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  • -Ewan, it is -- ah, look at you, buddy.

  • You look great. -How are you?

  • -It's good to see you. -I am happy to see you.

  • -Where were you when everything shut down?

  • Were you working on anything at the time?

  • -I was in New York.

  • I was working on the series called "Halston."

  • And I'd been in New York. We'd shot about one episode

  • out of five, and bits of two or three.

  • So we were less than halfway through it.

  • -Oh. -And then, you know,

  • we were shooting and we were hearing all this talk

  • on set about other films being shut down.

  • And we're thinking, "Why are we not being shut down?

  • What -- what --"

  • And then of course, it came one Friday.

  • They shut us down -- literally.

  • But we thought, at that stage,

  • it was going to be for two or three weeks.

  • -I totally agree. Yeah.

  • -You know, it's like two, three weeks, go home.

  • So I just left a bunch of my stuff in New York

  • and I flew back here to L.A.,

  • and here we are six months later.

  • It's unbelievable, isn't it?

  • -What kind of things you been doing while you've been home?

  • -Well, you know, I've just been keeping busy, dude.

  • I did a whole bunch of stuff that I've been meaning to do

  • around the place, like things that you go, "I'll get to that,"

  • picking up a tree that fell over

  • or I lost a trailer down the hill.

  • I had to get -- I towed that out.

  • Things that have been on my to-do list for years.

  • You know, played a lot of guitar.

  • I actually -- I found you playing "Render" with Blur

  • on the interwebs.

  • -You saw that? -Oh, my God.

  • I watched it over and over. It's so good.

  • -How great are -- I just asked them to do it.

  • They were here and I go, "I love 'Tender' so much.

  • Do you want to --"

  • How did you stumble on that one? -I don't know.

  • I was just trying to learn the chords for it.

  • And I was looking on YouTube to see -- you know,

  • I was watching them play it, and then I saw you guys.

  • I was thinking, "Wait a minute." So looked at it,

  • and then I kept watching you over and over.

  • Just -- what I loved about it

  • is you just looked like you were having so much fun.

  • It was the best.

  • -It was great -- -Your were playing with Blur.

  • -If you look at Damon's face,

  • he starts laughing because he's looking at

  • how much fun I am having.

  • And I'm hitting harmonies and stuff, he's like --

  • -You're doing the high stuff. You were so into it.

  • -I'm trying and he's laughing at me.

  • -[ Speaks indistinctly ] -[ Laughing ]

  • Oh, that's great, man. -It's so cool.

  • -We got to do -- -It's so cool.

  • -We got to do a duet when you come back.

  • -Oh, I'd love that. I'd love to --

  • Any excuse, really, to get the guitar out.

  • You know, I'd love it. -Yeah.

  • -Last time you were here, you'd just finished

  • a motorcycle trip with your buddy, Charley.

  • -Charley. Yeah. Yeah. -Now it's a series

  • on Apple TV+.

  • "Long Way Up," it debuts Friday.

  • What can we expect for this?

  • -We did a couple of other big trips in the past

  • called "Long Way Round" and "Long Way Down."

  • And we -- in 2004, we rode from London

  • all the way around to New York, east.

  • -I remember, yeah. -And that was epic.

  • And then we did the African continent

  • from the top of Scotland to Cape-Town in 2007.

  • And, you know, there's been this long gap in between,

  • but we always planned to do the Americas.

  • And so we started, we -- we did an odd --

  • we prepped it al in L.A. and London

  • and then shipped everything down to Ushuaia

  • in the bottom of Tierra del Fuego to start,

  • which was such a --

  • We had to come a long way up, you know,

  • 'cause we'd already done "Long Way Down."

  • The common sense thing would be to leave L.A. and ride south,

  • but 'cause we had to call it "Long Way Up,"

  • we had to start down there. -Down, and go up.

  • -Then we shipped everything down there

  • and we rolled all the way back up to L.A., and it was amazing.

  • And we did it all on electric motorcycles.

  • We decided to try and do this one on electric bikes.

  • And Harley-Davidson took their beautiful

  • LiveWire motorcycle and built

  • these two prototypes into sort of adventure bikes for us.

  • They raised the suspension,

  • or they lengthened the suspension,

  • they raised the bikes.

  • Put different seats on and panniers

  • and a screen and we had these proper dual sports bikes.

  • It was wicked.

  • -You said that this was the most challenging

  • motorcycle trip that you've ever done.

  • What was one of the more challenging part of it?

  • -I think the challenge was the charging of the bikes.

  • You know, we're in the cusp of,

  • I know, electric cars are everywhere.

  • There are electric charging stations for cars

  • in most cities.

