J. HALL: Music Career Soft Skills, Getting Clients, and Why Paid Ads Don’t Work

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host. Hey. Eyal levi, I'm going to keep this intro quick because the episode is really, really long, but I spoke to Jay Hall on the phone maybe a month ago. Someone had told me that I should have him on the podcast, and so I got on the phone with him expecting to have a 10 minute conversation where I would feel him out. I normally do when it's someone I don't know, and we ended up talking for an hour and it was a phenomenal conversation. It was so good in fact that I decided to drive to Nashville to do this podcast in person, and that's rare. We normally don't do these in person, and for me to decide to just drive four hours and take days out of my life to do a podcast with someone I had never met and honestly had only really heard of recently, it was a big deal, but I was that impressed with him. Sometimes you just talk to people and I wasn't wrong. My instincts were right. This podcast is phenomenal. It's one of the longest ones we've ever done, and the only reason we stopped was we were getting angry at about the four hour mark. We were like, we need food. We had both worked out earlier that day. I'm going to shut up. Here it is. J Hall with me. Enjoy. J Hall.

Speaker 2 (00:01:35):

Welcome

Speaker 1 (00:01:36):

To the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:01:39):

Thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:01:39):

I think this is cool because people are just listening, so they have no idea that I drove for this, but I know I've told you this, but I want people to know this. We spoke on the phone, what was it, a month ago or so?

Speaker 3 (00:01:54):

Yeah, I think it was about a month ago.

Speaker 1 (00:01:55):

Yeah. A member of my staff told me to talk to you. I think it was John, I think.

Speaker 3 (00:02:02):

I don't know who it was. So that's on you.

Speaker 1 (00:02:05):

I'm sorry if I already forget.

Speaker 3 (00:02:07):

No, you've been to Europe and back and you've been all over the place since we spoke

Speaker 1 (00:02:11):

In the past month and a half. I've been to Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Sweden, and Hilton Head, and now Atlanta, of course. And now I'm in

Speaker 3 (00:02:24):

Nashville. So you live in Atlanta,

Speaker 1 (00:02:25):

Right? I live in Atlanta, but we spoke and I was planning on just talking to you for 15 minutes or something just to feel you out. We ended up talking for a long time.

Speaker 3 (00:02:38):

I think it was close to an hour. I think we were on the phone for about 45 minutes,

Speaker 1 (00:02:43):

Which is really rare for me with people who I've never spoken to before, and I enjoy the conversation so much that I just thought I should just come to Nashville and talk to you in person, do this in person.

Speaker 3 (00:03:02):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:03:02):

That's kind of, doesn't happen very often for me. So I think it's really, I just wanted to kind of open up by saying that I went to LA in April to do an in-person podcast with the singer from Fallout. Boy, boy. I did one other one in person maybe a year ago with a guitar player from a band called RIS Murder, who happened to be in the same city as me. I don't normally do these in person.

Speaker 3 (00:03:31):

How do you do them remotely? I'm purely curious. Is it like a video chat? No,

Speaker 1 (00:03:37):

No, no. And the reason for that is just because these platforms, especially Skype, which is the one that I like to use, because as a good backup recorder will throttle the quality after X amount of time.

Speaker 3 (00:03:52):

Oh, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (00:03:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:03:54):

You're chewing up their bandwidth.

Speaker 1 (00:03:55):

Yeah. They don't want you on there for more than 30 minutes. So I mean, if you notice, if you watch video podcasts done over Skype, on the internet, on YouTube, you'll see the quality is garbage. And I feel like that I never end up watching all those the whole way. So we just do audio, we'll talk over Skype or Zencaster or whatever, just depends on what the other person has. And then we both just record ourselves. And if I'm talking to a non producer, like say a lawyer or an entertainment lawyer who obviously is not going to know how to record themselves, I use an app called Ringer,

Speaker 2 (00:04:36):

R-I-N-G-R,

Speaker 1 (00:04:38):

Because it's like an iOS app or Android app, and it will record waves in pretty good quality, I think like 48. Nice. I believe it's pretty good. It knows how to use your phone's microphone as well as possible at

Speaker 3 (00:04:57):

Its peak performance. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:04:58):

Exactly. Whatever that means. It's actually pretty good if the person's wearing earbuds or whatever. And so that's what we'll do, and then they'll send me their audio file. We'll give it over to our awesome editor, Ms. Deanna Chapman, and that's that.

Speaker 3 (00:05:15):

And that's that.

Speaker 1 (00:05:16):

Yeah. I wish I could do more of these in person.

Speaker 3 (00:05:20):

Yeah, it's expensive.

Speaker 1 (00:05:21):

And this isn't really, like the podcast isn't a revenue driver for URM. We don't monetize them or anything.

Speaker 3 (00:05:31):

Does anybody, I mean, well, I guess you sell advertisements. That was ignorant. Yeah. Joe Rogan's killing it,

Speaker 1 (00:05:36):

Dude.

Speaker 3 (00:05:37):

He's the number one podcast in the world or something like

Speaker 1 (00:05:39):

That. He heard. Yes, he is. I've heard he is making upwards of 30 grand per episode. More and four a week are coming out.

Speaker 3 (00:05:49):

He does four a week.

Speaker 1 (00:05:51):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:05:52):

Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, man. He's crushing. Yeah. I'm not a huge MMA or UFC fan myself. I don't have a problem with it, but it's just not my thing. And I know that's a huge thing for him, and he does a lot of those podcasts. I skip those. I tend to listen to a lot of intellectual podcasts. I want to grow my brain. And I mean, some of the guests he's had on Neil deGrasse Tyson, and he had a sleep expert, Matthew Walker, I believe it was. Man, that podcast changed my life. Those are three hours.

Speaker 1 (00:06:26):

Yeah. I love it. It's

Speaker 3 (00:06:27):

Intense.

Speaker 1 (00:06:28):

I love it

Speaker 3 (00:06:29):

If he's doing that four times a week.

Speaker 1 (00:06:32):

Yeah, that guy is amazing. With the amount of standup he does, does that multiple times a week. He's an athlete, dude's a hero. And I don't like kissing people's asses, but I really do think that his podcast is great because the thing about him is that, I mean, he's obviously a very smart guy, but I don't think he's a genius like some of the astrophysicists he has. But his gift is in being able to, he's close enough to, I think, in intelligence to normal people. I mean, he's obviously super intelligent, but I mean he's not, yeah, is

Speaker 2 (00:07:16):

He's a hard

Speaker 1 (00:07:16):

Guy. He's not in the stratosphere like Elon Musk or something.

Speaker 2 (00:07:19):

He's

Speaker 1 (00:07:20):

Close enough to the ground, but also close enough to those guys to where he can bridge them. And so he can take these people who normally probably would talk way over the public and ask them questions that gets them discussing some really intellectually advanced topics in a way that is understandable by the masses. And as a result, lots of intellectuals and scientists and just experts who would've been in obscurity are now famous. It's amazing. I think a lot of people don't appreciate what an amazing time we're in for intellectual thought. If I think back to when I was in high school in the nineties, all I had was what we were learning in school and then what books I could find on things. And I remember in the nineties, being smart was not that cool. Smart kids were kind of, I don't know, looked down on They were nerds. Yeah, there were nerds. And there was this thing, I mean, it was in music too. If you were really good at your instrument, it was lame. There was something in the era that I grew up in. You remember that?

Speaker 3 (00:08:36):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:08:37):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:08:38):

How old are you?

Speaker 1 (00:08:38):

I'm 40.

Speaker 3 (00:08:39):

You're 40? I'm 43. Same coming of age.

Speaker 1 (00:08:43):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:08:43):

Exactly. The early to mid nineties grunge era.

Speaker 1 (00:08:46):

Yep.

Speaker 3 (00:08:47):

Yeah. And then all those nerds grew up and started Google, and they won.

Speaker 1 (00:08:52):

They won.

Speaker 3 (00:08:53):

And we thought recording was going to be cool. And at the time, recording was a viable career where you could make money, and little did we know that that was going to change drastically by the time we were in our late twenties,

Speaker 1 (00:09:09):

But you can still make money. It's just different. It's different. It's different. It's a different hustle. But

Speaker 3 (00:09:16):

I mean, I've done well for myself. I'm not trying to say that I haven't, but you know what I meant. Absolute. I mean, the difference between being a computer nerd in the nineties and where that took you is learning

Speaker 1 (00:09:27):

Intellectualism is cool now.

Speaker 3 (00:09:30):

Yes. There's also a huge, I mean, you could put up a solid argument that our society also really celebrates anti-intellectualism, where guys like Joe Rogan and just the ability to podcast and put things out has started shifting that balance where taking a picture of your ass and putting it on Instagram gets a million likes, but then a single mom putting up some post about how she struggled. She struggles to pay her bills and her neighbor out of the kindness of her heart, broader groceries. That doesn't trend at all. An algorithm doesn't have a heart. I know. I just shifted from intellectualism to kindness.

Speaker 1 (00:10:15):

I have a theory on that though. I think, well, it's not really a theory. I think though that a girl who puts a picture of her ass up, no matter how popular intellectualism is, will always get a million hits just because

Speaker 3 (00:10:29):

Human nature

Speaker 1 (00:10:30):

We're people. So I don't think that it's one or the other. And I also think that good news will never be popular. It's the reason for y on YouTube, for instance, if you want to get big fast on YouTube and music especially, just start a channel talking shit, negativity, sex controversy, those things are the easiest pathway to get people's attention. However, now intellectualism works too, which is amazing, but I don't think it's those things or something else. But I do agree with you. Kindness and things like that are not, they're just not sexy. I don't think they get people fired up the way that anger does or the way that sex does or the way that humor does.

Speaker 3 (00:11:28):

Fear.

Speaker 1 (00:11:29):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:11:29):

Fear gets people going.

Speaker 1 (00:11:31):

Exactly. I mean, some kid found a baby bird and then saved a nest of birds in his backyard is awesome. I remember seeing that on the news once. That was a story. You know what I mean? And no one cares six murders. And then there's also the story about the kid who saved a family of birds and nobody gives a fuck, but it's just not as sticky.

Speaker 3 (00:12:00):

But this is the reason I stopped watching or reading mass media 15 years ago.

Speaker 1 (00:12:05):

Yeah, it's horrible.

Speaker 3 (00:12:07):

The negativity just really started affecting me in that I wish kindness and generosity and grace did get people going because that is what changes the world.

Speaker 4 (00:12:20):

I

Speaker 3 (00:12:21):

Agree. One of the things we talked about on the phone that I'm super passionate about just in the last four years, is that idea of kindness, generosity, and grace within the industry that we both work in, that it's nearly impossible to acquire specific skills as an up and comer. And I'm not even talking about hard skills, how to operate pro tools or how to mic a drum kit. I'm talking about soft skills, like how to talk to a client

(00:12:53):

Or how to deal with confrontation, whether small or large, within a business where you are the only person at the business and your name is the business. These are skills that a lot of experienced professionals refuse to discuss because they're scared that they're giving away the keys to the building. And that kindness and generosity that I really would love our culture and our society, I mean even more than just American culture and society, the whole world to celebrate is that giving back of not being scared and just saying, you find people that are working hard and asking questions, and they're taking those steps, which is scary. They're taking the steps to seek the older experienced professionals out to ask the questions. I feel like I just want to be one of the people that participates, that gives it back selflessly and consuming all the mass media, getting back to the actual point we were discussing, it just filled me with such negativity and fear that it permeated into those areas. It just started making me one of those people that was like, I didn't want to talk to my neighbors. I didn't want to really say too much about anything that was personal or real to anybody, and that's just me. Not everybody reacts to the news that way. That was a personal thing for me. So I just shut it off.

Speaker 1 (00:14:23):

I had to stop. I shut it off too. I don't want to hear about it anymore. I like to know what's going on in the world. But yeah, the negativity, and because I work online, I have to be online

Speaker 2 (00:14:38):

A lot. Yeah, you're

Speaker 1 (00:14:38):

Staring at it all the time. I'm staring at it, and it is like a mental cancer, I think. And people let their better judgment get away from them, things that they should not be reacting to, they react to, because the people who put these stories out are not idiots. They know how to phrase things in order to get a rise out of people. I mean, I know how to phrase things to get a rise out of people because I learned how to market.

Speaker 3 (00:15:12):

Yeah, it's not hard. You spend a little bit of time doing it, you start figuring it out. It's like any skill.

Speaker 1 (00:15:16):

Exactly. There's ways. I mean, knowing how to market something is really important, and I know that it gets a bad rap in music, but look, if you have something valuable to give to the world and nobody knows about it, and you really do believe that it's going to help some people, well, you need to know how to market it. And so there is a positive way to go about things, but these people who put out this negative who garbage know how to market too, and they're choosing to use it to line their own pockets, and then I watch all my friends and followers and customers just take it hook, line and sinker. They just accept whatever they're being told, get triggered by it, get angry, react, and react and react. And they don't realize that what's going on is someone is trying to make money off of you, and they don't care if what they're telling you is true or not true. They just need you clicking and

Speaker 3 (00:16:18):

They need you coming back. They need you coming back. They need you to either be so afraid that you come back for more information or so mad that you want to finish the story. So you just keep coming back. You keep coming back. It's not to make light of substance abuse, but it is the addiction mentality of the heroin junkies. He just wants to hit that spot one more time.

Speaker 1 (00:16:40):

Well, there is a lot of research that shows that a lot of these things that we consume online do have

Speaker 3 (00:16:47):

An addiction

Speaker 1 (00:16:47):

Component. Hormonal and chemical triggers.

Speaker 3 (00:16:49):

Yeah. Tiny, tiny dopamine dumps.

Speaker 1 (00:16:51):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:16:51):

That's all we're doing all day. We're just staring at those likes, checking our phone, just getting those tiny dopamine dumps.

Speaker 1 (00:16:59):

It's crazy, right. But I do think kind of back to what we were saying, that podcasting actually is one of the solutions to all this because in that format, which is why kind of full circle kind of why I think Joe Rogan's a hero is because I think deep down inside people are starved for this kind of quality information that you can only get through long form conversations with experts. And because of the wave of garbage that's on our feeds, podcasting, it's like the alternative to it. It really kind of is. And so I think people are consuming this stuff a vengeance, just like you're starve for it. Because deep down inside, I think most people may not realize that they're being fed bullshit, but deep down inside, I think they know. And I think a lot of them know

Speaker 3 (00:18:04):

We all have a radar for a authenticity and our radar for fake inauthentic things is peaking these days. I think you're making a really good point. Podcasting outside of the shows that are fictional based kind of radio shows that some of 'em I think are really neat and really well-produced. Outside of that podcasting is something that feels really tangible and real to people.

Speaker 1 (00:18:32):

It is. So on the topic of being one of those people that does give back, I think that it's a generational thing too. So I saw someone refer to our generation as Xen NALs, the first millennials, and so

Speaker 3 (00:18:49):

The very tail end of Gen X

Speaker 1 (00:18:52):

And the very beginning of millennials, and so our generation kind of like the 30 to early forties, so we understand how the world was, but we're young enough when the internet came about. And also we're the generation that kind of helped create it in the way that we know it now that our generation is kind of cool with spreading information, but the generation one hire comes from a different world.

Speaker 3 (00:19:24):

The baby boomers,

Speaker 1 (00:19:25):

Even Gen X, I think like the

Speaker 3 (00:19:28):

Early Gen Xers,

Speaker 1 (00:19:29):

I think they come from a world where access was limited to everything.

(00:19:35):

And so they have this scarcity mentality where if you look at the music industry in the nineties or whatever, everything was guarded by gatekeepers. There are very few jobs to go around. There's no massive platforms like YouTube or Spotify or whatever. And so just getting in the door was like an act of God. I mean, do you remember how hard it was to get signed in the nineties? That never happened there. No. I mean, maybe there were small labels, but they didn't matter. Worth a shit. I mean, now you don't need to be on a major label to have a major hit. You

Speaker 3 (00:20:10):

Don't even need to be on, have a major hit.

Speaker 1 (00:20:13):

Exactly. The barrier to entry. It's just a different world. It's

Speaker 3 (00:20:17):

A completely different world.

Speaker 1 (00:20:18):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:20:19):

Not even comparable in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 (00:20:21):

I love it. But I think that the generation above us, some of them have adapted a lot of them, and they are in positions of power you are experiencing or encountering lots of people who are hanging onto that old way of being to where sharing information and helping the next generation out makes them feel like they're sacrificing something or they're giving up own meals. But I think that you and I, our generation pretty much gets it that that's bullshit, that the information age came. We're living well into the information age and giving people information is not a bad thing. It's actually a great thing. And it's necessary because since physical locations, I mean, yeah, we're sitting in your control room, but physical locations, especially in the music industry, for instance, are becoming more and more rare. Like mega studios, there's less and less of them.

Speaker 2 (00:21:27):

There

Speaker 1 (00:21:27):

Are far less options for people to go and get that mentorship that there used to be, maybe it wasn't an exact path like the corporate world, but there was a path if you wanted to be a studio professional, for instance, there was a path. It was a mentorship path. Apprenticeship path. I mean, I don't need to tell you what the path was, and it still exists to a degree, but not like it did. And so it's been replaced by doing it online, where I know lots of people who their mentor slash first employer or first, what do you call it? If you're the person giving the internship,

Speaker 3 (00:22:09):

You're the mentor.

Speaker 1 (00:22:10):

Okay. Mentor. Okay. Yeah. Some of those relationships, these people never even meet, but there'll still be an intern that does intern tasks via the internet

Speaker 3 (00:22:20):

In a proper exchange of information.

Speaker 1 (00:22:22):

In a proper

Speaker 3 (00:22:22):

Exchange of exchange, a proper exchange of intern provides service and mentor provides information.

Speaker 1 (00:22:31):

It's just not in

Speaker 3 (00:22:32):

Person or true professional. A transfer

Speaker 1 (00:22:36):

Exactly of

Speaker 3 (00:22:36):

You do this work, I give you this experience.

Speaker 1 (00:22:40):

And so that still exists. It just exists in a different form. I think that generation that's holding everything close to the chest doesn't realize that it's the same thing. If you don't share this info, you are crippling the next generation of music makers. They don't have the same system that we used to have, and schools aren't exactly the best way to go about things anymore because they can't adapt as quickly as the world changes now.

Speaker 3 (00:23:13):

Right. Well, the problem with formal secondary education isn't really specific to the institution providing the education. I'm choosing my words really carefully. The problem is that it's a business. Their job is to sell you an education.

(00:23:32):

And in doing so, marketing that education, because that's the product they're selling, they're not very intentionally. They're not bridging the gap to the consumer in that they really don't care about you like your future. They care about you as a person as long as you're purchasing their product, which a four year school or even a trade school, I mean, we just said it. The product is the education. So they care about you in that exchange past that they don't care. And what we're talking about is that that next step of, okay, I've acquired this information, which is what education is. It's information. I've acquired this information, now how do I apply it? And in most career paths, you apply that by getting an entry level job and starting. And most career paths pay a person to do that. It's called a job.

Speaker 1 (00:24:27):

Crazy concept.

Speaker 3 (00:24:28):

It's an entry level job. It doesn't pay very well because the person being hired doesn't have experience.

(00:24:36):

They have knowledge of what the job, what they think the job is. They have some jargon that they can use that's relatable. A little bit of vocabulary and this very base level understanding of the career that they want and what it may look like. So they get a $36,000 a year job. I don't know. I just made that up. And then they, they're getting paid, but at the same time, doing that job for 20 years now makes them worth an incredible amount of money in a salary because now they actually really know the job. That person has efficiency. They have skill experience which is acquired through linear time and everything else in between. They network difference. Network. Yeah, network. They know the difference between the language they had coming out of college and then the language you need to actually do that job, how to talk to customers, how to retain clients. I mean, if that's an industry you're working in that has customers and clients, but you get what I'm saying. So education isn't bad if it's managed from the consumer, if the expectation is properly managed. Any education that you're paying for is they're selling you something. They're selling you information. And if that information is valuable to you, then you pay for it.

Speaker 1 (00:26:04):

Yeah. It's

Speaker 3 (00:26:07):

What we're seeing in online education is really fascinating to me. I'm actually a little obsessed with it for the past handful of years in that what we're doing right now is in past this and everything URM is doing, and there's other companies. Chris doe's company, the Future is doing it, linda.com. I'm trying to think of a few others. They're

Speaker 1 (00:26:31):

Out there, creative life.

Speaker 3 (00:26:32):

It's that mentality of, okay, four year universities are incredibly expensive and they don't care about you. So what if you bridge that gap about caring about the person that you're educating? So you are giving them a different experience. You're teaching them a skill that university or even that trade skill doesn't have time to do.

(00:26:50):

You go to a recording school, you're not, I mean, we all know what that looks like. I mean, we're recording people and we're podcasting right now. So taking real professionals that have a heart for that stuff and then giving them a platform to give back is like, to me, it's amazing because what we've been talking about for 10 or so minutes now is it's that taking the baby boomers and the older Gen Xers and that scarcity mentality, and it's breaking it all down to say, man, the world is a really big place. There's plenty of work for all of us. If I have something that you need, I mean me personally, I want to give it to you. You are not going to take my business. And if you do, maybe it's just one gig and maybe that gig was maybe not going to come to me anyway. Or maybe it was just going to be a one and done. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm just not worried about it,

Speaker 1 (00:27:45):

Which is good. You shouldn't be. The thing I find with the regular schools too is how can they care about every student and look at URM, we can't worry about every single student either. We can't. However, there's a big, big difference in that we didn't spend $5 million to build 50 SSL rooms and then outfit them. The thing is that if you have that kind of investment in a facility or way of doing things and then the world changes and the requirements change, what are you going to do? Are you going to just ditch all that?

Speaker 2 (00:28:23):

And

Speaker 1 (00:28:23):

So I find that a lot of the recording schools, first of all, I'm not saying don't go. If you want to go go, you're going to get what you put into it no matter where you go. However, they tend to be behind the times because of that. And so it's a conflict. How can you be honestly interested in somebody's future if you're teaching them outdated stuff? I mean, sure, you should know how to use a console and signal foot. Why not? But

Speaker 3 (00:28:53):

What's a console?

Speaker 1 (00:28:54):

Right? Never heard of it.

Speaker 3 (00:28:56):

Every studio I walk into that has a console, this is probably a terrible joke, and it's probably reaching dad joke proportions for me, but every room I walk into that has a console, I just say, I always say, what's that? I make somebody, I make the assistant or someone there be like, oh, that's an SSL 4,000. I'm like, oh, it looks like a boat anchor. I set the joke up intentionally. I know where I want to go with it, but I probably need to stop doing it. But

Speaker 1 (00:29:22):

It's

Speaker 3 (00:29:23):

Like a two inch 24 track tape machine. Yeah. Records are still made on tape, but how many Like a hundred a year?

Speaker 1 (00:29:29):

Exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:29:29):

It's like those are boat anchors. Let it go. I mean, I agree. There's a university here in Nashville, a four year private school. It's really, really expensive. And I've had numerous interns out of that school. Some are really sharp and talented and are working recording engineers now. Some, I don't know, but what they're doing. But every single one of them, let's say six, every single one of them, when they reached out to me and asked for an internship, which I don't advertise, and I actually don't typically do, all of them told me that they know how to do a full tape machine alignment, all of them. And these are kids graduating at different point. They don't know each other. None of these people knew each other. And that was big. That was what they came to me with to get

Speaker 1 (00:30:17):

Their, that's exactly my point.

Speaker 3 (00:30:19):

To get their internship. And I said the same thing every time. I was like, what's a tape machine? Right.

Speaker 1 (00:30:25):

Amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:30:26):

And I'm just old enough. You and I are, we are probably the youngest dudes that still cut some records on tape, but still remember that as the way that it was done.

Speaker 1 (00:30:38):

Pro Tools existed. That's how my first stuff was

Speaker 3 (00:30:39):

Done. Yeah, me too. Pro tools existed when I started recording professionally and getting paid for it. But it didn't sound very good in every studio that I was renting or was able to have any kind of a staff position at, everything was still done on tape machines. And if we wanted to edit, we would pull it into Pro Tools. It was so much easier than blade editing or spending days punching things in and getting it right. But we weren't making records start to finish in pro Tools.

Speaker 1 (00:31:12):

That didn't happen for a while. But that's exactly my point. If you're going to drop that kind of money and then get skills that are 20 years out out of

Speaker 3 (00:31:21):

Date,

Speaker 1 (00:31:23):

How can

Speaker 3 (00:31:24):

You enter the marketplace ready to go?

Speaker 1 (00:31:26):

And how can an institution claim to actually give a shit about their students' future if that's what they're doing? But I get it because they invested. So we're talking real money.

Speaker 2 (00:31:36):

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:31:38):

So it's like turning a cruise ship. You can't

Speaker 3 (00:31:41):

Just, yeah, you don't say, Hey, turn, and then we're going the other way. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:31:44):

Exactly. And so where we are different is, yes, obviously we need to sell subscriptions. We don't sell subscriptions. We don't stay in business and it all goes away. We need to sell them. And we know not every student is going to make a career that that would be impossible.

Speaker 3 (00:32:04):

But it doesn't mean that you're not giving them something valuable because whether you earn money selling recording services or not, you still can derive a great amount of joy.

Speaker 5 (00:32:15):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:32:15):

From accomplishing really high quality recordings. Totally. And man, it's playing a really difficult video game where you love the game and you love the aesthetic, and it's really hard and challenging. And when you finally get there, it's that satisfaction.

Speaker 2 (00:32:33):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:32:33):

So whether or not you are paying all your bills as a recording engineer, it doesn't circumvent that satisfaction of how do I get my recordings to sound like X Mixers or X producers? And then you seek those skills out. And what we're talking about is the internet has broken that barrier

Speaker 2 (00:32:55):

Down

Speaker 3 (00:32:56):

In acquiring those skills. And I love that. And those, like what I said earlier, those are hard skills. What the world of education, relegates as hard skills, not difficulty to acquire hard skills as in learning how to run Photoshop, or how do you put a track and record in pro tour

Speaker 1 (00:33:14):

Or in the business world knowing how to run spreadsheets and

Speaker 3 (00:33:17):

Account. So that's like a real tangible skill that has to be learned in order to get to the next place. The soft skills are what is where my head is these days, which again, to redefine soft skills are

Speaker 1 (00:33:30):

Well, lemme say one more thing about the hard skills.

Speaker 3 (00:33:31):

Yeah, do

Speaker 1 (00:33:32):

It. Just to finish my point. Where we excel is that when new hard skills become the standard

Speaker 2 (00:33:42):

For

Speaker 1 (00:33:42):

What people need, we can turn on a dime and of course, just make something immediately from someone who knows how to do a great,

Speaker 3 (00:33:49):

Yeah. When you see something trending as a skillset, you can just instantly start building a program around it,

Speaker 1 (00:33:56):

And

Speaker 3 (00:33:56):

That's what makes you nimble.

Speaker 1 (00:33:57):

We do that all the time. Our MO is stay current, which is why we're always trying to get new people in who are doing current things. And I think that's the big difference, hard skill wise between online education, good online education, shitty, but good online education and good real brick and mortar school. Again, you could go to a brick and mortar school and supplement it with online education and best of both worlds. Why not? But yet, you're right. So the soft skills part, that's a little bit tougher. We try to address that too, though. By doing tomorrow we're going to that meetup.

Speaker 3 (00:34:40):

Yeah, the meetup tomorrow. Stoked on

Speaker 1 (00:34:43):

That. Yeah, those happen worldwide. We do the URM summit too, and we try hard, but that so funny. So when we first got in here, we were talking about how the most engineers are introverts,

Speaker 3 (00:35:01):

Right? Right. Yeah. That's a

Speaker 1 (00:35:02):

Little bit antisocial. Yeah. I think it's some truth to it.

Speaker 3 (00:35:07):

Yeah. You have way more experience talking to a huge amount of engineers and producers.

Speaker 1 (00:35:12):

The stereotype's real. I mean, it is a real stereotype.

Speaker 3 (00:35:15):

That's what I asked

Speaker 1 (00:35:16):

You. It's based on truth.

Speaker 3 (00:35:18):

Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was curious about. I've always thought that that might be the case, extroverted, and I love being around people and meeting new people and talking. And just over my 21 years of doing this, it's not weekly, not even close, but maybe a couple times a year or slightly more frequently than that. Someone will just say, you're not a typical producer. And then I'm like, what is a typical producer? I don't know. I don't work with other producers. I'm on my own.

Speaker 5 (00:35:49):

You are the producer.

Speaker 3 (00:35:49):

And so that's always been the answer from artists I'm working with that have worked with a bunch of other people or managers or whatever, and they're like, yeah, you are kind, which I love. I'm not picking on that. I'm like, your kind is typically introverted. I mean, that makes sense to me.

Speaker 1 (00:36:06):

It's true.

Speaker 3 (00:36:07):

It makes sense to me. It

Speaker 1 (00:36:08):

Takes a special kind to kind to be comfortable with looking at, I was pointing at the screen for those who aren't watching, which is not you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:36:16):

They can't see us right now. We have to describe things. It's like being an author.

Speaker 1 (00:36:19):

You have to be comfortable with sitting in front of a screen in a, well, your room has lots of light, but in a dark room

Speaker 3 (00:36:27):

With no windows, with no windows issue. I mean, I covered some windows up when I built this room out very intentionally. But yes, this is the vibe. You don't know what time it is.

Speaker 1 (00:36:38):

You

Speaker 3 (00:36:39):

Don't know if it's raining out.

Speaker 1 (00:36:40):

Hopefully it's got a

Speaker 3 (00:36:43):

Rain on really, really

Speaker 1 (00:36:44):

Hard. I don't think you could tell 'em this room. Yeah, you got to be cool with that.

Speaker 3 (00:36:46):

This particular room. Yeah. I mean, but you get the idea.

Speaker 1 (00:36:51):

It's like a computer programmer too.

Speaker 3 (00:36:53):

You have no environmental cues. That's the better way to put it.

Speaker 1 (00:36:55):

Exactly. And

Speaker 3 (00:36:56):

To be with time alone.

Speaker 1 (00:36:58):

Totally. Being comfortable alone. It's not something that a lot of people are okay with. And so introverts by nature are pretty much okay with it. They're

Speaker 3 (00:37:08):

Introverts. Well, yeah. That's how they recharge their batteries.

Speaker 1 (00:37:11):

Exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:37:12):

By spending time alone. And they can do it endlessly. It's ultimately not healthy. No. I mean, we are made to be with each other. But yeah, for me, I can usually go about two weeks before my wife starts making comments that it's time for me to get out of the house because my studio, again, we have to describe it. I built out a studio in my home almost five years ago. So as an extrovert and loving to see the world and adventure and experience and be with people, I don't leave the house. I used to have, my studio was in a commercial building, so I would at least drive to it. And I shared space with other people. So I at least would see people in the lounge area or the kitchen of the collective, the studio space. Well, now for five years, almost five years, I help my wife and kids get out the door in the morning to go to school, and I work out at home. We talked about that privately, but I don't like driving to a gym. It's a huge deterrent for me to leave the home, to work out and come back. That's just me personally. I'm impatient. So I bought a rowing machine. I love it. So I even work out at home. I do my cool down. I clean up the kitchen, I shower and come into the studio. I never leave.

(00:38:34):

So after about two weeks start to

Speaker 1 (00:38:36):

Go crazy, I start to go

Speaker 3 (00:38:38):

Crazy. My attitude deteriorates. And my wife is like, Jay, you have to go. You need to go get a beer with a friend. You need to,

Speaker 1 (00:38:45):

Therapist explained this to me once. She said that there's a real difference between introverts and extroverts. It's not, I mean, you can teach yourself how to be more like one or one or the other, but an extrovert gets energy from being with other people while as an introvert loses energy. So I'm an introvert by nature, man. I call it the social ome whenever, not on one-on-ones. I'm cool with one-on-ones, but when I'm with more than one person, it's like a fuel gauge. It just goes down and down and down and down and down. So

Speaker 3 (00:39:25):

The more people, the quicker it drains.

Speaker 1 (00:39:28):

And then I need to be by myself

Speaker 3 (00:39:31):

To recharge,

Speaker 1 (00:39:31):

Not even with the girlfriend. So sometimes we'll go on these nail the mix trips and I will just book extra. I'll change my flight and stay for three extra days so I can be by myself in the hotel room.

Speaker 3 (00:39:45):

Do you stay in the hotel room?

Speaker 1 (00:39:46):

Yeah. I don't

Speaker 3 (00:39:47):

Hang for four of those three days.

Speaker 1 (00:39:48):

Yes. I don't hang out with anybody.

Speaker 3 (00:39:51):

You won't go adventure around the city. Nope. You just recharge. Just totally rest and recuperate. Well, I

Speaker 1 (00:39:55):

Mean, I'm working.

Speaker 3 (00:39:56):

Of course. Well, yeah, I understand that.

Speaker 1 (00:39:59):

But it's like a diet from people.

Speaker 3 (00:40:02):

What a good term.

Speaker 1 (00:40:05):

And my girlfriend's an angel for understanding this. We've been together a long time. So she gets this because I think that I've been with other people where they would've taken this personally. It's not them. It is me. But so that I think is the template for most people in this game. And being able to be extroverted, at least pretend like you are, is crucial for this. And so it takes people who are good at it, such as yourself, I think, to help people understand those soft skills of how to deal with people. If you can't deal with people, you can't have a career, I think,

Speaker 3 (00:40:47):

Oh no, you're a thousand percent, right?

Speaker 1 (00:40:49):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:40:49):

We work in a service industry. Not enough people talk about it that way. We want to talk about how to be a producer, how to be a recording engineer, how to be a mixer. But the thing that we typically gloss over, because we've done it for so long, and it starts to just become a routine habit, is that we are selling a service. We work in a service industry. And the best way to put it truly, it is a term we work in creative services. So it starts to get really messy because our creativity isn't really what's being sold, the service of recording someone else's creativity is what's being sold. And we get to be creative within that spectrum only to a degree.

Speaker 5 (00:41:35):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:41:35):

We have to understand that we are providing a service, which means we have to deal with other people, and we have to cater to their needs. And sometimes what they want to do may or may not be in their best interest. Sometimes we recognize that, sometimes we don't. And another side of that is sometimes the things we have to do, we don't want to do.

Speaker 5 (00:41:55):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:41:56):

But we are service providers. The customer is always right. And there's so many times that I don't want that. What is it? An old adage or mantra? The customer is always right. I don't want that to be correct, but it is. It's always correct. It doesn't mean

Speaker 5 (00:42:13):

That

Speaker 3 (00:42:14):

You can't partner with them and try to inject some opinions and use really good language and steer people towards a better choice. But if you understand what those conversations feel like and when it's time to let go and just do your job, those are some of the soft skills that are really, really difficult to learn in that what it's like to go out to a show and talk to a band that you've never met before and try to sell a recording to them. I know how to do that. And it's really even as an extrover. Can

Speaker 1 (00:42:47):

We talk about that for a second?

Speaker 3 (00:42:48):

Yeah, we can totally talk about that.

Speaker 1 (00:42:51):

I was about to say in addition to what you were just talking about, which is the soft skills of navigating artistic waters, dealing with someone else's art and making them, even if you're steering them towards something better, they still have to feel like it's right if they don't, even if it is right, say that there's something that's objectively right. I think in music, there are some objective things that there are some, not everything about music can be objectively measured, but there are some things like that's not in tune. That is in tune. But yes, if

Speaker 3 (00:43:33):

I've had people argue that, by the way,

Speaker 1 (00:43:34):

I know. Me too.

Speaker 3 (00:43:36):

No, I'm in tune. I'm telling you you're not.

Speaker 1 (00:43:38):

Yeah, exactly. But the thing is that even if you are objectively right, the customer still has to feel like that's right or you're wrong. At the end of the day, the customer is always right. But then there's the whole other soft skill of networking, which gets a really bad rap. That word gets a bad rap, but if you can't do it, you're dead in the water.

Speaker 3 (00:44:01):

What are some of the negative things you've heard about networking?

Speaker 1 (00:44:04):

Well, there's a term that we

Speaker 3 (00:44:06):

Use. I know people hate the word networking, but I don't understand why. So walk me through it a little

Speaker 1 (00:44:11):

Bit. Okay, so because people, before we were on here, or were we on here? We were talking about how the true meaning of a word sometimes

Speaker 3 (00:44:20):

Takes. Yeah, we

Speaker 1 (00:44:21):

Were recording connotation versus denotation.

Speaker 3 (00:44:24):

Oh, good language.

Speaker 1 (00:44:25):

So networking just means networking, right? Expanding your network of, but the connotation often is that it's a negative thing, that it's fake, that it's like that you're being non-genuine, just trying to get something out of people, that it's manipulative. And there's the word that we use. I learned this on tour from bands that were bigger than my band. There's a term called Punisher. Our listeners know this term, but we use that to describe people who punish you with their presence by delivering.

Speaker 3 (00:45:08):

Okay, I follow

Speaker 1 (00:45:09):

You. No value. No value to the interaction with them. So they take your time, but they give no value. So it punishes you. You're basically,

Speaker 3 (00:45:21):

Yeah. I've used in a very similar way, I've used the term barnacle.

Speaker 1 (00:45:25):

Barnacle. That's a good one.

Speaker 3 (00:45:27):

This guy's barling onto me. It's like a

Speaker 1 (00:45:29):

Verb. It's the same thing.

Speaker 3 (00:45:31):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:45:32):

We say Punisher.

Speaker 3 (00:45:34):

And so the Punisher person, are you implying that they're attempting to network?

Speaker 1 (00:45:41):

Yes. So say a perfect example would be you've been to Nam, right?

Speaker 3 (00:45:47):

No, I never been to Nam. I've been to trade shows, just not Nam in particular.

Speaker 1 (00:45:52):

So the dude who comes up to you, who has no idea who you are, I don't mean this in a, I'm

Speaker 3 (00:46:00):

Trying. I cruise. Yeah, I follow you. You're not, you're not trying to big time anybody. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:46:03):

No, no. Just I believe that if you're going to approach somebody, you should know who you're approaching

Speaker 3 (00:46:09):

Or at least approach someone with humility.

Speaker 1 (00:46:11):

Yes, absolutely. Well, what I mean is if you have a goal, right? If you have a goal, you're trying to work with a band, for instance, you should know what kind of band they are. You should know about their previous record. You should know if you're going in for a job interview, you should know who it is that you're talking to, who's going to be interviewing. You should know what their needs are. You should do, you should

Speaker 3 (00:46:40):

Do the research ahead of

Speaker 1 (00:46:41):

Time, do some research. So yeah, so the guy at Nam who comes up to you with a business card who wants something out of you, but they don't know who you are, they're not paying attention, they're not listening to anything you're saying, it's just me, me, me. I want this, I want this. You can get this on intern applications too. The perfect example is an intern application where they don't ask you anything about how they can serve you. Well, what are your needs? They'll just tell you about their dreams. Their dreams, their dreams. That's punishing because they're not approaching this from a, how can I add value perspective? They're approaching it as a take, take, take, take, take.

Speaker 3 (00:47:28):

Right? That's a person that's in a cycle of needing to be right, which isn't necessarily shown to you in quick exchanges of an intern looking for a job or somebody approaching you at Nam, but the person that doesn't listen, they're not listening because they're lining up all the next things they want to say because they need to be right. And it's not even that every single conversation is an argument, not it's, I mean, we're all guilty of it in various little ways and in moments in our life, but when you need to be right, you stop. You just cut off so many cool moments of

Speaker 1 (00:48:08):

It's rough.

Speaker 3 (00:48:09):

It's rough, and I'm done.

Speaker 1 (00:48:12):

It's punishing to be around those people. I think they need to be right. And they have an objective, and the not saying don't have a goal, but the objective supersedes everything. So no matter what you're saying in response to them, it doesn't really sink in. All they want is that objective, that objective, and people sniff that out, which I think to answer your question is why people is networking, have a bad rap, is because you encounter people like that all the time

Speaker 3 (00:48:46):

That are being disingenuous.

Speaker 1 (00:48:47):

Yeah, disingenuine. And they just make it all about them. Where like you said before, to tie this back, you said, this is a service industry. If you go in, me, me, me, that's not, the service mentality is obviously not forefront in your mind.

Speaker 3 (00:49:05):

So in your travels, in the hundreds, thousands of creative service providers that you've met, what I'm hearing is that the word networking or the verb networking has been very closely attributed to disingenuine.

Speaker 5 (00:49:25):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:49:27):

That's really interesting. I feel like that's a huge, really big deal to me in being honest and genuine as I possibly can all the time. And I think that's important for single service providers to understand more so than anybody that works in a corporate environment. But I get completely what you're saying. It fascinates me. I mean, we've all met those people probably more than we want to. And you're right, I think that all human beings in all different age ranges have some kind of a sixth sense for that fakeness.

Speaker 1 (00:50:08):

But music people, I think have it heightened because especially veterans, like veterans who have something like a job to offer. For instance, you're trying to get an internship with someone established, or you're in a band that wants to get signed or wants to get a manager. Those people are going to be, if it's a good manager, if it's a good a and r guy or whatever, their sense for that kind of bullshit is heightened because they have to deal with it so much.

Speaker 3 (00:50:38):

They can smell it

Speaker 1 (00:50:40):

Instantly. They can smell like a shark in water. So it does people a huge, huge disservice to not learn how to do that. Then there's this other thing that I'm sure you've experienced this, most of my biggest advancements have come as a result of relationships

Speaker 2 (00:51:02):

That

Speaker 1 (00:51:02):

Developed over many, many years where, yeah, sure, I was meeting somebody in the industry and I want to make friends in the industry. So yes, there's that objective, but it was loose. It wasn't like, I'm trying to get something out of you like, no, let's make friends.

Speaker 3 (00:51:21):

Well, yeah, you're naturally looking for people that you can align with in real life, and you're doing it within, for lack of better term, like the umbrella of an industry that you're also

Speaker 2 (00:51:34):

Trying

Speaker 3 (00:51:34):

To earn a living in. I mean, that's very genuine to me. You're seeking out real true relationships that also happen to be working professionals within your industry. I think that's a really key ingredient to how my mind processes networking, that I don't need to be friends with everybody to do business with them.

Speaker 1 (00:51:58):

No, of course not.

Speaker 3 (00:51:59):

But the people that I do naturally click with, which we all know happens within just a few minutes of meeting somebody to be like, yeah, man, I can totally get lunch or a beer with this person and talk about anything in the world that's not professional related. And those are the people that you gravitate towards in long periods of time with. What I think you're saying is that you are going to do huge amounts of business with those relationships over the course of a long period of time.

Speaker 1 (00:52:29):

Yeah. That's the long game.

Speaker 3 (00:52:31):

I can make a really solid argument for meeting someone and in a very short amount of time, not being very genuine and very open and honest, that I want to trade them a recording for United States dollars. I can do that very genuinely and authentically. I don't have to be fake and phony and be manipulative in order to be true to myself and honest to a potential client in a really short amount of time in just creating a business opportunity.

Speaker 1 (00:53:09):

But you have something on your side, which may be a 22-year-old, which is credibility and a body of work that people know and love. So I feel

Speaker 3 (00:53:23):

I can argue that I could do it without that.

Speaker 1 (00:53:25):

Fair, okay. Argue. The reason I'm saying that is because I think that if you don't have, and maybe it's the confidence that comes, people respond to confidence. So maybe because of that, it's easier for you to sell that to a stranger because you do know that it's not false confidence

Speaker 3 (00:53:46):

That

Speaker 1 (00:53:46):

I can do a good job. You have done this, you can do it, and you have real world success to back it up. And people can sniff that out too. But if some kid just gets out of school and maybe they are talented, maybe they're not, who knows? But they're just talking a big game, but there's nothing to back it up there is kind of bullshit.

Speaker 3 (00:54:10):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:54:11):

Or it could be,

Speaker 3 (00:54:12):

I'm really confident that I could teach that 22-year-old how to navigate that conversation.

Speaker 1 (00:54:17):

Awesome. I want to hear more about this.

Speaker 3 (00:54:19):

Let's do it. So what you brought up is one of the three biggest objections that clients I'm using. I'm trying to craft this sentence very carefully. I'm trying to get it out of just simply recording into all creative services.

Speaker 5 (00:54:35):

It applies to all

Speaker 3 (00:54:37):

Creative, it applies to all of them. Photography, graphic design, web design, ux, software development. I mean, we can list creative services are massive, A massive industry. The three biggest objections, that's the right word. I was looking for it in my mind. The three biggest objections that creative service providers are going to hear when meeting a client are, and these are not in a particular order, and these are the things that you have to learn how to field. And I'll get to the one that you brought up really quickly. The three biggest are you're too expensive, you don't have enough experience, and you are not an expert at blank. Whatever it is that client wants you to do for them, and they're objecting that you're not an expert at it. So blank is the open line. Say the thing.

Speaker 5 (00:55:23):

Yes. I think you're absolutely right with

Speaker 3 (00:55:25):

Those objections. So the objection that you brought up is experience. So I would say to the 22-year-old that is trying to get a band to record with them, and let's back up to the research component. I would also argue that you don't have to research every single moment in order to sell a project. Actually, moment was the wrong word. Every single band, because sometimes you're out at a show with a friend, like your friend texted you and he's going to the show, or she and doesn't want to go alone, maybe has an extra ticket, maybe doesn't, whatever. That doesn't matter. You agree to go and so you're not going to talk to a manager or go meet the band you

Speaker 4 (00:56:07):

No. You just see a band and you're blown away.

Speaker 3 (00:56:09):

Yeah, yeah. Right. Perfect moment.

Speaker 4 (00:56:12):

You're

Speaker 3 (00:56:12):

Going, you're going with a friend to just, you don't want to be alone that night. You're helping a buddy out just with community and showing up because going to shows alone is miserable.

Speaker 2 (00:56:22):

It's

Speaker 3 (00:56:23):

Really hard. You're just the awkward person standing in the room. It's like the Talladega Knights moment. I don't know what to do with my hands.

Speaker 1 (00:56:29):

And that's coming from an extrovert.

Speaker 3 (00:56:32):

An extrovert, and I feel that way. I hate going to shows alone and I'll talk to anybody about anything. I can make friends anywhere. I'm the extrovert. I hate it. I hate going to shows alone. So back to the moment, which we all know, you go to a show with a friend, you've got no ulterior motive. You're just there to hang out with a buddy, and this band on stage just murders it. You love it. They're great. And the music's awesome. You love the band. You love the energy, and you can't let that thing go in your mind that you want to be the one that records them. So I'm going to get to the thing you said. So you've done no research. You don't know any of their names. You don't even know the band's name. Right? You were talking to your friend, you didn't really care. You have a beer. You don't have a beer. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (00:57:15):

Your mind was just blown by this performance

Speaker 3 (00:57:17):

Within the first couple songs. You're like, holy crap, I have to be part of this. I love this band Now. So you haven't done the research, you don't know the band's name, you don't know any of the members' names. You don't remember any of the lyrics. You couldn't even sing a melody back to them if you tried. How do you get the gig? I mean, that's where you were with it. You're 22 years

Speaker 1 (00:57:39):

Old,

Speaker 3 (00:57:40):

You don't have any of my credits, any of your credits, right? You don't have 20 years of experience. What do you lead with? I don't ever lead with my credits. I think that's a huge

Speaker 1 (00:57:50):

Douchebag move. No, no, no.

Speaker 3 (00:57:53):

I'm not saying, do I think we all agree with that? Walking up to a band and being like, I've worked with story of the year. You're not going to get the gig.

Speaker 1 (00:57:59):

No, no, of course not.

Speaker 3 (00:58:00):

Of course you're going to alienate everybody. That is not. You can't do that.

Speaker 1 (00:58:04):

But you are going to approach them with a confidence.

Speaker 3 (00:58:06):

Okay, but how do you start? I start again as an extrovert, and it's my natural thing to do. I start by just excitedly introducing myself to them. Not J Hall, a producer mixer. I don't add the title. I just introduce myself. First off, I'm a hugger and a high fiver, and I've got a lot of reasons why I do that as a greeting. But whether they're still on the stage, taking their gear down, depending on my excitement level, or I wait for them to be off stage at the bar, I find one of them and I just straight up introduce myself as easy as, Hey, man, my name's Jay. I loved your band. It's not disingenuine because I did love their band.

Speaker 1 (00:58:51):

Okay, fair enough. But I don't think what you're saying is in, I guess I don't think that we're saying two opposite things. So where I'm coming from is mainly for an introverted person who is not comfortable just walking up to someone. So we're trying to give them a few tools to,

Speaker 3 (00:59:12):

You have to,

Speaker 1 (00:59:13):

I feel like if they know a little bit more about who they're approaching, it will be easier for them.

Speaker 3 (00:59:19):

Oh yeah. But sometimes you don't have that option. That's all I'm adding to the conversation is

Speaker 1 (00:59:23):

That, but you're bringing enthusiasm, and so I think that that right there, the confidence to have enthusiasm in public with the total stranger, I think that confidence.

Speaker 3 (00:59:34):

But you're an introvert and you had enthusiasm when I came out in the driveway and greeted you. He smiled at me and you gave me a hug.

Speaker 1 (00:59:41):

I was happy to be here.

Speaker 3 (00:59:42):

And you're an introvert.

Speaker 1 (00:59:43):

Yeah, but I'm also a practiced. I'm very practiced.

Speaker 3 (00:59:47):

Yeah. Well, you're not 22 anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:59:49):

No, I'm not.

Speaker 3 (00:59:50):

Would you have done that at 22 if you pulled in my driveway, or would you have been intimidated and scared? Those are strong words. I know.

Speaker 1 (00:59:57):

I have always been able to take that part of myself and tell it to shut the hell up and

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):

Get through a moment and get through that, you know, need to get through.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):

Yeah, absolutely. From the time I was a teenager, I don't know. I just saw this type of thing, meeting people in this world as something I had to do and that I wanted to do, and was excited to meet people. And so whatever voice of social anxiety I'd have, I actually taught myself how to minimize it. There's ways, there's technical ways to diminish your own fears by imagining. Lots of times when we imagine something that scares us, like an intimidating situation or a person, we'll visualize things way bigger than they actually are. And so by Right,

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):

The story you make up in your head.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):

Yeah. Is the scariest one or the actual physical size of the thought in your head?

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):

I mean this sounds kind of ridiculous, but if you take that and you turn the volume down on it, it's like it's a thought exercise or diminish the brightness on whatever your fear is,

Speaker 4 (01:01:16):

You

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):

Actually turn it down. I would do things like that, like condition myself to not really care as much. Or whenever the thought would come in, I'd imagine myself saying, shut the fuck up.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):

I do that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):

Yeah. If you do that, if you do that, you got to talk to yourself, man. You got

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):

To call your own bullshit sometimes. You got to be able to, in your own mind, be like, don't bullshit me right now.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):

No. So I

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):

You're saying it to yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):

No, no, no. Totally. So look, I agree with everything you're just saying. I think that at the end of the day, confidence, enthusiasm, a smile supersedes everything, and a winning personality will, I don't know, it just wins. Think when you're talking about charisma.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):

Let me give you the one last detail that I think is super important, and I actually, I had to practice this. It's not easy. It's difficult to do and you have to fail a few times. You got to be willing to fail, but in a very, very short amount of time, keeping in the example that we've been using, I went to a show with a friend, saw a band I loved. I don't know them. I'm not going to get my phone out and Google it while they're playing,

Speaker 4 (01:02:23):

Of

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):

Course, because loving it and I'm jumping around or however you react to a show you love. When I introduce myself to, I don't care what band member it is, I don't try to isolate anybody out. I don't seek only the singer out. It's like whoever I can introduce myself to in the shortest amount of time possible, I tell them what I want. So I'm not disingenuine. If I love the band, I tell them that I love your band. I make records for a living. I would love to make a record with you. I'm not being fake.

Speaker 4 (01:02:54):

Fair enough.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):

This is in Warren Buffett's 10 Rules to Live by. I can't remember, and I don't think he listed them in order and it's actually, this is really funny, but I had read through all that stuff prior to this moment, but Jimmy John's has that signup in almost all their locations. Warren Buffett's 10 Rules to Live by. But one of his rules on the list is be clear about your motivations as early as possible. And I remember thinking about that as I was building my business and growing it, and I realized that early in my career, I mean, I would go to, it would take me 3, 4, 5, sometimes six hangouts with a potential client before I actually said, I want to work with you.

(01:03:40):

That's not me saying, give me a million dollars to record your band. No, that's not going to happen. You're way overshooting, whatever. That's not even me bringing money up at all. Right. I'm very careful about that. I haven't said anything about United States dollars. I haven't said anything about what is going to happen. All I've said is I want to work with your band, and I'm honest that is what I want. I saw a band out of nowhere that I didn't research, I didn't reach out to, no one recommended me. I wasn't set up in any environment where I get to do the research ahead of time and go meet with that potential client and talk intelligently about their band. I'm just in a moment where I saw something I was super pumped about. I can't ignore the fact that I was excited about it. I go introduce myself and within the shortest amount of time possible, let's say 60 seconds, I name the thing that I want.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):

I think that that's amazing. But I also think that that's because you're a charismatic dude, and so you try to imagine it from the perspective of someone who's terrified to talk to people in public who has no credits. So they're not confident and they've never really done anything. So why is anyone going to pay attention if they just go up and are awkward and within the first 60 seconds say, try to pitch them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):

Yeah, I want to work with you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):

I think I feel like they're going to get shot down right away where I feel like the,

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):

But that's a valuable experience.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):

It is.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):

We learn from our failures. We don't learn from our successes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):

Absolutely. I just think that the X factor here is charisma. I feel like charisma solves all I really do. You can become more charismatic too.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):

You can learn it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):

Yeah, you can learn it to a degree. I mean, maybe

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):

Not. I mean, I failed miserably in a lot of these communications early. I lost a lot of work from not being clear of my intentions or my clarity in those intentions was communicated very poorly without any charisma. Just like, I want to work with your band.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):

And that's

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):

Like, oh man, you need to say it with a smile. You have to learn that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):

Yeah. Okay. Alright. So I'm The only thing I arguing, you are actively changing my mind on this some, but I don't think I ever,

Speaker 3 (01:06:18):

That's what I'm trying to do.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):

No, but I don't think I ever disagreed with you. I've always felt like charisma. I feel like charisma changes everything to where people who are charismatic and enthusiastic and have that spark are able to skip a lot of steps.

Speaker 3 (01:06:38):

Maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):

Maybe. But I've seen it happen,

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):

But the potential for skipping steps is high.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):

Yeah. There's something infectious or I guess I don't want to say persuasive.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):

My ability, what you're saying is in keeping it with the example of me and you, or maybe even the mysterious 22-year-old, that's introverted. My ability to get people to laugh and have a good time and just for lack of a better term, just like me quickly. That's what you're talking about, right?

Speaker 5 (01:07:10):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):

That I could say something that doesn't go over well, but in a very short amount of time, I stand a chance of fixing that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):

Yes. Because you have obviously a high emotional intelligence and are able to read the room.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):

Just for me to understand what you're saying, that's where you're going with it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):

Is that I stand a higher chance of making a small social failure and correcting it right away than you do

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):

Or the 22-year-old who's never done this before. So I guess I'm assuming when I say this stuff, and this is based off of lots of one-on-one talks with people.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):

Sure, yeah. You're doing this all the

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):

Time. The people on who teach nail the mix don't have a problem getting clients. So I'm not talking to them. So what I'm thinking, so the person I'm imagining has a lot of reservations about even being comfortable around people in public. So to me it's more of, it's not even about landing that client right there.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):

It's

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):

More about just being comfortable with showing up the act of showing up and talking to people.

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):

See, I feel confident that I can teach that person how to do it. I can't teach them how, I can't teach them to like

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):

It. Yeah, fair enough. That's a tough one,

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):

But that's not the job. No. In this greater conversation of us talking about soft skills and giving back and the things that I'm really passionate about right now in that world of giving back, that's all I'm saying is that I feel like all this language and all this motion of doing those soft skill things of conflict resolution and client acquisition and retention and answering those three most common objections of you're too expensive, you don't have enough experience, and you're not an expert in blank. I feel like I can teach anybody how to navigate that. I can't teach you how to like it, and I can't teach you how to be good at it, but being good at something is a repetition based thing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):

Absolutely. Got to get the reps in

Speaker 3 (01:09:26):

For two bald guys. It, it's a shampoo reference. You've got to rinse and repeat.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):

Well, I did have hair for a while and

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):

Me too, but it committed mutiny and it ran away from us and left our heads. I know. Bastard hair. Bastard

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):

Hair. Okay. So what would you say to the socially awkward kid who doesn't,

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):

Well, some of it we just went through is being willing to introduce yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):

Just do it. I agree. You have to just do it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:54):

You have to have a willingness to fail. I've got some specific examples in my early twenties where I was really excited about working with some bands and my introduction was so horrible and I was unwilling to give up. I really wanted to work with this band. My introduction was so bad, I should have walked away after that, and then it just went from bad to worse. So

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):

Your ability to read what you're getting, what they're giving back to you,

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):

That's a skill that you learn over time. But being willing to fail is a key component. And having people, I mean, my interns and my assistants that I've had over the years, I've said this forever, even into the hard skills of miking a guitar amp or, or the recognition of what is a good guitar tone, which transcends clean, dirty, overdrive gain. Just recognizing whatever tone you're after when it's good, those are hard skills that you can teach somebody. And the interns and assistants and anybody that I've tried to help in the hard skills, that conversation is always the same. If you're not willing to fail, you're never actually going to get good at it. So back to the soft skills. I can teach you how to introduce yourself to somebody, but if you're not willing to screw an introduction up, you're never going to be good at it.

Speaker 5 (01:11:17):

That's very true.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):

And I've screwed up so many of 'em, and I still do. There's still times I approach somebody that I want to meet, and I said earlier, I'm a hugger and I announce it when I walk up. I'm like, Hey man, I'm Jay. I'm a hugger and there's people that do not want to be hugged, and I know this, but I'm also not willing to back down. So I know that right out of the gate I'm going to meet people and attempt to give them a hug, and that moment alone is going to ruin everything else that happens after it. I have to be willing to risk that. And what I'm saying is were

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):

You always okay with it with the failure?

Speaker 3 (01:11:56):

No, it's scary.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):

Very

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):

Because a lot of times your ability to earn a living for your family is on the line, and if you're not willing to fail and you recognize that this is a moment that could be a sale, if you're not willing to fail at it, I would say you probably shouldn't step into the moment at all. That's coming from someone that will always step into the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):

Would you always do

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):

That? I will always chase a potential gig and sometimes after the chase, whether let's say it's the first meeting and you know that there's going to be three bigger gigs, you're never going to get it. You're never going to get Well, I would argue that you're never going to get a gig on the first meeting anyway. I don't think it's ever happened for me. I don't think I've ever sold a project on one meeting alone. It takes a follow-up phone call or another in-person meeting emails. There's always more to it. I will always chase potential work, and sometimes it takes reflecting on that first meeting for me to be like, man, I fucked that up. That's dead. I'll follow up with the person. But I've got enough experience now meeting people, talking plainly and genuinely telling people what I want to know when I walk away from a meeting, if I totally blew it and it still happens. I'm 43 years old and I have been professionally recording bands for pay for 21 years, and still to this day, I will blow a meeting.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):

Were you always willing to just jump in the fire like that? I know you said that you were scared of it at one point, but

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):

Yes, I was always willing to jump in the fire because I wanted to make money. Selling recording services. That component alone made me willing to jump in the fire.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):

So do you think that, so the person who is terrified of it, that would you argue that maybe they big picture, your big picture is I want to sell recording services. This is my livelihood, this is the be all, end all that. Maybe that's so kind of like what I was saying of turn the fears down, physic physically, imagine

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):

Them quiet,

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):

Dimmer. Maybe that goal isn't bright and loud enough in their mind to motivate them enough to just say, fuck you to the fear and go, I find that that's what I have to do. Sometimes when I'm nervous about a certain meeting or interaction or introduction is the big picture. I'll amplify it. I'll amplify it to where it's so strong that fear doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):

I mean, what would you say, I guess in your words, to someone that's terrified that doesn't have the experience?

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):

What a great question,

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):

Dude. I talk to people who are terrified of this stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:15:02):

You mean their anxiety is so great? They'll shake a little bit as the thought of approaching a person.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):

Yes. But they've got some talent. They want to do this.

Speaker 3 (01:15:12):

Yeah. Yeah. That's a,

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):

That's who I'm trying to help people like that too. It's tough.

Speaker 3 (01:15:17):

Yeah. I want to help those people. That is tough. I would say that I would want to sit with that person and try to unpack as close as I possibly could, the source of that fear. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a therapist. I'm not trying to pretend that I can fix.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):

Maybe they need one.

Speaker 3 (01:15:39):

Yeah, and

Speaker 1 (01:15:40):

That's okay. I don't mean that make you fun of them. I have a therapist.

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):

Everyone should. Yeah. I mean, people can't see us. I could see your body link. I knew you didn't mean that negatively. Counseling and therapy can do amazing, amazing things for people. But the reason I would want to try to sniff out the source of that fear is so collectively we being like myself and that singular person can then try to create some positive strategies of overcoming it. In a lot of cases, if it's a person that's really shaky with anxiety about speaking to someone they've never met, I would just suggest role-playing those conversations with someone they do know,

(01:16:25):

A mom or dad, that they have a strong relationship with a brother or sister or best friend, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a spouse, a husband. Mean the examples are endless, but keeping it to a one-on-one interaction of just saying, Hey, I really want to do this for a living. I believe I can. I think that my work is good enough to charge money for, but I just can't go talk to people about it. You play the role as a band, as a band member. And let me just talk to you. I don't like role play personally. I just like the main event.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):

You don't seem like you physically shake.

Speaker 3 (01:17:03):

I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):

But I do know that those role play moments allow a person that does those social anxieties to feel out conversations, to be like, what questions might you ask? How do I answer those questions? Like those three main concerns. If a band is into it, if you introduce yourself and you say, I love your band. I record bands. I would love to record your bands. You haven't asked for money. You've just expressed a desire to do something more for that band. If they say, well, what experience do you have that's on the list of three, you are not experienced enough. You have to be willing to be really honest. And if you're shaky with that, if you role play that out with someone, you are going to find that language.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):

Say, I've told people, sorry to cut you off. No, no, no. Go. I've told people in that situation to just say, I don't have much experience.

Speaker 3 (01:18:01):

Yeah. You have to be honest. Honesty always. Honesty

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):

Always. I just want to try this. And even if it for someone who's first starting out, I would never say this to someone who's already doing it, but even if it means offering a free song or something like that,

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):

Well, I would say never offer your services for free, but don't be unwilling to do things for free.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):

Fair enough. Fair enough. I could just say whatever it takes to convince them to take a chance on you. And sometimes it might mean

Speaker 3 (01:18:32):

Doing a song

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):

For free, doing a song for free. Because,

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):

Because that acquires you experience.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):

Exactly. And it disarms their objection of

Speaker 3 (01:18:42):

Well,

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):

You don't have experience.

Speaker 3 (01:18:42):

Yeah, you just did it. You got rid of one of the three big objections. You just say, you're right. I don't have a lot of experience, but I haven't asked you for any money.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):

The guy, you'll meet him tomorrow night, his name's Nick Otta, he's our production manager. He films most of our stuff. When we hired him, he had never filmed anything. We believed that he would learn, so we gave him the shot. And I totally do believe that people will give other people a shot if they are honest and convincing. And that takes confidence though. See, that's the thing. Back to the charisma and the confidence, I feel like it's a lot easier to be like, well, no, I don't have much experience, but it's going to kick ass to say that in a convincing way. If you have the confidence or if you're shaking, I feel like that might kill it right there,

Speaker 3 (01:19:47):

But that's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:19:48):

Yeah, true.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):

You can kill that one. And then you learn from it

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):

And you try again,

Speaker 3 (01:19:52):

And you try again and you shake less the second time because now you know what it feels like to fail. Really where a lot of that anxiety comes in is that it's the fear of rejection and the band saying, no, we're not going to work with you. Once you've acquired that, you're like, well, I know what that feels like. The next one, you're still going to be shaky, but a little less. What I'm after in this example with this mysterious person would be, I'm excited about the day that you're not shaking. And it might be 10 pitches, it could be three, it might be 20, but let's get there. Because I've destroyed hundreds of pitches like I just said a minute ago, and I still do to this day, but I land more of them than I ruin now because that fear of failure is gone. I had it, but I know what it feels like. I know what it looks like. I know what it sounds like in language, and I can recognize it earlier because I have all of those failures to be like, this fan's not going to work with me. I'm wasting my time.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):

But

Speaker 3 (01:20:59):

You don't know that

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):

When you're 22, and it's so bad. It's

Speaker 3 (01:21:02):

Not so

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):

Bad. One thing that I always do is if something, if that fear is popping up, and I don't think it's rational, usually.

Speaker 3 (01:21:12):

No, it's irrational. You're

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):

Right though. Sometimes there are. I've done some very unrealistic things in my life and pulled them off. But the thing is that I always saw logically how it would work out. So I went through all the objections and figured out how to solve those problems, and then it was no longer unrealistic. But then there's always some times where some things where this voice in my head will just be like, it's going to fail. But what I do then is I try to think about, well, what if it does fail? What's going to happen? Am I going to die?

Speaker 3 (01:21:51):

No.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):

Yeah. Is it all over if this fails? Nope.

Speaker 3 (01:21:55):

Nope.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):

What's really the worst that's going to happen? And really try to, again, with seeing that in your mind, be clear about what'll happen if it fails. And when you do that, and it's not just this murky idea of failure with all these imagined terrible things,

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):

Irrational things,

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):

Irrational, then it's really not so bad.

Speaker 3 (01:22:23):

It's not so bad.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):

It's like they won't work with you then What? You're no different. Nothing changed. Nothing

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):

Changed. Nothing in your life changed.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:22:32):

You're right in the same exact spa you've been.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):

Yeah. And just because they didn't work with you this time too, doesn't mean that they won't work with you in the future. Also, maybe you made a potential contact and friend out of it. Maybe just because they didn't work with you then doesn't mean that they don't introduce you to somebody else who will work with

Speaker 3 (01:22:54):

You, who will work with you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):

You never know where these things

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):

Will go. So now we're back to the positive side of networking, being genuine, honest, authentic, and building a real network. I mean, that's what the word means of people that respect you for being genuine and honest. They don't even have to respect you for your work product. Maybe they've never even heard

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):

It. Totally. However, I think you should be networking regardless of if you're trying to get a specific gig. Agreed. So I guess

Speaker 3 (01:23:24):

Well, because you never know where anything is going to lead you in life.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):

Exactly. And especially when you're starting out and you have no credits and a very small network. I guess that's where a lot of the open-ended networking idea that I had comes from is that I feel like at the beginning you should be less tied to individual successes and more just about the bigger picture should just be at times, unless you really want to work with somebody, just meeting them is good.

Speaker 3 (01:24:00):

Yeah, that's a really good point. Early in your career, your networking job should be to be around professional people in the industry you're attempting to work in. It's much less about specific finite gigs and more about just you're coming out of college, whatever your life looks like, it's time to now be with the people doing the thing that you want to do.

Speaker 1 (01:24:29):

Yeah. This conversation is helping me really clarify this because I think that when telling people to be open-ended about it, that's the goal I'm trying to get them towards. So in your example, you see a band, you want that band like

Speaker 3 (01:24:47):

Target acquired in your studio,

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):

Target acquired. I'm going for it. Agreed. Go for it. But just because

Speaker 3 (01:24:56):

What you're zooming out to the person you went to the show with to stay in the example I set up, and that's invaluable because we'll just add to it, making things up a hypothetical, the person

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):

Are things that have happened to both of us.

Speaker 3 (01:25:12):

Yeah, absolutely. The person that you went to the show with as a

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):

Manager,

Speaker 3 (01:25:16):

It doesn't matter where in their career, but you met that manager hanging out some other place. You became friends naturally, organically, which is the important part of this. Almost two hours of what we've been talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):

Has it been that long already?

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):

I don't know. Almost. But yeah. I love what you're saying in the Zoom out, in that you and I know so many people because we did all the work and we're older. We've been doing this for 20 plus years in that we take for granted the fact that the majority of our intimate friendships are within the realm of this industry. And we're not asking for anything other than friendship from those people. Just people we like to hang out with and text with and grab a beer with and go to a show with. But those people introduce us to other people. We become friends with those people. And then you get into the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, and then all of a sudden you're like, someone says, how did you work with that band? And you haven't thought about it. And when you do think about it, you're like, oh, well, I went to this show with my buddy Tim, who's a manager, and I just went to a show.

(01:26:25):

He didn't want to go alone. And then he introduced me to the singer of this band, and I got to know that guy. And I got lunch with him just randomly because we really enjoyed each other's company. And then he said that another band that he's friends with is looking for a producer. And I just asked for an introduction via email. And then next thing I knew, I was meeting with that band and I got that gig. And because of that record, that band went on tour with the band you've asked me about. They heard that record and they reached out to me.

Speaker 4 (01:26:56):

Yep.

Speaker 3 (01:26:57):

All because your buddy Tim asked you to go to a show with him, and you said, yes,

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):

That's exactly how it works.

Speaker 3 (01:27:02):

And I've gotten more work that way than I would actually care to admit. I'm not embarrassed by it, but I just don't think about it because of the example I set up. You don't think back through how you got in touch with that client because the reason you got in touch with them was you just went to hang out with your buddy, Tim.

Speaker 5 (01:27:20):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:27:21):

So you don't think about it as you didn't chase a lead, you didn't try to find your way to this thing, it came to you organically.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):

Yeah, that's exactly

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):

Through a real network, which is what you've been talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):

Yeah. So I don't think what we're saying is actually in opposition. It's

Speaker 3 (01:27:37):

Not. No,

Speaker 1 (01:27:37):

It's just at different stages. I definitely believe that if there's someone you want to work with, you should go for it and you should state your intention for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:27:48):

Yeah. And be honest.

Speaker 1 (01:27:49):

Absolutely. But man, like I said before, so many of my opportunities have come from that. So I remember there was this one gig I got mixing a record for at that time, Ozzy Osborne's guitar player, a guy named Gus G, and I mixed this in 2012. I met Gus in 2007 when we both randomly confronted a tour bus driver that ripped both our bands off. And the a and r guy who worked with my band and his band told me to meet him in a parking lot in Atlanta. He was like, I'm coming to Atlanta and we're going to confront this guy. And that's how I met this guy, Gus, who then became Ozzy's guitar player. But so I met him there when we in a really random and really random and we kind of just stayed in touch here and there. And then I had made a really good friends with a publicist who I didn't know who he knew guys. We were actual friends like lending him money, kind of friend,

(01:29:01):

Real friends. And one day, once Gus was already with Ozzy Osborne, I just was in la. I have gone to LA three times a year regardless of gigs for networking and for hanging out with these friends. We just had dinner one night. We didn't talk about work, we just had dinner. And then four months later, I get an email from Gus about mixing his band with my then studio partner. And that was five years after the initial meeting. It took a dinner with a mutual friend where we're not talking about business. Some emails now and then

Speaker 3 (01:29:46):

If

Speaker 1 (01:29:46):

We see each other at Nam grabbing a drink. And I could talk for hours about how many of those scenarios happened. So to me that seems like if you network properly, that will become like your meat and potatoes. As far as gigs go,

Speaker 3 (01:30:08):

It's sales

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):

1 0 1. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:30:10):

We're one man operations. So we're the marketing team, we're the sales team, accounts payable and receivable. We're the janitors, we're the tech guys and we're the engineers. So you got to be able to sell.

Speaker 1 (01:30:24):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:30:24):

And selling is having a network.

Speaker 1 (01:30:26):

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 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 remember, you already know how amazing it is. At the beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lama, God Eth Shuga, bring Me the Horizon Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others. 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 of the album and takes your questions live on the air. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics and Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use of your portfolio.

(01:31:28):

So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those who really, 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 loan, and so forth. It's over 50 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed. Enhanced members also get access to one-on-one office hours sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes on a live video stream, fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. If any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills and your audio career, head over to URM Academy slash enhanced to find out more. Before we took our break, you mentioned that we are the marketers everything. So why don't to talk about marketing for a minute or probably for more than a minute, because that's something that we get asked about a lot. And I think that it's something that I've noticed that producers get wrong a lot because they try to do things that work for traditional businesses

(01:32:52):

Like service businesses like a plumber or something where Roto-Rooter can advertise a certain way and it doesn't matter who shows up as long as that toilet gets unclogged.

Speaker 3 (01:33:03):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:33:04):

Which is fine. I mean, that's the way, that's the gig. That's the gig. That's how that works. However, I feel like when it comes to mixers, producers, engineers, you're looking for a specific person generally, right? Maybe for corporate voiceover gig or whatever, maybe not. But in this world of working with artists, they're looking for someone specific. They're not looking to call the 800 number and have a technician arrive to the house. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):

Well, what you're talking about is our names are directly tied to our work product where Roto-Rooter is a company, and the name Roto-Rooter creates the quality and the value where Steve, the plumber that shows up to your house, no one really cares if it's Steve or Ray or a all or J. They just want our shirt to say Roto-Rooter and the truck to say Roto-Rooter. And that alone builds the trust.

Speaker 4 (01:34:09):

Yes,

Speaker 3 (01:34:09):

The brand builds the trust. Where in creative services, even with Sterling mastering, that name creates trust, but people still want Ted Jensen to be the one that does it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:23):

Absolutely. And that also,

Speaker 3 (01:34:26):

And that's what you're talking about. So anyway, I just wanted to tease out a little more of the specifics. So if we're going to talk about marketing, there's a lot to dig into.

Speaker 1 (01:34:35):

Oh yes.

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):

So keep going.

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):

But the difference too with that, with what you're just saying is if I want a plumber, I go to Google and I type plumbers near me, or I just look for Roto-Rooter, the end look, make sure there's enough stars and

Speaker 3 (01:34:52):

Yeah, they've got a good Yelp review

Speaker 1 (01:34:54):

And

Speaker 3 (01:34:55):

They're not going to take your money and leave the toilet clogged.

Speaker 1 (01:34:58):

Yep. That's that though, end of story.

Speaker 3 (01:35:01):

Same

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):

With the majority of these service gigs. I just bought that car outside. I needed to get it inspected before the seven day grace period was over. I just looked up a European car garage that had great reviews, the end that

Speaker 3 (01:35:16):

Does inspections.

Speaker 1 (01:35:17):

Yeah. The end. I don't think that people look for sick mixing engineer and then someone comes up at the top of,

Speaker 3 (01:35:28):

I love it,

Speaker 1 (01:35:29):

Google. And I know it doesn't work that way, dude.

Speaker 3 (01:35:34):

Okay. I don't want to derail us anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:35:35):

No, derail us.

Speaker 3 (01:35:36):

Say we should do, this would cost money, so we're not going to do it. But it would be a fascinating experiment to hire an SEO optimization firm to take your name or my name and try to optimize it with the Google search sick mixer.

Speaker 1 (01:35:54):

Well, I'll just tell you that SEO optimization, even for something at URMs level is,

Speaker 3 (01:36:03):

I guess we're being redundant in saying SEO optimization.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):

Yeah, true.

Speaker 3 (01:36:08):

I did that. That was my mistake. But yeah, anyway,

Speaker 1 (01:36:11):

It's just the search volume is so low for audio to begin with that

Speaker 3 (01:36:16):

It just doesn't matter. It's wasted money.

Speaker 1 (01:36:18):

But still,

Speaker 3 (01:36:19):

Anyway, I just started laughing at just thinking about if you type in sick mixer, can I get my name to be at the top?

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):

I mean, maybe that would work, but I see people doing Facebook ads and

Speaker 3 (01:36:32):

Spending money on it,

Speaker 1 (01:36:32):

Spending money on it and

Speaker 3 (01:36:34):

Advertising their producing or mixing

Speaker 1 (01:36:37):

Their studio or whatever. And so everyone I know who's in business doing stuff that they really enjoy says that they spend just about zero on advertising.

Speaker 3 (01:36:51):

Yeah. I spend zero. I've never spent a single dime on advertising and I never will.

Speaker 1 (01:36:55):

There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:36:55):

It doesn't work for what we do for a living.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):

Exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:36:57):

In creative services, it doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (01:37:01):

I feel like maybe back in the days where you had those local print mags that would, for music scenes,

Speaker 2 (01:37:10):

Maybe

Speaker 1 (01:37:10):

Putting your studio ad in there worked or something.

Speaker 3 (01:37:13):

Sure. Because it was the only way for people to even find out you existed.

Speaker 1 (01:37:17):

Yes. I'm talking like 2001 or 1998,

Speaker 3 (01:37:23):

2004 ish is probably going to be the end of all of that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:27):

And

Speaker 3 (01:37:28):

Maybe a little earlier, maybe 2001 is when it's all just

Speaker 1 (01:37:31):

Dying. I did it in 2003, so I started my studio in 2002, 2003. It worked.

Speaker 3 (01:37:37):

You ran a print ad.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:37:40):

How much did it cost? Do you remember? A

Speaker 1 (01:37:42):

Few hundred dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:37:43):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):

But I did what you said not to do. I advertised three free songs, a hundred dollars a song after that.

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):

Did it work?

Speaker 1 (01:37:51):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:37:53):

You're probably not going to remember the dollar amount, but how much money did you make in your estimation from the $300 ad? Did you triple that investment?

Speaker 1 (01:38:02):

Oh yeah, absolutely. But what was more important was that, yeah, so I got most of the people who came in just did the three songs and left.

Speaker 3 (01:38:13):

That's the risk you took,

Speaker 1 (01:38:15):

But that was calculated. I wanted that

Speaker 3 (01:38:17):

To happen. Sure, yeah. I'm not saying you didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:38:18):

I wanted the experience.

Speaker 3 (01:38:19):

Yeah, you

Speaker 1 (01:38:20):

Did. And also it built my local network to where even those people who did the three songs that I made happy then maybe would come back or, well,

Speaker 3 (01:38:31):

Even better they're out in the marketplace with your product.

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):

Exactly. That happened.

Speaker 3 (01:38:37):

They can't stop that if they want to release it, you just gained a product in

Speaker 1 (01:38:41):

The

Speaker 3 (01:38:41):

Marketplace. That's really powerful.

Speaker 1 (01:38:43):

It worked. It wouldn't work. Now.

Speaker 3 (01:38:45):

So you spent 300 bucks and you got an awesome ROI

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):

Got started.

Speaker 3 (01:38:49):

For people that don't know ROI means return on investment.

Speaker 1 (01:38:53):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:38:53):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:38:54):

But this

Speaker 3 (01:38:55):

Was, I gloss over some of this stuff. I've learned a lot about it.

Speaker 1 (01:38:58):

I should have said what it meant. Yeah, no. So keep going. But it worked. It worked. But

Speaker 3 (01:39:04):

That's the end of it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:05):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:39:05):

Early two thousands, 2000 to 2003 or four running a print ad for your studio business. That was it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:13):

It was a different era. Absolutely. And it was not like every member, or it wasn't like every band had one member with Pro Tools or Reper or

Speaker 3 (01:39:22):

Something. Yeah, that's not, we can totally talk for hours. My feelings on that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:27):

But the thing is,

Speaker 3 (01:39:28):

Which aren't all negative. I said it negatively, but

Speaker 1 (01:39:30):

It's not all negative. But the three free songs thing isn't so special when they can just do it themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:39:37):

Yeah, these days. Yes,

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):

These days. And I,

Speaker 3 (01:39:39):

They have a mediocre result that's passable,

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):

Which is probably about what I was doing back then too. That's

Speaker 3 (01:39:45):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):

We all

Speaker 3 (01:39:46):

Start somewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:39:47):

Totally.

Speaker 3 (01:39:48):

My early recordings were terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:39:49):

Everybody saw it.

Speaker 3 (01:39:50):

That's how

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):

It works. You don't come out the womb. Amazing. Nope.

Speaker 3 (01:39:56):

So marketing,

Speaker 1 (01:39:56):

So saying that traditional marketing doesn't work for this, which I try to get through people's heads all the time, and what's funny too is people are like, but URM, we get hit by URM ads all the time. It's like, dude, we are a business selling a product. It's not the same thing.

Speaker 3 (01:40:11):

You're not selling recordings.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):

No.

Speaker 3 (01:40:14):

Yeah. I mean, you guys are under the education umbrella. You're selling education

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):

Materials. My partner Joey Sturgis, who he's had lots of big records. People were like, Joey advertises all the time. No. Joey advertises his plugins all the time when Joey was an active

Speaker 3 (01:40:33):

Producer advertising the product.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):

Yeah. He never advertised his product, come make a record

Speaker 3 (01:40:37):

With me.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):

No, that didn't happen. Asking Alexandria getting big was all the advertisement he needed.

Speaker 3 (01:40:43):

That's how it works.

Speaker 1 (01:40:45):

So speaking of marketing, how do you do it and how do you suggest people getting into it to

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):

It? My first suggestion is also my number one thing that I do, and it was the single thing that I hated the most. You have to learn how to self-promote.

(01:41:04):

It feels gross. Nobody wants to do it. And my biggest suggestion is to what we talked about earlier before we took the quick break is again, something I harp on all the time is being true to yourself, being authentic and honest. So for me, I don't ever really want to talk about myself. I suffer from lower self-esteem on my work product. I think we all do in various degrees. At this stage in my life, after all these years of doing it, I know that I'm good at what I do, but it doesn't mean that when I finish a record, I wouldn't have liked to have made different choices and that I don't beat myself up on my own work. I still do that. I'm confident

Speaker 5 (01:41:46):

That the day you stop is a bad day.

Speaker 3 (01:41:48):

It's a bad day because to me it means you've lost your spirit of learning and growing,

(01:41:54):

And I don't ever want to lose that, but I am confident that my work is good. I want it to be better. So I'm not ever going to be the person that says, I'm not ever going to type a post that has my name say on Facebook. So it says J Hall, and then the post content says, listen to this record I just made. It's fucking awesome. I can't do that. I know I have friends that just their natural personality is like they can get away with stuff like that. And we love them. I mean, Dave Grohl is not a friend of mine. I don't know him, but Dave Grohl can say shit from stage and we love him for it. And if the very next front man did it, we would burn him at the stake.

Speaker 4 (01:42:36):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:42:36):

Dave Grohl in front of an audience, seeing the Foo Fighters can say, fuck you guys. I hate all of you to 30,000 people, and we all cheer and scream because the way he does it is like, it's almost like he's being endearing about it because he doesn't

Speaker 1 (01:42:51):

Mean it's absolutely true.

Speaker 3 (01:42:52):

We all know what he means. He's being funny and comical and having a good time, and we love him for it. I'm not that guy. I'm not even trying to pretend to be the way I found myself in that realm of self-promotion, which I think is key in building a solo business and creative services, self-promotion is key. The way I found to do it, my voice is just attaching myself to the projects that I've been on. So I'm not even really saying anything. If you're in a band that I've worked with, when it's release time, I will post about it and just say, loved making this record for this band. That's it. It's out there. I'll tag your band so I can get to your audience. I will ask you to tag me. Because credit for our work doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:43:40):

And they may or may not do it,

Speaker 3 (01:43:42):

And they may or may not do it. And you can't be weird about that. You can request it authentically just and say, man,

Speaker 1 (01:43:47):

I made that mistake once in 2012. I regret it. It's one of those things where no regrets, but I think back on,

Speaker 3 (01:43:55):

I've got

Speaker 1 (01:43:55):

Plenty of regrets this one time where I did that and I was weird about it, and I feel so stupid still. Yeah. You can't be

Speaker 3 (01:44:04):

Weird about asking for credit,

Speaker 1 (01:44:06):

Not about asking, but about

Speaker 3 (01:44:07):

Getting following up.

Speaker 1 (01:44:08):

Yeah, about you can't follow feeling weird

Speaker 3 (01:44:10):

About it. You can't follow up. Yeah. It is what it is. And I try to be, I feel gross asking for bands to give me credit on their posts. I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:26):

Why do you think you feel gross? I'm asking because,

Speaker 3 (01:44:30):

No, I think it's a fair question.

Speaker 1 (01:44:31):

Yeah. We get this man. We get this a lot from people who, when I'm pitching nail the mix to people, that is actually one of their objections is they not, lots of producers are not into self-promotion. They feel weird about it. And we try. I have to help them overcome that. And honestly, when I first,

Speaker 3 (01:44:55):

I'm fine with it.

Speaker 1 (01:44:56):

I understand, but you still feel gross. You

Speaker 3 (01:44:58):

Said, when I ask, well, let's use a big one, because those are even scarier. I ask Story of the year to tag me in all their promotion of wolves, the record that I mixed, I asked them to give me credit for it and tag me in all their posts. And what feels gross to me is that I want the exchange to stop at selling the service regardless of how big an artist fan base is or how small it is. I personally want the exchange in that moment to end at you paid me an agreed upon price and I rendered the service to your satisfaction, and I turned the work over and we're done. I certainly hope that I do all of your work in the future. Client retention is a big, big deal. I want to serve every project as best as I possibly can. I don't want to swing back around and ask them for anything else. That's just me as a person. I don't like it. But with Story of the Year, I asked everybody regardless. I'm using them as an example because that's an A-list client,

Speaker 1 (01:46:15):

And it's even scarier to ask them.

Speaker 3 (01:46:17):

It's even scarier to ask the big clients

Speaker 1 (01:46:19):

Because it's not,

Speaker 3 (01:46:20):

You don't want to be a turnoff. You don't want to be a bother. You want them to come back and work with you. You don't

Speaker 1 (01:46:24):

Want to be, and you're talking to their machine.

Speaker 3 (01:46:25):

So to use a word you gave me earlier today, you don't want to be a Punisher.

Speaker 1 (01:46:32):

Perfect example.

Speaker 3 (01:46:33):

And that's a kiss of death for creative services. You don't ever want to turn the page to being the annoying person. You want to be the easy person because that's what gets you hired. You want your talent, your experience, and your skillset to sell the gigs. And then you want to be so laid back and easy to work with that they can't ever imagine working with anybody else.

(01:46:52):

That's my goal every single time a hundred percent of the time. So then it's a risk, and I don't like it because it feels like, man, this band hired me. They paid me. They trusted me to do this job. I did it. I'm really stoked on it, and now I'm asking them for something. That's what I don't like. I don't want that to be part of it. But in this digital age, it is. There's no more physical copies aren't sold with our names on the back anymore in the fine print. So getting credit for your work is at an all time, it's impossible. So using Story of the year, both for fan base size, and I picked them for a reason because they were freaking amazing. They were all about it. They put

Speaker 1 (01:47:40):

That's very cool.

Speaker 3 (01:47:41):

Aaron Sprinkle was the producer on that project. Myself,

Speaker 1 (01:47:44):

Aaron Sprinkle from Seattle.

Speaker 3 (01:47:47):

Yeah. Yeah. He's a good friend of mine.

Speaker 1 (01:47:48):

Really?

Speaker 3 (01:47:49):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:47:50):

He's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:47:51):

He lives here.

Speaker 1 (01:47:52):

He does?

Speaker 3 (01:47:53):

Yeah. He's been here for six years now.

Speaker 1 (01:47:55):

He do all the demon hunter stuff. Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:47:58):

Yeah, same guy. You got the right guy,

Speaker 1 (01:48:00):

Man. I mix engineer. Sorry for this tangent.

Speaker 3 (01:48:04):

No, it's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:48:05):

I've worked with him before. I'm a fan. I'm a fan of his.

Speaker 3 (01:48:09):

Yeah. I've done a bunch of work with Aaron. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48:11):

I haven't talked to him in a long time. I always thought he was great.

Speaker 3 (01:48:13):

Oh yeah. He's salty the earth. I love Aaron. We're good friends. Yeah, he is a really great guy. So he produced that story of the year record, and every single post they put out, they tagged us in it, produced by Aaron Sprinkle, mixed by J Hall. And that band in particular, they have a huge heart for that. They probably would've done it without me asking, but I asked, and the feedback from the band was, of course, of course we'll do that. If they had forgotten to do it, I would not follow up. And that's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:48:44):

That's where I went wrong that one time.

Speaker 3 (01:48:45):

It happens, man. Yeah, we all do it. So for that particular example, it's like, to me, I ask every single time, because it helps promote your business. That's how creative service people get found is attaching.

Speaker 1 (01:49:01):

I think that is the best marketing.

Speaker 3 (01:49:03):

To me, that's the only marketing that we have is attaching ourselves to the products we make. If the band will help you do that, that's fantastic. In the digital age of social media, we don't technically need the band's help. We can tag the band in our own posts, and then now we've attached ourselves. It looks better when the artist does it for you, but you have to do it too, even if they do it. So purchasing ad space, that's the wrong word. Purchasing social media ads

Speaker 1 (01:49:34):

Like Facebook ads or

Speaker 3 (01:49:35):

Whatever. Yeah, Facebook, Instagram ads. Does Twitter do? I really don't. I'm not on Twitter at

Speaker 1 (01:49:40):

All. Twitter is a, I don't think they do.

Speaker 3 (01:49:42):

Twitter does. Twitter doesn't do feed ads. I don't know

Speaker 1 (01:49:45):

This maybe, but it's a terrible medium for this sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (01:49:49):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:49:50):

It's only good for celebrities and news.

Speaker 3 (01:49:53):

So we're Facebook, Instagram, that's what we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:49:55):

YouTube also.

Speaker 3 (01:49:56):

And YouTube. It doesn't work. I literally view it as throwing your money down the drain. Maybe there's studio businesses out there that are crushing it with it. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:50:07):

I don't know of any.

Speaker 3 (01:50:08):

I don't know of any. I mean, I see ads from peers of mine. So these are just single entities. The big studio world is over. We're all operating in our homes and our names are our businesses. To me. Is it That's the only way you can do it, is having your work product be directly attributed to your name?

Speaker 1 (01:50:30):

I totally agree. I also think that the way that Facebook ads and online ads work, I mean, yeah, you can target them, but man, the way to get a client for recording is so particular.

Speaker 2 (01:50:46):

It's

Speaker 1 (01:50:46):

So specific. In general. It's because they like something you did. And so yeah, I guess you could target fans of the band, fans of the Story of the Year record, but it's such a wide net for something that's so specific. It doesn't make sense. Plus, that's not how bands look for producers.

Speaker 3 (01:51:09):

Nope.

Speaker 1 (01:51:10):

I think that's the key too, that I wish more up and comers. Understood. Put yourself in the shoes of band. Just think about most producers now were in bands. That's kind. That's

Speaker 3 (01:51:22):

How we did it.

Speaker 1 (01:51:23):

Yeah. The days of the non-musician engineer. I mean, there's some, I've met a few, but Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:51:28):

I've met a few. It's kind of rare. They're unicorns.

Speaker 1 (01:51:31):

They're unicorns. I mean, that used to be a thing. So think about it from when you were in a band, how did you find someone to work with? You probably looked up who worked on

Speaker 3 (01:51:43):

Stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:51:43):

You like the record?

Speaker 3 (01:51:44):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:51:44):

The end. That's what you did. And if you couldn't afford them, at least you looked up. Who did? The other local bands. Those local bands that sound better. The ones who draw the ones that are getting all the attention in your scene, you probably looked up who they worked with,

Speaker 3 (01:52:00):

Or you ask 'em if you know 'em or playing a show with 'em or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:52:04):

Exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:52:04):

In your local scene, you probably do. You probably have an easy time getting to those people.

Speaker 1 (01:52:08):

Yes. So it's either word of mouth or looking up

Speaker 3 (01:52:12):

Credits. Yeah. Who'd you work with? That's it. Can you make an introduction, send a text, or whatever?

Speaker 1 (01:52:16):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:52:17):

Yeah. That's how it works for me.

Speaker 1 (01:52:19):

That's how it works. That's how works Convinced for

Speaker 3 (01:52:21):

21 years. I've never spent a single Dime marketing

Speaker 1 (01:52:24):

Dude. I don't know anyone who's come on the podcast or nailed the mix. I mean, maybe, I can't remember. Maybe there's a few, but the fact is 250 ish episodes of this like 50 something nail the mixes. I can't remember. Anyone who has done it has

Speaker 3 (01:52:43):

Spent money on marketing.

Speaker 1 (01:52:45):

And some of them don't even have websites. That's the other thing.

Speaker 3 (01:52:49):

Well, we talked about that on the phone.

Speaker 1 (01:52:50):

I love your website.

Speaker 3 (01:52:52):

My website's a splash page.

Speaker 1 (01:52:53):

Your website is the perfect producer website.

Speaker 3 (01:52:56):

I hope so.

Speaker 1 (01:52:57):

I mean, you're employed.

Speaker 3 (01:52:59):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:53:00):

You're doing good records. I think it's the perfect producer website because again, no one is going to type in sick producer on Google and then go by Yelp review.

Speaker 3 (01:53:13):

It doesn't work like that.

Speaker 1 (01:53:13):

They're going to hear wolves or whatever else, find your name and then already know that they want to talk to you. Then find your site looking for contact info. That's

Speaker 3 (01:53:24):

It. Which is all my site is,

Speaker 1 (01:53:25):

Yes. Is contact info. That's it.

Speaker 3 (01:53:28):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:53:29):

So I mean, I do think that producers should have a site just because why not? But it doesn't need to be this complicated thing. It just contact info. And if you're brand new, then maybe have a few things for people to listen to. But that's it. The end.

Speaker 3 (01:53:45):

My objection for myself in particular in my career with having music that I've produced, recorded and mixed on my website to be played is that my genre diversity has been so great that I'm like, you're probably only going to listen to 15 to 30 seconds of the first thing. And if I put up one of the Hard Rock things I've done, and you're a pop artist, you're gone. I would rather attempt to have an exchange with someone that goes to my crap website that you love,

Speaker 1 (01:54:19):

Dude.

Speaker 3 (01:54:19):

Which I appreciate

Speaker 1 (01:54:20):

Completely. I'm being totally serious.

Speaker 3 (01:54:23):

I know you are, because the way you view it is the entire point of it. I want you to reach out. I want to be able to have some kind of communication with you so I can custom tailor what you hear. So if a pop artist reaches out to me and says, I heard this nawaz thing that you did for Capital Records, I really love how that turned out. Would you be willing to make this pop record with me? Could you send me some more examples of your work? So I know what they heard. I know how they found me. I know why they reached out. And then I can send them more things that are pop, like that project that they don't need to hear any more of that. They already heard it. I can send them stuff. I'm not going to send them alternative rock stuff I've done.

Speaker 1 (01:55:10):

Fair enough.

Speaker 3 (01:55:10):

So I can custom tailor what they're hearing of my work. So it's not manipulative. It's called good sales.

Speaker 5 (01:55:18):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:55:20):

And so if a hard rock band reaches out to me and references a record I made for facedown, a small label in California, I'm not going to send them the pop thing.

Speaker 1 (01:55:31):

No, of course not.

Speaker 3 (01:55:31):

But if they're going to my website and I have it all available to them, I can't cultivate the experience. Sorry. I can't curate the experience. I know curate's a word that gets way overused, but that's really what I'm after. I'm after curating the user experience, right?

Speaker 4 (01:55:50):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:55:51):

I want the people that are reaching out to me without me having to spend any time or effort. I get emails and I get private direct messages on Instagram that are leads. I want to take that lead and I want to curate the entire thing as best I can, which then increases my chance of selling the project.

Speaker 1 (01:56:12):

That makes perfect sense. I guess the only time that I really do think that having, and I agree about that, about why you wouldn't have anything up there, but that's just me. Sometimes I talk to people who are first starting out and their stated goal is, I want to be the dude that does all the extreme metal in my

Speaker 2 (01:56:33):

Region,

Speaker 1 (01:56:35):

And I know how extreme metal bands are. They need their elitist. And so having some extreme metal up there you've worked on that sounds on par with what those elitist want is huge.

Speaker 3 (01:56:50):

Okay. So what I just heard was, since we're talking about

Speaker 1 (01:56:53):

Marketing,

Speaker 3 (01:56:54):

What I just heard was if I was a third party marketing scoping expert sitting in the room with us right now, what I heard was, I would say, okay, everything Jay just said was from a marketing standpoint, he wants to make money mixing records.

Speaker 5 (01:57:10):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:57:11):

What AAL just said was, and I'm putting the example on you, you want to be the leading extreme metal guy in your region. So let's just keep it between us

Speaker 1 (01:57:19):

Specialization,

Speaker 3 (01:57:21):

That guy has a different goal than Jay AOL's business is to be the guy in his region for extreme metal. Jay wants to sell recording services. We both. You want to do that too, but you already know your exact market. You know exactly what you're after. So I would say in a scoping marketing meeting, I would say you need to put some examples up of your work to you. I would say the market you're after, you know how to find them and you know what they want. So get it out. Just get it out

Speaker 1 (01:58:00):

There. Yeah. So it's totally dependent on your goals.

Speaker 3 (01:58:04):

My goal is a lot broader, which makes it extremely difficult to put finite things out

Speaker 1 (01:58:11):

There that actually could work against you.

Speaker 3 (01:58:13):

It could work against me.

Speaker 1 (01:58:14):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:58:15):

My goal is to earn a living for myself and my family making records. I've never put a genre on it. I don't care. I've turned work down because I'm not the right guy. That sucks. But I live in Nashville. This is country music, USA. I've turned maybe 12 country gigs down. I've done some country records, but I've only done the ones that I feel like I can succeed at that can actually serve the client's purpose. I've turned other ones down. I've turned down hip hop mixing. I don't really feel like I could do it very well. Maybe I could. I just don't feel like that's a genre that I'm versed enough in.

Speaker 1 (01:58:55):

Not your thing.

Speaker 3 (01:58:56):

It's not my thing. So outside of that, all the little sub genres of pop, I've worked in most of 'em. I've done film scores or orchestral, I've mixed orchestras. I've done various genres in rock, and I've done some country. My goal is to earn a living in music production. If I put up pop and country and rock and a hard rock thing, a post hardcore thing, whatever, like all the sub genres, I'm going to alienate one of my potential customers. So if you know you want to do extreme metal. Go for it. Get the examples out there, hone in, focus on that group. Go find them, be friends with them and make their record. The reason I just have that splash page that you love so much is because I don't want to be specific.

Speaker 1 (01:59:47):

That brings up an interesting point, which is something that I find people struggle with and I find it to be an interesting topic because I feel like at the beginning of your career especially, you should be saying yes to as much as possible.

Speaker 3 (02:00:04):

Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 (02:00:05):

And you shouldn't be limiting yourself because for instance, I know of this one dude who's a total hardcore guy, but he's got like three Latin Grammys, and that's what he does. That's his bread and butter. He doesn't even listen to that kind of music. Somehow. It just worked that way. We just did a q and a with Colin Briton, and someone asked him about, said, I want to get into songwriting, what do I do? And his answer, he said a lot of things. But one of the things I want to key in on is that at some point in your career, you're not going to know where the opportunities are going to come from.

Speaker 3 (02:00:48):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:00:49):

And maybe you'll don't ever really totally know that.

Speaker 3 (02:00:54):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:00:54):

And so you kind of have to be open to going with the flow of where they're coming from. And so if you limit yourself too early on, you could be saying no to the thing that helps you break through. So at what point do you think that people should specialize or not?

Speaker 3 (02:01:14):

Oh man. Awesome question.

Speaker 1 (02:01:16):

Tough one.

Speaker 3 (02:01:17):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (02:01:17):

It's a tough one, man. I know dudes that are the metal guy, and yeah, maybe they could do other stuff, but they are,

Speaker 3 (02:01:24):

Yeah, I mean, that would be

Speaker 1 (02:01:25):

The dude

Speaker 3 (02:01:26):

That would be Joey, right?

Speaker 1 (02:01:27):

For his style. Yeah, but he's not the only one. I know a bunch

Speaker 3 (02:01:31):

Of these guys that, yeah, that world's big. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:01:32):

Yeah. And it has its own specific genres, and there are, right?

Speaker 3 (02:01:36):

Yeah. The metal world is very deep.

Speaker 1 (02:01:38):

It's an one and they just, or like that Latin guy, that's what he gets hired for. That's his thing.

Speaker 3 (02:01:48):

So at what point does someone specialize?

Speaker 1 (02:01:50):

Yeah. Do they say, I, I'm going to turn down these clients. I want only this.

Speaker 3 (02:01:55):

So I'll answer it two ways. I'll answer it for myself and then I'll answer it more generally or broad For myself. I would say that the specialization for me, it came out of what I was being hired to do, and I'll explain that. And then later in my career, so much more recently to now, specialization came when I got burned out from something else and I needed a break. So I chose to do it very strategically because, and so I'll get specific. Okay, so early in my career, I know exactly how it happened. At the time I didn't. I started, all I wanted to do was record bands, and I thought that my entire future was going to be a recording engineer. I didn't want to be a producer. I come from punk rock roots where no one tells the band what to do,

(02:02:46):

And the producer moniker in the punk rock world was always tied to a producer, tells the artist what to do, and no one does that in punk rock. You don't tell the band what to do. So I didn't want to be a producer that had a negative connotation. Mixer seemed way too specific to me. It seemed like I was too young and inexperienced to forge an actual financial path and just being a mixer. So I'm like, I just want to record bands. That's what I want to do. So I'm a recording engineer. That was my title, at least in my own mind. Well, I ended up working with a band. I'm from Kansas City. I ended up working with a band that had a grunge era run and did really well and was successful. This is at the tail end of that, and I did a few songs with them, and another band with that same story in the College town heard those and they needed to finish a record they had made on their own.

(02:03:42):

So they hired me to mix it. So I got lucky in a way. I don't believe in luck, but I got hired to mix this thing for that band, and because they were well known in that scene, I all of a sudden got known as a mixer. In my mind, I thought, well, I'm not going to ever say no to money trading recording services for money. So if people want to pay me to mix their records, that's great. I'm earning a living. If people want to pay me to record their records, that's great. That's what I'm going to do. Producing wasn't a thing for me yet, so I just started mixing more and more and more and more. At the time, I wasn't very good at it, but I guess I was just good enough to keep that ball rolling. So in Kansas City, I spent a handful of years not really recording the projects, just finishing the projects, mixing them. Then a few bands that I had mixed for asked me if I would make their next record. I was like, well, yeah, absolutely. My mentality was I want to make money selling this service.

(02:04:47):

Like what you said earlier, say yes, especially if you're being offered money and you're, they're not asking you to work for free. It was Yes, yes, yes. Then some of those bands that I went from mixing something they did, they asked me to then record and mix something. They did that same band or a few bands asked me to produce. Well, they were offering me money, and I was, again, back to a core value of mine. Always be honest. I told those bands, yes, I want this gig, but I don't know what producing means to me. I don't want to tell you what to do. This one particular band, their response to that was, we don't need you to tell us what to do as much as we need you to keep an eye on the big picture. They wanted to make a concept record,

(02:05:34):

And they're like, we just need you to just help us instead of recording our ideas. Just be willing to give your ideas. And I'm like, oh, that's a really good way to look at it. I look at producing records, like being a film director. They're all different. We all know various film directors styles, they're all different. They have, and we're not with them on set, but clearly they're different people. They approach the job very differently. That's what producing is. So I leaned into that from that point forward. So that would probably be 2006. From that point forward, that's what I did produce record mix. That was it. I became a producer, so I am still keeping an eye on the question. So to get specific with your career, in 2016, I got really burned out on producing for various reasons, but I just needed to take a break.

(02:06:33):

I needed to not have bands. With me waiting, it just takes a long time, and maybe that's a separate conversation for a different day, but by the beginning. So my schedule at the time that I realized that I was burned out was mid 2016. My schedule was filled till the end of April of 2017. So I knew I had to follow that threat. I had made those commitments. I had made all those commitments. I had taken deposit money for all those projects, and I'm a huge believer in honor your commitments and do give every project a thousand percent that you have. I honored all those commitments. I made records I'm very proud of in that timeframe, but in January of 2017, so I still had three, four months of bookings producing. I just told my wife, I'm like, I'm going to finish these records and then I'm only going to mix.

(02:07:26):

I just have to take a break. So for me, in the early days of my career, getting specific was only based on the client's request. If a client only wanted me to mix, that's what I did. If they wanted me to record, that's what I did. I wasn't controlling that specificity. In 2017, the beginning of 2017, I just made a personal choice for my happiness and my mental health of just saying, I need to not produce records for a little bit. There's some misery in my personal life that it's creating. It's not the band, it's not the client's fault. It's just me. I'm just burned out.

Speaker 5 (02:08:03):

Just you're ready. That's it.

Speaker 3 (02:08:05):

I just need a break.

Speaker 5 (02:08:06):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:08:06):

I've started producing again just recently. So we're in 2019. We're in the last half of 2019. I took a two year break, two and a half year break, and I'm starting to book producing gigs again. I just started one a week ago. So then to make it more broad, I would say I would only encourage an aspiring recording engineer, and I'm choosing that task in particular because I don't believe that you come out of recording school or trade school or whatever path you're taking. I don't believe that you are qualified to call yourself a producer right out of the gate.

Speaker 1 (02:08:46):

Thank you.

Speaker 3 (02:08:47):

I also don't believe that you're qualified to call yourself a mixer right out of the gate. So I believe you should view yourself as an aspiring recording engineer,

Speaker 1 (02:08:57):

Nor are you qualified to specialize.

Speaker 3 (02:08:59):

Oh, yeah, sorry. I switched. The word to specific. You said specialize right? In the early question, the original question, when should you specialize? Sorry, I mixed that vocabulary. Term up. Specialization to me should come through linear time and experience and a careful exercise of evaluating your goals, which you can only do as a single person and service provider. And saying, for me, I specified to mixing because I already had that business built in my own business, and I needed to take a break from recording bands and producing bands. So I got specific to serve my own mental health,

Speaker 5 (02:09:47):

Which is crucial.

Speaker 3 (02:09:47):

It's crucial. That's a whole nother podcast, which I'd love to talk about. Mind, body, spirit, we've got to take care of ourselves. But specifying early in your career, I think it is dangerous. I think it can be done, but I think it's very dangerous.

Speaker 1 (02:10:03):

I think it's dangerous too.

Speaker 3 (02:10:04):

So the two jobs that we've talked about that are like the diamond producing and mixing in our line of work, that's what everybody wants. That's the coveted task, right?

(02:10:16):

But until you know how to properly record a band, talk to a band, navigate the micro conflicts of this person's idea versus your idea, versus the guitar player wants this over dub, but the singer doesn't and how to help them work through those situations. You're not ready to be a producer. A producer is a recording engineer that has 10, 15, 20 years of experience that can actually help a band navigate this big vision of making a record. A producer is more than that. A producer can manage a budget without pissing the money away. A producer can deliver a project on time to a record label when a label says, we're trusting you with this money and this band, and we need the product delivered in four weeks. A producer, when they say yes, delivers the project in four weeks, no matter if they went from working eight hour days with the band to like, oh, shit, we're not going to make it. Hey guys, we've got to start working 14, 15, 16, 18 hour days because we promised the label this deadline. A producer's job is way bigger than just hanging out with the band talking about guitar tone. That's

Speaker 1 (02:11:30):

Shit. That's assumed.

Speaker 3 (02:11:32):

That's the assumed.

Speaker 1 (02:11:33):

Yeah, the producer, that's what you come to the table. You have to, if you can't do that,

Speaker 3 (02:11:38):

You're

Speaker 1 (02:11:39):

Not even at the table.

Speaker 3 (02:11:40):

So if you're 22 years old and you just left recording school, telling a band that saying I'm a producer to me is actually a detriment to your marketing, to your branding, to the service that you're selling. Because at that age, if you're talking to a band that has any mentality of what a real recording looks like, if they've made a recording before, they might smile and nod, but maybe even consciously they don't think about it. They don't believe you.

Speaker 1 (02:12:06):

You're not a real producer signing up to get in over your head.

Speaker 3 (02:12:09):

Exactly. It's okay to just say, I'm a recordist. That needs to be an okay thing to say. Everybody wants these fantastical titles and I like it. I'm not going to say that I don't like seeing produced by J Hall. I like that. It feels good, but at 22 years old, and I wasn't smart enough at the time, I'm not trying to claim this retroactive brilliance at 22. I think probably the ignorance and stupidity I had ended up serving me in that. I just really thought that my entire life was going to be the dude sitting in the chair recording all day long. That's just not how the market went.

Speaker 1 (02:12:49):

Nope. But when

Speaker 3 (02:12:50):

You and I started, we didn't know that a recording engineer was a dying title. We didn't know that at the time. Recording engineer up in the mid nineties was still a job. There still was a guy that earned a good living just sitting at the desk doing what the producer wanted. That was a job, and that guy knew how to backing up to some comical stuff, that guy knew how to align a tape machine and troubleshoot an SSL, and that was that single person's job recording engineer. Well, that went away on you and I

Speaker 1 (02:13:23):

Sure did.

Speaker 3 (02:13:24):

So being a recordist is now this. Nobody wants that title, and I argue that that's a really great title to have.

Speaker 1 (02:13:33):

I think it's a great title. I also think it's the equivalent of if we're talking about directors, you always hear about the best directors being editors first, for instance.

Speaker 3 (02:13:44):

Oh yeah,

Speaker 1 (02:13:44):

That's

Speaker 3 (02:13:44):

A good point.

Speaker 1 (02:13:45):

They spend a lot of time learning in the cutting

Speaker 3 (02:13:48):

Room, learning what a film looked, how to put a film together.

Speaker 1 (02:13:51):

Yeah, exactly. How to sequence it.

Speaker 3 (02:13:53):

What a great example.

Speaker 1 (02:13:55):

Yeah, they do their time. They put in their time doing that. I feel like it's the same sort of thing. If you don't understand all the mechanics involved, you're going to get in over your head.

Speaker 3 (02:14:08):

You're going to get in over your head. You're going to lose clients, and you're going to do a disservice to your clients, which means they're not going to come back and they're not going to tell anybody about it,

Speaker 1 (02:14:18):

Which is pretty much

Speaker 3 (02:14:20):

The only way to market. So we did it. We went full circle on it.

Speaker 1 (02:14:24):

We did.

Speaker 3 (02:14:25):

But I love that film reference. I've never thought about that. People outside of the music industry ask what a music producer does, and it's a fair question. And so I've always used the film director as my example because pretty much everybody has some general idea of what that job is, but starting off as a recording engineer, recordist, whatever you want to call it, that's really great language. A lot of great directors start off editing. They learn how a film is assembled by a seasoned directing them through it.

Speaker 5 (02:14:59):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (02:15:00):

Of like, no, that's not cut this other camera angle in because we want to be confrontational like this. That's really great. You can't be, and I believe this, I don't think you can be a great producer until you are a great recordist.

Speaker 1 (02:15:14):

I agree. The thing is, I think where people get this wrong is they see these great producers who might not be the fastest engineer ever, and they think, oh, I can slack on that. It's like, no, you can't.

Speaker 2 (02:15:29):

No.

Speaker 1 (02:15:30):

These are people who at a certain point in time decided to get a partner who was a ninja because they realized that the biggest thing they can contribute is I guess the personal stuff, the navigation of the waters, the big picture stuff. But that's after years, years of doing all the other stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:15:53):

Yeah, slogging it out.

Speaker 1 (02:15:54):

Yeah, exactly. They don't start that way.

Speaker 3 (02:15:57):

It's like the best restaurant owners are the ones that are willing to wash dishes when the dishwasher doesn't show up. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (02:16:03):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (02:16:04):

The best producers are the ones that, I mean, life happens. If you've got an engineer hired on your project to help with the editing and the sound collection and everything, they can call up and be like, I just got in a car wreck, man. I'm not going to make it in today. And if you're only a producer and you barely know how to operate, say pro tools is the DAW you're working in, you're down for the day. You can't do anything.

Speaker 1 (02:16:31):

I don't know any serious producers who aren't great operators.

Speaker 3 (02:16:36):

I don't either.

Speaker 1 (02:16:36):

I know

Speaker 3 (02:16:38):

It used to exist.

Speaker 1 (02:16:39):

Yeah, it did. But I don't know them now. Maybe they're not as fast as they're

Speaker 3 (02:16:44):

Sure. And that's okay

Speaker 1 (02:16:45):

Engineer because you can

Speaker 3 (02:16:46):

Get through a day or two.

Speaker 1 (02:16:47):

Yeah, sure. I mean, but

Speaker 3 (02:16:48):

What you're saying is that's business 1 0 1 is

Speaker 1 (02:16:52):

Delegate and know your strengths

Speaker 3 (02:16:54):

And know your strengths and spend money where it saves you time because your time is invaluable. So being efficient, if you're not the best drum editor, outsource it.

Speaker 5 (02:17:04):

Of course.

Speaker 3 (02:17:05):

Because if you've got a guy that blasts through Beat Detective and can do a song in 20 minutes and it takes you three hours, you're like, man, no way.

Speaker 1 (02:17:14):

But that doesn't mean you didn't put in your 10 years of being the guy that edits the

Speaker 3 (02:17:19):

Drums. Sure. You know how to do it.

Speaker 1 (02:17:20):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:17:21):

If you take a lower budget project, you love it or you need to make ends meet, yeah, you're going to edit those drums yourself. Can't

Speaker 1 (02:17:28):

Outsource it. Plus, if you're hiring someone and outsourcing, you need to be able to tell them how you want

Speaker 3 (02:17:33):

It, how you want it.

Speaker 1 (02:17:34):

And if you don't know what you're doing,

Speaker 3 (02:17:37):

What are you going to tell 'em?

Speaker 1 (02:17:38):

Yeah. What are you expecting

Speaker 3 (02:17:40):

Get back then? You're subject to what they think is best, and that's okay if they do great work, but that's not always the case and great work and creativity isn't always back to something else. We talked about the difference between objectivity and subjectivity.

Speaker 1 (02:17:55):

I know a few dudes, one in particular I'm thinking of who is a really good engineer, who's a really good mixer. He's really starting to get his own stuff, but the majority of the money he makes is editing for producers. He edits for all these metal guys. Just every time I talk to him, he's editing for some new big, big deal name, and I worked with him originally. He's the dude that I helped bring in and he could do it without direction. But the reason all these guys go to him is because he'll do exactly what they say and they all want different things.

Speaker 3 (02:18:38):

The first time,

Speaker 1 (02:18:39):

They'll

Speaker 3 (02:18:39):

Do what they say the first time, and that's invaluable,

Speaker 1 (02:18:43):

But then he'll know what they want after that.

Speaker 3 (02:18:45):

Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 (02:18:46):

So that brings this up. Learning how to be a great recordist with the film editor example it took takes having someone direct you through how to become a great editor. Mentorship and recording is super, super, super important. I do think that unless you're just like this crazy phenom genius who can do things totally on their own from the get-go, it does happen. Sometimes there are those, it's

Speaker 3 (02:19:16):

Rare.

Speaker 1 (02:19:17):

Joey was one of those. It happens, but it is rare and you shouldn't bank on being that guy. If you are that guy,

Speaker 3 (02:19:25):

Cool,

Speaker 1 (02:19:26):

But you shouldn't on it. So you're going to have to find someone to learn from and intern from. And in your opinion, when someone is hitting you up for an internship, and I'm not asking this as a reason for people to hit you up now, I'm just saying in general, what are you looking for? What makes you close an email versus keep reading? This is for people who are trying to get into these

Speaker 3 (02:19:59):

Awesome questions.

Speaker 1 (02:19:59):

Well, I think about this stuff a lot for people who are trying to get into that sort of situation where they're

Speaker 3 (02:20:07):

To transition from maybe having a day job. They hate

Speaker 1 (02:20:10):

Into

Speaker 3 (02:20:11):

Earning all their money in music production.

Speaker 1 (02:20:14):

They have to transition somehow by probably being under someone for a while.

Speaker 3 (02:20:19):

And what we talked about earlier, that path used to be really clear and now it's muddy.

Speaker 1 (02:20:25):

Yeah, it's muddy, but it's still there.

Speaker 3 (02:20:27):

It's still there. Yeah. I mean, 20 years ago, a guy like me would be posted up in a big old commercial studio with four SSL rooms and however the financial situation worked out, there would be some kind of a community that would know that I work out of that facility and they could come talk to a studio manager and try to get an internship that doesn't exist anymore. So getting to a guy like myself or anybody else with all this experience and knowledge to pass on has gotten a lot harder. Now it's a one-on-one communication. They go to my crap website and they hit the email.

Speaker 1 (02:21:09):

By crap you mean amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:21:11):

Yeah, I love it. And they send me an email. So that's an awesome question. What does the email, text, Instagram, direct message, Facebook message? I'm kind of bad on Facebook. I kind of ignored it for a few years, but I do get around to it. What makes me engage and what makes me disengage? Well, myself in particular, with my passion for paying it forward and giving back, I'm more apt to engage than maybe I should be. I will disengage. If you are using universal you, if a person is using language that makes me feel like they already know if

Speaker 1 (02:21:55):

Good one,

Speaker 3 (02:21:56):

That's

Speaker 1 (02:21:56):

A great answer.

Speaker 3 (02:21:58):

So you know what I mean? So lemme try to describe it to people that might not know, and they're like, what does that even

Speaker 1 (02:22:02):

Mean? God? So

Speaker 3 (02:22:04):

It's an email that looks

Speaker 1 (02:22:05):

Like this. It annoys the shit out of me, dude. It annoys me.

Speaker 3 (02:22:09):

I'll give you the perfect example. So my name is a nickname. It's just the letter J. I was raised by my middle name. I'm not going to say it.

Speaker 1 (02:22:19):

So you mean your real name isn't J?

Speaker 3 (02:22:22):

J Hall. J Hall. That's a nickname. My middle name.

Speaker 1 (02:22:27):

No, I mean the letter J. That's not on your birth certificate.

Speaker 3 (02:22:30):

No. So I have a family name. My legal first name is Frederick. My dad is Frederick different middle name, and on back into our family line, firstborn sons are Frederick. So my parents decided to keep it going, but they wanted to raise me by my middle name. They kept the tradition going. My firstborn son is the same way. So somewhere in high school, a friend of mine saw Frederick Middle initial last name on some form on my parents' countertop. He was picking me up to go skate or whatever we were doing, and he just looked at it. I was a sophomore in high school. I remember the moment. He just looked at it. He came in the house and he looked at it and he goes, you're J Hall. And I just laughed and I was like, yeah, I guess. And we left. We got to where we were going, meeting a larger group of friends, and we get out of the car and he just announces it to our whole larger group of skater friends.

(02:23:21):

He's like, you guys, this is J Hall. Everybody pauses and just they all pause and think about it for a second. Be really short moment. And they're like, oh yeah. And that was it. I was never referred to by my middle name again, which is how I was raised from birth to my sophomore year in high school. Everybody knew me as what the J stands for. Everybody from that moment forward, it was J Hall. J Hall. That's what everybody said. So now let's get back to the point. I want to give you the perfect example, but it needed the context. Hey James, love your work. My name's not James.

Speaker 1 (02:23:56):

So hey, that goes back to what I was saying before about knowing who you're talking to, by the way.

Speaker 3 (02:24:00):

Yeah. I'm wrapping up a bunch of things right in this moment. So I'm going to describe my biggest pet peeve of an up and coming person that's asking for an internship or even just asking for help, like online mentoring. They might be in some other country or across America, a different state. Hey, James, not my name. Love your work. That's great. That's really kind. You don't owe me any of that. I'm an aspiring recording engineer. I'd love to pick your brain a little bit on how you get some of the results you do. This is all great. I mean, I'm already mixing at some capacity and I'm pretty proud of my work. Nope, I'm shaking my head. People can't see it, but I'm shaking my head right now to a all. Nope. You just ruin the ride.

Speaker 1 (02:24:48):

That's the me, me, me, me, me.

Speaker 3 (02:24:49):

Shit. You are telling me that you already know in the same moment that you're asking for help. Let your pride down. We all suffer from it. We all have pride. There's moments in our lives where it rears its ugly head and we ruin something. This is not the moment. If you took the courage to reach out to someone who you've heard their work and you love it and you want their help, don't put anything in there about how good you are. I don't give a crap about how good or bad you are. You're asking me for something, and I've taken the time to read the email. So as soon as you say something to me about how good you are, you just ruin the ride. I don't want to help you now. And we've spent two hours talking about me having a spirit of helping. I want to help everybody. That's my biggest pet peeve

Speaker 1 (02:25:45):

Because there's something deeper, right?

Speaker 3 (02:25:47):

Don't assume that my name just say, Hey, Jay, because James is not it. It's not Jonathan, it's not Jimmy. I mean, I've seen it all.

Speaker 1 (02:25:57):

It's weird that why would they guess? I don't know. That's kind of odd.

Speaker 3 (02:26:01):

Many, many, many people guess I added that detail. Just I think it's funny,

Speaker 1 (02:26:06):

But that's a turnoff for me. It's interest. Interesting though. It's

Speaker 3 (02:26:08):

Interesting. Hey Jay, all my credits are J period hall. All my credits. My website is that. My social media monikers are that all my clients refer to me as that. It's a nickname that's stuck, but it is my name. It's my middle initial. It's no big deal. I'm not trying to have some stage name like Buckethead. It's just J Hall. Anyway, that's a funny caveat to it. Emails that work are, and for me personally, I don't need a compliment. I mentioned earlier that I have low self-esteem and that's something I need to work on with myself. Nobody can fix that for me. I don't need a compliment. It's very kind. It does make me feel good. I'm not a robot. We all feel good with affirmation. I like just seeing someone's spirit of their desire to learn the messages. I get that. Just say, I heard this record you worked on.

(02:27:12):

I don't know how you did it. Would you be willing to tell me? Right. Just this open-ended, the kindness of it. Respecting my knowledge, respecting my time. Just an honest ask, would you be willing to share how you did X, Y, and Z? Yes. 10 out of 10 times, my answer will be yes, I will do it. And I'll respond to that message in whatever form it came to me. I'll respond with kindness and I will say, I don't know when I'll be able to fully do this for you, but if you're patient will get there,

Speaker 1 (02:27:52):

That thing that you said was the turnoff is a big turnoff to me too. I've seen that a lot when people are responding to when I put out an internship, a application request, or when people are hitting me up for maybe a hookup with somebody else or whatever. The reason I've thought about this, because it annoys me a lot. It's like an immediate no. And I was thinking at first, I was like, why am I a dick about this? I don't think I'm being a dick. So I think that what it is is that I know how it's going to go. Maybe I'm assuming too much, but I really think I know how it's going to go. What it's going to go is they're going to ask me questions. I'm going to give them answers, and they're going to argue with me and tell me why they know better. Yes. That's how it's going to go.

Speaker 3 (02:28:48):

Why they know better. And then you just wasted your time.

Speaker 1 (02:28:51):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (02:28:51):

Because you are trying to help.

Speaker 1 (02:28:54):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:28:55):

They're not ready to receive it.

Speaker 1 (02:28:56):

And they don't view you like a real person, which means that they view you as

Speaker 3 (02:29:02):

A commodity.

Speaker 1 (02:29:02):

A commodity that they're going to extract things from like a vampire.

Speaker 3 (02:29:09):

So there's no mutual respect.

Speaker 1 (02:29:10):

Nope. And I need to be guarded. I feel like I need to. That's

Speaker 3 (02:29:14):

Protect

Speaker 1 (02:29:15):

Myself.

Speaker 3 (02:29:15):

And that's not a healthy place for you to be.

Speaker 1 (02:29:17):

Exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:29:18):

Because if you're guarded, you're not actually helping them. You're holding things back oftentimes, subconsciously, because something doesn't feel right.

Speaker 1 (02:29:26):

Exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:29:27):

But with that disagreement, that argument, or there's a better word for it. When you give someone really valuable information and right out of the gate they come back with why it won't work, God, man, that ruins the ride.

Speaker 4 (02:29:44):

It does.

Speaker 3 (02:29:45):

It just ruins the ride. I'm not trying to tell you that all of my techniques, all of my opinions, all my language, I'm not trying to tell you that it works for everybody. I'm just trying to answer your question of how I did it. You asked how I did it, I told you, and then you tell me that it won't work. I'm like that. Don't do that.

Speaker 1 (02:30:04):

It's a punisher move. Sometimes we get people who will post. So we have a forum, a group, a Facebook group for mixed crits who will post for mixed crits and varying qualities of mixes go up there. But sometimes you'll get some that are really off, just not good at all, and they're asking for help. And so people try to help and they have a rebuttal for, I mean, some advice people give is better than others.

Speaker 3 (02:30:35):

We

Speaker 1 (02:30:35):

Have a wide variety of people in there helping. Some are total pros, some are nubs. So the level of help is going to range, but they have a rebuttal for everything. And it's like, why are you asking? What is the actual motivation here for asking? Are you actually trying to get help or are you just trying to get validation? And if you're trying to get validation, why are you wasting people's times? The validation should be coming from the response to your work in the public, in my opinion. Or from your

Speaker 3 (02:31:12):

Clients. Yeah. Do you need to be right or do you want to be taught?

Speaker 1 (02:31:16):

Yep, exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:31:18):

Which is it? I hate dualism. I only presented two options, but that's a place where it really exists. Are you asking for help from a standpoint of that you're already right and you're not ready for it, or do you really want the help? Yeah, it's a mess. People need to be, right.

Speaker 1 (02:31:36):

They do. I think they need to be aware of how that comes off. I've told people when they've done that, they've asked me why I didn't respond, and every once in a while I'll just be straightforward about this is why. And then they'll argue with me about that too. And I'd be like, dude, you're proving my point. Yeah, you proving it. There's no way this was going to work out.

Speaker 3 (02:32:01):

You're doing it right now.

Speaker 1 (02:32:03):

But it never worked. It doesn't sink in.

Speaker 3 (02:32:06):

It gives you that. This is the only way I know how to describe it internally. It makes me want to leave the room. When people do that, I'm just makes me want to back out of the room slowly. Right. Or sometimes quickly. My brain is like, get the fuck out.

Speaker 1 (02:32:22):

Drop the Batman smoke.

Speaker 3 (02:32:24):

Yeah, just get out.

Speaker 1 (02:32:25):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:32:26):

The Batman

Speaker 1 (02:32:27):

Fly through the ceiling.

Speaker 3 (02:32:27):

Yeah, fly through the ceiling. I'm gone. Where'd he go? Where'd Jay go? Nah, nah. He gave me the creeps. Man. You needed to be right so bad. I just had to leave. Yeah. I struggle with that big

Speaker 1 (02:32:38):

Time. Well, because think about if that's already happening in an email, play that forward into an internship.

Speaker 3 (02:32:45):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:32:46):

That's bad news.

Speaker 3 (02:32:47):

It's bad news. Yeah. I've had one intern like that and I was able to get through to him and break him down. Not dehumanize him, but break that behavior down to just be like, this isn't helping you. This isn't helping you. You don't have to like this one technique I'm doing. You don't even have to use it. You don't have to take it. But don't tell me that it's wrong because we're hearing out of the speakers that it works. He got through it.

Speaker 1 (02:33:14):

I've seen people turn it around too.

Speaker 3 (02:33:16):

They can. That's a personality thing.

Speaker 1 (02:33:17):

Totally.

Speaker 3 (02:33:18):

Being able to humble themselves. I've had to do that too. I've had moments early in my career where my pride got in the way.

Speaker 1 (02:33:24):

Don't we? All

Speaker 3 (02:33:25):

Right. Don't we? All That's part of growing and learning and fail forward is I think it's Brene Brown says that fail forward, I might be attributing that to the wrong

Speaker 1 (02:33:40):

Person. I agree with it though, and I can tell you we have URM students who started like that three years ago and now are assisting some pretty big names.

Speaker 3 (02:33:51):

Awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:33:51):

I

Speaker 3 (02:33:52):

Love

Speaker 1 (02:33:52):

That. I feel really good that there are times where I will, if you catch me in the right mood and pull that shit, I'm not, won't dehumanize the person. It's all out of love. But I'll tell them exactly why this shit ain't going to work and how they are really, they want help. Obviously. They want to advance. Please take my advice. You are killing your chances of advancement before you're even getting started. And I know a few people who have turned it around and are doing great.

Speaker 3 (02:34:31):

It's hard work.

Speaker 1 (02:34:31):

It is

Speaker 3 (02:34:32):

Getting rid of your pride. It's tough.

Speaker 1 (02:34:34):

It's tough, but it's doable.

Speaker 3 (02:34:35):

It's doable.

Speaker 1 (02:34:36):

Okay. So then how does that play forward though, in terms of actually working with you or with one of your friends? I'm thinking Go ahead. Sorry. I was just going to say that in my experience, a lot of the times these types of relationships where someone asks for the help in the right way and gets the help and then a relationship starts. Oftentimes if that sustains long enough and remains positive at some point, sometimes that's where the internship comes from. The producer will be like, there's something about this kid. So I was asking good questions. He's got a great attitude. He's been at it for eight months. It doesn't at it hitting me up for eight months. He's not a quitter. And I've seen that work for a lot of people. A lot like we were talking about earlier with the networking that these things grow organically. Obviously I've seen

Speaker 3 (02:35:40):

Over time.

Speaker 1 (02:35:41):

Yeah, I've seen these internships happen through schools and all that, but I've definitely seen it happen this way. So in your opinion, how does it then progress forward?

Speaker 3 (02:35:52):

For me personally, it depends on my schedule. Not having another person in here, it depends on how busy I am, because I don't want to make a commitment. Back to what I said about honoring all the commitments I make for my clients. I take that really seriously just in my life in general. So if I tell someone that's asking to be my assistant or an intern, if I say yes, I feel like it's my responsibility to have a workload that can warrant them learning something from, because sitting in here with me alone when I'm not super busy working on actual projects is me just opening things on my hard drive, which are already completed and there's not any work to be done. You can poke around the session and just see how I built the gain staging or some effects I'm using, but you're not learning things in real time. Part of it for me starts there, am I busy enough in whatever season that this education request is being asked, am I busy enough to honor that commitment to actually teach this person something? If the answer is yes to that, of course you're looking for personalities that you naturally fit with. You don't want to spend 5, 6, 7 days a week in a small control room. I mean, my room's not super small, but you get it

Speaker 1 (02:37:22):

Small enough though, to where 12 hours a day, six days a week,

Speaker 3 (02:37:26):

If you don't get along, it's not going to work. So again, you're not going to honor that commitment because if you don't like this kid, not trying to imply age matters, but if you don't like this person, you're not going to naturally want to pour into them as a teacher and you're going to spend your days with the Batman smoke, right? You're going to be like, I need to get out of this room. Well, it's your room. If's your workload. If I want to leave my own room, that's not good,

Speaker 1 (02:37:53):

Man. I've been there.

Speaker 3 (02:37:55):

I have too. I have too. But I would rather the client make me want to leave my own room than an assistant or an intern

(02:38:03):

Because that's your staff. And if you don't have good rapport and just a natural organic kind of personality mesh with them, then that sucks. And again, it's doing a disservice to that person because you're not going to pour into that relationship. So you need to have a mutual respect for each other and you need to get along is the easy way to say that. Another thing that I look for past that is this industry, regardless of introvert, extrovert, regardless of X factor charisma or comedy or whatever, regardless of all of those things, you have to be a self-starter and introvert, extrovert is not a contributor to that. Nope,

Speaker 4 (02:38:44):

Not at all.

Speaker 3 (02:38:44):

That's just something that's inside of you. It is nature in nurture. Your parents, they can instill work ethic into a person. You can be born with it. You can have both of those things. Personally, I love both of those things existing, but you've got to be a self-starter. And for guys like us that have been doing it a long time, you can sniff that out super fast. And I tell interns and assistants, and I keep saying both of those words, interns to me don't get paid, but they absolutely learn things. They don't clean my toilets. I don't believe in that system. I don't send interns to pick up my dry cleaning. I don't have dry cleaning. I don't have interns wash my car. I don't have interns scrub toilets, and I don't have interns clean the studio. They will roll up my cables, like Mike stands. They will do menial tasks, but it won't be the bullshit tasks.

Speaker 1 (02:39:37):

To

Speaker 3 (02:39:37):

Me, that's

Speaker 1 (02:39:38):

There's an element of hazing to that.

Speaker 3 (02:39:40):

Yeah, that was the word I was going to use.

(02:39:42):

There's hazing and I don't agree with it. And if I'm not paying you, I have to give you something that you can leave with that's real. And to me, I want my interns to be basically sitting on the stool, which no one can see, but you and me. If a guitar player is not sitting on that stool and I have an intern, then the intern's sitting on it. They should be by my side actively watching the record be made. That's learning. And then I should be willing to give them little bits of time where appropriate to ask some questions. And I normally tell the interns that that should be as much as possible before or after the session. And for me, the session is when the band is actually presently here, an assistant gets paid no matter what. If they sit on the couch all day and they don't end up editing anything or moving any mics or doing anything, I still pay them. That's the delineation for me. An intern is rendering a service for me for free in exchange for valuable education. An assistant for me is rendering a service. They will be learning things as it goes, but I'm not actively engaged in their education.

Speaker 1 (02:40:53):

I have another reason for not making them clean, which is they're not going to be good at it. I'd rather get a professional clean service. Service. Why

Speaker 3 (02:41:04):

Would I? You're paying someone who cares about clean, getting it done.

Speaker 1 (02:41:08):

Why would I have some kid who feels degraded by this? Clean

Speaker 3 (02:41:13):

Is dehumanized in some percentage, who really wants to be in the control room with you. So back to the point, that's my delineation between using those terms just to say it so people listening can know why. I keep using both terms. So I look for a final component, which I make known, and I tell the interns and assistants that I've had in the past, I tell them that this is my expectation. I want someone, and this is why the self-starter is key. I want someone who can observe, assimilate, and execute because that's what our jobs are as service providers. Our jobs are to observe habits and trends within the little microcosm of a recording project to assimilate into those habits and trends and then to execute ahead of the client. That's our job. That's how we get paid. Of course, talent and skill is a huge portion of that, but if you really boil down what we're selling and the service I'm selling to a band that I can observe, assimilate, and execute better than the next guy. My work product is part of my talent, skill and experience, and I stand behind it, but I need my team to have a mind for it on their own because I can't make you do it. I can't make you see that at 2:00 PM every day. The guitar player drinks a coke. I can't make you observe that. I can't make you assimilate into it by getting the can of Coke for him around 2:00 PM I can't make you execute that task. I can tell you day after day, Hey man, Steve, it's 2:00 PM Steve wants a coke,

Speaker 2 (02:43:01):

But

Speaker 3 (02:43:01):

That's me observing, assimilating and executing for you. I can't make you do it.

Speaker 1 (02:43:08):

There's no future in that.

Speaker 3 (02:43:09):

There's no future in that.

Speaker 1 (02:43:11):

No future at all.

Speaker 3 (02:43:12):

I can pay somebody seven 50 an hour, which is Tennessee's minimum wage. I can pay someone seven 50 an hour and I can tell them to do it every day. If you're going to intern or assist with me through hanging out and getting to know each other before I agree to do it, I'm going to sniff that out on my own. I'm going to see if you're capable of learning that skill. I don't need you to have it ahead of time, but being a self-starter means you can learn it. You can learn the observe, assimilate and execute. If you're not a self-starter, I can't teach you those three things.

Speaker 1 (02:43:50):

Yeah. Does

Speaker 3 (02:43:52):

That make sense?

Speaker 1 (02:43:53):

Absolutely. It's like their head needs to be in the game.

Speaker 3 (02:43:57):

In the game,

Speaker 1 (02:43:57):

In the game. And you can't put their head in the game.

Speaker 3 (02:44:01):

They can't make them want it.

Speaker 1 (02:44:02):

Exactly. And those are, so there's a story I bring up frequently, but it's perfect. Do you know Josh Newell Uhuh, he's an engineer out in la. He was a Lincoln Park's engineer for a long time. He's worked with, has tons of big credits, great engineer. He's been on the podcast a lot. The reason that Lincoln Park hired him was at first he was a runner at NRG. The reason that they gave him a shot editing vocals one day when the dude was sick or something was because he was the only runner who got their food orders every single time. And they figured, well, if you care enough to get that right, actually pay attention. You'll probably apply that same sort of care to the vocals. Here's a

Speaker 2 (02:44:56):

Shot.

Speaker 1 (02:44:58):

And so it's not even about the food orders, it's about having your head in the game.

Speaker 3 (02:45:06):

What you just said is a great point. Care about the job you're doing, even if you hate it. I've had jobs I didn't like, but care about what you are doing. If you're a grocery store checkout clerk and you hate it, at least be good at it because you're being paid to do it. Go look for another job. Don't quit a job till you have a job. That's a tale as old as time. If you want another job, if you're pursuing recording, work really hard on building that business up, but as long as you're a grocery store checkout clerk, at least be good at it. Care about the task you're being paid for. You don't have to like it. No one wants to be the guy going to get Lincoln Park's food. Right. No one grows up saying, man, I just want to be a music business runner. That's not your end game.

Speaker 1 (02:45:59):

No, of course not.

Speaker 3 (02:46:00):

But

Speaker 1 (02:46:01):

It's not supposed to be.

Speaker 3 (02:46:02):

It's not supposed to be. But if that's the job you have, be good at it. Care about it because the people around you see it. It's not a manipulation, it's not disingenuine. It's that you are placing value in the thing that you're doing because if you place value in it, other people will. That's how you build a career in whatever industry you're working in. If you're sweeping floors at some factory and your goal is to manage the factory, you're never going to get promoted to whatever the next tier is by not sweeping the floor.

Speaker 5 (02:46:39):

So

Speaker 3 (02:46:39):

You're like, I'm above this. I'm not doing this. And you're like, well, you're not. No one's ever going to know that you're worthy of a promotion until you crush this thing.

Speaker 1 (02:46:49):

Let's do one thing for people listening. I want them to not think that we're contradicting ourselves by, because we both said that we don't agree with the hazing, but we're talking now about people crappy

Speaker 3 (02:47:00):

Running. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:47:02):

So there's a difference. And the difference is that the whole cleaning toilets thing, it doesn't mean don't help keep the place up. What it means is that there was a long time in the studio industry where studio owners were just cruel

Speaker 3 (02:47:20):

To

Speaker 1 (02:47:20):

Interns.

Speaker 3 (02:47:21):

It was like a fraternity hazing system.

Speaker 1 (02:47:23):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:47:24):

Is horrible.

Speaker 1 (02:47:25):

Running, being a runner is a very valuable thing. You need runners on projects.

Speaker 3 (02:47:33):

You need help.

Speaker 1 (02:47:34):

You need help. Exactly. Or you're wasting a bunch of time. And when you've got high dollar clients like Lincoln Park or whatever,

Speaker 3 (02:47:41):

And you can afford a

Speaker 1 (02:47:42):

Runner and you can afford a runner, you get a run.

Speaker 3 (02:47:44):

You want the runner to get it right. What you don't want is for the guitar player, for you as the producer, for you to need the guitar player to come in and play some parts, and for him to be in the lounge saying his food order's wrong and he's hungry and now he's hangry and now he doesn't want to play guitar and he's not going to get anything done that day because the food order was wrong.

Speaker 1 (02:48:07):

Exactly. There's no cruelty with that. That's just being part of the team.

Speaker 3 (02:48:12):

Exactly. Yeah. A hundred percent agreed. It's not, Hey, let's go to the old studio world was let's reach out and get five interns because this place is dirty. It wasn't, Hey, let's raise up the next generation of recording engineers because the guys that are here, they're going to retire or quit one day and we need a pool of talent, so let's go get some interns and raise 'em up. That's not how it used to be. It used to be This place is dirty. Go get some interns, get 'em cleaning. My car needs to

Speaker 1 (02:48:43):

Be washed.

Speaker 3 (02:48:44):

Yeah, it's super fucked up.

Speaker 1 (02:48:45):

I don't agree with that at all.

Speaker 3 (02:48:46):

That's how it was.

Speaker 1 (02:48:47):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (02:48:49):

I hate that.

Speaker 1 (02:48:50):

Me too.

Speaker 3 (02:48:50):

That is for sure not what we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (02:48:53):

I just wanted to be sure because there's going to be someone who's going to think

Speaker 3 (02:48:56):

That these guys are contradicting themselves and you like, yeah, it could be. You're right. It could have been misconstrued that way, and that's not where either of us were.

Speaker 2 (02:49:04):

No.

Speaker 3 (02:49:04):

If you have a job, be good at it and value in your own ability to crush that job, observe, assimilate, and execute. It's a big deal.

Speaker 1 (02:49:13):

So that guy I told you about, Nick, who is our production manager, I told you that he didn't know how to film when we hired him, but there were things that he was doing. For instance, when we worked with actually Billy Decker out here in Nashville.

Speaker 3 (02:49:29):

Yeah, Billy's

Speaker 1 (02:49:30):

Awesome. Yeah, he's great. Nick lived in Orlando and he really wanted to impress us, so he just asked if he could drive himself here to help on the session. So he drove himself here at his expense when the session was going on, we would get there and he knew exactly what kind of food we wanted without having asked him for it. It was all just laid out with our names on it. Nobody asked him for this. He was just helping. It was just taking the initiative and helping. I mean, the specifics of the job, of course we taught him, but the deeper part of it, having your head in the game was there. That's why we hired him. Head was in the game.

Speaker 3 (02:50:19):

So he did the J Hall observed, assimilated and

Speaker 1 (02:50:22):

Executed, but he

Speaker 3 (02:50:23):

Showed up, which is another big one. He, he drove from Orlando to Nashville. He showed up, he inserted himself in the place that he wanted to be, and then he created value there. That's how the world works. If you want a job, you got to just go get it. You just reach out and take it. That's not implying stealing. Don't take anything from anybody. Don't be a dick. But you're like, yeah, I want to work with URM and be the film guy there, or whatever was on his mind. Whatever he was thinking at the time and whatever happened with him, his version of that was, I'm just going to show up and do it.

Speaker 5 (02:51:03):

And it worked.

Speaker 3 (02:51:05):

And if you didn't hire him, he's not leaving with his tail tucked between his legs. Sure. There's a little rejection there, but he would at least leave knowing that there's not an opportunity for him at URM. He tried. He reached out and he grabbed onto something and if it didn't work out, he'd be like, okay, that's cool. I'll find another spot.

Speaker 1 (02:51:25):

And he would've definitely found another spot.

Speaker 3 (02:51:27):

Yeah, because he's a self-starter.

Speaker 1 (02:51:28):

Yeah, exactly. So one more thing I want to touch on real quick. Before we call it starving gone for a long

Speaker 3 (02:51:34):

Time.

Speaker 1 (02:51:35):

Yeah. I just want We

Speaker 3 (02:51:36):

Got to go eat.

Speaker 1 (02:51:37):

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (02:51:38):

We both worked out this morning. We're dying.

Speaker 1 (02:51:40):

Just one thing I just want to bring up real quick. Let do, we don't need to talk about it very long. I just want to touch on it real fast. Another thing people might bring up, you said interns don't get paid, assistance get paid. And I completely agree. Sometimes when I've posted internship requests, there's those dudes who will be like, it's immoral, it's slavery, blah, blah, blah. You have to pay your interns. I would never put up with this garbage. You guys are scamming and blah, blah, blah. Just tirade of hate.

Speaker 3 (02:52:14):

How many of those people got the job?

Speaker 1 (02:52:16):

Zero. That's exactly what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (02:52:22):

Okay. Alright, so keep going.

Speaker 1 (02:52:24):

So I know that some people believe that, but I think that what they're missing is that you are paying the intern with something.

Speaker 3 (02:52:33):

Well, you should be.

Speaker 1 (02:52:33):

Yeah. You

Speaker 3 (02:52:34):

Should be with real functional experience and knowledge.

Speaker 1 (02:52:38):

Yeah. This is not like the music industry pay and exposure scam. The

Speaker 3 (02:52:43):

Exposure bucks.

Speaker 1 (02:52:44):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:52:45):

My bank still will not take exposure bucks for my mortgage

Speaker 1 (02:52:48):

Payment. Well, they were acting as though that's what it

Speaker 3 (02:52:51):

Was. Yeah, absolutely. We're

Speaker 1 (02:52:52):

Trying to recruit slaves or something. No, that's not it at all. These people are going to learn how things are actually done, and then if they impress us long enough, you're going to get paid.

Speaker 3 (02:53:03):

Yeah. You transition it into a job.

Speaker 1 (02:53:05):

Yeah. So what is your response to that attitude? I've seen that

Speaker 3 (02:53:10):

Attitude. Well, it's tricky. It's tricky because

Speaker 1 (02:53:12):

Especially in la,

Speaker 3 (02:53:14):

Well, I would imagine, I've not looked into this, but I knew No, in Tennessee, outside of a formal education system in the state of Tennessee, it's actually illegal to not pay an intern. If that intern is enrolled in a school and required by their school to do that internship to finish their core credits and graduate, then not paying them is legal because you are straight up trading education for time spent. Got it. So I'm going to imagine that California has that same labor law. California has a lot of,

Speaker 4 (02:53:55):

Yes, they do.

Speaker 3 (02:53:55):

I'm not saying that's a crazy law, but they've got crazier laws than protecting people's ability to earn money. So I think there's a better way to talk about it instead of just raging your advertising advertising's, right? You advertising a job or you're advertising an internship, a career path, and they're slathering hate all over it, but you and I both know that really they want it. They wouldn't have slathered hate all over it if they weren't in some really bizarre, fucked up way applying.

Speaker 1 (02:54:32):

Yeah. It's not like they're

Speaker 3 (02:54:34):

Almost like they're

Speaker 1 (02:54:34):

Talking. They're not being altruistic by responding that way.

Speaker 3 (02:54:40):

It's not like they work for OSHA and they're trying to bust you.

Speaker 1 (02:54:45):

Right. No, that's definitely not

Speaker 3 (02:54:46):

It. They would make that known in the email, Hey, I represent blah, blah, blah in your state, you can't do this. And then you'd be like, well, actually, we're trading education. This is legal. That's not existing. It's someone that's applying in this really bizarre mine job of a way. So to that, I would say, well, you're not going to get the job. You don't understand the job.

Speaker 1 (02:55:13):

Yeah. You don't get what's going on here.

Speaker 3 (02:55:15):

So there are plenty of businesses in Nashville that are continuing the old model of severely taking advantage of the internship system. They're taking Belmont and MTSU and SAE audio students and having them clean toilets and wash cars and pick up dry cleaning and drive kids to school. I've heard all these stories.

Speaker 5 (02:55:41):

God, that's so fucked up.

Speaker 3 (02:55:42):

And the student, because they are part of formal education systems and they're required to have internships to graduate, they're getting class credit for it, but they're not really getting any, they're education out of it. So the whole system is failing. And so to that, I say the person that's telling you that you're doing this horrible thing and you shouldn't take advantage of somebody and make 'em work for free to that, I would say if I'm making you vacuum and clean and wash my car and pick my kids up from school, you're right, I should pay you. What I'm doing is illegal and horrible, but if I'm actually advertising in honesty that I need some help around here, I'm looking for a self-starter. I potentially have a job here. I need to suss it out. And what I'm going to do in exchange is I'm going to open these doors and I'm going to show you everything, and I'm going to stay by your side and I'm going to raise you up as much as I can for six months, whatever it is, a set period of time. You can't be this endless internship that doesn't work. You can't pay your rent if you just like,

(02:56:54):

I need to explore this business opportunity for six months. I'm looking for someone that's young, a self-starter that's going to hustle and create value that will turn into a job. That's the goal. Not promising it, but that's the end game. And I'm not going to make you clean the toilet as part of your core requirement. If it comes up, I would like you to have a willingness to help out, but it's not on the job description sheet. I would say. Well, I mean, you've advertised it appropriately. You're being fair. You're telling everyone what's happening. So don't send me a bunch of hate mail. If you want to come explore this opportunity, you know that you're not getting paid right away for it. And you also know that I'm being super clear that you may get paid in this set amount of time, but I'm not promising that.

Speaker 1 (02:57:47):

Yeah. The thing that I think a lot of people understand don't understand is that there's not enough money take chances like that on people you've never met who have no background, like you said you have to suss them out.

Speaker 3 (02:58:01):

If you want a paid internship, go to Google. They can afford

Speaker 1 (02:58:04):

It. Exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:58:05):

They can afford it.

Speaker 1 (02:58:06):

Exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:58:09):

If you want an entry level job, go to Walmart. I mean, I didn't pick Walmart. It's not derogatory. They're a massive company. They've got tons of jobs. Tons of jobs. You, if you want, get an entry level job as a recording engineer, go to some massive, massive live sound company. They can pay you an entry level salary to go out on some big tour and be the mic stand guy. I don't know that industry, so I I'm not trying to misspeak.

Speaker 1 (02:58:36):

No, no. You're right.

Speaker 3 (02:58:38):

If you want a recording engineer job and you're fresh out of school and you're obsessed with getting paid right out of the gate, which I mean, everybody needs to earn a living. I'm not crapping on that. Go get a corporate audio job. There's tons of companies that have an AV department that run their corporate meetings and there are web seminars and conference calls. There's plenty of audio jobs to get.

Speaker 1 (02:59:00):

Yeah, just don't go hitting up a solo operator that's looking for something specific.

Speaker 3 (02:59:08):

Look, a lot of us that are earning our living solely in audio production don't even make six figures a year

(02:59:15):

And you want $36,000 of that. I just can't afford it. I'm not saying you're not worth it. I just can't afford it, so if you want to create value and play the long game, I could make $150,000 one year and the very next year I could make 80 and the year after that I could make 60 and the year after that I could do 200. This is the world we live in. It's like I can't predict how that I can give someone a W2 set income. I did it for a while. I had an assistant that was on a salary on a W2 for three years. It was hard as hell and it was super scary and I was stressed out all the time and I worked both of us to death to make the whole thing work. I really did. We worked anywhere from eight to 18 hour days, seven days a week because I said yes to everything because I needed every single penny to just get us both paid.

Speaker 1 (03:00:11):

Yeah, that sounds rough.

Speaker 3 (03:00:13):

It was miserable sounds, I mean, we did a lot of cool work and there was a lot. He's still one of my closest friends and I still hire him as my main assistant on projects, but I just reached a point where what I needed my personal business to do, the goals I needed to hit and what I needed for my family, which is family first, the things that I needed to start affording for my kids and that kind of stuff. I mean, you're here in my house. I don't live lavishly. I drive a 2000 Toyota four runner. My wife drives an oh nine Highlander. You saw my son's has a 1974 mg in the garage that he's restoring, that we got for free from a family member is a gift. He wanted to tinker with cars. I don't live a lavish life, but I couldn't continue to afford my assistant, one of my best friend's salaries to hit some of my personal goals. I wasn't contributing to retirement. Well, that's not going to work out for me.

Speaker 1 (03:01:11):

No, of course

Speaker 3 (03:01:12):

Not. I have to retire. I have to be saving and planning and I have to grow my business. I have to spend money to travel to go meet bands. I travel to take meetings for potential business. I'm not traveling to go make the record. I travel to go meet with someone because as what I've told you and you've already figured it and we've talked about it, I'm better in person. I'll spend money for the right client to go to their town and go get a beer with them and close a deal that costs money,

Speaker 1 (03:01:44):

So

Speaker 3 (03:01:45):

That's my money.

Speaker 1 (03:01:46):

Just to bring it full circle. When going to talk to somebody, know who you're talking to, just

Speaker 3 (03:01:52):

Cause know who you're talking to.

Speaker 1 (03:01:54):

If you don't understand their particular situation or don't try to understand, you might be making completely unreasonable demands for the situation, which will not equal success. If someone understands that that's your situation, but they really want to work with you, they'll figure out a way with you to make it work.

Speaker 3 (03:02:16):

Right.

Speaker 1 (03:02:18):

With that, I think we can call this one man.

Speaker 3 (03:02:20):

Yeah. Awesome dude.

Speaker 1 (03:02:21):

We will go get some lunch. It's been been great having you on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (03:02:25):

Has it? I hope so.

Speaker 1 (03:02:26):

Absolutely. I'm glad I drove out for this.

Speaker 3 (03:02:28):

I'm glad you came up.

Speaker 1 (03:02:30):

You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy

Speaker 4 (03:02:40):

And press the podcast link today.