Speaker 1: What's up, guys. Welcome to the Granger Smith Podcast, Episode
Speaker 1: thirty four. Thanks for watching, thanks for listening. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: to have this platform to be able to talk, especially
Speaker 1: in crazy time like this. And for those of you
Speaker 1: that have watched or listened to all the previous ones before,
Speaker 1: or at least many of them, thank you for letting
Speaker 1: me be a part of your Monday morning. I hope
Speaker 1: that a lot of you are commuting again. If you
Speaker 1: weren't working before, I hope that you are working again
Speaker 1: as these states are slowly starting to open up and
Speaker 1: we're seeing hope, and we are seeing what we knew
Speaker 1: was going to happen all along. That's only a matter
Speaker 1: of when, not if, we get back to normal. We
Speaker 1: like to reject the idea of the new normal and
Speaker 1: the new way of life that is false. Reject that
Speaker 1: we're going to get back to just the way we were,
Speaker 1: because that's what we will believe, and the majority of
Speaker 1: us will believe that we'll make it through this, be
Speaker 1: better for it, and be back to normal. So thank you, guys.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you that some exciting things going
Speaker 1: on with me and the band. We are going to
Speaker 1: be starting live stream shows starting tonight Monday night, starting tonight.
Speaker 1: If you're watching this or listening to this podcast real time, uh,
Speaker 1: we will be doing this live stream tonight and we're
Speaker 1: very excited to be able to give you a free
Speaker 1: viewing of a show. We are going to offer a
Speaker 1: virtual tip jar, a virtual pickle jar, as I'll probably say,
Speaker 1: because back in the old days, we only we only
Speaker 1: lived on tips, and so we would pass around a
Speaker 1: pickle jar with said band tips on the side. And
Speaker 1: we're kind of we've resorted, We've we've gone back to that. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I'm almost embarrassed. I get I get clamming when I
Speaker 1: start talking about it, but I got to ask for
Speaker 1: tips again. That's that's the state of the world, at
Speaker 1: least a state of touring and what it's come down to.
Speaker 1: So this is this is going straight to the band.
Speaker 1: We've done well. I like to say, we've done well,
Speaker 1: but we haven't done well enough to maintain twelve weeks
Speaker 1: or whatever it's been since the last gig and continue
Speaker 1: to pay health insurance and everything that these guys need
Speaker 1: to survive. So we'll be passing around a virtual tip
Speaker 1: jar in the form of Venmo. I created a Venmo
Speaker 1: account at granger Smith and so you could you can
Speaker 1: go to at Grangersmith on Vinco or venmo dot com
Speaker 1: forward slash granger Smith a dollar or two as you
Speaker 1: watch the show. If you don't like the show, you
Speaker 1: don't have to donate anything. But in otherwise it's not
Speaker 1: it's it's not required or anything, or we're gonna We're
Speaker 1: gonna offer it for free because I know this is
Speaker 1: a crazy time, but I'd like to say that it's
Speaker 1: it's important that also that we just get together and play.
Speaker 1: You know that we go through some of these songs
Speaker 1: and we take request. If you have a request, comment below.
Speaker 1: If you're watching on YouTube, comment below. And we'll try
Speaker 1: to build the set list each week. If we do,
Speaker 1: say Monday today, if we do one Thursday day, and
Speaker 1: I think that might be a good pattern. It's like
Speaker 1: Mondays and Thursdays. We'll do a set and we will
Speaker 1: make it where we change environments all at the Eyegee Farm,
Speaker 1: and we change instrumentations. So we might do a full band,
Speaker 1: we might do acoustics, we might do some older throwback songs.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be really fun. It's gonna be really fun.
Speaker 1: So speaking of live concerts and tips. It's very, very
Speaker 1: very important to know that if we're going to do
Speaker 1: a live stream and if I'm gonna ask for tips,
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear it from me personally through the podcast
Speaker 1: or through social media or on my website. You will
Speaker 1: hear it from me. And the reason I say that
Speaker 1: is we did hear about at least one scam, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's others of people impersonating me or impersonating
Speaker 1: other celebrities and asking for tips or some kind of
Speaker 1: charity support, or that they're going to do a live stream.
Speaker 1: I think there was one we heard of that was
Speaker 1: a live stream that was actually all a big hoax.
Speaker 1: It wasn't me at all. So if you see something
Speaker 1: come up with me as a live stream, it's fake.
Speaker 1: Get out of it. You know, if you see something
Speaker 1: about me asking money for a charity, it's fake. You're
Speaker 1: only going to hear that from my mouth on my
Speaker 1: socials with the blue check. Always look for the blue check.
Speaker 1: All that being said, we're pumped if we make zero
Speaker 1: dollar tips where it's worth it for us just to
Speaker 1: play and have fun and get back with the guys
Speaker 1: and play some music again. You know, something that we've
Speaker 1: all been doing for decades that suddenly has stopped. So
Speaker 1: we'll be back and all that is going to transition
Speaker 1: into today's podcast. I'm bringing Dusty Saxon on here, and
Speaker 1: you guys are going to love to hear what he
Speaker 1: has to say. He is a very interesting guy. He's
Speaker 1: actually a really funny guy in certain environments. One of
Speaker 1: the funniest guys I've ever met. If you get to
Speaker 1: know him and you listen to him long enough, he
Speaker 1: will say he's very smart, very witty, and he has
Speaker 1: to be smart and witty to know how he does
Speaker 1: these drums, how he operates. It's multitasking all these drums,
Speaker 1: running a laptop computer at the same time and remembering everything.
