Speaker 1: What's up, guys. Welcome to the Granger Smith Podcast, Episode
Speaker 1: thirty three. Thank you for watching and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for this platform to be able to speak
Speaker 1: my mind, exercise the first Amendment right that I have
Speaker 1: here in America. And this is the first podcast in
Speaker 1: my new office. I'm at yeeee Farm in the headquarters
Speaker 1: of Yeee Apparel. I created this this space so that
Speaker 1: we could do these podcasts, and we could and we
Speaker 1: could do. Me and the band have talked about doing
Speaker 1: some live streaming in here, playing some music. So and
Speaker 1: that's an interesting thing we should talk about. Is that.
Speaker 1: Be looking on my social media coming up, be looking
Speaker 1: for us to be putting out one or two or
Speaker 1: three live streams a week. We're gonna do different sets,
Speaker 1: So comment below on this video with your set list request,
Speaker 1: with songs you want us to play it. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how old the song is of mine or how
Speaker 1: new the song is of mine. We would love to
Speaker 1: be able to read through that. And we're going to
Speaker 1: put together these set lists for you, guys, and man
Speaker 1: that I wish we could get to your city. I
Speaker 1: wish we could get to you right now. It's killing
Speaker 1: me to not be on the road, and this is
Speaker 1: the next best thing we could do is play these
Speaker 1: songs on a live stream and I just I wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to scratch that itch somehow. The second
Speaker 1: thing we're going to talk about Isyee Apparel summer launch
Speaker 1: June the twelfth, So this is really important. The reason
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna push this now is because the last
Speaker 1: several launches we've had have sold out really early. And
Speaker 1: when I say early, we launch at ten am, which
Speaker 1: we will on June twelfth. We launch at ten am,
Speaker 1: and we have we have sold out in minutes of
Speaker 1: some of our some of the more popular items, and
Speaker 1: so we are making more orders and we're we're increasing
Speaker 1: our inventory a little bit on these. But the balance
Speaker 1: is that we want to be able to sell out quickly,
Speaker 1: to push that product quick and then and then it
Speaker 1: gives us a good idea of what to reorder, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. All being said, and that none of that
Speaker 1: matters to you. What does matter is ten am June twelfth,
Speaker 1: Yee dot com or ye apparel dot com. Make sure
Speaker 1: you go and check it out and be ready, uh
Speaker 1: to get this new stuff. It's really good. I've been
Speaker 1: working my butt off this week doing videos and taking
Speaker 1: pictures and working with Parker and Tyler and Paul and
Speaker 1: Brian and ant Man and all these photographers and videographers
Speaker 1: that have come in and and really helped us to
Speaker 1: create what we are really proud of in the summer launch,
Speaker 1: So be looking for that. How are you guys doing.
Speaker 1: How's the state of the world. I know that there's
Speaker 1: we have now entered a time of the world where
Speaker 1: there's pockets of people that are doing pretty normal, pretty great.
Speaker 1: There's pockets of people that are really locked down, and
Speaker 1: uh it, it's amazing. You just cross a couple of
Speaker 1: state lines or a few international borders and you're in
Speaker 1: a completely different place as far as this shutdown is concerned.
Speaker 1: So how you doing? Comment below, let me know, let
Speaker 1: me know your pulse. Us here in Texas, we feel
Speaker 1: very lucky, We feel very blessed to continue to have
Speaker 1: low numbers and to also be opening up faster and faster,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing good results and it feels very normal.
Speaker 1: Touring as a Tory musician will probably be one of
Speaker 1: the last ones but to go back to work, which
Speaker 1: is why we're doing this live stream, and so we
Speaker 1: set up also this Venmo account at Granger Smith so
Speaker 1: that we could hopefully get some tips for the band
Speaker 1: during that. It's like passing around the virtual pickle jar.
Speaker 1: Back in the old days of playing bars every night,
Speaker 1: we would pass around a pickle jar that said band
Speaker 1: tips on it. So we'll be doing that virtually. You know,
Speaker 1: we've resorted to that these days with zero touring. All
Speaker 1: that being said, a lot of exciting things coming soon.
