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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left That's Podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guess today is the Fat Rat. There's number one

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Speaker 1: gaming music. He's got five and a half million YouTube

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Speaker 1: prescribers and billions of streams and twenty one thousand Discord members.

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Speaker 1: Mr Fat Rat, glad to have you here. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: having me Bob Okay, you know a lot of people

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Speaker 1: listening this are gonna be unfamiliar with you and your music.

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Speaker 1: So let's start from the beginning. Why the Fat Rat.

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Speaker 1: What's that name about? It's a typical like online name

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Speaker 1: that I used for gaming. Um, it's from my nickname

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Speaker 1: in school. So I was really small at school and

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Speaker 1: I was doing kung food to defend myself, and then

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Speaker 1: first people called me after the after Splinter, which is

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Speaker 1: the master of the teenage mutant Ninja chattles. Then day,

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Speaker 1: after a week or two, they found this was way

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Speaker 1: too friendly as a nickname, so they simply called me

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Speaker 1: Rat and German Ratta. Yeah, that name sticked with me

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Speaker 1: for years, and so when I started playing online games,

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Speaker 1: I simply picked that up and called myself the Fat

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Speaker 1: Red and online games for about ten years and then

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Speaker 1: when I started putting out my own music. I was

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Speaker 1: a music producer a long time before, but when I

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Speaker 1: started putting up my own music, just put it on SoundCloud.

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Speaker 1: I used my online name, which I used in like

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Speaker 1: online games, and now I'm still stuck with it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: it's a good name, but the rat in terms of fat,

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Speaker 1: You're not fat in the least. Why the fat rat?

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Speaker 1: Just because it sounded good when I chose the online name,

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Speaker 1: like you know, like you choose an online gaming name,

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Speaker 1: it's not you don't think about it that later on

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Speaker 1: you might have like ten million followers who might like

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Speaker 1: ask you about why did you pick the names? Just

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Speaker 1: you know, it just sounds good and you just pick it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: getting some other basics down, I'm not sure. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: to get the pronunciation wrong. You're in good again. Where

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Speaker 1: are you in Germany right now? Oh? Yeah, in gutting In. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's in the very middle of Germany, which is pretty

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Speaker 1: much in the middle of nowhere because all the big

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Speaker 1: cities like Hamburg's in the north, Berlin is the northeast,

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Speaker 1: and Munix in the south. And yeah, it's a little

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Speaker 1: bit like in the s where everything most stuff happens

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Speaker 1: on the coats you know, and the very middle there's

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Speaker 1: not that much going on. I mean, at least in Germany,

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Speaker 1: maybe still way more in the U s um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so you have very much in the middle of

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Speaker 1: no there, like all the big cities are few hours

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Speaker 1: drives away. How many people living good? Again? Okay, and

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Speaker 1: you grew up there, Yes, I grew up there, and

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Speaker 1: my wife also grew up here. And that's the reason

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Speaker 1: why we're here because we have all our parents are here.

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Speaker 1: So we have a daughter and her grandparents just has

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Speaker 1: all the grandparents very close here. That's pretty cool. Okay.

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Speaker 1: How old are you today? Forty two? Okay, So what

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Speaker 1: was the environment in music and life with for you

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Speaker 1: growing up? It wasn't It wasn't really challenging because my

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Speaker 1: mom had a music school and I had some talent

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Speaker 1: in music. But I was really quickly the best in

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Speaker 1: the music school. Um, because you know, when I was

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Speaker 1: like fourteen fifteen years old, whenever there was a concert,

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Speaker 1: I was the last act to perform because I was

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Speaker 1: the person there who was the longest there, and I

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Speaker 1: was like the best player. But then when I moved

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Speaker 1: to Munich later on, when I was starting to study,

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Speaker 1: I learned that I wasn't half as good as I

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Speaker 1: thought I was, because then I had some actual competition. Okay,

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Speaker 1: you know, the average person in America has not been anywhere.

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Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit more about Germany because

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Speaker 1: you spend time in the stage. What's the difference between

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Speaker 1: Germany and the States from your viewpoint? It's a really

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Speaker 1: good question. It's a really good question. That the funny

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Speaker 1: thing is whenever, like the grass always greener on the

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Speaker 1: other side. Right. Um So, when I moved to Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: where I lived for three years, I've realized what was

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Speaker 1: it good about Germany? Now when you ask me the question,

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Speaker 1: everything that comes to mind is how awesome the U.

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Speaker 1: S A Is and what are the problems here? Um

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Speaker 1: So Germany, please forgive me when I'm like a little

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Speaker 1: bit negative. But um what I love about the US

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Speaker 1: is that people are way more into doing things and

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Speaker 1: acting and lesson to planning everything to death, which, at

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Speaker 1: least in the which is probably great when you're in engineering,

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Speaker 1: like when you're building planes or you're building big structures

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Speaker 1: or whatever. It's great when you have zero tolerance to failure.

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Speaker 1: But in the entertainment industry you have to do stuff

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Speaker 1: and simply try and failure is an option, and that's

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Speaker 1: something let's say, failure is an option. I think that's

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Speaker 1: a big part of the US. People just do things,

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Speaker 1: they try stuff, they move forward. And in Germany everybody

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Speaker 1: is always afraid to make a mistake, and people do

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Speaker 1: rather nothing than making a mistakes. So I think that's

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Speaker 1: a huge difference in the mentality. Okay, from our viewpoint,

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Speaker 1: it appears that Germany, maybe with France, certainly runs the

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Speaker 1: European Union. What is the mindset of Germans today? You know,

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Speaker 1: we can talk about I don't want to start labeling

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Speaker 1: different countries whatever, but somehow are seen as more lazy,

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Speaker 1: some is more economic, lee forward, and we think the

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Speaker 1: perception in the US is that Germans are very precise

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Speaker 1: and at the bleeding edge of technology and engineering. That's

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Speaker 1: where the BMW's come from, the Mercedes, the Porsche's. You know,

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Speaker 1: the average person, if you're a slacker in Germany, can

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Speaker 1: you get away with it because you know, or what

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Speaker 1: is the general person in Germany? Like yeah, yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: so first of all, uh don't be afraid to hit

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Speaker 1: me with like uh stereotypes, So it's totally no problem.

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Speaker 1: So speak freely. Um. Uh, I think you can get

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Speaker 1: very pretty good as so Germany. Germans are not about

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Speaker 1: hard work. I wouldn't say that, it's more about precision.

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Speaker 1: I think that's that's a good point, um, because uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: like I said before, I think it's this being afraid

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Speaker 1: of making failure being very very accurate. That's the good

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Speaker 1: side of it. The bad side is that it often

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Speaker 1: slows down things a lot. Right, So when you want

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Speaker 1: to do something in the years, you say, hey, let's

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Speaker 1: do this, and everybody's cool, let's try it. And in

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Speaker 1: Germany everybody's oh yeah, but what could go wrong. Let's

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Speaker 1: let's figure out everything that could go wrong and make

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Speaker 1: sure nothing goes wrong. And um, if we're afraid. There's

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Speaker 1: actually a very good specific example I can give you

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Speaker 1: in the music industry because I'm like, most of my

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Speaker 1: business contacts are still in the US. So when I

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Speaker 1: for example, when I worked with the management in the US,

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Speaker 1: we had a call, how we want to do the

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Speaker 1: deal right? And he said, Okay, this is how we're

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Speaker 1: gonna work, and then we started right. We didn't even

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Speaker 1: signed agreement. And this was about like thousands, thousands of

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Speaker 1: dollars from the start but when I signed a small

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Speaker 1: a capella group in Germany and we wanted to release something,

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Speaker 1: they insisted on written agreements that we would send back

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Speaker 1: via mail, like not email, but physical mail. So otherwise

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Speaker 1: it's not because otherwise it's not safe, um legally right,

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Speaker 1: So you have to send like the letter agreements all

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Speaker 1: of the world. And my business partner in the US

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Speaker 1: was still involved, so we had to send it from

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Speaker 1: Germany to the US and then back to Germany and

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Speaker 1: then to everybody to sign it. It was like no

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Speaker 1: almost no money in all, but they were so scared

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Speaker 1: that something could go wrong. And this is I think

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Speaker 1: that's a pretty good example how the mentality is different Germans.

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Speaker 1: Very everything has to be done right. It's like the

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Speaker 1: typical image that people are standing at night at the

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Speaker 1: green at the red traffic light right the where the

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Speaker 1: pedestrians crossed, and its red lights. So they stand for

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Speaker 1: a minute and wait till the light turns green and

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Speaker 1: there's no car around, nobody's around whatsoever, but they're still

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Speaker 1: going to stand at the red light. That's I think

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Speaker 1: that that's German. It is okay, not everybody does it,

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Speaker 1: but that's how people are here. I'm older than you are.

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Speaker 1: And I remember when Europe most of the radio stations

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Speaker 1: were state controlled, so at this point, and certainly electronic music,

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Speaker 1: many people believe, started in the Midwest of the United States,

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Speaker 1: but really took hold in Europe. So the average person

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Speaker 1: and it's hard in today's digital era, and you're old

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Speaker 1: enough to know have seen the transition in Germany? Is

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Speaker 1: music consumption driven by the radio or other ways or

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Speaker 1: has there been a transition in your lifetime? And what

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Speaker 1: kind of music do people listen to? Honestly, I don't

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Speaker 1: even know that much about it because I have my

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Speaker 1: very own space. Um I think it's very like big influence.

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Speaker 1: I think it's still TV. But then there are those

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Speaker 1: subcultures like German rap became a big thing in the

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Speaker 1: last couple of years, just like you know in the

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Speaker 1: U S as well, like the rappers there was like

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Speaker 1: huge come back sort of thing after all the E

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Speaker 1: d M stuff, and that the same thing happened in Germany.

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Speaker 1: But I don't even know exactly where that came from

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Speaker 1: because I have, like like I said, I have my

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Speaker 1: very own almost the bubble where I live in where

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Speaker 1: I have like my music world. Um, I listened to

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Speaker 1: the radio. HEO sometimes, Um, but I'm not so familiar

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Speaker 1: with the audience in Germany. What's important is my audience

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Speaker 1: is two percent German, It's nine percent is the rest

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Speaker 1: of the world. So it's artists wise. I'm not German.

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Speaker 1: I mean I live here and I'm from here. But

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Speaker 1: like my as an artist, I have as much to

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Speaker 1: do with Germany as as I have to do, even

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Speaker 1: more a way less to do with Germany than I

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Speaker 1: have to do with Vietnam, China, USA, in Mexico. Okay,

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Speaker 1: when you were growing up, rave culture started to be

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Speaker 1: something in the US and the nineties. Was that something

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Speaker 1: that was happening in Germany when you were growing up,

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Speaker 1: and were you a participant? Yes? Absolutely so. We had

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Speaker 1: Love Parade in Berlin where they were like over million

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Speaker 1: people coming to Berlin to join. The Love Parade, for

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Speaker 1: those who don't know, was like trucks with sound systems

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Speaker 1: on it and making a huge parade, and the trucks

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Speaker 1: were so loud that whenever you was you were like

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Speaker 1: somewhat close to one truck, you could only hear that

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Speaker 1: one truck. Uh yeah, so yeah, And I went to

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Speaker 1: a couple of those parades that was. Those were the

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Speaker 1: raves back then. It's not not so much of the festival,

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Speaker 1: but it was a lot of those parades and was

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Speaker 1: a ton of fun. I was like eighteen years old

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Speaker 1: at the time, really drunk, and yeah, it was a

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Speaker 1: lot of Okay, you call yourself the number one gaming

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Speaker 1: music artists, what exactly does that mean? Well, the gaming

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Speaker 1: music is simply the term that helps people to find

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Speaker 1: music that's similar to mine. In the very beginning, I

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Speaker 1: have people asking me, Hey, what's the like the music,

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Speaker 1: what you're making? What is it? I was like, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, it's it's not really E d M. You

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Speaker 1: cannot call it d M. E d M is like

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Speaker 1: a certain you know, sound, a certain culture and everything.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of close to that, it's not really that.

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Speaker 1: But then I stumbled upon gaming music mix tapes on

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Speaker 1: YouTube and I found, okay, this is like the kind

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Speaker 1: of music that I'm making. And also my music is

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Speaker 1: all over those mix tapes, right, They often started with

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Speaker 1: my song. They still do. If you bring up gaming

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Speaker 1: music mix on YouTube, it's often the first song. It's

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Speaker 1: the Fat Rah. Yeah, so that's where I'm okay, cool.

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Speaker 1: Then that's kind of the niche or the genre that

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Speaker 1: describes my music, that simply describes it best in which

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Speaker 1: the most functioning note for people to understand kind of

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Speaker 1: what it is because it's music. It's not music from

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Speaker 1: video games. It's simply music that grew out of the

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Speaker 1: video game video game culture. And it's also yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: also the term where you can find music that is

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Speaker 1: somewhat similar to what I'm doing. Okay, So what is

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Speaker 1: different in terms of sound between gaming music and id

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Speaker 1: um um gaming music? It's kind of more like electronic huts,

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Speaker 1: not so much made for dancing, right. The gaming music

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Speaker 1: always has I mean e d M always has to

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Speaker 1: be danceable, right, because you played on festivals, you played

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Speaker 1: in clubs. That's what it's made for. And gaming music

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Speaker 1: it's more for listening because what people do with it,

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Speaker 1: they played in the background, especially when they're playing like

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Speaker 1: competitive games like Dota two or League of Lets or

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Speaker 1: stuff like that. Okay, As I say, a lot of

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Speaker 1: people are not that experienced in this world. So let's

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Speaker 1: talk about music in actual games that people play multiplayer

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Speaker 1: online or they buy discs or whatever. Do you license

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Speaker 1: your music to those commercial games? Yeah? I do that

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Speaker 1: as well, but that's not my primary primary thing that

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Speaker 1: I'm doing. That happened because my music became so big

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Speaker 1: in the space. So a couple of those big, big

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Speaker 1: games reached out to me and said, hey, I want

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Speaker 1: to we want to have your music in our games.

