Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Michael Cera Inspired WILLOW to Learn the Guitar | The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

-My next guest is a very talented artist.

Her new single "Transparent Soul" is out now.

Here is Willow!

[ Cheers and applause ] Hello! Oh, my God! Hi!

[ Laughs ]

-How are you doing? Oh, my goodness.

-I'm so happy to see you.

And thank you so much for doing our show.

I want to mention, by the way, about "Red Table Talk,"

you crushed Mother's Day.

It was the best move ever. -Thank you.

-You could have given your mom a card.

She would have loved it. That's all good.

We know Jada's awesome, but you surprised her

with her band, Wicked Wisdom, and this is her band.

By the way, her band played on "The Tonight Show."

This is 2006.

-Wow!

-Yeah, isn't that cool? Yeah, and then --

So how did you pull off -- [ Laughter ]

You played -- And here's you playing with Wicked Wisdom.

-Yeah. Aw, me and Pocket.

-How did you surprise your mom, and did she have any clue,

and how did you pull it off?

-I wanted it to be a complete and utter surprise.

I mean, because we work so closely on "Red Table Talk,"

it was really hard for me to keep her in the same spot

for long enough to allow the guys to set up

all of their gear and everything.

But yeah, she was super suspicious.

Like, she definitely was suspicious

that something was going on. -Yeah.

-But she would have never guessed that I would have

hit up Pocket, her day-one lead guitarist

who basically was her right hand

on all of the Wicked Wisdom tours.

-But if she left the table,

she would have found the band, right?

-Yes. Basically.

So I had to keep her sitting --

I had to keep her sitting at the table,

which was ridiculously hard.

I mean, you know, she wants to get up.

She wants to go eat. She wants to go to the bathroom.

She wants to go do all these things, and I'm trying to, like,

without piquing her interest too much, let her, like --

keep her in the same position.

So that was -- Ah, oh, my God. That was so stressful.

-You pulled it off. And let me tell you something.

You know how to play the guitar, man.

It is actually -- Look how cool this looks right here.

That's the coolest shot ever, by the way.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Thank you. Thank you.

-That lens looking up is good.

But I was reading somewhere, and I go --

they said, "Who was your inspiration to play the guitar?"

And I go, "Well, her dad didn't play the guitar."

I'm trying to think. Then I go, "Who could it be?"

I mean, what's -- The list of great guitarists.

You have -- you go -- Is it Prince? It could be --

-Yes, Jimi Hendrix, you know, all of these amazing people

that I had been exposed to throughout my entire life.

I honestly think that it was brewing in me for awhile

that I knew I needed to play an instrument to, like,

really call myself a musician, and I really wanted to do that.

I think it was just during the time that I was --

that I found out that Michael Cera had made music.

I had no idea that he made music.

[ Laughter ] And I listened to his album,

and he's playing, like, some acoustic guitar --

like, folk acoustic guitar.

-Michael Cera? [ Laughter ]

-Michael Cera. -Yes.

-The actor. -Yes, amazing.

Yeah, he's a great actor. -How crazy is that?

I had no idea that that was ever gonna happen.

That was definitely not in my -- -I know.

Michael Cera was the one you go, "That's it.

I'm going to do it now too if he did it"?

-I think it was just kind of the breaking point.

Like, I was just, like, feeling this way for while

and then I just listened to that album.

And him being such a unique person to even make music,

I was like, "Whoa, this is inspiring in, like,

a really unique, weird way." [ Laughter ]

So I just kind of took the bull by the horns and was like,

"Okay, we're gonna start on this.

We're gonna be a guitar goddess."

What can I say? -Yeah, exactly.

I want to talk about... [ Cheers and applause ]

..."Transparent Soul."

Now, this is -- It's a different sound for you.

Travis Barker plays drums.

-Yeah. -On the song.

Do you get -- I mean, do you get nervous sending your track

over to Travis Barker or does --

-Extremely. Oh, my goodness.

I mean, let's back up a little bit

because even before I started making this album,

I already had insecurities about, you know,

my voice in rock music and just how I could make that

work and if that was gonna, you know, be authentic to me.

And so sending it to Travis was kind of like,

you know, my like, "Okay, this is -- this is the --

this is the moment where you get to see, like,

this amazing, talented, you know, pop-punk god is,

like, gonna let you know whether he likes your song or not."

-The album, is it coming out? Can you hint anything?

-Yes. It's going to be coming out this summer.

-Yes! -And I'm really, really --

[ Cheers and applause ] -Come on, now!

-I'm really, really excited!

I'm so excited because in the past I haven't done

a lot of collaborations or features,

so we're going to see a lot more collaborations on this album.

-That's what I'm talking about. And thanks again for performing

on the show tonight, and it's always good to see you.

Come back more often. Will you, please?

-Yes, I would love to.

-Thank you, pal. Willow, everybody.