Speaker 1: Uh be watching the socials for the live stream, and
Speaker 1: be watching yee dot com for the summer launch. Today's
Speaker 1: guest my brother Tyler Smith, my middle brother. Last week
Speaker 1: we had Parker, the youngest brother. This week Tyler, and
Speaker 1: Tyler is a fascinating dude. And so I ran over
Speaker 1: my time on my interview with him today and uh
Speaker 1: so I apologize it's going to cut off a little abruptly,
Speaker 1: but he is such a fascinating dude. He has he
Speaker 1: just will spit out these these little moments of like
Speaker 1: genius wisdom. Its just to just come out and you'll
Speaker 1: hear him say it in a minute, and it always
Speaker 1: shocks me and and me and him that we butt
Speaker 1: heads a lot because I'm I'm he's very directive and
Speaker 1: passionate and I'm very loose and creative, and so it
Speaker 1: works really well in business, but it's times sometimes it clashes,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into that a little bit. You'll get
Speaker 1: to know Tyler a little bit. But we're also going
Speaker 1: to have to continue this interview and do another one.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it'll be next week, but it'll be.
Speaker 1: It'll be. We'll do a follow up once so you
Speaker 1: could hear more about him because we got to talking
Speaker 1: on this one. So I think you're gonna like it.
Speaker 1: You're in for a treat. He's he's It's not just
Speaker 1: saying that because he's my brother, but he's literally one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting people they over meet, and so
Speaker 1: it's Parker. I'm very proud of both of them. Without
Speaker 1: further ado, welcome to the podcast. Here's my guest. Okay,
Speaker 1: we were walking down the hall to bring you in here,
Speaker 1: and you're like, what are we talking about? And I
Speaker 1: admittedly said that I don't have a plan and that
Speaker 1: kind of scared you. You're like, well, you sure you
Speaker 1: want to do something without I'm sure you don't think
Speaker 1: about it. But usually on this podcast that's just what
Speaker 1: I do. Okay, don't plan anything. And you are one
Speaker 1: of the most, if not the most interesting humans I
Speaker 1: know in what way? And I feel like I've known
Speaker 1: I do know a lot of humans just from traveling
Speaker 1: with touring and what where music has taken us across
Speaker 1: the world. We've met some interesting people, Presidents of the
Speaker 1: United States, you know, foreign ambassadors, crazy rock stars. You
Speaker 1: were one of the most interesting people I know. It's
Speaker 1: that a good thing or a bad thing. It's a
Speaker 1: good thing. And that's why I wanted you on this podcast.
Speaker 1: Last week we did Parker, and so we didn't have
Speaker 1: a plan with Parker either. We just would y'all to
Speaker 1: talk about I didn't listen to it. You didn't listen,
Speaker 1: did you not? Really, it's good. We talked about basically
Speaker 1: his role here at EE Apparel and how he we
Speaker 1: brought me and you stole him away from another kind
Speaker 1: of career he would have had in real estate from
Speaker 1: A and M and then he's the CEO. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a quick rise. Yeah. I also talked about
Speaker 1: how I still missed that little boy that Parker was
Speaker 1: since there's thirteen years difference between me and him and
Speaker 1: ten years difference between you and him, and how we
Speaker 1: mom and dad took us to fud Rutgers and told
Speaker 1: him told us that they were pregnant, and then then
Speaker 1: we talked through his role here and how we've kind
Speaker 1: of changed the business plan. And so with you, just
Speaker 1: off the top of my head, I guess we can
Speaker 1: go and talk about us growing up as brothers. A
Speaker 1: lot of people in the comments to Parker's were like,
Speaker 1: put Tyler on there, put Tyler on there, which is understandable.
Speaker 1: And so where from where we sit right here, Tyler's
Speaker 1: office is on the other wall, on the other side
Speaker 1: of this wall, and Parker is over here. So I
Speaker 1: think it's a huge blessing that we get to work
Speaker 1: together three brothers. It's you know, it's not always easy.
Speaker 1: Me and you have a lot harder of a time
Speaker 1: than you and Parker, or me and Parker. And that's
Speaker 1: because park partly because Parker is so passive. You know
Speaker 1: what I just realized. I don't know if I'm telling
Speaker 1: you you should tell this from everybody. You can edit
Speaker 1: it not, but you don't edit these by the way.
Speaker 1: You know, what I realized today was exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason. Our personality is, like we obviously do
Speaker 1: really well together, but sometimes we have some issued minor
Speaker 1: issues brothers stuff, right, but and both of our relationships
Speaker 1: are different with me and you and me and Parker.
Speaker 1: Yeah okay, But what I'm getting to is, in my
Speaker 1: head to was like because London lately, she she has
Speaker 1: little tendencies of things that you do, and I find
Speaker 1: myself like thinking to myself, like like trying to like
Speaker 1: get get back at her a little bit, like we
Speaker 1: kind of like we don't bicker, like but you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like it's the same stuff you and
Speaker 1: me do, and like you and me go at each other,
Speaker 1: obviously I don't go after London. But then Lincoln and Parker,
Speaker 1: like I have the same relationship with Lincoln and Parker.