Speaker 1: He never forgets. If you've seen us play, he never forgets.
Speaker 1: I do all the time. So he's an interesting dude,
Speaker 1: small town guy from Loreena, Texas. Without further ado, you
Speaker 1: guys are gonna like this one. Dusty Saxon time, long line,
Speaker 1: humping down, going back, crazy cool shun. When Earl Didviles
Speaker 1: Junior was kind of on the rise, and people do
Speaker 1: interviews with me and they would be like, man, you're
Speaker 1: so funny. I can't believe it's so funny where it's
Speaker 1: all laughing. You know, were you always like the funniest
Speaker 1: guy in your class? Were you like the class clown
Speaker 1: growing up? And I would always say, man, I'm not
Speaker 1: even like the third or fourth funniest guy on my bus.
Speaker 1: And so if I was gonna rank the funny guys,
Speaker 1: I think you'd be number one. But you're the most
Speaker 1: unassuming funny guy because you're generally kind of quiet, and
Speaker 1: people almost have to get to know you. Don't you think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not just funny any just all the time. I
Speaker 1: guess my my Instagram bio actually says sometimes funny, So
Speaker 1: that explains it. So you're unassuming funny, But also you don't.
Speaker 1: You don't come to the world and say, listen, I
Speaker 1: want to be a I want to be a comedian.
Speaker 1: But those that know Dusty Saxon, well, I've spent time
Speaker 1: with you. It's like these moments late at night, late
Speaker 1: on the bus, when it's quiet, when there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of people and no one say anything. You're always the
Speaker 1: one that has their the words that just get everyone rolling. Well,
Speaker 1: I I'm never I'm not just funny without I'm not
Speaker 1: just funny. I have to be. I take something someone
Speaker 1: says and it'll trigger something funny in my mind, or
Speaker 1: like even with even with music, I can't write a song,
Speaker 1: but I could take a song and make it better
Speaker 1: like I could. Somebody might say something that that makes
Speaker 1: me think of something funny, and I'll take it the
Speaker 1: rest of the way. I don't know. I can't just
Speaker 1: walk into a room and be funny like a comedian,
Speaker 1: but I could walk into a room with my friends
Speaker 1: and jump into a conversation and turn that conversation into
Speaker 1: something funny. Yeah, it's interesting that it's like different, there's
Speaker 1: different forms of comedy, and yours is definitely not the
Speaker 1: walk in the room class clown, Like you weren't class
Speaker 1: clown in high school. I'm sure, no, definitely not. But
Speaker 1: we so a lot of people don't know. We have
Speaker 1: something in the band called the quote Book, and it's
Speaker 1: something we've kept over several years, and we sometimes it's written,
Speaker 1: sometimes we have it on our phones, but regardless, we
Speaker 1: collect funny things that have been said and random times.
Speaker 1: And you probably are the king of quote books, like
Speaker 1: you're the king of one liners. And maybe one day
Speaker 1: we'll go through and do a different podcast. It's like
Speaker 1: Dusty Saxon quotes. Yeah, but tell me, like your story
Speaker 1: is always so fascinating and I always learn more Abouue.
Speaker 1: I've known you for about almost ten years now, yeah,
Speaker 1: almost ten. Yeah, I've been in the band almost eight.
Speaker 1: We met you were playing with the country act Brandon Ryder,
Speaker 1: and but I'd known you before that. Our sound guy
Speaker 1: Frank had worked with you in a band called Ember,
Speaker 1: a rock band, and so I'd always heard these legendary
Speaker 1: stories of you as this crazy drummer. That's that's very outgoing.
Speaker 1: You know, you throw sticks up, you catch them, you
Speaker 1: twirl them, you like make faces to the crowd, you
Speaker 1: point at people. You you are very a big, huge
Speaker 1: personality on stage, but then when you talk to you
Speaker 1: one on one, you're a pretty reserved, pretty quiet. So
Speaker 1: so tell me the story of how Dustin turned it
Speaker 1: into the legendary Dusty Saxon rock star. That's That's It's
Speaker 1: funny that you bring up that way because I've actually
Speaker 1: when I was younger, like in high school, I would
Speaker 1: kind of refer to it in my head as the
Speaker 1: Dusty Saxton switch, Like when you turn on Dusty and
Speaker 1: when you turn it off. And that came from when
Speaker 1: when I was in I've always I was born to
Speaker 1: be in a band. I was born to be a musician.
Speaker 1: I was from I mean, I started playing drums when
Speaker 1: I was two, and no one in my house ever
Speaker 1: told me to stop or told me to turn it down,
Speaker 1: even when I was out of high school and struck
Speaker 1: out to join any band, no matter what type of music.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be in a band that was serious.