  • Especially in America, it's quite easy to do,

  • to navigate.

  • But in the Atacama Desert

  • or Patagonia, for instance,

  • there aren't any charging stations...

  • -Of course. -...so we had to sort of

  • do the best we could.

  • It was pretty stressful, the charging.

  • But it added a certain excitement to the trip,

  • a different kind of adventure, you know.

  • It was good.

  • -How do you like electric versus gas powered?

  • -I love it. I love -- I love riding them.

  • They're really fast. I mean, they're --

  • Away from the lights, they are so much faster

  • than a petrol bike, and... -Really?

  • -They're just -- they're sort of --

  • For a touring bike, they're quite nice

  • 'cause they don't make any noise,

  • and there's no mechanical vibrations,

  • so you really feel the road.

  • There's sort of a -- sort of tranquility

  • to riding them, which is nice.

  • You ride them a bit slower because

  • you got to try and get the most miles

  • out of the battery as you can.

  • -Yeah. -And so you don't want to be

  • setting at 90 miles an hour,

  • but that lends itself for touring anyway.

  • You want to be able to take in the landscape

  • and look at the llamas as you go by, you know?

  • And also, the llamas don't run away.

  • So when you come up on a petrol bike

  • to horses or some wildlife, they scatter.

  • But when you come up on an electric bike

  • to the llamas, they just sort of check you out.

  • They don't run off.

  • -I wouldn't even think of that. You're right.

  • I remember I was lucky enough to go on a hot-air balloon

  • ride... -Yeah.

  • -...in Africa,

  • and when we went over the animals, you're just floating,

  • and it's quiet, so the animals

  • don't even really know you're there.

  • They just think you're a bird, so you're just like,

  • "Oh, my goodness, this is unbelievable."

  • -Amazing. -So that's probably

  • kind of the same thing -- it's not as loud,

  • so once they do -- [ Imitates grinding ]

  • ...then they ran and they go...

  • -Yeah. -Then you're like, alright.

  • Then it wasn't as peaceful.

  • Hot-air ballooning's not as peaceful as everyone says it is.

  • -The landings aren't quite as peaceful as --

  • The landings are pretty terrifying.

  • -Dude, it was awful. -Sort of like --

  • It's so hit-and-miss, isn't it?

  • It's sort of like, well, I hope it's gonna be okay.

  • -Yeah, we're all tumbling out of a basket.

  • I go, "This is not how I want to go."

  • -Dragged across the Savanna being chased by leopards.

  • -[ Laughs ] -Oh, my God.

  • [ Laughter ]

  • -That must have unbelievable just listening to the tire

  • on the road, and just going,

  • "We're going, man, we're cruising."

  • -Yeah, I mean, we got down there,

  • and we're not very good --

  • we're not very clever at planning, Charley and I.

  • We like looking at bikes and picture--

  • You know, we love buying the kit,

  • getting the right panniers and the right gloves

  • and the right gloves and -- -Yeah.

  • -That's what we're really into, all the kit,

  • you know, the stuff.

  • But the actual planning of the trip,

  • we're a bit lame at, so we go down there

  • to Tierra del Fuego, and it was a blizzard,

  • and we were snowed in for four days

  • before we could leave, 'cause it was still winter.

  • And I spoke to my dad on the phone, he was like,

  • "Well, you might have looked at the weather

  • before you left, son," you know.

  • I'm thinking, yeah, he's got a point.

  • I should have had a look at the weather

  • because it was blizzard conditions.

  • -You're like, "I'm too busy thinking of the bike

  • and the gloves and thing and the --" yeah.

  • -"I got really nice panniers, Dad, look at my panniers."

  • But... [ Laughter ]

  • But we waited for a break in the weather,

  • and on the fifth day it stopped snowing a bit,

  • and we just left, we just got out on the road.

  • It was fun.

  • -I want to show everyone a clip.

  • Here is a look at "Long Way Up"

  • on Apple TV+, check it out.

  • -Got to hold on through your pillar.

  • I once was in a taxi cab in New York,

  • and a Hell's Angel came up to the car like this,

  • put his hand through the window and he said,

  • "Take me to the Hell's Angels club."

  • Taxi guy was like, "Okay."

  • Put your rear window down and I'll hold on through there.

  • Go slowly. Okay, slowly.

  • -Hold the other way, maybe, Ewan.

  • -No, I'm good, I got it. -You got it?

  • -Yeah.

  • Slowly, slowly. That's it, good.

  • -Okay. -Good.

  • -...faster? -Yeah, go a bit faster.

  • Ooh, yeah, that's good.

  • Good, good, good.

  • This is working, it's working.

-Ewan, it is -- ah, look at you, buddy.

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