Speaker 1: Book of Welcome Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is recording artist and performer Andy Graham.
Speaker 1: How are you, Dad? I'm good. You know you got
Speaker 1: up to get a period. I wanted to have drinks here.
Speaker 1: I saw on the back of your jacket it said
Speaker 1: reckless optimists. Is that how you see yourself? That's kind
Speaker 1: of where where I'm at right now. I like that.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of it being like a rebellion. Okay,
Speaker 1: well there's a there's a couple of things. There's a
Speaker 1: rebellion and optimists. Were you always an optimist? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think I was kind of like I think I came
Speaker 1: out this way. Well, I mean that makes it easier
Speaker 1: in a business where it's almost impossible to succeed. Impossible,
Speaker 1: stupid exactly. So do you come from a family of optimists?
Speaker 1: I do? You know? My My dad as a children's singer.
Speaker 1: His name is Greg Grammer, unbelievable Grammy nominated child a
Speaker 1: singer We lost to Mr Rogers compilation album a while back. Um,
Speaker 1: and my mother helped him write the songs. So I
Speaker 1: grew up around um Yeah, a lot like a lot
Speaker 1: of like good vibes and songwriting. I have to ask, Okay,
Speaker 1: is Gramm or the original name or did they change
Speaker 1: that for the act? No real name, real name? Do
Speaker 1: you have any idea of the derivation of them? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's German? Okay. Uh so you were discovered
Speaker 1: busting Yeah. Man. Well, first I want to say that
Speaker 1: you are a fascinating figure to me, and I'm a
Speaker 1: huge fan of yours. My wife when we was probably
Speaker 1: ten years ago, my wife was interning at Warner Records,
Speaker 1: and she's like, Oh, you have to get that. You
Speaker 1: have to listen to this. I mean, you have to
Speaker 1: subscribe to the Lessets letter because he's like the he's
Speaker 1: got the pulse. And so we were both like all right,
Speaker 1: and we just I've been reading you ever since, and
Speaker 1: I find you really really interesting and I love the
Speaker 1: voice of like you have this sense that you just
Speaker 1: don't care what anyone else thinks. Is that true? Well? No,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, but that's true. I Mean there are
Speaker 1: a couple of things there. There's a Bob Dylan line
Speaker 1: to live outside the law. You must be honest, you know,
Speaker 1: and so if you take the money, you're compromised, you know.
Speaker 1: So if you don't take the money, you can say
Speaker 1: whatever you say. And at this point I still occasionally
Speaker 1: get people emailed me a little bit more than occasionally.
Speaker 1: You don't wanting to do a trade out like hype that,
Speaker 1: and I say, you know, I don't do that. And
Speaker 1: the other thing is people don't understand the game, which
Speaker 1: is is someone he gives you something and you burn them.
Speaker 1: That just burns the relationship. You're just done, So you
Speaker 1: can't do that. But I think this is very similar
Speaker 1: to the election we have. I'm trying to come from
Speaker 1: the vision of reality. Frequently, everybody knows reality, but nobody
Speaker 1: speaks it, so therefore I'm saying it. And certainly we
Speaker 1: had all this technological revolution and the music business was
Speaker 1: scnary in the coal mine, and it's fascinating to watch
Speaker 1: the television and movie business still wrestling with that after
Speaker 1: they could look back at the turmoil we went through.
Speaker 1: So yes, you know, you might be the only critic
Speaker 1: a critic or now I don't really but I don't
Speaker 1: have a big term problem with the term. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: one of the only ones that I that I will
Speaker 1: actually check in on when you say when you say stuff,
Speaker 1: and I don't always agree with you, but I know
Speaker 1: that you are coming from a very sincere, honest place,
Speaker 1: and that's dope. Man. Well that's what that's really great.
Speaker 1: You know, I said, you know, I may not agree
Speaker 1: with you, but I know that's really your opinion. But
Speaker 1: in a world where that's kind of rare, I congratulate,
Speaker 1: you know, as I say, that's what the music used
Speaker 1: to be. Uh. It used to be in the sixties
Speaker 1: and early seventies in America for getting inherited wealth. In Europe,
Speaker 1: a musician was as wealthy as anybody in America and
Speaker 1: therefore what we'd call the rock star lifestyle, which has
Speaker 1: not been taken over by bankers and people. It was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I mean the famous thing was, yeah, we
Speaker 1: wrecked the hotel room, our road manager shows up with
Speaker 1: a roll of hundreds and we move on. It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: And then you know, I'm not necessarily uh in favor
Speaker 1: of some of this behavior. But there's a famous story.
Speaker 1: God time goes back and you're young in the mid
Speaker 1: seventies seventy five, I believe where Neil Young and Steven
Speaker 1: still has did an album or may run. They had
Speaker 1: a tour planned. Neil Young famously to this day goes
Speaker 1: into his sort of modified Winnebago and Stephen Stills went
Speaker 1: down first, and Neil Young cinema uh telling me, said,
Speaker 1: doesn't feel right. I'm not doing it okay, whereas everybody says, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm working hard, you know, because that's what I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to do. And I think that's a problem we have
Speaker 1: in the music business now. First and foremost of the
Speaker 1: music business now, people are either very successful, there's not
Speaker 1: much of the middle class, okay, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people on the lower end. Bitch. There's two kinds of
Speaker 1: people that bitch. They're the people who were pissed that
Speaker 1: they missed out on the glory days of the major labels, etcetera,
Speaker 1: who probably do to have the talent. And then the
Speaker 1: people were the beneficiaries of that. And when we came
Speaker 1: to the internet, we found out people didn't really want
Speaker 1: to listen to their music that much. Yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: we have these I want to disagree with the middle class.
Speaker 1: You think there's no middle class. I feel like that
Speaker 1: these days get you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, let's define
Speaker 1: middle class. Middle class to me means that you are
Speaker 1: a musician that gets to make their own music, and
Speaker 1: you make enough money to live comfortably. Okay, I mean,
Speaker 1: I hate to put metrics on it, but I will
Speaker 1: you that middle class musician. How many tickets does that
Speaker 1: person sell as they tour? I mean there are people
Speaker 1: that I think that are middle class that can sell
Speaker 1: thousand tickets. Thousand tickets is a real is real number.
Speaker 1: How low would it go when you still consider them
Speaker 1: to be middle class? I guess it depends. If we're
Speaker 1: just talking money, then you could sell three hundred. But
Speaker 1: if you're a sinc beast, then like your middle class. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think they're It's kind of it looks like the
Speaker 1: country at large. We still have a middle class, but
Speaker 1: it is not the dominant bubble. It's more lower middle class.
Speaker 1: I do not have a problem with people. The problem
Speaker 1: becomes that a lot of the people you're referencing who
Speaker 1: have a have fans, have a career, don't stop complaining
Speaker 1: that they're not more successful. If the people were saying
Speaker 1: this is what I do and this is who I am, great,
Speaker 1: I mean. On the other end, I did Folk Alliance,
Speaker 1: which is actually a fascinating organization. This goes back about
Speaker 1: seven or eight years ago and I'm talking and a
Speaker 1: guy said, uh, are you gonna tell me? I forget.
Speaker 1: The term was sort of like a middle class musician.
Speaker 1: I know, how much do you make in a year?
Speaker 1: He goes, I grows ten thousand dollars. I think you know,
Speaker 1: this guy's in his own world. Okay, so you know,
Speaker 1: but it used to be very different. Going back from
Speaker 1: my original point, it used to be the threshold was
Speaker 1: getting a major your label deal. There were six major
Speaker 1: companies up in god the nineties when he started getting consolidation.
Speaker 1: That those companies, unlike today, usually would stay with you,
Speaker 1: especially Warner Brothers for five records, and therefore you would
Speaker 1: not only you you got their money, and you also
Speaker 1: got their publicity and hopefully some radio play such that
Speaker 1: people became aware of you. And if it ended, you
Speaker 1: still had something. I mean, I'm gonna get into dangerous territory.
Speaker 1: Go there. Anyway. There's this act Amy Man. She had
Speaker 1: a hit with Till Tuesday on Columbia of Voices carry
Speaker 1: I love that, Okay. Then she was a critics Darling forever. Okay.
Speaker 1: When the label money dried up, it turns out there
Speaker 1: was a limited number of Amy Man fans, not judging
Speaker 1: the music whatsoever. But she was supported by the system.
Speaker 1: Everybody who was involved prior to the Internet. They're still bitching.
Speaker 1: I think this has killed rock music because they keep
Speaker 1: telling their fans don't stream, and that's where all that's
Speaker 1: where all the action is. But I do believe going back. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are some people who are beneficiaries of that who
Speaker 1: are complaining they're not making money today. But the truth
Speaker 1: is not that many people want to listen to their music.
Speaker 1: But there's also a number of people who say, God,
Speaker 1: I want to suck at the major label tent. I
Speaker 1: wish that I had all this money, which is not
Speaker 1: how they do it any They don't do that anymore.
Speaker 1: My question to you is what's the net gain or
Speaker 1: loss of having a small amount of people they get
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, or a large amount of people
Speaker 1: they get uh freaking distribution. Okay, for let's look at
Speaker 1: it from the consumer end. Yeah, the turn of the
Speaker 1: century and Internet, everybody was involved who had success previously
Speaker 1: said oh, there's gonna be no money in music, no
Speaker 1: one's gonna make music. Needles say they were totally wrong.
Speaker 1: The opposite happened. Okay, the barrier to entry is essentially
Speaker 1: non existent. You can make a song on garage band
Speaker 1: today for no money if you have a computer, and
Speaker 1: you can upload it to a service that will put
Speaker 1: it on the streaming services, and then you'll spam everybody saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you gotta listen to my stuff. Okay. So if you
Speaker 1: are on the consumer end, it is almost the scene
Speaker 1: is almost incomprehensible because if you go back to where
Speaker 1: you started, you have a lot of bullshit. You have
Speaker 1: the labels saying, you know, this is what bothers me
Speaker 1: label say everything we put out is great, which is untrue.
Speaker 1: Sure most of them. If you say this is the
Speaker 1: one thing, listen to this great, okay, but there are
Speaker 1: so many things. If I go through the Spotify top fifty,
Speaker 1: first of all, you go to through the U S
Speaker 1: Top fifties, mostly hip hop, some pop. Okay. Uh, you
Speaker 1: might find one or two songs that surprise you. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe exactly. I'm glad you said that. But then you
Speaker 1: gotta go through all the other genres. You gotta go
Speaker 1: through country, you gotta go through an electronic. The scene
Speaker 1: is overwhelming such that, uh, you discover something and you
Speaker 1: say to yourself, am I the only person who's listening
Speaker 1: to this. Okay, So we're looking for some community. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example with the movies. It used
Speaker 1: to be until about two thousand three, two thousand five,
Speaker 1: boomers would go out to the movies because that would
Speaker 1: give him a point of commonality when they hung together.
Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden, everybody realized we're not making
Speaker 1: our kind of movies and they stopped going. Now it's television.
Speaker 1: But even television, you know, you can't talk music when
Speaker 1: you get together people because no one's listening to the
Speaker 1: same thing. And then you get the BS from the
Speaker 1: media industrial complex saying hip hop, it's hip hop whatever.
Speaker 1: So if you're not listening to hip hop, you don't count. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I'm not. I don't want to make it about
Speaker 1: hip hop. What I want to make it is never
Speaker 1: in the history recorded music, certainly in my lifetime. Uh
Speaker 1: has the big been so small? Yes, it used to be.
Speaker 1: If you had to hit, everybody knew it. They may
Speaker 1: not like it, Okay, Taylor Swift, you know one of
Speaker 1: the biggest acts. You know, if you go back two
Speaker 1: albums ago, whatever it's called, the average person is aware of. Uh,
Speaker 1: we are never ever getting back together, but they can't
Speaker 1: sing any of the other songs, so no one has
Speaker 1: that reach. So my point once again is is someone
Speaker 1: cobbles together a living. I have no problem with it.