Speaker 1: But where at some point in your life someone in
Speaker 1: your family steps up and says, hey, do you really
Speaker 1: want to do this the rest of your life? Or like,
Speaker 1: is this really going anywhere? And for some reason, no
Speaker 1: one in my family ever ever stopped me from doing it.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever, nobody ever told me, hey, maybe this isn't
Speaker 1: going to work out, or maybe you shouldn't. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't working out. It was a long enough, it was
Speaker 1: a long, a long road, And to me, it was
Speaker 1: always when it really got bad, when there were no
Speaker 1: gigs or I was ultimately broke, the fear of not
Speaker 1: doing it, the fear of going back to a day job,
Speaker 1: or the fear of giving up, was always worse than
Speaker 1: whatever situation I was currently in that's the truth right there.
Speaker 1: So I just never, like even at the like at
Speaker 1: the end of a hard day or at the end
Speaker 1: of a hard week, I was always I just I
Speaker 1: guess I would just never. I don't know when you
Speaker 1: when you finally find what path you want to go down,
Speaker 1: you if you can't let yourself give up, or you
Speaker 1: can't let yourself even think about giving up. And that's
Speaker 1: the story man behind so much, so much, whether it's athletes, musicians,
Speaker 1: anybody that has really good success, you hear that same thing,
Speaker 1: that that the fear of not doing your dream and
Speaker 1: living out what you've always thought you were supposed to
Speaker 1: do is always greater than the worst day, the worst
Speaker 1: practice if you're athlete, the worst gig if you're a musician.
Speaker 1: And that's what has people ask me like, how do
Speaker 1: you what's your key to success? I was just like,
Speaker 1: I just never stopped. I wasn't more talented, I wasn't smarter.
Speaker 1: I just went longer than all my friends that were
Speaker 1: doing it exactly, And you don't you have to not
Speaker 1: surround yourself with people that make you want to stop.
Speaker 1: Because I was so dedicated to my dream or my idea,
Speaker 1: my path that I wanted to live. That it was
Speaker 1: hard to be friends with me if you weren't also
Speaker 1: on that same page. So like I you know, people
Speaker 1: that other musicians or even other bands I was in
Speaker 1: that where the other members, whether they weren't quite as
Speaker 1: motivated as me, or even if they just were motivated
Speaker 1: to do other things like have a family or a
Speaker 1: house or anything else like the I just I didn't
Speaker 1: attract friends that. I mean, it was very hard to
Speaker 1: be friends with me if you weren't on board with
Speaker 1: or or if you couldn't understand what it's like to
Speaker 1: be fully on board date with something really hard. So
Speaker 1: that that brings up a point. Tell me about the
Speaker 1: amount of time you've spent homeless on purpose, like not
Speaker 1: not sidewalk homeless multiple times multiple times in my life
Speaker 1: you've made a living or you've made a lifestyle at
Speaker 1: some point, not now, but in your past literally living
Speaker 1: on friends couches. Yeah, I mean when I was, like
Speaker 1: I said, from from a from a very young age,
Speaker 1: I mean from kindergarten, I wanted to be a drummer
Speaker 1: in a band, and my whole childhood I struggled with
Speaker 1: what does that even mean? How do you you just
Speaker 1: find a band, do you start a band? And like
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not the type of person who is
Speaker 1: I don't have these original ideas from the beginning. I
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of I don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of ideas that start from the ground up, or if
Speaker 1: I do, they start from the ground up and they
Speaker 1: go a quarter of the way. But I can, like
Speaker 1: from a I didn't know. I had no concept in
Speaker 1: my mind of how to start a career as a drummer.
Speaker 1: And then once I was in once I was in
Speaker 1: high school, I started playing in bands, but we didn't
Speaker 1: make any money, and our shows were in high school
Speaker 1: gyms and parking lots and things. And when when I
Speaker 1: discovered I remember the first gig I ever got paid
Speaker 1: to play, and it was in college station and I
Speaker 1: was playing bass for a reggae band and the singer
Speaker 1: came up at the end of the show and the
Speaker 1: singer gave me twenty bucks and he said, I said,
Speaker 1: what's this for it? And he said, well, the bar said,
Speaker 1: we sold this much alcohol while we were playing, and
Speaker 1: they paid us one hundred bucks. So we split it
Speaker 1: five ways. Each one of us gets twenty bucks. And
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, because honestly, that night, I had
Speaker 1: driven to college station and I didn't have enough gas
Speaker 1: to get home, so I was going to have to,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, drive my car till it ran
Speaker 1: out of gas and call someone to come pick me up.
Speaker 1: And that twenty bucks, that unexpected twenty bucks, was what
Speaker 1: got me home that night. And then when once I,
Speaker 1: once I moved moved away from home and joined my
Speaker 1: serious rock band, I was only twenty years old or
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, so I wasn't I was. I
Speaker 1: wasn't making much money as a twenty one year old,
Speaker 1: so I never really got the taste of what it's
Speaker 1: like to live in your own house or buy your
Speaker 1: own car. I was living off of nothing. I was
Speaker 1: already broke. So to go from a broke kid working
Speaker 1: a job you hate, to go from an equally to
Speaker 1: go to an equally broke kid working a job that
Speaker 1: you love, it was there was no question in my mind,
Speaker 1: like I didn't want to go back to working a
Speaker 1: day job. I wanted to continue doing what I was doing.
