BRANDON SMITH: The Monthly Single Strategy, Getting on Spotify Playlists, and Sync Licensing

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. And now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man, time moves fast and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty.

(00:01:01):

I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way. All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at m dot A-C-D-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it. And use the subject line Answer me Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Hello everybody and welcome to the URM Podcast. My guest today is Brandon Smith, AKA, the Annex, who is an electronic rock artist and producer who's getting more than 300,000 listeners a month across digital platforms. He is on his way up and he's an example of how it's done in the modern age. For those of you who are wondering how to launch your career as an artist, producer, or songwriter, this episode is for you. Enjoy Brandon Smith. Welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02:07):

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. It's

Speaker 1 (00:02:09):

A pleasure. So think an interesting part of the annex and what you do is that where so many artists and even organizations have to outsource specific tasks like digital services, marketing, you just take that on yourself. And I'm just curious, is that out of a general interest or are you just a hardcore adopter of the DIY mindset?

Speaker 2 (00:02:36):

It's a little of both. I think that mentality started when I was, before I even knew what I was doing with music, just always building my own things on my bike or playing sports and modifying my equipment. I didn't have a lot of money growing up, a lot of resources, so a lot of the stuff I did, I had to make or find ways to modify things. I didn't live in Los Angeles, I didn't have friends that were in the music industry, so I just had to figure everything out myself. And this is pre-internet days, so just a lot of experimenting and again, with no resources, you get creative on ways to make certain sounds and figuring out how to edit photos and put together something somewhat creative with no resources basically. And that's kind of how it all started.

Speaker 1 (00:03:20):

What was the goal, even when you had, like you said, no resources, what was the goal of what you were doing just to put something cool together, whatever it is you were working on or to reach an audience, what was your mindset at as far as outcome goes?

Speaker 2 (00:03:34):

I grew up as a illustrator, an artist. It was always connecting the art world and the music side of things into one complete and connected package or presentation basically. So as I progressed to my career and I started working with labels and other artists or even being hired as a graphic designer for other artists and that kind of thing, I always just found it kind of strange that an artist spends all this time on a song all this time on the lyrics. And then when it comes to the visual element, which is a huge part of the connection with fans that's just handed over to an agency or a graphic designer with pretty limited amount of input on what the design should be on my stuff, I wanted to create the most authentic complete 360 degree package, whether that's the merch videos, any photo that goes out, the music from scratch, all the production, mastering, mixing, writing. I wanted it all to feel like it's from the same world.

Speaker 1 (00:04:36):

What do you think is better? An artist who sucks at marketing and art, trying to do it all themselves or hiring someone that's better than them.

Speaker 2 (00:04:49):

The state of the business we're in now is so visual and I think there's so much cool stuff out there that if you're putting out garbage, it's easy to just skip past that and just discount it as something not professional or amateur. But I do applaud the effort when I see people because I do see a lot of artists trying to do it all themselves, and some of it's just so bad.

Speaker 1 (00:05:10):

Yeah, I mean, you applaud the effort, but Spotify plays don't and neither do YouTube plays and neither do sales.

Speaker 2 (00:05:18):

Yeah, I think if, I don't know, some people have the ability to learn multiple disciplines and I guess just some people haven't. Some don't. Or some people have an artistic side for visuals and some don't. But so I think if you truly know you have no ability to create art in the visual sense, then you should definitely hire the best graphic designer you can possibly get your hands on and just try to give the most detailed brief on what the vision should be, rather than giving that graphic designer so much control to do whatever he wants, just try to make it as close to your vision as possible.

Speaker 1 (00:05:55):

So I think that's the key word right there. Vision,

(00:05:58):

I think that is more important than the actual skills, at least from my perspective, because you can always hire people to fill in what you're not good at, but if you don't have the vision that's you're basically rolling the dice as to how things are going to come out. They might do a great job and somehow the stars will align or they could have their own vision for things that's completely different than what you had in mind and not necessarily good. And I think that this is actually a problem that artists have when they work with managers or when they work with publicists or labels, not just with graphic designers. It happens when they go to producers and mixers too. Lack of vision is a real problem.

Speaker 2 (00:06:43):

It's not just the graphic side of things. It's so much on the production and writers and when you have major label deals involved and you have so many people giving their input on what the artist should sound like, and that was a world I came from, being a hired gun for bigger record labels to work for artists as either a touring musician or a studio player or whatever. This artist gets signed and they come into the studio and they have 10 people writing lyrics for them. Then they have three producers and then they have all these audio engineers. It's like a full production, almost like a movie set of people just trying to bring one song to life. The finished product that gets out to radio or the fans here is it almost has nothing to do with that artist that was signed originally. So I think, yeah, like you said, having the vision and sticking to it and believing it and pushing it is a huge part of it.

Speaker 1 (00:07:37):

I think there's also something to be said for when you don't know what the fuck you're doing, you hire somebody like a great mixer and say, just do your thing. There's something to be said for knowing when to get out of the way I guess,

Speaker 2 (00:07:51):

And the end result could either be outstanding or it could be way far away from what you imagine. I've been in situations like that before. I was always producing all the annex stuff on my own even well before I knew what the hell I was doing, pretty much just making garbage. And I had some pretty huge producers want to tackle doing a few songs and seeing what they could turn it into. And you see the credentials on these producers and you're like, yeah, I have to try it. And then just the end result never came out the way I wanted. So even having basically unlimited resources with these producers, studio time, all the credentials in the world, it just still didn't match what I was trying to bring out in my head. So it can go either way.

Speaker 1 (00:08:36):

Do you think that that's because you had such a defined vision or do you think it's more because it just wasn't a good chemistry?

Speaker 2 (00:08:43):

I was always trying to fuse the electronic side and an alternative rock side. Two of these cases were big rock producers who wanted to basically put all the electronics way in the back and make it more of a rock project. And again, that sounded cool On paper, you see these guys have songs that are on the radio. As I'm driving out to their house, I'm hearing their songs on the radio, but the end result, it just felt too normal to me. And then the other instance was a producer that was big in the pop, kind of electro pop world and he stripped out all the rock side of things, so it was just this electronic thing, so maybe just not the right fit, but that was just my experience

Speaker 1 (00:09:25):

In metal. There's lots of the same complaints from artists who incorporate other elements like orchestral stuff or electronic stuff that they have a problem when they go to these big metal mixers a lot of the time because they just want to bury everything else. They're coming from. This mentality of a song is guitars based drums and vocals, everything else is just sprinkles or toppings basically. And to the artist, it's not that way. I know it For me, it's not that way for lots of artists that I know. And I think that what that requires, if that's you creating something that's a new blend of genres or just something that you haven't really heard too much out there, it kind of is on you to set the template. Once you set the template and people start to recognize what you're doing, then it becomes a lot easier to hire a mixer or a producer because they'll work within the framework that you set. But if you haven't already set that framework with an identifiable, recognizable sound, it's going to be tough. I think.

Speaker 2 (00:10:42):

Yeah, that's spot on. And anytime I've worked with either a mastering guy or another producer or a mixer, I always do my own sub mix just to show as close as possible to a finished project of what I want it to sound like, where I want the synths to be in the mix and all that stuff. And this same kind of problem occurs live a lot too when you're a rock band and you're running tracks that have your synths and samples and drum stuff on it, and you show up to a club and you're dealing with a mixing guy that's just paid, this is his nine to five, he just doesn't care. It's really hard to get that mix. And again, always the electronics get totally buried in that scenario. But yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:11:28):

What's your view on creating an arrangement where guitars and electronics can coexist? Is it something that has to be basically inherent at the inception of the piece?

Speaker 2 (00:11:44):

Whenever I'm making a song, the chorus is, that's the center of the universe. So on the chorus that has to be everything all in the loudest, the most base heavy, the most aggressive, the whitest part of the song. So everything is kind of leading up to that point. If the song starts with an intro, like a rock intro, I think it's okay to have all the samples and the synths and all that stuff in to make the intro sound huge. But then I would want the verse to drop down and remove some of the base frequencies, slightly lower volume. That way it gives the chorus a chance to jump back up and boost out. So I think that's some of the stuff I've heard is when it's just too uniform all throughout the track, there's no variance in the subbase from the synths or the drum samples. It's just constant all the way through.

Speaker 1 (00:12:32):

Yeah, there's got to be some sort of dynamic shift I think, no matter what elements you're throwing in there.

Speaker 2 (00:12:40):

Definitely. Whether that's just using filters, automating filters to drop some of that stuff out or however you want to do it. Usually I have separate tracks in my D that are specifically for the verse and then the chorus has its own set. That way I can just control everything volume wise and base wise. EQ compressor separately for the chorus

Speaker 1 (00:13:01):

Is what you're saying that when you go from section to section like verse to pre-chorus the chorus, it's almost like different scenes inside your dog. They each have a unique mix or similar but slightly different, and you put the parts on separate tracks so that you don't have to automate the settings for a new section.

Speaker 2 (00:13:23):

Yeah, it's kind of different scenes, like different clusters of tracks, drums, vocals for a verse, a pre-chorus and a chorus. And basically those three different scenes will have variances in EQs and compressors and volumes and obviously sounds themself, but the main reason I do it is just to have that step effect of dynamics as you enter each part. So the song's constantly building up and then dropping down to give the listener a break from all the bass and all the noise and then building back up and that kind of scenario. Do

Speaker 1 (00:14:01):

You ever encounter an issue where when you go from one scene to the next, there's a continuity problem in that it doesn't sound like the same song?

Speaker 2 (00:14:10):

I think most of that has to do with the music itself, the notes you're writing. I tend to going from a verse and then let's say you go from a verse to a pre-course, I like something dramatic to smack you into that. It's very obvious you're entering a new part of the song just rather than a smoother blend into that section.

Speaker 1 (00:14:32):

So I guess if the writing isn't cohesive, then it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (00:14:36):

So chord progressions and with electronic production or just recording it into a da, it's easy to write sections at a time separately. If you imagine back before all this, you had to sit with a guitar and write a full song on a guitar from start to finish, and the song just, it flowed naturally because you had no other options. You're doing it all in one shot. But now it's real easy to just sit down and for one day just write a chorus and then the next day you're like, okay, now how do I write parts around that chorus? And that's when it can get kind of tricky if the arrangement and the chord progressions don't sound great. So usually what I'll do is once, if I'm riding that way, sometimes I do, I'll just strip it back down and once I have it all, I'll go downstairs and just play it on an acoustic guitar and see if it works out that way. If it sounds good on an acoustic, then obviously it's okay to go with.