Speaker 1: I think that's great, okay, But frequently those people are
Speaker 1: not happy where they are and they're bitching. And secondly,
Speaker 1: as a consumer, we're just overwhelmed. I would agree with
Speaker 1: the consumer thing that we're overwhelmed and that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that are not being served by this
Speaker 1: current situation. There's so much attention being left on the table.
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of people that like the
Speaker 1: style of music that I make, and it is my
Speaker 1: job to try and figure out how the hell do
Speaker 1: I get to you right now? Because the modes to
Speaker 1: get there are not as big or similar to what
Speaker 1: they've been, So how do you do it? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: right now, there's like a big push towards what I
Speaker 1: would think is kind of what I've read you say
Speaker 1: as well. It's like, I think it's less about trying
Speaker 1: to take over the world and trying to build your niche,
Speaker 1: Like everyone has their own niche, so I think it's
Speaker 1: tripling down on specifically what you do that may not
Speaker 1: have worked well, you know that artistically, that usually is
Speaker 1: how you get to something good anyway, is by just
Speaker 1: being like, all right, this is my thing. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: triple down on this. I'm gonna try this, take risks here,
Speaker 1: um and then see all see the modes that used
Speaker 1: to be the big win as just another piece. You know.
Speaker 1: I had a viral video on Facebook this year that
Speaker 1: was like maybe the driving factor of my career I had.
Speaker 1: I went and played on Good Morning America. It was
Speaker 1: to Today's show awesome, and then then and then right
Speaker 1: after I went to this classroom was called PS twenty
Speaker 1: two and I sang my song Don't give Up on
Speaker 1: Me with a bunch of kids that had learned it,
Speaker 1: and that thing went insane. And I went on tour
Speaker 1: and the number one thing I heard was of new
Speaker 1: fans was like, oh man, I saw your video on Facebook.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm here. Okay, I'm gonna ask and do
Speaker 1: you know how many people viewed that video? I think
Speaker 1: it's like sixty million. Was it completely viral or did
Speaker 1: you work it? It started completely viral? And then uh,
Speaker 1: this company crowd Surf that I work with, then they
Speaker 1: start like it's kind of honestly, like a label. Once
Speaker 1: they see they have something, then you start going like whoa,
Speaker 1: And that was something I knew was viral, and I
Speaker 1: reached out to every one of my friends. You know,
Speaker 1: there was this thing that it used to be, like
Speaker 1: promoting singles. It's kind of dead now, but in the
Speaker 1: early stages of when social media was happening, you have
Speaker 1: artists that would be like, go check out my friend's song.
Speaker 1: It was like a season where that happened, and then
Speaker 1: we all fucking hated it. Right, well, that's what I
Speaker 1: was video. Oh my god, Dave, you don't text me
Speaker 1: Gangham style, and then everybody tried to have a viral video.
Speaker 1: The last one was Bouer of the Harlem Shake and people,
Speaker 1: this is manipulated, and then we don't have that kind
Speaker 1: of video anyway. Yeah, they do on TikTok still differ
Speaker 1: with you, but the full different universe. You go there, yea,
Speaker 1: he walked in there and around. Well, but this is
Speaker 1: just like rock band Guitar Hero because certainly Little nas
Speaker 1: X was boosted and made on TikTok Okay, so now
Speaker 1: everybody says, oh, it's all about TikTok and they're gonna
Speaker 1: get and they're gonna burn it out. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: TikTok the platform will necessarily burn out, but as a
Speaker 1: vehicle to break records, you know, it's really more about
Speaker 1: the participants in the music on that site anyway. So
Speaker 1: or what we say is what we're saying, which is
Speaker 1: kind of interesting, is like, you know, I'm good friends
Speaker 1: with the need to Breathe guys. You don't need to Breathe. No,
Speaker 1: I don't. They're this band. I had him on my podcast.
Speaker 1: No he knows who they are, except they sell like
Speaker 1: nine thousand tickets shows and you're like, slow, what are
Speaker 1: you talk so fill out red rocks like two nights
Speaker 1: in a row. Okay, wait, the name of the act.
Speaker 1: It's called need to Breathe. Oh, need to Breathe. Yes,
Speaker 1: I heard it is a need to Breathe ground No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I just need to breathe. And what what he said
Speaker 1: what was so cool is he's like there was a
Speaker 1: point where we were like, we don't care about anyone
Speaker 1: except the fan that's coming to my show. I don't
Speaker 1: care about radio, I don't care about anything else except
Speaker 1: for like, I just want to over deliver for you,
Speaker 1: and we've done that over and over again, and now
Speaker 1: we have this huge base and whether people know who
Speaker 1: we are or not, we don't care. How many acts
Speaker 1: survived outside of the golden era that you're speaking of,
Speaker 1: were radio actually, like when when labels mattered more than ever?
Speaker 1: In radio matter more than ever? Did you even have
Speaker 1: a shot is closed? And you don't have need to breathe? Right? Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: the fascinating thing, of course, this need to breathe is
Speaker 1: existing out of the mindset of the media industrial complex.
Speaker 1: They have no slot to fit that in talking about
Speaker 1: forgetting even a label hyping it. But the media, the
Speaker 1: media says, we listened at the we look at the charts,
Speaker 1: we get our information from the labels. That's all that exists.
Speaker 1: And your point is well taken that they're all these
Speaker 1: other acts. So I'm I'm now like almost ten years
Speaker 1: into my career. I have a really awesome loyal fan
Speaker 1: base that like specifically what I do, and I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: I definitely have a lot of relationship at radio and
Speaker 1: put so much energy into that and I will continue
Speaker 1: to do that. But also, like, man, how do you exist? What?
Speaker 1: What is the forest? When you leave and go in
Speaker 1: your own zone and just start creating. Okay, let's let's
Speaker 1: go a little bit slower. Before you went on the
Speaker 1: Today's Show. Yeah, what was your thought? We that song? Um?
Speaker 1: One of my best friends that I was roommate with
Speaker 1: for a while, he had a movie that came out.
Speaker 1: It was a big hit this year, called five ft Apart,
Speaker 1: and he needed a song and I kept sending them
Speaker 1: songs and this one worked first movie. How many song
Speaker 1: the three? Not many, but I'd send him on. He's like,
Speaker 1: just just to get into the process. Yet, okay, how
Speaker 1: long after he said he he brought you? You didn't
Speaker 1: pitch him? Correct, No, he texted we're like best friends.
Speaker 1: He texted, I need a song. How long after he
Speaker 1: said he said, you know there's this other big name
Speaker 1: artist that they're trying that they want me to use
Speaker 1: and he's charging Mad Doe. Okay, a song that can
Speaker 1: beat his song and you don't have to charge me
Speaker 1: like crazy money. Yet? Okay? How long after he texted
Speaker 1: you did you start to write? I had written it
Speaker 1: that week. It was like perfect, So that song you'd
Speaker 1: already written. I wrote it that week and then I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I just wrote this one, what do
Speaker 1: you think of this one? And then it worked perfectly
Speaker 1: and that came out in the movie and reacted gang
Speaker 1: but a little bit, a little bit slower the song
Speaker 1: tell me the process of the development of the song.
Speaker 1: The song called Don't give up on Me, I could
Speaker 1: really I know that every that now I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: big enough thing that needs like a lot of feeding.
Speaker 1: I have, like you know, my band as retainers. There's
Speaker 1: all this ship. Everybody's like your band is on retainer,
Speaker 1: some of some of them arias fifty two weeks a year, yes,
Speaker 1: versions of that. So that plus just like it's just
Speaker 1: a big thing now to move my machine forward. So
Speaker 1: I need like any business. But it's a little bit
Speaker 1: weird the music business because you're trying to find unicorns.
Speaker 1: It's like really freaking hard to find it, especially in
Speaker 1: this day and age. And so I was really feeling
Speaker 1: stressed because I can. I'm having me and my manager,
Speaker 1: we'll have a pretty good gut about like we don't
Speaker 1: have the magic that we need. You know. There's another
Speaker 1: story about my second album. We we released the album.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're having an album released party. We're
Speaker 1: playing everybody of the songs and then we leave. My
Speaker 1: managers like he's a lot like you just like straightforward.
Speaker 1: This can be blunt. Sometimes he's like, we don't have
Speaker 1: the thing we need, and I know I've written a
Speaker 1: hundred songs for that album, and then we went and
Speaker 1: wrote a hundred and one was Honey I'm Good. So
Speaker 1: like we know, just to slow down. You had the
Speaker 1: album listening party, and then you did not release that
Speaker 1: album in that form? No, how long after did you
Speaker 1: have the final album? But we just needed as soon
Speaker 1: as we wrote that song, we just added we just
Speaker 1: how long after that? I wasn't like printed, it was
Speaker 1: like get together. How long after that did you write
Speaker 1: the song? Next day? Okay? Yeah, okay, So this is
Speaker 1: like you may or may not know this story. Bruce
Speaker 1: Springsteen manager saying I'm born in the USA, saying we
Speaker 1: didn't have a hit, and he immediately wrote Dancing in
Speaker 1: the Dark exactly so, And it's kind of funny because
Speaker 1: your manager goes like we need it, and you're like,
Speaker 1: I just wrote a hundred, so I guess I'll write
Speaker 1: another one. I hate you, okay, but when you wrote
Speaker 1: Honey I'm Good, walk us through the process of how
Speaker 1: you did that. So it was me and my great
Speaker 1: friend Nolan's pipe and it was just the two of
Speaker 1: us and we got together, uh and we you know,
Speaker 1: like most great songs came out in like two hours.
Speaker 1: But a couple of questions, what percentage of your songs
Speaker 1: written solo or what percentage with other people? Most of
Speaker 1: them at this part, at this point are with other people.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason that is is once I
Speaker 1: got really settled in my point of view, I started
Speaker 1: to see immense value of co writing. Just go a
Speaker 1: little deeper until you know your point of view. Co
Speaker 1: writing can be a little dicey because you don't know
Speaker 1: what you're gonna say, so then words start get thrown
Speaker 1: like lines are getting thrown around. Point of view is
Speaker 1: being thrown around, and if you're not set on what
Speaker 1: you're here to bring, then it can be you can
Speaker 1: you know, I have a couple of songs that if
Speaker 1: when I look back, I'm like, oh, that's not really
Speaker 1: my point of view necessarily, and I don't really stand
Speaker 1: behind that. But once you know, you like I know
Speaker 1: who I am, I know what I'm about, I know
Speaker 1: what I want to sing about, then it's like, go
Speaker 1: get the best melody person you've ever met. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: get the first the best track guy, and let me
Speaker 1: help direct this thing and and get myself amplified as
Speaker 1: great as I can be. Okay, so you're specifically it's
Speaker 1: just not some guy who's had hits. You're looking for
Speaker 1: a specific role reality what I And then you learn
Speaker 1: so now album you know, I'm writing for whatever my
Speaker 1: next album is. And I've had all these, you know,
Speaker 1: four albums of being next to some of the most
Speaker 1: incredible melody people in the world. You'd be stupid if
Speaker 1: you don't learn something of that. Oh man, you learn
Speaker 1: all these sweet tricks about you know. For me, I
Speaker 1: was just going off of feel. I had no sense that, like,
Speaker 1: your highest notes should probably be in in the chorus,
Speaker 1: and if it's not, then you better have a good
Speaker 1: freaking reason why it's not. A lot of like rhythmic
Speaker 1: things of like you should probably have your cadence in
Speaker 1: your precorus, be a different rhythm than the hook, because
Speaker 1: that's what makes it pop. Like little tricks that that
Speaker 1: seem basic. But when they started becoming party repertoire, undeniably,
Speaker 1: your songs are just better. You just get better. This
Speaker 1: was something I learned at the Street Uh Street perform
Speaker 1: in Santa Monica was this idea that art is kind
Speaker 1: of subjective when it's a when it's good, everybody responds, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I go through there's people. You know, there's
Speaker 1: famous line about William Goldman about the movie business. No
Speaker 1: one knows anything. But it's funny you said this because
Speaker 1: I didn't argue with someone who thinks he's a real artist.