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Speaker 1: Like it's a title song for the actual season. So

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Speaker 1: for people who are not in the gaming space, like

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Speaker 1: games today, it's not like it's not like a DVD

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Speaker 1: that you buy, so you buy the thing one time,

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Speaker 1: then you played through and then it's over. It's more

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Speaker 1: the term games for games as a service, So a

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Speaker 1: game is a continuously developing product or space. So it's

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Speaker 1: is for example, so those games today they have seasons.

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Speaker 1: It's like okay, every uh three months or every six

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Speaker 1: months there's like new levels, new characters, and they also

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Speaker 1: then have a new title song. So for example, the

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Speaker 1: Rocketly for example, licensed my song as a title song

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Speaker 1: for the new season, and then I think recently did

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Speaker 1: it again, and then Doda too. I made a music

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Speaker 1: pack that that was the only time where I made

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Speaker 1: music specifically only for a game, which is then not

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Speaker 1: I got didn't get paid for it directly, but it's

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Speaker 1: an in game item that you can buy. So the

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Speaker 1: game itself is for free, and the business model is

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Speaker 1: that you can buy stuff in the game. And one

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Speaker 1: of the items that you can buy in the game

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Speaker 1: is my music pack. So the standard music that you

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Speaker 1: that plays when you play the game gets exchanged by

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Speaker 1: music that I made, and you pay I don't know,

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Speaker 1: four dollars to get that, and then I get a

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Speaker 1: share of those four dollars. Is that a real business

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Speaker 1: or is that really small? I ain't my I can't

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Speaker 1: talk numbers. So the first month I think was no,

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Speaker 1: I'm not I'm sure if I'm numbers, but it's a

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Speaker 1: numbers no, no, no, no, I'm not sure if I'm

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Speaker 1: allowed from the from valve side, from the g I

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Speaker 1: just remembered, uh, nobody. It's a real business. That's a

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Speaker 1: real business. I could I could, I could live in

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Speaker 1: I could live a year from what I made in

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Speaker 1: the first month. This is just from selling packs within

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Speaker 1: the video game exactly. There's no license, okay, And like,

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Speaker 1: what kind of deal if since they're not paying you

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Speaker 1: up front and you were talking like four dollars for

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Speaker 1: a pack, how many different songs would they get? Would

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Speaker 1: they all be yours? And how would the four dollars

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Speaker 1: be split. Uh once again, I'm not Harpers, and sure

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Speaker 1: if I'm allowed to talk about that about the split.

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Speaker 1: Um so they actually it's a standard standard deal. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's just they have a lot of different creators. Um

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Speaker 1: so not everybody can place his or her item in

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Speaker 1: the game, but they do this quite a bit. So

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Speaker 1: there there's a community or a lot of people who say, hey,

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Speaker 1: I want to play stuff in the game or sell

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Speaker 1: stuff in within the game, and um, yeah, it's just

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Speaker 1: a standard agreement, which and it's it's processed through their

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Speaker 1: through Steam. So Steam is like iTunes for video games

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Speaker 1: sort of thing. So it's a platform within that you

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Speaker 1: can like you can buy games, you can download the games,

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Speaker 1: and then you have a community aspect to it and

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Speaker 1: all those things and it's done within that platform. So

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Speaker 1: one of one of you the statements I opened Steam,

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Speaker 1: which is actually the platform that I also used when

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Speaker 1: I want to buy games. So it's all done within

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Speaker 1: that platform. Okay, is Steam because you know, maybe I

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Speaker 1: don't have it straight. Is Steam a platform or also

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Speaker 1: technology or the game games written a specific language that

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Speaker 1: Steam provides or Steam is just a hosting place. Um no,

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Speaker 1: So tons of different games are um are are used

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Speaker 1: in Steam and like um distributed through Steam, so I

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Speaker 1: would I would call it like the distribution platform. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a software that you install, So you say, okay,

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Speaker 1: I want to download Steam. Then you install the software

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Speaker 1: on your PC, PC or your Mac, and then you

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Speaker 1: create a user account and then you have like no

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Speaker 1: games in your library, and then you buy some games

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Speaker 1: or you download some free games. You're like, okay, I

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Speaker 1: want to have this game in that game you downloaded,

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Speaker 1: and then it keeps the game. So originally I think

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Speaker 1: it was developed from Valve. They developed games themselves, so

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Speaker 1: Valve owned Steam, but they also developed games, and they

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Speaker 1: developed it originally just as an update client, so just

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Speaker 1: so you do it within the platform and then it

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Speaker 1: updates automatically whenever a game update happens. But then they

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Speaker 1: started plugging in other games, so other people said, hey,

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Speaker 1: can we maybe distribute our games through your platform for

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Speaker 1: updates and stuff, and then they did this and I

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Speaker 1: think by now what's funny is I think Valve is

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Speaker 1: the company in the US that has the biggest profit

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Speaker 1: per UH employee in the in the entire US. I

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Speaker 1: think they have liked employees and they have like billions

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Speaker 1: of profits. Okay. So your music pack which is sold

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Speaker 1: on Steam, is it sold directly by Steam or does

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Speaker 1: it go through the person who constructed the game that

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Speaker 1: you gave the music to for free? Uh no, because

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Speaker 1: Valve the owners of Steam, they also developed they are

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Speaker 1: also the owners of Doda too, So it's one thing.

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Speaker 1: It's one company in this case. Let me let me

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Speaker 1: just put it in in a different way theoretic, Lie, could

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Speaker 1: you independently put a music pack on Steam? Uh No?

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Speaker 1: Not in Dota two. That wasn't That wouldn't be possible. Okay,

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Speaker 1: And you know, uh in many walks of the music

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Speaker 1: business other than the major label, certainly indie labels, it's

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Speaker 1: a fifty fifty deal. Is that similar here? Is it better?

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Speaker 1: Is it worse? That's a little worse, but it's close, okay,

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Speaker 1: just because for this deep in how often do they

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Speaker 1: account uh monthly? Monthly? Okay? So for okay, so that

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Speaker 1: you know that and you feel you're getting an honest accounting, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, okay. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's go back to this licensing thing. You give the

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Speaker 1: music to the game like those two. Do you ever

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Speaker 1: charge large to license? Yeah? Not? Uh not? Data too,

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Speaker 1: because it's this model. Um, but I do a lot

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Speaker 1: of are my company, and it's not me directly, but

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Speaker 1: my wife who who manages me and runs all my

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Speaker 1: business stuff, and my cousin. Actually it's very very family.

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Speaker 1: They do a lot of licensing into mobile games, for example,

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Speaker 1: that they use it for a year and they pay

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Speaker 1: me a yearly fee to use the song. Okay, but

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Speaker 1: from the beginning of your public life you talk about

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Speaker 1: the ability to license. Now, let's use YouTube as a

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Speaker 1: specific situation. Yes, if you want to use a major tune,

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Speaker 1: legally you might jump through hoops. But what do we know?

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Speaker 1: There's content idea on YouTube such that the creator ultimately

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Speaker 1: gets paid. So what exactly is your model? It's just

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Speaker 1: you don't have to ask me to record it. But

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Speaker 1: I get paid by YouTube, right, don't get paid by YouTube?

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Speaker 1: What's going on there on on YouTube? I have a

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Speaker 1: different model which is kind of unique, which is that

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Speaker 1: I it's free to use on YouTube for everybody. So

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Speaker 1: you if you have YouTube channel, you can use my

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Speaker 1: music there and monetize the video and keep percent of

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Speaker 1: the revenue. I I'm not going to touch any of

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Speaker 1: the revenue on YouTube. Wow, So your main avenues of

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Speaker 1: revenue or what. Uh, it's my own YouTube channel which

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Speaker 1: has around a million plays per day. Um, I mean

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Speaker 1: I'm much the what's the net on a million players? Um?

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Speaker 1: I have to think I think they think. I think, well,

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Speaker 1: it's it's my much. You can't make a month from YouTube?

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Speaker 1: From you, that's I think it's that's twenty five k

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Speaker 1: around that a month. Yeah, so you have your own

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Speaker 1: monetized YouTube channel. That's one stream of revenue. Anything else Yeah,

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Speaker 1: then of course are the d piece right Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes,

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Speaker 1: still sales and those things. That's the that's by far

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Speaker 1: the biggest chunk because so so on youtu, I think

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Speaker 1: it's roughly it's roughly one k for a million place

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Speaker 1: around that. And on Spotify, my revenue is not that

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Speaker 1: good because it's very international. So when your only base,

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Speaker 1: when your place all comes from the U S, you

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Speaker 1: make more per play than me, for example, makes a

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Speaker 1: lot of place in Vietnam. You just don't make that

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Speaker 1: much money in being non per play. Um. But there

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Speaker 1: I roughly say, like over all these piece for me,

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Speaker 1: it's a million places. On Spotify is around like five

385
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Speaker 1: k per month. I know it's not per mount like

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Speaker 1: million plays is around five k over all these pe Okay,

387
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Speaker 1: so have YouTube and you have the das traditional music streamers,

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Speaker 1: you have packs on Steam any other your avenues of revenue?

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, licensing of course, like licensing into different games.

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Speaker 1: So not only not only the packs, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of mobile games are licensed into a lot of um

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Speaker 1: mobile like tires hop, like jumping games and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: Publishing on all the stuff. Um, then what's that? It's

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Speaker 1: um uh, neighboring rights. Those are the big, the big ones. Okay,

395
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Speaker 1: So most of your revenue is from traditional music streaming. Yeah, okay,

396
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Speaker 1: so is it? How did you let people know that

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Speaker 1: not only could they use their music on YouTube without

398
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Speaker 1: asking that they could keep the red the new I

399
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:06,920
Speaker 1: simply told them when I started, And also when I started,

400
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 1: was way more common that people would simply use stuff

401
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:12,439
Speaker 1: because it was just in the start of content idea

402
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,879
Speaker 1: when those things came up on YouTube, and up to

403
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: that point, people would simply start using stuff, and then

404
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: later on content idea kicked in. But it didn't kick

405
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Speaker 1: in for my stuff. So a lot of people already

406
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Speaker 1: used it and they realized they got a lot of

407
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Speaker 1: copyright claims. But not on my music. So they were like, Okay, cool,

408
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:33,199
Speaker 1: maybe I should keep using this guy's music. Do you

409
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Speaker 1: have any idea the volume of clips and and plays

410
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 1: on YouTube that are using your music? Ah, So we

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Speaker 1: made an estimate recently based on some other people's numbers

412
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Speaker 1: that we know, Um, so are approximate as at the

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Speaker 1: moment at the moment that it's like twenty five million

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Speaker 1: videos using my music at the moment on YouTube. So

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Speaker 1: it's not that's not played as a number of videos.

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Speaker 1: So anybody else doing what you're doing in terms of

417
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Speaker 1: giving their music away for free and how big are

418
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: they on YouTube? Um? Yeah, there are a couple of

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Speaker 1: artists especially like especially in the gaming music scene. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of a common thing. Um simply because it helps

421
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: you grow so much. People realize that because when you're

422
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Speaker 1: coming from the video game culture, a huge and free

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00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: promotion tool is that people using your music in the background,

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Speaker 1: and then other people hear the music and they're like, oh,

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00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 1: that's amazing, what's that And then they search wood and

426
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 1: they find the music and then they played. So yeah,

427
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 1: there are other people doing the same thing. Okay, let's

428
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: go back to the beginning. So your mother random music school.

429
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: What did your father do? He was originally a farmer,

430
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: but not anymore. When I was born. He was an

431
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 1: independent inventor, like inventing uh machines stuff, but he was

432
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: never successful. Okay, and are your parents still alive? Yeah? Yeah,

433
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 1: my father's eighties six now and my mom is almost

434
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:11,560
Speaker 1: She is going to get seventeen in a week. I think, yeah,

435
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: uh yeah, but they're fine. They're also together and they're

436
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: have an amazing family. I have to say. Okay, and

437
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: how many kids in the family? Uh? So I have

438
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: a daughter together with my wife and no, no, no, no,

439
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:27,119
Speaker 1: your parents kid they Yeah. I have one brother. He

440
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:31,360
Speaker 1: also lives in gutting In. He works for a US company.

441
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:33,920
Speaker 1: He's an animator also in the gaming space, so he

442
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 1: he animates uh dinosaurs for a game Arc Survival Evolved,

443
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:41,199
Speaker 1: which is also really huge game. But he's doing it

444
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: here from from gutting In. And yeah, he has also

445
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 1: a daughter together with his wife. Okay, so you're growing

446
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: up and when do you start playing music? I grew

447
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:55,400
Speaker 1: up making music. So the first thing that I actually

448
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: remember is me sitting on my mom's lap while she

449
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: was playing piano. So she did this she was playing

450
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 1: the piano. And I was two years old sitting on

451
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: her lap, and I would start hitting random keys, and

452
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 1: at first she wanted to keep me from doing it.

453
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 1: She was like, hey, no, I'm going I'm playing piano.

454
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: You you don't hit the keys. But I kept, you know,

455
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: kidding keys, and at some point she thought, hey, I'm

456
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 1: actually doing it for my son, so why not let

457
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: him play stuff? But then after like a week or two,

458
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: she realized that the keys I was pressing would fit

459
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,320
Speaker 1: to what she was playing. And I can still remember

460
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:30,439
Speaker 1: how like she was blown away that I was like

461
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 1: pressing keys that would fit to what she was playing.

462
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: And that's how I learned music. So I really learned

463
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: it like a language growing up. And I like, I

464
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,159
Speaker 1: literally cannot think of a time where I was not

465
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: making music. Okay, So what instruments did you play? Um, So,

466
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: piano was my my main instrument. I've played a lot

467
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: of other instruments, so I started a little bit with

468
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: the flute and trumpet. I really liked a little bit

469
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: of violent double bass guitar and a little bit of

470
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: like vocal lessons and stuff, but piano was always main. Okay,

471
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 1: And you can read music, I assume. Yeah, to a

472
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: certain degree. I'm a little bit out of practice, but yeah,

473
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 1: I can read music. Okay. Now you talk about going

474
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: to Munich. How old again are you when you go

475
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:16,919
Speaker 1: to Munich? And what school are you going to attend

476
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: in Munich? I was twenty one, I think, Yeah, I

477
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: was twenty one, and I go. I went to the

478
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: s a E. Which is School of Audio Engineering, like

479
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: an international school for audio engineering. Okay, but you said, okay,

480
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 1: you you know, some of the terms may not be identical.