Speaker 1 (00:15:30):

Yeah. So you're still checking that it's a standalone piece of music that can work outside of all the cool sounding stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:15:38):

Exactly. And it's easy to get in a confusing situation when you're writing some parts on a synthesizer. Some parts are all samples, some parts are guitar and bass, traditional stuff. So I think it's important that strip down taking a step back, play it on a guitar and if it works that way, or if you have a piano, play it on a piano, it's another way to check it. I think that's important. You're

Speaker 1 (00:16:01):

Saying that you like to work on one single song until it's completely finished and then you have a process of basically building a world around that song. I want to explore that both from a musical perspective, but then also how it translates to the marketing, the digital content creation for the song.

Speaker 2 (00:16:20):

So I think we all know producers that have, they'll start an idea, they'll play around with it for a day and then they'll move on to something else and they end up with this folder that has like 51 minute demos or something. And I've been there too. I used to do that. I have friends that do that. And what I notice is it makes it real challenging to go back and finish those songs once the initial excitement, at least for me tapers down from that writing session. It's hard to capture that back when you reopen it,

Speaker 1 (00:16:55):

Hard to put yourself back in that moment because kind of a moment in time.

Speaker 2 (00:16:59):

Absolutely. So I try to get as much of it down in that first session as possible. Even if it's super rough, I'll try to get a vocal melody. Everything down. In the first session, one of the songs I released, I was about to go to sleep. I was laying in bed and then I heard a full song, the drumbeat, the bass line, the top melody, the vocal, and when you have something hit you, it's hard to just trust that you're going to memorize that in the morning. So I just jumped out, recorded it all down. So basically within five minutes I had a full song with a vocal melody just demoed out on my da. And that made it super easy to just go back the next day and just finish it. And I've just personally found if I can finish one song at a time, I'm way more excited about it. I'm enthusiastic to do the marketing around it and create that universe around the track rather than having so many open unfinished projects.

Speaker 1 (00:17:56):

So I think that the benefit to having the open unfinished projects like 50 or a hundred of them is specifically for metal kinds of people that have interchangeable sounding songs. And I mean that in a good way and a bad way because on lots of modern metal records, you could take a section from one song and basically cut and paste it into another song on the same record and you wouldn't even know that there are parts of two different songs. And to me, that makes it more boring. But at the same time, that's where you get that insane consistency from. But I know people who are really, really sick writers in the genre who do that, it's almost like they're putting a puzzle together. But it's very different than writing songs for the song songs. And I actually think that that's a lot of what the genre is missing to each of their own. But I feel like that method of having 50 to a hundred little clips makes it a lot harder to write complete songs that have a very identifiable and unique and cohesive essence to them.

Speaker 2 (00:19:10):

And a lot of it just comes down to each producer's going to have their own way of making things work for themselves. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:19:16):

Don't listen to us. Whoever is out there listening, whatever allows you to do your best work is what actually matters.

Speaker 2 (00:19:24):

Absolutely. Everything I know is basically from just failing and just trying stuff that doesn't work. And over the course of 25 years of making music, finally I'm starting to find a roadmap of how to make things and finish them and be excited about it.

Speaker 1 (00:19:42):

How long does it typically take you to finish the song?

Speaker 2 (00:19:45):

Some of 'em can be 24 hours from start to finish and some can take a month. It totally varies, and usually the ones that I don't have any reference track in mind, I'm not a being comparing things, I'm just writing completely for the fun of it. Those are the ones that finish the fastest. And the ones that I get stuck in a black hole on is when I'll write it, produce it, mix it, and then it's the mastering that usually gets held up or the final mixing. And it's usually when I'm comparing it to another track that I'm trying to get a similar mix to and it just, for whatever reason, it just always leads into this dark hole. So I really stopped even listening to music about eight years ago and I stopped comparing everything and just doing what I felt was right. And that's really unlocked a whole new level of creativity and workflow, putting out the amount of music I've been doing in the last three years. I've never been able to put out music this frequently and be this excited about it in my entire time doing this.

Speaker 1 (00:20:51):

Isn't it weird what happens when you're actually having fun?

Speaker 2 (00:20:56):

That's exactly it, man. That's the key to it. And when it becomes too structured, I think when it's almost too much of a job, then it takes the fun out of it. And that can change a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (00:21:06):

There's definitely something to be said for treating it like work and writing no matter what and keeping your discipline and not waiting for inspiration. Those are all really, really important things, but if the enjoyment is not there, it's going to come through in what you're writing.

Speaker 3 (00:21:22):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:21:22):

People might not be able to consciously identify it, but what they will notice is that they're, or maybe not, is that they're not listening to the song again and they're not really connecting with it.

Speaker 2 (00:21:35):

And I've tried putting out songs that internally I knew that I didn't have the full effort into it and I could have done more with it. And I've always thought, who's going to notice? But always, it's always the case. Those are the ones that get the least amount of streams, the least attention. The enthusiasm drops down shortly after the release and the ones that I do put in the effort, I think it does some, like what you're saying, there's something about it that will show through and the fans will connect with.

Speaker 1 (00:22:04):

Yeah, the whole who's going to notice, well, that's kind of true. Nobody will notice and that's the bad part. You don't want to not be noticed,

Speaker 4 (00:22:13):

Right?

Speaker 1 (00:22:13):

Yeah, it's weird. They won't notice that you didn't put in the effort, but you'll notice that they're not listening.

Speaker 2 (00:22:19):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:22:21):

Speaking of, you also tend to build a world around the marketing and the release of your tracks, which not all artists do. That's kind of back to the beginning of the conversation. That's typically something that gets outsourced.

Speaker 2 (00:22:37):

So when I signed to Fixed, the thing that was enticing about that deal was exploring a new way of approaching the music business and previous deals I was in, it was a traditional structure where you go in, you record an album for three months and then you go tour for six months and then you come back and if you're still alive in one piece and you survived it, then you start writing and pre-production for the next album. The issue I had with that is that you're just kind of offline for so long during the writing process, during the touring, you're exhausted when you're done and it leaves little room to be energized to keep doing things. So the model with Fixed is that rather than touring, what if we treat each song as an experience and we do pretty much one song a month. That way it keeps the interaction with your fan base alive and constant.

(00:23:32):

Each month there's a spike and something for them to look forward to. And when that enthusiasm is up, then there's more chance to do merchandise and have people interact and buy merchandise because I usually will time up a song release with a merchant announcement with whatever else I have going on. That way the song is the core of the universe of the excitement, and then everything else can kind of attach itself to that and feed off of it. So that's been really the model is we'll release roughly 10 songs a year is singles, and then at the end of that we'll put 'em all together on an album and then you have the full album to release. And some fans, they won't listen to the single, so they'll want to wait for the full album and that's fine. But it's a model that really works for me because each month I can easily accomplish one song in less than a month, and that gives me a few weeks left over to do the marketing and create all the visuals around it and like a shirt or a collaboration on merchandise to fit with it.

(00:24:31):

And it just expands the life of that song too. And right now everything's so ephemeral. It's so short lived. You put out a single and within three days, once everyone's heard it, it's forgotten about or it's onto whatever else is coming out. So the more you have around that to just build that song into almost its own mini album release, that's kind of the way I treat each song is its own mini album PR push. So I'll do short video commercials, basically not a full music video for every song, but maybe a one minute clip that'll go on Instagram that looks like a miniature music video and that drives everyone to listen to the full song on Spotify. A lot of it's just it's content that I make that pushes people to go stream the song or to stream it on YouTube or whatever it is, which in turn helps them buy the merchandise around it. And that whole thing

Speaker 1 (00:25:23):

Sounds like a lot of work per every song.

Speaker 2 (00:25:26):

Yes,

Speaker 1 (00:25:27):

Because on an album you don't do that

Speaker 2 (00:25:29):

When it's a one man show doing it, that's the way I do it. It's really exhausting. So you really have to love what you're doing and find ways to keep yourself enthusiastic and excited about it to keep going. And I dunno if it's a sustainable model because it's so time consuming and energy draining to just constantly be in that cycle of trading. For now it's working, so I'll keep going with it.

Speaker 1 (00:25:52):

People have been talking about how the singles method is the way of the future, but I guess people don't really talk too much about what it's like to have to continually be churning new stuff out. I know from what I do that it's actually a lot harder than people realize.

Speaker 2 (00:26:10):

Yeah, it is. And it's hard to get an album that feels cohesive when you're doing 'em one at a time, mastering and mixing them one at a time rather than a full block. And that's been a little bit of the struggle because I'm not writing the full 12 song album in three months. I'm spreading that out over a full year. So naturally through that year, my influences might change, I might get new gear, I might learn new things. So through the course of that album, the album also morphs and could be a positive thing. It keeps things kind of fresh and new, but that's the challenge is getting it to be cohesive and all fitting into one sound.

Speaker 1 (00:26:50):

I can see that one of the biggest challenges to that would be if you're writing and releasing and producing and mixing and everything, a song like a Year Apart, you're going to be a completely different artist. A year later you're going to be doing different things, you're going to be in different state of mind. It's kind of, I think that the benefit of doing everything at once is that the cohesive sound is just in the DNA of it. If all the songs are written at the same time and produce at the same time, they're going to just naturally take on. They sound like part of a set, I guess.

Speaker 2 (00:27:28):

And the other benefit of doing it all in one shot is you're capturing a moment of time when you're doing that, and that's what an album is. So yeah, again, my method, it may not work for everyone. I think the flexibility I have is that my fans know that when I release songs, they usually always sound different. Some are pure electric or electronic or whatever, and some are just almost pure alternative rock. I really have a lot of flexibility basically from the fans in getting able to do various types of songs.

Speaker 1 (00:28:03):

Not every artist has that kind of luxury. Sure, you've noticed that some artists change their sound a little bit and people flip out, yet there's other artists wear. It's almost like that is how people understand them. People understand them as an artist that you can't predict anything from. And so they've come to just accept that it's going to be something unique every single time.