Speaker 1: When you're a real artist, you know when you create
Speaker 1: an eleven, you know you cannot do it that often,
Speaker 1: but when you do it, you know, And I guess
Speaker 1: what's interesting is now, So there's that I was on
Speaker 1: the street, and I know when you know I'm playing
Speaker 1: this song, nobody cares strangers. It's really important. If anybody's listening,
Speaker 1: that's a starting musician. Please stop playing for your family,
Speaker 1: Go play for people that do not care about you,
Speaker 1: because if you can turn them now, you have something
Speaker 1: and for the most part, you don't like just by averages,
Speaker 1: you don't have something that a stranger cares about. And
Speaker 1: if you're willing to be on the street for four
Speaker 1: years and find fifteen minutes over four years, that for
Speaker 1: the most part, every person will care about. Then you
Speaker 1: have something. Okay, I want to go back to the thread.
Speaker 1: So just working our way back. You were with the
Speaker 1: writing partner and you did, honey, I'm good, just going
Speaker 1: sub When you work with these third parties, to what
Speaker 1: degree do you say, uh huh or what do you know?
Speaker 1: Not my vision? Oh? Actually yeah, people bring in ideas
Speaker 1: or you're coming up with it on the spot. And
Speaker 1: for the most part, you know, when you're when you're
Speaker 1: starting to co write, you're finding the people that work
Speaker 1: well with you. So there are really weird pairings that
Speaker 1: just don't work at all and you leave and you
Speaker 1: go like that. But since you are the artists, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: and you're talking about learning from these people, to what
Speaker 1: degree is it just vacuuming information in melodically vacuuming? Okay?
Speaker 1: Early on? Oh my god, why are you doing that?
Speaker 1: How is that happening? Holy sh it, this is great.
Speaker 1: That's something I never would have done. Teach me, teach me,
Speaker 1: teach me point of view. I'm always a little bit
Speaker 1: more lyric first, So that is like someone wos say
Speaker 1: something like I'd never say that, So no, let's try
Speaker 1: something else. Okay. So uh, honey, I'm good. You need
Speaker 1: something for the uh, for the album to make it,
Speaker 1: to have that one track. Was there a motivation in
Speaker 1: retrospect that you felt at that time that helped create
Speaker 1: a hit that you don't get just writing every day. No,
Speaker 1: it just came out. It could have been the third song.
Speaker 1: You could have been the third one. The truth is, though,
Speaker 1: that a lot of people will not write a hundred
Speaker 1: and one because they just won't, because they don't have
Speaker 1: the effort. They believe that the people on the other
Speaker 1: end don't know what a hit is. No, they no, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's strictly disciplined. I don't think that the average artist,
Speaker 1: especially songwriters, is what I preach is that if you
Speaker 1: write a hundred songs, you're gonna be way better off
Speaker 1: than if you wrote they're just just to be clear,
Speaker 1: are we talking about like being on the third three promenade?
Speaker 1: Are we're just talking about the experience getting your chops
Speaker 1: up or to you gotta constantly would shed to find
Speaker 1: you know the gold? Yeah? I think the people stop
Speaker 1: way too early. Now. I come from song that's like
Speaker 1: my that's my sword that I bring. I'm not like
Speaker 1: extremely good looking. I'm not gonna make a video that
Speaker 1: people are gonna watch a million times because like, that
Speaker 1: guy's hot. So I knew that pretty early on. It
Speaker 1: was like my words are gonna be my thing. So
Speaker 1: maybe I care more about it than others, but I
Speaker 1: do think that was There's this saying, oh I was
Speaker 1: with um, I wrote a song with it. I think
Speaker 1: it's Red, Uh is it? Who's the country artist that's
Speaker 1: like huge red something? Red Atkins? Right? You don't know
Speaker 1: Thomas Thomas rhet so his dad, Red Atkins. I wrote
Speaker 1: a song with him, and he wrote a song with
Speaker 1: the dad. It was great. How did that come to?
Speaker 1: The song is terrible, but the conversation was unbelievable. How
Speaker 1: did you get hooked up with him? Someone said he
Speaker 1: was in town and someone like met up with. My
Speaker 1: manager was like, yeah, you guys got like nine And
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, how do you have so many
Speaker 1: number ones? And he's like it's usually about one out
Speaker 1: of every hundred. So it's like, you know, he goes,
Speaker 1: if you write five songs, you've got five great songs.
Speaker 1: If you write fifty songs, you've got two great songs.
Speaker 1: If you write a hundred songs, you've got one that's
Speaker 1: really good and that seems to be how this goes
Speaker 1: in my understanding. Okay, just to go back also a
Speaker 1: little bit slower. How often do you write songs? Every day?
Speaker 1: Every day? Pretty much every day that I'm home that
Speaker 1: I'm not touring, Like today, I'm gonna leave here and
Speaker 1: gonna I've written three this week? Okay? So do you
Speaker 1: keep a notebook of phrases and other inspiration you do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What kind of notes would you make? Um? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have like a it's it's writing and it's to me,
Speaker 1: concepts are the things that are the hardest to find.
Speaker 1: So sometimes it's like a line, but more often than not,
Speaker 1: it's what is? What are we all experiencing? That? It is?
Speaker 1: Just needs to be said? And anytime I see that
Speaker 1: or feel that, I'll just write that. Okay, can you
Speaker 1: give me two examples? Um for let's see, sure, what
Speaker 1: are here I got? Oh? I just saw you know
Speaker 1: this idea. I have an idea that I might try
Speaker 1: to write today about. You know, I lost my mom
Speaker 1: ten years ago and so I'm about to have another
Speaker 1: baby and that's gonna send me through a whole other
Speaker 1: grief tail spin because it's all how many children do
Speaker 1: you have. I have one girl right now, I'm about
Speaker 1: to have another one. So the idea that around big events,
Speaker 1: that's when I miss you. That's a good concept. Let's
Speaker 1: do that. It's right there. Okay, okay, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the movie song. So you've written this song before
Speaker 1: you send it to him. Yeah, what is your belief
Speaker 1: in the song? Do you believe this is a specific winner? Uh?
Speaker 1: When I initially sent it to my manager, he cried
Speaker 1: and and said this is amazing, and then we cooled
Speaker 1: off on it because when you write a bunch sometimes
Speaker 1: that's what happens. And uh so I sent it over
Speaker 1: knowing that it had had a spike in our our
Speaker 1: caring about it, but at the moment it was a
Speaker 1: little bit cool. Yeah, okay, how long before you sent
Speaker 1: it to your friend? Had you written it? Uh? Um? So,
Speaker 1: I think what happened is I sent it and then
Speaker 1: that process took a while. Still so my yes, my
Speaker 1: manager liked it, and then he said he wanted it,
Speaker 1: and then it was like over a long period of time,
Speaker 1: and then probably about a month too later, things started
Speaker 1: to heat up like, oh my god, I think we're
Speaker 1: gonna use this and then we wanted to see how
Speaker 1: it reacted, and then we saw that it started to
Speaker 1: really react, and that's when it became a single. Okay,
Speaker 1: this was before or after the movie came out. After
Speaker 1: the movie okay, so you you sent it to him.
Speaker 1: How long after that did the movie come out? Probably
Speaker 1: at least two or three months. Oh, that's pretty quick.
Speaker 1: It's fast. It was the end. It was near the end. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's in the movie. How do you know it's
Speaker 1: reacting because you can see it on all the Spotify data,
Speaker 1: Like immediately it's getting the movie gets released everywhere, and
Speaker 1: then this song spikes everywhere that it gets released. Now,
Speaker 1: did your label specifically pitch it to Spotify and say
Speaker 1: this is a winner, it's gonna be in a movie.
Speaker 1: They did, and he said put it in a good playlist.
Speaker 1: They saw it reacted. Okay, so now it's reacting. Tell
Speaker 1: me the next thing. It's reacting. Um so now I
Speaker 1: now I run around the world and do radio promo
Speaker 1: in different different countries and uh, and then we go
Speaker 1: on to today's show and so it's reacting. You have
Speaker 1: any idea how many streams it out on Spotify before
Speaker 1: you push the button I don't remember exactly, but millions, okay,
Speaker 1: but not fifty million, not fifty millions okay. So also,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that's still kind of
Speaker 1: a silly way to do it, but when you go
Speaker 1: perform on Today's Show or any of these you know,
Speaker 1: Good Morning Americas something like that, the ones that are hits,
Speaker 1: if they spike somewhere, they always do. So this one
Speaker 1: we did it, and then we saw immediately it was
Speaker 1: like the number one on pop and so on the iTunes,
Speaker 1: which is like an old way to look at it,
Speaker 1: but it's still just like, right, well, that's that's the
Speaker 1: demo for the Today Show. Yeah, so you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this immediately hits or you get a call
Speaker 1: that like serious, XM just played it without any promo.
Speaker 1: You get these weird calls, you start to know what
Speaker 1: a hit feels like. When you had a couple, you're like, ah,
Speaker 1: there's things that are outside of me being able to
Speaker 1: create that just start to happen. Um. And then so
Speaker 1: once we had that, so the S curve is your label,
Speaker 1: they said that, Okay, we have something here going back
Speaker 1: to you know, it's in the movie. It's reacting on Spotify.
Speaker 1: Then you're going around the world pitching it to radio
Speaker 1: to what level of success, not you know, discouraging levels
Speaker 1: of success. I don't want to go too much further
Speaker 1: than like, what's when you've done it for as long
Speaker 1: as I have and you have, you know how hard
Speaker 1: it is to get the thing that makes people react.
Speaker 1: When you have the hit and it doesn't go gang
Speaker 1: as big as anything else, you're frustrated. So how many
Speaker 1: radio shows, radio stations did you visit? So we went
Speaker 1: to Mexico City, we went to Paris, we went to uh,
Speaker 1: Germany and Poland, and it did really well in UM
Speaker 1: Australia and it smashed in South Africa, and uh it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, now we're back to the drawing. Okay, but
Speaker 1: you're mentioning all these foreign countries. To what degree? Were
Speaker 1: you working in the US? In the US hard running
Speaker 1: around two different you know. On Hottie Sea, I have
Speaker 1: so many relationships. We've had a couple of big successes
Speaker 1: at pop, but mostly it's been Hotta Sea has been
Speaker 1: in my format. Okay, when you're on the Today Show,
Speaker 1: where are you in the radio work? Are you basically starting?
Speaker 1: Just starting? So we had the today show hit the
Speaker 1: iTunes thing goes crazy, and then that day we put
Speaker 1: up the Facebook thing and that starts to going, okay,
Speaker 1: tell me the story of PS twenty two. So I
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was, and I just go in
Speaker 1: there and I tried to do it. Something about kids
Speaker 1: singing don't give up on Me is especially impactful. So
Speaker 1: we started and I started to sing it, and they're
Speaker 1: really good. If you haven't got a chance see it,
Speaker 1: they are amazing. So I just started to cry. So
Speaker 1: the fourth take is me being able to get through
Speaker 1: without crying because it's really sweet. Hearing like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: eight year old singing don't give up on Me, You're
Speaker 1: like shit. Um, so that thing starts to wait wait
Speaker 1: who set that up? That was the label? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: just because I'm interested, were the kids prepared? Did they
Speaker 1: know the song? When you show him, this guy he's
Speaker 1: been doing this for a while and he's had you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of other artists do it and they're all good,
Speaker 1: but for some reason, this one is the one that
Speaker 1: really like took it off. And then we got to
Speaker 1: bring them. We did see an n Heroes and we
Speaker 1: brought them all on stage in New York and it
Speaker 1: was how many kids. It's like sixty kids. So I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: I've seen the videos. So in any event you record it,
Speaker 1: you see you're crying, so you must know we have
Speaker 1: something yeah, but not anything like okay, I think we
Speaker 1: have something like yeah, that's probably get like a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand views, will be great. So then it's done. How
Speaker 1: long after do you put it up on the internet.
Speaker 1: I think like the next day, okay, primarily on Facebook.
Speaker 1: So Facebook is where it really went nuts. These platforms
Speaker 1: are so crazy, I know, that's what trying to say.
Speaker 1: So I think it's got like three million on YouTube
Speaker 1: and then it went sixty on because the share thing
Speaker 1: on Facebook was wild for it. UM. But that was
Speaker 1: like a big, big, big win. That was my one
Speaker 1: of my first big wind that didn't have anything to
Speaker 1: do with UM radio or or standard music videos. Okay,
Speaker 1: So after you had this giant success, did your label
Speaker 1: go back and pitch radio? UM? So this is the thing.
Speaker 1: It didn't do that great radio. But even after you
Speaker 1: could say, hey, I got sixty yes. So this is
Speaker 1: what you're telling me. You're you're telling me that your
Speaker 1: radio research is telling you this is not a good song.
Speaker 1: How how loud do I have to scream about this?
Speaker 1: What are you insane? Who are you talking to? That?
Speaker 1: A song that when you played on TV everybody gets it,
Speaker 1: and then when you put a video up on Facebook,
Speaker 1: everybody buys it. What are you talking about? And they
Speaker 1: just beat against it? And then we couldn't get it
Speaker 1: passed through. Okay. So if it has sixty million views
Speaker 1: on Facebook, how many uh streams does it now have
Speaker 1: on Spot? Question? Millions? Okay, So when did all this happen?
Speaker 1: It's been it happened. I think it's about a year ago. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's go back to where we started. This is
Speaker 1: your outside the traditional system. It's not driven by radio.
Speaker 1: Well then what do you do? What's your viewpoint? Well,
Speaker 1: what's cool is and different from me is I've I've
Speaker 1: now have it? It is a hit. It's undeniably. It's
Speaker 1: impacted my business, my bookings, all of the tickets, like everything.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to know. Yeah, everything gets pushed
Speaker 1: like a hit. Okay, so you have this success? Is
Speaker 1: a tour already planned? Tours are no? No, the tour
Speaker 1: is not planned yet. Okay, And are you turned into
Speaker 1: don't give up on me to it real quick. Do
Speaker 1: you book larger rooms because you think, hey, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get more people, because not necessarily we did. We kept
Speaker 1: it pretty similar, but they did. They all did great, okay.
Speaker 1: And that tour was in what kind of rooms? So
Speaker 1: it went up to about you know, we hit three
Speaker 1: thousand in some places, okay, and how many dates? And
Speaker 1: what about the rest of the world? No, just us,
Speaker 1: just us? Yeah? And so when did you when of
Speaker 1: those dates stopped playing? That was we ended in last day?
Speaker 1: It was like August something, okay, So where does that
Speaker 1: leave you? That leads me now getting taking some time
Speaker 1: for a new baby, which is great, and then just
Speaker 1: coming up with new music. Okay, And let's go back
Speaker 1: to you to the original dispoint of discussion, which is,
Speaker 1: if you're not someone pushed by the machine, and you're
Speaker 1: not someone on the Spotify top one, a top fifty,
Speaker 1: whatever and that kind of music, we're talking about both
Speaker 1: the audience but primarily the performer the headspace. You have
Speaker 1: this giant success, okay, but everybody who was part of
Speaker 1: it was aware of it, but the people outside were
Speaker 1: completely unaware of it totally. So where does that leave
Speaker 1: you as an artist emotionally. Well, what's weird is that
Speaker 1: the life gets really long too. So It's what I
Speaker 1: found is it wasn't like it just ever went away.
Speaker 1: It's still doing weird things on the internet. It just
Speaker 1: like popped up on a hundred iTunes thing again today,
Speaker 1: just like keeps it. It's good. It just like keeps going.
Speaker 1: It hits less longer. They just keep going, you know.
Speaker 1: It like sink the ship out of everything. It was
Speaker 1: on America's Top Talent on like the emotional moment, a
Speaker 1: song like don't give up on Me. I think we'll
Speaker 1: go for a really long time. It's like broad enough
Speaker 1: with a big enough message. Okay, but but I'm really
Speaker 1: interested in your headspace. Okay. In the old days, you
Speaker 1: would have a top ten hit every it would be
Speaker 1: on all the radio stations. You get a little certain
Speaker 1: amount of TV play. Everyone would sort of be aware
Speaker 1: of it, and you could say, as the maker or
Speaker 1: someone involved in the business, we rang the bell. Okay,
Speaker 1: we maxed it out. We did not ring the bell. Okay,
Speaker 1: But the question, what do we know? The bell is
Speaker 1: not as loud as it used to bate totally, So
Speaker 1: where does this leave you? He said, Hey, listen, these
Speaker 1: people love me, they watched the video. I'm selling more tickets.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's not like I'm getting all this press.
Speaker 1: It's not like, uh, you know, politicians are calling me up.
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, are you satisfied? You can't ever be satisfied.
Speaker 1: That's like, I mean, am I satisfied with? I definitely
Speaker 1: think that it could have been bigger? Um, But it
Speaker 1: also to me registered like I'm saying, I've been around
Speaker 1: hits and so it felt and feels like a hit.
Speaker 1: Let me put it. The only thing that I don't
Speaker 1: see is is major radio success. But it still feels
Speaker 1: like a hit. So what's weird is like, what you're
Speaker 1: talking about is that this collective consciousness has been blown apart.
Speaker 1: So too many different people say there say the collective
Speaker 1: conscious was ten people. Right now, you blow that apart
Speaker 1: to four of those people, it was a massive so
Speaker 1: so to them and to private show people and to
Speaker 1: everybody else and all the stuff I'm crushing right now.
Speaker 1: It just means that the bell of the collective conscious
Speaker 1: is nearly impossible at this point. And are you okay
Speaker 1: with that? Yeah? Because that means that I can go
Speaker 1: into I've now focused more on my niche. I think
Speaker 1: everybody has to see themselves as your own niche. Are
Speaker 1: you frustrated that other acts are bigger than you? Good question?
Speaker 1: Not really, not like h I think what's cool about
Speaker 1: the niche mindset is it allows you to be a
Speaker 1: little more like, what am I here to do? I'm
Speaker 1: not actually competing against you anymore because the chart is
Speaker 1: kind of ridiculous. So let me go build my own
Speaker 1: thing that is so good and so uh create so
Speaker 1: much of a service to someone that they'd really miss
Speaker 1: me if I was gone. Okay, you mentioned privates. How
Speaker 1: many privates do you do? Um? You know, it varies.
Speaker 1: We usually what's great about those that they let you
Speaker 1: just like go out on a Saturday, play a gig
Speaker 1: and then come home be with your family, you know,
Speaker 1: especially over these seasons of uh baby and stuff. We'll
Speaker 1: probably hit like twenty of those years. Okay, and let's
Speaker 1: say you do that, you fly out on the jet,
Speaker 1: you come back. How many people do you take uh about? Okay?
Speaker 1: So it's relevant. I mean traditionally corporate privates pay well, sure,
Speaker 1: but that's a that's a for one off that's pretty
Speaker 1: expensive to get out there it's expensive. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of people you know. To me, the idea of being
Speaker 1: in DJ's like that sounds great. How the hell do
Speaker 1: you do that? Oh yeah, I got a three backup singers.
Speaker 1: Go to see a comedian who set out this is
Speaker 1: like the best gig of all time. Maybe you'd come
Speaker 1: with your own microphone, maybe you have a road man. Honestly,
Speaker 1: this is what is really difficult for me about getting
Speaker 1: outside of the country is to provide the show that
Speaker 1: we know we have to get to Australia. We've done
Speaker 1: it a couple of times or other place where things
Speaker 1: are reacting. The cost doesn't make any sense. So to
Speaker 1: what degree does the cost make it so you don't
Speaker 1: even go? It's really hard. So where is it, you know,
Speaker 1: outside the United States? Where is your career? Man? We
Speaker 1: we like we played some shows in the Philippines. We
Speaker 1: do really well there. Australia has been great. We're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to get over South Africa
Speaker 1: because you don't give up me was like huge on
Speaker 1: the pop stations there. Um. But yeah, there's like so
Speaker 1: I think anyone probably in most businesses right now is
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where to spend their time because
Speaker 1: now all the jobs to some degree have been given
Speaker 1: back to the artist of like, well, on your social media,
Speaker 1: you could be the promo for this, you could be
Speaker 1: the creative for this. You can like figure it all
Speaker 1: out yourself, and you're just a little bit overwhelmed of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: So then if the big bell is what we were
Speaker 1: all used to go for, if that's not happening, then
Speaker 1: there's like a thousand mini jobs that we could be doing.
Speaker 1: Where do we spend our freaking time? And I feel
Speaker 1: that way a little bit about countries outside of the
Speaker 1: U S as well. Okay, you mentioned CrowdSurf was the
Speaker 1: company that helped you tell me when they got involved
Speaker 1: in what they did. They've been around since. Um, I think,
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure, but they're you know, they're through
Speaker 1: the label that's one of the services provides, and they
Speaker 1: help with like blowing up something that's already that's working.
Speaker 1: They did it. I don't exactly I know that they are,
Speaker 1: like they have a lot of different clients and they
Speaker 1: have they have a good sense of who would like
Speaker 1: the content that I gave, who would like that video?
Speaker 1: So up where they posted it and then you know,
Speaker 1: they were really good at like going up to different
Speaker 1: places to get it posted, to get and get it shared.
Speaker 1: Did you set up were they any other uh, intermediaries?
Speaker 1: You don't remember exactly which one is now, Okay, So
Speaker 1: how much have you worked overseas? Um? You know we've
Speaker 1: done not a ton. You know we had initially we
Speaker 1: didn't get great love from like Radio one, even on
Speaker 1: the big songs. They wouldn't go in London, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So okay, terms of your career, are you all in
Speaker 1: this is it you're gonna do it till you die?
Speaker 1: Or if it, you know, started going in a wrong
Speaker 1: direction and you're playing house concerts, would you say, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not someone that even thinks that way, right, Like
Speaker 1: the guy, Yeah, like the guy that goes to the
Speaker 1: street and decides that that's a good place to start
Speaker 1: that you know, it's pretty let's go back. It's tough
Speaker 1: to like face. So you grow up where I grew
Speaker 1: up in New York, New York City, No about our
Speaker 1: North New York City in the suburbs, what place called
Speaker 1: Monroe would Bury, Okay, and how many kids in the family.
Speaker 1: I had an older brother, what's doing he is a therapist.
Speaker 1: He lives out here too, okay, and he's a therapist
Speaker 1: back there. Um, no, he's he lives here. He's he's
Speaker 1: a therapist. And like Whittier. So from the time you're born,
Speaker 1: your parents, your father's a children's performer and obviously that's
Speaker 1: his only job, that's his job. Okay. He was the
Speaker 1: middle class that we're talking about back then when it
Speaker 1: was impossible what what kind of family did he come from?
Speaker 1: That he became a children's performer, not that, but he
Speaker 1: created him and my mom, you know, they saw a
Speaker 1: need with my brother. They looked around and when he
Speaker 1: was like two or something and said, there's not that
Speaker 1: much good kids music, and so they just started writing
Speaker 1: it and creating it. And he was working with a
Speaker 1: group called the Lime Lighters, which I think used to
Speaker 1: be friended by a guy named Glenn Yarboro if these names, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So that when he when he got out, then my
Speaker 1: dad jumped in and was doing kind of the tail
Speaker 1: end what you're also being at the tail end of
Speaker 1: the of the line Lighters, playing casinos and other things
Speaker 1: that weren't super lavish. And so from there it wasn't
Speaker 1: he was trying to figure out what he wanted to
Speaker 1: Just go back a little bit further, what kind of
Speaker 1: situation did he grow up? And he grew up in uh,
Speaker 1: you know, single mother and no real music around them. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: then how did he get into music? He got in
Speaker 1: through his his voices, unbelieving we got way better voice
Speaker 1: than I do, and he sang in choir and then
Speaker 1: he I was actually born in Los Angeles because him
Speaker 1: and my mom tried to do his solo thing here.
Speaker 1: Then they tried to do the sole thing in Nashville,
Speaker 1: and they finally moved to New York and that's where
Speaker 1: they started to do kids stuff. Okay, did he go
Speaker 1: to college? Yeah? Where do you go to wreckers? Okay?