Speaker 1: Like Parker's, like you said, for ten years younger than me,
Speaker 1: so he was a little baby when we were kids,
Speaker 1: so there's still that little and so same with Lincoln.
Speaker 1: But with you and London are similar in that way.
Speaker 1: It's weird because London is so strong willed and I
Speaker 1: could independent. She's very passionate her way in no way,
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of the same way and a lot
Speaker 1: of times her way is also wrong. Yeah's is similar
Speaker 1: to me. You know, I'm very I get very passionate
Speaker 1: about a certain way. But she'll never admit that she's wrong.
Speaker 1: What do you trying to say? Well, so that's so,
Speaker 1: that's part of our story, is that you know, so
Speaker 1: here we are the brother Crew, the three brothers. But
Speaker 1: you and I go back much longer than Parker has
Speaker 1: been with EEE. Even though Parker was there the day
Speaker 1: EEE was said as earl and it is, it needs
Speaker 1: to be said that me and you go back way
Speaker 1: before Parker. We go back to two thousand and two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. Well, these mics are really directional. It's
Speaker 1: like officially, but I remember being at Rice and I
Speaker 1: used to go to the spot on campus where nobody
Speaker 1: else was. I don't know what. It was, just one
Speaker 1: random building and I'd go down to Houston and the
Speaker 1: Rice University in Houston. And I graduated in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven May, so I'll go down in that basement
Speaker 1: and book shows specifically, remember booking shows. I still got
Speaker 1: that green book. So it was before two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: It wasn't full time until two thousand and seven. I graduated,
Speaker 1: and I went and worked at a bank, which I hated,
Speaker 1: gave them a I committed to it, though, so morally
Speaker 1: I wanted to give them a year, you know, do
Speaker 1: what I could. And so anyway, that so that was
Speaker 1: like literally to the day that I started, let's just
Speaker 1: say summer two thousand and seven, quit summer two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, and then was full time like everything then.
Speaker 1: And basically you're what you usually say is you were
Speaker 1: mad that nothing was happening. I was putting out these
Speaker 1: records and no one was going to the shows, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't getting any more shows, and no one was
Speaker 1: really hearing the music, and you were mad. I was
Speaker 1: with a big management company out in Nashville, and I
Speaker 1: was living in College Station, Texas. So I was their
Speaker 1: only act that was in Texas. I was the only
Speaker 1: act that was in a small town really in Texas
Speaker 1: doing the van and trailer touring. And so understandably I
Speaker 1: was forgotten and I didn't think about it that much
Speaker 1: as much as you did. It really bothered you. And
Speaker 1: so I remember you getting so mad while you're working
Speaker 1: at that bank that that I wasn't getting shows booked,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, and so you said, screw it,
Speaker 1: I could book a hundred times the shows that you're getting.
Speaker 1: And so the first year that you came on was
Speaker 1: it eight when you when you first came on and
Speaker 1: we started playing all those shows. Yeah, we were playing
Speaker 1: like Wednesday through Saturday, and it was the crappiest show.
Speaker 1: So you came through it. You delivered under your promise.
Speaker 1: And so you really didn't start as manager. You didn't
Speaker 1: say I want to manage you. You You said I want
Speaker 1: to book you. So that's how you started. Well, I don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did love booking, I really did. I had a
Speaker 1: passion for it. I loved working numbers. I guess I
Speaker 1: was fresh out of school Econ. I guess like Econ,
Speaker 1: But I just loved entrepreneurship and building brands and success
Speaker 1: and and and money and numbers. Yeah, so we started booking.
Speaker 1: But those shows, I remember that there was always just
Speaker 1: so many secrets and tricks, not really tricks, but just
Speaker 1: it was always about just being a good person and
Speaker 1: being honest and booking these shows and telling the promoters
Speaker 1: if I could ever get them on the phone, that's
Speaker 1: a whole other topic, but telling the promoters, look, I'm
Speaker 1: not guaranteeing that we're going to sell your place out,
Speaker 1: but we're going to put on a good show and
Speaker 1: we'll only take you know, X amount of the door
Speaker 1: five dollars ticket price. They're basically telling them to the
Speaker 1: people that are watching that there's gonna be no risk
Speaker 1: on your end. You know, we're not going to ask
Speaker 1: for a high money guarantee and all that stuff. So anyway, well,
Speaker 1: like you said, we go do those shows and like
Speaker 1: nobody would be there. Like when we say nobody would
Speaker 1: be there, we don't mean there was one hundred people there.
Speaker 1: It was just a waitress. So my job never ended.