Speaker 2 (00:28:27):

And trust me, it took a long time to get the fans to accept it. And I think there's still a cohesiveness in the vibe of the songs. There's always this melancholic, almost suicidal undertone. There's a darkness in all of 'em, whether it's electronic or not. And again, it comes down to the ability to just go down on an acoustic guitar, play the song, and they should all kind of still fit. It's just whatever sounds you use to bring that to life, it doesn't matter as much. I think with my fans, where it does matter is getting Playlisted on Spotify and some of the other Apple music and some of the other services. I've really only had luck with my heavier songs with that stuff. Unfortunately, that does skew me to lean more towards the rock songs when I'm writing because I know those are the ones that are going to get the action.

Speaker 1 (00:29:19):

Let's talk about getting Playlisted. What goes into it for people who have no idea?

Speaker 2 (00:29:24):

So through Spotify for artists, you can pitch songs to editors. It's a pretty clinical process. You're checking boxes on genres and descripting factors and stuff. Fixed takes care of this for all my releases, but sometimes we get stuck because there's no way to describe within the confinements that they're giving you on what a song sounds like or a similar artist. It's really hard and it gets tricky. Fix has some direct relationships with the editors so they can actually send an email to help, I guess describe or follow up on things. But it's really challenging to get on some of the bigger playlists. And the impact is monumental when you do get on one of those that can make or break a song that can make or break a paycheck. And it's really the modern day equivalent of getting played on the radio, I think. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:30:15):

I was about to say that. And interesting that you say paycheck, I'm about to piss some people off with some exception. I think that the majority of people who complain about payments on Spotify aren't in a position to get royalties anyways for their music. That's the majority of the people that I hear complaining. Every once in a while you'll hear someone who's awesome, who has a lot of legit stuff out there pissed off about it, but most of the people I hear complaining about it aren't in the position anyways to be getting any royalties.

Speaker 2 (00:30:48):

That's pretty accurate from what I've seen too. And in my case, everything I make, it's split in half with the label. If I wasn't splitting it in half, I would be making pretty much enough to survive on just on Spotify payments. So that gives me hope and that gives me drive to keep pushing to get past that threshold. But yeah, I mean I think for me also, I have a pretty deep catalog, so there's a lot of songs being streamed. I think every month on Spotify alone I get a million streams and then you plug in all the other services as well, like Apple and all this stuff in Russia and the streams get up there. So yeah, just I guess having a deep catalog has helped in some respect for me.

Speaker 1 (00:31:32):

So in some ways, if people are approaching things like one single every six months or something like that, rather than a constant carpet bomb for basically years straight, they might not really win the Spotify game. It sounds to me like one of the keys to doing well on Spotify is basically built on the approach that you take of a song month. Lots of material always coming out, always trying to get playlisted and always giving your fans a lot of material to keep listening to.

Speaker 2 (00:32:10):

And as far as I understand, if you save all of your songs, let's say you didn't release any singles, you just put 'em all on an album and you send it to Spotify, you can send that to get Playlisted or send it to the editors, but you can only choose one track from the entire album. And once the album's out, you can't go back and submit other songs. So basically you're betting all 10 to 15 of your songs in your album. You're betting on one track to get playlisted, and the odds aren't in your favor unless you're a big name versus doing it as singles. Every single release you get the opportunity to pitch to an editor. So pretty much giving yourself 10 to 15 shots of getting playlisted per album,

Speaker 1 (00:32:51):

I don't know why someone wouldn't just do that.

Speaker 2 (00:32:53):

Trust me, I understand the excitement of a full album that being a fan, you get a full album you've never heard from start to finish, 10 to 15 brand new songs. That's amazing. That's how I grew up listening to music. So that's the downside of singles is you're giving away the album one step at a time, and then when the full album's out, pretty much everyone's heard all the songs or maybe you save three or four songs for the album. So that's the downside, but I think there's plenty of positives to counter that with keeping the excitement every month, the excitement peaks with your fans, which gives you the opportunity to market and sell things and do merchandise and interact with them and do all kinds of things. So that's just the method I prefer.

Speaker 1 (00:33:36):

And I'm sure that every single time that you get it has effects on the rest of your catalog.

Speaker 2 (00:33:42):

Yeah, I'll see a song get playlisted, and then you'll start seeing in comments, not just on Spotify, but on YouTube you'll see comments, oh, I found this song on Spotify and I checked out this one and I'm glad I found you. I see that all the time. So it does have effects for sure

Speaker 1 (00:33:59):

What you were saying about the negative side of it. I feel like any advancement in technology is going to have both its pros and its cons. There's no perfect solution to anything. I think anytime that you move forward, there is something that gets as cliche as this sounds, there is something that's going to be left behind. And in this case it is the album experience. Now artists still release full albums and do all right, but I feel like if they're not taking advantage of, I guess of this method, then they're not taking full advantage of, I guess the opportunities they have for revenue that the modern age affords them.

Speaker 2 (00:34:43):

Yes, that's exactly it. And at least for me, being a smaller artist slightly in the underground territory, this is what works for me. If you're somebody like Travis Scott or the Weekend,

Speaker 1 (00:34:55):

Do whatever you want.

Speaker 2 (00:34:56):

You don't need to do all this. You could just save it all for an album. This is just what works for me on the smaller side of things and what I've seen actually working, and I've seen a steady growth doing this since I signed with Fix in 2018. Every year there's tremendous growth by just following this. As of now, I have no reason to change it or no reason to think that it's not working.

Speaker 1 (00:35:17):

If you were in a local band or something unsigned, is this the method that you would attempt?

Speaker 2 (00:35:24):

Definitely. If you can do everything yourself, and if you're in a band, like you said, if it's a full band, you can delegate tasks to each member. So maybe one member could be the guy that's in charge of all the DSPs and submitting songs and submitting things to playlists. One guy can be the PR guy submitting stories to blogs and outlets. Maybe one or two guys are the production songwriters and one guy's a graphic guy. So that can easily work. It gets tricky when it's one person, and that's why I rely on Fixed to handle the business side of pitching and managing the catalog and submitting songs and all that stuff. I to do that on top of all the other creative stuff, I'd be burned out immediately.

Speaker 1 (00:36:07):

Yeah, it's funny, man, when people say the whole, you don't even need a label. I think that's coming from a place of pure ignorance of just how much goes into keeping an artist or a band out there in the world competing.

Speaker 2 (00:36:24):

Totally. And there's also this structure that comes at the label. I know with Fixed I, they're just keeping me on a time, keeping me accountable for hitting times and scheduled stuff. So without that, I'm sure I'd be all over the place, but it is nice to have that just constant email coming in or text saying, Hey, we need this from you. Can you respond to this? That kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (00:36:48):

Yeah, and another problem with that band scenario where everyone has different jobs. Look, I know that the most successful bands do kind of operate like that where everybody knows their role, however it is at a local level, close to impossible to get five people to be each that on top of their stuff. But I guess that's the difference. I guess that's what makes the difference between a band that goes places and a band that doesn't, but thinking about a local band that's that on top of their stuff where one person is the PR person, another person's the financial person, another person handles playlists, another person or two are the music production. It's a rare group of people.

Speaker 2 (00:37:35):

It's so rare and it almost never happens. So if you're in a band of five people and two of the three guys aren't pulling their weight, there's a lot of resentment that comes up. And that's usually how bands start deteriorating is when not everyone's contributing equally to the effort.

Speaker 1 (00:37:51):

I remember watching the Slip Knot home video that they made in 2005 or something. All nine of 'em were just talking about how they got famous basically and their whole history, and they just kept saying that they had this philosophy or this thing in the band where no one wanted to be that guy. Everybody did their part and delivered because no one wanted. Yeah, no one wanted to be that guy. No one wanted to be the person that let everybody else down. So of course they're like that. I mean, look at the results, but that almost never happens.

Speaker 2 (00:38:31):

And I think a lot of it has to do with where you live in the region or other parts of the world. Being in la, the good musicians have a lot of options or you get to a certain age and people want to start having a family or go in a different career direction. But certain parts of America, they put all their eggs in one basket basically. And this is everything to them. Certain parts of the world, the country will support artists and give them, you can actually get financial aid being a up and coming musician, so you can have the time to have a band and that's your job, but it just gets so hard when living costs come into play and you're trying to balance everyone's personal life and make sure has the same vision for where they want to take this. It's a real challenge.

Speaker 1 (00:39:16):

And even yet a band that had everybody doing their part, they still signed to a huge label.

Speaker 2 (00:39:22):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:39:24):

I think that even though I know quite a few totally independent artists, I actually do know some people who do it all themselves and do all right. But the thing about them is their music is number one, super, super niche. So they have an audience that in some ways supports that sort of approach. They don't need the kinds of things that a huge label will give them. That's number one. And then number two, they still hire people to do lots of the jobs that a label would do for them. So they're still hiring people. It's not like they're doing every single job themselves, they're just doing it without a label, but they're basically running a pseudo label with contractors.

Speaker 2 (00:40:13):

Yeah, absolutely. Hiring a publicist or hiring a booking agent or a manager or a graphic designers and video editors, all that stuff gets outsourced when you're doing it on your own for most people. And that's where a band like Slipknot, for example, I think a band like that has to have a full huge studio to go record in. You can't do that at home really. And that's another resource that a major label would bring to the table. And just a label like that, a big Label Warner or one of those guys, they can bring all the resources to setting up the video shoots and just making it easier on you to basically facilitating all those interactions with the different things you need as an artist.

Speaker 1 (00:40:53):

And it sounds like in your case too, it allows you to keep the music coming at the relentless pace, which you do keep it coming at.

Speaker 2 (00:41:01):

Yeah, exactly. It allows me to just focus on creative things, whether it's the visuals, video, music, production, playing with guitars, amps, making merchandise. That's the stuff that keeps me excited and keeps me going. The financial stuff, the spreadsheets, I have zero interest. That's the way I would for sure just go down the hole and end up quitting if I had to incorporate all that.

Speaker 1 (00:41:25):

I got to say though, it's dangerous not to have any understanding of that side of things.