Speaker 1: So how long after Rutgers did he get in the
Speaker 1: Lime Lighters? That's a good I'm terrible at dates. I
Speaker 1: would imagine if did he have he didn't have six
Speaker 1: se us in he I know him saying to me
Speaker 1: when I turned thirty that he was like, imagine being
Speaker 1: where you're at and still not having any success and
Speaker 1: how hard that would be. And I'm like, yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 1: So my point, did he have any day jobs between
Speaker 1: Rutgers and being in the limelighters. I don't think so. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he's always made it as a musician. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was important for me too. How did he meet your mother?
Speaker 1: They met through the behind faith. I'm so I'm a behig.
Speaker 1: I don't have you ever heard of the high faith? Well,
Speaker 1: I remember that people lived next to me in college
Speaker 1: and seals and cross Yeah totally so. Um, they met
Speaker 1: it up like the hot club. He went to Rutgers
Speaker 1: first and then he went to Beloit College and that's
Speaker 1: where they met. Okay, that's your mother was Beloit, Wisconsin
Speaker 1: and Wisconsin. Okay. How does your faith affect your music
Speaker 1: and outlook today? Um? Yeah, you know it really. I
Speaker 1: have a song on my last album called Wishy Paine,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like a cool idea comes from
Speaker 1: a high quote, which is this idea that you don't
Speaker 1: grow without being put through struggle. So when you truly
Speaker 1: believe that, then it's kind of a grounded optimism because
Speaker 1: even when things are terrible or happening to you, that
Speaker 1: if the sense is that they're there to you know,
Speaker 1: build you into a different person, or to make you stronger,
Speaker 1: or to add something to your personal arsenal that you
Speaker 1: didn't have before. Uh, that's a grounded optimism to me.
Speaker 1: So on my mean greet, we would have everybody come in,
Speaker 1: about eighty people a night, and I would open and
Speaker 1: I'd say, all right, I got the song. I wish
Speaker 1: your pain is what we're gonna do. I will share
Speaker 1: my deepest pain in my life, and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what it's turned, what it gave to me. I lost
Speaker 1: my mother at really intense She's my rock, and uh,
Speaker 1: it gave me an empathy that I just didn't have.
Speaker 1: So I'm like an optimist. I'm like a puppy. I'll
Speaker 1: come try to cheer you up no matter what's going on.
Speaker 1: But that without having experienced pain is actually obnoxious because
Speaker 1: somebody who's really going through it, you're telling me to
Speaker 1: cheer up. I think you need to get away from me.
Speaker 1: I kind of hate you. And so to be truly
Speaker 1: crushed and to be this puppy person, to be the
Speaker 1: quiet guy at the table for two years, just taking
Speaker 1: in understanding how others could feel this low all the time,
Speaker 1: that was really important for me. Now to go around
Speaker 1: and be this optimist undeniably important piece to give to
Speaker 1: the guy that's gonna go do what I do, so
Speaker 1: I share that, and then people would and I'd be like, now,
Speaker 1: I dare you this is my meet and greet, I
Speaker 1: dare you to share with me the deepest thing has
Speaker 1: ever happened to you? That was difficult and what what
Speaker 1: you got from it? Okay? There eighty people, they are
Speaker 1: all eighty, go through not all of them, but a
Speaker 1: lot of them. And it was how long does that take?
Speaker 1: An hour? Okay? And you do this for every show? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this is more of me understanding, going back to
Speaker 1: the niche thing of like, oh man, I had never
Speaker 1: heard anyone do this. This is cool. I want to
Speaker 1: I want to continue to find reasons or situations like
Speaker 1: this that only I am doing and I love this,
Speaker 1: And that's what starts to build your little community out
Speaker 1: to why you know, there was a lady who came
Speaker 1: to you know, you're here these super fans, So she
Speaker 1: came to like twenty of the right and even me,
Speaker 1: I'm there, I'm like, I'm not that good. Listen, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I create a really good experience that you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a good time. But she didn't share in any of them.
Speaker 1: And then on the on the last one she shared
Speaker 1: and she she bought the meat and great for everyone.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of money over two months, and she
Speaker 1: goes the deepest issue that happened to me was that
Speaker 1: my I had a little baby this year and he
Speaker 1: passed away about two months, and so me and my
Speaker 1: husband decided that we were gonna do whatever we need
Speaker 1: to do to get through it. So we bought twenty
Speaker 1: of your tickets. And I can't ever seen one. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, unbelievable. And she's like,
Speaker 1: and I've learned so much, and I feel like I
Speaker 1: have a new family of all the friends that I've made,
Speaker 1: all the different shows. That's something that I've got. Who
Speaker 1: is holy shit, who my audience, It's so sweet. My
Speaker 1: audience are the people that, um, they're the happy friend
Speaker 1: in the group. I don't know if you have one,
Speaker 1: but they are looking for the their like the optimist.
Speaker 1: They're the ones looking for the good in the situation.
Speaker 1: A lot of times they're spiritual. They're not necessarily like
Speaker 1: the hot girl, like the super hot girl that goes
Speaker 1: to the club and for a little while when you're
Speaker 1: coming up and you have different like you can see
Speaker 1: you go. You play these radio shows and you do
Speaker 1: different things other people. You're like, Oh, this group of
Speaker 1: people over here is has this type of fan and
Speaker 1: my type, my fan is just very sincere and genuine
Speaker 1: and they love uh yeah, they love to look and
Speaker 1: the look for the good percentage male female, probably seventy female,
Speaker 1: but actually some male, honestly, so weirdly wide. And again
Speaker 1: this was something that for a second there, I'm like,
Speaker 1: am I not cool? Am I not cool? Because there's
Speaker 1: literally eight to eighty here and that's what people say.
Speaker 1: But what I like to sing about is uh is life.
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not singing just about um this like
Speaker 1: slim teenage area. I sing about my daughter a lot.
Speaker 1: I sing about life after death a lot. I sing
Speaker 1: about tons of just like universal life things. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I opened for a band called Trained for
Speaker 1: a while and I saw similar with them as well.
Speaker 1: Was that it's just this huge span, you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: so to what degree are you are practicing behind um?
Speaker 1: Pretty pretty intensely? You know? So I was about you.
Speaker 1: You don't, uh, there's no drugs, there's no um no alcohol. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I said it on the view one time.
Speaker 1: It got like a whole thing. I didn't have sex,
Speaker 1: four marriage, I'm like a pretty and then the bigger thing.
Speaker 1: Those are like the rules. Just to get into the rules.
Speaker 1: So you have never had alcohol and you've never done drugs?
Speaker 1: I definitely I've had alcohol probably like five times. Um,
Speaker 1: but but my my practice, the way that I am
Speaker 1: is not that right. So yeah, and how about group worship? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's uh where it's the happy yamiha. It is
Speaker 1: the Vihi holiday. Uh in these five days. I gave
Speaker 1: my daughter some presidents last night. Yes, we have an
Speaker 1: Yammi out party on Saturday that we're throwing. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: And uh I in general love creating space for your spirituality.
Speaker 1: I think it's really important no matter how you do. Now,
Speaker 1: is your wife a member of the faith? Yeah? Is
Speaker 1: that how you met her? I met her in music school. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's punt that for a second. Your mother died when
Speaker 1: you were under what circumstances to dress cancer? Is your
Speaker 1: father found a new part Yes, yes, she's great. And
Speaker 1: are they married? They're married? Okay? Uh So you are
Speaker 1: growing up? You a good student? Bad student? Good? Okay?
Speaker 1: And are you someone who is a member of the
Speaker 1: group not a member of the group. Leader, follower, um leader.
Speaker 1: I was like a sports guy, super sports so, which
Speaker 1: is kind of cool. I was talking with I just
Speaker 1: got to go play in the NBA All Star Game
Speaker 1: this morning, the celebrity events, and Uh, I brought my
Speaker 1: high school basketball guy and we were just talking about
Speaker 1: how that, how much that's affected me, how much I
Speaker 1: bring to business that that like sports thing like when
Speaker 1: crush kill. I remember when I opened for big acts,
Speaker 1: I would look out at the crowd and be like,
Speaker 1: this third of you has to come with me or
Speaker 1: I've lost Why am I here? I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: just here to like play, I need to amass a
Speaker 1: lot of you. So I would usually start by running
Speaker 1: into the crowd up and down, because some all sometimes
Speaker 1: with opening acts you can just like tune out and
Speaker 1: like you cannot tune me out. You either like me
Speaker 1: or hate me. And I'd run up and down, remember
Speaker 1: Red Rocks, Like running up and down the thing and
Speaker 1: being out of breath, but being like, Okay, now that
Speaker 1: I've got your attention, this is my best song. Okay,
Speaker 1: Uh do any of the headliners resent that? I don't care?
Speaker 1: I mean there are stories of people saying, are you
Speaker 1: getting too much? Response, we're kicking you off the tour.
Speaker 1: Know what? The John Mayor has the best one. He
Speaker 1: says the opening act of three complains about the sound.
Speaker 1: The support tries to funk the headliner in the face,
Speaker 1: and the headliner says, you can't play louder than my hits.
Speaker 1: That is about the best description that I've seen. That's
Speaker 1: really good. I haven't heard that before. So, okay, you
Speaker 1: go to public school school, Okay, you graduate from high school.
Speaker 1: Then what Then? I went to two years of acting
Speaker 1: at Binghamton, which is state in New York, and I
Speaker 1: quickly realized that acting is is saying other people's words,
Speaker 1: which is not what I want to do. I was
Speaker 1: writing songs in between, and that was what I was like, Yes,
Speaker 1: I want to write stuff. So then I moved out
Speaker 1: and went to Northbridge for music business and that was interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't know, music business is such an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to try. And two things, he did you graduate? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a very important thing, you know, Daniel Glass, he's
Speaker 1: got a labeled out class note. And I've told the
Speaker 1: story many times before in that when he was working
Speaker 1: at sp K. This was thirty years ago. This is
Speaker 1: just actually the introduction of Wilson Phillips. They played that weekend,
Speaker 1: but he said, you need three things to you work
Speaker 1: at SPK. You have to work have worked retail because
Speaker 1: that's where the transaction takes place. And you have to
Speaker 1: really want to work for s p K. And you
Speaker 1: have to have graduated from college. So I cornered him
Speaker 1: after I go, listen, you know, I I graduated from college,
Speaker 1: but you know so many people in this business legends
Speaker 1: if not, you know, why do you have to graduate
Speaker 1: from college? He goes, Oh, it's not about what you
Speaker 1: learned shows you can complete something. And I found that
Speaker 1: as being definitive. That's like almost like your point about
Speaker 1: a hundred songs pretty of FICI. So what was your
Speaker 1: experience of music business college? I don't want to trash talk.
Speaker 1: I think it was unfortunate timing trash talk I hit
Speaker 1: at the at napster time. I'm in college and you're
Speaker 1: you're reading, you're telling me how this is going, and
Speaker 1: everybody who's smart in the room is like, no, no,
Speaker 1: so what else he got? And and the person to
Speaker 1: do is teaching is like, I don't know, No one knows, okay,
Speaker 1: And you're going to college in California. Your father paying
Speaker 1: for it? Yes, big deal, man, huge. You graduate from college,
Speaker 1: then what stay? Immediately go to third three Prominent, got
Speaker 1: my degree, walked across the stage, got my degree that
Speaker 1: already had all my stuff in my car, and just
Speaker 1: took off the cap and went straight to the street. Okay,
Speaker 1: you would not go onto the street previously I had.
Speaker 1: I was already doing it. Okay, that's what I want
Speaker 1: to know. So you come out to North red Jew
Speaker 1: We're going to be an actor. Now you come out
Speaker 1: from music. You're going to music as a school because
Speaker 1: you know you want to make it as a musician. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the closest thing I can think of. I
Speaker 1: get in there and I realize I'm probably not gonna
Speaker 1: be the guy that's writing contracts, Like, that's not what
Speaker 1: I'm about. I'm I'm a songwriter. Um, but you're still
Speaker 1: gonna make me do all this stuff. Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: remember any of that. They also made me take a UM.