481
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: You graduate from high school, which in America's traditionally eighteen,

482
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 1: then do you go you go to university or when

483
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: I do after eighteen? Yeah, exactly, it's it's School of

484
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: aud Engineering. So I got a bachelor's degree there and

485
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: so I'm a Bachelor of Recording Arts Honors Recording Arts. Okay,

486
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: but you said once you got to Munich, you thought

487
00:28:56,560 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: that people were much better musicians than you. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

488
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: So I after six months, I went into a fraternity

489
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: and it was a music or it is a music fraternity,

490
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: which was amazing. Uh. They had a huge house in

491
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: the middle of Munich, Munich, incredibly expensive and it's it's

492
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: like it's like, I don't know, it's uh utopia kind

493
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: of for a musician because it was in the middle

494
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: of Munich and they had a big, big rooms with

495
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: pianos and I could play like grand pianos to use

496
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: for free all the time. Whenever I wanted, I could ill.

497
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,959
Speaker 1: I moved into the fraternity there, so that was absolutely amazing.

498
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: But there were a lot of other musicians as well,

499
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: and that's what I talked talked about. It was like,

500
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 1: oh wow, um, I'm not half as good as I thought.

501
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: I was, Okay, you graduate, you get your degree, what's

502
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: the next step? Um. Even before I finished the degree,

503
00:29:54,960 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: I had the part was a U internship internship and

504
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: so I took an intern at a company called Uniquate

505
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: Music and that was a publishing company and a music

506
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: production company. And they had this artist called lu Biga

507
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: who didn't know five yeah, and so that was two

508
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: thousand one, so that was just like one and a

509
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 1: half years ago. So they were like the biggest thing.

510
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 1: And I was like, Okay, this is my chance because

511
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to become a music producer. That

512
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: was my goal. UM, So I simply worked my ass

513
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: off there like I worked like crazy and was like

514
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: I wasn't intern first then, and like a year after

515
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 1: they hired me as an intern, I was like head

516
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: of the interim music production there and I run the production. Ah. Yeah,

517
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: that was the next step. And I can tell you

518
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: a lot about that that company and what I learned there.

519
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: If you want, um, how to like how not to

520
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 1: what not to do when you have to says the company.

521
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: So the the owner of the company, he was not

522
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: creatively involved in Mambo number five, but after the big success,

523
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: he thought like, oh, I want to be like the mastermind.

524
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: I want to be the creative chief. So he took

525
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: things in his own hands creatively, and that's simply ruined

526
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 1: the entire the entire process. That killed the creativity. UM

527
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean there's like no value or very

528
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: little value to the the brand today. And there there

529
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: wasn't like a long time career that developed out of

530
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: Mambo Number five because that idiot simply ruined everything. Okay,

531
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: so where do you go from that production company? UM?

532
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 1: I was there for like four years and then I

533
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 1: um worked like crazy, fourteen hours a day and made

534
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 1: like five bucks per month that's what they paid me.

535
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: And then I decided I want to go independent, so

536
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 1: I started. I was like, okay, I'm ready. I'm not

537
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 1: going to do like or it's independent, like I would

538
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: want to build start my own business, become an entrepreneur,

539
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: which didn't go so well at first, because the one

540
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: thing that made me money was and was making ring

541
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: tones for um Zeemens. So those mobile phones when you

542
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: would buy a mobile Zemens mobile phone back in two

543
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: thousand and six, the ring tones that were on the

544
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: phone were I wrote those ring tones and produced those

545
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 1: ring tones, and that was the one source of income

546
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 1: that I had. And then ben Q had bought Zeemens

547
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: I think in two thousand six maybe or so, and

548
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: then two thousand no, I think two thousand four maybe,

549
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 1: but they they let the mobile part of it, they

550
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 1: let it go bankrupt purpose because they only wanted their

551
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: technology and they wanted to lay off all the employees

552
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 1: and everything. So that's that happened exactly at that time.

553
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: So they still owed me a lot, a lot of money.

554
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: So one month after I decided I wanna start my

555
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:07,959
Speaker 1: own business, that happened. So I had like I started

556
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: with seven thousand euros in depth and I had like

557
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: no income so that was my my start at that time,

558
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: keep going down the narrative yea, well um, And then

559
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: it was just you know, it's aistential crisis and thinking

560
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 1: about if music production was the right thing, because everybody

561
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: wronged me. You know, people finished, like all the people

562
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: that I knew, they were like finishing their their university

563
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: and everybody was like starting families. And I was just

564
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: bankrupt basically almost like my parents had me had to

565
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: help me out. And then I just I there was

566
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: one guy that I knew from the company, and he said, hey,

567
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 1: I also want to go away, and do you have

568
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:50,239
Speaker 1: some music like I wanna UM could help you. And

569
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: I just played him a couple of songs and he

570
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: for one song that I had produced, he found me

571
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 1: a deal at Content Records, which is a German dance label. Uh,

572
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 1: it flowed out, but he got me another deal for

573
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,160
Speaker 1: another record, and that's how we started. And then we

574
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: founded a company together. And that was a good thing

575
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 1: because so I was producing a lot of dance music

576
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 1: and I was doing like everything that I could simply

577
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: get my hands, like every job, anything that I could do,

578
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: any production, we're the stuff, so still ring Tones, and

579
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:25,959
Speaker 1: then we had those big ring tones, like people would

580
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 1: sell ring tones on television. That was a thing. So

581
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: I did that um and for example, publishing company of

582
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 1: that owned h take Me Home Tonight by Share for

583
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 1: example for Germany. They hit me up and said, hey,

584
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 1: you know, cascadas like a big thing at the moment,

585
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,279
Speaker 1: this euro dance is blowing up. Can you make a

586
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: cascada is a version of take Me Home Tonight? And

587
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: that's what I did for ext some and then they

588
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: paid me like eight hundred bucks or stuff like that.

589
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: So I would do all those things and slowly, you know,

590
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: make my way into the business. And then I signed

591
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: a publishing deal with Chrysalis back then, I think that

592
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: was two thousand nine already, and we decided that we

593
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: want to reach out to the Yes because the dance

594
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: music thing was blowing up, and we had like at

595
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 1: that time it was possible from Munich to get in

596
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: touch with Island in New York and you know Atlantic

597
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: recket and all, because everybody was like searching for European producers.

598
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, like dance music is blowing up,

599
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: and like you know, the hip hop producers they were

600
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 1: not there quite yet. They learned so quickly the U

601
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 1: S producers, but there was like the small window of

602
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:35,879
Speaker 1: time where they were not there and we already had

603
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: the sound. Um. Yeah. And then we in two thousand nine,

604
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:44,360
Speaker 1: what we did is we booked K and A Studios

605
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 1: in Brill Building in New York for a week for

606
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: I don't know, ten thousand dollars or something like that,

607
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: without having any session, and then we we reached out

608
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: to I don't know which one it was like one

609
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,919
Speaker 1: of the maybe Atlantic or so, and said, hey, we're

610
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:00,880
Speaker 1: in like we're in New York, we're in cam A

611
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: studios like you know, doing sessions, and we still have

612
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:06,719
Speaker 1: like one spot open. Do you have any artists that

613
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: you want to send around and they will do? Okay?

614
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 1: Cool you have like I know Winter Gordon for example,

615
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: maybe you could do a session with her. And then

616
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 1: we would go to the next like to Island saying hey,

617
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:16,920
Speaker 1: by the way, we're in came A students and we're

618
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: working with at Landing on their artists, you know, but

619
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: we have still one spot open and maybe do you

620
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: have an artist? Yeah. That's that's how we did it,

621
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: and then we had like the entire scheduled booked and

622
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 1: came a studios, and then we went to New York

623
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: and wrote a lot of songs. I think none of

624
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:34,919
Speaker 1: that ever got released, but we that was the first

625
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 1: time it came to the U. S almost thirty years old,

626
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 1: but it was amazing and it's like the Yeah, we

627
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: realized how different the US mentality is, especially in the

628
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:48,919
Speaker 1: entertainment industry, and how how quickly things can happen. They're

629
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: compared to Germany, where every it's so slow. Here. I'm

630
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 1: not I have like almost nothing to do with the

631
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: German entertainment industry, but I remember how baffled I was

632
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:01,879
Speaker 1: and how amazed that was when it came the first

633
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 1: time to the US and things happened, especially in New York,

634
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,319
Speaker 1: had happened so quick it was just crazy. Yeah. And

635
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: then I was in New York four I don't know,

636
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 1: eight weeks or so. So we did other sessions and

637
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: you know, socializing and everything, and we was, yeah, we

638
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 1: originally we had planned to fly back, but then we

639
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:24,439
Speaker 1: had a we had a in Art Island. He said

640
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 1: he wanted us to work with his artist, and we flew.

641
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: He flew us to Los Angeles and then I was

642
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: away there for three weeks and then I decided in

643
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:37,280
Speaker 1: the end of two thousand nine, almost missed the flight

644
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:41,600
Speaker 1: back on Christmas but made it. And then we just okay,

645
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 1: we're gonna move to l A and see how far

646
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: we can get there. And that's the next thing that

647
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: we did. So what happened in l A? And how

648
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: long were you in l A? Three years? And yeah, learning,

649
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: learning as I had amazing Like I mean, it's creatively,

650
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: it's incredibly professional. I was in the studio with people

651
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:09,279
Speaker 1: like Tovlo, b b Rexa, Um, even Bogart who wrote

652
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 1: like Halo, Fifore Beyonce, with um the underdogs who are

653
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: like also like Justin Bieber Beyonce and amazing. Yeah, a

654
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: lot of amazing people. I learned so much from it.

655
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 1: But I also get like Piste or Piste by annoyed

656
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,359
Speaker 1: by the music industry, like how how political it is

657
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,399
Speaker 1: and how especially what bothered me is like how many

658
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: people started talking into my music, Like you know, I

659
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:38,360
Speaker 1: put so much like work and thought into it, and

660
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: then you have like the artist has an opinion, which

661
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 1: is legit, and then the manager artist manager has an opinion,

662
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 1: and then there in our has an opinion, and then

663
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 1: the label head and this person and that person and

664
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 1: the publisher, and everybody's like, hey, let's change this, let's

665
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 1: change that. Can you do this? Can you do that?

666
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: And then at the end of you like everything's kind

667
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: of ruined. And that really was annoying. And also that

668
00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: some of the best songs I thought I had were

669
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: never released just because they didn't fit anywhere. But I

670
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 1: still thought they were amazing songs. And some songs where

671
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:10,840
Speaker 1: I thought like, oh, that's not that good, We're actually

672
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: raised because we were done with the right people at

673
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 1: the right time, the right studio you know. Um, yeah,

674
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: that was the time two thou eleven. Oh, actually it's

675
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,720
Speaker 1: it's now exactly ten years ago, because thousand eleven, summer

676
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven. There's okay, I'm just gonna put out

677
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:29,879
Speaker 1: some ideas that I have by myself, just gonna put

678
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: it before you go there. You moved to l A.

679
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 1: How do you end up working with these artists? Sheer

680
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: hustle or does somebody else make the arrangement? You come

681
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: to l A? You don't really know many people even Yeah,

682
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 1: like I said, so we did this this move that

683
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,320
Speaker 1: has had in New York with came A studios, um

684
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: and that was our like you know, there was our

685
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: step into the industry. So we started knowing people then,

686
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: and like I said, we had this a are from

687
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: Ireland who flew us UH to l A. He also

688
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 1: the second time he said like, hey, I want you

689
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:08,400
Speaker 1: guys in l A. Actually, now that I remember, the

690
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 1: second time I wanted to come to the years we

691
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 1: wanted to come to New York. We also already had

692
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: the flights booked and I think three days people, no,

693
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: there was this volcano thing, if I remember correctly, we

694
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 1: couldn't fly, and then the flights were delayed and in

695
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:24,399
Speaker 1: that time we had the call from Ireland and they said, hey,

696
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 1: we want to work you to work with our artists

697
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. So then we canceled those flights into Okay,

698
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:34,200
Speaker 1: two questions when you say we who are you talking

699
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: about and who was in l A? And b how

700
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:41,800
Speaker 1: are you making money in this period in Los Angeles? Yeah,

701
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: so we that that was the the guy that I

702
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 1: talked about who like brought me those first UH dance

703
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:52,920
Speaker 1: deals like with Contour Records when I started starting my

704
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 1: own business. So I had this guy. He was working

705
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 1: at the company were Lubka was also signed the publishing company.

706
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: He moved away from that company as well, and we

707
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: started our own business and he was he was the

708
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: person uh that kind of did all the like management stuff.

709
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 1: So it was one company, but basically I was doing

710
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:12,839
Speaker 1: the music production. He was doing like all the rest.

711
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 1: Um yeah, and we just did it together. How did

712
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,800
Speaker 1: you make money in that life? Yeah? Um, well, actually

713
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 1: we had a huge, pretty huge hit in Europe exactly

714
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:28,919
Speaker 1: at that time. One of those ring tones that we did,

715
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 1: um it was it was released as a full so

716
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 1: it went really well in France and it then was

717
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,479
Speaker 1: released as a full song and it became it got

718
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: the number one spot in France for thirteen weeks um

719
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 1: and it was best selling single of the year in France,

720
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 1: and that was one of the things. And then we

721
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 1: still had the publishing deal with the advance and stuff

722
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 1: like that, and then we had like cuts, a couple

723
00:41:56,080 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: of cuts, like some K pop songs and then some

724
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: I think it was also Atlantic Records, so so some

725
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: some smaller placements and stuff. Okay, so you wake up

726
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:10,320
Speaker 1: one day and you say you're gonna do your own music.