Speaker 2 (00:41:31):

As we've seen throughout history, artists getting taken advantage of and completely screwed. So I do try to look at all the statements and understand and ask questions, but it's definitely not my strong side.

Speaker 1 (00:41:45):

That's why it's so important to trust the people you're working with and have a transparent relationship with them because you are basically relying on them to handle these sorts of things. And I know this, even with bands that have super financially minded members, they still will have a business manager or somebody who's not a band member who they rely on because as much as they like spreadsheets, they can't really look at spreadsheets too much when they're on tour and doing clinics and all that stuff. They can look at it, but not to the amount that it requires. So even the most financially minded bands, and there are some out there, they still get help in this department, and if they can't trust who they're working with, then it's pointless to even work with that person in the first place.

Speaker 2 (00:42:44):

And that's been a huge thing with Fixed working with James, the general manager

Speaker 1 (00:42:49):

James, is awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:42:51):

And instantly I just felt trust with him. And we interact through texts and email all day, every day, pretty much almost six days a week. And every other label I was on, we would have quarterly meetings basically, or if you had a question, you would email it and get a response back three weeks later. So I think that has helped build the trust is the constant interaction and just thinking they couldn't really get away with screwing me because we talked so often. It would eventually come up and whatever horrible situation that would be. But I do trust them. And part of what gets me or doesn't excite me about all the numbers and all that stuff is the way that it's reported in the music industry is it every quarter and then we get the actual results two months after the quarter ends. So once you're finally reading through the statements, I mean, these are months old records, and I think if there was a modern way of accounting and looking at things, whereas in real time or every week you got to report, that'd be much more exciting to look at and I think learn about, but it's just so archaic the way it is right now.

Speaker 1 (00:44:06):

Even with things like Spotify.

Speaker 2 (00:44:09):

No, Spotify, I get the real-time streams and followers and all that.

Speaker 1 (00:44:13):

I figured Spotify would,

Speaker 2 (00:44:15):

But I'm talking more of the master publishing, licensing, all that kind of stuff, all those figures. I'll find out a year later that my songs were in video game commercials or on TV trailers or movie trailers or whatever, and it's like if I would've known that beforehand, I would've marketed around it. I would've really milked whatever I could out of that, and it would've been huge. And it's just an old school way of doing it, I guess.

Speaker 1 (00:44:40):

And I do think this is starting to change, but I've always thought that the music industry is its own worst enemy.

Speaker 2 (00:44:45):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:44:46):

It's much more of its own enemy than technology is or the public. I think that music gets in its own way. So often those super slow reporting times there are carryovers from an age where everything was physical. I guess that makes sense. That shit takes longer, but there's no excuse for it now.

Speaker 2 (00:45:09):

Absolutely. There's zero excuse for it now. When you think of all the website analytics you can run and when you're running ads and all that stuff, you get real time information to what's working and that same stuff. I would love to know if I post this video and this song, the interaction and the spikes and what happens when I do that, that would keep me way more involved and interested in it.

Speaker 1 (00:45:33):

You do get that though with Spotify and YouTube at least. So I guess when you do see that kind of data coming back from the channels that do provide it in real time, how does that influence your behavior?

Speaker 2 (00:45:46):

Again, it dictates a little bit on what genre the next single I'm going to write would be. So if I put out a way heavier song than Normal, which I did on I think the last single two singles ago, way heavier than usual, and seeing that song got playlisted and it got reposted on all these different YouTube channels and the amount of comments was way up and the amount of time people spent listening to that song before skipping, that was way up. So that influences me on the next song to do something similar to see if I can at least match that performance or beat it.

Speaker 1 (00:46:21):

I see it still kind of predictive, right? That because one thing worked that it'll work again, it's still a guess, but probably by this point in time, a good guess.

Speaker 2 (00:46:32):

Yes, exactly. And by doing them releasing singles every month, you start to eliminate some of the guesswork because then you've done it long enough that you can start to predict behavior and what's going to work and what's not going to work.

Speaker 1 (00:46:47):

It's weird to use analytics and data to analyze what will work musically, but why not?

Speaker 2 (00:46:55):

Yeah, we're using all kinds of other technology to benefit us musically now. So that's just I think one other tool that a musician has as a benefit to the technology we have. Now.

Speaker 1 (00:47:07):

What about when it comes to marketing? Say that you release something and it just gets multiples more engagement than the last thing. Does that influence your marketing approach? Will you just continue course or will you seize the moment, I guess?

Speaker 2 (00:47:25):

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of hard because a lot of that stuff is still, you're just going off a vibe. We're just trying to read comments and as clinical as you want to try to make it with all the analytics, there's still a human element involved in trying to read people, and that's a part that'll never go away, I think. But certainly it'll influence if I release a song and a shirt that's somehow connected to the song, maybe it has the song title or lyrics hidden in it or something like that, and that marketing really resonates, then obviously I would want to try that again. Maybe not the next single, but the one after, and just that kind of experimentation. Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:48:06):

So speaking of creating a shirt with a song, I really do think that you've got a unique and powerful connection with your audience, which is partially forged through mutual interests and understanding, and I think it allows you to have a much better merchandise and content acceptance rate than many people do. And I'm just curious, what have been some of your methods at getting to that point with your audience? You just know that a certain item of merch is going to work with a song and is going to be accepted by the audience.

Speaker 2 (00:48:40):

So yeah, I think the default thing for every artist is hats, hoodies, and black t-shirts. And that's always what works. It's always the black shirts whenever you try to stray away from that, it never performs as well. But at the cadence, I was doing things at almost one merch drop a month with a song, a black shirt becomes pretty tired fast. So I started just trying to think about what are the other things I wear and use daily? Is there a way to make that into merchandise and make it feel authentic and not just like I'm outsourcing it and printing my logo on it just to grab cash from people. So I started making my own belts, like buying military materials and sewing them together, making my own labels, like woven labels, and then I'd produce a video and use the single of that month as the soundtrack to the video and then do a video describing how I made these belts and why I made them. And it just all fit into that ecosystem. It all kind of looked, and the colors were all similar to the graphics I'm using in the album art and all that stuff. And I think once the fans realized that, oh, maybe not all artists design their own stuff, but this guy is designing it, that's pretty cool because that's an extension of the music. It's an artifact of that album or that song. And in an age where the artifacts are being removed, the physical CD is extinct tapes, and obviously vinyls coming back

Speaker 1 (00:50:09):

To a degree.

Speaker 2 (00:50:10):

People

Speaker 1 (00:50:10):

Talk about vinyl, but the numbers are still not anything crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:50:15):

And anytime it's hilarious, anytime you'll post something, you'll get the comments, oh, what about vinyl? And it's such a small fraction and it's a huge cost to produce vinyl and mass and it's hard, but I think having something physical to hold in your hand is an important part of the music experience. So that's why I always do this. I try to do the most interesting merch I can.

Speaker 1 (00:50:37):

Why do you think that is? And I'm curious because I come from an age where you did hold things in your hand and you did buy physical items, but man, I haven't bought a music item. Who the fuck knows in how long? Maybe 10 years. But I realize that I'm not your normal fan or anything. So I don't think that just because I don't do something that the public doesn't do something, but just saying, I haven't actually had a CD or a piece of band merch to hold or anything in maybe a decade or more. And I don't feel like my connection to what I love has gone away or anything. In fact, it's stronger.

Speaker 2 (00:51:26):

Yeah, I think it's probably different for people like us that are doing music, creating it every day. But as a fan, some fans have a monthly allowance that they would normally spend on concerts. Now with COVID, there's no concert, so they have disposable income that they allocate for music every month. So it's connecting with that. And then also when you think about going back to the black t-shirt thing, if you look at any of my merch very, it's very limited in the branding and the logos on it. It's more about just creating a cool black shirt because if you think about selling a shirt that says the annex on it every month, that's going to get old real quick and nobody wants to walk around every day wearing a black shirt promoting a band. But if it's a black shirt that just looks cool and there's a small tiny logo hidden on it somewhere, that makes it a little more acceptable, at least for my fan base, to keep coming back and finding a reason to buy stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:52:25):

So the idea of actually trying to make a cool item of clothing, not just something that turns a person into a walking billboard.

Speaker 2 (00:52:33):

Correct. And I started thinking about how many times have I seen someone in public with a name on their shirt, a band name, and I stopped them and said, Hey, what band is that? Never. I don't think anyone's ever done that unless it's a cool, super cool looking shirt. So because of that, I don't see a reason to use the shirt as a billboard because really no one's going to just stop that person in public and ask, Hey, what's that band's Instagram account? Or I'm going to go look them up on Spotify. So it's more about just creating something cool for the person and they know they're wearing my shirt, so if they want to support me as an artist, they know they're wearing it even though it may not say my name right across their chest or something like that.

Speaker 1 (00:53:14):

Now what about items such as the guitar strap you just put out, for instance, that Thank you, by the way. It's really cool.

Speaker 2 (00:53:22):

Thanks.

Speaker 1 (00:53:23):

Where does that kind of stuff come from?

Speaker 2 (00:53:25):

The collaboration stuff or producing a military spec belt or a little bag out of really cool material that again, comes from when you release so much merchandise, it can get old and boring very quick. So I'm always looking at what's interesting on a marketing front to create content around to create a message and just something that not every musician's doing. That's where partnering with other companies as a collaboration, you can experiment and do stuff outside the realm of a normal artist, which is the normal hoodie shirt hat world. So that's where the guitar strap came about, and that was an idea. I've been modifying my own straps for 15 years on a sewing machine and just trying to make 'em interesting and cool or more functional. And then I started drawing up different versions and making an articulated strap rather than a straight strap, making something that wraps around your body or making it more functional and looking at military equipment and how a military vest has different webbing to attach things to. And that's kind of where the ball got rolling is once I started drawing those up. And then a company called Dispatch who has made a name for themselves doing camera equipment and camera straps, they just one day sent me a DM saying, Hey, you want to check out this strap we're developing? And that's where it all started. So it was just luck that they hit me up.

Speaker 1 (00:54:52):

The thing that I'm wondering is how do unsigned artists get started with this sort of thing? Just getting away from black t-shirts and hats, or do you think that maybe when bands are unsigned, they should first master that stuff? Make sure that people are even buying their black hats in black t-shirts in the first place before they start doing weird shit?