Speaker 1: So when when the the rock band got started, you know,
Speaker 1: took off to a certain point, it got more and
Speaker 1: more successful, to the point where I didn't have I
Speaker 1: didn't have a day job, which, of course in rock
Speaker 1: bands once you get once you reach that point, it
Speaker 1: starts going downhill, right, and you know, the shows, The
Speaker 1: shows got fewer and more far between, the crowd started
Speaker 1: getting thinner, and the paychecks got smaller, and I had
Speaker 1: to move out of the house that I was living
Speaker 1: in and for the first time had to be homeless,
Speaker 1: living in you know, living in my car. But the
Speaker 1: way I did it was the band still had shows Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Speaker 1: and Sunday. We played acoustic shows on Sunday, so I
Speaker 1: would only have to I would only have to find
Speaker 1: somewhere to sleep Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, because
Speaker 1: Thursday we'd be back on the road. So it really
Speaker 1: was it was like, I can't afford the house I'm
Speaker 1: living in now I have to move out, So there's
Speaker 1: no way I'm going to be able to afford my
Speaker 1: own place and I'm only going to be there three
Speaker 1: days a week. Yeah, And so that began the mindset
Speaker 1: that would follow me throughout my whole life of why
Speaker 1: am I going to pay rent on an apartment that
Speaker 1: I'm never at? Yeah, And the biggest enemy of success
Speaker 1: in that way is a fallback plan. Yeah, like my
Speaker 1: father in law's got a job, my dad's got a
Speaker 1: job for me waiting, or I've got a really nice
Speaker 1: place to stay yet I don't really want to hit
Speaker 1: the road again. But when you don't have a fall
Speaker 1: fallback plan, or you seriously reject that fallback plan, you
Speaker 1: just do it. You did whatever cost. Yeah, No, Drums
Speaker 1: was always my main, main dream, my main objective. I mean,
Speaker 1: and I tried to be a guitar player. I tried
Speaker 1: to be a bass player. But when it really came
Speaker 1: down to it and I was like, Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to actually make a living with my talent or make
Speaker 1: a living with my hobby, I had to really pick
Speaker 1: the thing that I was most naturally talented at that
Speaker 1: was gonna, you know, the thing that I felt like
Speaker 1: I was actually born to do. Obviously, I wanted to
Speaker 1: make them. I want to I want to make a
Speaker 1: living playing music, and I could do it any so
Speaker 1: many different ways. I had to pick the one that
Speaker 1: was the most natural for me, the one that was
Speaker 1: the one that where I had to think the less
Speaker 1: and I think the least, and drums was the it
Speaker 1: was the most natural way for me to do that.
Speaker 1: And but you also actually really are a talented guitar player,
Speaker 1: bass player, singer, and you have probably more than all that.
Speaker 1: You have a really good ear and you could hear
Speaker 1: notes and melodies and where everyone knows you you know,
Speaker 1: beats and rhythm, but you have really good ear. And
Speaker 1: and so, for for instance, our song America, me and
Speaker 1: you kind of wrote that and then you took it.
Speaker 1: And there was an old rock song that you had written,
Speaker 1: don't know that, don't do that. And you played all
Speaker 1: those guitars. So the demo of America was actually you
Speaker 1: playing all the instruments. Yeah, and yeah, the instruments, the solo, yeah, yeah, everything.
Speaker 1: So what made you lock in on drums? I mean,
Speaker 1: drums is by far the hardest to set up and
Speaker 1: carry and play. It takes a huge endurance to play.
Speaker 1: And when we play hot shows, I'm always looking back
Speaker 1: at you and I'm thinking I'm hot, and then I
Speaker 1: remember you're back there slamming drums. Yeah. Wells it was
Speaker 1: you know when I moved, when I moved away from home,
Speaker 1: moved to Austin to be a professional musician. There, I
Speaker 1: would I met some guitar players that had moved to
Speaker 1: Austin to do the same thing, and I was. Even
Speaker 1: though I may have been able to play, you know,
Speaker 1: I was a good player. I didn't have the mind
Speaker 1: of a guitar player. I couldn't communicate the two other
Speaker 1: guitar players. I didn't know the notes, I didn't know
Speaker 1: all the chords. I could probably jump in with a
Speaker 1: guitar and jump into your band and do a good job,
Speaker 1: but compared to other guitar players, I really was not
Speaker 1: up to part. But on drums, I had been in
Speaker 1: drumline and a high school band, so I knew. I
Speaker 1: knew what rudiments were, I knew what I knew what
Speaker 1: time signatures were, I knew what tempo was. How I
Speaker 1: knew more about drums, so that if I was gonna
Speaker 1: jump into the professional music world, I knew that I
Speaker 1: could communicate better on drums. I knew that I would
Speaker 1: excel more on drums. It was just what I naturally played.