727
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 1: Continue from there, yes, So it was started kind of

728
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 1: a side project. So it was just it was more

729
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: a creative thing, and for me it's aweso important. I was.

730
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 1: I was annoyed by how complicated everything was, including well

731
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 1: now that came a little bit a litt bit later,

732
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 1: but that that started then that it was annoyed by

733
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,400
Speaker 1: how complicated was for people to listen to my music.

734
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 1: But yeah, it started that. I simply put out an

735
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: EP on SoundCloud, and I sent it to a couple

736
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 1: of blocks, and then I went into holidays, and then

737
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,879
Speaker 1: I came back and was curious to see how many

738
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:50,720
Speaker 1: plays I have And I had seventy three plays into

739
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 1: on the entire EP over two weeks, so that wasn't

740
00:42:55,000 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: too crazy. But so what I did then I hit

741
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 1: up people on SoundCloud directly personally. Uh, you could wait,

742
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: how did it work? On sound ticks? You could see

743
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: like you could open up an artist like let's say Scritics,

744
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 1: who was like blowing up at the time. You could

745
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:17,720
Speaker 1: open up Scritics and then it would show you people

746
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: who would listen to Scrilics. I would show those profiles.

747
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: So I would search for some artists, for example, Potter

748
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 1: Robinson here like a little bit similar sized that at

749
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 1: that time as well, similar to the stuff that I

750
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 1: was doing complex shrow. So I would look up those

751
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: people and see who was following them and then send

752
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: them a personal message. So a lot of those were

753
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: produced as well. So I would listen to their songs

754
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 1: and say like, hey, I listen to your song like

755
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 1: this and or maybe you could do this different. I

756
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: have those ideas and maybe you want to check out

757
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: my songs. So it was it like really doing this.

758
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: I would like hit up ten people per day, and

759
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 1: a lot of people got back to me like, Hey,

760
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: your music is amazing, thanks so much for reaching out.

761
00:43:58,239 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 1: And that was where I felt like, hey, I'm not

762
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: doing annoying advertisement. What I'm doing is like actually people

763
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:06,239
Speaker 1: enjoyed when I reached out to them. And one of

764
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:09,359
Speaker 1: those artists he sent my music to his manager and

765
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: to another band. The other band was The Knox. I

766
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 1: don't know if you know them. It's like an indie

767
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:18,240
Speaker 1: band from New York and his manager. So The Knox

768
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 1: reached out to me saying, hey, your music is amazing,

769
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: can you do remis for us? And then this manager

770
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: who was tour manager for the Knox, but he was

771
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: also manager for another artist, he also reached out to

772
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: me see he said like, hey, I want to manage

773
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 1: your music. Amazing, I think I could do something for you.

774
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:33,839
Speaker 1: So did. There's readings for the knocks, and back then

775
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: high Machine was a big thing. I don't know, like

776
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,399
Speaker 1: probably remember, like was the music block charts sort of thing.

777
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: And that remix became immediately went top ten in the

778
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:50,280
Speaker 1: High Machine charts. Okay, how did it go top ten? Um?

779
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 1: So the manager that that that wanted to work for me.

780
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 1: I think he brought up one block article um, and

781
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 1: so a blog wrote about it, and then it simply

782
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: clicked with the people. People like that. They click like

783
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: you know, and then the algorithm pushes it up. And

784
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:11,280
Speaker 1: it took a while. I think there there's a small

785
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 1: time window where you can get into the high Machine shuts.

786
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: I think it's only three days, and after three days

787
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: you drop out automatically. So every song you see saw

788
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 1: on the High Machine charts still see it's not older

789
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: than three days. So yeah, that happened. And then this

790
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 1: manager say, hey, you can do a remix for Foster,

791
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:34,280
Speaker 1: the people who just blew up with pumped up kicks um.

792
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:36,799
Speaker 1: And so I did the remix and I wanted to

793
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 1: give it to like sell it too, foster the people.

794
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 1: But I still had my business partner, and my business

795
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 1: partner said, okay, we we are ruining ruining our prices

796
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:50,839
Speaker 1: if you give away the remix cheap. So he asked

797
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: for four K, four thousand dollars and the label said, no,

798
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: we are only going to pay five and so that

799
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,359
Speaker 1: didn't so we agreed that I could simply put out

800
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 1: the remix for free. That's what I did, and it

801
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:09,360
Speaker 1: immediately hit number one on the high Machine charts. Um

802
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 1: it simply some blocks wrote about it, and simply it

803
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: clicked with the people. It's just kind of went viral

804
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:18,800
Speaker 1: on its own. And funny story is um that back

805
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: then a I got a message on SoundCloud from a

806
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: guy called Billy and he said, Hey, I'm having this

807
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 1: new channel on YouTube. It's called No Copyright Sounds, and UM,

808
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: can I upload your remix there? Is that okay for you?

809
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, cool, no problem. I looked

810
00:46:34,600 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: at the channel and had like three hundred subscribers or something,

811
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: and it was one of the driving forces behind the

812
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: channel in the beginning to grow that channel, and the

813
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 1: channel I think now has over thirty million subscribers and

814
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 1: that's the channel where Alan Walker and a lot of

815
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: like huge also huge gaming artists came from and as

816
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: uh yeah, one of the biggest YouTube channels. Now they

817
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:01,920
Speaker 1: really started of my music. Yeah. Then I made another

818
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: bootleg remis for Levels for VT which also on when

819
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 1: number one Hype Machine, and made another remix for Gautier,

820
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 1: the somebody that I used to know, also bootleg remix um. Yeah.

821
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:18,440
Speaker 1: Then then I got remix requests from Static Revenger and

822
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:20,720
Speaker 1: from Chris Brown for example, So I made an official

823
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: remix for Chris Brown. And that was the point. By

824
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 1: the way, we're really got annoyed with copyright protection systems

825
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 1: and how major labels work, because what happened is I

826
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 1: made this official remix for Chris Brown, and for some reason,

827
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:41,320
Speaker 1: the labels were releasing it in the UK first on iTunes,

828
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: so people in the UK could buy it on iTunes,

829
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 1: but in the rest of the world. So what happened

830
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: was some people in the UK who are friends of

831
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:50,319
Speaker 1: mine bought it and they blocked about the right. Oh

832
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: there's the fat Red remix for Chris Brown. Brown. It's amazing,

833
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 1: you should listen to it. But it wasn't available in

834
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. So I had a lot

835
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:58,319
Speaker 1: of people coming in, Yeah, I want to buy your

836
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: remics but it's not available, and like, yeah, there's nothing

837
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:05,319
Speaker 1: I can do about it. But I found this incredibly

838
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: annoying because I thought, eight people want to listen to

839
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: my music, but the labels they won't let them listen

840
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, and so that was also and then

841
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: this this is interesting thing happened. So the small channel

842
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:22,240
Speaker 1: called no Copyright sound uploaded this Faster the People remas

843
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: for free, and then I got uh comments on my

844
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,279
Speaker 1: SoundCloud the Great Space Butterfly. I was like what, and

845
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 1: then another comment, yeah, great Space Blatterfly. Yeah, I kind

846
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:33,680
Speaker 1: of from the Great Space buttering It's I googled it

847
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 1: and I found out that it was a YouTube I think,

848
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:39,880
Speaker 1: let's play uh serious or where they would use the

849
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 1: Fast of the People bootleg remins as background music. And

850
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 1: I realized that this video serious YouTube series was driving

851
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: a lot of traffic um to my to my SoundCloud.

852
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:53,360
Speaker 1: So that's a point where I realized that, yeah, background

853
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: music on YouTube can be like a good promotional tool. Okay,

854
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:03,840
Speaker 1: so you're interfacing with other people, other companies, how do

855
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 1: you decide ultimately to go totally independent. How do you

856
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 1: build even bigger on sound and when do you get

857
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: YouTube involved? Uh? Well there was. First of all, I

858
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,840
Speaker 1: got into trouble with my business partner obviously because I

859
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:22,239
Speaker 1: had a conflantly of interest because it was like pursuing

860
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 1: my own artis story. I started playing shows and stuff

861
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:26,240
Speaker 1: and I I want to do more of my own music.

862
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 1: But then it's the same time had like other producers,

863
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 1: and I was actually my career and I was really

864
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 1: starting I would like get bigger sessions, you know, like

865
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: I totally like bb Rex back then way still with

866
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:39,359
Speaker 1: Pete Wentz. They had to do black cards I think

867
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 1: was called, so we would get like bigger artists in

868
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:43,800
Speaker 1: the student I would My missus partent was really annoyed,

869
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 1: so I had to go through this like phase of

870
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: like saying goodbye to him. And then I was there

871
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:55,880
Speaker 1: was two thousand thirteen. Then already I was like thirty

872
00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:59,800
Speaker 1: two years old, our thirty three, and I want to

873
00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 1: have family and we were in LA but for us,

874
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 1: it was never an option to have a family in

875
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: Los Angeles also because we wanted to have our family around,

876
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 1: so we moved back to Germany. That was the next

877
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:18,359
Speaker 1: thing that happened. Okay, your wife manager, she was with

878
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: you in l A, Yes, exactly. So she's from getting

879
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: in um. That's a very different story. We know each

880
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 1: other since she was fifteen and I was seventeen, but

881
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:33,479
Speaker 1: we were just best friends and at the time when

882
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: I moved to l A. Uh, so we were not together,

883
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:39,359
Speaker 1: just with friends. But at the time when I moved

884
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 1: to l A, um I offered her to visit me,

885
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 1: so I would pay her a visit and then we

886
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 1: got together. So she kind of moved to l A

887
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:52,359
Speaker 1: when I started moving to so she was there with me.

888
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: We married while I wasn't a while I was living

889
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 1: in l A. Yeah, but after we were married, we

890
00:50:58,200 --> 00:50:59,800
Speaker 1: were like, okay, count and we want to have kids

891
00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 1: and we're not going to have them in l A.

892
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:04,839
Speaker 1: So yeah, and she was not managing me at that time.

893
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 1: She only started managing in two thousand nineteen. What was

894
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 1: she doing in the interim and you asked, yeah, yeah,

895
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:16,240
Speaker 1: she was. She wanted to become an author, like writing novels,

896
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:19,120
Speaker 1: so she was working on a novel. Okay, So you

897
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 1: moved back to Germany to have kids yea. So then

898
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 1: what goes on with your career yeah, yeah, that that

899
00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: was what I was wondering about, like what's happening now? Um?

900
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 1: And what I did? Once again, I split up from everybody,

901
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: So I so my management got a little slower. They hired,

902
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:43,760
Speaker 1: they had a they wanted some big artists as clients,

903
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: which I realized, Okay, they're now really priority for them,

904
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:49,279
Speaker 1: which was okay. So I split up and saying, hey,

905
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: you know, everybody, let's go separate ways. And I split

906
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:56,360
Speaker 1: up from the publishing, split up from everybody, just sitting

907
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:58,680
Speaker 1: in Germany. I still had like some passive income from

908
00:51:58,719 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 1: the stuff that I had released. Then was really wondering, Okay,

909
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do now? And then I said,

910
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,839
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm just gonna try for a year

911
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 1: just putting up my own music originals this time and

912
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 1: see what happens. And that's what I did. And then

913
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: what happened what ensued? Well, um, I focused on uh

914
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 1: on YouTube because at some point in the internet had

915
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:31,880
Speaker 1: I've seen like where do people find I think was

916
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:33,879
Speaker 1: in the US, like where do people find me? In music?

917
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: That was like I think number one of those radio

918
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 1: and like thirty thirty six percent there was YouTube. I

919
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:43,040
Speaker 1: was like, wow, a lot of people are finding their

920
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:48,719
Speaker 1: music on YouTube now, and I already had this experience that, um,

921
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: I would get so much sound out traffic from YouTube,

922
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 1: so I thought, okay, cool, I'm gonna focus on that

923
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 1: and I made some music for for example, my songs

924
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 1: Windfall and Unity, and I had this thing that I

925
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 1: would make music that I liked. But it was like

926
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 1: this is but this is not really, like this is

927
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: not e d M. I'm not sure, like who's actually

928
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 1: gonna listen to that because it's too playful for DJs

929
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: to play it on a festival, right, two thousand thirteen

930
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:18,279
Speaker 1: was like hotwell and you know David Gheta and everybody, uh,

931
00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 1: and then they're not going to play this, but yeah,

932
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 1: let me just put it out and yeah, I put

933
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: it out and it didn't explode, but I got really

934
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:29,920
Speaker 1: good responses. And what happened is I back then you

935
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 1: could see the place on a YouTube channel. You could

936
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: see like on a video, you could see over time

937
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 1: how the place would develop. That features not around anymore,

938
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:40,919
Speaker 1: but it was back then, and what really I could see.

939
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 1: So there were those taste maker channels, like the first

940
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 1: one was Tasty Records and for example Mr suicide Cheeps.

941
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 1: So Tasty Records I had like I think four hundred

942
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 1: thousand subscribers, and they would simply every two days or

943
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 1: like three times a week, they would upload some music

944
00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: and say, here's like new music that you can discover.

945
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:03,240
Speaker 1: So I hit up Tasty Tasty Network, this YouTube channel

946
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 1: and say, hey, here I have some songs. Maybe you

947
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:07,359
Speaker 1: like them. They're like, yeah, cool, this is amazing. They

948
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 1: uploaded on their channel, and like I said, it didn't explode.

949
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 1: But what I saw, like you could see every video

950
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:15,720
Speaker 1: how it started really high and then the place would

951
00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:18,880
Speaker 1: go towards zero. And my songs they started went a

952
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 1: little bit lower, but then remained on a really high

953
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:25,799
Speaker 1: level and slightly started moving up. And they put out

954
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 1: the next song, and that happened again, and they put

955
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 1: out the next song. That happened again. And what else

956
00:54:30,239 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 1: that happened is I did not put my at that time.

957
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 1: I did not put my songs on iTunes and on Spotify.