Speaker 2 (00:55:15):

Yeah, there's examples you can look at. There's not a lot, but if you look at Travis Scott, for example, his merch range is ridiculous. I mean, he'll do a drop with 40 items and they're all really quirky and weird and interesting. And there's a label called Ghostly who does almost all their merchandise is through a collaboration. And it's all, again, super interesting things. But I think mastering, like what you're saying, mastering the shirt and the hoodie and the hat perfectly to begin with, that's a big part of it. And another thing that all this craze about NFTs has proven is that people want something that doesn't have an infinite amount of availability. So that's another thing that I've always looked at and I've always been involved in, is limited production. I'm big into sneakers and shoes and the shoes that are impossible to get. Those are the ones everyone wants. And being a small band, I don't have the luxury of warehousing a year's supply of t-shirts. I'd rather do a smaller run, sell it all out in a day or two, and then move on and make something else. And then that creates value in that item because it's gone forever. So you have one chance to get it. If you wait a day or two, it's going to sell out and then that's it. It's on to the next thing. So I think everyone just wants something that's slightly collectible or has that collectible mentality about it.

Speaker 1 (00:56:36):

To get to that point though, there needs to be some demand in the first place, which is why you should master the t-shirt and the hoodie and the hat first because no one's going to buy your NFT or your limited run tennis shoe if they're not already into your shirts and your songs.

Speaker 2 (00:56:54):

I don't know the answer to that one because I think it just takes time or it takes a fan base to want your stuff to begin with. I don't know if there's tricks to accelerate that.

Speaker 1 (00:57:04):

I don't think there are, man, I've thought about this a lot and I'm sure there's some outliers here there who can do something weird with merchandise before they have a fan base and create their fan base kind of off of that. But I actually think that artists fuck themselves over by trying to put the cart before the horse with this kind of stuff. They'll see people like you or other artists who do unique offerings and think to themselves, I need to do a unique offering. Or they'll see a band like Behemoth who has super elaborate merch and super elaborate ways of marketing the merch and think that's what we need to do. Behemoth does that, but before Behemoth was doing that, they were just like the sickest band in their little niche, in their little neck of the woods. They were just devastatingly good live, and that's what happened first. Once people realized that they were devastatingly good live and that word got around then more and more of their merch started popping up as more and more of their merch started popping up, it started to look better and better and better. As the band made more money, they upgraded their shows and videos, which then led to more merch, which then led to more creative ways of releasing it to where now they're basically like a little black death metal empire, but

(00:58:34):

It started originally as them just being the sickest band on a tour package. And that's always how it starts

Speaker 2 (00:58:43):

Always. And even when I try to think back to when I got my first collaborations or endorsements, it was always riding the coattails of some wind that I had as an artist live, and one of the earliest ones was Fender and I got that through. I was doing a promotional tour with an artist that we had a few songs on one of the Marvel movies. I think that's when I originally reached out to Fender saying, we're doing this tour, radio stations, festivals. I want a guitar that looks and feels like it's from the movie, that kind of thing. And that's how that started. So I think you need something that's in it for the other company. If you're looking at a collaboration, something beneficial for them because they definitely don't need you. They're going to do fine just without you. So it's finding that thing.

Speaker 1 (00:59:34):

Why would they do it? They're not in it for charity. They're not just going to collaborate with you.

Speaker 2 (00:59:38):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:59:39):

If you're an unknown artist and there's a company that wants to collaborate you, you should question the situation, in my opinion. If you've got nothing to offer them and they're trying to collaborate with you, question is why. And I'm not saying that to be a dick. I'm saying that so that people try to be aware. There's always a reason, and if you don't have something to offer them, the reason may not be a good one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):

This is spot on, and I get people that reach out wanting to collaborate musically with me, and all I'll ask is a similar question, and it has nothing to do with how famous many followers they have. I've collaborated with guys that didn't even have an Instagram account, and it just comes down to what can you do that I can't do? That's as easy as it is. And I think if that applies to my situation, it applies. If you're reaching out to Nike, it applies to you're reaching out to Gibson or whatever, that's always what it comes down to. What can you do that we can't do?

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):

Yeah. Why? And the why doesn't have to be something like, well, because we're going to sell 8 million copies of this or something. There can be other reasons, but you should always know what the reason is. Definitely. Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast and you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lama, God Angels and Airwaves. Knock loose OPEC Shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point.

(01:01:32):

Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air. And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jenz Borin, Dan Lancaster to a Matson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhanced, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gain, staging, mastering low end and so forth.

(01:02:30):

It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed. Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. So getting music into movies. So let's talk about that because a lot of people who listen to this, they don't just produce bands. They like to get into soundtracking and video games and that sort of world, and it almost seems like a mythical quest to producers who typically work with bands. It's like this fantasy almost that some people get to indulge in, but and always seems like this really cool thing to do someday, but they have literally zero clue on how to go about it. So I guess what I'm wondering is how did you start to get into that world?

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):

Yeah, it's the ultimate mythical quest I think as a musician and some of the biggest placements I had, which one of 'em was this DC Comics video game that was on, it was a national ad campaign on mainstream tv. I didn't even know it happened. I was watching Mad Men and the commercial came on and I was just, holy shit, that just blew me away. But the more I dive into it, I think attaching yourself to a publishing house. So the one that I've worked with in the past was Position music, and what I did with them is I showed them my artist music. We basically had a meeting trying to figure out what is their catalog of artists contain and what do they not have that I could bring to the table. So at the time, they were looking for a collection of songs that would cater to the dystopian big blockbuster action movies, kind of like Terminator Blade Runner Tron, that kind of stuff. The popular stuff right now is more the indie almost folk indie rock vibe and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):

So the inception bomb is no longer the thing,

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):

I guess not, but it's always a moving target on the trend on what's happening. So for a while, the trend was doing a cover, like a slow version cover song like with a stripped down production like piano and just a voice doing a super slowed down version of a Depeche Mode song or something. And that would land these huge action trailers. So it's almost like the opposite style music you would imagine for an action trailer that was working for a while. But the publishing house always knows what the trend is and what these editors are working with. Once we had these meetings, we determined, I sent them demos, we kind of decided on a style and sound, and then each song I did an album of tin songs called Order Disorder, and each song was basically structured in a way where a video editor or a movie editor can just drop this into his premier timeline and it's already in the format that he's editing to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):

What do you mean by that? So

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):

If you think of a normal song, you have an intro verse, chorus verse two, chorus, two bridge outro that doesn't apply to a movie trailer. A movie trailer is basically, it's not like a user-friendly song that you would put on and just listen to for pleasure. It has huge gaps where there's nothing going on, just silence. You have to imagine if you watch a movie trailer, there's dialogue that comes in with no music, then there's big explosions, so there's huge dynamic range, and then it drops back down and there's another piece of dialogue. So when you write the track, you have to imagine it's the backdrop for a story where there's dialogue coming in big explosions, and usually a movie trailer is a big long build up until the end. So rather than having a hook in multiple choruses and then dropping down to a verse, it's just a huge escalation from silence to this huge dramatic ending. Then back to silence again with a little noise at the outro when the credits come on. So I mean, you can see this if you really watch a movie trailer and listen to the score, you'll kind of see that it's a different format. But that's what I did for 10 songs. I wrote 'em in that format, and I think maybe six or seven of 'em have been used in some pretty decent ways. So yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):

I guess there's a lot to be said for giving people something that they can easily work with.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):

Yes, and that's not always the case. Some full songs get used in a trailer, like the movie The Watchmen, they used a smashing pumpkin song. I think they used a nine Chanel song or Iron Man using a nine Chanel song, and that used to be a trend using a full rock song. And then the trend when I made this album, which was about a year and a half ago, was they didn't want any live instruments, no live drums, almost no guitar. It was a real challenge just exploring this new territory, taking out the elements that I always relied on, but still trying to make something sound huge and heavy and it still had somewhat of a rock vibe, but just using different noises to accomplish that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):

And it sounds to me though there's not much guesswork involved. You're relying on what you hear in these meetings.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):

Yeah, I mean I did still have some leeway, but in the end, if you really look at some of these action movies and these trailers, the big thing that stands out is huge drum hits and sometimes you'll hear the melody. So it's more about the rhythm dynamics I think when it comes to the stuff I was working on.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):

Now, once you get your track picked for a trailer, does it then become easier to get the next one and so on?

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):

It does because there's not a ton of editing houses that are doing all these trailer editing projects. So once one editor finds that your song worked, he's more likely to go back and request more or look more into your catalog for something similar. So yeah, you'll definitely see a snowball effect, at least in my case, it took a while to get the ball rolling to begin with, to land the first one, but once the first one hit, there was several others that followed shortly after.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):

What went into dealing with the rejection process and then trying again. Were you getting feedback as to why it wasn't getting picked or is it just one of those all right, didn't get picked? We'll try again next time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):

Yeah, there's very little feedback you get, and I was getting so discouraged. I just thought it was all a waste that I put all this effort and none of it was going to work. There's a few close calls landing enormous blockbuster movies, and I guess I was in the final, the top two on some of 'em, and then you don't get chosen and you don't know exactly why, but ultimately it just comes down to whatever vibe they're going for and it's hard to put that into a clinical discussion when it comes down to something like that. But I would have meetings with the publishing companies saying, should I re-edit these things? Are the drums not loud enough? Is a format wrong? And they all believed in the songs and they thought they were right, and they just told me, we need time. Just sit tight. We have the album from you. And sometimes an album once it hits, it can be used for 10 years. You'll get placements for many years later, which is a lot different than what you would expect with a normal songwriting album, which doesn't have that kind of shelf life.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):

No, I mean, just think about the music from Requiem for a Dream. How many trailers was that in? It was like the track from trailers for over a decade.

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):

Yeah, exactly. And that kind of goes back to what I was saying once one editor uses it, the snowball effects and people, if it's not that exact song that gets used again, you'll see a trend of songs like that coming out, and that's what happened with that melancholic slow pace cover stuff. It was in some huge movie and then after that it was in pretty much every trailer for the rest of that summer and then moving on. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):

That rejection thing is interesting to me because over at Nail the Mix, we have this monthly mix competition for the students, and there's sometimes thousands of entries and only 20 of them are going to get picked to even get judged, and then people oftentimes get kind of perturbed if they don't get picked because they worked really hard on their mix and they really, really want feedback, which is impossible to do when you have that many mixes coming in. We have some avenues for feedback, but not everyone who submits a mix is going to get any feedback, and my thoughts are always, look, you're not going to get feedback in real life either. We have ways to get you feedback, but in general, you're not just going to get automatic feedback if you get rejected. And that's the same way when you submit a test mix in a situation and you don't get picked, there's six other people you're going up against, you're just not going to get picked and that's it. No one's going to bother to give you a detailed analysis of why your track didn't work out or why your mix didn't work out. And I imagine it's very much the same thing when you don't get picked for a trailer. They are already on to working with the track that they picked. They have priorities which don't involve you, they didn't pick you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):

Yeah, that's perfect because I'll get zero feedback on why it was not chosen. The best feedback I can get is that it was almost chosen. That's the most beneficial thing I can get because that at least lets me know I was somewhat in the right direction. Yeah,

(01:12:44):

I see what you're saying. I've seen this more recently in the last couple years. People will send me tracks on Instagram wanting me to listen to their song, and there's just a sense of entitlement that I've seen coming through stronger each year. Like no intro, no. Hey, what's up, man? I'm a fan. They'll just send a link with no text and then if I don't respond within a day, they'll follow up saying, Hey, what's up? Can you at least give me a chance to listen to my track this crazy entitlement? I'm like, dude, I don't know who you are. You don't even say hello, and you just expect that I'm going to go dig into your track and give you feedback on it. And the way I grew up and started this, everything I've built the annex on has been on getting no feedback for the most part, just rejection and constant failure and recording a song and I'll get in the car with my friends and show 'em and getting silence when the song's over getting nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):

That is feedback though.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's feedback that you suck and go back to the drawing board. So that's how, at least my route to where I've ended up on has led from is just getting very little feedback.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):

Well, the thing is that what difference is it going to really make if someone gives you a detailed analysis? Unless it's you're working with a producer who's hired right there to help you become the best version of yourself in that moment on what you're working on, what difference is the feedback going to make? Someone could give you a detailed analysis, but you're not going to just suddenly get better because you got some feedback, and also you have no way of knowing what they even mean by that because you're not in their head. I feel like most of the times feedback like that is pointless because there's an understanding barrier between the person who is giving the feedback and the person who's receiving it. I think that feedback should come from qualified sources like a producer who's hired to help you make your shit better, but really the best feedback is the results that you get. If your track doesn't get picked, there's a reason. And the reason could be as simple as people aren't feeling it, what kind of detailed analysis are you supposed to give if you're just not feeling something, you're just not feeling it? The end. Yeah, there's this deeper thing with music where how you feel something is possibly more important than how you think about it,

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):

And you can't get upset at somebody for not feeling it. You can't change that no matter what. And one of the most beneficial things I did for myself in the last few years is I stopped seeking feedback all the time. I used to finish a song, then I would send it off to 10 people looking for feedback when really what I was looking for is for somebody to say, dude, this song is amazing. This is a hit. Once I realized it, people just either they don't care, they don't have the time or their music taste has changed or whatever. It just became useless and all it would do is bring me down. Once I knew I knew how to record, I knew how to mix, do all this stuff, I just kind of did what I thought sounded right, and that was it. And I stopped chasing this feedback cycle, and I've been a lot happier and more productive since.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):

Well, when someone loves your work and thinks it's amazing, you don't need to prompt them for the reaction, they'll just do it. I know when I hear something that's fucking great, the artist doesn't need to prompt me to tell them I'll reach out or I hear a great mix, A friend of mine did. I don't always reach out just because I hear it and then I move on, but oftentimes I will just hit them up to let them know that it's fucking awesome, and I think that that's pretty much how it goes. If you really get moved by something or someone else gets moved by something, you don't need to prompt them to say it. They'll just do it. They'll react. The reaction will be there.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):

A hard thing is that I think we all want the people close to us to what we're doing and to think that we're talented and all that stuff. Sometimes the only validation you get are from people all around the world that you don't know, just fans or something. And really what you want is the 10 people that you interact with on your daily life to just say, this is really cool. In my case, that's just gone. I don't really show anyone close to me any of my songs. The first time they'll hear it is when it's out to the world.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):

We want that, but we don't think about how, it's such a huge ask of the people closest to us, and it's kind of unfair to put them in that position.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):

Exactly. And when I want to show a song to my wife or my brother or friend, and I get them in the car, press play. I mean, that's a huge amount of pressure on them to the

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):

Song captive audience.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):

Seriously, and what do you do if you hate the song? That's really uncomfortable for them? So I've just, I'm like, screw this shit, man. I'm just going to step out of that and I'm happier just by not knowing really.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):

There was a time period before my band got signed when I was dating and stuff, and when I would meet a new girl, I would not even mention the band or any of that stuff because I didn't want to put her in a situation to be forced into giving me weird, uncomfortable, positive feedback.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):

I've definitely been there.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):

What I didn't know then was I was developing this idea, this philosophical idea that the people close to you don't matter when it comes to your music career. I mean, until the people close to you are your a and r guy and your band members and your manager, but the people in your personal life, their opinion of your music, doesn't matter what your friends think of your music, doesn't matter if they like it, it doesn't fucking matter because you don't have enough friends or family members to sustain a career. What they think really doesn't matter. What matters is what people who don't know you think that's what actually matters.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):

That's a really, really good point. And a lot of the people that I would show songs to, they don't necessarily listen to this genre. It's not in their world of their daily listen in the car or something like that. So ultimately it didn't matter enough to keep chasing that, but yeah, it's ultimately it comes down to the mass, the fans, the Spotify number is what works, and yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):

It's weird. We really do want that validation from people we love and

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):

Absolutely,

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):

Yeah, it's this natural thing

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):

And I still do. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):

It's just pointless.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):

Yeah, yeah. It's a rough road to go down when you're seeking that approval. Even with the label, I'll send songs. I'm like, okay, I'm thinking it to myself. This is the best song I've ever written. I can't possibly write a more radio friendly or popular or better chorus or whatever. I'll send it in and then I'll get the feedback song's. Great. That's it, and that's the reaction, whether it's no matter what I submit, sometimes there's feedback, but again, I had to just remove myself from relying on that feedback to validate the song and just wait until it's out in the public in the wild and see what happens.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. You would think that the label has to have a fan reaction to it, but they don't, I mean, obviously they're supposed to believe in you, but they're not your fans. If they happen to also be a fan of what you do, that's cool. That's a bonus. But also I think expecting them to have a fan reaction is a misunderstanding of their role,

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):

And the validation sometimes comes back after the song's released, I'll wake up the morning of a release from text from James saying, okay, this site's picked it up. These playlists are doing it, and we've got this stuff going. That's the validation I get from 'em, but it rarely comes after sending them the track and getting a verbal feedback from them. It never comes from that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):

Well, I think that from, I don't run a label, but I think I'm trying to imagine their perspective on songs, and I think that it's probably compartmentalized to where, unless they're looking for an artist or trying to find someone to sign where they have to see the future. I think in some ways, and I could be totally wrong, and I'm sure this is different for different people, but it's not even real until it's out. You know what I mean? I often felt that way about certain music that I was working on. This is not a song until it's out in the world. Until it's out into the world, it doesn't even matter. It doesn't even exist. The moment that it's released, that's when it's born.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):

Absolutely. That's why I put so much effort into each song because that release day, it's born and it's there forever basically. So I've got one chance to get the album art to get whatever promo I'm going to do to get the most excitement as possible on that release day, because that's what it all comes down to.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):

Alright, so speaking of labels and feedback, how did you manage to get yourself hooked up with Fixed in the first place?

Speaker 2 (01:22:16):

They heard a song that I, through Spotify that randomly came on from a previous album I did on Cleopatra Records, so they reached out for me to do a remix of a cell dweller song. So I did the remix and just working together through that process. I turned the remix within a few days and it was just a real pleasant experience, and James and I just got along great communication that opened up the topic on What are your next plans? Because the last album I did before Fixed was super electronic. There's almost no guitar in it, so they were saying, are you looking to get back more into your alternative rock side, or are you leaning more towards electronic? Because obviously fixed is more on the heavy electronic rock side of things. And at the time, I was looking to go back in that direction, so they wanted to hear some demos. So I did I think two tracks and they liked it. That started it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):

How long was it after that that you guys were signed and sealed? Basically?

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):

It was all pretty fast. I think it was within, after I finished the remix, it was probably two months after, so during that two months I did the demos, we refined things, talked theory, and then got contracts going.

Speaker 1 (01:23:33):

So they didn't make you jump through rings of fire for six months?

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):

No, it was all quick. That's

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):

Cool.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):

Man, sometimes labels will do that. It makes sense though, especially with bands, it makes sense. I think when you're dealing with an artist who's a lone wolf, it's a lot easier to get a feel for whether or not they're going to flake out or whatever. But I think with a band in some cases, it's probably harder to know that, and you kind of probably should court them over a period of time and just see how they react, see what the weak links are, if there are any, because not just down to one person.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):

Yeah, that was my experience coming up through the ranks. We were involved in conversations with Atlantic and Warner for a long time, multiple showcases, multiple album cycles, just constantly going back and forth seeing where we're at, and it ended up us working with different producers, and it was a huge long process that ended up not amounting to anything really.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):

You understand why they do that though? I mean, if you were going for a band, unless the band had a super, super impressive track record, you kind of have to because bands are such a flaky investment. Yeah, man. I remember Roadrunner put us through, I just called them Rings of Fire from the moment that they first hit me up to the moment that I got a phone call saying, we're offering you the deal. To the moment that we actually signed, I think eight months went by nine months.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):

Geez. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:25:16):

It was like the most tense eight or nine months, and basically every single time that they would issue a challenge By today's standards, this isn't very challenging, but producing your own video in 2005 was a huge deal,

Speaker 2 (01:25:33):

And they asked you guys to do that

Speaker 1 (01:25:35):

Without funding it, stuff like that. They needed to see that. We funded a tour of the UK on our own, we funded our own video, went to the studio, created new songs, all this stuff. And every single time that I was thinking, alright, this should be enough, it was like, well, maybe you need to do a video. These songs are awesome, but we need to know that you can make more. It makes sense. But literally every single time that I thought, okay, cool, this is going to do it. It was next challenge, next challenge, next challenge. But eventually that worked out. So my experience with getting courted is that it gets drawn out over a super long period of time, but I imagine that if it was just me doing something like what you do, it would be a lot easier because then I could just have the relationship with the label on my own and not have to worry about my band members and what they might do to fuck it up.