Speaker 1: It's almost like if you were a baseball player or
Speaker 1: a football player, and you were a naturally good pitcher
Speaker 1: or a naturally good quarterback or a naturally good receiver,
Speaker 1: or if you had really good speed, you wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to have a dream of being a lineman or something,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I had to really focus on what
Speaker 1: am I naturally good at, the best at what is
Speaker 1: going to take me the furthest and drums was that
Speaker 1: and that's why I always settled on it. It's also
Speaker 1: why I play have always played a crazy big drum set,
Speaker 1: because one it reminds me of high school band ays
Speaker 1: where you had to assemble your percussion section based off
Speaker 1: of what songs you played, not just show up to
Speaker 1: a gig with the same drum set. Like when our
Speaker 1: shows got bigger and crazier, my drum set got bigger
Speaker 1: and crazier. When the shows are smaller and quieter, I
Speaker 1: sometimes try to play a smaller, quieter drum set. I
Speaker 1: try to play to the room and to the crowd,
Speaker 1: and that just become that just is from me not
Speaker 1: wanting to be an annoying drummer. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be the drummer that shows up to the dinner gig
Speaker 1: with a massive loud you know, and play too loud.
Speaker 1: And that that comes from being a guitar player and
Speaker 1: being a drummer in other bands with or being you know,
Speaker 1: in other bands where I wasn't playing drums. One of
Speaker 1: my greatest accomplishments in my music career is keeping Dusty
Speaker 1: Saxon in the band. I remember when I when I
Speaker 1: first got you, I was kind of in a bind,
Speaker 1: and you just happened to be in between gigs you were.
Speaker 1: You were just off the road with Evans Blue, yep,
Speaker 1: and so you had like a month that you could
Speaker 1: pick up some gigs and make some cash. And so
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking long term as you my drummer. I
Speaker 1: was thinking, this is going to buy me some time.
Speaker 1: In fact, we were auditioning drummers with you in the band,
Speaker 1: like you were the sit in drummer that was also
Speaker 1: all of our friend and you were going to help
Speaker 1: us find a drummer. It just so happened that along
Speaker 1: the way we were gaining popularity quickly, and like the
Speaker 1: stars aligned where your Evans Blue gig ran out. And
Speaker 1: I remember one time somewhere in some town, in some
Speaker 1: crappy green room, you said I'm gonna play Arenas, whether
Speaker 1: it's with you or not. And I remember thinking, God, challenge,
Speaker 1: challenge accepted. And you didn't say that like in a
Speaker 1: demeaning way to us, You're just kind of letting me
Speaker 1: know my hey man, my goal is to play drums
Speaker 1: in an arena, and I will go there and I
Speaker 1: will find a way to do that, whether you're the
Speaker 1: train I'm on or not. I think that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember the context of that. I think it was Tyler.
Speaker 1: I think Tyler was saying something about how Tyler was
Speaker 1: taught was I think Tyler was saying something about like,
Speaker 1: how do we get to this level, or how do
Speaker 1: we want to do this someday or you know, if
Speaker 1: you're not, if you're not dreaming of that level now,
Speaker 1: then you need to get out because this is this
Speaker 1: is where we want to be. And I think that
Speaker 1: was My response was, well, I'm going to play arenas,
Speaker 1: whether it's with this band or not. Because when my
Speaker 1: rock band ended, a lot of a lot of musicians
Speaker 1: from If you're not from a music city, if you're
Speaker 1: not from Nashville or New York or La or I
Speaker 1: guess Austin, you can't. You You get like people don't
Speaker 1: know how musicians work outside of being in a band,
Speaker 1: and you have like the idea of being truly freelance,
Speaker 1: A truly freelance drummer was totally foreign to me. In
Speaker 1: the beginning. I thought you had to join a band,
Speaker 1: and your band had to be successful, and if the
Speaker 1: band ended, you ended. And I had to learn how
Speaker 1: to how to become just Dusty Saxon the drummer, not
Speaker 1: Dusty Saxon the drummer of this band or of that band. Right,
Speaker 1: you built a brand yourself, like you came up with
Speaker 1: the logo, a website, the whole bit. You branded yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that I learned that from being on a on
Speaker 1: a you know, when I was a kid, I was
Speaker 1: on a soccer team and even if if you only
Speaker 1: you know, if the team did bad, everybody did bad
Speaker 1: or you know. And when I joined a band, my
Speaker 1: first rock band, that's kind of how it felt. It
Speaker 1: was like if the band, if the band takes a dive,
Speaker 1: we all take a dive. And I wanted something that
Speaker 1: would have more longevity to it. And I had to
Speaker 1: learn how to survive without a band and get gig
Speaker 1: get gigs. Just had to figure out how to make
Speaker 1: people call, how to make these back. There was no
Speaker 1: fallback plan, and so when when the when my paycheck
Speaker 1: got too small or quit quit at all, quit coming
Speaker 1: at all. I had to figure out like there were
Speaker 1: some weeks where when I had my last gig on Sunday,
Speaker 1: if I didn't have another gig till Thursday, I would
Speaker 1: just be like, well, I've just got to sit and
Speaker 1: do nothing for three days or four days. And that's
Speaker 1: that's I think the number one reason that I could
Speaker 1: have given up was just waiting it out. Because when
Speaker 1: you're when you're trying to make your freelance talent a career,
Speaker 1: you don't always have gigs coming in in the beginning.