958
00:54:38,080 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 1: Everybody had told me, you're not gonna make any money there, right,

959
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:45,560
Speaker 1: it's so small, like it's just especially on the street

960
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:49,320
Speaker 1: that's Spotify. You make like no money. It's not worth

961
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:51,000
Speaker 1: the effort. So I didn't put it there, and I

962
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:54,840
Speaker 1: didn't put it on iTunes. But then Tasty, this YouTube channel,

963
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:57,840
Speaker 1: said hey, we're making a label, now can we like

964
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:00,520
Speaker 1: release your music? Say okay, say cool, let's do it.

965
00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:04,160
Speaker 1: And I let them release Windfall on a fifty split,

966
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 1: and then I put out the next songs, you know, Genesis,

967
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:10,000
Speaker 1: same thing split, and then next one Never Belong, and

968
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:14,120
Speaker 1: then monthly I think was January two thousand fourteen. Then,

969
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:16,879
Speaker 1: so I had been releasing my own music for three

970
00:55:16,960 --> 00:55:19,600
Speaker 1: or four months. Now, hey, we have the first numbers

971
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: coming in. I thought, okay, this is gonna be like

972
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: putting me down to probably be like twenty sales, right,

973
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:28,920
Speaker 1: it's gonna be but never mind, Okay, what are the numbers?

974
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, it's six thousand sales. Like oh,

975
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:36,359
Speaker 1: that was the moment where I wait, everybody said there's

976
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 1: no money. It's like just one song. And the first

977
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:41,400
Speaker 1: month it was like six thousands. So it's like still,

978
00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 1: I don't know how much did I make like thirty

979
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:52,840
Speaker 1: cents per sale? So what's that? Uh yeah, exactly some wait,

980
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:57,879
Speaker 1: that's not that bad. And then I turned on monetization

981
00:55:57,880 --> 00:55:59,720
Speaker 1: on my own channel. I remember, I think the first

982
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 1: day was like fourteen bucks. By wait, if you over

983
00:56:05,719 --> 00:56:08,719
Speaker 1: entire month, this actually makes sense. Yeah, there was a

984
00:56:08,760 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 1: really fascinating time because I started putting out more music

985
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:14,040
Speaker 1: and all the numbers started growing and growing and growing

986
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:17,080
Speaker 1: bigger on its own, even when I didn't put out music,

987
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 1: and that was funny. There was the time where my

988
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:27,799
Speaker 1: daughter was born February two thousand fifteen now, and uh,

989
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 1: she had a serious sleeping disorder, like serious. She would

990
00:56:31,719 --> 00:56:34,600
Speaker 1: rarely sleep longer than an hour, usually like thirty minutes.

991
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,640
Speaker 1: Now we know she's like the reflux that her like,

992
00:56:38,239 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 1: she's like the from yeah, acid reflux, but we didn't

993
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:46,799
Speaker 1: know back then. Yeah. So so there was sleepless time,

994
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 1: but not for a career reasons, and was really kind

995
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:52,920
Speaker 1: of observed because I was like completely sleep deprived. I

996
00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:57,239
Speaker 1: would start crying like for no reason, like carrying out

997
00:56:57,239 --> 00:57:01,000
Speaker 1: the garbage and then just really start crying because it

998
00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:03,880
Speaker 1: was so sleep deprived. But sometimes they looked at their

999
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:06,440
Speaker 1: numbers and like, yeah, everything kept growing and the and

1000
00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:09,560
Speaker 1: the income kept growing. And I remember the time, I

1001
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:14,080
Speaker 1: think March March April, around the time me and my

1002
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 1: wife said, hey, wait if it goes on like that

1003
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:17,960
Speaker 1: by the end of the year, we might be have

1004
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:21,440
Speaker 1: like ten thousand a month income and it ended up

1005
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 1: being twenty grand per month. It's simply because it kept

1006
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:28,000
Speaker 1: growing and growing and yeah, that's yeah. And then I

1007
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: kept putting out songs and then made some experiences with

1008
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:36,720
Speaker 1: major record companies and with management. That would be the

1009
00:57:36,800 --> 00:57:41,040
Speaker 1: name the next chapter. Then, okay, how do you ultimately

1010
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 1: get five and a half million subscribers on YouTube? Slowly?

1011
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:54,200
Speaker 1: Simply simply two thousand subscribers a day, very very constant growth, simply. Okay,

1012
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:58,040
Speaker 1: So the labels start calling, and then what happened, Well,

1013
00:57:58,080 --> 00:58:01,200
Speaker 1: let me say, you go with Tasty label when you

1014
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: see how much when you see how much money is involved,

1015
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 1: do you then go to direct or do you stay

1016
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 1: with Tasty? Well? I went direct, uh, simply because they

1017
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 1: were like small things with Tasty that so it's it's

1018
00:58:16,160 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 1: one person basically back then, right, or maybe two, very

1019
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:23,919
Speaker 1: very small and he's he's a nice guy and he's fair,

1020
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:26,959
Speaker 1: but it was just those small things that he wouldn't pay.

1021
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:30,880
Speaker 1: He with value added tax in German, you have, it's

1022
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:33,640
Speaker 1: very taxes in Germany is incredibly complicated. So I needed

1023
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 1: like a certification from his side, but he didn't have

1024
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 1: his company registered, so he couldn't give me that certificate,

1025
00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: which made me I would have to pay additional twenty

1026
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 1: percent text because he didn't have that. Like those small details,

1027
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:48,960
Speaker 1: those were the reasons why I didn't keep signing with him,

1028
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:52,960
Speaker 1: not that I not the money, just because that's sort

1029
00:58:53,000 --> 00:58:55,680
Speaker 1: of those sort of things like and he wouldn't pay

1030
00:58:55,720 --> 00:58:59,120
Speaker 1: for the paper fees and stuff like that. Um, even

1031
00:58:59,120 --> 00:59:00,760
Speaker 1: though he was a nice guy, but that was where

1032
00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:02,280
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I'm just going to

1033
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:05,200
Speaker 1: do myself. Just was a little annoying. And yeah, and

1034
00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:08,240
Speaker 1: then I simply tried putting out a song by myself

1035
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 1: and discovered tune Core. Simply uploaded it on tune Core,

1036
00:59:11,880 --> 00:59:13,880
Speaker 1: and I have had a very good reputation now at

1037
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:16,240
Speaker 1: a different taste maker channels as well, Like different YouTube

1038
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: channels were asked asking me, hey, do you have new songs?

1039
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:23,440
Speaker 1: We would like to upload them. Yeah, that's what it is. Okay.

1040
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:26,080
Speaker 1: So then at what point the managers and label start

1041
00:59:26,160 --> 00:59:31,040
Speaker 1: calling you? What's the experience there? I think they started

1042
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:35,760
Speaker 1: calling after like four Like after I started, I had

1043
00:59:35,760 --> 00:59:38,200
Speaker 1: put out my origins for about half a year, so

1044
00:59:38,280 --> 00:59:41,320
Speaker 1: I'll to a record called and Cloud nine and like,

1045
00:59:42,080 --> 00:59:45,320
Speaker 1: and I put them on like I said no all

1046
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 1: the time, I think like fifteen times. So so I

1047
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:49,480
Speaker 1: was always like, no, I'm not gonna sign. I'm just

1048
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:53,120
Speaker 1: gonna do it independently. That's it. And then at some

1049
00:59:53,280 --> 00:59:55,880
Speaker 1: point I thought, hey, I might get myself a manager

1050
00:59:56,000 --> 00:59:58,960
Speaker 1: because it's so much work with the like administrative stuff,

1051
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:01,240
Speaker 1: and I come at the things that I wanted to do.

1052
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:04,960
Speaker 1: So I meant went with the management again from New York,

1053
01:00:05,480 --> 01:00:10,200
Speaker 1: l A. They have both cities. Yeah, and they they

1054
01:00:10,240 --> 01:00:14,160
Speaker 1: talked me into a record deal. Again. I mean, it's

1055
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:17,920
Speaker 1: not their fault, but because it was always my decision

1056
01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:20,320
Speaker 1: of course. Um, but they were like, yeah, we have

1057
01:00:20,440 --> 01:00:23,480
Speaker 1: this Universal Music reached out they had reached out to

1058
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 1: me before, right, and I was just straight up no,

1059
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:28,760
Speaker 1: not interested, thank you very much. And then they reached

1060
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 1: out again from Sweden and it's very very great. You

1061
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:34,760
Speaker 1: should at least meet them and so on and so forth. Yeah,

1062
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: then I discovered how record it was work. You know.

1063
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:42,160
Speaker 1: There they invited me, which was the biggest like the

1064
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:45,920
Speaker 1: biggest upside of the deal was that they invited me

1065
01:00:45,960 --> 01:00:50,800
Speaker 1: to Ibtha to each his last show where he will

1066
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 1: he quit touring and then nobody would know. Of course

1067
01:00:53,600 --> 01:00:55,360
Speaker 1: knew that he would die, but I was like, hey,

1068
01:00:55,880 --> 01:00:57,440
Speaker 1: he's going to play his last life show and then

1069
01:00:57,640 --> 01:00:59,520
Speaker 1: he because he's gonna stop touring, so we want to

1070
01:00:59,560 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 1: invite you. So that was amazing. Was in the VP

1071
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:06,800
Speaker 1: lounge drinking the record labor champagne, and I was meeting

1072
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:10,480
Speaker 1: in New York with Republic, which was amazing because the

1073
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:13,240
Speaker 1: first time when I went to New York was finally

1074
01:01:13,520 --> 01:01:15,720
Speaker 1: or we were always trying to get a record deal

1075
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:18,240
Speaker 1: right or place artists play songs, and now they were

1076
01:01:18,280 --> 01:01:20,760
Speaker 1: inviting me to New York. And when they want to

1077
01:01:20,760 --> 01:01:23,680
Speaker 1: sign you at Republic, we're really good at that. Like

1078
01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:26,240
Speaker 1: you they bring you up in the elevator and they

1079
01:01:26,280 --> 01:01:28,920
Speaker 1: have screens all of the place that they're like, welcome

1080
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:31,560
Speaker 1: the fat Rat, and they would play my song in

1081
01:01:31,680 --> 01:01:36,800
Speaker 1: the entire building and you're the star. Yeah and yeah.

1082
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:41,240
Speaker 1: So I signed for only licensing deal for ten songs,

1083
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:46,400
Speaker 1: and then realized, yeah, it's a little different once you signed.

1084
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:49,040
Speaker 1: Next time you come there, they don't play your songs.

1085
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:51,040
Speaker 1: They also don't put your face on the screens anymore.

1086
01:01:51,720 --> 01:01:55,080
Speaker 1: Um uh yeah. So that was quite an experience and

1087
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:58,760
Speaker 1: now we almost sued them, but I think it's still open.

1088
01:01:58,920 --> 01:02:02,720
Speaker 1: Maybe I will maybe not, we will see. Um yeah,

1089
01:02:02,720 --> 01:02:06,640
Speaker 1: but now independent again, fully independent and two thousand nineteen,

1090
01:02:06,960 --> 01:02:09,720
Speaker 1: two thou eighteen, I think I fired my management and

1091
01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:11,720
Speaker 1: thought I'm going to do everything by myself. And then

1092
01:02:11,760 --> 01:02:13,680
Speaker 1: I had had the idea which turned out to be

1093
01:02:13,760 --> 01:02:17,880
Speaker 1: really pretty good. Do you have my wife managing me? Uh,

1094
01:02:17,920 --> 01:02:22,560
Speaker 1: which was I think the best decision from you talk

1095
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:27,320
Speaker 1: about you might too Universal on what grounds? On the

1096
01:02:27,360 --> 01:02:31,880
Speaker 1: grounds that they have no uh, they're not allowed to to.

1097
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:35,160
Speaker 1: They had don't have the rights for SoundCloud right there,

1098
01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:39,320
Speaker 1: excluded soundclouds excluded in the agreement. What they did is

1099
01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:45,520
Speaker 1: they well, you know Sweden, I have the agreement with Sweden.

1100
01:02:45,960 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 1: They they made sure they wouldn't claim it on SoundCloud,

1101
01:02:49,120 --> 01:02:51,080
Speaker 1: but then you know, in the university system gets like

1102
01:02:51,120 --> 01:02:53,440
Speaker 1: sub licensed, and I think some of them still put

1103
01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 1: it in the SoundCloud copyright protection system. So I would

1104
01:02:56,600 --> 01:02:59,600
Speaker 1: upload the song immediately get to claim on my own song,

1105
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:05,600
Speaker 1: which then we removed. But recently I found out that

1106
01:03:05,680 --> 01:03:08,880
Speaker 1: the claim was kind of removed, but still the song

1107
01:03:09,000 --> 01:03:14,120
Speaker 1: was administrated by Universal, was also monetized by Universal and

1108
01:03:14,200 --> 01:03:17,040
Speaker 1: not by me without me knowing it, and it was

1109
01:03:17,480 --> 01:03:22,000
Speaker 1: GEO blocked in almost the entire world. So I was

1110
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:25,000
Speaker 1: really surprised because one of my most successful songs, fly

1111
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:29,880
Speaker 1: Away Uh, did incredibly well on YouTube, did incredibly well

1112
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:33,120
Speaker 1: on Spotify, and did almost nothing on sound plot. It

1113
01:03:33,200 --> 01:03:35,680
Speaker 1: was like, what's going on with sounds like the platform

1114
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:38,240
Speaker 1: falling apart of what I thought that would be the case,

1115
01:03:38,600 --> 01:03:41,080
Speaker 1: I recently found out, No, it's the songs GEO blocked

1116
01:03:41,080 --> 01:03:44,439
Speaker 1: in almost the entire world. So I was like, hey,

1117
01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:46,960
Speaker 1: remove it police, and they didn't even answer, you know,

1118
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:50,280
Speaker 1: like I said, wants the deals through, it's yeah, they're

1119
01:03:50,320 --> 01:03:53,840
Speaker 1: not gonna they're going to treat you differently. Yeah. They

1120
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 1: didn't respond, and then I was like, okay, cool, this

1121
01:03:56,560 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 1: is like, uh, you're violating the riem and I'm not

1122
01:03:59,680 --> 01:04:02,160
Speaker 1: going to our terminate the agreement, which was what I did.

