Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left's podcast, Like
Speaker 1: Yesterday is the King of Music YouTube, Rick beat Rick,
Speaker 1: Hey Bob, how are you okay? Rick? You do a
Speaker 1: lot of analysis in your videos. What makes a hit record? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that depends on on what era you're talking about,
Speaker 1: But you know, typically a melody. I think the melody
Speaker 1: catches people's ears or at least used to catch people's
Speaker 1: ears first, and then uh, if they like the melody,
Speaker 1: then they will listen to the lyrics. So that's uh,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of there's a lot of other
Speaker 1: things that make hit records, and that's kind of my
Speaker 1: what makes this sound great series is about there's a
Speaker 1: lot of background instrumentation, whether it's a piano line, stringline,
Speaker 1: you know, some type of synthpad that has a melodic
Speaker 1: hook in it that grabs people's ears, especially at key
Speaker 1: points emotionally in the lyrics, typically in the chorus. So okay,
Speaker 1: you do certain videos where you'll do like the top
Speaker 1: ten on Spotify or iTunes or boomers listening to modern music.
Speaker 1: So what's your viewpoint on the modern music landscape? Well,
Speaker 1: I yeah, you know, it's a lot different than it
Speaker 1: was thirty years ago. Obviously. I just did a breakdown
Speaker 1: of kiss from a Rose on my channel that I
Speaker 1: put out yesterday or two days ago, seals song, which
Speaker 1: is an incredibly great song and was a number one
Speaker 1: song in UM. And that's where pop music was then
Speaker 1: years ago, and pop music is in a very different
Speaker 1: place right now. Obviously, with the advent of pro tools, logic,
Speaker 1: all the different home recording systems that there are, people
Speaker 1: make records on their own without the aid of professionals typically,
Speaker 1: and what you get is some incredibly creative things and
Speaker 1: some not so creative things. And I think that, uh,
Speaker 1: the lack of experts involved in some ways, uh diminishes
Speaker 1: some of the results. And when I say experts, I
Speaker 1: mean professional producers, professional UM arrangers. The string arrangement and
Speaker 1: Kissed from a Rose is absolutely phenomenal. UM. You used
Speaker 1: to have people like Paul buck Master and Dudley I
Speaker 1: think did the string arrangement for that, you know, people
Speaker 1: that were just geniuses. And Trevor Horne was the producer
Speaker 1: of that record, and you had you had these really
Speaker 1: talented people like Daniel Lenoian and Brian eno and and
Speaker 1: George Martin, just genius producers that could help, whether it's
Speaker 1: with parts, with orchestrations, with arrangements, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times nowadays people work on their own. Artists work on
Speaker 1: their own record things, spend hours and hours using logic
Speaker 1: coming up with their own sounds. Some of them are
Speaker 1: incredibly creative and you could only come up with them
Speaker 1: if you spend hours and hours on your own. But
Speaker 1: the level of sophistication of most popular music. When I
Speaker 1: say popular music, I mean at the top of the charts.
Speaker 1: When I do these countdowns, one thing I noticed is
Speaker 1: that there's very little harmonic sophistication, meaning the chord progressions
Speaker 1: are very basic nowadays. Um. And you also get a
Speaker 1: lot of UM. You don't get the high fidelity like
Speaker 1: you used to have. You know, even in genres like
Speaker 1: metal rock, there's just you know, badly recorded guitars. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. We used to have dedicated mixed engineers to
Speaker 1: mix professional records, Bob Clear, Mountain, people that were pros
Speaker 1: Andy Wallace, and you still have. For for major label records,
Speaker 1: you'll get Serb in Guinea or people like that. But
Speaker 1: a lot of records are mixed by the artists, and
Speaker 1: some of them sound really good. But I think the
Speaker 1: popular music could benefit from having some specialists involved. And
Speaker 1: I don't mean people writing the songs, because there's too
Speaker 1: many professional writers out there writing the songs. They need
Speaker 1: to find kids that can write their own music themselves
Speaker 1: without bringing in a bunch of people my age to
Speaker 1: to write their hooks and and put a you know,
Speaker 1: put put eleven people in a room to write music
Speaker 1: by committee. There's my long answer. Okay, that's good. I
Speaker 1: like long answers. Going back to your channel, So tell
Speaker 1: me about your development of your channel, how it came
Speaker 1: to be. So I was producing bands here in my
Speaker 1: studio for Oh God. I built the studio in two
Speaker 1: thousand five, but I've been producing I had been producing
Speaker 1: bands since the mid nineties or so. And one day
Speaker 1: I had an assistant. He came in. He said, you
Speaker 1: should start to YouTube channel. And I said, who's gonna
Speaker 1: watch a white haired guy on YouTube? He said no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: And I said, what would even be about? He said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you're an expert at all these different things.
Speaker 1: You can talk about music production, music theory, music history, whatever.
Speaker 1: I said. I don't even own a camera. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to edit video. And he's like, I'll bring
Speaker 1: in my camera tomorrow. We'll make your channel trailer. And said,
Speaker 1: what's that? He said, that's the first thing that people
Speaker 1: see when they come to your channel. They only see
Speaker 1: it one time and then they never see it again.
Speaker 1: So he brings in his computer the next day with
Speaker 1: his camera and he films his trailer does b roll
Speaker 1: And I watched him edit it and we put it
Speaker 1: up And that was on June second, two thousand and sixteen,
Speaker 1: so just five years ago. Actually yesterday was the five
Speaker 1: year anniversary of my first video, thank you. So I
Speaker 1: just started with with my iPhone making videos, not even
Speaker 1: replacing the sound, and doing them at night when I
Speaker 1: was producing bands, I would just put up my iPhone
Speaker 1: on a stand and I started making videos with no expertations.
Speaker 1: But if one looks back at your history, you did
Speaker 1: have a viral video prior to this with your son
Speaker 1: in perfect Pitch. How did that come to be? And
Speaker 1: you've made a few videos before that, Why was that
Speaker 1: one viral? And did that give you the idea that
Speaker 1: there was a marketplace? Where did you have to wait
Speaker 1: for the person working with you to bring up the idea?
Speaker 1: So I I have a friend named Shane that was
Speaker 1: over at my studio. I was producing a record of him.
Speaker 1: He's a country artist and I'm a good friend of
Speaker 1: mine and my son Dylan was down here and I
Speaker 1: was playing chords and you know, showing Shane. He says, oh,
Speaker 1: can you make a thing too so I can show
Speaker 1: my wife Angie. And so I said, oh, Dylan, coming downstairs.
Speaker 1: I want to do one of these things, you know,
Speaker 1: things where I'll just play chords for you, just tell
Speaker 1: me what they are. And he's like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do it. And because I was getting ready
Speaker 1: to go to a school board meeting, I was on
Speaker 1: the school board at his school, I said, just come
Speaker 1: down and take two minutes. So we come down record.
Speaker 1: I put it and put it on Facebook, and I said, Shane,
Speaker 1: I put this on Facebook for you. You can show
Speaker 1: Angie and and and then Shane saw it and said
Speaker 1: he ended up actually putting it on his Facebook and
Speaker 1: it got three million views on mine. It got eighteen
Speaker 1: million on his Facebook page. So okay, But you've made
Speaker 1: a couple of videos with Dylan before. What was so
Speaker 1: magical about this one? Um, it was just the complexity
Speaker 1: of the things that he could hear when he I
Speaker 1: realized he had perfect pitch when he was three, and
Speaker 1: he had an incredibly good memory, and so I just
Speaker 1: started teaching a music theory. So I said, Dylan, hey,
Speaker 1: when you hear CEG, that's C major. Okay, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got it, G B flat ds G minor. And I
Speaker 1: just taught him the names of all these chords. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what order they're in, that's what they are,
Speaker 1: says okay and um. And then I taught him about
Speaker 1: modes and all these things. So when I would play
Speaker 1: then I would play two chords at the same time,
Speaker 1: and he could tell what those were. And he just
Speaker 1: can tell anything. Twelve note chords, didn't matter how distant
Speaker 1: it was. He it here, break apart all the chords,
Speaker 1: no matter how distant it is. He just has a
Speaker 1: phenomenal ear. Well, how did you discover that he had
Speaker 1: this year had perfect pitch. Well, I played him this
Speaker 1: really complex music when before he was born, my wife
Speaker 1: I was reading you know with my wife, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: what to expect when you're expecting, and it says, oh,
Speaker 1: the baby can hear it fifteen weeks or whatever. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a playlist, like said what she said
Speaker 1: what I said, Yeah, I'm gonna make a playlist. I
Speaker 1: made a playlist of all this really complex improvisation piano
Speaker 1: music that a friend of mine i'dness and Turkish genius
Speaker 1: improviser did that I recorded back in the eighties. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make music. And I would put it on
Speaker 1: my wafe's stomach every day for about thirty minutes when
Speaker 1: we'd hang out together, and then, um, I did this.
Speaker 1: I would sit with him when when he was born,
Speaker 1: I'd sit with him for about an hour to two
Speaker 1: hours every morning and uh and just listen to music
Speaker 1: and dance around with him. And then that's all I did.
Speaker 1: I never ever played any notes or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And then when he was three and a half, then
Speaker 1: we had our second daughter, Lennon, and my wife's like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this headphone in the stomach thing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, okay, no problem. I didn't think anything
Speaker 1: of it. One day, I'm in the car and I
Speaker 1: had been listening to John Williams soundtrack, so I said, Dylan, hey,
Speaker 1: sing the intro to Star Wars, and he sings it,
Speaker 1: and I go, I think that's in the right key,
Speaker 1: and so I play it. It's like, that's in the
Speaker 1: right key, and so it sings the intro to to
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones. He's like da, and I was like, that's
Speaker 1: in the right key too. I checked that I don't
Speaker 1: have perfect pitch, but I have good, really good pitch memory.
Speaker 1: So I turned the car around. I come back to
Speaker 1: the studio here, and I had to know B flat
Speaker 1: on the piano. So one noticed that Dylan because Star Wars,
Speaker 1: and he goes Star Wars and Star Wars starts on
Speaker 1: a big B flat major chord. Then I had to
Speaker 1: know G and he goes Superman and Superman theme starts
Speaker 1: on the no G. Then I had seen he goes,
Speaker 1: that's the Excavator song. Some tuning, and then I realized
Speaker 1: he had perfect pitch, and I taught him all twelve
Speaker 1: notes right then, and that was it. It took me
Speaker 1: five minutes and and then I was like, can you
Speaker 1: what about two notes at a time. He's like yeah,
Speaker 1: ce E flat G B. You know, I mean, it
Speaker 1: didn't matter. So what's the status? How old is he today?
Speaker 1: He's thirteen, So is he's still interested in music? Is
Speaker 1: he pursuing this or this is just something he has
Speaker 1: the ability to do. This is kind of something he
Speaker 1: has ability do. He plays basketball, he plays video games.
Speaker 1: Is thirteen year old? You know, he's he's He plays
Speaker 1: the oboe in the school band, but he's not um.
Speaker 1: And he likes to listen to music, but he's not
Speaker 1: He doesn't really play an instrument. He's played, played a
Speaker 1: little bit of guitar. He played piano for a few
Speaker 1: years to piano lessons, but got disinterested in that and quit.
Speaker 1: So okay, so even though you had this viral video,
Speaker 1: you had no anticipation, no inkling that it should be
Speaker 1: followed up. You had to have the guy working with
Speaker 1: you in the studio to say he let's do a channel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that the viral video has happened about probably eight
Speaker 1: months before I started my channel, and they were on
Speaker 1: Facebook on YouTube. I had a YouTube channel that I
Speaker 1: based there was show videos to to my family. That'send
Speaker 1: videos of my kids to my family. That's what it was.
Speaker 1: So um um. I had about forty seven subscribers on
Speaker 1: June eighth. And how many subscribers do you have today? Uh?
Speaker 1: I don't know, almost two point four million. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: break this down because everybody's not super sophisticated. What does
Speaker 1: it really mean that someone subscribed to your channel? They
Speaker 1: just hit that red subscribe button and then edit. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it notifies them when I have a new video
Speaker 1: come out or any type of release. And how are
Speaker 1: they notified? Um, well, if they have the bell icon
Speaker 1: there's there's different levels. There's three different levels of of notification.
Speaker 1: But if they have the bell clicked, then they actually
Speaker 1: get a notice on their phone. It's a you know,
Speaker 1: it would be a drop down note notification if you
Speaker 1: have your notifications enabled, that you would get saying I
Speaker 1: have a new video out. Okay, you have three million subscribers,
Speaker 1: but a good number of videos don't reach that quantity
Speaker 1: in view, not that the ones that have two hundred
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand that thought significant. Do you think those
Speaker 1: are all subscribers watching? Do you think that word of mouth?
Speaker 1: Why do you think certain subscribers don't watch certain videos?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. So when I started my channel,
Speaker 1: I started it as a channel for professional musicians, so
Speaker 1: very sophisticated harmony. I did a lot of um film
Speaker 1: scoring breakdown, I'd break down film cues, James Newton, Howard Thomas, Newman,
Speaker 1: John Williams, Bernard Herman. I would take you know, I'd
Speaker 1: take a section. Maybe I'd take the opening of the
Speaker 1: Shawshank Redemption. I'd do a piano reduction of the orchestra,
Speaker 1: and I would talk about it for thirty minutes or whatever.
Speaker 1: So and then or I would do really sophisticated jazz improvisation.