Speaker 1: And they come, they come so sporadically. You might have
Speaker 1: you might have only Fridays and Saturdays, and so what
Speaker 1: are you going to do in the meantime? What are
Speaker 1: you going to do? Waiting all week for your for
Speaker 1: your you know, your gig or your show. And to me,
Speaker 1: that was sit and look for other shows. It wasn't
Speaker 1: you know, And literally I would I would I would
Speaker 1: sleep somewhere in my car, wake up, go to the
Speaker 1: first bar or restaurant that had an outdoor patio and
Speaker 1: sit outside and drink doctor pepper and remember that and
Speaker 1: look and just literally have my computer wide open, reloading
Speaker 1: Facebook every ten minutes, looking for people posting about drummer gigs,
Speaker 1: and I didn't care how much it paid because I
Speaker 1: was just sitting doing nothing and I had I had,
Speaker 1: you know, my Friday Saturday gigs that would pay me
Speaker 1: enough to eat all week. But if you know, I
Speaker 1: was making impressions on new musicians was way more important
Speaker 1: than getting paid, because if I could, if I could
Speaker 1: play a show with a new group of musicians I'd
Speaker 1: never played with before, there was a good chance that
Speaker 1: one of those guys was going to call me for
Speaker 1: something in the future. And when I look back on
Speaker 1: it now, not one gig that I ever took was
Speaker 1: pointless because even when I was playing blues gigs downtown
Speaker 1: Sixth Street on Austin for no guaranteed money, now that
Speaker 1: I look back, it was like, oh, the first show
Speaker 1: I played downtown on Sixth Street, I was filling in
Speaker 1: on drums, but the bass player was also filling in,
Speaker 1: and he didn't play for that band. He played for
Speaker 1: a different band that was also just had some slow times.
Speaker 1: And eventually, you know, two months down the road, that
Speaker 1: bass player would call me because his other band needed
Speaker 1: a fill in drummer. I remember a guy I played
Speaker 1: on Sixth Street. Because when as a drummer, if you
Speaker 1: can step in and help a band out when they
Speaker 1: when they're stranded and don't have someone, then that they'll
Speaker 1: never forget that. And everyone in that band that I
Speaker 1: just caught a random blues gig with, everyone in that
Speaker 1: band called me again to do the same thing at
Speaker 1: some point, and you know, and maybe I didn't make
Speaker 1: any money that night, but it got me. He made
Speaker 1: the impression. Yeah, I made the impression. And people say, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get up off the couch unless
Speaker 1: it pays one hundred bucks. I didn't even have a couch.
Speaker 1: I was in my car. I was sitting. I would
Speaker 1: be sleeping in my car somewhere so good with the
Speaker 1: drums in the trunk. I mean, I'm amazed that my
Speaker 1: drums never got stolen out of my car. I mean
Speaker 1: they probably because you were sleeping with them. I know
Speaker 1: I was sleeping sleeping with them. And you've continued to
Speaker 1: this day to grow that brand. And right now on
Speaker 1: your YouTube channel, you have some really good videos that
Speaker 1: you've been making that I've never really known this side.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're pretty good at anything you do, especially
Speaker 1: tech stuff or or music stuff. But I was really
Speaker 1: blown away by these videos. What's your YouTube page? Just
Speaker 1: Dusty Sacks, Dusty Sacked, and you and and you're you've
Speaker 1: been doing these these rig rundowns your your whole drum set,
Speaker 1: but they're built in a way that incorporates storytelling of
Speaker 1: where you came from and how you became a drummer,
Speaker 1: and you are elaborating on It's basically like an autobiography
Speaker 1: built into how you're building your drum set over the
Speaker 1: years as it's changed with different bands. And that's like
Speaker 1: the last one you put out. I sat there and
Speaker 1: at the end of it, I was like, I just
Speaker 1: watched ten minutes of Dusty telling me about his life.
Speaker 1: And I've known this guy for ten years and I
Speaker 1: just watched it for ten minutes. So it's really good.
Speaker 1: If you guys want to see that, it's put together
Speaker 1: really well. Yeah, I've got I've got more come in.
Speaker 1: I've got another one, part three, which will finally wrap
Speaker 1: up the rig rundown about the actual current drum set.
Speaker 1: Like you said, I've I've I've always wanted to tell
Speaker 1: these stories, but I guess I never thought that I
Speaker 1: had reached a level where anyone would actually learn from me,
Speaker 1: because I was still learning. But now with everything, with
Speaker 1: all the touring shut down and the industry kind of
Speaker 1: at a halt, I've been thinking like, Wow, if this
Speaker 1: had happened at any earlier point in my career, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I would be able to make it
Speaker 1: through this or even to start back up again. Like
Speaker 1: if this had happened in two thousand and eight or
Speaker 1: nine or ten, when I was on a couch somewhere
Speaker 1: and had no money and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: all the gigs stopped, I don't know what I would
Speaker 1: have done. I don't know if I would have ever
Speaker 1: started back up again. But looking back, there was nothing
Speaker 1: as big, and there was nothing as big as what's
Speaker 1: currently happening, But there were other things that happened, whether
Speaker 1: you know, when I had to move out and had
Speaker 1: to decide am I gonna Am I going to abandon
Speaker 1: everything and go get a job at Guitar Center and
Speaker 1: quit touring and not be available for all these gigs?