1123
01:04:02,600 --> 01:04:04,840
Speaker 1: So I terminated the agreement, which then they of course

1124
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:08,959
Speaker 1: said no. Then suddenly they responded yeah, and now we're

1125
01:04:09,080 --> 01:04:14,000
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out. Okay, So did they do

1126
01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:18,680
Speaker 1: anything good for you? They tried. I have to say

1127
01:04:18,720 --> 01:04:21,640
Speaker 1: they tried. So there were some people that were really

1128
01:04:22,160 --> 01:04:25,480
Speaker 1: uh motivated at University Sweden. They said like Hey, we

1129
01:04:25,600 --> 01:04:28,560
Speaker 1: really want to get into the gaming space. And they

1130
01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:32,720
Speaker 1: did this collaboration with the Electronic Sports League, so they

1131
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 1: put me on those shows, like right before the finale

1132
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:39,720
Speaker 1: of a Big counter Strike for example event or a

1133
01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:43,560
Speaker 1: Dota to UM they would put me onto the stage

1134
01:04:43,600 --> 01:04:47,360
Speaker 1: playing a set, and the set got really great reactions.

1135
01:04:47,400 --> 01:04:49,520
Speaker 1: They tried that, like s I'll tried that before with

1136
01:04:49,600 --> 01:04:52,720
Speaker 1: other DJs and they had like a really pretty bad

1137
01:04:52,720 --> 01:04:55,200
Speaker 1: feedback on that. But since I'm from the gaming space,

1138
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:57,280
Speaker 1: I kind of knew a little bit what I could do,

1139
01:04:57,360 --> 01:04:59,720
Speaker 1: what what reason resonated with the audience, and that went

1140
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:02,360
Speaker 1: really well, and that that definitely helped me grow and

1141
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:06,360
Speaker 1: help me gain an audience. Yes, but when you look

1142
01:05:06,360 --> 01:05:10,160
Speaker 1: at the percentages that they get and then how much

1143
01:05:10,160 --> 01:05:12,200
Speaker 1: they help you grow, which you can like kind of

1144
01:05:12,240 --> 01:05:15,200
Speaker 1: measure a little bit, it's it's not a good deal.

1145
01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:22,240
Speaker 1: How much did they help your uh screams grow? Well,

1146
01:05:22,520 --> 01:05:24,880
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell on the streams, but well, I

1147
01:05:24,920 --> 01:05:28,880
Speaker 1: mean I think I had an increase when I played

1148
01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:32,680
Speaker 1: those shows. So I had like this plateau before on

1149
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:34,800
Speaker 1: a certain song, and then I played the shows ahead

1150
01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:39,400
Speaker 1: and like ten increase on streams on the YouTube and

1151
01:05:39,400 --> 01:05:43,320
Speaker 1: Spotify and those things. Okay, did you get any money

1152
01:05:43,360 --> 01:05:47,160
Speaker 1: from them? Yeah? They paid in advance of course. Okay,

1153
01:05:47,640 --> 01:05:50,360
Speaker 1: So if you look at it at the end of it, now,

1154
01:05:51,160 --> 01:05:54,040
Speaker 1: would you've made more money or less money if you

1155
01:05:54,160 --> 01:05:59,520
Speaker 1: stayed independent the whole time? Of course, it's always difficult

1156
01:05:59,680 --> 01:06:06,600
Speaker 1: to make those scenarios. But from my from my calculation

1157
01:06:06,680 --> 01:06:08,600
Speaker 1: at the moment, I think I would have like at

1158
01:06:08,680 --> 01:06:11,120
Speaker 1: least a million more when I in case I wouldn't

1159
01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:17,520
Speaker 1: have signed. Okay, So presently, how much money are you

1160
01:06:17,600 --> 01:06:22,200
Speaker 1: making in a year? Uh so revenue? It's about I

1161
01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:26,800
Speaker 1: think about a million. Okay. So you have a new

1162
01:06:26,880 --> 01:06:33,040
Speaker 1: project that's totally independent, which one do you mean you're

1163
01:06:33,040 --> 01:06:36,080
Speaker 1: putting out like these? You have this story album that

1164
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:41,840
Speaker 1: you're putting out. Is that totally independent? Yes, it's totally independent.

1165
01:06:41,920 --> 01:06:46,920
Speaker 1: And it's even more than that, it's completely controlled by me,

1166
01:06:47,640 --> 01:06:50,160
Speaker 1: which means which is a really interesting thing because like

1167
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:52,360
Speaker 1: I said, I'm doing this thing where a lot of

1168
01:06:52,600 --> 01:06:55,000
Speaker 1: a lot of my music is free to use for creators,

1169
01:06:55,040 --> 01:06:56,520
Speaker 1: Like it's free to use on social media, is free

1170
01:06:56,520 --> 01:06:58,560
Speaker 1: to use on YouTube, it's free to use. Most of

1171
01:06:58,600 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 1: the stuff is free to use on Twitter and stuff.

1172
01:07:00,840 --> 01:07:06,680
Speaker 1: So my approaches that creatives. Creators are free to use

1173
01:07:06,720 --> 01:07:10,120
Speaker 1: my music. Um, I think it's also kind of fair

1174
01:07:11,320 --> 01:07:15,120
Speaker 1: to do like that. So to do that, what I

1175
01:07:15,200 --> 01:07:17,520
Speaker 1: realize it's it's not that easy. It's not that you

1176
01:07:17,600 --> 01:07:21,680
Speaker 1: simply do not claim. You have to actively not claim

1177
01:07:21,720 --> 01:07:24,880
Speaker 1: because the entire system now is built in a way

1178
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:27,919
Speaker 1: that it's claiming automatically, and if you don't watch out,

1179
01:07:28,000 --> 01:07:30,880
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a mine field if you do

1180
01:07:31,040 --> 01:07:36,000
Speaker 1: one wrong step, every like everything gets claimed everywhere. So yeah,

1181
01:07:36,040 --> 01:07:38,480
Speaker 1: that's a thing that I learned now. So I'm very

1182
01:07:38,600 --> 01:07:42,320
Speaker 1: very careful and I'm very uh so what we're doing

1183
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:45,560
Speaker 1: is like I have the entire publishing control, so I

1184
01:07:45,560 --> 01:07:48,640
Speaker 1: have a publishing company. Now I only work with people

1185
01:07:48,640 --> 01:07:52,080
Speaker 1: who can give the songs into my publishing, which has

1186
01:07:52,120 --> 01:07:54,280
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the money we're paying out hundred

1187
01:07:54,320 --> 01:07:58,240
Speaker 1: percent on most things like accept licensing, which because we

1188
01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:00,240
Speaker 1: do that actively, but the rest of you simply them

1189
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:02,640
Speaker 1: out percent. It's not that we want to make any

1190
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 1: money from that, but we have to have control over

1191
01:08:05,200 --> 01:08:07,600
Speaker 1: it because once you have another public that you have,

1192
01:08:07,720 --> 01:08:11,360
Speaker 1: like I don't know, Sony and Warner involved, and you say, yeah,

1193
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:13,080
Speaker 1: I don't claim on YouTube but they'll be like, yeah,

1194
01:08:13,120 --> 01:08:15,720
Speaker 1: but we're gonna claim on YouTube and yeah, there there

1195
01:08:15,760 --> 01:08:20,639
Speaker 1: goes your strategy and your Okay, So going going forward,

1196
01:08:21,200 --> 01:08:27,840
Speaker 1: what's the business model, what's the strategy, what's the dream? Yes? Um,

1197
01:08:27,920 --> 01:08:31,599
Speaker 1: so so what I did this album is, well, what

1198
01:08:31,640 --> 01:08:36,800
Speaker 1: I what I generally did started is I used sci

1199
01:08:36,880 --> 01:08:42,120
Speaker 1: fi fantasy art art as artworks, and together with the

1200
01:08:42,240 --> 01:08:44,439
Speaker 1: artists that I had first, Jordan Grimmer was his name,

1201
01:08:45,120 --> 01:08:48,120
Speaker 1: we started putting like the same characters and some like

1202
01:08:48,360 --> 01:08:51,240
Speaker 1: objects and stuff into it where we start telling little

1203
01:08:51,280 --> 01:08:55,559
Speaker 1: stories with the artworks together with the songs, and defense

1204
01:08:56,040 --> 01:08:59,040
Speaker 1: reacted really great to that thing. Hey there's a story,

1205
01:08:59,080 --> 01:09:02,640
Speaker 1: that's amazing. They started like discussing the story and discussing

1206
01:09:02,680 --> 01:09:05,120
Speaker 1: the lore and everything. So what I did with this

1207
01:09:05,280 --> 01:09:07,759
Speaker 1: album now is that I took this to the next

1208
01:09:07,840 --> 01:09:12,040
Speaker 1: level and be more conscious about the story that we're telling.

1209
01:09:12,120 --> 01:09:16,840
Speaker 1: So it's a ten song album and every songs it's

1210
01:09:16,880 --> 01:09:19,840
Speaker 1: coming out over ten weeks, So every Friday, one song

1211
01:09:19,960 --> 01:09:22,200
Speaker 1: is coming out together with the new artwork, and the

1212
01:09:22,320 --> 01:09:26,759
Speaker 1: artworks together tell a story, um, and a more obvious

1213
01:09:26,760 --> 01:09:29,920
Speaker 1: story than we told before. Um. The next the big

1214
01:09:30,040 --> 01:09:34,400
Speaker 1: dream is too, U take this to the next level.

1215
01:09:34,560 --> 01:09:37,200
Speaker 1: So I'm working on the next album already and this

1216
01:09:37,280 --> 01:09:40,040
Speaker 1: is supposed to come with a the same thing again,

1217
01:09:40,120 --> 01:09:43,320
Speaker 1: so artworks telling a story, but also with the comic

1218
01:09:43,680 --> 01:09:48,160
Speaker 1: where you have way more detailed story. So it's kind

1219
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:53,519
Speaker 1: of a entertainment storytelling process that starts with the music. Right,

1220
01:09:53,600 --> 01:09:56,640
Speaker 1: Usually have like movies, you have the the story and

1221
01:09:56,760 --> 01:09:58,560
Speaker 1: what you have the pictures first, and yet then you

1222
01:09:58,600 --> 01:10:00,640
Speaker 1: add the music. So it's a little bit the other

1223
01:10:00,680 --> 01:10:02,200
Speaker 1: way around. So you have a story, but then you

1224
01:10:02,280 --> 01:10:04,519
Speaker 1: read the music and then you add the pictures on top.

1225
01:10:05,360 --> 01:10:10,080
Speaker 1: And the comics with those beyondline or physical or boat,

1226
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:13,160
Speaker 1: I think they're going to be both. We have a

1227
01:10:13,240 --> 01:10:15,800
Speaker 1: partner that we're working starting to work with now and

1228
01:10:15,880 --> 01:10:18,599
Speaker 1: that's the plan to have both. Who's doing the images?

1229
01:10:19,880 --> 01:10:23,920
Speaker 1: We have some like artists, uh like candidates at the moment,

1230
01:10:23,960 --> 01:10:28,240
Speaker 1: it's not higher persential yet what's gonna do them? Okay,

1231
01:10:28,960 --> 01:10:32,160
Speaker 1: So obviously your publicists reached out to me about doing this,

1232
01:10:32,240 --> 01:10:36,400
Speaker 1: although we've had contact previously. Let's just assume you made

1233
01:10:36,400 --> 01:10:40,519
Speaker 1: this music and you posted it on YouTube. Is that

1234
01:10:40,680 --> 01:10:43,680
Speaker 1: enough marketing to make it so people aware of it

1235
01:10:43,680 --> 01:10:46,200
Speaker 1: will be streamed or you have to do other things.

1236
01:10:46,800 --> 01:10:50,040
Speaker 1: You hired a PR firm, which is spreading the word.

1237
01:10:50,920 --> 01:10:54,760
Speaker 1: So how did you decide to hire a PR firm?

1238
01:10:54,840 --> 01:10:58,559
Speaker 1: What is the marketing plan and do you need that

1239
01:10:58,640 --> 01:11:02,040
Speaker 1: to make the thing go it all? Or is the

1240
01:11:02,120 --> 01:11:07,960
Speaker 1: marketing just a cherry on top? Well, the marketing, I

1241
01:11:07,960 --> 01:11:11,719
Speaker 1: would say is the it's sort of a cherry on top. Uh.

1242
01:11:11,800 --> 01:11:18,880
Speaker 1: It's also getting into new like like getting more audience. Um.

1243
01:11:19,160 --> 01:11:23,000
Speaker 1: Most so so far, my career took off just on

1244
01:11:23,040 --> 01:11:26,800
Speaker 1: its own. Um. The best example for that is China.