Speaker 1: And what I got were pros that followed my channel,
Speaker 1: professional musicians that you know, wanted an out letter or
Speaker 1: was we're looking for things, and it would suggest YouTube
Speaker 1: would find those people that were interested in those kind
Speaker 1: of things, And I really did. The algorithm of YouTube
Speaker 1: would serve up that video you found. How that that
Speaker 1: was how most people coming to your channel as opposed
Speaker 1: to independent promotion you were doing yourself. Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: no promotion. I've never done any promotion. Everything is based
Speaker 1: on the algorithm of YouTube. So YouTube goes out there
Speaker 1: and collects every person that looks up um, you know
Speaker 1: the mix a Lydian mode, or that looks up Bernard Herman,
Speaker 1: film scoring, or that looks up uh you know top
Speaker 1: ten songs or or or mixing, how do you how
Speaker 1: to mix drums or whatever? Whatever? The videos on it
Speaker 1: goes out and finds those people that are interested, people
Speaker 1: that like Joni Mitchell, We'll find my videos. I did
Speaker 1: a video on the song Amelia, or I did the
Speaker 1: song on Seal, so people that follow Seal. But I've
Speaker 1: also done videos with you know, I've done a hundred
Speaker 1: and five breakdowns of famous songs, So you figure out
Speaker 1: the people that follow all those songs bands from Tool
Speaker 1: to Boston to Steely Dan, to led Zeppelin, to the Beatles,
Speaker 1: to the Rolling Stones too, you know, to Gordon Lightfoot. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's anybody that watches Gordon Lightfoot videos will get
Speaker 1: served up my video on if you could read my mind,
Speaker 1: or people that like Joanie will get served up my
Speaker 1: video on Amelia and then they watched that and then
Speaker 1: they start getting recommended other videos that they think they'll like.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of how you and my channel is
Speaker 1: so varied. The content is so varied that it's picks up.
Speaker 1: It's picked up. You know, let's go back five years ago.
Speaker 1: So it starts out as professional, continue with the evolution,
Speaker 1: so start up professional. UM. So that went for um
Speaker 1: until the so from the summer of un till g
Speaker 1: Annuary tight ofen when I had two hundred thousand subscribers,
Speaker 1: and then I introduced this what Makes This Sound Great series,
Speaker 1: and the first episode I did was on Blink one two,
Speaker 1: and then I followed it up I think with Kid
Speaker 1: Charlemagne by Steely Dan and from that first video, and
Speaker 1: these are breakdowns of multi tracks of famous songs and
Speaker 1: um and that's I started getting a thousand subscribers a
Speaker 1: day then, and then eventually, uh in twenty nineteen and
Speaker 1: I got up to I don't know, five hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: Then I started doing these top twenty videos, Top twenty
Speaker 1: Acoustic Guitar intros of all Time, Top twenty Guitar Solos
Speaker 1: of all Time videos, and these videos got millions and
Speaker 1: millions of views, and then I started getting two thousand
Speaker 1: subscribers a day, and that just just pretty much gone on.
Speaker 1: And uh So there's a certain segment of audience that
Speaker 1: watches videos for that are based on classical music or jazz.
Speaker 1: I made videos on My Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, uh,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Cobb, West Montgomery, all these famous jazz musicians. I
Speaker 1: made videos on famous classical musicians. I did a video
Speaker 1: on Martha Argridge, who's one of the greatest classical pianists
Speaker 1: of all time who just turned eight years old. I
Speaker 1: did that video about a week and a half ago.
Speaker 1: That one's got four and thirty thousand, four and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand views. Um. And so those people aren't necessarily gonna
Speaker 1: watch a video on corn or on h Lincoln Park
Speaker 1: or or system of a down, but they're gonna watch
Speaker 1: videos maybe on um UM. I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: gonna watch videos on. But I have other classical oriented videos.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a very segmented audience. Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to so you start. The big issue that we
Speaker 1: see evidenced online is few people have perseverance. How many
Speaker 1: videos were you making and what was keeping you going?
Speaker 1: I made probably why still make to this day? I
Speaker 1: make twelve videos a month. Um. I shooting at it.
Speaker 1: I have an assistant, but I'm pretty much shooting at
Speaker 1: my own videos. UM myself and UM and I made
Speaker 1: I'm the first year I probably made two and some
Speaker 1: odd videos. Okay, so you start five years ago in June.
Speaker 1: So how do you come up with twelve a month?
Speaker 1: I don't mean how do you come up with how
Speaker 1: do you come up with the number twelve. I just
Speaker 1: started doing about every other day. Okay, And at what
Speaker 1: point did you formalize it's like, well, it's twelve a month. No,
Speaker 1: it was actually fifteen a month back then, because sometimes
Speaker 1: I would make two videos a day. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I was doing, Bob. I would make a video
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, you know, I have this idea,
Speaker 1: and then I'd go and make do a live stream
Speaker 1: after after I put out a video six hours before
Speaker 1: I did a live stream because on some idea that
Speaker 1: I had. Okay, let's let's slow down. So you start
Speaker 1: to make videos. Your engineer second is helping you at first.
Speaker 1: Now when you start to roll up, are you doing
Speaker 1: it all alone? Or is he yes? No, No, he
Speaker 1: didn't help me at all. He never edited any videos.
Speaker 1: So I made the videos and edited them myself right
Speaker 1: from the beginning. Okay. And what kind of equipment? What
Speaker 1: level of equipment were you using the same as I
Speaker 1: have now Final Cut pro and and my iPhone, But
Speaker 1: now I have a nice sony camera, so I I
Speaker 1: used up my iPhone and honestly, Bob, I used the
Speaker 1: sound off my iPhone because I couldn't figure out well
Speaker 1: I finally figured out how to how to drop in
Speaker 1: audio uh into the videos as I got better as
Speaker 1: an editor. Um, I just figured it out. It's very
Speaker 1: much like editing audio because I've edited in pro Tools
Speaker 1: forever doing music production, and uh, it's it's virtually the
Speaker 1: same thing. You just look at the wave forms and
Speaker 1: edit simple. I can edit very quickly. And if you
Speaker 1: were remember how many views did the trailer get and
Speaker 1: did you promote that amongst your community at all? I
Speaker 1: did not promote it at all. My trailer is at
Speaker 1: about a million views now. But then you starting, Oh
Speaker 1: my first forty videos, I didn't have one that was
Speaker 1: over a thousand views? What kept you going? Um? People
Speaker 1: kept writing to me. I got you know, I got
Speaker 1: an email from I would get emails from Dweezels, Appa
Speaker 1: or Steve I or uh, you know, Victor Wootton or
Speaker 1: people like that. I started getting emails from people within
Speaker 1: a couple of months. Um, and then I started, you
Speaker 1: know people, I interviewed people. I interviewed Steve I was
Speaker 1: my first interview, and then I interviewed uh, I forget,
Speaker 1: I forget who I remember interviewed Victor Wootton, I interviewed
Speaker 1: Dennis Chambers, a little a lot of famous musicians, and
Speaker 1: John Petrucci and Jordan Rutis from Dream Theater, and and
Speaker 1: people from all different guitar players, bass players, drummers, um
Speaker 1: and Chris Potter the Great suggest saxophonist. All these people
Speaker 1: were I was doing videos, interview videos, all these kind
Speaker 1: of things. And okay, let's let's look a little bit.
Speaker 1: You say you were getting email. Were they posting on
Speaker 1: YouTube on the channel? Were they literally sending you email?
Speaker 1: And how did they get your email address? Literally sending
Speaker 1: me emails the address because it would be if people
Speaker 1: would ask me questions. I had so few views that
Speaker 1: somebody asked me just email me, and I put my
Speaker 1: email in the in the comments. Okay literally, okay, so
Speaker 1: now you got the naxos, as they say, And yet
Speaker 1: it's the good feeling of these legendary people contacting with you.
Speaker 1: Are the views ascending five years ago? Um? No, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a viral video on YouTube for two
Speaker 1: years or so. But I mean as I started getting
Speaker 1: within within four months or so, I had maybe forty subscribers,
Speaker 1: and then the views would start to you know, there
Speaker 1: my big My first big video was Um, a video
Speaker 1: called the double Harmonic major scale. Now I don't know why, Bob,
Speaker 1: but it got like eight hundred thousand views or something.
Speaker 1: It was a completely weird video that had a weird
Speaker 1: I would make videos on scales, and it had a
Speaker 1: weird composition that I did at the end, very distant.
Speaker 1: It sounded a tonal but used only the seven notes
Speaker 1: of the scale. And that was my first big video.
Speaker 1: And I have no idea why it became a big video,
Speaker 1: but um, but that you know, those are the kind
Speaker 1: of things that that I was doing, and and the
Speaker 1: videos would just start, you know, then every video would
Speaker 1: have a thousand views, and then you'd have some videos
Speaker 1: to pop up to ten thousand, somebody get fifty thousand,
Speaker 1: and occasionally get a hundred thousand, and then they just
Speaker 1: started all rising and rising. Were you a student of
Speaker 1: the game looking at YouTube competitors if you found any
Speaker 1: or what was going on? What were you just working
Speaker 1: in the dark. Um. There's a guy that reached out
Speaker 1: to me after when I had about four thousand videos.
Speaker 1: He had a channel called Piano around the World and
Speaker 1: he had he had forty seven thousand subscribers, and I thought,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that that I can't even believe. How
Speaker 1: did could you get ever get forty seven thousand subscribers.
Speaker 1: He had a few videos that had millions of views,
Speaker 1: and I remember saying to him, his name is Doton,
Speaker 1: I said, I said, Doton, what if I can ask
Speaker 1: you how much does a video pay that gets a
Speaker 1: million views? He goes about bucks. I said, that's it.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, he goes, you don't make any money
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and um, and I was thinking, well, I'll
Speaker 1: never get a million views on a video anyway, said
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. But I was just doing it for fun,
Speaker 1: and the videos I would make it would take me. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I never had to really look up anything, Bob.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was a college professor in my twenties,
Speaker 1: so I taught music. I taught arranging, improvisation, composition, all
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff you raining, so I could make
Speaker 1: the videos just on the fly. I never ever script.
Speaker 1: I just go off the top of my head. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how long would it take you to make a
Speaker 1: video back then? Mm hmm maybe hour and a half
Speaker 1: at the most, something like. Okay, so was it impacting
Speaker 1: your other business to make these videos? Okay, how did
Speaker 1: you decide on the length. Everybody told me make short videos,
Speaker 1: and I said I couldn't make short videos. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I can't explain the things I need to explain in
Speaker 1: ten minutes. So I made long videos. I made eighteen
Speaker 1: minute videos, twenty five minute videos. What I didn't realize
Speaker 1: was that YouTube actually is based on watch time, what
Speaker 1: they look for. That's that's a big thing that you
Speaker 1: come to figure out that. Um, if somebody watches fifty
Speaker 1: of one of your videos, um, and it's eighteen minutes long,
Speaker 1: they're watching nine minutes. Nine minutes is a very long
Speaker 1: time for somebody to be engaged in YouTube, and you
Speaker 1: tubes things about retaining people's attention and hopefully they will
Speaker 1: binge watch your channel or go from your channel to
Speaker 1: other channels and um, and just stay in YouTube so
Speaker 1: they can sell advertising. I mean, I think that's what
Speaker 1: the model is. So unbeknownst to me, making those long videos,
Speaker 1: against what people told me to do, it was actually
Speaker 1: really beneficial because your video rankings are based on views
Speaker 1: and watch times. So if you have a twenty five
Speaker 1: minute video that has four thousand views, when you look up,
Speaker 1: you know, um, I did a video on compression. What
Speaker 1: what what what the pros know about compression or something
Speaker 1: like that that's got a million and a half views. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a forty five minute video on compression, and it's
Speaker 1: a whiteboard presentation with then with examples and pro tools
Speaker 1: and demonstrating different compressors, how they work, optical compressors, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and all all different types of compressors and
Speaker 1: and what they sound like and um. And since that
Speaker 1: has is so long, the video length has so much
Speaker 1: watch time and so many views, it ranks up there
Speaker 1: when people look up compression on YouTube, that's like the
Speaker 1: top video. Can you tell us more about the rankings? Yeah, tips,
Speaker 1: So that's really how it's done. It's done through um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a there would be some keyword or
Speaker 1: something that um that is in the title. Your title
Speaker 1: should reflect you know, if if my video is about
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell, it's gonna say Joni Mitchell and the title.
Speaker 1: And if the video has got half a million views, um,
Speaker 1: it's going to get a high search ranking and and
Speaker 1: um um. And that that's pretty much it with YouTube
Speaker 1: is about video views and video retention. Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: making these videos, it's essentially eighteen months before where you
Speaker 1: have your first vinerl video from moment one, are you
Speaker 1: signed up trying to monetize? Back then, UM, you could
Speaker 1: monetize your videos immediately. You didn't need to have Nowadays
Speaker 1: you have to have UM four thousand watch hours in
Speaker 1: a thirty day period to be monetized. So basically, UM
Speaker 1: that that's about a thousand subscribers. Because my friends that
Speaker 1: have started YouTube channels, they don't get monetized till they
Speaker 1: have about a thousand subscribers. But back then, in you
Speaker 1: can monetize your channel immediately, so UM. But I found
Speaker 1: out very quickly that if you play any music that
Speaker 1: is UM has a content I declaim on it, you
Speaker 1: don't get any monetization on the video. So I never
Speaker 1: really made my channel about making money from views or
Speaker 1: anything like that. That was not really the UM. Right
Speaker 1: from the beginning, I decided, well, I'm gonna make videos
Speaker 1: about the things I want to make them about, because
Speaker 1: most of my other YouTube friends would just leave music
Speaker 1: out of their videos because they didn't want to get demonetized.
Speaker 1: It's like, what's the point of making videos on music
Speaker 1: if you can't play music? It makes no sense, Like
Speaker 1: I want to make videos on the things I want
Speaker 1: to make videos on. So if I have to play
Speaker 1: the song, I want to play the song, even if
Speaker 1: it gets demonetized. I don't care. Okay, So you have
Speaker 1: you have the breakthrough in January of Prior to then,
Speaker 1: we would say your viewers were essentially professionals or serious hobbyists. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: And once again, the breakthrough video was entitled what um
Speaker 1: The breakthrough video is called the UM. Well, actually it
Speaker 1: was called the Darkest Scale ever and was the but
Speaker 1: it says on the thumbnail the double harmonic made double
Speaker 1: harmonic major scale. Okay, so the breakthrough video was a
Speaker 1: technical video. Yes, and that video got how many views?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's I think it's now. It's probably
Speaker 1: got nine hundred thousand, but it got it probably got
Speaker 1: about six hundred thousand, seven hundred views. Okay. Is that
Speaker 1: the video we're talking about? When does that? When does
Speaker 1: that video occur in your career? That's probably in seventeen
Speaker 1: or so, in late something like that. Okay, So you
Speaker 1: get four hundred thousand views? What goes through your head?
Speaker 1: I thought, why this video, of all the videos I've made,
Speaker 1: this is the weirdest video and then like why this one,
Speaker 1: you know, so that's kind of I had no idea why.
Speaker 1: It was just okay, well, if you have that big success,
Speaker 1: like any musical star, then you have the issue following
Speaker 1: it up. It's like, but I had made many videos.
Speaker 1: I made videos on every mode of the major scale,
Speaker 1: Ione and Dorian, Frygie and Lydian mixed Lady Naoli and Locre,
Speaker 1: and then I made modes in the melodic minor scale,
Speaker 1: harmonic minor scale. This is just one of those videos
Speaker 1: in a series of many videos. Okay, so that one
Speaker 1: gets four thousand views, the ones that the wit how
Speaker 1: many views to those get? Well, then those kind of
Speaker 1: drop back down. But but the weird thing was bob
Speaker 1: that my um. You know. So then by that time
Speaker 1: that I had that video, I probably had a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand subscribers. So then the videos are getting
Speaker 1: you know, thirty apiece that would consistently do that. UM.
Speaker 1: A good rule of thumb on YouTube is your most
Speaker 1: YouTube channels that are successful, we'll get ten percent of
Speaker 1: the number of subscribe number of subscribers to the views. Um,
Speaker 1: your average video should be ten percent of the number
Speaker 1: of subscribers. You have, So if you have a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand subscribers, you should be getting ten thousand views per video.
Speaker 1: And that's a good performing video. Anything above ten percent
Speaker 1: is really good. Okay. January of eighteen, you have the
Speaker 1: breakthrough a general audience video and that video once again
Speaker 1: is um that was my first what makes this sound great?
Speaker 1: Which was on all the small things? But link two?
Speaker 1: Okay at that time, how many views were your videos
Speaker 1: getting prior to that? Probably about um, I'd say probably
Speaker 1: fifty thousand on average something like that. Well, what's the
Speaker 1: lifespan of one of these things? To what? What percentage
Speaker 1: comes up and what? And then the so called long
Speaker 1: tail most of them are not do not have a
Speaker 1: long lifespan? Now I have, UM, I have videos like
Speaker 1: my you know, Top twenty Acoustic Guitar intros of all Time,
Speaker 1: which get you know, thirty thousand views a day still,
Speaker 1: and I made it in the summer of It's got
Speaker 1: thirteen million views. Um My Top twenty Guitar Solos of
Speaker 1: all Time gets thirty thousand views a day still. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's go let's go back to a blink two.
Speaker 1: Had you done a video about one spece scific track?
Speaker 1: By a it's gonna be by a famous act prior
Speaker 1: to them. No, as a matter of fact, I didn't
Speaker 1: almost I did nothing on any popular music at all.
Speaker 1: It was all classical music, jazz music theory, ear training,
Speaker 1: things like that. I've done nothing related to music production,
Speaker 1: which I had done for my living for the past
Speaker 1: twenty years, other than make these videos on compression and
Speaker 1: things like that, which did not do well when they
Speaker 1: first came out. I made videos on drum tuning. Some
Speaker 1: of those were the biggest videos I had at the time.
Speaker 1: Just when I would get ready to set up for
Speaker 1: a session, I'd say to my system, oh, just film
Speaker 1: me while I tuned the drums. I'll just I'll make
Speaker 1: a drum tuning video while I'm doing this because I
Speaker 1: had to change the heads anyways. So I would make
Speaker 1: videos like that and put them up. Okay, so why
Speaker 1: did you decide to do the blink one Hitt tube video?
Speaker 1: So I actually have a second YouTube channel that I
Speaker 1: never tell anyone about. It's called Rick Bato too, that
Speaker 1: I still have to this day, and and back then
Speaker 1: I told people that followed my channel. I started the
Speaker 1: second channel, and I would use it to ust out ideas.
Speaker 1: So the night before I have multi tracks, two thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of songs, and I would to that group
Speaker 1: of people, a couple hundred people. I played the multi
Speaker 1: tracks to a bunch of songs, including the Blink one
Speaker 1: eight two, and said, check out this one keyboard part
Speaker 1: in the chorus, This dissonant note the flat nine that
Speaker 1: goes against the second chord in the chorus. I said,
Speaker 1: that is the hook right there. That keyboard part makes
Speaker 1: people want to come back and listen to the song
Speaker 1: over and over. Yet it's hidden in there. You can't
Speaker 1: even hear it. So the same guy, Rhett who convinced
Speaker 1: me to start my channel, he was watching on that.
Speaker 1: Now he actually has a YouTube channel with about four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand subscribers himself. Now he's said to me, you
Speaker 1: should make a We had lunch next day. He said, oh,
Speaker 1: that last night was amazing when you were playing the
Speaker 1: multi tracks. You should make a series about that. I said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? He goes, yeah, this is that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: You should make a series playing multi tracks and explaining him,
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I guess, said well, I could call it.
Speaker 1: What makes this sound great? He said, oh, it's a
Speaker 1: great title. So the next day AI or so, right
Speaker 1: after we had launch, I made the first video. Okay,
Speaker 1: A couple of questions, what is the content of retz channel?
Speaker 1: He makes a lot of guitar videos. Um, he's um,
Speaker 1: he makes videos on on he's a he plays with
Speaker 1: different groups, so he makes videos like as a session
Speaker 1: guitar player, the whole demo, guitars pedals, he's he makes
Speaker 1: really interesting videos and M and we talked every day.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that there's any competition there? And then
Speaker 1: in addition, okay, is you feel there's any competition online
Speaker 1: with you? Obviously no one is big, but now that
Speaker 1: you're having the success or other people trying to imitate you?
Speaker 1: You know, the entire music YouTube community that makes these
Speaker 1: kind of videos like like I do. We all are
Speaker 1: really good friends and we all talk all the time.
Speaker 1: How many people lose that? Oh my god, there's probably
Speaker 1: about I don't know, probably twenty five of us are
Speaker 1: so all different instruments. You're the most successful. How about
Speaker 1: the other people? How is there anybody in your league
Speaker 1: so to speak in terms of number, not quality of
Speaker 1: co Yeah? Yeah, yeah, so um, there's um, my dear
Speaker 1: friend Marty Schwartz, who has been on YouTube since Marty
Speaker 1: started his first channel in two thousand eight. He has
Speaker 1: a channel with two point eight million subscribers. He teaches
Speaker 1: a lot of guitar. He teaches a guitar. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of beginning guitar lessons and things like that. And
Speaker 1: he'll teach all contemporary songs, famous songs he puts out.
Speaker 1: Oh man, he probably has videos on his channel. He's
Speaker 1: been been um, but he's been on YouTube for years. Um.
Speaker 1: There's one of my dear friends, Paul David's who's got
Speaker 1: over two million subscribers, who does guitar videos. He's based
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands. Adam Neely has over a million subscribers.
Speaker 1: Adams a dear friend of mine. We talk all the time.
Speaker 1: He's got a million and half subscribers as a channel.
Speaker 1: Music is when he's got a million and half subscribers.
Speaker 1: And we're all good friends and we all talk all
Speaker 1: the time. So you don't feel any competition. You don't
Speaker 1: feel anybody honing it on your space. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: not at all. We all help each other. It's great. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the blink one video. So how
Speaker 1: did you have all these multi tracks already, asked me that.
Speaker 1: So UM. Back in the early two thousand's, I went
Speaker 1: to a to a session. I won't say where it was,
Speaker 1: but it was in a different state. It was actually
Speaker 1: in Texas. UH major label called me up to rescue
Speaker 1: a record that some other producer was working on that
Speaker 1: I had written three songs on and they were going
Speaker 1: to use my versions for the record, and they told
Speaker 1: him to work on the rest of the songs. They
Speaker 1: were just gonna use my tracks. But what he did
Speaker 1: was he cut the drums to all the songs, including
Speaker 1: my three songs. But he spent the entire budget trying
Speaker 1: to trying to compete with my tracks and he's and
Speaker 1: he never finished any of the songs. So the label said,
Speaker 1: please go down and finish your three songs. We fired him.
Speaker 1: Can you go do this? So I said, okay. So
Speaker 1: I went down and I sat there and took my
Speaker 1: tracks with me. I used the drums that this guy
Speaker 1: had recorded, I imported them and put him in with
Speaker 1: my my versions of the songs I had done and UM,
Speaker 1: and there was an assistant engineer there that had all
Speaker 1: these multi that was playing Nirvana UM two Smells like
Speaker 1: teen spirit And I said, what is that? He says,
Speaker 1: the multi track the smells like teen Spirits. So where
Speaker 1: did you get that? That's amazing? He goes, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you. And I said um. And I was like,
Speaker 1: come on, yeh, I have to have this. And he said,
Speaker 1: I said, do you have more of these? He goes, oh,
Speaker 1: I have thousands of these? And I said I had
Speaker 1: a kick drum sample and a snare sample, just two
Speaker 1: samples that no one has from a famous mix engineer.
Speaker 1: And he said, um, I will give you all these
Speaker 1: multi tracks for um for these two samples is that
Speaker 1: we can't um? So I gave him to him, um,
Speaker 1: And he gave me these these things. But they sat
Speaker 1: on a hard drive for years and years and years.
Speaker 1: I never even listened to him. I listened to Vana
Speaker 1: and then until that night that I played him the
Speaker 1: day before Blank two, I was just going through drives
Speaker 1: as I'm talking on the second channel, and I would
Speaker 1: had this hard drive up where I found these multitors'
Speaker 1: check this out, check that. Oh my god, has this
Speaker 1: song too? Oh has this song? Okay? Now what do
Speaker 1: you do for multi tracks on songs made subsequent to
Speaker 1: that hard drive? Transaction. Um. A lot of the songs
Speaker 1: I use in there, I'll get from the artists. For example,
Speaker 1: my Seal video. I got the tracks for kissomer Rose
Speaker 1: from Seal A little bit. So Seal and I are friend,
Speaker 1: and I was. UM. I was talking to him on
Speaker 1: the phone last week and I said, Seal, do you
Speaker 1: have the tracks to Kiss from a Rose? He just no,
Speaker 1: but I can get them from Trevor. I said, I
Speaker 1: want to do what makes this sound great about it?
Speaker 1: He's like, I'll call Trever and see if I can
Speaker 1: get him. I'm sure he has him. So he calls
Speaker 1: me the next day He's like, I got him. I
Speaker 1: just emailed him to you. I said, okay, will you
Speaker 1: be in the video? Said of course. Okay. Have you
Speaker 1: done anything where you didn't have a personal relationship? We say, hmm,
Speaker 1: I want to do something on this. Let me think
Speaker 1: of how to contact that act um Um. Most of
Speaker 1: the times when I've contacted people, they've they've been pretty
Speaker 1: much anytime I contact people, they will they will give
Speaker 1: me what if they have them, they'll give them to me. Well,
Speaker 1: to what degree do you do that reach out as
Speaker 1: opposed to having a prior relationship? Um, whenever there's a
Speaker 1: song that I want to do, I reach out to
Speaker 1: the artist or reach out to the manager or whatever,
Speaker 1: or if I don't have the songs, and they'll they'll
Speaker 1: typically send him to me. And at this point when
Speaker 1: you reach out to most people know you. Were they
Speaker 1: aware of you? Oh yeah, okay, let's go back to
Speaker 1: the blink one video. So you release it. How many videos?
Speaker 1: How many views does it get? Then? Probably? Um, that
Speaker 1: one probably got a hundred thousand okay, pretty quickly, within
Speaker 1: within three or four days. Okay, So how does that change?
Speaker 1: You're thinking? Well, I did about five of these in
Speaker 1: a row, um, because it was fun. People really like that.
Speaker 1: I said, oh this is fun. So I did that.
Speaker 1: Then I did every little thing she does his Magic.
Speaker 1: Then I did Kids Charlemagne. Then I did um. I
Speaker 1: can't remember what I did after that, but I did
Speaker 1: three really varied ones and um, you know, people, where
Speaker 1: did you get these things? You know? And and the
Speaker 1: Kids Charlemagne? So I would I would break down the
Speaker 1: track I did. Rosanna was one of the ones. Um,
Speaker 1: I think a whole Lot of Love, which got taken
Speaker 1: down by led Zeppelin then got put back up. Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta know why I got put back up. I
Speaker 1: have no idea I did. I did ramblan, he got
Speaker 1: taken down, he got immediately put back up. Well that
Speaker 1: one I I did a I did a video a
Speaker 1: rand But let's let's stop. That's all another topic. So
Speaker 1: you're making you're making these multiple songs, you do like
Speaker 1: five in a row. Then what um? And then I
Speaker 1: kept making my other weird videos. Um and but I
Speaker 1: would branch out. I mean I I would make a
Speaker 1: video of the sound of two martial stacks together or
Speaker 1: um uh what I mean? I made so many videos.
Speaker 1: I did a video, you know, six months ago that
Speaker 1: was I took the solo section to Stairway to Heaven,
Speaker 1: and I did a I had my friend phil X
Speaker 1: and Eric Johnson, famous guitar player play solos. But I
Speaker 1: imitated what I thought Peter Frampton would have played. Phile
Speaker 1: X did a solo what he what Eddie van Halen
Speaker 1: would have played. It actually came out the day before
Speaker 1: Eddie passed away. And then Eric Johnson. I called Eric
Speaker 1: up and I said, Eric, you, I want you to
Speaker 1: play in this. You're interested in playing in a video.
Speaker 1: It's a remake of Stairwoid to Heaven. I remade the
Speaker 1: solo section, but I want you to play what you
Speaker 1: would play on Sterwoid to Heaven. He goes, You mean,
Speaker 1: like what solo I would play? Said, yeah, pretend like
Speaker 1: your sixteen Stairway to heavens out and you're playing over it.
Speaker 1: You're but you're you, but you have to video. He's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: and so that video has done incredibly well and he's
Speaker 1: gonna do a million and a half views. But that's
Speaker 1: I do these kind of interesting what if videos like that, Okay,
Speaker 1: But my real question is when you do these more
Speaker 1: mainstream videos and they have a spike in viewership, do
Speaker 1: you then say, m I should do this because it
Speaker 1: will enlarge my audience. Um. I do things because they're
Speaker 1: fun to do. That's that's the Let's go back, because
Speaker 1: scal it's four years later or whatever, three and a
Speaker 1: half years later, and you're not You're not as successful
Speaker 1: then as you are now. Okay, and now you've reached
Speaker 1: a certain level on some level, you know you have
Speaker 1: a great freedom as a result of your success. But
Speaker 1: before then, what's going through your brain? Um? Well, since
Speaker 1: I'm making so many videos, Bob I'm doing. I'm just
Speaker 1: going from topic to topic whatever I think of during
Speaker 1: the day, because I have no videos saved up ever.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was gonna put out a video today,
Speaker 1: but I have four different topics and I couldn't decide
Speaker 1: what to do, so I didn't do anything. Okay, when
Speaker 1: do you come up with your top twenties or top tens? Okay,
Speaker 1: so my countdown videos, as I call those, I started
Speaker 1: doing UM in the summer of twenty nineteen. I had
Speaker 1: a friend of mine. UM, my friend, Marty Schwartz, had
Speaker 1: told me that six months before. He's like, Rick, why
Speaker 1: aren't you doing four K videos? I said, what do
Speaker 1: you mean? I said, I do. I'm doing ten a
Speaker 1: DP because well, YouTube can you can make four K videos?
Speaker 1: And I think that they they actually want you to
Speaker 1: make four K videos, like they'll actually push your videos harder.
Speaker 1: I said, really, I said, well, I don't even have
Speaker 1: a camera that can make four K, and so, um,
Speaker 1: six months later I got a camera that did four K,
Speaker 1: and so my first four K video was my Top
Speaker 1: twenty acoustic intros and that's my biggest video ever. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's random or what, but that's
Speaker 1: like YouTube, Hey, make more like this, you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: how many views does that have today? That's thirteen million? Okay,
Speaker 1: So on a video like that, because you're using other songs,
Speaker 1: you don't make a dime, correct, Okay, well that video,
Speaker 1: that video, I make a little bit of money because,
Speaker 1: um because not every song because I'm covering the songs,
Speaker 1: so not every song is is uh not everything is demonetized,
Speaker 1: but pretty much all the rest of my top twenty
Speaker 1: videos are demonetized. Mean I don't make anything on any
Speaker 1: of them. What is your most successful video financially? Um
Speaker 1: m hmm, I'm not sure. Well how much money was
Speaker 1: the most you ever made from a video? One video? Um? Probably,
Speaker 1: I don't know, eight thousand bucks something like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if you watch your channel, that's over the course
Speaker 1: of years. Though you know, I understand that you watch
Speaker 1: your channel. You say, Hey, this is really about not
Speaker 1: about money making the videos, but if you want to
Speaker 1: support me by by my books. When you started, have
Speaker 1: you written books only created and created merch subsequent to
Speaker 1: the channel? No, so my book I only have one book.
Speaker 1: I only really sell two things. I have a book
Speaker 1: that I wrote when I was a college professor called
Speaker 1: the Beatto Book back in it was a music theory
Speaker 1: and improvisation textbook and it's five pages long. And um,
Speaker 1: I used to use that with my students for years
Speaker 1: when I was a college professor. So I that's what
Speaker 1: I sold. Starting at the beginning of my channel to
Speaker 1: go along with the videos, I have these advanced theory
Speaker 1: videos and for people that want to learn more about
Speaker 1: these topics, you can only cover so much in uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in a minute video. Um, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff you have to actually, you know, it's helpful
Speaker 1: to have a book to to follow along with. So
Speaker 1: I sell my book and then I have an ear
Speaker 1: training course that I developed since I started my channel.
Speaker 1: And I said, how many copies have you sold of
Speaker 1: these items? Um, I'm not sure how many copies I sold.
Speaker 1: When I first started selling them, I um, um, people
Speaker 1: would just email me and I would just send him.
Speaker 1: I didn't even have an automate automated not for I
Speaker 1: didn't even have a store bob for um. Probably a
Speaker 1: year into my channel. As a matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: at rick Byatto dot com, which is where my story is.
Speaker 1: I hadn't even logged into in four years. So um,
Speaker 1: I got an an intern I got a guy, Aaron
Speaker 1: who's um uh was did an internship from Berkeley. He
Speaker 1: called me up he wanted to come down to his
Speaker 1: internship here. He's a recording engineer major. And he came down.
Speaker 1: The first stass, you don't even have a website. And
Speaker 1: this is like I had at the time, seventy five
Speaker 1: thousand subscribers on my channel. I said, I said, what
Speaker 1: do you mean? He says, you rick Byatta dot com.
Speaker 1: When's the last time you went there? I said, oh,
Speaker 1: probably four years ago. He goes, yeah, it looks like
Speaker 1: it's hasn't been updated in years. I said, okay. He goes,
Speaker 1: you you probably get thousands of people there every day.
Speaker 1: I said, what said I get? You're getting you know,
Speaker 1: videos with a hundred thousand views. People are going to
Speaker 1: ricky otto dot com. Well, how are you selling your book?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, people just email me and I
Speaker 1: they bay me on PayPal and I send it to him.
Speaker 1: So he built my store and remade my my um
Speaker 1: my website, my rick Byatta dot com and um so
Speaker 1: I sell so as far as how many books I've sold,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many books I've sold Um, Aaron
Speaker 1: actually still works with me and he handles all the
Speaker 1: stuff through my store. And um, he actually did all
Speaker 1: the created my the your training course we did together. Okay,
Speaker 1: let me ask you this. When you have a video
Speaker 1: and you say go to my store and by the book,
Speaker 1: how many books do you sell now off video? I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that I could. Um. Um, it really all depends.
Speaker 1: It's uh. Um, I can't most of the stuff that
Speaker 1: I sell or from my live streams when I do sales,
Speaker 1: so um, I don't really keep track of what of
Speaker 1: how many books I sell or anything like that. I
Speaker 1: I make enough money to keep making videos and um
Speaker 1: uh and and do this full time. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I have one assistant, so I have enough to pay
Speaker 1: my assistant and and uh and keep doing this at
Speaker 1: least until I I can't do it anymore. Okay, a
Speaker 1: couple of questions. One, Okay, if you watch the videos,
Speaker 1: it really talks about selling the book. So the income
Speaker 1: from the books is it's significant or insignificant? Um? I
Speaker 1: make enough, like I said, to support my family. My
Speaker 1: my wife works a full time job. I make enough,
Speaker 1: to you know, to keep the change the channel in
Speaker 1: the p number the merch. Okay, that is your main
Speaker 1: income at this point, and that's support your family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: A couple of couple of questions. There's some other merch
Speaker 1: on your site, coffee cups, etcetera. Is that a significant
Speaker 1: businesses that sell? Not? Not really? Okay? Now, prior to
Speaker 1: doing the YouTube channel, what was filling your days? Um?
Speaker 1: Producing artists? That's all I did for you know, full time? Okay,
Speaker 1: do you do that? Do you do that now? No?
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't How long ago did you give
Speaker 1: that up? Like about a year into my channel, I
Speaker 1: just couldn't. I couldn't make the videos and keep doing
Speaker 1: it. It It was just too much. I was on the
Speaker 1: school board at my kids school. I was um, it
Speaker 1: was just uh um, it was just too difficult to do.
Speaker 1: And frankly, I you know, there were there were no
Speaker 1: budgets for anything anymore. Nobody got record deals and um
Speaker 1: and um, and I just got to the point where, um,
Speaker 1: I just had been, honestly, Bob sick of producing. You know,
Speaker 1: you can only make so many records of other people.
Speaker 1: I believe me, I understand. Uh. If you're making twelve
Speaker 1: videos a month now, yeah, how much time does it
Speaker 1: take to make those twelve videos. It depends, like what
Speaker 1: makes the sound great. Videos take a long time. They
Speaker 1: usually take about twelve hours to make altogether. The more
Speaker 1: complex the song, the longer it takes. Some songs are
Speaker 1: very easy. Kid Charlemagne was not an easy one because
Speaker 1: I notated that Bernard Purty strump part. I notated the
Speaker 1: baseline I played Larry Carlton's guitar solo. I uh, I
Speaker 1: notated the keyboard part. I forget who plays keyboard keyboards
Speaker 1: on it? Um. And so those videos take longer because
Speaker 1: the transcription takes time to do and you have to
Speaker 1: include it in the video. UM. Some of them are
Speaker 1: very easy. Blink one eight two is very easy because
Speaker 1: it's only four chords or three chords. Okay, is it
Speaker 1: harder when it's a song you're unfamiliar with, because there
Speaker 1: are certainly videos where you watch you to listen to
Speaker 1: the song and you start to play. Or is this
Speaker 1: stuff you're so experienced you can just do it on
Speaker 1: the fly. I can pretty much do it on the fly. Okay,
Speaker 1: When do you decide to do a live video? And
Speaker 1: why I do a live video once a week because
Speaker 1: I've always done it because it's the only place, uh,
Speaker 1: YouTube is the only um or when you live stream,
Speaker 1: it's the only way you can actually communicate with people
Speaker 1: that watch your channel. And it's really if you think
Speaker 1: about it, it's like it's like TV that's interactive and
Speaker 1: there's nothing else like that. You can't talk to somebody
Speaker 1: on a talk show at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: if if you're watching whoever it is you're watching, you
Speaker 1: can't ask a question and have it answered right there.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of YouTube. I mean, YouTube is a
Speaker 1: place where people go to learn stuff and there's a
Speaker 1: there's an incredible community out there um that UM that
Speaker 1: people that follow my channel, people to follow other channels,
Speaker 1: and people that are just enthusiastic about music in general
Speaker 1: and follow a bunch of music channels. Okay, so when
Speaker 1: you have a live stream, if you watch it on
Speaker 1: YouTube occasually, you know it's going real fast. So if
Speaker 1: it's in real time, how you know, how do you
Speaker 1: discern you know what you should address? Well, you do, UM.
Speaker 1: You put it in slow mode, which means that people
Speaker 1: can only ask a question every thirty seconds or so
Speaker 1: any one person, but it still goes really fast. I
Speaker 1: mean I've had live streams with twenty people on it,
Speaker 1: but um uh and those, it's it's just about impossible.
Speaker 1: You know, people do super chat even but those even
Speaker 1: you know where where will be highlighted. Those moves so
Speaker 1: fast it's hard to even see those. So my assistant
Speaker 1: Billy will usually be sitting about ten feet away and
Speaker 1: he'll be of hole come up with questions that he
Speaker 1: sees as it's going along. Okay, let's go into the
Speaker 1: whole issue of demonetizing, etcetera. Because you've made whole videos
Speaker 1: on that topic, so expand on that. So the right
Speaker 1: um early on, I did a video very early on
Speaker 1: where the sound was removed from it, and I was like,
Speaker 1: what what is this? And it was a story that's
Speaker 1: told about a famous saxophonist, Michael Brecker, who passed away
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, And I was talking about a
Speaker 1: record that's one of my favorite records. It's a Klaus
Speaker 1: Ogreman record. Claus Ogerman was a famous jazz arranger. He
Speaker 1: passed away about three years ago, was eighty six. They
Speaker 1: did a record called um Uh City Escape that came
Speaker 1: out three I believe, and the first I told the
Speaker 1: story of meeting Michael Brecker at Avatar in New York
Speaker 1: City in two thousand nine. I did this whole send
Speaker 1: up and then I played the first two minutes of
Speaker 1: this piece title track, which is one of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful things I've ever heard. It's just saxophone and string orchestra.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely beautiful. I put out the video and people
Speaker 1: I started reading the comments. What happened to the sounds?
Speaker 1: So I go to the video, I watch it and
Speaker 1: there's no sound. It's just me sitting there listening to it.
Speaker 1: No sound. That's like, what's going on? I checked my email.
Speaker 1: The sound has been blocked. It's like, what is that?
Speaker 1: It detected this this thing? And then I then um
Speaker 1: and I got a content I declaim also. So it
Speaker 1: was back then they didn't take the videos down. They
Speaker 1: would just mute the audio, and so I became started
Speaker 1: to become aware of things like that, and then I
Speaker 1: started getting content. I d alims. If I'd play just
Speaker 1: a snippet of something, um, I would get a content
Speaker 1: I declaim and I looked it up and it says
Speaker 1: that they take the money from the video. It says
Speaker 1: ineligible for monetization. So um, so then I had to
Speaker 1: make a decision whether I was gonna make videos that
Speaker 1: I wanted to make or videos that we're going to
Speaker 1: make money for the channel, And I said, I want
Speaker 1: to make videos that I want to make, because there's
Speaker 1: no point in doing this if you're not going to
Speaker 1: do that. You can't teach people about music by playing
Speaker 1: your own examples. People learn from listening to the masters
Speaker 1: to whoever it is. You know, if it's led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: or if it's uh Bach, whoever it is, Beethoven, you
Speaker 1: know that, and and anything that you play. Now, now
Speaker 1: a lot of people tell me I should claim fair
Speaker 1: use for these things. I mean, I get demonetized for
Speaker 1: I did this video about this pianist Martha Rgret. She
Speaker 1: just turned eighty years old, and I played, um, I
Speaker 1: had her playing bach Bach Partita in there, and and
Speaker 1: the video got demonetized by that, and um yeah, so
Speaker 1: I just ignore it. I mean, it's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I wanted to make the video about Martha Archridge. I
Speaker 1: love Martha ar Gridge. I want people to know about her,
Speaker 1: and that's the you know, I don't care if it
Speaker 1: gets demonetized. But I have made videos about video about
Speaker 1: having videos blocked. That to me is ridiculous when when
Speaker 1: they actually do takedowns of videos. Um, it's one thing,
Speaker 1: it's if take all the money, just leave the video
Speaker 1: up like you know, if so. And in my What
Speaker 1: makes Us Sound Great Series A hundred and five videos,
Speaker 1: there's one blocked video. That's it, just one, and it's
Speaker 1: Lindsey Buckingham blocked Go your Own Way. It's episode twelve.
Speaker 1: It's the only video that's not been reinstated. I've had
Speaker 1: many blocked, but they all it reinstated. Why do they
Speaker 1: get reinstated? I have no idea. Okay, you're just sitting
Speaker 1: at home. It's blocked four days later reappears. No, It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so I did, I did ramblean. I spent twelve hours
Speaker 1: during the video, spent all this time recreating the guitar songs,
Speaker 1: talking about everything. You know, I put up. The video
Speaker 1: blocked immediately, so I can't believe it. And then I
Speaker 1: went on and I did a rant about how, um,
Speaker 1: the irrelevance of of uh the something about the error
Speaker 1: we're talking about the era of perfect the irrelevance of
Speaker 1: classic of you know, rock in the era of perfect
Speaker 1: music or something like that, In the era of of
Speaker 1: of time correction, pitch correction, auto tune. Uh. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to show people this masterpiece Ramblan and it gets blocked
Speaker 1: by this band that released it in you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that makes no sense, Like do these bands artists
Speaker 1: want to be relevant? So I've made this I did
Speaker 1: this rant video that and then that video got half
Speaker 1: a million views in one day and I posted it
Speaker 1: on Twitter and then the next day, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the videos unblocked. It just uh and it's ineligible for
Speaker 1: for it's it's just becomes a demonetized video. They're monetizing,
Speaker 1: but you're not making it correct. Yeah, and I have
Speaker 1: no problem with that, Okay, to a great degree. Is
Speaker 1: that that one company in Germany that's doing it? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: all the companies do it. Okay, So have you ever rented?
Speaker 1: And they still took it down? Only only Fleetwood Mac.
Speaker 1: Only Lindsey Buckham. And and he's not he's the blocker
Speaker 1: in Fleetwood Mac. Actually Stevie Nicks. She had um what
Speaker 1: was the song dreams that became a you know, was
Speaker 1: a viral hit a few months ago, guy playing playing
Speaker 1: it on TikTok writing a skateboard. She doesn't block and
Speaker 1: that became a viral hit. So even in the same band, Uh,
Speaker 1: you have different because the artists are the one or
Speaker 1: their publisher or the people the sound recording. I mean
Speaker 1: that I don't think the labels care and the artist
Speaker 1: shouldn't care. They're making money. I mean guys like Don Henley.
Speaker 1: Don Henley claims that he there's sixty people working on
Speaker 1: copyright claims. Now that's laughable, Bob. There's not sixty people
Speaker 1: working on copyright claims. There's probably one person. It doesn't
Speaker 1: take sixty people. The YouTube algorithm gets all these things,
Speaker 1: It finds it instantly. They're not sixty people. They may
Speaker 1: be telling him they're sixty people, but there's no way
Speaker 1: there's sixty people working at some label taking doing takedowns
Speaker 1: of Eagle songs. That's absurd. Okay, tell the Joni Mitchell store,
Speaker 1: m um. I love Joni Mitchell. I'm a massively big
Speaker 1: fan and I've wanted to do a video of hers
Speaker 1: um forever and I always say that it took me
Speaker 1: ninety one episodes because I cry every time I listen
Speaker 1: to Joni Mitchell. I love you know, I love all
Speaker 1: of her music. You know the Blue Album, Hissing of Summer,
Speaker 1: Lawn's Court and spark He's Era. These records are you know,
Speaker 1: Shadows and Light. They're just absolutely brilliant mingus all these records,
Speaker 1: so different, so creative. So I was like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: gotta pick a Jonnie Mitchell signed to do. So I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm gonna do Amelia. I don't have the
Speaker 1: tracks to it, so I just did a breakdown of
Speaker 1: the song from I mean, I know these songs inside
Speaker 1: and out from all those things. Because not only is
Speaker 1: Joanie one of my favorite singers and lyricists her, the
Speaker 1: people that she had playing with her are all my
Speaker 1: Larry Carlton, Robin Ford, Tom Scott, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock,
Speaker 1: you know the Joco Pastoria. She had all the best
Speaker 1: players Pat Matheny that played in her groups and um,
Speaker 1: so I decided on Amelia. But then at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the video, I said, well, for those of you
Speaker 1: that don't know Joni Mitchell, and I don't know how,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's people out there that say, who's Joni
Speaker 1: Mitchell here, I'm gonna play some other songs of hers.
Speaker 1: So I played, um, both sides now clip of that, Uh,
Speaker 1: help me. I played, Um, I forget what I played.
Speaker 1: I played clips of a bunch of a bunch of
Speaker 1: her songs, the River and h. Then I did the
Speaker 1: breakdown on that, and her assistant reached out to me
Speaker 1: about a month after and said that Joni watched my video.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait, wait, wasn't it taken down at first? No?
Speaker 1: It got eight down later, Bob, okay, keep going. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Joanie's assistant reached out to me and UM and
Speaker 1: said that Joanie watched the video and loved it, and
Speaker 1: then she watched more and more videos and she and
Speaker 1: Joanie is not one to, you know, uh, to be
Speaker 1: impressed with people really, and she just loves my channel
Speaker 1: and uh so she wanted my address to send me something,
Speaker 1: and I said okay, So I sent her assistant my
Speaker 1: address and then a Christmas, I get this package, Like
Speaker 1: what is this? And I wrapped up thing and it's
Speaker 1: right behind me. It's this Joni Mitchell. It's it's right
Speaker 1: next to the light. It's her a box set with
Speaker 1: an autograph. It says Merry Christmas, Rick Joni Mitchell in it.
Speaker 1: And I opened my wife. I opened up my wife's
Speaker 1: like what is that? I said it's a present from
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell. Like what and um. And then her assistant
Speaker 1: said that next time, and I'm in l A to UM,
Speaker 1: reach out to Johnny. You should love to have me
Speaker 1: come and visit and um. But then after the video
Speaker 1: had been out for I don't know eight months or so,
Speaker 1: it got taken down. It's like what, UM, And I
Speaker 1: forget how it got put back up. I did. I
Speaker 1: put it on Twitter, did some type of rant, and
Speaker 1: then it got put back up. I never know how
Speaker 1: these things get put back up, Bob, because I never
Speaker 1: find I never do anything. I don't dispute anything ever.
Speaker 1: It's from people tagging people on Twitter. Honestly, that's what
Speaker 1: it is. Okay, So you end up going to l
Speaker 1: A tell that story. So I went to l A
Speaker 1: and I texted her assistant. I mean I never had
Speaker 1: spoken to Joanie. I texted her assistant UM and said UM,
Speaker 1: and said I'm going to be in l A and UM,
Speaker 1: you know I would love to come and and say
Speaker 1: hi to Joanie. And then didn't hear anything back for
Speaker 1: a week. And I get off the plane and UM,
Speaker 1: I was going out there for an interview with a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Erk Weinstein to be on his podcast,
Speaker 1: and and Joanie's and her assistant called me up and
Speaker 1: she said that Joanie would love to meet you for
Speaker 1: dinner if you're free on Saturday night at six pm.
Speaker 1: And I said, uh, yeah, that'd be amazing. And we
Speaker 1: met at this restaurant and it was spent three hours together.
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable. Okay, Joanie Mitchell. Conversation with her, shall
Speaker 1: I say, is not as easy as it is with
Speaker 1: many other people. What I always say without talking about well,
Speaker 1: I could talk about specific conversations. You know, if you
Speaker 1: start with something irrelevant, you'll want to drill down on
Speaker 1: the irrelevant point and you say, well forget that. You well,
Speaker 1: why do you want to forget about that? What was
Speaker 1: your experience of actually interacting with her, having conversation? Oh,
Speaker 1: it was amazing. I mean I asked her things. I
Speaker 1: mean I didn't really talk about it in my video
Speaker 1: that I made the video about having dinner with her,
Speaker 1: but I didn't don't really reveal things that we talked about. Um,
Speaker 1: But I mean I asked her things like, Okay, if
Speaker 1: I said, Joanie, of all your records, what is the
Speaker 1: one that you think really has the best songs and
Speaker 1: the best production that you're that you say, I'm the
Speaker 1: most proud of. And she picked two different records, um,
Speaker 1: one in particular, and I and she, um, um, well
Speaker 1: it was Courton Spark. Okay, I'll just say it. She's
Speaker 1: that and has you era those two records? She's thought
Speaker 1: that the production and the songwriting because a lot of
Speaker 1: times artists may feel like they have the their best songwriting,
Speaker 1: but the production doesn't quite come out like they'd expect it,
Speaker 1: you know, and and um, those are just that certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, court and Spark had a I hate to
Speaker 1: use words slick because it had negative connentation, but you know,
Speaker 1: a presence without withinventation and a Gira is just I'm
Speaker 1: glad you did Amelia because it's a vastly underrated album.
Speaker 1: My favorite on that album Swam for Sharon, Refuge of
Speaker 1: the Road. I mean, just unreal. But did you know
Speaker 1: a lot of times she'll talk to artists and they're
Speaker 1: not that familiar with her own career. Was she familiar
Speaker 1: with her own career? Yeah? She she told me that. Um,
Speaker 1: she she said that, Um that people you know that.
Speaker 1: When her first few records came out, her dad said her.
Speaker 1: I don't know if she said this in other interviews,
Speaker 1: but her dad said, you know, there must be a
Speaker 1: lot of depressed people out there. And she said that
Speaker 1: kind of made her not um think as much about
Speaker 1: her early records from her dad's saying that, and she
Speaker 1: laughed about it and uh, and she said, you know,
Speaker 1: people would call me a folk singer. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm in a folk singer. And then she's like, then
Speaker 1: I listen. I was like, yeah, I was a book singer.
Speaker 1: So okay. Throughout our conversation, here say oh, my friend,
Speaker 1: this person, this person, how do you know all these people?
Speaker 1: Um well, I've been in the music business a long
Speaker 1: time and um, um, I don't know. I I I've
Speaker 1: just I'm everywhere. I don't know. Um, I have no idea.
Speaker 1: I just okay, okay. You have the opportunity to have
Speaker 1: dinner with Joni Mitchell. Uh what author opportunities, whether commercial
Speaker 1: or not commercial? If you had as results of the
Speaker 1: successors your channel. Um well, I got to meet Peter Frampton.
Speaker 1: I interviewed him um at his studio Nashville, and then
Speaker 1: he was in my hundredth anniversary episode. I did a
Speaker 1: video on do you feel like we do. UM. That
Speaker 1: was one that that my um A friend of mine
Speaker 1: who actually just talked to who he used to work
Speaker 1: at ssl IS was good friends with Peter and he
Speaker 1: um my friend Don. I saw don at at Um
Speaker 1: at the a S Show back in eighteen and done.
Speaker 1: He and I were talking and he said, I saw
Speaker 1: your breakdown with Peter Peter Frampton, Um that you did,
Speaker 1: and um I he said, I'm really good friends with
Speaker 1: Peter and and I said, oh man, I'd love to
Speaker 1: interview Peter. He's like, I'll give him a call. I'll
Speaker 1: make it happen. Next day, I heard from Peter's assistant.
Speaker 1: Three days later, I was up in Nashville at his
Speaker 1: studio interviewing him. Any commercial opportunities come up as a
Speaker 1: result of your success, um, And like, like, what would
Speaker 1: you What do you mean that's something that we're making
Speaker 1: money you wouldn't normally have made because public appearances, endorsement,
Speaker 1: I don't do any endorsement. Well, I'm not gonna say
Speaker 1: I don't do any endorsements. I have a Gibson signature
Speaker 1: guitar coming out that I'm actually donating all the money
Speaker 1: to charity. Um a um less Paul special that's coming
Speaker 1: out in a few months. I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: when the release state is. But I don't do any
Speaker 1: other endorsements. Okay, let you don't do them by choice
Speaker 1: or the opportunities haven't come down the pike, just by choice.
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't. I don't like to.
Speaker 1: It's just for me. It's just not my style to to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be pushing here or anything like that,
Speaker 1: or pushing any products. I just it's just not my style.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to talk about whatever I
Speaker 1: want to talk about and have no one um that
Speaker 1: I'm accountable to believe me. I understand. Okay, So you're
Speaker 1: from were originally from Rochester, New York. Okay, what kind
Speaker 1: of environment did you grow up? Was there a lot
Speaker 1: of music there? Yes? Um? So I'm from a family
Speaker 1: of seven. I have have four brothers and two sisters.
Speaker 1: Where where wait? Where are you in the heart the
Speaker 1: second youngest? Okay? So, um my moms uh, my parents
Speaker 1: are both deceased. My mom's two of her sisters were
Speaker 1: music teachers. Her dad played the guitar, one of her
Speaker 1: brothers played bass, and Woody Herman's band. Um um, so
Speaker 1: music was very big in their family. My mom didn't
Speaker 1: play anything. She played some guitar, but but she was
Speaker 1: she never had lessons. But but the rest of her
Speaker 1: family were all musicians. And my dad was a huge
Speaker 1: music listener, jazz listener. Really, he loved bebop, he loved
Speaker 1: really sophisticated music. But it was not a musician. So
Speaker 1: music was always encouraged in our house. But really, myself
Speaker 1: and my younger brother John are the only ones that
Speaker 1: ever played an instrument for um for any length the time.
Speaker 1: When he's a guitarist, he's an excellent guitarist. And uh,
Speaker 1: so we had lessons. Okay, you come of age when so.
Speaker 1: I was born in sixty two, So I grew up
Speaker 1: in one Once you know, you start having the rock
Speaker 1: you know, the seventy two Jethrow, Tull, Depurple, all that stuff,
Speaker 1: that's your wheelhouse. Yeah. So with having So being the
Speaker 1: second youngest, my oldest sibling is sixty eight, so they
Speaker 1: I heard the Beatles, I heard the Stones, I heard Zeppelin,
Speaker 1: and every one of my siblings like different music. So
Speaker 1: I grew up in a three bedroom house with nine
Speaker 1: people in one bathroom, one bathroom, one bathroom. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: luckily we had a gas station across the street. They
Speaker 1: had bathrooms. In case you know, what did your parents
Speaker 1: do for a living. My dad worked for the railroad
Speaker 1: for forty two years, New York Central, Penn Central. UM
Speaker 1: started in when he's fourteen, and my mom worked for
Speaker 1: the American Can Company when she was a factory worker,
Speaker 1: worked on the lines. So they were and who was
Speaker 1: managing all the kids? Uh? So my mom started working
Speaker 1: when I was in kindergarten. Um, and uh, and my
Speaker 1: older siblings watched us basically, and my dad was the
Speaker 1: only one working before then. Okay, you start taking music
Speaker 1: lessons at what age on what instrument? On on the cello?
Speaker 1: In when I was in third grades that would have
Speaker 1: been nine. Um. I took a test in second grade.
Speaker 1: I think it was called the c Shore Test, which
Speaker 1: was a musical aptitude test that they gave in our
Speaker 1: school system. UM, and identified people that had really good
Speaker 1: ears for music. Is this pitch higher? Lower? Is this pitch?
Speaker 1: This is that? What do you recognize this instrument whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, And the people that scored the highest
Speaker 1: played string instruments, and then the next group of people
Speaker 1: played wind instruments. And they would start a year later.
Speaker 1: So I started on the cello with private lessons when
Speaker 1: I was in third grade, so seventy one, I think
Speaker 1: was third grade, Okay, that was via the school, via
Speaker 1: the school. Yeah, okay. How long did you play the
Speaker 1: cello and what came after? I played the cello until
Speaker 1: sixth grade. Then I took up the I moved to
Speaker 1: the base. And my undergraduate degree is in classical bass, okay,
Speaker 1: and my master's degree is in jazz guitar. So I
Speaker 1: played the bass all the way through college. That's what
Speaker 1: I literally, that's what I majored in. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: like classical with a bow. So it's okay. So sixth grade,
Speaker 1: you're playing the cello, you switch to base. You're still
Speaker 1: getting lessons in school, yes, all the Yeah, we're very
Speaker 1: all the way through, all the way through high school. Correct,
Speaker 1: and you're playing in the school orchestra. Correct to what
Speaker 1: degree are you playing with bands? If at all? So
Speaker 1: I started playing guitar. I broke my ankle summer of
Speaker 1: seventh grade. I was laid up on the couch and
Speaker 1: my brother had a chord book there. He had a
Speaker 1: guitar that it wasn't really playing like a one dollar
Speaker 1: global acoustic guitar. I had a Melbay chord book and
Speaker 1: in America the band America Songbook, and I had the
Speaker 1: America record. So I'm I'm laid up. I didn't even
Speaker 1: have a walking cast. I'm literally on the couch the
Speaker 1: whole summer. So I started playing this America record heard
Speaker 1: and you know, I had Sandman and Horse with no Name,
Speaker 1: all these songs on. It's the one with the three
Speaker 1: of them on the cover with this the first album,
Speaker 1: first album, and had a song on there called never
Speaker 1: Found the Time that I loved. It was in three
Speaker 1: four and so I had the chord book there and
Speaker 1: I'm looking at playing along. I learned start learning the chords,
Speaker 1: but I had dexterity because I already played the cello
Speaker 1: and the hand positions spacing is about the same, so
Speaker 1: it was very easy. I didn't go through a callous
Speaker 1: period or anything like that, so it was easy to
Speaker 1: pick up the chords. So I started playing along with
Speaker 1: I said, this doesn't sound They sound kind of like
Speaker 1: the chords, but it doesn't sound right. So anyways, I
Speaker 1: get my cast off thirteen weeks and and I just
Speaker 1: twisted it like the first day of summer of that year,
Speaker 1: I twisted the park I was out screwing around really
Speaker 1: bad break um, and I had a limp for about
Speaker 1: a year and a half after that. I remember, um
Speaker 1: and uh. So my mom I begged her to get
Speaker 1: me a nicer guitar because this guitar was terrible. So
Speaker 1: we went to this music store never been to a
Speaker 1: music store really, and I saw a twelve string and
Speaker 1: I played it. I said, this sounds like that America
Speaker 1: song because it was actually done on a twelve string,
Speaker 1: as was most things in the seventies, you know. And
Speaker 1: so my first guitar was a hundred and twenty dollar
Speaker 1: Penco acoustic that my mom said, don't tell your dad
Speaker 1: how much it costs. So it's like a week sailor
Speaker 1: from my mom. Your first guitar was a twelve string?
Speaker 1: Was a twelve string? Yes, how did the hell you know?
Speaker 1: This is pretty tuners, etcetera. And you learn how to
Speaker 1: tune it. I just I just figured it out, so um. Um.
Speaker 1: So I started playing on a twelve string and um,
Speaker 1: and then I realized, okay, this is song is played
Speaker 1: on a twelve string. And then I started picking around
Speaker 1: and I figured I was, I had such a good ear,
Speaker 1: I could just figure out what the parts were. And
Speaker 1: I started figuring out all these songs by ear and
Speaker 1: um uh, and then I was really serious into it.
Speaker 1: And um so I started mowing this guy's lawn that
Speaker 1: lived about two blocks away. I got in this program
Speaker 1: where you signed up and you would do odd jobs
Speaker 1: for people. So I'm owing this guy's lawn, this guy Tom,
Speaker 1: and I went in to get paid, and I saw
Speaker 1: I had all these guitars. Name was Tom Rizzo. He
Speaker 1: has all these guitars in there. Said wow, you play guitar?
Speaker 1: Said yeah, I own a music store in town, t
Speaker 1: Rizzo Music it was called. And he said, do you
Speaker 1: play guitar? Said yeah, he gouse, I'll play me something,
Speaker 1: So I play something everything I said, well, I said,
Speaker 1: play me a song. So he starts playing. And I'm
Speaker 1: mean he was a phenomenal player. He ended up going
Speaker 1: on and being on played with Maynard Ferguson. He was
Speaker 1: on the Tonight you know, sub Don the Tonight Show
Speaker 1: and everything, and but he said you should come take
Speaker 1: lessons at my music store. So I went and took
Speaker 1: lessons with him, and I mean, he was a real pro.
Speaker 1: Jazz player, fusion player, amazing player. And that was a
Speaker 1: great experience. And I hadn't got Mark, Mark Manetta, then
Speaker 1: Glenn Cummings. I had teachers at this music store when
Speaker 1: I was in junior high in high school, and and
Speaker 1: my brother John started taking lessons there too, So my
Speaker 1: mom would drive us every week for an hour. She's
Speaker 1: sit in the car and wait for us and we
Speaker 1: come back out. We took our lessons and and it
Speaker 1: was great. I mean, you're so incredible, and that we
Speaker 1: were just obsessed. Both of us were obsessed playing guitar.
Speaker 1: Still to this day, play every day. I love it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So in high school, you like Dwayne Almond playing so much.
Speaker 1: You know he even takes some guitar play in the
Speaker 1: bathroom or you know, you have a regular life. Oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: oh all the time. Okay. And when do you start
Speaker 1: forming bands with electric guitars? Oh? So I got electric
Speaker 1: guitar soon after in eighth grade, and uh started playing
Speaker 1: in bands pretty immediately. But I was learning all the songs.
Speaker 1: I mean, I learned my first song I learned an
Speaker 1: electric guitar was Hey Joe. And I learned, you know,
Speaker 1: I learned all the Zeppelin tunes and and I learned
Speaker 1: everything that came out. I learned Leonard SKINNERD. I learned
Speaker 1: the Beatles, I learned the Stones, I learned cream. You're
Speaker 1: playing with these bands? Is it just fun? Are you
Speaker 1: making any money? No? Not making any money? Just fun? Okay.
Speaker 1: So you go to college where I did my undergrad
Speaker 1: a Itfaca College. UM so I I UM. I actually
Speaker 1: made a video about this. So I auditioned at two
Speaker 1: schools on guitar classical guitar. You had audition to get
Speaker 1: into the jazz program, and I got rejected from both
Speaker 1: of them. I made a video about this, and my
Speaker 1: video is called Fortunes of Failure. I I actually had
Speaker 1: a video earlier in my channel called Fortunes of hard Work.
Speaker 1: But it's really Fortunes of Failure was a second kind
Speaker 1: of remake I did where I connected it to a
Speaker 1: different story. So I got rejected from both places, but
Speaker 1: I didn't tell my parents. I lied and I told
Speaker 1: them that I got into both places for music. But this,
Speaker 1: but my grades were so bad, Bob that. But I
Speaker 1: ran track on the high school track team, and I
Speaker 1: went to the state championships all the time. So the
Speaker 1: track coach put it at Fredonia State University. Put a
Speaker 1: thing in there. If you want to come to Radnia,
Speaker 1: you can come and run on the track team and
Speaker 1: get a small scholarship for it. Even though my grades
Speaker 1: were bad. But I have to pick a different major.
Speaker 1: So I went my first semester as a history major,
Speaker 1: and the classical guitar teacher wouldn't take me on as
Speaker 1: a student. So I learned from a freshman guitar player too,
Speaker 1: because and I re auditioned for Ithaca College to get
Speaker 1: into the guitar program, which I ended up going the
Speaker 1: second semester. I passed the audition, I went there the
Speaker 1: second semester, and then six years later I was a
Speaker 1: professor there in the same office that I got rejected
Speaker 1: in six years before. Okay, so you're at Ithaca College.
Speaker 1: You come from a family of many children. Ithaca College
Speaker 1: as a private school. How do you pay for that?
Speaker 1: I had a lot of scholarships? Oh, I My first
Speaker 1: day of school, I went in, I talked to the
Speaker 1: bass teacher and I said, I want to play in
Speaker 1: the orchestra even though a jazz guitar major, and he's
Speaker 1: and he heard me play, said, well, why don't you
Speaker 1: just be a base major? And he said, had you
Speaker 1: audition a basse, you would have gotten in. Because I
Speaker 1: was the first share bass player at my school. I
Speaker 1: was a very good classical bass player. So I immediately
Speaker 1: switched my major from guitar to bass, and so I
Speaker 1: played in the orchestra. I did all that, and I
Speaker 1: only just I took jazz guitar lessons, but that was
Speaker 1: the only guitar thing I did. I take did no
Speaker 1: jazz stuff there. Okay, so you graduate from Mythaca College,
Speaker 1: then what Then? I went to New England Conservatory in
Speaker 1: Boston for jazz guitar for two years. I got my
Speaker 1: masters in jazz guitar. What was the plan? I had
Speaker 1: no plan. The plan was to learn as much about
Speaker 1: music as I could learn, and I was fascinated. I
Speaker 1: loved classical music. Um, I loved playing bass. I love
Speaker 1: playing in orchestra, and then I love jazz two and
Speaker 1: I loved rock. So um, I wanted to learn as
Speaker 1: much about as many different kinds of music as I could.
Speaker 1: So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go get my
Speaker 1: masters in jazz guitar. So I went to New England
Speaker 1: Conservatory for two years, and then I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to New York and I'm gonna play
Speaker 1: for a living, try and make it as a jazz
Speaker 1: guitar player. Moved back to Ithaca for a couple of
Speaker 1: months to hang with my friends, figure out what I
Speaker 1: was gonna do, how I was gonna move to New York.
Speaker 1: And then I got the offer to teach there in
Speaker 1: the fall, and then I just took that Staca College. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: teaching jazz guitar there. Rom eight seven and ninety two
Speaker 1: and how did you stop? So a buddy of mine
Speaker 1: in eighty nine Um asked me if I would play
Speaker 1: in a demo of his. His friend of mine, Alan Um,
Speaker 1: he had some rock songs. He had an eight track
Speaker 1: real to real recorder at his place. He said, how
Speaker 1: want you come over and playing sliff? And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't really wanted to just come over
Speaker 1: and play some guitar on this. So I went over
Speaker 1: and played on this demo of his, and we ended
Speaker 1: up getting a demo deal with Electra Records. This guy
Speaker 1: Howard Thompson signed us. Fully, I know Howard, will Howard
Speaker 1: amazing Howard really actually was. I actually made a video
Speaker 1: and I talked about Howard and I got back in
Speaker 1: touch with him. He emailed me and I hadn't talked
Speaker 1: to him in years. But one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: live in Atlantis because Howard saw me in three playing
Speaker 1: at CBGB's based with some nobody band and He's like, Rick,
Speaker 1: why are you wasting your time with this nothing band.
Speaker 1: You need to do your own music. You need to
Speaker 1: and you need to quit this thing now. So the
Speaker 1: next day I moved out of New York and I
Speaker 1: ended up landing down here in Atlanta. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: do this demo. Howard is interested. How's the transition? How
Speaker 1: do you get to New York? So Howard, um, so
Speaker 1: this my friend Alan said, Howard signed us to to write,
Speaker 1: to give us money to new demos. But I don't
Speaker 1: have any other songs. We're gonna write some songs. And
Speaker 1: I was like, how do you write songs? Um? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'd written some songs with some bands in high school
Speaker 1: and stuff. But my buddy Allen was like, well, you
Speaker 1: need to have a hook for the signature, for the
Speaker 1: intro and all these things, and he was So we
Speaker 1: wrote eight songs together Howard gave us five grand and
Speaker 1: we went in the studio and in Ithaca and we
Speaker 1: cut them and then we went down and hung out
Speaker 1: with Howard in New York and Howard critiqued all the songs.
Speaker 1: Spent two hours with him, three hours. He took us
Speaker 1: out the lunch. He said, you guys have to you
Speaker 1: guys have great bridges, but this is a song as
Speaker 1: this a song as that. Incredibly great critiques on the songs.