Speaker 2 (01:26:39):

Yeah, that's totally true. And in my case, I had stuff to show track record wise and just on the creative side, all the assets I was doing on my own videos on my own, so that worked in my favor too.

Speaker 1 (01:26:52):

I think that once you're already experienced in the industry, getting through something like getting corded will happen a lot faster. It sounds like by the time that you got signed, you had already done quite a bit of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:27:04):

Yeah, definitely. So I guess it wasn't all a waste, it all led up to something.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):

No, I don't honestly think that any of it is ever really a waste if you end up in a better spot because you can always say to yourself, well, it could have been faster. This opportunity could have just happened five years earlier. Or if I hadn't done this and just focused on this other thing, think about where I'd be now. But honestly, that's impossible to even know. You can't actually know that something would've worked out had you done things differently, all is that things did work out this way.

Speaker 2 (01:27:40):

Yeah, I think everyone will have their own way that it works out and all the time you see musicians have this unrealistic view of what it is to make it, and I think a lot of them that has pushed on them through friends and what family thinks it is to make it as a musician and everyone thinks making it is. You're on tv, you're famous multimillion dollar contracts and that you don't have to have that to make it. It's what you define making it as your own. So for me, currently I'm not making money like that, but for me, I feel like I have made it because I can put out a song. I know it's going to get hundreds of thousands of people to listen to it, and that alone without any money involved for me, that's making it,

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):

It's pretty fucking cool.

Speaker 2 (01:28:25):

Yeah, that's as cool as it gets to put out a song knowing people want to hear it. That's the win. And then everything else that comes off of that, that's just a nice benefit, but you just have to eventually come to terms with your own reality on what making it really means to you. If that means you have to work a day job and keep music as a fun thing, that could still be considered making it as long as it makes you happy and makes you driven and excited about music. That's what it comes down to, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:28:52):

Well, I know plenty of people whose goal for music is to purely enjoy it, and they do work day jobs on purpose so that they don't have to think of music as the job, because we said at the beginning of this that you have to be enjoying it while you're writing or the people will notice, but obviously if this is your job, you can't possibly enjoy every single moment of it. You're going to have to work on it even when you're not enjoying it. And I think that some people don't want to even think about music if it's not a hundred percent fun a hundred percent of the time, and they will have day jobs because they want to keep it that way. And to them that's making it and if that's what they've identified is making it then fucking cool.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):

Yeah, exactly. I spot on. Agree with that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:41):

Yeah. I think that it's not just friends and family who give people a weird idea of what making it means. It's the traditional media and weird interviews and publicists, people who grew up with stuff like Behind the Music or MTV cribs, things like that, got this weird idea of what it meant to be, I guess, known for something artistic and what those shows never really told you, was that a, it's a show, so it's

Speaker 4 (01:30:19):

Put

Speaker 1 (01:30:20):

Together to have an effect on the audience. And number two, they're showing you the total complete absolute outliers. Those stories that get shown on or that would get shown on MTV cribs or behind the music, were not the norm for someone doing well in the industry. Those were the people who played the lottery and won 500 million or something total oddballs,

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):

And that's unfortunately just distorted reality in the general public what they think it is to make it. I do work, I work several jobs because I like nice things and there's certain things that I, like. One of my jobs is I do see that underside or that the backend of what the fake media presents and how some of these artists or influencers present something that's just a complete facade. So yeah, you just have to be careful on what you believe to be reality and what actually is.

Speaker 1 (01:31:23):

Are you allowed to talk about that at all? Without getting specific, but I'm actually a little bit curious about that

Speaker 2 (01:31:30):

Without being too specific.

Speaker 1 (01:31:32):

Yeah, yeah. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus or anything like that have come in no shit talk policy. But I think it's important for people to understand that what they get presented both on social media and the media is a curated product.

Speaker 2 (01:31:46):

There's plenty of documentaries out there on the whole influencer world and what that's like, but personally in the world I'm involved with, not musically but my other work, there's a lot of asks for extravagant items to borrow or to use in videos or to use as a promotion or to use a location to act like it's their own just for the day. And it's just really dark that everyone feels like they need to present this image to validate themselves, and then that just creates this downward spiral of all their followers thinking they also have to follow that and that they have to look a certain way and dress a certain way and all that stuff. So it's really dark.

Speaker 1 (01:32:30):

I think that in my experience, people who tend to actually have that level of wealth don't like to advertise it because they don't want to become a target.

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):

Exactly. That's usually the people that are the richest, they have the worst clothes, the lowest interaction on social media just because they don don't need that for their own happiness. They're doing fine without validation from people they don't know on social media.

Speaker 1 (01:32:58):

Now, do you ever meet influencers who understand the game, who just understand that this is a game, so they have to put this appearance forward because that's what equals views and likes and whatever business they're trying to do and who don't get sucked into the weird psychological side of it, the dark side,

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):

I see through it when I meet them immediately, I know what's real and what's fake. I never challenge it and bring it up just because when I'm in that situation, it's just not a road I want to go down. But I even see some A-list people getting involved in this and I'm thinking, wow, why don't you just buy one of these? Why are you asking for everything for free? What's really behind the motive? And that kind of thing. Or agents will ask for certain things for athletes, and again, it's like, I just saw you in the news signing this huge deal, yet you're begging for something for free for a week. It's just kind of strange.

Speaker 1 (01:33:57):

I think it's got a super negative effect on the audience, especially the people who are impressionable,

Speaker 2 (01:34:04):

Especially when you look at product placement with influencers stuff they're getting paid to present and act like they actually, then it gets even darker because there's no authenticity behind it. It's just a paid promotion and not everyone realizes that or sees it, and then those people will follow. And so they just end up following a false hope. And

Speaker 1 (01:34:24):

Yeah, I guess the question then becomes knowing that that's kind of the game, how does someone go about building a huge presence without doing that stuff? It seems like that's almost currency.

Speaker 2 (01:34:39):

It is. And now I'm sure I could have a much bigger following if I chose to be faker and follow some of the paths that these influencers go down, but the road I've chosen is just authenticity and everything I do is just real. So I think if that means I have a smaller fan base, I'm okay with that. I would rather just be real and not feeling like I'm covering up lies and steering people in a false way. I just want it to all be real.

Speaker 1 (01:35:12):

Also that your audience is actually yours.

Speaker 2 (01:35:16):

Exactly. They're there for a reason. You'll see these reality TV people or these influencers that have no talent, that have 5 million followers. It's just a real interesting question, what would you rather have all these followers that are watching you because almost you're like a court jester and you have no talent they're following for, they're just watching to see you crash and burn or to have a smaller amount of followers from people that really respect you and respect you as an artist and a craftsman basically.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):

Well, I guess it depends on how long of an outlook you're thinking of things in. Are you looking in terms of an entire career or are you looking in terms of caching in quickly?

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):

That's an excellent point. And if you're just in it for the quick cash and then you disappear and reinvent yourself, then I guess the influencer route is maybe the right way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:36:11):

Well, yeah, because the other route, you're talking about a 20 to 30 year kind of deal. We were talking about this earlier too, about artists trying to do crazy merch before they master the t-shirt game. I think that also artists will think that they need to become influencers before they have a song that people love or lots of songs that people love. And I think that that's super dangerous too. Once people actually truly do love your stuff, enough of them, your influence will just grow naturally.

Speaker 2 (01:36:47):

I would take that direction over the other way any day if you get famous from going on a talk show making some idiotic comment, and then that's where your fame comes from, then you decide to launch a music career. It's real hard to take you seriously knowing that that's kind of where it all came from. So I would much rather go the slow, authentic, real route.

Speaker 1 (01:37:08):

Well, also it can go away as quickly as it arrived

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):

Big time. There's thousands of examples of that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:13):

Yeah. I'm sure that through your other work, there's people you worked with last year who are off the radar by now.

Speaker 2 (01:37:20):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):

I guess it's just tough sometimes. I think a lot of artists don't think in terms of the long-term, and I know this because I've talked to lots of artists, they don't really always think past next week or next month, but what I have noticed is that the artists I know who have been the most successful historically do tend to have a long-term sort of outlook on things.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):

That was a learning curve with fixed because it did take a while to get momentum going. I was kind of impatient in the beginning, just not seeing results. And then James just assured me, he kept saying this, we're a three to five year plan. Just stick with it. We've seen this model work, we know what we're doing with this. We've proven it. Just stick with it. And once I finally relaxed and I just removed that expectation of the instant overnight thing happening, it became a lot more of a pleasant place to work and create things.

Speaker 1 (01:38:18):

It's hard to get over that.

Speaker 2 (01:38:20):

Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 (01:38:21):

Because you want things to happen now.

Speaker 2 (01:38:24):

Yeah, I think some of it comes from just being in it for a long time. The longer you're in it, the lower your expectations get. I think you create this scar tissue over when things fall through or don't happen. It's not as damaging to your ego as it was when you just started, or you're more resilient to things not instantly happening than you were when you just started. You know what to expect. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:38:47):

Well, when you first started, if something didn't work out, that's all you had was that one thing not working out. Once you've been in it long enough that lots of things aren't going to work out and that's fine. You have to go through those things in order to get to the things that do work out.

Speaker 2 (01:39:02):

There is just something about artists, and not just musicians, but any artists where we just gravitate to the negative. And an example of this is, I can go look at one of my videos on YouTube and see 150 positive comments. Everyone loves it, but the one single comment that's bashing the song, that's the one I remember. I don't remember all the other 150 positives, but I do remember word for word the negative ones or the one thumbs down on the video versus the thousand thumbs up. That's the kind of stuff I think for whatever reason artists just hang on to.

Speaker 1 (01:39:36):

Yeah. Well, I think our brain has evolved to recognize threats in our environment. I think that it's a byproduct of evolution that we're not, a bad comment isn't a threat, but our brain doesn't know that. And so our brain is trained to focus on it and fixate on it, and we end up turning that stuff into way more of a big deal than it actually really is. And I think it takes a lot of actual intellectual work to get past it because it was hardwired.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):

And one of the things I always remind myself is that most of the stuff I like, people generally don't like. So the clothes I wear, it's such a niche genre of apparel and a brand that 90% of the people will probably think you look like a joke wearing it. But that's the stuff I love. And most of the music I like, nobody likes most of the movies I like no one likes. So I just remind myself every time that somebody doesn't like my song. That's a critical piece to putting something out. You can't have everyone like it. If everyone likes it, it's too vanilla and generic and I would rather have the pulls. I would rather have people love it and hate it if everyone just kind of likes it. You're not pushing the boundary far enough on what you should be doing, in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:40:53):

Well, I think it's technically impossible to put something out that people don't hate, but just a byproduct of having more people interact with whatever it is that you put out means that more people are going to hate it. There's no way. There's kind of no way around it. So if you don't want hate, don't put anything out.

Speaker 2 (01:41:14):

And what I found on when I did the guitar strap that got mainstream press and a lot of it, so that opened me up to a lot more scrutiny. And for a long time I was just operating in my own small ecosystem of fans that all dressed similar to the way I do. We all like the same thing. So it's kind of a safe zone. When I release something, I can dress as strange as I want and no one's going to question it. They think it's cool, but as soon as that goes out to the mainstream public on that guitar strap promotional stuff I did, then you're exposed to people that have never seen these things and you're just, it just opens up the floodgates for criticism and all kinds of stuff. So that was another reminder.

Speaker 1 (01:41:52):

Well, yeah, exactly. Because on the other hand, you could have not put out a guitar strap or you could have not got in mainstream press, so that would be the way to avoid the criticism.

Speaker 2 (01:42:03):

Exactly. And I think when it comes to marketing, you have to be very targeted and go towards the exact audience you're trying to influence and connect with. Apple computers, for example, they're targeting the creative audience. If Apple was trying to target creatives and business-minded people equally, that would dilute the appeal for the creative crowd to use Apple products. And that mentality works with pretty much anything. It works with Nike, all brands, they identify the core customer or the core fan and they drive all the marketing to that. And some brands are afraid of that. They feel like they're alienating and they're missing out on this whole other group over here. But by targeting and focusing on what's true to the brand beliefs and values, that's how I think you make these diehard fans. And the more diehards you have, the more people will just naturally gravitate.

Speaker 1 (01:42:57):

You are alienating a group of people once you make that decision. They are right, but that's not a bad thing. That's where they're wrong, is by thinking that it's a bad thing. In order to have a strong fan base, you have to be alienating a group of people. We get this at URM because we're so focused on heavy music. I've always said that we focus on the heavy music umbrella. So whether it's death metal or pop punk or heavy electronic music, it doesn't matter, but it's got to be heavy. And that's our world. And lots of times I've been questioned by people I know. When are you going to go into more commercial styles of music? When are you going to basically grow up? Why would we do that? We're fucking crushing it with heavy music. That's the world we know, and that's the decision we've made and leaned into.

(01:43:51):

That's what's providing us all our success. I feel like if we were to have a little bit of country and a little bit of pop and a little bit of jazz and a little bit of folk music and like a sprinkle of metal, first of all, I wouldn't be able to do as good of a job. But second of all, I think that we would actually alienate our core audience. So we make the decision to alienate the more mainstream audiences, and that's where our success comes from. And it's a very conscious decision. I think that it wouldn't work as well as it does any other way.

Speaker 2 (01:44:31):

I think that's actually a good tactic is purposely looking at the groups you want to alienate. Maybe you start there, that's the opposite of most brands what they want to do, but

Speaker 1 (01:44:41):

It's important. Well, yeah, we're not looking for the country music audience. No offense to them. They've got the best musicians in the game, but we're not looking for that crowd. We want the crowd of people who grow up making music in their bedrooms who spend money on gear and seven strings, make heavy music. Love heavy music are part of that heavy music ecosystem. And look, I'm not saying that there's nobody in country who can be into that open door to anybody, but we're specifically looking for a certain type of person who is what I just described. And that template applies for all manners of heavy music. There's a lot of people from different walks of heavy music who all came up that way. That's who we're here for. That's not to say that nobody from another neck of the woods can get benefit from us, but that's bonus as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 2 (01:45:38):

I'm always a fan of looking at other industries and borrowing ideas from them. So I think that's an interesting concept of what if it was a country artist that went through your courses and dove headfirst into all your lessons? What would country music sound like if they were immersed with everything you have to offer? And not only on that, but on the marketing front too. I think just because in the music industry, we shouldn't confine ourself to just looking at what other musicians are doing. I take a lot of info or intel on what I do from big brands like Nike or car companies or tech companies. I study what they're doing. And for me, it's fun to just see what I can steal from them and just convert into my world.

Speaker 1 (01:46:28):

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's universal principles that just work when you see them at play and a field that's different than your own. It gives you a new perspective on how to implement something that's super effective.

Speaker 2 (01:46:43):

There's a few books I've read, and a lot of it comes down to evolution and where we started and people belonging to tribes. You're just trying to find the tribe that you want to target basically. And ultimately it's if you're marketing a car or a guitar, you're trying to connect with people beyond just one person. It's that tribe that person belongs to. And to get more of that person in the tribe, you have to target it.

Speaker 1 (01:47:11):

Yeah, absolutely. Which means less of another person, but I do actually believe that if someone is a hundred percent country music and goes through our stuff that they will get better for it. We've actually seen that happen, but I think part of it is because we do stick to our guns and we don't try to take on things that we're not experts in. They get the benefit because we are good at what we do, not because we're half-assing stuff we don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:47:39):

And I think if you ever did want to branch out into their genres, what I would borrow from other industries is creating a sub-brand with a different identity, different name, different look and feel that way. It's just separate and it keeps your thing totally authentic to what you've started and grown.

Speaker 1 (01:47:57):

Yeah, absolutely. That is the way that I would do it, just because doesn't work to dilute the waters. I think that with artists, when artists start to pander to other audiences, it's a super risky move. We know artists who have pulled it off, but again, it's back to the behind the music example, people who have pulled it off because they're the exception and they got mega famous. But in general, that sort of thing doesn't work. It doesn't work to pander to an audience that's not yours. It doesn't work to sell out and doesn't work to make music that you're not actually feeling. We just hear of some stories where a band totally changed their style and got 10 times as big, but we're not thinking about the a hundred thousand other artists who tried the same thing and failed.

Speaker 2 (01:48:52):

Exactly, yeah. One of the things I was always chasing this idea of I had to reinvent every album had to sound different. I didn't like getting the criticism of, oh, your album sounds just like the last one. The thing is, when you're getting new fans, new people are constantly coming into your ecosystem. They want to hear the song that led them to you in the first place. They want to hear more of that. And what I think of the artist I like the best, or my favorite artist, I want all the songs to kind of have a similar vibe. I don't want to hear Deftones do a country song. I want to hear the heavy Deftones that I grew up listening to. I want to keep hearing that. And if I don't want to hear it, I'll just put on a different artist. So start when I do remixes or when I'm writing songs, I've eliminated this idea that I have to do something groundbreaking, different because people are hiring me to do a remix because of the sound that they heard to begin with.

Speaker 1 (01:49:48):

Well, the thing is though, as long as you are just writing what's authentic to you, you will naturally evolve the way you're supposed to, and I don't think you need to try to reinvent things. You will either reinvent things naturally or not. I think that people don't want something contrived, so if it's supernatural for you to switch styles like a band like Mr. Bungle or something where their whole thing is 18 different styles of music in one song and that's what you are, then awesome. And people will accept that. But I don't think that artists who do that sort of thing are necessarily trying to do that sort of thing. They're just doing what they do well. That's really what matters is are you making material that you're feeling and that other people are feeling? I think it being radically new every time is this weird negative idea. It's this weird self limitation that artists put on themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:50:54):

Yeah, it is. I don't know if that trend has changed at all since I started doing music, but the more I separate myself from following and looking at what other people are doing or researching that kind of thing and just do my own thing, like you said, it is a natural evolution. It still kind of sounds similar, but things are just naturally changing and I'm happy doing it and I'm interested and enthusiastic about doing it. Still after writing hundreds of songs, I'm still able to keep myself interested.

Speaker 1 (01:51:25):

Well, yeah, it's going to naturally evolve because you're a person that's experiencing life and you're getting new techniques and new influences, new methods, new stuff. It's just going to happen as a result of being alive, so you don't need to try for that. Just staying alive and active is all you need. I think what you really need you to do is just keep making stuff that's cool. The innovation will just happen.

Speaker 2 (01:51:51):

Yeah, that's the key. Just sitting down and pressing start. For a lot of artists, the hardest part is just getting over that barrier of entry into the studio and just thinking, oh, great. If I get in there, it's going to be hours of agony trying to start something, but in my case, the biggest thing is just sitting down, opening the session, starting something, and then it just naturally works itself out.

Speaker 1 (01:52:16):

Yeah. Momentum is everything, right?

Speaker 2 (01:52:18):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:52:19):

Well, Brandon, I think this is a good place to end the episode. I want to thank you for taking the time to hang out. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:52:26):

Yeah, it's been great talking to you, man. This is, I'm sure we can go on for a long time on this, but maybe around two at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:52:32):

Yeah, anytime would be totally down. Yeah. The thing is, with these episodes, they could easily sometimes go for like six hours. Will listening for that long, that's another question.

Speaker 2 (01:52:47):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:52:47):

Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (01:52:49):

Yeah, thank you man. This has been great. I've learned a lot too.

Speaker 1 (01:52:52):

Alright, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post some of your Facebook and Instagram or any social media you use, please tag me at Al Levi M Audio at M Academy and of course, tag our guests as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to me at al at M Academy. That's EYL at M dot aca, DEMY. And use the subject line, answer me a. All right, then. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.