Speaker 1: And my job at that point was to buddy up
Speaker 1: with the owner that I called and booked that show
Speaker 1: with and talk to him in his office for about
Speaker 1: whatever he wanted to talk about, and just be a
Speaker 1: chameleon and and win his trust and be his friend,
Speaker 1: get his number, text him and say and so basically
Speaker 1: when I'm getting it, as we built that trust and
Speaker 1: that friendship, where when I called this guy back and said, hey,
Speaker 1: can we get another date, first of all, I would
Speaker 1: try to get a date in that office as we're
Speaker 1: closing out, And a lot of times that was a
Speaker 1: big trick and a ticket, like we leave and we
Speaker 1: got another date. But I would call him back and
Speaker 1: he'd say, hey, Tyler man, look you're awesome. I love you,
Speaker 1: I love your brother. You guys got to get a
Speaker 1: great band. But we lost money last time. Nobody came.
Speaker 1: But I like you and your brother. I will give
Speaker 1: you another date. So that was kind of the trick,
Speaker 1: and then we would we just slowly built it that way.
Speaker 1: We got into a lot of places that we shouldn't
Speaker 1: have gotten into a lot earlier because of that. And
Speaker 1: we should say one of your you call it tricks.
Speaker 1: One of the techniques you used was on email on
Speaker 1: the subject line. Should even say it on this podcast.
Speaker 1: It's such a it's such a Tyler technique. Bring we
Speaker 1: still need to get in so that there needs to
Speaker 1: be many podcasts with Tyler, and so this is hopefully
Speaker 1: be the first of many because there's so many stories
Speaker 1: and if you're a beginning artist or a beginning musician,
Speaker 1: you could learn a lot from Tyler and the path
Speaker 1: that we took. In one one way you could look
Speaker 1: at it is you do not need to go get
Speaker 1: you a big Nashville manager or LA manager, or you
Speaker 1: just need somebody that believes in you with everything. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and nothing is going to get done though. Nothing
Speaker 1: is going to get done unless you do it. That
Speaker 1: is the bottom line, and so on. One technique Tyler
Speaker 1: used when these people he would email them and say, hey,
Speaker 1: my name is Tyler Smith. I book a band, Granger Smith.
Speaker 1: And we would actually try not to play up the
Speaker 1: brother thing too much because we didn't want to sound
Speaker 1: too homegrown. So we would he would email and make
Speaker 1: the pitch and then not hear anything, and then not
Speaker 1: hear anything, and then not hear anything. So the technique
Speaker 1: Tyler would use is We'll say Bob at Silver Creek
Speaker 1: Saloon whatever, I'm just making, just making names up. He'd say,
Speaker 1: the subject line of the email would say no longer
Speaker 1: working at Silver Creek Saloon question mark, and then the
Speaker 1: body of the email would say, Hey, Bob Herd a
Speaker 1: rumor you're not with Silver Creek. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: say it. It was Don Don Don started BUCkies. For
Speaker 1: all of you guys that know BUCkies, absolutely love that place.
Speaker 1: It's a gas station in the South. We live in Texas.
Speaker 1: There everywhere and amazing food, clean a streams like they're
Speaker 1: just top, top notch, and so they're they're they're they're
Speaker 1: also very supportive of regional artists, musicians, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So we we had like T shirts already in there
Speaker 1: in that in their stores, and then we came out
Speaker 1: with our energy Drinky Energy, and so we were just
Speaker 1: calling everybody we could to try to get it in there.
Speaker 1: And we we already had our stuff in BUCkies. And
Speaker 1: so a mutual friend of ours, somebody that runs our
Speaker 1: website knew the owner, hooked me up with their email,
Speaker 1: connected us on an email, I should say, and he
Speaker 1: never responded to the email. Was you know, he's one
Speaker 1: of many? Though, yeah, Don's one of many. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just this. We just still joke about that. That
Speaker 1: was just a big example. But but the the key
Speaker 1: thing to this whole thing is if you if no
Speaker 1: one's replying to you, if you put in the subject
Speaker 1: line Bob no longer working at Silver something. I emailed
Speaker 1: Donald two two times, three times. Nothing. I was like,
Speaker 1: screw it. So I said, I was pissed, and I said,
Speaker 1: are you know no longer working there? Like in the
Speaker 1: subject don no longer CEO of BUCkies or owner of
Speaker 1: Bucki's did you get fired? Like I was like jabbing
Speaker 1: at him, and I knew he was going to respond,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, literally like after weeks of no return emails,
Speaker 1: literally literally five minutes after I sent that email, he
Speaker 1: sent back a reply, really pissed in short yeah, like
Speaker 1: something like yeah, what are you talking about? Who told
Speaker 1: you that? And I was like, Hey, don now that
Speaker 1: I got your attention, thanks for a response. We got
Speaker 1: ee energy. We're looking to put it in your store.
