
you don't want to put yourself back into the war zone.
You kind of want to say, well, I've got it.
Someday I'll maybe I'll just go on vacation and.
Yeah. And that's okay.
Yeah. You need to take a break. You gotta. Heal. Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
You brought up Jesus before even he couldn't save everybody.
Even he had it.
So, you know, at times you gotta go up to the mountain and and, gotta.
Go. Guys. Exactly. I needed I need a break.
I need to reconnect, put my seat back and feet in the sand for a second.
And so, it's just been, a lot.
I mean, you gotta think I've built my 30s putting this whole thing together,
going through people's, really serious, challenges
that they have in their life and then seeing them have the opportunity
to create their music and sing on stage and be celebrated by their community
and leave a legacy, leave with the CDs and things like that.
Like, man, just to be called to that is just it's just great your private moment.
You just kind of like, look at your life and then, wow.
This is the private moment I get.
I, I had two kids now
there's, hardly any private moment maybe when I go to the bathroom.
Maybe. Yeah.
Yeah, I get in, the door comes, daddy, can I just today
she said, she's trying to get a doll out of me.
She's. Oh, I get this.
Yeah.
How old are your kids? Oh, my gosh, my daughter's five.
My son is two.
What are their names? Elena and Alex.
Now Alex, a bunch of Russian.
My beautiful wife. She saved me.
Oh, really? Yeah. We just. That's going to be a story for us.
You know what?
We have so much to cover here. You think? Oh, we're coming back.
We haven't even talked about clean paint yet.
And I.
We have to come back for a second episode.
Love to. Love to.
That would be fantastic. Adam, thank you so much.
Maybe even sing a little song for us next time.
Sounds great. Yeah, definitely.
Definitely. Don't leave home without it.
But thank you so much for tuning in to What's Good with John and Joyce.
Available on all streaming platforms.
Please tell a friend virus who needs a pick me up.
There are so many people out there nowadays hurting
and we just want to be your safe place to land, warts and all.
You know, totally organic here.
You know what's good with John and Joyce? We pray for you.
We pray for your family.
We pray for your healing, your prosperity.
And, we're just appreciative that you spent some time with us here
half hour every week.
I'm John Cadillac Seville from iHeart radio.
I'm Joyce Logan.
Thank you so much and bye for now.
See you soon, Adam. Thank you.