1245
01:11:28,640 --> 01:11:31,040
Speaker 1: At I played shows in New York and people came

1246
01:11:31,080 --> 01:11:32,559
Speaker 1: to me after the show and we're like, hey, do

1247
01:11:32,600 --> 01:11:34,000
Speaker 1: you know your music is really big in China. I

1248
01:11:34,040 --> 01:11:36,160
Speaker 1: was like, no, I have no idea. And then at

1249
01:11:36,240 --> 01:11:38,840
Speaker 1: some research and I thought out that there's this big

1250
01:11:38,840 --> 01:11:44,559
Speaker 1: platform which is called net ease and over it's like

1251
01:11:44,640 --> 01:11:49,360
Speaker 1: Spotify in in China and on the entire platform, two

1252
01:11:49,360 --> 01:11:51,920
Speaker 1: of my songs were in the top fifty and I

1253
01:11:51,960 --> 01:11:53,800
Speaker 1: didn't even know. And the funny things, I didn't even

1254
01:11:53,840 --> 01:11:57,200
Speaker 1: release it. There was like just pirated. So people just

1255
01:11:57,240 --> 01:11:59,720
Speaker 1: grabbed my music then put it on the platform. But

1256
01:12:00,200 --> 01:12:01,880
Speaker 1: this is the best best example because I didn't even

1257
01:12:01,880 --> 01:12:05,000
Speaker 1: so there was the absolutely zero effort from my side,

1258
01:12:05,400 --> 01:12:09,439
Speaker 1: but the music just did its thing. And yeah, now

1259
01:12:09,760 --> 01:12:11,559
Speaker 1: I mean now the situation change. They have like a

1260
01:12:11,600 --> 01:12:14,840
Speaker 1: team there and everything. Um. But of course I can

1261
01:12:14,880 --> 01:12:17,360
Speaker 1: never know that for every song because they are It's

1262
01:12:17,400 --> 01:12:22,280
Speaker 1: like maybe of my songs they do that where they're

1263
01:12:22,320 --> 01:12:26,200
Speaker 1: just they. I always say they grew grow legs they

1264
01:12:26,400 --> 01:12:28,519
Speaker 1: like they which which for me means so you have

1265
01:12:28,560 --> 01:12:31,400
Speaker 1: a certain point whether the song starts right on release date,

1266
01:12:31,640 --> 01:12:34,960
Speaker 1: then it goes down and if it ever gets over

1267
01:12:35,000 --> 01:12:37,200
Speaker 1: that starting point, that's where I say, Okay, that song

1268
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:41,080
Speaker 1: really grew legs, so it really it becomes bigger than

1269
01:12:41,080 --> 01:12:43,760
Speaker 1: at the start. And I think I would say, of

1270
01:12:43,800 --> 01:12:46,920
Speaker 1: my songs do that, Okay, So give me some numbers

1271
01:12:46,920 --> 01:12:49,000
Speaker 1: so that people can relate to the twenty or thirty

1272
01:12:49,040 --> 01:12:54,920
Speaker 1: percent that go big. How big are they? Um? They are?

1273
01:12:55,080 --> 01:12:57,240
Speaker 1: So the biggest song I think it's fly Away. It has,

1274
01:12:57,320 --> 01:13:02,720
Speaker 1: like Honey, around hundred thousand plays on Spotify per day, um,

1275
01:13:02,720 --> 01:13:05,840
Speaker 1: which maybe it's not that much for a couple of artists,

1276
01:13:05,880 --> 01:13:09,679
Speaker 1: but the key is that it's it's now four years

1277
01:13:09,680 --> 01:13:12,840
Speaker 1: old and it has now a hundred thousand place on

1278
01:13:12,960 --> 01:13:15,599
Speaker 1: Spotify per day, and that's the highest that ever got,

1279
01:13:15,960 --> 01:13:18,719
Speaker 1: so it still keeps growing. That so the daily place

1280
01:13:18,920 --> 01:13:21,280
Speaker 1: still keep growing. And that's the same for by some

1281
01:13:21,520 --> 01:13:25,080
Speaker 1: monity for example, or the calling and yeah, so so

1282
01:13:25,120 --> 01:13:26,840
Speaker 1: there's a hundred thousand places. The next my I think

1283
01:13:26,880 --> 01:13:29,320
Speaker 1: is probably eighty thousand place, and next rounds probably you know,

1284
01:13:29,479 --> 01:13:32,600
Speaker 1: forty thou place a lot of around. The stronger is

1285
01:13:32,600 --> 01:13:37,400
Speaker 1: also Stronger started at I think thirty thousand place per

1286
01:13:37,479 --> 01:13:39,200
Speaker 1: day when I put it out in two thousand nine.

1287
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:42,920
Speaker 1: Now it has eighty thou nine place per day. And

1288
01:13:43,320 --> 01:13:48,160
Speaker 1: what are the cum numbers cumulative on Spotify? It's at

1289
01:13:48,160 --> 01:13:50,519
Speaker 1: the moment I think a rundred thousand and fifty thousand

1290
01:13:50,560 --> 01:13:54,040
Speaker 1: around that. Okay, So what are your biggest tracks on

1291
01:13:54,080 --> 01:13:58,680
Speaker 1: Spotify and how many times have they been streamed? The

1292
01:13:58,760 --> 01:14:01,960
Speaker 1: biggest is Flyaway. It has around hundred million place at

1293
01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:05,120
Speaker 1: the moment. Okay. So you're saying you're getting a eight

1294
01:14:05,160 --> 01:14:11,639
Speaker 1: hundred thousand streams a day. Yeah, okay. You you talk

1295
01:14:11,720 --> 01:14:15,160
Speaker 1: about your music being big in Vietnam, etcetera. This is

1296
01:14:15,240 --> 01:14:20,320
Speaker 1: purely organic or you're working it, um, I mean I'm

1297
01:14:20,320 --> 01:14:23,200
Speaker 1: working it's more now. So the reason for example, why

1298
01:14:23,280 --> 01:14:25,840
Speaker 1: have we have this PR company now and more stuff

1299
01:14:25,920 --> 01:14:28,479
Speaker 1: going on is my management now, which is my wife.

1300
01:14:29,040 --> 01:14:33,160
Speaker 1: And it's also the the attempt to you know, reach

1301
01:14:33,240 --> 01:14:37,360
Speaker 1: new audiences as well. Um, because it's spreading in a

1302
01:14:37,360 --> 01:14:40,400
Speaker 1: certain community and it's going a lot of music is

1303
01:14:40,400 --> 01:14:45,080
Speaker 1: going viral viral, not a lot, but like I said, roughly, um,

1304
01:14:45,080 --> 01:14:48,360
Speaker 1: it's doing its own thing. Uh. You have, But I mean,

1305
01:14:48,400 --> 01:14:51,240
Speaker 1: you want to keep growing and keep getting bigger. But

1306
01:14:51,320 --> 01:14:54,120
Speaker 1: I could I could completely stop any marketing simply put

1307
01:14:54,120 --> 01:14:55,960
Speaker 1: out songs and if it's the right song and would

1308
01:14:56,000 --> 01:15:01,639
Speaker 1: still do very well. What kind of marketing are you doing? Uh? Yeah,

1309
01:15:01,680 --> 01:15:04,360
Speaker 1: So we have this amazing PR company now I think

1310
01:15:04,360 --> 01:15:08,040
Speaker 1: they're We're really really happy with them. Uh. Then we

1311
01:15:08,120 --> 01:15:13,280
Speaker 1: have a like making like ads now on on Reddit

1312
01:15:13,360 --> 01:15:16,320
Speaker 1: ads and YouTube ads and Facebook ads and stuff like that.

1313
01:15:16,680 --> 01:15:18,960
Speaker 1: But all that that's all my wife. So I'm not

1314
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:21,559
Speaker 1: that much into it. She's like trying to figure out

1315
01:15:21,600 --> 01:15:25,040
Speaker 1: stuff and I think doing a really good job. But

1316
01:15:25,160 --> 01:15:29,519
Speaker 1: I have to say after I I after my wife

1317
01:15:29,520 --> 01:15:32,920
Speaker 1: became a manager, I think within one year my streaming

1318
01:15:33,000 --> 01:15:36,400
Speaker 1: numbers doubled, which they never did well in the very

1319
01:15:36,439 --> 01:15:39,800
Speaker 1: beginning of the first year that happened. But but I

1320
01:15:39,840 --> 01:15:41,800
Speaker 1: think in the in the Union when I was signed

1321
01:15:41,800 --> 01:15:45,360
Speaker 1: with Universal. Over the two years roughly had a growth

1322
01:15:45,400 --> 01:15:49,759
Speaker 1: of maybe thirty percent. And then I kicked out the Universe.

1323
01:15:49,800 --> 01:15:52,080
Speaker 1: I kicked on my manager. My wife started managing me,

1324
01:15:52,080 --> 01:15:54,000
Speaker 1: and we had a growth of d percent within a year.

1325
01:15:54,720 --> 01:15:59,479
Speaker 1: And what about live gigs? I played some, uh, not

1326
01:15:59,560 --> 01:16:02,840
Speaker 1: a lot. Also for family reasons. I'm very like a

1327
01:16:02,920 --> 01:16:07,160
Speaker 1: very you know, a family guy. Uh and you know,

1328
01:16:07,280 --> 01:16:09,080
Speaker 1: to a life it's not it doesn't go so well

1329
01:16:09,479 --> 01:16:11,519
Speaker 1: with with family. So yeah, I played some. I played

1330
01:16:11,720 --> 01:16:14,559
Speaker 1: Electric Forest for example, I played the like the small

1331
01:16:15,439 --> 01:16:20,160
Speaker 1: venue on Webster Hall for example, Avalon in Los Angeles

1332
01:16:20,160 --> 01:16:21,680
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I prayed to the Roxy in

1333
01:16:21,760 --> 01:16:25,320
Speaker 1: Los Angeles for example. Um, but that's sure, it has

1334
01:16:25,320 --> 01:16:26,599
Speaker 1: been a while. I don't even know how long it's

1335
01:16:26,640 --> 01:16:29,719
Speaker 1: ago because of COVID and everything. And what's the creative

1336
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:35,960
Speaker 1: process for me making songs? Oh, it's making a lot

1337
01:16:36,040 --> 01:16:38,479
Speaker 1: of a lot of songs and throwing away most of it.

1338
01:16:39,280 --> 01:16:42,360
Speaker 1: I tried to make one new song every day at

1339
01:16:42,400 --> 01:16:46,519
Speaker 1: least like what I kinda lay out, uh, putting out,

1340
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:50,320
Speaker 1: putting together some beats, some melodies and stuff, and then

1341
01:16:50,400 --> 01:16:52,559
Speaker 1: do it all over again the next day until something

1342
01:16:52,600 --> 01:16:54,439
Speaker 1: sticks with me when I'm like totally fall in love

1343
01:16:54,479 --> 01:16:56,080
Speaker 1: with it, because I have to be in love with

1344
01:16:56,120 --> 01:16:58,559
Speaker 1: it to go through the finishing process, which can be

1345
01:16:59,040 --> 01:17:00,960
Speaker 1: slow and tedious. For I don't put out a lot

1346
01:17:00,960 --> 01:17:02,960
Speaker 1: of songs that we I mean, now I'm putting out

1347
01:17:02,960 --> 01:17:05,439
Speaker 1: ten songs in a row, but usually often has been

1348
01:17:05,520 --> 01:17:08,599
Speaker 1: for me, it's been like three or four songs a year.

1349
01:17:08,760 --> 01:17:10,720
Speaker 1: And that wasn't like three singles a year, and that

1350
01:17:10,840 --> 01:17:13,240
Speaker 1: was my year. So you're working ten hours a day,

1351
01:17:13,439 --> 01:17:16,519
Speaker 1: you only work like you know sometimes no, no, no,

1352
01:17:16,880 --> 01:17:19,639
Speaker 1: I'm pretty structured. So usually I stand up and I

1353
01:17:19,720 --> 01:17:22,720
Speaker 1: hit the STUDI immediately, So the first thing during the

1354
01:17:22,720 --> 01:17:27,080
Speaker 1: morning is like ten ten two hours of music production.

1355
01:17:27,400 --> 01:17:31,920
Speaker 1: Then I do work out, then I do like, uh,

1356
01:17:32,080 --> 01:17:34,280
Speaker 1: having breakfast and everything, and then I go back to studios.

1357
01:17:34,280 --> 01:17:36,920
Speaker 1: So it's more and more a morning person now, which

1358
01:17:36,920 --> 01:17:39,880
Speaker 1: another thought. When I started, I was always working late night.

1359
01:17:39,960 --> 01:17:42,599
Speaker 1: But I realized that I'm you know, there's this thing

1360
01:17:42,680 --> 01:17:46,360
Speaker 1: that you'd really productive at late night, and a lot

1361
01:17:46,400 --> 01:17:48,800
Speaker 1: of people discover at some point that you're actually even

1362
01:17:48,840 --> 01:17:52,320
Speaker 1: more productive it really early morning, when it's kind of

1363
01:17:52,360 --> 01:17:55,920
Speaker 1: similar that being close to sleep thing where you're very

1364
01:17:55,960 --> 01:17:58,800
Speaker 1: creative where you're not distracted and everything. So, yeah, I

1365
01:17:58,800 --> 01:18:01,240
Speaker 1: try to be as productive that can be four twelve,

1366
01:18:01,680 --> 01:18:07,240
Speaker 1: uh before noon, and then uh there's business stuff, you know,

1367
01:18:07,360 --> 01:18:09,599
Speaker 1: and then uh, spending time with my daughter, and then

1368
01:18:09,640 --> 01:18:12,240
Speaker 1: I usually get back into the studio around evening doing

1369
01:18:12,240 --> 01:18:13,880
Speaker 1: a little bit of office stuff and then also being

1370
01:18:13,880 --> 01:18:16,920
Speaker 1: creative and listening to a lot of music. Yeah, and

1371
01:18:16,960 --> 01:18:20,160
Speaker 1: it's very yeah, very structured and very home based and

1372
01:18:20,200 --> 01:18:25,040
Speaker 1: also not that crazy star. You say it takes a

1373
01:18:25,080 --> 01:18:27,160
Speaker 1: long time to finish the song. How long does it

1374
01:18:27,160 --> 01:18:31,240
Speaker 1: take to finish That depends. So when it's fast, it's

1375
01:18:31,240 --> 01:18:34,719
Speaker 1: around a month. When it's slow. For example, my song Monitory,

1376
01:18:34,720 --> 01:18:37,040
Speaker 1: you took me five months or every day. I was

1377
01:18:37,080 --> 01:18:39,160
Speaker 1: working on it every day for five months. What are

1378
01:18:39,200 --> 01:18:44,680
Speaker 1: you doing for five months? Um? So in the end,

1379
01:18:44,800 --> 01:18:47,719
Speaker 1: you know, a song can have like hundred fifty tracks,

1380
01:18:47,800 --> 01:18:49,880
Speaker 1: and for every of those hundred fifty tracks, I have

1381
01:18:49,960 --> 01:18:53,040
Speaker 1: like ten other tracks that I made, and I was like, Okay,

1382
01:18:53,600 --> 01:18:56,320
Speaker 1: it could be done better, whatever it might be, you know,

1383
01:18:56,479 --> 01:18:59,639
Speaker 1: just going through all the options that you have, like, Okay,

1384
01:18:59,800 --> 01:19:02,559
Speaker 1: this step could be like the step sound could be

1385
01:19:02,600 --> 01:19:04,800
Speaker 1: a guitar, and I'm trying with the guitar sound. Maybe

1386
01:19:04,840 --> 01:19:07,639
Speaker 1: it should be more brass, and putting in brass. Now

1387
01:19:07,720 --> 01:19:09,920
Speaker 1: maybe it should be more orchestra, and then I'm putting orchestra.