Speaker 1: That is playing to someone's ego. They cannot stand to
Speaker 1: let an email go by that says that there's a
Speaker 1: rumor that they're not working at the company that they're
Speaker 1: actually the CEO or the bar owner for, or the
Speaker 1: booker for. And so Tyler's been doing that trick for
Speaker 1: twelve years or maybe more to these small town bar owners.
Speaker 1: We had so many problems, like sometimes I remember one specifically,
Speaker 1: was it Brownwood, Texas. You know, you would get the
Speaker 1: show booked, and this is once again no one knew
Speaker 1: who we were. So Tyler's just going on merit with
Speaker 1: these gequa Yeah. Yeah, so we were booking it based
Speaker 1: on hey, I know, I know they're not going to
Speaker 1: draw anybody to your club, but the people you do
Speaker 1: have there will love this band and they'll want to
Speaker 1: come back. And that was our goal, get them, get
Speaker 1: them one at a time where the people that were
Speaker 1: there would start to be fans, and so you would
Speaker 1: do it on merit and then we would we would
Speaker 1: send them a contract, you know, but then they hardly
Speaker 1: ever would sign it and send it back. They would
Speaker 1: prefer we just showed up. And so this happened a
Speaker 1: few times. One specifically Tequila Something in Brownwood, Texas. We
Speaker 1: showed up and they that guy that booked it with
Speaker 1: you was had been fired and they didn't know we
Speaker 1: were coming. And then no one knew we were coming.
Speaker 1: They were all locked and so here we go on
Speaker 1: a Friday night with the van and trailer and all
Speaker 1: the band. Who's going to get you know? I was
Speaker 1: paying them like a hundred bucks, I know, and no
Speaker 1: one was there, and I you know, that was just
Speaker 1: one of those days where were you with us? Or
Speaker 1: was I called selling merch? Yeah, you're selling merch. So
Speaker 1: we've come a long way, and that's why these conversations
Speaker 1: are so interesting, especially if you're if you're a beginning musician,
Speaker 1: you're listening to this podcast you're thinking about it. I
Speaker 1: can't stress enough that first of all, you don't have
Speaker 1: to leave your little hometown. You don't have to move
Speaker 1: to a big music city. You don't have to sign
Speaker 1: a big record label or big management or a big
Speaker 1: book an agency. You could do it with you and
Speaker 1: your brother. Now you've got to be passionate about it.
Speaker 1: And you got it. You gotta work. You can do
Speaker 1: yourself as long as you can hopefully find somebody that.
Speaker 1: Uh so, then fast forward things start going good. We
Speaker 1: we get to we get to a place, fast forward
Speaker 1: through a lot. Well, I'm fast forward, get good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of bad days. We we had
Speaker 1: We had some moments like me and you had some
Speaker 1: heated moments and empty parking lots and a lot of
Speaker 1: the frustration with no one coming to the shows and
Speaker 1: no one listened to the music that we were so
Speaker 1: passionate about. We worked so hard on building something. And
Speaker 1: when you would continually hit your head with a hammer
Speaker 1: every Friday night, when especially when you would build, we
Speaker 1: would build something a little bit like say we would
Speaker 1: have one hundred people at a place and commerce Texas
Speaker 1: thirsty mule, drunken mule. We would build something, and we'd
Speaker 1: have one hundred and twelve people at Drunken Mule Commerce,
Speaker 1: Texas on Friday night, and we'd think, Dad, gun, we're
Speaker 1: kind of kind of working here. This town's really coming around.
Speaker 1: And then we play there again a year later and
Speaker 1: there'd be eighty four people were like, well, we're going down.