Speaker 1: He didn't sign us, and then we wrote. We did
Speaker 1: a ten song I never I've never even told the
Speaker 1: story of my channel. We did a ten song demo
Speaker 1: every month Bob and went down to New York and
Speaker 1: played him for Howard and Howard critiqued him. Never signed us,
Speaker 1: but gave us incredible advice on songwriting. UM, you know
Speaker 1: you gotta learn how to write a bridge. You gotta
Speaker 1: do this. You know this song is is good, but
Speaker 1: the the I think the lyrics could be better here.
Speaker 1: But we ended up getting a UM publishing deal with PolyGram.
Speaker 1: John Tita signed us. UM. He came to a gig
Speaker 1: we played at cm GMS. We just we had like
Speaker 1: a pickup band, Alan and I we were changed their
Speaker 1: names all the time, and he assigned us as songwriters
Speaker 1: U and UM. Because of that, I took a leave
Speaker 1: of absence from Ithaca College and ended up not going back.
Speaker 1: And that's how I got out of teaching. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the evolution from the songwriting deal to Atlanta so then
Speaker 1: UM so so the songwriting deal, um so, the band
Speaker 1: never got a record deal or anything, ended up kind
Speaker 1: of disbanding and I didn't have a gig then, and
Speaker 1: I UM, I ended up having going to go back
Speaker 1: home to live with my parents when I was thirty
Speaker 1: three or so. That was that was tough. My parents
Speaker 1: were totally cool and UM. I stayed there for six
Speaker 1: weeks or so. It was actually um. I ended up
Speaker 1: leaving the day after Kurt Cobain died. He died in
Speaker 1: first week in April. And I was a huge grunge fan.
Speaker 1: I loved Kurt Cobain. I loved all the grunge and
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, that was a real even though
Speaker 1: I was in my I was thirty years old at
Speaker 1: the time, that music really spoke to me because it
Speaker 1: was really music of the seventies and and but yet honestly,
Speaker 1: some of it was more sophisticated than than the music
Speaker 1: of the seventies. Kirk o'bain was a very under is,
Speaker 1: a very underestimated songwriter, incredibly sophisticated, um harmonically complex melodies
Speaker 1: over very weird chord changes. Chris Cornell, Eddie Vetter, Lane Staley,
Speaker 1: the guys in Stunt Temple Pilots, all of them wrote
Speaker 1: very sophisticated songs and odd times with weird chord changes,
Speaker 1: but they were all melodic. So that music spoke to
Speaker 1: me and I thought, I'm gonna move somewhere else. I
Speaker 1: want to start a band, and I ended up in
Speaker 1: Atlanta because my old college roommate lived down here. Okay,
Speaker 1: presently you have a whole studio in your videos, and
Speaker 1: right now I can see all your guitars. What's the
Speaker 1: evolution to that in Atlanta? So I um so I
Speaker 1: came here in November of nine. I started working at
Speaker 1: a local music store teaching guitar lessons, and I was
Speaker 1: teaching all the hits of the of those days, I
Speaker 1: had fifty students a week that I taught from nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four to nineteen UM I started producing bands. Um really.
Speaker 1: The first band that produced was a band called the
Speaker 1: Tender idols. They were friends of mine. One of the
Speaker 1: guys in the band is Dave Cobb, who's the producer
Speaker 1: up in Nashville. That is the hottest guy there right.
Speaker 1: He was in the band in the first band I
Speaker 1: ever produced, UM and a dear friend of mine for
Speaker 1: twenty five years or so, UM and UH So I
Speaker 1: started producing bands here and there, and I was in
Speaker 1: I started a band called Billionaire in nineteen nine seven.
Speaker 1: We got signed in UM by UM London Sire Records,
Speaker 1: Bob Biggs, who ran Ash recently. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: Bob was amazing. I'm just a super interesting guy. And
Speaker 1: Peter Kupkey ran UM London Sire Yeah with ro Dreames, Yes,
Speaker 1: with Rab James. So they UM. So we got signed
Speaker 1: UM and we got forced to use a producer I'm
Speaker 1: not going to name his name, and who ended up UM.
Speaker 1: He stopped showing up at the studio. I've made videos
Speaker 1: about this. He stopped showing up in the studio a
Speaker 1: week into the project. And so the singer and I
Speaker 1: are they're working on the stuff, just recording overdubs, and
Speaker 1: he would come in every you know, every few days
Speaker 1: and need to race everything that we did. So he
Speaker 1: ended up getting fired after four months, and we spent
Speaker 1: like four dred and eighty thousand dollars or so, and
Speaker 1: the guys came in and he got fired by Peter
Speaker 1: cup Key and and then they sent the record to
Speaker 1: Kevin Shirley in New York UM to try and fix it.
Speaker 1: Had no track sheets. It was forty eight tracks analog,
Speaker 1: no track sheets, nothing, and Kevin mixed the record. The
Speaker 1: record came out for I don't know a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and then we got dropped because there was the first merger.
Speaker 1: PolyGram got bought by Universal Um. But after we had
Speaker 1: spent our budget, my dear friend read Hunter is who's
Speaker 1: who's um, who's my lawyer? And he was, you know read,
Speaker 1: I know, you know read. So I went over to
Speaker 1: Reid's house and Um, he was working on his roof
Speaker 1: his backyard. He had a bandana. I was like a
Speaker 1: hundred degrees. He's like fixing something on his roof of
Speaker 1: his garage and I'm talking to him like this and
Speaker 1: I was like, he's like, so, you guys spent your
Speaker 1: whole budget, right, And I said yeah, And he said
Speaker 1: when's the record coming? And I said August He's like,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do till then I said, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think I'm just gonna go back and
Speaker 1: teach guitar lessons. He has, well, why don't you produce bands?
Speaker 1: And I was like, and I said, read, I can't
Speaker 1: make any money producing bands, and I don't. There's no
Speaker 1: who am I going to produce? He goes, well, there's
Speaker 1: this band that needs a better demo, and go check out.
Speaker 1: Pick up the cassette. It's on my kitchen table before
Speaker 1: you leave, and tell him that I told them that
Speaker 1: they need better demos. They have good songs, but they
Speaker 1: needed better demos. And one of the songs I did
Speaker 1: from that demo got an American Pie to soundtrack. UM.
Speaker 1: From the first thing I did, I called up a
Speaker 1: buddy of mine that was had a studio in his
Speaker 1: basement and I went and produced it there. And then
Speaker 1: I started getting project after project and um, all different
Speaker 1: genres of music. And and Leslie Fram, who was the
Speaker 1: program director at X at the time, dear friend of mine.
Speaker 1: She started referring bands to me, should ever be out
Speaker 1: of you know, do your do your recordings? And um.
Speaker 1: She and her husband LANDI are really good friends of
Speaker 1: mine Landy. Landy actually brought a band to meet and
Speaker 1: that she and he and Leslie came to the studio
Speaker 1: and Leslie was we're talking everything and and she was
Speaker 1: really instrumental in helping me, um helping my career. It
Speaker 1: was amazing and we're good, really close friends to this day.
Speaker 1: She in in LANDI and I and um So I
Speaker 1: just I never stopped producing. I had project after project
Speaker 1: from two thousand seventeen. When did you build your own
Speaker 1: studio in and you had enough money to do that?
Speaker 1: Hid you managed to do it? So um I knew
Speaker 1: that all the budgets were gonna go um, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go away. They were starting to go away at that point,
Speaker 1: so I um so I was like, Okay, I'm gon
Speaker 1: have to build a studio. UM and UM I built
Speaker 1: it with three of my friends. We did all the
Speaker 1: construction ourself, planned it out. Red I had had a
Speaker 1: buddy of mine that had built a studio that my
Speaker 1: old band had worked at in town. Uh friend of
Speaker 1: mine Jimmy and um and it took like four months
Speaker 1: or so to build it and um and then I
Speaker 1: started just producing everything here in my studio and um
Speaker 1: um So I you know, basically collected all the gear
Speaker 1: over the course of you know, of years and years
Speaker 1: and years all the stuff that's in here, and bands
Speaker 1: would come from out of town and they would just
Speaker 1: use my all my stuff. And is your where's it located?
Speaker 1: Has touched your house or where is it? Okay? So
Speaker 1: at this late date, anybody watches your video, you have
Speaker 1: a slew of equipment. Let's start with musical equipment. How
Speaker 1: many guitars do you want? UM? I don't know, probably
Speaker 1: probably forty, Maybe I don't know. You of Fender a
Speaker 1: Gibson guy. I I'm a Gibson guy, but I have Fender.
Speaker 1: I have plenty of Fender guitars. What I what do
Speaker 1: you think about the new amps? You know, like Line
Speaker 1: six brought in? They do all the changes you uh
Speaker 1: thumbs upper thumbs down on that. I'm I'm I'm always
Speaker 1: into whatever the latest gear is, Bob, I love gear.
Speaker 1: I love learning new gear. I I um um. It's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things to do is to check
Speaker 1: out new gear. Are you a pro tools or logic? Both?
Speaker 1: But I use pro tools mainly, but I have I
Speaker 1: have both actually, and why would you use one or
Speaker 1: the other? Um? Some of the projects that I would
Speaker 1: get as a producer would be in logic. Some of
Speaker 1: the people would record their demos and logic and sometimes
Speaker 1: a lot of times you'd have a part. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a band need to breathe I worked with I
Speaker 1: did three records with them, and sometimes they have demos
Speaker 1: where they would get a particular sound you could never
Speaker 1: recreate again, so we just take it out a lot
Speaker 1: and I would have logic. They would send me the
Speaker 1: sessions and I would take the I would take the
Speaker 1: that particular sound and we'd use that sound in the session.
Speaker 1: Something that that that is a one of a kind.
Speaker 1: You know, many times you that, Um, it's very hard
Speaker 1: to repeat sounds really hard unless you have meticulous notes
Speaker 1: on things or don't move things. It's it's it's um,
Speaker 1: it's uh extremely difficult, you know, like uh, like the
Speaker 1: opening to Money for Nothing, Like, how do you even
Speaker 1: get that sound? You can kind of approximate that, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if Mark Noffler has ever gotten that
Speaker 1: sound exactly the same like that. You know. Okay, so
Speaker 1: where is music going? Um? It depends. There's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting genres of music that are progressing. You know,
Speaker 1: the the greatest players, at least technically that have ever
Speaker 1: lived or alive right now, and because of YouTube, because
Speaker 1: of Instagram, they're they're the greatest technicians on the guitar.
Speaker 1: And and some of the most creative kids are out
Speaker 1: there are playing as right now doing things that were impossible.
Speaker 1: But because of all the free tutorials that are out there,
Speaker 1: kids can learn things at a incredibly fast rate and
Speaker 1: incorporate all new techniques, playing on the guitar with two
Speaker 1: different hands, things that you would have thought were impossible,
Speaker 1: that our guitar heroes of the past, you know, never
Speaker 1: you could have imagined. And UM and the genres like
Speaker 1: progressive metal has a great community and that's kind of
Speaker 1: like the jazz of today in a way. This where
Speaker 1: a lot of innovation is happening. UM. As far as
Speaker 1: pop music is concerned, you know, the there's some it's
Speaker 1: it's uh, there's some interesting stuff. I love production, and
Speaker 1: people hate it when I compliment anything that's popular. They
Speaker 1: just the comment sections when I do my top ten
Speaker 1: Spotify countdowns and I talked about pop music. When I
Speaker 1: compliment things, and I try to look for the good
Speaker 1: in music. Sometimes it's very difficult to find. But um,
Speaker 1: but there's there's a lot of creative production elements in
Speaker 1: contemporary pop music. The downside is that you don't you'll
Speaker 1: you know, when's the last time we saw a kiss
Speaker 1: from a rose like seal? Well, you don't see things
Speaker 1: that have unbelievable orchestration with that have, you know, really
Speaker 1: sophisticated melodies and chord changes and all pro players. You
Speaker 1: know this, This doesn't really exist in popular music anymore.
Speaker 1: When's the last time somebody spent money on a budget
Speaker 1: to hire a real orchestra on a pop song? I mean,
Speaker 1: I I don't know, um, but um, most most records
Speaker 1: are made by people in their in their bedrooms, you know,
Speaker 1: Billie Eilish. Interesting records are made by people that are
Speaker 1: making them themselves else, you know, and and um, where
Speaker 1: is it going? I'm not sure where is it going? Bob? Well,
Speaker 1: let's separate it out. Okay, there is the Spotify Top fifty,
Speaker 1: which is mainly hip hop and pop. Then there are
Speaker 1: all these other genres. What do we know? The Spotify
Speaker 1: top fifty, literally in terms of the numbers, is less
Speaker 1: of the marketplace keeps going down. We we grew up
Speaker 1: in arrows certainly in the sixties and in the eighties MTV.
Speaker 1: If it was a hit, everybody knew it. Hit today
Speaker 1: and most people have never heard it, never mind another
Speaker 1: track on the album. But let's just stay with your
Speaker 1: great players thing. If we're looking at rock to what
Speaker 1: degree do we have the Berkeley College of Music paradigm
Speaker 1: where you have some great players. But writing is different
Speaker 1: from playing and is okay? Go on, Yes, writing is
Speaker 1: very different from playing. Um, the the all the guitar
Speaker 1: virtuoses that are out there don't write songs necessarily, or
Speaker 1: they write songs. They don't find singers like you used
Speaker 1: to back when I was growing up. You go out
Speaker 1: and you find a singer to to so you can
Speaker 1: play guitar solos and play parts because you wanted to
Speaker 1: be part of writing songs. That's why why I got
Speaker 1: into music was too to write songs. Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: playing guitar solos. Two. I love playing guitar, but I
Speaker 1: like songs more. I mean, well, I don't know about more,
Speaker 1: but I love songs. So Eddie Van Helen needed David
Speaker 1: Lee Roth, you know, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry needed Steven Tyler.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page needed Robert Plant, Keith Richards needed Mick Jagger.
Speaker 1: It was never you know, Jimi Hendrix didn't need anyone
Speaker 1: else but very few. Air Clapton didn't need anyone else.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, Um, all the guitar players
Speaker 1: that were historically uh you know, you know, the the
Speaker 1: people that that that we're revered when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: from David Gilmore to Brian Made to Jimmy Page to
Speaker 1: Eric Clapton, Hendrix, all these you know, to Albert King
Speaker 1: to b B. King, you know, all the blues masters. Uh.
Speaker 1: The um, it was always about the song and the
Speaker 1: soloing was secondary. Even with Van Halen, the soloing was secondary. Um.
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell had incredible soloists play with her, the the
Speaker 1: the best player, Steely Dan. They had amazing solos on it.
Speaker 1: Whether it's Jay Grayden on peg, whether it's Larry Carlton
Speaker 1: and Kids, Charlemagne, Elliott Randall on reel and in the
Speaker 1: years Denny Diaz on do it again. These were the
Speaker 1: top session players in l A playing just unimaginably great solos.
Speaker 1: Carlos Rios and brother to brother by Gino Vanilly just classics.
Speaker 1: Or David Gilmore uncomfortably number. You know, another brick in
Speaker 1: the wall. Whatever it is, Okay, So kids today, songwriting
Speaker 1: is not necessarily a thing that guitar players do. There's
Speaker 1: no impetus to do that. There is no rock movement,
Speaker 1: and um, I think that the advent of pro tools
Speaker 1: and logic being on every computer. Um, people can make
Speaker 1: songs so easily. Put a beat here, they write lyrics,
Speaker 1: I do this and then it's done. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: I didn't know anybody that recorded recording recording studios when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I didn't go to one until
Speaker 1: I was in college, and the and the College Fredonia,
Speaker 1: My my cousin was the recording major. I went in
Speaker 1: my first recording studio then couldn't believe it. Nobody I
Speaker 1: knew made recordings. Believe me, I know. So you know.
Speaker 1: Now occasionally I view the active rock chart, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, a radio format. But I I remember when
Speaker 1: Black Sabbath was too far out there and led Zeppel
Speaker 1: was considered heavy metal. Then the standard became metallica. So
Speaker 1: I find unless you've been study the music for ten
Speaker 1: twenty years, it's indecipherable by the average listener. Right by
Speaker 1: the same token he's nodding his head here. Then there's rock.
Speaker 1: You occasionally find rock channel rock songs that I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know where they're getting played. How do you
Speaker 1: find this stuff? It's it's difficult. I mean the rock charts,
Speaker 1: you know, the Spotify rock chart is rock this that's
Speaker 1: the biggest playlist. It's got four point five million viewers.
Speaker 1: Alison Hagendorf programs that, Um, the most people discover music
Speaker 1: on playlists, and the playlists are now the A and
Speaker 1: R people of twenty years ago. You know, Uh, they're
Speaker 1: the ones at that side what gets played. Or maybe
Speaker 1: they're the uh you know, the independent radio promoters that
Speaker 1: were that all the labels paid to avoid payola back
Speaker 1: and then you know, eighties and nineties. Is there anybody
Speaker 1: out there in the rock sphere musically who's unrecognized that
Speaker 1: you want to say or not recognize enough that you
Speaker 1: say people should pay attention to um? Um? Maybe I
Speaker 1: have my answer, uh, that people should pay attention to um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting when i'm um, most of the
Speaker 1: stuff I listened to that's contemporary music are things that
Speaker 1: are on the charts. When I do my breakdowns, it's
Speaker 1: the way that I familiarize myself with contemporary music. Okay,
Speaker 1: so who's on the charts but not not known by everybody?
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's hard to say who knows. I don't.
Speaker 1: Let's let's let's leave that because I don't want to
Speaker 1: pay on the spot. But one thing I will put
Speaker 1: you on the spot. Greatest guitarist of all time, greatest
Speaker 1: rock guitars whip out Segovia or something. Greatest rock guitarists
Speaker 1: of all time? Man, Um, geez? You know, uh, Jimmy
Speaker 1: Hendricks and Jeff Beck. Maybe I go with Beck. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's move on from there. Okay, so what and Jeff
Speaker 1: and Jeff Beck? Honestly, Um suffers from not having Um
Speaker 1: been in a band. Well, he had bands with vocalists
Speaker 1: you know, No, no, I mean listen, you know you
Speaker 1: talk about Jimmy Page. I remember going to the Arms show.
Speaker 1: So you had Jimmy Page, Clapton and Becked on the
Speaker 1: same stage. Beck blew him away. This is eighty three,
Speaker 1: I think. But Jimmy Page, he wrote the songs those
Speaker 1: he didn't we make that we're all ultimately standards and
Speaker 1: produced them and you cannot underestimate that. So Jimmy Page.
Speaker 1: If one of my friends asked me recently, who's the
Speaker 1: one musician I would like to interview, and I said
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page without hesitation. He said why Jimmy Page. I said,
Speaker 1: because Jimmy Page was at the center of all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Plus he's not been um you know. He said, why
Speaker 1: not Paul McCartney. I said, because Paul McCartney has told
Speaker 1: every story he has a hundred thousand times, Jimmy Page hasn't.
Speaker 1: I want to know what it was like to sit
Speaker 1: down with your Martin guitar when you're gonna start Stairway
Speaker 1: to Heaven the first and you picked the first note
Speaker 1: of it? What's going through your mind? That would be
Speaker 1: a great interview. You'd be the perfect person for that
Speaker 1: favorite led Zeppelin song. Oh my god, favorite led Zeppelin song.
Speaker 1: Um ah, jeez. I would go with Good Times Bad Times?
Speaker 1: Doesn't that no one ever mentioned the first album that
Speaker 1: used to be my favorite? But now my favorite is
Speaker 1: ten And I'll tell you and I love ten Years Gone,
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you why I love Good Times Bad Times.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's the drums sounds on this. It's
Speaker 1: just like it's just Zeppelin just the first impression you
Speaker 1: get have led Zeppelin right there. It's got a bass
Speaker 1: solo in it, it's got this one of the best
Speaker 1: John bonhom drumbeats. It's got a killer guitar riff, it's
Speaker 1: got a great vocal melody, it's got a really great
Speaker 1: hook um, and it incorporates all the elements of Zeppelin
Speaker 1: and and is sonically phenomenal, like just right off the bat,
Speaker 1: first song on the first record, so as I just
Speaker 1: have to go with that. But there's so many great
Speaker 1: Zeppelin songs. But man, that that's a whole another conversation.
Speaker 1: So you do twelve videos a week? Is something percolating
Speaker 1: in your brain? Now? Yes? Okay? Is that? How does
Speaker 1: it work? Do you? Is it work that I gotta
Speaker 1: make a video, gotta come up with a topic or
Speaker 1: is it raw inspiration or the topics in the back
Speaker 1: of your head? So I have a list of topics
Speaker 1: that I on my phone. So usually I get up
Speaker 1: with with my kids. I have three kids. I get
Speaker 1: up and I have three dogs and three cats, and
Speaker 1: I get up with my wife and you know, we
Speaker 1: get all the dogs fed and do all this stuff
Speaker 1: and get the kids fed, and then I'll go sit. Uh.
Speaker 1: I usually I'll sit outside this time of year with
Speaker 1: and drink my coffee and I'll start thinking about my
Speaker 1: video that I'm gonna make. So I had a uh.
Speaker 1: I usually have about ten video ideas going on at once,
Speaker 1: and um, I haven't a video that I've been wanting
Speaker 1: to make on auto tune, and I have about four
Speaker 1: different ways that I want to uh that that I
Speaker 1: can talk about it. I think auto tune is is
Speaker 1: a a horrible thing, be a great thing for certain things. Right.
Speaker 1: Auto tune saved a bunch of record projects for bands
Speaker 1: that didn't have budgets. And you got your the last
Speaker 1: day and your they can only be in town for
Speaker 1: five days. And I was doing a thing. You have
Speaker 1: a couple attitude notes and that you can fix with
Speaker 1: auto tune because you don't have any extra takes that
Speaker 1: we're with a good one. Right, So it's a lifesaver.
Speaker 1: And then you have it where it's just on every
Speaker 1: song and a dehumanizes music, you know, it's it's uh.
Speaker 1: It takes the humanity and emotion out of everything. And
Speaker 1: I think twenty years from now, I mean it makes
Speaker 1: most music very forgettable because everybody's going through this um
Speaker 1: this filter that essentially takes the humanity out of their voice,
Speaker 1: all the imperfections, the pitch in perfections, which is actually
Speaker 1: the character. Um. Yet some people use it for, you know,
Speaker 1: with really cool effects, but the fact that it's whether
Speaker 1: you can hear it or not is pretty much on
Speaker 1: every vocal of every rock song, every pop song. Maybe
Speaker 1: not every indie rock song, but a lot of indie
Speaker 1: rock songs. You would be surprised that have auto tune
Speaker 1: as well. And um, you know. So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: decide how I want to tackle that topic. I've been
Speaker 1: wanting to make an auto tune video for years and
Speaker 1: I haven't done it yet. So that's one of the topics. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're like waiting for something to click in your brain. No,
Speaker 1: I actually have four different ways that I can talk
Speaker 1: about it for there would be four different videos. I
Speaker 1: can't decide which video I want to make about it
Speaker 1: yet though. Okay, do you ever come up with an
Speaker 1: idea and say, you're so hot, I gotta run in
Speaker 1: the studio make it right now, otherwise it just won't
Speaker 1: be as good. Yes, it happens all the time, Okay,
Speaker 1: all the time. Oh, my god. Yeah, most of my
Speaker 1: videos are like that. Okay, And does it happen at
Speaker 1: a certain time of the day, Yes, I I it can.
Speaker 1: It can be whenever I'll record, whenever I have the idea,
Speaker 1: I make it. If it's at night, if it's in
Speaker 1: the morning, whenever I just sit down on the camera,
Speaker 1: I start rolling. It's all improv always okay, late night
Speaker 1: any better? Um my story videos typically go late night.
Speaker 1: So in the last year, I've had seven trending videos
Speaker 1: on YouTube. That means it's on the top fifty of
Speaker 1: YouTube worldwide trending list. But they've been They've ranged in
Speaker 1: topics from a top ten by Spotify countdown to a
Speaker 1: video about my aunt Penny that passed away that had
Speaker 1: has like a million and a half views. And it's
Speaker 1: an eighteen minute video dedicated to my aunt Penny, who
Speaker 1: was I was incredibly close with. It was a massive
Speaker 1: influence on me musically and otherwise. I don't know why
Speaker 1: that would become a trending video, but it was a
Speaker 1: huge It was it was great, like the best tribute
Speaker 1: I could have for her. So and that was just
Speaker 1: a video, one take, you know, talking about her, and
Speaker 1: I put a video of us hanging out together I
Speaker 1: made in eighteen where she sitting down playing the piano
Speaker 1: and we're talking about music and she improvised and I
Speaker 1: you know, so so yeah. So it's it really depends. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you ever feel man, I'm burdened. I just can't work.
Speaker 1: I can never make a video again, or it's gonna
Speaker 1: take days before I'm hot again. No, so you're always gone,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally Okay. What's your favorite video? Um? My
Speaker 1: favorite video is probably my Stairway to Heaven video reimagining
Speaker 1: this the guitar solo. That's one of my favorite ones,
Speaker 1: um and my top twenty acoustic guitar intros. It's one
Speaker 1: of the only acoustic guitar videos I've made, which is
Speaker 1: very funny because I love playing acoustic guitar and I've
Speaker 1: made very few videos with acoustic guitar, And um, it's
Speaker 1: all music of that we grew up with. The songs
Speaker 1: in there, I mean, it's got intros of Simon and
Speaker 1: Garfunkel and things like that, and um uh saw these
Speaker 1: classic you know, Stairway to Heaven and Angie and all
Speaker 1: the all my favorite you know things that have these
Speaker 1: signature guitar intros um and uh, so that was a
Speaker 1: that's a video that I really loved making. It was
Speaker 1: fun to make. You ever go back and watch the
Speaker 1: early videos? Yeah, they're horrible? No, No, I'm just kidding
Speaker 1: that so no, No, I don't. I don't really. Um.
Speaker 1: My question would be to what degree you think you've
Speaker 1: gotten better? Uh? And what has gotten better since you've
Speaker 1: been doing this for five years? No, no, I actually
Speaker 1: do go back and watch the early videos. Um. Some
Speaker 1: of the uh, the content is I think is as
Speaker 1: good even in my early videos. It's just the production
Speaker 1: values are not good. I mean I would put text
Speaker 1: over my face because I didn't know how to how
Speaker 1: to move the text in the final cut pro Um.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of technical errors that I had with it,
Speaker 1: and the sonics weren't as good because I wasn't shooting
Speaker 1: in his high quality. You know, I'm not shooting shooting
Speaker 1: in four K. I don't have as nice of a camera.
Speaker 1: But but um, um, some of my earliest videos are
Speaker 1: are are Um I did, I did some good, good videos, right,
Speaker 1: I think right in the beginning, you think your delivery
Speaker 1: is better. Now my delivery is definitely better, just from
Speaker 1: raw experience or anybody giving any tips. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: just from our experience. Okay, I think we've covered it
Speaker 1: here Rick. For those people unfamiliar with Rick's videos, you
Speaker 1: gotta tune him in. I mean it's you go right
Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole. As I say, I would start with,
Speaker 1: you know, acoustic intros is great, you know some of
Speaker 1: the top tens if you're not a player, if you know,
Speaker 1: if your player, you might want to go to one
Speaker 1: of the instructional videos. But I really have to give
Speaker 1: you kudos. You've built something out of nothing based on
Speaker 1: your experience and talent. Really been great talking to you, Rick.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Bob. I've been a fan of yours for
Speaker 1: so many years and we finally meet absolutely and hopefully
Speaker 1: be more in the future. Definitely until next time. This
Speaker 1: is Bob left Sex