Speaker 1: Or am I gonna figure out a way to keep
Speaker 1: going and figure out a way to survive through whatever
Speaker 1: little thing this is. And as the band's got bigger,
Speaker 1: problems got bigger. I mean, you know, it's like Tyler
Speaker 1: always says, you got to get bigger problems exactly. Hey,
Speaker 1: we run out, how we take a quick record? Be
Speaker 1: right back, guys. I hope you're liking this podcast with Dusty.
Speaker 1: What a crazy guy. So many stories I want to
Speaker 1: tell you about our yee Ye Apparel summer launch June twelfth.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be crazy and as we've seen from
Speaker 1: the past with these launches, everything goes really quick. So
Speaker 1: go to yee dot com or ye apparel dot com,
Speaker 1: log in and make sure you see it. Go live
Speaker 1: at ten am. At ten am, find your favorite things,
Speaker 1: log out. You got it. I just don't want you
Speaker 1: guys to miss out. It's gonna go pretty quick. Love y'all.
Speaker 1: Back to Dusty. A lot of people don't know also
Speaker 1: that you're you're not only have you you balance this
Speaker 1: act of trying to build your brand and play drums
Speaker 1: and and keep your personality on stage and you make
Speaker 1: your faces to the crowd and throw up drumsticks, but
Speaker 1: you're also controlling every song through through the drumcat, which
Speaker 1: is a MIDI controller that then controls a laptop. So
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen. If you've seen any rock drummer,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even say country drummer because you're you don't
Speaker 1: really qualify for that. But if you have seen any
Speaker 1: rock drummer, and you've seen they have to use both
Speaker 1: feet and both arms all the time, every song constantly.
Speaker 1: Can so imagine seeing that, and then also imagine running
Speaker 1: the songs with a MIDI controller with a drumstick. So
Speaker 1: on his right hand he hits this controller with a
Speaker 1: drumstick that advances to the next song on the set list,
Speaker 1: and in our ears we could hear the count off
Speaker 1: and the click, and if we mess up, which happens sometimes,
Speaker 1: he has to find the next chorus of the song,
Speaker 1: he advances it forward and has to catch up to
Speaker 1: where we messed up. All this is happening, and nobody
Speaker 1: in the crowd knows it's happening. Yeah, just the five
Speaker 1: of us on stage and you're back there. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like the craziest multitasking that you could imagine. I've
Speaker 1: even I've explained it to other drummers before, and half
Speaker 1: of them don't understand it at all, And the other
Speaker 1: half of them that do understand it are like if
Speaker 1: you ever tell my boss about this. I will come
Speaker 1: beat you because they don't want to. They don't want
Speaker 1: to to take on the challenge. I mean it's very challenging,
Speaker 1: but I mean I've my whole career, I've been playing
Speaker 1: playing songs with bands with computers, and when something goes wrong,
Speaker 1: you always have to just when something goes wrong, you
Speaker 1: have to just stop everything, and it becomes very obvious
Speaker 1: that something's wrong. Like I remember we played a show
Speaker 1: in Traverse City, Michigan, which was the last straw, and
Speaker 1: I knew I had to find a way to fix this.
Speaker 1: But we started the first song and you came up
Speaker 1: on stage and you went to sing, and your microphone
Speaker 1: batteries were dead. In the very first song of the
Speaker 1: of the show, and you went to sing, no vocal
Speaker 1: came out. And I was like, okay, well, you know,
Speaker 1: the computer is running the click, it's running the lights,
Speaker 1: and if you don't start singing, if we don't do
Speaker 1: everything perfect the same way, every time we are now wrong,
Speaker 1: the click's going to end before we do, and the
Speaker 1: lights are going to turn off the light. So what
Speaker 1: you have to do in that situation back in the
Speaker 1: old days was just hit spacebar and stop the whole computer.
Speaker 1: And when I did that that day, I hit the
Speaker 1: space bar after a split second blackout and all the
Speaker 1: lights went out, and so we finished the rest of
Speaker 1: the song in total darkness. And it was so awkward
Speaker 1: and so obvious. And so when we went home from
Speaker 1: that little run, I committed myself to finding a way.
Speaker 1: There's got to be a way to stop the computer
Speaker 1: and start it again during a song, or there's got
Speaker 1: to be a way to make our mistakes. Like we
Speaker 1: are experienced musicians. We've played in bar bands, we played
Speaker 1: in cover bands, we've jammed and garages. We know how
Speaker 1: as a band to just jam through a moment and
Speaker 1: get back on track and continue the song. But a
Speaker 1: computer can't do that. So I knew there had to
Speaker 1: be a way to stop the computer and start it
Speaker 1: during the song. You guys have any idea this was
Speaker 1: going on, I'm sure, And so that, yeah, that one
Speaker 1: winter we went home. Everything's telling me, we're doing a
Speaker 1: good podcast. We're talking a long time. This is good.
Speaker 1: But I figured out how to how to do it,
Speaker 1: and then I didn't really realize that it would kind
Speaker 1: of take over and become the way that we run
Speaker 1: things now, like now, if we want to do a
Speaker 1: song differently, we can just do it differently because I
Speaker 1: have so many ways to run the song in the computer.
Speaker 1: Since now, let me give them an example. We use
Speaker 1: like America for example. Yeah, so say we're at a
Speaker 1: big festival. There's ten thousand people. I'm out on the
Speaker 1: catwalk singing America. If I don't get to that chorus
Speaker 1: or those verses at a certain time, the clip's going
Speaker 1: to run out. Lights are going to change, things change
Speaker 1: in the song. So I'm reaching down and i'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm signing some ladies, you know, hat And then I
Speaker 1: don't get back up in time, and I missed the
Speaker 1: top of that second verse. So you guys don't notice it,
Speaker 1: but the band's gonna do. So Dusty realizes I didn't
Speaker 1: make the top of that verse. So Dusty then commands
Speaker 1: to the whole band, hold right here, hold right here,
Speaker 1: wait for me, so and then he'll count us. And
Speaker 1: then when I'm ready and he knows I'm back on
Speaker 1: the catwalk and I'm ready to sing. He realizes that
Speaker 1: while playing all this crazy stuff on the drums. Then
Speaker 1: he gets back to that second verse. The top the
Speaker 1: second verse and then counts us in right here, one, two, three,
Speaker 1: hits it and then I start singing. It's kind of
Speaker 1: I mean, and no one knows. We try to compare
Speaker 1: our band to a football team a lot, and in
Speaker 1: that situation, I don't really know who's the quarterback, if
Speaker 1: it's me or if it's you. But it's kind of
Speaker 1: like we were. It's like when something goes wrong, I
Speaker 1: have to stop and get us into a loop, and
Speaker 1: then I just have to kind of watch and listen.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes I'll see you going for the mic
Speaker 1: and I'll be like, all right, verse verse two or
Speaker 1: chorus two. But other times I don't really know what
Speaker 1: you're gonna do. Sometimes you look like you're about to sing,
Speaker 1: but you start talking and then I'll have to wait.
Speaker 1: But then some you know it's but it's awesome because
Speaker 1: it gives us back that jam band flexibility, right, that
Speaker 1: you lose when you start programming your lights, yeah, and
Speaker 1: programming your clicks. It's those moments to keep us excited.
Speaker 1: Oh and then we got the stage and we high
Speaker 1: five each other. We're like, dude, that was crazy. We
Speaker 1: almost messed up saying that like Sayersville, New Jersey during
Speaker 1: America where the power went out. Yeah, and America keeps
Speaker 1: getting brought up today. I looked back on some video
Speaker 1: from there, and the power was out for like twelve
Speaker 1: to fifteen minutes. But so, like, what are we going
Speaker 1: to do in that situation when the power goes out?
Speaker 1: Are you just gonna all kind of die off stage
Speaker 1: and then just eventually stop and then the band stand
Speaker 1: up and leave and wait for you know, the crew
Speaker 1: guys to fix the problem, and then all come back
Speaker 1: out and be like, oh hey, sorry, now we'll start
Speaker 1: that song over again. No, what we did the power
Speaker 1: goes out, you still had you have no you have
Speaker 1: no amps, you've got no microphones, you've got no no
Speaker 1: pa in that situation, but you still had a sold
Speaker 1: out venue full of rowdy music fans and a drum
Speaker 1: set on stage. They can still hear the drums, and
Speaker 1: so I just kept playing and the crowd kept clapping,
Speaker 1: started chanting, and over those ten to twelve minutes, you
Speaker 1: if when the drummer stops, you really have a problem.
Speaker 1: I always always say that any instrument can stop on
Speaker 1: stage and you it doesn't make it obvious that there's
Speaker 1: something wrong. But when the drummer stops. That's when you admit, okay,
Speaker 1: we can't fix what's wrong up here, and you know,
Speaker 1: it becomes it becomes the crowds problem. Then that is
Speaker 1: and I kind of said this, and you might y'all
Speaker 1: might not have understood. But when we talk to each
Speaker 1: other and Dusty's saying one, two, three, he actually has
Speaker 1: a microphone on his drum kit that talks to our ears,
Speaker 1: So it's like a what do they call that? And yeah,
Speaker 1: we called a talkbacker whatever they call it in broadcasting.
Speaker 1: You know you have you have a C mike, So
Speaker 1: we're we could listen to Dusty and then I have
Speaker 1: one right in front of his drum kit, and then
Speaker 1: Johnny are bass player has one, so there's three on
Speaker 1: the stage. If the guitar player has a big problem,
Speaker 1: he could run to that Q mic, same with bass player.
Speaker 1: And then Dusty's always talking. And sometimes it's a joke,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I'm just making a smile of a joke.
Speaker 1: But in emergency situations, and I'm talking Lake Shake, Chicago,
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand people, I'm out on the catwalk, which
Speaker 1: could be fifty feet from you. Yeah, we have to
Speaker 1: talk to each other. He can't see my hand signals.
Speaker 1: It's not like it was in the days of the clubs,
Speaker 1: so that's our saving grace. I should probably wrap this up.
Speaker 1: If you guys want to hear more, Dusty comment below.
Speaker 1: I think we could probably do three or four of
Speaker 1: these podcasts and still get interesting stories. He's one of
Speaker 1: the most interesting people I know and one of the
Speaker 1: funniest guys I know. But anyway, dude, thanks for being
Speaker 1: on here. Let's go work on that truck. Yeah's see
Speaker 1: you guys.