Speaker 1: And so you remember the time you were selling merch
Speaker 1: and commerce and you looked up on the railing and
Speaker 1: you had put what a sticker, that Granger Smith sticker
Speaker 1: on the wail. It was the don't listen the radio,
Speaker 1: that white one. And you realized that we had been
Speaker 1: doing the same plane at the same place for years
Speaker 1: and nothing had changed. The numbers hadn't gone up. In fact,
Speaker 1: maybe they had gone down. And you lost your mind
Speaker 1: about that. And another time happened to me in Nacodochius
Speaker 1: or Tyler Texas, Tyler Tyler Texas Electric something. It was
Speaker 1: the we played it twice one with Robert ro'keeine and
Speaker 1: like Josh Abbott, and then once or twice by we
Speaker 1: always played the Electric Cowby. That was yeah, anyway the
Speaker 1: other no way it came and I was in the
Speaker 1: parking lot and I remember just that was one of
Speaker 1: my bigger breakdowns in the music business. I just I
Speaker 1: asked the band, how's it looking, and they're like, well, no,
Speaker 1: no one's in there, and you know, years of work,
Speaker 1: and I just I just remember throwing suitcases outside in
Speaker 1: the parking lot. I was chunking them out of the trailer,
Speaker 1: and I just decided to just take go for a
Speaker 1: walk and just leave. And I thought I had disappeared,
Speaker 1: and you found me at a storage unit lot, hiding
Speaker 1: it in between the storage units, just curled up in
Speaker 1: a little ball, and you somehow, I don't know how
Speaker 1: you tracked me there, but I was literally going to
Speaker 1: sit in that storage unit in the dark and just
Speaker 1: let the time of our set list go until it
Speaker 1: was they closed, and just not show up. I think
Speaker 1: part of me was. Part of it was getting you
Speaker 1: for the show. Part of it was I think I
Speaker 1: said something that I probably regretted. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: about nobody being there and blaming whatever. So's fast forward
Speaker 1: a bit. Was fast forward from there like three years
Speaker 1: to like twenty and twelve thirteen, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden it switched. You went from an outgoing email, outgoing phone.
Speaker 1: We're talking about bad things but those times were fun.
Speaker 1: Great Bandah, we're all road buddies. Yeah. So we went
Speaker 1: from you went from outgoing email outgoing phone call guy
Speaker 1: to incoming email incoming phone call guy over the course
Speaker 1: of from twenty twelve to two two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 1: You know that I wouldn't say incoming. I would just
Speaker 1: say they would respond something fifty percent of time instead
Speaker 1: of zero. So then we left Texas and then you
Speaker 1: started over, started from scratch when we left Texas, and
Speaker 1: then you were booking places that we had never even
Speaker 1: been to. States we hadn't even traveled to, like Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 1: You know, you're calling Portland, Oregon and you're saying, hey, John,
Speaker 1: my name's Tyler Smith. I'm trying to book my band
Speaker 1: there Tractor Tavern in Seattle. Man that he wouldn't do it,
Speaker 1: and I was doing the same thing, and after that
Speaker 1: show we sold it out. Heat send me an email,
Speaker 1: I said, dude, I'm sorry, i I'll eat my words
Speaker 1: or eat crow or whatever. He said. I've never in
Speaker 1: my entire career, I've never been wrong this wrong. Yeah
Speaker 1: about a band. I've always had an idea. But so
Speaker 1: you were calling them, and we're calling these rock clubs,
Speaker 1: because that's the only thing that that's only an average
Speaker 1: size venue we can get into. We'd call a rock
Speaker 1: club in Seattle, Washington, Dante's in Portland, Oregon, and they
Speaker 1: would be like, never heard of you, Like, well, we're
Speaker 1: from Texas and we've never been there, We've never played there.
Speaker 1: They're like, what are your numbers? Well, we've never had
Speaker 1: numbers there, but we sell a lot of T shirts there,
Speaker 1: you know, like we we send T shirts there and
Speaker 1: we feel like if we just if you give us
Speaker 1: a shot, I think people would come. And he's like,
Speaker 1: well didn't They just end up saying, I'll give you
Speaker 1: like a Monday and you can just take the five dollars.
Speaker 1: We'll catch five dollars at the door. You could just
Speaker 1: keep all that, Yeah, to give us their worst night.
Speaker 1: And so it was no risk on their end, and
Speaker 1: it was you know, we were ready to go do
Speaker 1: whatever we could to get people in there. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the there's like five year clumps that we've gone through
Speaker 1: where every five years your role changes evolves, but you're
Speaker 1: learning something from the previous clump of years that you
Speaker 1: apply to the new year. New clump of years that
Speaker 1: has it new challenges. Yeah, never never gotten easier or
Speaker 1: better or worse. It's pick your problems. It's pick your
Speaker 1: problems to not use bigger problems. Like the bigger problems
Speaker 1: the better because because ultimately you know the amount of
Speaker 1: effort that you spend on them in brain power and
Speaker 1: all that stuff is the same. It's just the risk
Speaker 1: and reward is a lot better. Yeah, let's go play
Speaker 1: this arena with this artist or do you want to go?
Speaker 1: You know what we're talking about right now. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: from then on, most of these people watching or listening,
Speaker 1: if you're through your fan or if you follow this podcast,
Speaker 1: most of you know the story from twenty fifteen on
Speaker 1: and the years before that were vague because not many
Speaker 1: people were following us. And so we'll talk a lot
Speaker 1: about that, and I think that'll be a good podcast
Speaker 1: on our transition to major record label world and how
Speaker 1: your role went from basically tour manager, book an agent,
Speaker 1: merch seller to manager, which is very different. You know,
Speaker 1: manager now you don't overlook road merch as much. You
Speaker 1: don't book shows, you just approve them when they come through.
Speaker 1: You don't deal with tour management at all, Like you
Speaker 1: don't care when lunch is for the band, and a
Speaker 1: lot of that has to do with having amazing team
Speaker 1: members and trusting Chris, our tour manager, who I believe
Speaker 1: is the best in the business. And I don't need
Speaker 1: to because he's the best. Braiden, our booking agent. I
Speaker 1: trust everything he brings our way. And so half the
Speaker 1: time I say, dude, he'll ask me, what do you
Speaker 1: want to do? I said, I trust you whatever you think.
Speaker 1: So if there was ever a great team, if there
Speaker 1: was such a true blessing and everything besides fans, it
Speaker 1: would be having a loyal team. Do this doesn't happen
Speaker 1: without a team. You know that our label team, our
Speaker 1: you know, publicity team, our road team, everybody, it's top
Speaker 1: to bottom and it's even a whole new level now
Speaker 1: with this virus. That those guys are all the guys
Speaker 1: you just named, Braden, Chris, the band, that everyone is
Speaker 1: still loyal through these uncertain times. And so that's and
Speaker 1: that's where my first my first job when this hit
Speaker 1: and we stopped touring, was take care of the guys
Speaker 1: that have taken care of us. But all that being said,
Speaker 1: and I want this probably to be another podcast, and
Speaker 1: I want to kind of dive into that. But right now,
Speaker 1: I started this by saying, you're one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting guys that I know. And so let's talk about
Speaker 1: you and outside of music, outside of manager, outside of
Speaker 1: Yegee Apparel, outside of Earl Dibbles, Let's talk about you
Speaker 1: as a person, starting with your desire to strive for
Speaker 1: greatness as a person, which then filters into business. But
Speaker 1: it starts with you as a person. So let's start
Speaker 1: with like your morning routine, where that came from. How
Speaker 1: long you've been doing it, Why you do it? Why
Speaker 1: why it bled into me and Amber and Parker and
Speaker 1: Mom and many other people that have followed your lead. Well,
Speaker 1: I have a very obsessive personality. I think it's all
Speaker 1: or nothing with me. You know, for instance, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to drink one beer. If I'm gonna drink, I'm
Speaker 1: probably just gonna get really drunk. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I'm going through a thing
Speaker 1: right now or haven't drank in you know, ninety days.
Speaker 1: But it started with it started It sounded like that
Speaker 1: sounded like you're an alcoholic of some sort, but you're not.
Speaker 1: You're just proving a point that when you do something
Speaker 1: you do it to the fullest. Whatever that is. It's
Speaker 1: all mental thing with me. It's all mindset to see
Speaker 1: how I can push myself. But it started, honestly with
Speaker 1: It's always been like inside me, but Parker is the
Speaker 1: one that brought it out of me. When I was
Speaker 1: living with him and I would wake up at eight thirty, nine,
Speaker 1: nine thirty whatever it was, look out the window and
Speaker 1: his car would be gone, like damn it, like he's
Speaker 1: already gone, Like he's he won. He like very competitive, right,
Speaker 1: he's winning the day already ahead of me. He's he's
Speaker 1: out there doing something productive and I've been sleeping. And
Speaker 1: so somehow we eventually started talking and he showed me
Speaker 1: a book called The Miracle Morning that started it all
Speaker 1: for me. And so he showed me, like I said,
Speaker 1: let me see your notes, like he was writing his notes,
Speaker 1: like he was having his little time in the morning
Speaker 1: by himself, and then he would leave and I was
Speaker 1: sleeping during that time. And so luckily, man, I just
Speaker 1: I just fell in love with it. And it's it's
Speaker 1: a huge passion of mine and basically, long story short,
Speaker 1: it's it's about waking up in the morning early, not
Speaker 1: hitting your alarm. It's about so many things. I don't
Speaker 1: even know where to start. But it's about controlling your day.
Speaker 1: It's about not reacting. One of the biggest things I
Speaker 1: could tell anybody watching right now, that's super simple. There's
Speaker 1: so many layers of this, but the easiest and one
Speaker 1: of the first things I started doing, was don't sleep
Speaker 1: at your phone by your nightstand. Put it in a
Speaker 1: different room if you can. I put mine. Now I
Speaker 1: put it on just on the other side of the room.
Speaker 1: But so many years I would wake up, even in
Speaker 1: the middle of night. You know, if you kind of
Speaker 1: wake up, you just check your phone. But so many
Speaker 1: of us, probably all of us, wake up and check
Speaker 1: our phone, and immediately we got emails, we got text
Speaker 1: we got miscalls. So you're reacting to the day. You're
Speaker 1: immediately reacting to other people's problems. So the whole premise
Speaker 1: is you have to control your day, and you start
Speaker 1: off by protecting yourself, protecting the asset which I like
Speaker 1: to call it, which is yourself, and put your phone
Speaker 1: away and don't look at it for at least thirty
Speaker 1: minutes after waking up. I don't look at mine typically
Speaker 1: until an hour and a half or two hours after
Speaker 1: I wake up, And what time do you wake up?
Speaker 1: Five seven days a week. Last night, I know because
Speaker 1: we were shooting until midnight. But I get eight hours, man,
Speaker 1: And everybody, everybody says, you know, there's kind of this
Speaker 1: weird stigma in this pride of like I can go
Speaker 1: on four and five hours. But man, I just I
Speaker 1: read and I study and research a lot on this stuff.
Speaker 1: But no means an expert, but I just I know me,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I get my eight out. It's like
Speaker 1: so important to get your sleep. If you don't get
Speaker 1: your sleep, then you know what times you go to bed.
Speaker 1: If I get up at five, I go to I'm
Speaker 1: in bed at eight and I read and then it's
Speaker 1: lights out by nine. But sometimes right there, does anyone
Speaker 1: know anybody that goes spend at eight? That's not a
Speaker 1: little kid? Right there, You're one of the most interesting
Speaker 1: schedule keepers. It's a blessing and a curse. I'm very minute.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I asked you, is like what
Speaker 1: are we talking about? Like I need to know a schedule,
Speaker 1: Like my my day is planned every hour like five
Speaker 1: o'clock till I go to bed. There I have a schedule.
Speaker 1: And I've been struggling honestly lately with if I get
Speaker 1: out of that routine, I struggle in my mind kind
Speaker 1: of starts doing its thing, and so I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get better than that. But anyway, meditation, I do that
Speaker 1: first thing, And how long since you've been getting up?
Speaker 1: How long have you been getting up at five am?
Speaker 1: Going on almost two years? Almost two years? Well, it
Speaker 1: started at like with Parker thing, it started at like,
Speaker 1: if I was getting up at eight thirty, I recommend
Speaker 1: everybody start like fifteen minutes earlier, thirty minutes earlier. So
Speaker 1: it started eight o'clock, seven thirty, and it ended up
Speaker 1: at five. And lately I've been like, man, I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to do four thirty. And you're and it's
Speaker 1: important for everyone to know that you're not like an
Speaker 1: early riser by Nachel, I know you're a sleeper man.
Speaker 1: You're like my whole life, sleep till noon kind of guy.
Speaker 1: So that's what's so different about it. That's that's what
Speaker 1: shows the mental discipline and power is because you're not
Speaker 1: naturally just an early riser. W Yeah, I wanna A
Speaker 1: phrase that I really like is do hard things. Have
Speaker 1: an easy life or do easy things and have a
Speaker 1: hard life. So good. I love doing hard things. So
Speaker 1: like waking up is hard for me. Waking up everybody's guilty.
Speaker 1: You hit the snooze, how many times you hit it?
Speaker 1: And immediately when you're hitting the snooze, you're lying to yourself.
Speaker 1: If you made a promise to yourself, why'd you set
Speaker 1: an alarm if you didn't intend in getting up at
Speaker 1: that time. So when you set an alarm for five,
Speaker 1: like if you snooze, you're starting your day off by
Speaker 1: lying to yourself. And I'm big on keeping the promises
Speaker 1: you make to yourself. And so it's so man, it's
Speaker 1: like Christmas morning. It's so weird the feeling I get
Speaker 1: when my alarm goes off boom, I'm up, Like there's
Speaker 1: no there's nothing in my mind that wants to sleep
Speaker 1: because I've calloused in my mind in a way. And
Speaker 1: immediately start by being grateful and you know, saying thank
Speaker 1: you guy for this day. Like and I have like
Speaker 1: all these affirmations in my shower, So I go meditate.
Speaker 1: I do cold showers every day that I'm obsessed with.
Speaker 1: And it's hard things that like you you psych yourself
Speaker 1: up for but you you have so much info and
Speaker 1: we're running out of time. I'm crazy, We're running out
Speaker 1: of time. So I want to do this again. I
Speaker 1: want to continue this. But yeah, more from Tyler on
Speaker 1: the next podcast. I love you, guys, and you'll hear.
Speaker 1: You'll hear about this interesting dude a lot more. See you, guys,
Speaker 1: See ya,