Speaker 1: I was honestly the most ugly duckling at that school
Speaker 1: because I can't. I'm not like a shredder. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to sit at the piano and while you with
Speaker 1: my piano skills. My my main skill is finding what's
Speaker 1: universal to all of us and putting that in a
Speaker 1: way that's simple enough for you to get beautifully. And
Speaker 1: that is a weird one when you're trying to get
Speaker 1: it right, because it just means that you can't hang
Speaker 1: in jazz class with everybody and you're not like brilliant
Speaker 1: with contracts or or like my grades were. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I know that I always laughed at anyone who went
Speaker 1: to school with me. It's like that guy, you're giving
Speaker 1: it to that guy. Okay, that guy, come on. I
Speaker 1: saw his like recital one classical guitar. It was miserable,
Speaker 1: he was. I mean, I would go on Tuesday's were
Speaker 1: the worst day of my life because I'd have to
Speaker 1: go play Bach on this classic guitar and I would
Speaker 1: just butcher it, and the teacher would just you could
Speaker 1: see it on his face. He was so bummed out
Speaker 1: with me every time. It was a weird time. I
Speaker 1: was misunderstood. Okay, did any of those relationships have they
Speaker 1: maintained and paid? My wife, I met my previous guitar player. Um,
Speaker 1: I met a bass player who I've worked with a lot. Okay,
Speaker 1: so a relationship wise, it's probably still worth it. Okay,
Speaker 1: your wife, what was she doing there? She was doing music.
Speaker 1: She wanted to do music industry, but for some reason
Speaker 1: they wouldn't let her in, and so she did a
Speaker 1: jazz vocal performance. But now she's she's going on to
Speaker 1: be like, she's great. She's this awesome songwriter right now
Speaker 1: crushing shoot sank back up for like Selina Gomez and
Speaker 1: Kobe Kulay and has two around the world. She graduates
Speaker 1: from north Ridge. What did she do? She went the
Speaker 1: route of songwriting as well, and but it happened at
Speaker 1: the same time as me starting to take off. Its
Speaker 1: kind of okay. So she didn't have to get a
Speaker 1: day job, no, okay, And well she did until we
Speaker 1: were married. And what was her day job? What did
Speaker 1: she do? She was a nanny for like some dope
Speaker 1: casting directors here and stuff. So okay. She's like a
Speaker 1: mover and a shaker. She's always making something happen. Okay.
Speaker 1: But the relationship started a north Ridge yeah, okay, So
Speaker 1: when did you start playing the third three promenade? It
Speaker 1: had to be probably around twenty some thirty six, about
Speaker 1: ten years ago, okay, prior to playing the third three
Speaker 1: promenade had you played out, Yeah, we're anywhere that anybody
Speaker 1: would let me. So I would. I mean in high school,
Speaker 1: I put together there was some website that had all
Speaker 1: the open mics, and I would just like plot it
Speaker 1: out very methodically, and I would drive in my mom's
Speaker 1: mini events as many open mics as possible, and I
Speaker 1: would drive to New York City. I remember, you know
Speaker 1: one of my favorite stories is it's called the Sidewalk
Speaker 1: Cafe and you get down there and the only the
Speaker 1: only way that you can go as you take a
Speaker 1: number and that's the number that you perform. And I
Speaker 1: got sixty four. That's like four and a half hours
Speaker 1: that terrible music. So this is what goes back to
Speaker 1: like discipline, and it's like it's not rocket science. If
Speaker 1: you're willing to just like take the barrage of four
Speaker 1: and a half hours of horrible music and then get
Speaker 1: up and do your best and have it not go
Speaker 1: good and then do it again, this is what it is. Okay,
Speaker 1: you play four and a half hours in what's the response.
Speaker 1: It's just so I'm sixty four. The only people left
Speaker 1: their sixty sixty seven. You tell a joke and everybody's like,
Speaker 1: just play the song, dude, Like enough, we all want
Speaker 1: to get out of here. But I got enough. I
Speaker 1: got enough. There two not be afraid of singing to
Speaker 1: no one anytime I see anybody singing to no one,
Speaker 1: and that that ship pumps me up. If we're like
Speaker 1: out somewhere and there's a bar. We were in Florida recently,
Speaker 1: and we're all like walking down the strip and there's
Speaker 1: some bar where no one's in there and there's a
Speaker 1: guy playing to no one. That is one of the
Speaker 1: most rebellious, badass moves that I think any musician can do,
Speaker 1: which is like I'm here no matter what. I'll do
Speaker 1: this no matter what. And that's what the street was
Speaker 1: for me. Can't But before we get to the street. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're playing these open mics in high school, you
Speaker 1: go to Binghamton. Are you still playing? So Binghamton, I'm
Speaker 1: playing for the drunk bus drop off, which is like
Speaker 1: they have these literally just school busses that will take
Speaker 1: everybody out. They all get bombed, and then they dropped
Speaker 1: them back off to go back to their dorms, and
Speaker 1: me and this other guy would set up right by
Speaker 1: the drunk bus drop off and we were stars from
Speaker 1: about two a m. To four am. Al was the goal.
Speaker 1: You're just trying to work, You're just working with your thing.
Speaker 1: You're like, well, okay, is this working? Is this not working?
Speaker 1: Is this like terrible? What have I got here? So
Speaker 1: I was playing loosely bad situations, but but still just
Speaker 1: like working on how am I? You know, I always say,
Speaker 1: how are you actually being of service? Because for the
Speaker 1: most part, when you start, the service is being given.
Speaker 1: The attention is being given to the person that's playing,
Speaker 1: and it takes a lot of work and craft to
Speaker 1: be able to switch that to where someone's watching you
Speaker 1: and they're getting from what you're doing, and that just
Speaker 1: takes hours and hours and hours and hours. Now, okay,
Speaker 1: when you're playing at the bus stop, guitar case open,
Speaker 1: looking for change, yeah, but not hopeful. Okay, but you're
Speaker 1: going to school for acting? Yeah, so are you an
Speaker 1: actor or a musician? At that point I kind of
Speaker 1: already pretty quickly I could tell that I wasn't an actor,
Speaker 1: but I was there, so I okay, So you go
Speaker 1: there and when you come to l ah K, to
Speaker 1: what degree are you playing out? Before you go to
Speaker 1: the thirst promenade. I'm playing, Uh no one will book
Speaker 1: me and I have no money, So me and my
Speaker 1: roommate start booking the downstairs at the Viper Room, which
Speaker 1: is I don't have ever been down there. It's about
Speaker 1: as big as this place exactly, very small, like low bar.
Speaker 1: So if you put people in there, you've done a
Speaker 1: great So this was us hustling on my Space finding
Speaker 1: people that we thought were cool enough and that might
Speaker 1: bring ten of their friends to come pay the twenty
Speaker 1: bucks it is to get in the Viper Room. So
Speaker 1: we're doing that. I have this little amp that's battery powered,
Speaker 1: so in my head, I'm like, I can take this
Speaker 1: anywhere anywhere, playing stage create. It was a great amp,
Speaker 1: so that was what I would use at the street.
Speaker 1: And then if I thought that, like there was some gig,
Speaker 1: I think Frey was playing some charity thing at the Roxy,
Speaker 1: and I was like, those would be my fans. So
Speaker 1: when the line get um, I had zero shame. I
Speaker 1: just like set up outside of the line and I
Speaker 1: have my guitar and I'm like a mobile dude, just
Speaker 1: like put it down, start playing my stuff. And that
Speaker 1: was kind of how it went for a really long time.
Speaker 1: So when you're playing outside the Roxy, what's the reaction?
Speaker 1: You know? Cool? Okay, are people you're giving you money? No? Really,
Speaker 1: it didn't happen until third year. Fourth year was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're like, uh, you're starting to you start to see
Speaker 1: the switch of your You're really you're you're being able
Speaker 1: to give a service. And then when you stop, everybody
Speaker 1: come get the CD. Start like okay a little bit.
Speaker 1: So you're playing the Viper Room. Okay, you're playing the Roxy.
Speaker 1: How long playing roy play outside of the very important?
Speaker 1: How long before you go to the Thirst Promenade all
Speaker 1: at the same time? Is this all happening at the
Speaker 1: exact Okay? So how often were you at the third
Speaker 1: Promenade while I was so? Probably I was going during college,
Speaker 1: so that was uh, weekends or whenever, and then once
Speaker 1: college ended then it was every day every day for
Speaker 1: how long? You usually Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday long like
Speaker 1: on Saturday and Sunday because you can they have that's
Speaker 1: a whole game in itself. That's there's restrictions when you're
Speaker 1: allowed to actually be amplified and not amplified. It's kind
Speaker 1: of useless to not be amplified because people can't hear
Speaker 1: you and they just walk by. So I think those
Speaker 1: restrictions are lifted out some somewhere around like five pm
Speaker 1: on on weekdays and maybe a little bit earlier on Friday.
Speaker 1: But on Saturday it's all day Saturday Sunday, so I
Speaker 1: would get there. You quickly realize that, like, there's great spots,
Speaker 1: So you want to be in front of McDonald's at
Speaker 1: two pm. That's the best spot, okay, But there must
Speaker 1: be somebody else who's figured that out. Yes, So you
Speaker 1: quickly see that even if you go there, you will
Speaker 1: get kind of gangstered out of that spot. So you
Speaker 1: then find the hierarchy and then it's first come, first served,
Speaker 1: so you get to the highest place you can get
Speaker 1: to without upsetting the whole dynamic of everything. So for me,
Speaker 1: it was Forever twenty one. But to get in front
Speaker 1: of Forever twenty one at the right time, I meant
Speaker 1: I had to be there eight am. So I would
Speaker 1: wake up at seven on a Saturday, pack all the
Speaker 1: stuff and my mom's many event drive over there and
Speaker 1: just sit and at that point put all my CDs
Speaker 1: together until two and just read or hang out or
Speaker 1: just be okay and you can't leave, and the people
Speaker 1: below you knew they weren't good enough to take your spot. No,
Speaker 1: nobody knows that. The only thing that I knew was there,
Speaker 1: Like the super High ones, those people have been there
Speaker 1: for years and years and years, and one of them
Speaker 1: was a duo um Flamenco guitar thing and they're just
Speaker 1: really they could be really loud. So if you did
Speaker 1: set up the rule of sixty ft, they would just
Speaker 1: set up sixty ft away from you and blow you away. Right,
Speaker 1: So then where did the CD come from? The CD
Speaker 1: was this this small little thing called The World Is
Speaker 1: Yours that I made for no money with a friend,
Speaker 1: and it's got too much auto tune on it and
Speaker 1: I don't really like it. But I sold for a
Speaker 1: bunch of them. And how many did you sell? How
Speaker 1: many would you solid day? In the beginning three? Right?
Speaker 1: You would charge how much ten bucks? Which is a
Speaker 1: huge difference. I don't know how you do it anymore,
Speaker 1: to be honest, It might be dead because that's how
Speaker 1: you made your money. That was actually how you can
Speaker 1: make some money. So if you went out there and
Speaker 1: you made seventy bucks and tips, that was a good day.
Speaker 1: But if those seventy were ten dollar sales. Now you're
Speaker 1: like talking, that's great. Now we're like running a little
Speaker 1: business here. So by the end I would usually the
Speaker 1: last year and a half of doing it, usually between Thursday, Friday,
Speaker 1: Saturday and no, no, you know, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,
Speaker 1: you usually sell two CDs. Really yeah, and did you
Speaker 1: did you develop fans? Fans and then those people and
Speaker 1: then you're selling CDs and you're handing out flyers. Most
Speaker 1: of the people on the promadade at that point, which
Speaker 1: I assume similar is it's like foreign It's like you're
Speaker 1: on tour in one spot. Everybody. Everybody's coming to you.