1388
01:19:09,960 --> 01:19:12,040
Speaker 1: And so yeah, just going through a lot of ideas

1389
01:19:12,080 --> 01:19:14,320
Speaker 1: that I have until I have the one where I'm like, Okay,

1390
01:19:14,400 --> 01:19:16,800
Speaker 1: this is the right one. But you're doing it all

1391
01:19:16,840 --> 01:19:21,840
Speaker 1: yourself on electronic equipment. Yeah. Sometimes I used this platform

1392
01:19:22,120 --> 01:19:25,439
Speaker 1: that is owned by Spotify, and I think it's called

1393
01:19:25,479 --> 01:19:29,639
Speaker 1: sound Better. Why you can hire pretty good musicians online.

1394
01:19:30,400 --> 01:19:35,120
Speaker 1: Uh So I'm for example, four strings or guitars, and

1395
01:19:35,240 --> 01:19:38,200
Speaker 1: or I produce it and the computer and then I

1396
01:19:38,240 --> 01:19:40,599
Speaker 1: send it out and then they recorded and send it back.

1397
01:19:41,600 --> 01:19:45,320
Speaker 1: And if you how do you know when it's finished?

1398
01:19:45,800 --> 01:19:49,200
Speaker 1: And can you tell when it's done what tracks are

1399
01:19:49,200 --> 01:19:53,120
Speaker 1: going to resonate most? If I can tell what tracks

1400
01:19:53,120 --> 01:20:01,080
Speaker 1: are going to resonate most h yes and no. Um.

1401
01:20:01,240 --> 01:20:04,080
Speaker 1: Usually I have a pretty good feeling a lot of times,

1402
01:20:04,600 --> 01:20:08,479
Speaker 1: but sometimes sometimes I'm very wrong. Simply Sometimes sometimes I

1403
01:20:08,520 --> 01:20:10,519
Speaker 1: have a track while like they're like, okay, I'm gonna

1404
01:20:10,560 --> 01:20:13,160
Speaker 1: put it out, Well, it's like barely good enough for

1405
01:20:13,200 --> 01:20:15,280
Speaker 1: me to put it out. For example, my track Flyaway,

1406
01:20:15,320 --> 01:20:19,559
Speaker 1: which then totally blew up. That sometimes happens. What really

1407
01:20:19,600 --> 01:20:21,559
Speaker 1: happens is that I love a song and then it

1408
01:20:21,600 --> 01:20:23,559
Speaker 1: doesn't do well. I kind of had this one time

1409
01:20:23,600 --> 01:20:25,920
Speaker 1: a song Maydeay. I thought it would be really outstanding.

1410
01:20:25,920 --> 01:20:28,880
Speaker 1: It did well, but not as good as I expected it.

1411
01:20:29,240 --> 01:20:31,800
Speaker 1: But that rarely happens. And then most of the time

1412
01:20:31,840 --> 01:20:34,320
Speaker 1: I'm kind of know where it's where it's going to be.

1413
01:20:35,360 --> 01:20:37,160
Speaker 1: So how do you know what a song is finished?

1414
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:42,240
Speaker 1: Simply when there's nothing left to change? At some point

1415
01:20:42,280 --> 01:20:44,599
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, no, I have like all ideas that

1416
01:20:44,640 --> 01:20:48,320
Speaker 1: I have, there's nothing bothering me, there are no ideas slip.

1417
01:20:48,400 --> 01:20:50,479
Speaker 1: We're like, okay, I should try this. Like I said,

1418
01:20:50,479 --> 01:20:53,679
Speaker 1: it's not that I I you know, with today's way

1419
01:20:53,680 --> 01:20:56,040
Speaker 1: of working, you change something and you can always change

1420
01:20:56,080 --> 01:20:58,000
Speaker 1: it back. So every idea I have, it would try

1421
01:20:58,040 --> 01:21:00,559
Speaker 1: it until at some point I have like, okay, now

1422
01:21:00,560 --> 01:21:02,679
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no idea what could be done better?

1423
01:21:02,760 --> 01:21:06,559
Speaker 1: And nothing's bothering me anymore. Okay. The other thing I

1424
01:21:06,600 --> 01:21:09,880
Speaker 1: noticed in your music, unlike traditional E d M, is

1425
01:21:09,880 --> 01:21:14,960
Speaker 1: there's more melody. You conscious of that, yes, very much.

1426
01:21:16,000 --> 01:21:20,679
Speaker 1: Just I had a time I was making like beats,

1427
01:21:20,920 --> 01:21:23,880
Speaker 1: you know, I d M. It was when I moved

1428
01:21:23,880 --> 01:21:25,640
Speaker 1: to l A. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do

1429
01:21:25,680 --> 01:21:27,960
Speaker 1: the beats, and we're gonna have the top liners. And

1430
01:21:28,439 --> 01:21:33,240
Speaker 1: what read was interesting for me. In Europe, it's this

1431
01:21:33,520 --> 01:21:35,519
Speaker 1: this thing I was I was working with sweets. They

1432
01:21:35,520 --> 01:21:39,080
Speaker 1: would spend so much time on the melodies and then

1433
01:21:39,080 --> 01:21:42,360
Speaker 1: they would write some random lyrics within ten minutes. And

1434
01:21:42,400 --> 01:21:44,639
Speaker 1: then I moved to the US and they would write

1435
01:21:44,640 --> 01:21:47,760
Speaker 1: the melodies in ten minutes and then spend Yeah, they

1436
01:21:47,760 --> 01:21:50,720
Speaker 1: would spend hours on the lyrics, which was really fascinating,

1437
01:21:51,920 --> 01:21:57,160
Speaker 1: which I realized, Okay, lyrics are important because I'm from Germany, right,

1438
01:21:57,240 --> 01:21:59,799
Speaker 1: and we when you grow up you don't even understand

1439
01:21:59,800 --> 01:22:01,719
Speaker 1: that English lyrics and it's just you need some punch

1440
01:22:01,760 --> 01:22:03,920
Speaker 1: lines in it. But I realized in the U s

1441
01:22:04,000 --> 01:22:06,280
Speaker 1: that there can be a lot of deep meaning and

1442
01:22:06,520 --> 01:22:09,679
Speaker 1: lyrics can be really meaningful and they're really important and everything.

1443
01:22:10,439 --> 01:22:12,439
Speaker 1: But what bothered me was that they spend a little

1444
01:22:12,439 --> 01:22:14,599
Speaker 1: time on the melodies. The top lineers were more like

1445
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:18,599
Speaker 1: the lyricist. And then I said, okay, now I'm simply

1446
01:22:18,600 --> 01:22:20,400
Speaker 1: going to do the melodies and when the top line

1447
01:22:20,479 --> 01:22:22,799
Speaker 1: is come to the student, I'm gonna have some melodies prepared,

1448
01:22:23,080 --> 01:22:24,920
Speaker 1: and my business partner back then, he was like, no,

1449
01:22:25,120 --> 01:22:28,439
Speaker 1: don't do it, Like can you even do that? And

1450
01:22:28,479 --> 01:22:31,040
Speaker 1: I started studying melodies. I started a lot of Max Martin,

1451
01:22:31,120 --> 01:22:33,719
Speaker 1: for example. I listened to a lot of music, his songs,

1452
01:22:33,760 --> 01:22:37,080
Speaker 1: and I analyzed everything and I transcribed a lot of stuff.

1453
01:22:38,080 --> 01:22:41,320
Speaker 1: And then I started doing it. And first my business

1454
01:22:41,360 --> 01:22:43,519
Speaker 1: partner I said that it's not good, but then I

1455
01:22:43,560 --> 01:22:47,479
Speaker 1: think after two weeks. No, it was actually the first

1456
01:22:47,479 --> 01:22:51,639
Speaker 1: session where insisted that we use my melody and we

1457
01:22:51,720 --> 01:22:53,880
Speaker 1: finished the song, we sent it around and we immediate

1458
01:22:53,920 --> 01:22:57,439
Speaker 1: immediately got Jason Rulu to the record it and was like, okay,

1459
01:22:57,520 --> 01:23:01,000
Speaker 1: maybe I should keep making the melodies. Yeah, and ever since,

1460
01:23:01,040 --> 01:23:04,960
Speaker 1: I just uh worked on it very consciously. And one

1461
01:23:05,000 --> 01:23:07,639
Speaker 1: big inspiration for me has been Vici as well as well.

1462
01:23:07,920 --> 01:23:12,479
Speaker 1: That was the incredible thing how he incorporated melodies into

1463
01:23:12,520 --> 01:23:16,680
Speaker 1: idiom music. And you have this ten song album, And

1464
01:23:16,720 --> 01:23:18,599
Speaker 1: if it takes you so long to finish your track,

1465
01:23:18,960 --> 01:23:20,559
Speaker 1: how long did it take you to do the ten

1466
01:23:20,640 --> 01:23:23,839
Speaker 1: song album. Yeah, that was a little bit faster because

1467
01:23:24,439 --> 01:23:27,120
Speaker 1: I consciously decided I'm going to do some album songs.

1468
01:23:27,800 --> 01:23:31,880
Speaker 1: So before I had a really high bar that a

1469
01:23:32,000 --> 01:23:36,479
Speaker 1: song had to get over to actually get released, which

1470
01:23:36,680 --> 01:23:39,160
Speaker 1: also my wife said, hey, you have so many great

1471
01:23:39,240 --> 01:23:41,479
Speaker 1: songs that are really good. Maybe they are not a single,

1472
01:23:41,479 --> 01:23:43,640
Speaker 1: but you still should still release them. So that was

1473
01:23:43,640 --> 01:23:45,559
Speaker 1: simply I said, Okay, I'm gonna do an album. I'm

1474
01:23:45,560 --> 01:23:47,760
Speaker 1: also going to release some songs that are more experimental,

1475
01:23:47,800 --> 01:23:50,920
Speaker 1: which are not a single, which probably will not stand

1476
01:23:50,920 --> 01:23:52,439
Speaker 1: on their own way. I think like, Okay, they're gonna

1477
01:23:52,439 --> 01:23:55,599
Speaker 1: grow legs and they're gonna do big things on their own,

1478
01:23:56,280 --> 01:23:58,840
Speaker 1: but still people might a lot of people might simply

1479
01:23:58,840 --> 01:24:01,040
Speaker 1: still enjoy listening to them, to them, and yes, some

1480
01:24:01,160 --> 01:24:04,559
Speaker 1: songs just took like two weeks, so yeah, it wasn't

1481
01:24:04,560 --> 01:24:07,839
Speaker 1: that long. Okay, do you consciously shit in your studio

1482
01:24:08,000 --> 01:24:12,960
Speaker 1: and say I want to make a hit single? Sometimes

1483
01:24:14,000 --> 01:24:17,360
Speaker 1: not all the times. Yeah. I sit there and then

1484
01:24:17,400 --> 01:24:21,240
Speaker 1: I think that, and then I realized it's completely blocking

1485
01:24:21,240 --> 01:24:24,759
Speaker 1: me creatively, and then I tried to figure it out,

1486
01:24:24,960 --> 01:24:27,479
Speaker 1: and then I do weird stuff, and then I think, oh,

1487
01:24:27,520 --> 01:24:30,200
Speaker 1: I'm doing completely weird stuff. I should focus more on

1488
01:24:30,320 --> 01:24:32,479
Speaker 1: making a hit single. And that's kind of a cycle

1489
01:24:32,880 --> 01:24:35,880
Speaker 1: where it always moves and once in a while, randomly

1490
01:24:35,920 --> 01:24:38,760
Speaker 1: a good song comes out of that process. Okay, if

1491
01:24:38,760 --> 01:24:41,400
Speaker 1: I snap my fingers and we're in a perfect world,

1492
01:24:42,000 --> 01:24:46,480
Speaker 1: what is your career look like? What's the ultimate dream?

1493
01:24:46,520 --> 01:24:50,760
Speaker 1: I have this question recently, which record like which? Uh yeah?

1494
01:24:50,800 --> 01:24:53,280
Speaker 1: Which which like Guinness World Record? Would you like to

1495
01:24:54,520 --> 01:24:57,479
Speaker 1: uh break? Have? And I simply said, I would like

1496
01:24:57,520 --> 01:25:00,960
Speaker 1: to have the most stream song and the and I

1497
01:25:01,000 --> 01:25:04,240
Speaker 1: think that would still be a goal for me, simply

1498
01:25:06,000 --> 01:25:10,240
Speaker 1: number one on on every single chart. Okay, well, I

1499
01:25:10,240 --> 01:25:13,439
Speaker 1: hope you reached that. This has been fascinating. I mean,

1500
01:25:13,800 --> 01:25:17,000
Speaker 1: you're very articulate and you know where you're going, and

1501
01:25:17,160 --> 01:25:20,360
Speaker 1: you experimented a lot in the American way to get

1502
01:25:20,360 --> 01:25:24,160
Speaker 1: where you are today. Yeah, it was very beneficial for

1503
01:25:24,200 --> 01:25:26,200
Speaker 1: me to be in the US, I have to say, right,

1504
01:25:26,520 --> 01:25:29,679
Speaker 1: it learned so much there. Okay, it's been great talking

1505
01:25:29,720 --> 01:25:32,479
Speaker 1: to you. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex