EYAL LEVI & FINN MCKENTY: Getting Clients, Networking Without Being Sleazy, Modern Band Strategies

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-E-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. Welcome to the December, 2021 Discord Q and a with myself and Mr. Finn McKenty. If you don't know Finn, I mean how can you not know Finn, but just in case you don't, Finn is the director of operations and marketing here at URM and Riff Hard.

(00:02:02):

He's got a YouTube channel and podcast called the Punk Rock, MBA, that has hundreds of thousands of subs and he's kind of an OG with this online production education. You mostly know me through Creative Live, right? That's a lot of you first heard about me through Creative Live. Well, Finn is the other half of that. He's the one who was running the audio channel. And so this online metal production education thing, a lot of you associate me with it, but really it's me and Finn together that got this whole thing going. I figured that it would be good for those of you who didn't know that to know that. So Finn, how are you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:02:44):

I'm doing well. I'm just wondering how many and one man bedroom projects have I inadvertently created? What have I unleashed upon the world?

Speaker 1 (00:02:53):

I'm so sorry. I apologize to the world for all the damage I've been responsible for.

Speaker 2 (00:02:59):

Now I know what it's like to be the guy who created the atom bomb

Speaker 1 (00:03:03):

Equal amount of destruction, at least the personal lives. But no, I don't think that everybody knows that you were the other half of that back then. I think that either they know you through the YouTube channel or they kind of know that you have a big role here at URM, but I'm not sure that too many people connect the dots on the fact that that was me and you back in the day doing this before anybody. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:03:32):

That's right. We were the first, I mean not the first people to ever teach this stuff online, but the kind of live streaming stuff that people think of now, obviously to do with Nail the mix and stuff like that. But this format, we really did pioneer that I was able to persuade the folks at Creative Live. They were mostly doing photography and business stuff back then. This was 2013, and I was able to persuade the founders of Creative Live to let me try some music production stuff and they said yes, and you were the first person I thought of since we'd already known each other and worked on some other stuff before, said, Hey, if they say yes, are you in? And it took a little bit of arm twisting, but you said yes, and we did it. The first thing we did was the Easy Drummer course, if I recall correctly and off the races from there. So yeah, I mean it is crazy. It's been almost 10 years. That's insane.

Speaker 1 (00:04:25):

I know I was thinking about that the other day. But

Speaker 2 (00:04:27):

Live streaming, I mean everyone and their mom streams now, but 10 years ago live streaming was way harder and way less common. So we were ahead of the curve on that

Speaker 1 (00:04:38):

And I do think that the live streaming aspect was the game changer as far as delivering education. That can be very powerful. I think that, look, obviously I do believe in prerecorded courses. We sell them and I think that they can be great, but part of what makes our prerecorded courses great is the fact that you can follow along with them in real time with a cohort. But just the go at your own pace style of prerecorded courses that it was so common on the internet I think is not nearly as effective as something where you can interact with the instructor and where there's real time stuff happening. So it was a major, major game changer

Speaker 2 (00:05:22):

And to have real producers who are actually making shit that you care about is a big one. No disrespect to the other people out there have made this stuff, but especially with metal, I mean there was nobody that had created any kind of courses or anything like that, especially nobody, the least that I'm aware of that was actually making stuff that people care about. It was you, Kurt, Andrew Wade were some of the early people who are making stuff that people actually cared about and I think that was a big innovation too.

Speaker 1 (00:05:50):

Well yeah, the problem with metal is that there's no middle ground. It either sounds great or it sounds terrible, so you can't get middle of the road people to show you how to make six sounding metal or six sounding any sort of heavy music. It just doesn't work. If you want stuff to sound like what you listen to, you have to be taught by the people who mix and produce the stuff that you actually listen to. I mean it seems super obvious and I think that a lot of people who came into wanting to learn production in the past few years almost take it for granted, but that is not something that used to exist. There used to be a world where finding out how the people who actually made the stuff was trying to get the CIA to tell you,

Speaker 2 (00:06:41):

Going through some cryptic two sentence post on the Andy Sneak forum. Well, what I think he meant by that is it's like decoding it and now everyone has access to all the people that we've had on nail the mix and the podcast and all that stuff and it's a different world now and I think it's awesome to see. I'm thrilled that it's grown to what it has.

Speaker 1 (00:07:01):

Likewise. Alright, let's take some questions. So first up we've got Mike Skinner. Hey Mike, how are you?

Speaker 3 (00:07:07):

Hello. Some more questions about time. I just recently am finally transitioning into a live room recording setting where I can do real drums and all that fun stuff. And going from just working in my own room, I'm noticing obviously there's lots of differences when actually recording real stuff. And I guess my question is about how would you recommend dividing the time to figure out all these new challenges and all this new stuff, I guess, and thanks again,

Speaker 1 (00:07:33):

I need to understand a little more though about what your life is currently before we can talk to you about how to approach that is what are you adding to? Can you give us a little more detail?

Speaker 3 (00:07:45):

The biggest change is that before I was only in a small bedroom and I was only able to put about 20 hours a week you could say. And now that has switched to where I have now switched that to where I'm working another job less and putting more time into audio so I have more time in general, you could say about twice as much time as I had had before and I just need to some guidance on what to put that time to best start to learn all this new stuff, I guess.

Speaker 1 (00:08:11):

Well, how much time is the stuff you're actually working on taking up? Here's what I mean. If you're a producer and you're booked seven days a week, eight hours a day, and you also have a family or something that doesn't leave a lot of time for extra stuff. So I feel like you're still not giving us very clear answers. What does the stuff that you're working on now in production, how much of your time does that take right now and how much extra time do you have left over for the new stuff you want to learn?

Speaker 2 (00:08:47):

And your goal is to turn this into your full-time gig?

Speaker 3 (00:08:51):

Yes, exactly. And so I guess the best way to answer your question is that, to be honest with you, I don't have a lot of clients, so all of this time can be used for basically anything I want and that's a bit of the problem. And I guess is what I'm trying to get at is that I do want to turn this into a full-time and yeah, does that help?

Speaker 1 (00:09:08):

Yes. So basically, Finn tell me if this is how you get it. Sounds like Mike has a bunch of time to spend on it and just doesn't know what to spend it on, but he wants to turn live sound into his job.

Speaker 2 (00:09:21):

So live sound or recording bands, which is it? Is it like front of house?

Speaker 3 (00:09:26):

Yes, recording bands. Sorry. Got

Speaker 2 (00:09:27):

It. Okay. Well I'll give you my 2 cents if anyone, it's too bad that we closed CareerBuilder because CareerBuilder covers exactly this and I'm not trying to turn this into a sales pitch honestly, it's just really good. I'm sure that there's some podcasts or something we did about it. But basically I would suggest what I see most people, where most people go wrong is they don't put enough time and effort into, I'm going to use the word sales, that might sound like a dirty word, but generating work, let's just call it that because most creative people don't enjoy that part. I don't like it. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but it doesn't have to be that. It doesn't have to be terrible. Just going to shows and talking to people, making friends, stuff like that. As long as you have in the back of your head, how am I going to turn this into business without being a sleazy guy handing out business cards everywhere.

(00:10:21):

But that's what I would advise. I don't know where you're at technically, but I think most creatives probably, I mean if you're listening to this, you probably don't suck is my guess. Or at least there's a set of clients where you're good enough to be working with them already if they just knew who you were. So I don't know what the exact number is, but you could sit in your room all day auditioning mikes and getting one and a half percent better at EQing overheads or whatever. Is that going to move your career forward? I would say probably not as much as if you spent some time getting out there and meeting some people, expanding your network and trying to drum up some business. That's my opinion. What do you think Al?

Speaker 1 (00:11:04):

Yes, because right now, if we were to be like, alright, you need to spend 72% of your time on learning these techniques and then 4% of your time on this and exactly this many hours on that, I mean what's that all based on? You will mold your focus based on what kind of work starts coming in. So if you don't have work, you're kind of just arbitrarily picking random things to work on. If you want more of a certain type of work, go and make some effort to line more of that stuff up, then you'll have some actual challenges in front of you and you'll have to learn those things. And then as you do that more and you have more clients, a direction will start to form itself and through that you can start to focus, you'll start to understand what to focus on more. But otherwise it's all just purely theoretical stuff in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (00:12:03):

And when I say sales, again, that might sound like an off-put word. Don't think about it that way. It's not go out there and be the used car salesman, but I want to really encourage the stuff Joel talks about in that course of actually making connections with other humans, whether that's in person or online. I don't think it matters if you're able to meet people in person. I think that's always the best. Obviously for the past two years that situation has been difficult, but make connections with people. A lot of creatives don't like that because they're introverts, which I totally understand. But tinkering with your website, that doesn't count. Nobody cares about your website nerding out about what you're going to do on social media planning stuff. That's not the answer. You got to get out there and make relationships with people. How all creative businesses work.

(00:12:52):

The main thing I would suggest you focus on in general is to be top of mind for the people that you want to work with. And I don't know who those people are, if that's a genre, if it's local artists, I don't know what your kind of target market is, but what you want to be is that as soon as those people decide, I want to record that you're the first person that comes to mind. And whether you do that from DMing them or hanging out with them at shows or hanging out flyers at Starbucks is whatever you can, that's up to you. But I think probably some combination of just simple stuff like commenting on their posts, going to the same shows as everybody. If you have a, one thing Joel suggests in career builders I think is really smart is to have a band basically, I don't want to say as a marketing vehicle, but a hobby band that you don't expect to turn into something serious, but it's a reason to be there and people are always going to be more willing to work with their peers and they're going to trust you more as a producer.

(00:13:55):

If they've heard your band and they think it's cool, that's going to make them a lot more likely to trust you. So just be top of mind, get out there and just make friends basically. And those friends will turn into clients if you give it time.

Speaker 1 (00:14:10):

And again, I will just reiterate that by doing that, this becomes more real life. It doesn't just become this, I have 40 hours this week to just spend on some random stuff. What do I do? It becomes real life and you end up having actual things to work on which gives you an actual focus. And then how to divide your time up starts to make actual sense because I don't want to just give you some workout program or something that's just pulling something out of thin air. Alright, Mike, thank you very much. Alright, next up Mr. Kieran Giles, you have been invited to the stage.

Speaker 4 (00:14:50):

Hey dude, what's up? How you doing?

Speaker 1 (00:14:51):

How are you Karen?

Speaker 4 (00:14:52):

Yeah, I'm great. I just got a question. I guess it's more for the whole group because it might help everyone out. So if you are a new band or you have music that's already established, because the first thing is having music that doesn't suck, right? So let's just move that the way. Assume that we have a new brutal slam and death metal band that everybody's going to love. If you were to start from scratch with no social media following or no kind of marketing experience or anything like that, what would you do first? And this is kind of directed more at Finn because you already have the social following and stuff, but if you were to start again now, I mean it's tough sledding. So what would you do?

Speaker 2 (00:15:29):

Well, I mean remember Al was in a band that was signed to two of the biggest labels and metals. So he knows about this from firsthand experience and I don't, granted it's a different world, but let's not forget about that. Sorry about that.

(00:15:42):

What I would say is that you need to remember that you are in the entertainment industry, not the music industry. Exactly, because producers are in the business of making music bands and artists are in the business of entertaining people and your music is part of that, but it's not all of it. I would say that you need to think about more than anything, what are you trying to say? Why did you start making music? And it could be just like if the only reason you started making music is because you have some cool riffs and you like playing riffs, well then maybe other guitarists are your audience. I think that's the thing to think about is what are you trying to say and then say it and it's okay if it is. I mean, I dunno, I've been, critical is the right word. But yeah, I mean I have been somewhat critical of music that is just music for other musicians, not because there's anything wrong with that, but because there is a ceiling to that.

(00:16:35):

So the context when I say that the context is if you want this to be anywhere close to mainstream, you're going to have to broaden your audience past just musicians. But as long as you're okay with it being just musicians, I mean that works fine for plenty of artists that we all know about works fine for Pia, right? So that is a totally valid approach, but what are you trying to say? And then how do you say it? And you have to think about all the content that you make on social media, the way that you present yourself in any given situation. You have to think about all of that as part of what you were doing as a creator. The music is just part of what you do. Maybe there are some people who succeed based purely on their music, but I don't think there's very many of them.

(00:17:30):

I think at least beyond the level of a very niche kind of thing. It's about personality, it's about telling a story. That's what I would think about. I know that's kind of vague, but think about what are you actually trying to say If it's just like, well, we're a metal core band, you can see the problem there. It's like, well why would someone choose to listen to you instead of the 9 million other people out there who are already doing this competently? Unless you're doing it so much better than everybody else, which is possible. Maybe you are just like so jaw droppingly good that as soon as people hear it they go, oh my God, this is my new favorite thing. That might be possible, but why would they even choose to listen in the first place is the question that I think you need to answer. So when someone sees you on Spotify or Instagram or YouTube or anywhere else, why would they even choose to listen in the first place? Let's just assume your music is great. Why would they even choose to listen in the first place? That is a question you need to answer and tell that story through every opportunity that you have on any given platform. I don't know if that helps or makes sense, but it's kind of a broad answer, but it's a broad question.

Speaker 1 (00:18:43):

I can elaborate a little bit. So say that, let's just use for example, the metal core band being just the most jaw droppingly, good one on earth. Well, an example of that in real life, it's not metal core, it's more like melodic death metal, but that's Black Dahlia murder. They have gotten into where they've gotten by just being jaw droppingly good by taking that style, not really innovating the style, but just doing it better than everybody else and have just built their entire reputation off of that. So even if that's your answer is we play the style of music and we're just the best at it, that's fine, but you got to be clear about what that is. Now what I would do now, I'll tell you a little bit about what I did then the strategy, because the strategy would be the same, the tactics would be different.

(00:19:37):

Back then what I did was I did a lot of research and studied and figured out exactly how people get signed to big labels. What is that process? How do the a and r people find out about you, not find out about you in a way that makes them throw your shit in the trash? How do they find out about you in a way that makes them actually listen? What kinds of things do you need to have in place? What is it that all these bands that have gotten signed to this label before me have in common? What did they all do that's the same? And I figured it out and it worked it exactly as expected because I spent enough time learning about how this shit was done that I then just plugged myself into that equation. Like certain things like, alright, I know that Disturbed handed out something like 75,000 free CDs before they were signed.

(00:20:39):

And then I come to find out that Dave Matthews Band, not that we sounded like them, but Dave Matthews band did the same thing. And then come to find out, Papa Roach basically did the same thing and then come to find out that lots of bands in that era before us basically flooded their markets with free listenable shit. So hey, I did 25,000. That's all I could get done on my own. I had no help, but I put those everywhere. So I found out the a and r guys never accept stuff that comes to them directly from the band. It always has to come through a trusted source. The end. Okay, so how do I find out who these exact trusted sources are for this person? Okay, found that out. How do I get them to what I'm doing so much that they're going to talk to this person about it?

(00:21:38):

Alright, how does this person make decisions once he's already heard something that he likes? Who does he talk to? What's he going to weigh? Oh, he likes bands that have a video already. He likes bands that have been on tour already. He likes bands that are self-sufficient. So line all those up, lined up a UK tour before we were signed, lined up a music video, lined up all the stuff that I knew he looked for, and there's more to that. But anyhow, what I would do now is I would ask myself, how do people discover new music and become fans of it? What is that process there? I know that there's several ways that it happens, but how does it work now and what are those ways? And then I would make sure I'm right about that. I would both ask myself, how do I become a fan of stuff in the modern age using modern technology? And I would ask some people I know of at different age groups, I would ask people in their twenties, people in their thirties, people in their forties, how do they discover new music?

(00:22:53):

What's a band that they now listen to that they didn't listen to a year ago? When did they first hear of them? How long did they know about them before they even listened to them the first time? How long after they listened to them the first time did they decide to listen to them again, et cetera, et cetera, and start to understand how this works. And then I would just plug myself into that equation and I guarantee you that as long as my music was good, it would work exactly like this shit worked in the early two thousands when I was doing that stuff to get the band signed. Because the one thing that you can't change is how other people discover music, whether it's an a and r guy or a fan. The way they discover music is the way they discover music. And the beautiful thing is that now you don't have to worry about this one person like Wizard of Oz character or godlike character that's going to determine your entire career and you need to figure out how to reach that person. Now you're dealing with these platforms and infrastructures that exist that allow everybody to follow a similar path for how they discover music. So do your homework, learn what that is, and then plug yourself into that equation once you figure out the stuff that Finn said. Because if you don't figure out what it is you want to say to the world and what you mean and who you are, what do you even plugging yourself into that whole equation? I said, why are you even doing that in the first place? So hope that helps. Kieran,

Speaker 4 (00:24:30):

You just blew my mind. Thank you so much. That answers so many questions.

Speaker 1 (00:24:33):

Awesome. Have a good one, man. Thanks. 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. 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.

(00:25:27):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jenz Borin, Dan Lancaster to I Madson, 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, gain, staging, mastering low end and so forth. 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. Next up is Joel Vitor.

Speaker 5 (00:26:47):

Hello guys, can you hear me?

Speaker 1 (00:26:49):

Yes sir. How are you doing?

Speaker 5 (00:26:50):

Doing pretty good. How about you?

Speaker 1 (00:26:51):

Good. What is your question?

Speaker 5 (00:26:53):

A few weeks ago, Mick Gordon told us in his q and a that the most important things in making it as a composer are making good and unique music and presenting your music in a unique way. What would you say is unique in 2021? I feel like everything has been done. We've got music videos, we've got CDs, we've got YouTubers, we've got people that put a lot of thought in their visual image and I can't really seem to find something that makes me unique or anyone else. Do you guys have any idea what can be done today?

Speaker 1 (00:27:26):

Finn, I'm going to let you answer this, but I just want to say one thing real quick. I remember reading that in 1904, I forget who it was. I think it was the head of the patent office or something like that. Some official who dealt with new inventions said everything that can be invented and should be invented has been invented and made this really definitive statement about how it's all been done. And so I think that you're wrong. It hasn't all been done, and that's just a normal part of the human condition that when they can't see what to do next, they feel like it's all been done, but you're only feeling that way because you don't know what to do next. Then I'll let Finn go from there.

Speaker 2 (00:28:10):

Yeah, I totally agree. I go through every, I don't know, three years or so I sort of get this same feeling as OW has about music. I'm like, man, it's all been done. Nothing interesting is ever going to happen again. And I get burned out on music for a few months and then some artist or scene or genre comes along and I'm like, holy shit, that is the coolest, most fresh, innovative thing I've ever heard. This is amazing. So I think it is just a matter of there's always something cool happening or about to happen though I would think about this is first of all, to go back to first principles is for one originality has no inherent value per se. Now, I do think it is important to be different, but simply being different is not the same as being good. I mean, anybody listening to this right now could probably go make a piece of music that's not like anything anyone has ever heard before.

(00:29:09):

That doesn't mean people would want to listen to it. So the way that I would think about this is the way we approached it. So I used to be a graphic designer for Abercrombie and Fitch and I think visual art and music and it's all the same thing to me. The way that we would approach it, our design philosophy in general is classic with a twist. 80 or 90% of every design would be classic meaning familiar because people like familiar people don't want stuff that is totally new and unique. And so 80 or 90% of it would be grounded in something familiar and classic, and then the other 10 or 20% would be the little twist that you put on top of it. So to use a band like Pia that I mentioned before, they're doing instrumental progressive guitar music, but their twist is that they incorporate some kind of rap, hip hop sort of energy there and really innovative visuals.

(00:30:07):

That's their twist, what that is for you. I don't know anything about you, so I don't know what that should be, but it doesn't have to be much. That's the main takeaway I would say, is you only need a very tiny little signal. It could be a simple, think about lamb of God, just like their snare sound, Chris Adler's snare sound is, I'm not saying that's all that makes Lamb of God unique, but it could be something that simple. You know what I mean? It does not need to be much some particular scale that you use a lot or just some very little thing. So don't feel like you have to boil the ocean and reinvent music. You just need one tiny little thing in your music or the presentation of it. It could be all the pop punk stuff that's coming out now sounds straight out of 2001, 2003 Jaden and Lil Huddy and all that TikTok pop punk stuff. There's nothing innovative about that from a musical perspective. What's different about that is that it's solo artists now. It's like all these pretty boys solo artists. That's how I would think about it. Take the pressure of reinventing music off of yourself because if you are talented enough to do that, good for you. But most of us are not. Just think about what is the one small twist that you can add that is going to be different. And I don't think it has to be much.

Speaker 5 (00:31:29):

Got it. Thank you so much. But I was mostly thinking about the visual side of things. I know I'm probably not going to reinvent music or something like that, but I don't know how to show people that in a way that is interesting, literally showing them I can think of something like a different new way to make people notice me.

Speaker 2 (00:31:49):

Well, yeah, I mean it's the same. You got to start somewhere. That's what I would say. I mean with anything, we've talked to IL and I've talked about this before on podcasts and stuff, but I think a sort of trap that a lot of people fall into is that they believe that the way it works is you find inspiration and then you start doing stuff. I think it's the other way around. I think you start doing stuff and then you find inspiration. I do a lot of presentations like PowerPoints and stuff like that. Every single one of them starts the same way. I'm just struggling for the first third. I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? This is a mess. This is a disaster. I have no idea what I'm doing. And then halfway through it, something just clicks. I'm like, oh, now I get where I'm headed with this.

(00:32:38):

And then just the light bulb goes off and I find the direction and then it comes together. So my suggestion would be rather than sitting here trying to think of what is that different innovative visual thing that I'm going to do, obviously you don't know what it is right now, start doing shit and it's okay. Maybe let's say you're making album covers or whatever it is, maybe you need to make 50, maybe the first 49 are going to suck and be uninspired. Crap. That's okay. That's part of the process. So I think that inspiration comes from action, not the other way around.

Speaker 1 (00:33:15):

Yeah. I'm going to add to that. I think that lots of people, and this could be part of your problem, Jo, is lots of people are afraid. They're just afraid. They know they're not good at something yet, or they don't know how it's going to come across, and so they're afraid to move forward. If you were to look at Finn's YouTube channel now and didn't know where he started, you might mistakenly believe that his videos have always been like this. But if you want a perfect example of what it means to just start making stuff, go to his YouTube channel and look at the first three videos. I

Speaker 2 (00:33:51):

Might've taken 'em down because they're so bad.

Speaker 1 (00:33:55):

Bummer as I tell people to go see them.

Speaker 2 (00:33:58):

Okay, well maybe I need to put 'em up again. But that is exactly true. I didn't know what, I had made videos before, but still, I mean, the stuff I made at the beginning was not good. So don't be afraid. I don't want to say suck, but maybe you don't suck. But if you do, that's okay. It's part of the process. We all got to start somewhere. Nobody is good at anything on the first try.

Speaker 1 (00:34:18):

I'm going to add a few more things to this. If you're starting a podcast, this is why when people tell me they want to start a podcast after I get done telling them not to, if they actually want to start one, I do tell them to record about eight episodes or nine episodes before releasing anything. A, to see if they actually want to follow through with it. But B, because it's going to take a second to not completely fucking suck at it. I started making music again back in September. Only now in December is the stuff that I'm making starting to sound like me. So I had to be writing stuff. I wouldn't say that it sucked, but I've been writing and finishing stuff for the past few months that isn't quite as good as I know that I am, and I've still been doing it.

(00:35:09):

If you want to take an example, I heard Paul McCartney on Howard Stern the other day, and they were talking about George Harrison and how he was asking if George was kind of underestimated by John and Paul because he was a really great writer, but they didn't really work with him. And Paul said that basically George started writing later than them. And so they had gotten their first a hundred bad songs out of the way long before he even started writing in the first place. So it took him a while to catch up. He had to get his hundred bad songs out of the way. Eventually he did wrote some of the greatest songs of all time. But if he had just been too scared to do it because he was working with those two dudes and he was intimidated and was like, I'm not as good as them and didn't write his hundred shitty songs, who knows? Maybe he wouldn't have written some of the great stuff he ended up writing. So this is true, whether you're trying to be a songwriter, it's true whether you're starting a YouTube channel, a podcast like anything, you have to just get started, get started, get started, stop thinking about it, just start. Okay, thanks Joe.

Speaker 5 (00:36:34):

Thank you. I'm going to get shit done. Thanks so much. Alright,

Speaker 1 (00:36:36):

Good. Next up is Mr. Joe Scota. Hey Joe, how are you?

Speaker 6 (00:36:41):

I'm doing good. Thanks Finn for doing this. I'm curious, what are your thoughts on cryptocurrency, on fts and all that in the music industry moving forward? And if you think there is a future with that, is that something that local bands can tap into or is it something only for the top tier?

Speaker 2 (00:36:59):

I definitely think there's a future for it. I mean, I believe it was yesterday, for example, Nike just bought a NFT studio called Artifact for an undisclosed amount of money that was hundreds of millions of dollars. So I would say if Nike feels that there is something there such that they'll pay hundreds of millions of dollars for it, I would say it's a pretty good sign that there is something there In the future we've seen What is the total NFT market worth now? I don't know. It's billions and billions of dollars. So I think there's, avenge Sevenfold has one. I mean there's definitely something there.

(00:37:37):

Crypto and NFTs are two different things. I'm going to focus on NFTs. I don't think crypto really has any relevance to music per se, but I think NFTs definitely do it if you're not familiar, an NFT means it stands for a non fungible token. So essentially it is a record that you have bought a thing and that thing, you think of it as buying a jpeg, but it's not that it's a record that you bought. It's a record that you were the buyer in this transaction. And that can come with various things, one of which is an image. So that's when they say you bought a jpeg, well no, you completed this transaction. And part of that is a jpeg, but it can also come with things like access to events or whatever. For example, I don't remember exactly what Avenge Sevenfold has, but imagine, think of it more like membership to a fan club than buying a jpeg.

(00:38:34):

So for avenge sevenfold, but if you buy that, you get access to certain VIP meet and greet type things, stuff like that. And there's only a limited number of these things available. So if you're an avenge sevenfold mega fan and you really want to go to one of these events that are only for NFT holders, and I don't know if they're doing that exactly or not, but let's pretend they are. And one of these events is only for NFT holders then for their, they call it a death bat, I think is what they called theirs. Well, you got to find a way to buy somebody's death bat from them, just like a ticket to the show. So I would say think of it more like a ticket to a show than a jpeg. Just like when you get a ticket to a show, it's like you're not just buying a piece of paper, you're buying a piece of paper that allows you to go to this show.

(00:39:18):

So think of it that way. And there's a lot of other interesting things there. For example, there are royalties that unlike vinyl or a ticket or something like that, or one of these other things that exist in music, if I am a holder of a death bat and I sell it to you, I might get a percentage of all future sales of that thing or the artist might. I mean, all these things can be dictated in the terms of when you create the thing, you can settle this stuff up. So there's definitely something there. There's a lot of bullshit scams and NFTs, A lot of 'em clearly are not going to end up being anything. We're still in the very early stages of it, but I think there's definitely something there. I guess the thing that's disappointing to me is that I listen to a lot of media in the kind of tech and business space and I pay attention to a lot of rap stuff also.

(00:40:11):

And people in hip hop and tech are generally all about it. Generally they have questions about NFTs, but generally they're enthusiastic about it. People in the rock world either don't know what NFTs are or have already decided that they're a terrible scam, and that's a shame because that just means they're going to miss the boat. This is happening, it is going to continue to happen and a lot of people are going to make a lot of money from it. Not that money is the most important thing in the world, but we all know that that is pretty fucking hard to do for musicians. I mean, any kind of creator making money is the hard part. So I would say at the very least, have an open mind about it. Nobody knows where this stuff is going to go exactly, but there's way too many smart people, way too much money going around for this to be a nothing burger.

(00:41:01):

There is something here. So I would say for a small band, don't worry about it. If you're struggling to get people to care about your music, you're going to struggle even more to get them to care about your NFT. So I wouldn't worry about that, but I would say just pay attention. But that might change in the future. That's the way it is now. But maybe someone will come out with some sort of NFT platform or something like that that all of a sudden makes this a viable opportunity for someone with a small audience. I don't know. And there's going to be someone who proves me wrong. There's going to be someone who's a nobody and they put out some sort of really brilliant, amazing NFT, and that's the thing that puts them on the map. As a musician, somebody will do that. So it's still so early it's hard to have any kind of strong opinions about what's going to happen or where it's going to go. But I would say at this point, if you're struggling to get attention for your music, I would just focus on that. But it's definitely, it's interesting. I'm excited to see where it goes. Thanks

Speaker 1 (00:42:01):

Joe.

Speaker 2 (00:42:01):

Thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:42:02):

Alright, up next is Chris Boyd. Hey Chris, how are you doing? Awesome.

Speaker 7 (00:42:06):

I'm doing great. How are you guys doing? Good.

Speaker 1 (00:42:07):

So what is your question?

Speaker 7 (00:42:09):

So my question is about making connections. I understand that in the music world and honestly much of the business world at large, it's all about who and how you've made these connections. And I know that you guys saw an opportunity to talk with Creative Live to start the whole audio channel thing, and that kind of has obviously now become its own big thing with URM and whatnot. So my question really boils down to how do you recognize these opportunities and build these relationships with people without necessarily feeling sleazy? I don't know. I feel whenever I recognize that I'm in a good opportunity, I'm surrounded by a bunch of my peers who could go on to be large names in the audio world one day. How do you recognize that you have this opportunity without necessarily feeling like you're using it? You know what I mean? Is it just a personal thing that I need to work on or is how do you recognize these opportunities essentially and know when to jump on them and know it's a good thing for everybody?

Speaker 1 (00:43:12):

Sounds to me like you're kind of describing imposter syndrome a little bit. A little bit. Yeah. I need to hear a little more about this. Chris,

Speaker 2 (00:43:20):

Tell me if this is characterizing what you're talking about or not. So let's say that you ended up having dinner with a member of your favorite band and their manager and booking agent or something like that and you're like, oh shit, I'm at a table with some people that could potentially do a lot for me and I'm excited about that, but I don't want to be a douche bag and I don't know fuck it up, or turn this into some sort of a sales pitch for myself in a way that would make them think I'm an asshole.

Speaker 7 (00:43:54):

That's pretty spot on.

Speaker 2 (00:43:55):

Okay. So to me, the question or the way to think about it is I don't think you can force it. At the end of the day, you should just try to be a cool person. And I just think it as making friends with people because especially in the music industry and action sports and it's these very informal industries, but it's true. Aside from that as well, it's really the boundaries between personal and professional are very fluid. I mean, for example, Al and I met at a random, we were at Nam, I think

Speaker 1 (00:44:31):

The Golden gods. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:44:32):

That's right. And we ended up just having lunch with some of the metal Sucks guys or something like that. And I knew knew of him through his column for metal sucks. I had one too. It never in a million years occurred to me that we would ever become close friends or that. And then even after we became friends, I never thought that we would be working together in the way that we are now. So focus on being a cool person and make friends and if there are opportunities that arise, they'll arise. Just don't worry about it and you'll know when those opportunities are. The question I always ask myself is what's in it for them?

(00:45:15):

If I want to hit someone up about a project or an idea that I have or something, it's always got to be about them before I'm going to ask you to do something. Let's say I want you to record my band. What's in it for you? Well, I'm going to pay you and if I can't pay you, well why would you do it? If I don't have an answer for that, I'm not going to ask because then you are an asshole. So just be a cool person and think about how you can genuinely make their lives better in some way, even if that's just having lunch with 'em and just a nice conversation. And that's that. I would say trust that if you are a cool person who has good intentions, that I believe opportunities will present themselves. And maybe that's a little too loosey goosey, but I wouldn't worry about the transactional part, the part of how am I going to turn this into an opportunity for myself? I wouldn't worry about that part. I think it will come. I would just try to make friends. What do you think?

Speaker 1 (00:46:20):

So I actually talk about this in CareerBuilder, some two different types of networking and one being targeted and the other being open-ended. And I actually believe that the targeted networking should be rarely if ever used, targeted. Meaning there's this specific person I'm going for a meeting with and I'm going to try to get X out of them, whereas open-ended is way better and that's just making friends with them. So you're having dinner with the person from that band or manager and their booking agent. Just have a good time. The end and try to apply that to all your networking scenarios is just try to have a good time and make friends with these people because if you are a legit option for them as a producer or whatever, I don't know what, I don't know exactly what the context is, but let's just say as a producer, they are going to make the decision for themselves if you are an option and it's not going to be because you told them that you are a producer, you should trust that these people, if you want to work with them, there's there's a reason for that.

(00:47:45):

And they generally know what's best for them. So you don't get to decide if you're actually an option for them. However, you do get to decide if you're going to do your best to just get along and be friends. And that's what I would decide to do is just try to keep the relationships going. That's it. Just keep it going. It's amazing. Like what Finn just said, that's absolutely right. We met years before any of this happened and several of my working relationships, some of my best working relationships are like that. And some of the biggest stuff that I've landed has come as a result of stuff that was purely in the professional friend zone. Sometimes for five years, sometimes 10 years. Just make friends. That's it. Does that help Chris?

Speaker 7 (00:48:48):

Yeah, that's great. I really appreciate the insight, honestly.

Speaker 1 (00:48:51):

No problem. Thank you.

Speaker 7 (00:48:52):

Thanks.

Speaker 1 (00:48:53):

All right. Up next is Sean. Oh, Shaughnessy. Sean, you have been invited to the stage. There you are. How's it going, Sean?

Speaker 8 (00:49:00):

Oh hey, I can't complain, but I still do. How are you folks?

Speaker 1 (00:49:03):

Good, very good. So what is your question?

Speaker 8 (00:49:05):

You folks are busy folks always. We all know that you guys are constantly doing good work. I'm curious, let's say you have a goal in mind, like a field goal. You're moving the ball down the field. How do you stay ahead of that goalposts and plan to hit the next goal? How far ahead are you thinking what are strategies you have to finish one light land mark and move on to the next? Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (00:49:32):

Yes. So I can't help but think five steps ahead. That's just the way my brain works is once there's a goal or an opportunity or something in front of me, my mind immediately goes to and then this can happen and then this should happen and this should happen. And so in my mind, I always know what the next field goal is. It's very rare that I don't actually have that in my head. So the reason that's good and the reason that's important is because by knowing what comes next or helping yourself develop the vision for what's next, that's how you're going to be able to stay ahead of it. If you don't know what that is, how are you going to stay ahead of it? You need to know what direction things are going in in order to be able to stay ahead in any meaningful sort of way.

(00:50:29):

So I find that a lot of people confuse that with the weird idea you see in self-help about planning out your next five years in real detail. It's not that, that's not what I mean at all. I actually, I don't think that shit works, but you should have some idea of where you would like things to go, but then also where you see them going logically and then just do the mental homework of asking yourself, well, so what does that mean? What are the things that are involved with what that potential next outcome will be? What do I need to be doing now for that? Or what do I need to be doing? If field goal A is the first thing, what do I need to be doing the moment I land that in order to be able to keep moving? Or what do I need to do now then leave it until I set it up now, put it aside, get field goal A so that it's ready for me. The moment that field goal A is hit, the only way to do that is to know what's next or have some sort of idea, like some sort of directionally correct idea. So I would say broaden your vision. What do you think Finn?

Speaker 2 (00:51:53):

Yeah, I agree with all of that. The one thing I would maybe layer on top of that, which you sort of talked about, if you Google this, you'll see look up cone of uncertainty, which basically means the further something is in the future, the less certainty you will have about how it's going to go down. So for example, I have a vision of where I want URM to be in 10 years. I don't know what's going to happen in nine years, how we're going to get, I couldn't tell you, well, what exactly will it look like in nine years? I don't know. But I do know that next month on nail the mix for having this producer and this band and I still need to get the promo video from them and I need to do this, I need to do that because that's happening in a couple of weeks.

(00:52:44):

I have a lot of certainty about that. I don't have very much certainty about the future. So I think it's having a broadly defined goal for the future, call it one to 10 years, and having a lot of clarity about the very near future and always sort of checking those two things against each other. Trying to plan the distant future in excruciating detail, like Al said, is just dumb because there's so many things that can happen on the other hand to just sort of shrug and say, well who knows what's going to happen? Let life take me. Where it takes me is not very smart either. So I think it's balancing that short and long-term thinking, and I think IL and I have that in common. I'm just constantly, literally every minute of the day asking those questions of, I think if you're just honest with yourself, if you have a vision of where you want to be, let's say in 10 years, you'll know If you ask yourself, is what I'm doing right now congruent with that?

(00:53:55):

You'll know in your heart whether the answer is yes or no, what's not as clear as exactly if the answer is no, it's not as clear what to do about that, but at least you got to try. If it's like, alright, what I'm doing right now, no is not the right thing to do. I may not know what the right thing is exactly, but I'm going to try something. I think a common thread with a lot of people that we've talked about on this call today and just in general is analysis paralysis of, because you don't know exactly what to do, you do nothing. Doing nothing is the worst thing you could do. It is you'll never have perfect information. So it's better to take action with imperfect information than to just do nothing. That is my main takeaway. I think.

Speaker 1 (00:54:42):

I agree. Thank you, Sean. And we have time for one more question and that is going to be from Mr. Scott Bennett. Scott, you are invited to the stage. There we go. Hey Scott, how's it going?

Speaker 9 (00:54:53):

Good. I just wanted to ask you guys, obviously you both not got started with Creative Live, but that was sort of the incubation for where URM came to fruition. You guys talked about it a bit at the beginning and I was just wondering what the one big takeaway you guys got from that time period working with Chase Jarvis, who appears to be a very motivated Gary V type kind of person. Did you guys take anything from that? Were you guys already the people you were before you got these positions or was there a pace at Creative Live that was really intense or anything like that? Just kind of curious about that,

Speaker 1 (00:55:24):

Just one takeaway.

Speaker 9 (00:55:25):

Well, your best, I guess you're number one if there is one.

Speaker 1 (00:55:28):

I'm curious to hear what yours is, Finn. But, so Chase is cool, inspiring dude. He's done a lot of amazing stuff. He didn't just start Creative live, he started lots of stuff and before that he became a top tier photographer. So he has mastered art, his own type of art, which is photography. He has mastered it. He didn't just start creative live, he sucked at photography. He is among the best in the world at photography. And so I have a lot of respect for that because the thing that works for URM is it's taught by the people who have actually done it and Chase has actually done it, and that was created lives. Big focus at first was photography, so he was coming from a place of total expertise. And taking that a bit further is what I realized at Creative Live was that you have to have the expertise in metal and production in order to do this right in metal and production, which is why I started to realize that I needed to do it apart from them, nothing against them, they're great, but they have a very specific thing that they are in a very specific culture and metal is a very specific culture and just like you need a photographer like Chase being the soul of the operation in order to have the best photography instruction and that streaming type of education, you need something like that for metal to be able to pull off what URM has done.

(00:57:17):

So he both gotten a lot out of it, but mostly that we needed to do it on our own so that we could define the culture and do it right. What about you, Finn?

Speaker 2 (00:57:33):

I mean, I could talk for a very long time, but I worked there for four years and I met Chase in 2001 or 2002, maybe 2002. So I've worked with him a lot and learned a lot from him, and I totally agree with everything else said. The biggest takeaway that I have from Creative Live and from working with Chase is the importance of persuasion and leadership. I saw Chase grow from a kind of successful local photographer that was known in the Seattle area for doing a lot of ski and snowboard kind of stuff to then doing bigger stuff with national brands like Samsung and Volvo and stuff like that. And then to become the founder of Creative Live and Raise, I think they raised $65 million or something from a bunch of really top tier investment firms. And I was part of that fundraising process, which was really cool, and the common thread to all of that, and then for him to run the company as well.

(00:58:41):

And the common thread to all of that is persuasion and leadership. Because what I realized about Chase as a photographer, and this is a really important takeaway for producers, chase is a very good photographer, but he's not the best in the world and there are plenty of other people who have the technical ability to create the same images that he did, and he would be the first one to tell you this. The reason why you hire Chase is not because of his skills as a camera operator, although he is very good at that, but that's not why you hire him. You hire him because of his ability to persuade your boss that this is the right direction to take. If you're the art director and you got to get the marketing people to sign off on it or whatever, that's why you hire him because he's going to come on that set and there's going to be 10 people there that are spending a bunch of money on this because he's so good at being the master of the moment that everyone on that set is like, this is going to be fucking awesome.

(00:59:43):

This guy's the man, I was a little bit worried about this direction, but after seeing him in action, this is going to be awesome. And you can think about how great producers do the same thing, right? I mean, listen to how people talk about working with Ross Robinson. I asked a friend of mine who has been in all these hardcore bands since the eighties, very grizzled dude that grew up in old school, New York City, not easily impressed. And I was like, what was it like working with Ross? And he just immediately said, I would do anything he asked me to do. The guy is a fucking genius, like cult leader. I would've done anything he asked me to do. And that's the same thing when you're in the room with investors. You need to persuade them on the vision of your company and the product and why they should give you 10, 20, $30 million.

(01:00:30):

It's all about persuasion and storytelling and leadership. Again, I know that's sort of vague, but think about that anytime that you are in the room with clients or potential clients or your peers or whatever. I'm not saying don't be a bullshitter, don't do that. That is dishonest. But just think about how can I present what I'm doing and how can I be the master of the moment in such a way that it's going to make other people believe in me and what I'm doing. I mean, how important is that when you're in the studio? If there's a moment in which the band doesn't believe in you, that's a problem, right? On the other hand, if things are not going well, if you can be the person like Nick is awesome at this. I mean, we just know that Nick is going to, he's proven so many times that he is in charge that I'm never worried no matter what bad thing happens, I'm never worried because I know Nick will figure it out and I'm sure that he's probably sighing right now.

(01:01:33):

He's like, yes, it's true. This is my lot in life is to be the problem figure outer. But the point of all this is be the master of the situation. Be the leader. That is just as important. If you want to work with clients, that is, if you want to be anything other than a solo person working in your bedroom by yourself, that doesn't rely on anybody ever, but be the master of the situation. Storytelling, leadership and persuasion is the common thread to everything that I saw at Creative Live, good and bad. There are a lot of, there's other times where you see someone who has a great idea, who's really smart, talented person, but then you see them present their idea or meet people in an important situation, you're like, oh man, that guy just totally fucking bombed. I know he's brilliant that everything he's proposing is the right idea, but the way he presented it was not convincing at all. And it's game over for that idea. You can see the look in someone's eyes when you realize that they lost the trust of the person that they're talking to. So I dunno. I hope that makes sense. I know it's kind of broad and vague, but it's a big deal.

Speaker 9 (01:02:41):

No, that was awesome. Thanks so much to both of you. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):

Thanks, Scott. Thank you, Finn, for doing this. It's been a pleasure as always, and thanks to all of you who came to hang out with us. We will see you all next time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):

Thank you. See you up.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):

Alright, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post some to your Facebook and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at URM 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 [email protected]. That's EYA [email protected] MY. And use the subject line Answer Me Ale. All right then. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been

Speaker 8 (01:03:37):

Listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.