Speaker 1: So you're selling CDs and they're you know, they're looking
Speaker 1: you up on my Space at that point. And it
Speaker 1: was also an understand that you can't draw big enough
Speaker 1: crowd unless you have some sort of a drum So
Speaker 1: I would tell a drummer, I'll give you whatever I make.
Speaker 1: This is what business started to really come in because
Speaker 1: I started learning like, okay, so that's two grand first
Speaker 1: for Friday, Saturday and Sunday of gross and now you
Speaker 1: start taking everything away and you see where that actually lands.
Speaker 1: But well, if you're playing, what are the costs if
Speaker 1: you're playing the first three prominent? Well, yeah, if if
Speaker 1: the cost of the CD, how much does it cost
Speaker 1: to actually get a CD made? And then how much
Speaker 1: do you have to pay somebody else to make the
Speaker 1: big beat that we give you the reach to get
Speaker 1: everybody there? So usually if I did two thousand and gross,
Speaker 1: I'd keep about and there were no taxes at that point,
Speaker 1: so that's not that's not too bad. And how big
Speaker 1: a crowd would you get? It just depends what the
Speaker 1: best training that it was was. It's it's the same
Speaker 1: now as it was then that you're there for ten
Speaker 1: hours and you make all your money in twenty minutes
Speaker 1: over you know, you make the most of your money
Speaker 1: by getting one big thing of a big crowd. But
Speaker 1: if you could just go do that, then everybody just
Speaker 1: go do that. But you can't. You gotta be there
Speaker 1: all day because you don't know when that's gonna hit,
Speaker 1: when all the things are gonna be right and then boom,
Speaker 1: And now you know what they talk about is you
Speaker 1: have to close the circle. Because if you can get
Speaker 1: the circle closed, that's what makes someone go like, oh,
Speaker 1: what's going on over there? And it becomes like mysterious
Speaker 1: and interesting. Now you can't see over. So now the
Speaker 1: crowds get bigger and bigger, and people start stepping on chairs,
Speaker 1: and it's just a hustle. It's always a hustle. What
Speaker 1: about going to the bathroom? Uh? Yeah, you you either
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom after directly after. What's funny, So
Speaker 1: every two hours you have to move because there's good spots,
Speaker 1: and there's a guy with a clipboard who will come
Speaker 1: and make you move. And so it's funny is at
Speaker 1: the end, nearing the end of the even hour. So
Speaker 1: if you started two around three forty five, everybody starts
Speaker 1: looking at each other like who's gonna make the jump
Speaker 1: to try to go find the next best spot. There
Speaker 1: was a whole thing of people paying homeless people to
Speaker 1: hold spots. It's a it's a grind. Anytime that you
Speaker 1: can actually make money somewhere, it's gonna get interesting. You know. Okay,
Speaker 1: could you ever get to the where you got squeezed
Speaker 1: out musical chairs there was nowhere to play? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: happens over when you do it for that long, there's
Speaker 1: just gonna be times that that happens. It was Honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't think of a better grad school for the
Speaker 1: music business. So what was going through your head? What
Speaker 1: was the destination? Was there a destination? Not fully, but
Speaker 1: I just watched a father who and mother for that matter, Like,
Speaker 1: you do the thing first and then you get help.
Speaker 1: It doesn't just no one's gonna come give this to you.
Speaker 1: You create the train that's going and then your brain
Speaker 1: can't even comprehend how cool it will be or where
Speaker 1: you're gonna go, you just start doing it. That's what
Speaker 1: that's the engine. Just because you're talking about flyers when
Speaker 1: you're playing the Third three Promenade, the flyers for other gigs, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the flyers for Oh now I actually can be first
Speaker 1: of three at the Roxy, which is like I don't
Speaker 1: have a five people or something that. So now they're
Speaker 1: letting someone will let me come open for them because
Speaker 1: they've heard me somehow. And it this point, do you
Speaker 1: believe you have any fan base or these are mostly
Speaker 1: foreigners or I don't think I have a fan base yet. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you get discovered on the Third Street Promenade. How
Speaker 1: many years have you been playing there before you get discovered?
Speaker 1: Probably third year. My manager comes and so tell us
Speaker 1: the story. He comes and he sees me and he's like,
Speaker 1: you're good. Uh, but he's definitely questioning, like am I
Speaker 1: gonna is this where I'm getting my you're playing there?
Speaker 1: He just approaches, you know, he starts his company with
Speaker 1: a with a member of my my basketball team. He's
Speaker 1: in New York and he's moving out here and he's
Speaker 1: got this guy, Josh, who was a middle agent. Uh.
Speaker 1: He gets them together and they start the company and
Speaker 1: they move out together. And one of the reasons Josh
Speaker 1: is down to move is because you know, he's got
Speaker 1: this friend that's in living in Hollywood, and so like cool,
Speaker 1: it's you know what, let's let's shift it. So then
Speaker 1: one day Josh goes like, you should go see my friend.
Speaker 1: He's playing on the street and uh, and Ben came
Speaker 1: out and we just started really working together. You know.
Speaker 1: The first thing, the first thing he says, I'm not sure. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: first thing is definitely not sure. But he keeps coming
Speaker 1: out and he's like what he was most attracted to
Speaker 1: was the fact that I was just always there. He's like,
Speaker 1: I can work with that. You know, that's a piece
Speaker 1: that you can work with. As they said, as a manager,
Speaker 1: you can't want it more than the act. And we
Speaker 1: both he's been someone that we both wanted equally and
Speaker 1: he hadn't had a success like we do now with
Speaker 1: anybody else, so he really really wanted it and we
Speaker 1: kind of bumbled our way through it and it was great.
Speaker 1: Well how long after you met him did you hook
Speaker 1: up with S Curve? Pretty? I mean, so he came
Speaker 1: here three and then year four? All right, keep your
Speaker 1: head up, and that is what took us to S
Speaker 1: Curve and got us, you know, all up to get
Speaker 1: on the radio and we get that song w into
Speaker 1: movies and that did really great. So that was and
Speaker 1: and but the first thing that he did with me
Speaker 1: was he bought me a better rug and a better
Speaker 1: Uh So that's like, that's when you know you're really
Speaker 1: doing it with someone that you're like, oh, we're doing
Speaker 1: this together. I don't think he ever build me back
Speaker 1: to the rug. Good. Look do you have paper with him?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, that's what's so sweet. We I
Speaker 1: think we had one to start and I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: that's over. And he's my brother, he's my blood brother.
Speaker 1: And has anybody tried to poach you? No, they kind
Speaker 1: of know. Everybody kind of knows where a team we
Speaker 1: go together. So what goes through your head? A lot
Speaker 1: of people can't handle success. You've obviously had a lot
Speaker 1: of time actually performing, But when it starts to go,
Speaker 1: are you getting freaked out? Are you say no, this
Speaker 1: is exactly what I want. I'm cool. Um No, I'm
Speaker 1: still just trying to not die because I know how
Speaker 1: fickle it is and how hard it is to get
Speaker 1: to a place. So I'm just trying to maximize every
Speaker 1: possible option in every situation. So what I liked when
Speaker 1: I tell the story to other people is that I
Speaker 1: had four years of figuring out fifteen minutes that was
Speaker 1: actually of service to the to the listener, right, So like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this doesn't work. It doesn't work. This little cover of
Speaker 1: Maroon five works. This like Sunday Morning makes everybody stop.
Speaker 1: So I got that. Now I gotta find three songs
Speaker 1: that are my own that do that. So then I
Speaker 1: went like fifty songs trying to be like Sunday Morning,
Speaker 1: and one of those was keep your head up. So
Speaker 1: then when I have this type fifteen that will work
Speaker 1: on a stranger who's walking by, then when keep your
Speaker 1: head up came. I had this tight fifteen which was
Speaker 1: extremely valuable. To walk into a radio programmer in Iowa
Speaker 1: that doesn't want to talk to you, doesn't need you, please,
Speaker 1: could you just get away from me? And I go like,
Speaker 1: just give me fifteen minutes? And I have this like
Speaker 1: tested fifteen minute thing. That would the same impulse of
Speaker 1: someone being like, you know what, dude, here's ten bucks
Speaker 1: or a CD. That's a very similar impulse to like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I think I'm putting it in. I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna put it in. And we went to
Speaker 1: every radio station twice around the whole country, all the
Speaker 1: hot seas stations, so you know, we put in a
Speaker 1: lot of work. I've had it like actually get to
Speaker 1: go in the radio. Everybody always asked like what was
Speaker 1: it like the first time you heard on the radio.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I've been to that place like four times.
Speaker 1: It was in St. Louis. It's not like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's like I know that guy. I've like been to
Speaker 1: his wife's freaking birthday party. I played for his daughter
Speaker 1: who didn't care like this. It is not that exciting,
Speaker 1: but it's great. It's still great, But there's just like
Speaker 1: so much effort and and work that goes into getting
Speaker 1: it to to go. You know. Okay, so at this
Speaker 1: late date, how's your financial situation. We're doing great, okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so in terms of twelve months, you have a
Speaker 1: kid with another on your way the way, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot. You're talking about a lot of work. I'd
Speaker 1: presumed before you had children at all, you were not
Speaker 1: that available, no, for for the early season before kids,
Speaker 1: it would have been really hard to do that with kids.
Speaker 1: Say that, and your wife was understanding. She was really cool.
Speaker 1: I mean she was a she was a songwriter, and
Speaker 1: then she would also she did some tours, uh, without
Speaker 1: me as well. It's a hard line to find. I
Speaker 1: think that I definitely got lucky. I worked really hard
Speaker 1: and put in a lot of effort. In the same
Speaker 1: way I think anybody that does a business, getting a
Speaker 1: bit getting distance between you and the ground where the
Speaker 1: business is like the hardest part. So you might uh.
Speaker 1: Tony Robbins says a thing about a life cycle. Business
Speaker 1: as a life cycle. So you're like in the beginning
Speaker 1: of your business like a baby that is an infant
Speaker 1: and will die unless you get up every night in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and just all of your
Speaker 1: resources go to keep this thing alive. And then you
Speaker 1: slowly go through the other stages of where you can
Speaker 1: get like a little more relaxed. Yeah, but you said
Speaker 1: it's a life. It sounds like there's death involved too.
Speaker 1: I do think there's death. Everything is death. No, no,
Speaker 1: what is Tony Robbins always says that it goes from
Speaker 1: uh infant to then there's like a teenager where you
Speaker 1: think that um that gross is profit, so you act
Speaker 1: like wildly, you have no idea what you're doing. Then
Speaker 1: you have a young adult where you start to put
Speaker 1: systems into place to like help you actually keep this
Speaker 1: business going. Then you hit um is like max profit,
Speaker 1: where you're running it the best you could. And then
Speaker 1: you go to old age and then you go to
Speaker 1: like subsidized, and then you're like that did you go
Speaker 1: to a Tony Robbins course? Yes, I went to a
Speaker 1: business course. Wait wait, what was the inspiration to go, um? Well?
Speaker 1: I think my manager was like, dude, he's doing this
Speaker 1: business course. I feel like it's probably good idea for
Speaker 1: us to do this. You know, I remember how expensive
Speaker 1: it was. It was like ten grand, right, best ten grand?
Speaker 1: I've ever spent in my life. Okay, how long was
Speaker 1: the seminar? It was one of those like five day things.
Speaker 1: And went to England. How many you went to England?
Speaker 1: How many people were there? Probably thousand, two thousand people.
Speaker 1: So did you get any access to Tony Robbins? No,
Speaker 1: I'm playing his birthday party on Saturday, but I didn't
Speaker 1: have access to him at that point. Did he make
Speaker 1: your walk across the hot coals? We didn't. That wasn't cold.
Speaker 1: This was like a business one where I learned some
Speaker 1: of the most valuable things, just having not gone to
Speaker 1: straight business school. One of the best things I ever
Speaker 1: learned at that place was he put a cricket a
Speaker 1: cricket scoreboard up on the screen and he goes like,
Speaker 1: does anybody know what this means? And we're all I have.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what a cricket scoreboard is. He goes, like,
Speaker 1: most people play the game of business like this. I
Speaker 1: swear to God, it's insane. You never believe it, but
Speaker 1: that's how this goes. And he goes, how do you
Speaker 1: even know what to do when you look at this?
Speaker 1: This is what accounting is. Then he put up a
Speaker 1: scoreboard of a baseball, and it was like the bottom
Speaker 1: of the fifth, there's a guy in second and third
Speaker 1: you're down by you know what I mean. And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: He's like, this is what your business manager does. Your
Speaker 1: business manager is not supposed to tell you what to do.
Speaker 1: They're gonna give you the scoreboard. And then you walk
Speaker 1: up to the plate and you make the move. You
Speaker 1: swing for the fences. You're like, ship, we're close. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bunt, We're gonna do this. That was so valuable.
Speaker 1: I'd never heard it put that way before. There was
Speaker 1: just like four things that were about that big to
Speaker 1: me at that point. And what was the status of
Speaker 1: your career at that point? That was just before before
Speaker 1: on I'm good, I think, or right after okay, and
Speaker 1: if you had any continuing education with Tony ron Um no,
Speaker 1: I mean i've done what we've done two of them,
Speaker 1: I think. The one the first one we did was
Speaker 1: something called I think the Day with Destiny should when
Speaker 1: to Australia do that. It's just good when you're when
Speaker 1: you're the one that's the engine of stuff, you gotta
Speaker 1: like go get psyched up sometimes, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: like I don't do what every I've only done two
Speaker 1: of them, but they were both really, really impactful. So
Speaker 1: how do you manage the work life balance at this
Speaker 1: point in time? Man, it's not easy, but the kids
Speaker 1: help because they don't care so that I mean asked
Speaker 1: my daughter. She just like commands my attention. So once
Speaker 1: I'm home, I'm pretty much home. There are seasons where
Speaker 1: it's a little bit more hard to do that, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, right now, Uh, like I said,
Speaker 1: you put systems into place, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people working that. Hopefully at six pm, don't you don't
Speaker 1: got to talk to me and uh, what's the goal
Speaker 1: at this point in time? The goal is to continue
Speaker 1: to triple down on what makes me unique. So you said,
Speaker 1: you know, my jacket says reckless optimist. I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that would love to hear songs
Speaker 1: about that that don't know yet. Well, this is kind
Speaker 1: of an extension to your father's business to some degree,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, I think the goal and the fun,
Speaker 1: if you can look at it as as a fun thing,
Speaker 1: is it's the wild West right now, and people that
Speaker 1: are uh, I don't know, people that are aggressive and
Speaker 1: inspired and interested in how to how to work this
Speaker 1: new thing. There's like a lot of potential, you know,
Speaker 1: if you get if you get over like overstimulated with
Speaker 1: like oh my god, nothing is the same as it was.
Speaker 1: You can you can just be in depression all day long.
Speaker 1: But as someone that started as a street performer and
Speaker 1: is sitting next to you right now, I'm like, this
Speaker 1: isn't We're gonna be good. Do you consider the road
Speaker 1: to be fun or work? No? The more like I
Speaker 1: would hope anybody if you work this hard at thirty six,
Speaker 1: most of the things that I'm doing, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go right with some of the best. I'm like,
Speaker 1: incredible writers. I get to I get to get into situations,
Speaker 1: you get a movie what Curious George called me. They're like,
Speaker 1: do you want to do the theme song? I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: that sounds awesome like my days that the work that
Speaker 1: I get to do is so fulfilling and interesting and
Speaker 1: fascinating that it's the work part is uh, just like
Speaker 1: running a business is hard and the weight that comes
Speaker 1: with that on your shoulders. But that's what you do
Speaker 1: that okay, we're talking about it's the wild West in
Speaker 1: the business and you have your niche are you just
Speaker 1: riding the pony or you say no, I want to
Speaker 1: get here and I want to figure out the zigarad
Speaker 1: to get there. No, we gotta go away bigger. There's
Speaker 1: a lot more people that want that, like me, that
Speaker 1: have no idea who I am and how are you
Speaker 1: going to reach them? Um. Yeah, I think we're figuring
Speaker 1: it out. I think by continue to put out music
Speaker 1: that is that that hopefully no other the other people
Speaker 1: aren't putting out. Point of view wise, I think that
Speaker 1: it's a time, especially right now, where hope and optimism
Speaker 1: is actually like kind of in. I would think more
Speaker 1: than other times I've felt it being someone who is myself. Okay,
Speaker 1: I can feel when it's like in and when it's
Speaker 1: not in, and I think we're all a little bit
Speaker 1: freaked out about how everything's going. And someone that brings,
Speaker 1: you know, with don't give up on me. I've been
Speaker 1: doing these videos. Well we'll just like roll up on
Speaker 1: people that are going through it and we'll sing directly
Speaker 1: to them, sometimes with kids. And those videos have been
Speaker 1: going crazy online and everybody's into it, and so just
Speaker 1: who I am naturally is a good It's a good
Speaker 1: time for that so I really want to go. Do
Speaker 1: you believe that these successes in the New world or
Speaker 1: happy accidents or you can plan them both. You plan
Speaker 1: the best you can and then you have no It's
Speaker 1: like music, and this is kind of a dumb question
Speaker 1: about all ask in anyway, what do you think is
Speaker 1: the primary driver of your career at this point? Still
Speaker 1: still primary song? Okay, I should ask question a little
Speaker 1: bit different once you have the product the song, what
Speaker 1: is most important Spotify, radio, Facebook, video, what do you
Speaker 1: think or really it's a combination of everything. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about dude, this is so confusing. I think that
Speaker 1: you do. It's like this weird thing of all of it,
Speaker 1: which then I'll send you into a tailspan. But also
Speaker 1: I think that you can't say it's the same for everyone.
Speaker 1: So I've had big hits that are like I have
Speaker 1: a song fresh Eyes that was like not a hit
Speaker 1: on the radio, it's million plays on Spotify and it
Speaker 1: is a super it's a hit. So like, I think
Speaker 1: we have to be careful of what the driver is
Speaker 1: for this one and then follow where that where it's
Speaker 1: telling you to go and maximize in that area for
Speaker 1: each one. Okay, you're a happy optimist. To what degree
Speaker 1: are you fearful of doing something that might alienate your
Speaker 1: audience less now than ever? So what was it like before?
Speaker 1: Before I was worried that I was, that I was
Speaker 1: gonna be cheesy. I was really overly worried that, um,
Speaker 1: I would turn someone off by being just my, my,
Speaker 1: the true vibe that I am. And the incredible book
Speaker 1: called This Is Marketing by Seth Godin. Do you know
Speaker 1: Seth Godin? How do you email with him? Yesterday? God?
Speaker 1: That guy? Is he gonna come on here? Well? You
Speaker 1: know he Well he's in New York. I didn't even
Speaker 1: he is fantastic. He has a book called This Is Marketing,
Speaker 1: and and uh he had. I was listening to the
Speaker 1: audiobook and I get pulling over to write the right
Speaker 1: notes down. One of them was, Um, you really gotta
Speaker 1: be okay with telling a large group of the country
Speaker 1: this is not for you. When you do that, when
Speaker 1: you fully say this is not for you, who it's
Speaker 1: for they go, oh, my God, that's my guy. And
Speaker 1: you're not like denying people. You're just by who you are,
Speaker 1: being like, this is who I am. And if if
Speaker 1: I like concretely say that, then some people inevitably will
Speaker 1: be like, you know it's not for you, okay, but
Speaker 1: we live in a you know, complicated error. So just
Speaker 1: you know, this may not fit with your image. But
Speaker 1: if you say, would you be fearful of making a
Speaker 1: political endorsement for fear that it might alienate part of
Speaker 1: your audience? Um? Yeah, I don't do any as of
Speaker 1: a high You're not on the line with any political party,
Speaker 1: so I don't do any police, but I don't like
Speaker 1: register as someone. I don't play anything. He's got an
Speaker 1: offer for a convention, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: based on your faith, faith, okay, but to what degree
Speaker 1: you're in the show or you're doing press, would you
Speaker 1: be worried about saying something that might be seen as unpopular?
Speaker 1: Not a lot, I don't. I don't think about that
Speaker 1: very much. Okay. Terms of social media, to what degree
Speaker 1: you personally post on social media? All of them? No?
Speaker 1: You but you yourself? How much your day has spent, God,
Speaker 1: it's a lot, man. Well that's why I'm so. I
Speaker 1: just came from a two hour session where I, like,
Speaker 1: you know, figuring out what it is we're gonna post,
Speaker 1: and then I sit and write all the captions for it,
Speaker 1: and then that's like the steady stream that I look
Speaker 1: at and see and we create a person on the
Speaker 1: payroll or and then uh, and then you mix that
Speaker 1: in with stuff that just happens that I love, I mean,
Speaker 1: and my daughter or whatever what else is going on.
Speaker 1: Then it's just like, throw up, what's the most powerful
Speaker 1: platform for your career? I have the most follows on YouTube? Uh,
Speaker 1: then comes Facebook and then Instagram. There's so much work
Speaker 1: to be done, good God, and they all need different
Speaker 1: you know, like again if you get, if you get,
Speaker 1: you can go down a spiral in your brain where
Speaker 1: you're like, this is insanity. But for me, what happened
Speaker 1: was I started to realize that, like, I love what's
Speaker 1: in my heart getting to your heart, and I genuinely
Speaker 1: if that's a caption, I still really like that. So
Speaker 1: the album have exploded for me this year of like
Speaker 1: what the goal it used to be? You do all
Speaker 1: this work to create one thing and then you give
Speaker 1: it to everybody at one moment, and then everybody likes
Speaker 1: that one thing, and that doesn't seem to be the
Speaker 1: most effective way right now to get from what's in
Speaker 1: me to you. There's like you have to kind of
Speaker 1: blow it up and be like, it's all of the album.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is the album. The album artwork is
Speaker 1: that makes the questions you do have an album at all?
Speaker 1: Or just constantly put out material you could do? You know?
Speaker 1: To me, it's that I wrote a hundred you want
Speaker 1: to hear some of them, but I got a lot here.
Speaker 1: What you post on YouTube, some of these originals that
Speaker 1: are not on the album. Yeah, I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. We're looking at, you know, what
Speaker 1: exactly it looks like moving forward? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: do think that there's something about a collection of songs
Speaker 1: can be how you're feeling at that moment, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of nice to put them all together, but not important. Okay,
Speaker 1: and you have people working for you posting your words.
Speaker 1: But do you interact with your fans on social media?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally. I mean everybody, and we're also addicted
Speaker 1: to it. I'm on Instagram, on Facebook responding. I have
Speaker 1: something called Community, which is the texting service. I was
Speaker 1: on that really early, and I'll do stuff on Community
Speaker 1: where I'll be like, uh, check it out. I am
Speaker 1: playing a show in Minneapolis and there's Duncan Donuts down
Speaker 1: the street. If you're there in the next twenty five minutes,
Speaker 1: I'll take a picture and hang with everybody. How I've
Speaker 1: proad about eight of those. Those are really fun. And
Speaker 1: you shut down Dunkan Donuts, and it's like we have
Speaker 1: videos on all my socials of like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh shit, the people have dunking donuts like you got
Speaker 1: a lot of this is insane And if you had
Speaker 1: any bad experience, who's interacting with the po No, especially
Speaker 1: my group of fans are usually really sweet. Okay, Andy,
Speaker 1: this is a big thing. You're go on forever. Such
Speaker 1: an interesting dude to me, this is a really full
Speaker 1: circle moment. I've been reading you. You've been someone in
Speaker 1: my life that has been very like because you you
Speaker 1: are coming from honesty and truth. Usually that's the that
Speaker 1: seems like the highest thing for you. Uh, that resonates
Speaker 1: with me and I have had I remember reading literally
Speaker 1: reading your letter sitting on the little sidewalk as a
Speaker 1: street performer. So it is wonderful to have a conversation
Speaker 1: with you, my friend. Well, I can't see this is audio.
Speaker 1: I'm smiling on that note until next time. This is
Speaker 1: the Bob Left Sets podcast,