ALEX PRIETO: Pivoting to Bob’s Burgers, redefining your career, and the realities of TV audio

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Jay-Z microphones. For over a decade, Jay-Z microphones has combined all the critical elements of World Press, microphone manufacturing, patented capsule technology, precision electronics, and innovative industrial design. Jay-Z microphone's deep understanding of technology is informed by their open-minded, innovative approach. Trust us, sound can be glorious recorded. For more info, please go to JayZ mike.com. And now your host, Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:00:36):

Welcome to the URM podcast. I am Eyal Levi and I just want to tell you that this show is brought to you by URM Academy, the world's best education for rock and metal producers. Every month on Nail the Mix, we bring you one of the world's best producers to mix a song from scratch, from artists like Lama God, Ms. Suga, periphery A Day To Remember. Bring me the Horizon, opec many, many more, and we give you the raw multi-track so you can mix along. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, our collection of bite-sized mixing tutorials and Portfolio Builder, which are pro quality multi-tracks that are cleared for use in your portfolio. You can find out [email protected]. Before we get into the show, I want to tell you about a brand new product we just launched the Complete Beginner's Guide to Recording Rock and Metal.

(00:01:24):

It's a short two hour course hosted by Ryan Fluff Bruce, where he walks you through every single step of the process for recording a complete song from scratch in a simple home studio. If you've been thinking about getting into recording but you weren't sure where to start, this is for you. It gives you a list of exactly which gear that we suggest you get, shows you how to set it all up, then gives you a step-by-step guide to record a guitar, bass, and vocals and programming MIDI drums, everything you need to record an awesome high quality demo with no more than a few hundred dollars worth of gear just to make sure you have absolutely everything you need. The course includes copies of Tone Forge Menace, and Gain Reduction by Joey Sturgis tones and a virtual drum plugin from Drum Forge that's over $200 in software included with the course.

(00:02:15):

So it's pretty much a no-brainer. If that sounds cool to you, you can get instant access to the course and all the included [email protected]. Alright, welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. My guest today is Mr. Alex Prieto, an old friend at this point, and he's been on the podcast before, so I'm welcoming him back, but if you don't know who he is, I'll give you a quick bio on him. Alex started out in the Boston music scene being mentored by the legendary Dr. Susan Rogers, who actually was on this podcast a few episodes ago, and she is incredible, one of the best episodes of all times. So the fact that he got mentored by her, it says quite a lot. He moved to New York and started working under Dan Korneff and David Bendeth and then moved to LA and since then, worked with a Cato RIP Alex Newport, and most recently, the one and only Colin Brittain, who also was on the podcast, who is an incredible producer.

(00:03:35):

So it's worked under some great, great people. It's worked with bands like Pierce, the Veil, the Devil Worship Prada, motionless and White Basement, Papa Roach Hands Like Houses, crown, the Empire Block, party City and Color Rob Cagiano from Volbeat and Anthrax, and most recently a day to remember this is just some cool cred, but he did front a house for Trey Bruin's, secret Chiefs three, and if those of you who are fans of Mr. Bungle and Fa No More in that whole scene, know how fucking cool it is to have done anything with any of their bands and especially Secret chiefs. Most recently, Alex landed a role working in the Sound Department for Bob's Burgers on Fox, and on top of all this, as if that list wasn't long enough, he's got a great ass. So welcome, Alex.

Speaker 3 (00:04:33):

Oh, thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:04:34):

Welcome back.

Speaker 3 (00:04:34):

That was a hell of an intro.

Speaker 2 (00:04:36):

Thanks. Thanks. I mean, is any of it not true?

Speaker 3 (00:04:41):

No, it's pretty true. Pretty true. I'll take it. I'll take it.

Speaker 2 (00:04:44):

Okay, cool. Well, Susan, Susan, holy shit.

Speaker 4 (00:04:49):

I know.

Speaker 2 (00:04:50):

Holy shit. You weren't kidding. You told me that. She was incredible and wow, she was incredible. Talking to her was, first of all, I really, really like talking to people smarter than me and man, I don't want this to sound bad, but it doesn't happen that often. I don't know how else to say it because I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I don't get that feeling of like, wow, I am overmatched

Speaker 5 (00:05:23):

That

Speaker 2 (00:05:24):

Often, and she is so smart and so on top of her research and her game, and it is just so inspiring and enlightening to talk to someone like her and it's so awesome and I love that there's people that's smart advancing the cause.

Speaker 3 (00:05:44):

And what's so impressive about her is that normally when you have people that are that high functioning intelligence, they have a bit of an issue kind of relating to other humans, but she's so sensitive to the human condition, it's pretty incredible. I always say whatever room she walks into, I bet all the money in my account that she'd be the smartest person in the room. She laughs at me and makes fun of me for saying this, but it's like I always felt that she had a put on the Alex filter when she was talking to me. I'm going to kind of put this in a way so you can wrap your simple Neanderthal level brain around it, but she's just, and when you get her around people of her ilk, like other scientists and people functioning at that level and just let her go, holy shit man. The stuff that, and it's not just her field, it's science in general. My buddy does LED tech for Samsung, and she was talking about specific things I'm not even going to try to attempt to repeat. But yeah, she's just a phenomenal human being. Like I said, super sensitive to humans and artists in general. She loves being around artists because I think her being such a science person, being around these sensitive creative types that pound for pound match her on

Speaker 2 (00:07:10):

Makes her feel whole.

Speaker 3 (00:07:11):

It makes her feel whole. I mean, I feel the same way. Being around these hyper creative people and traveling the path with them, riding the river with them is such a fulfilling experience and seeing where they're trying to go and working with someone like Prince, who I'm sure matched her for her scientific level, he matched her on the creative side and I think that's probably why it was such an amazing relationship between the two of them and why it lasted so long.

Speaker 2 (00:07:42):

Imagine what that, or just think about what that says about somebody, what she was like 23 or something when he hired her. Just what does it say when a genius like Prince, who is, I guess he has some the, or had some of the highest standards imaginable for a musician in terms of who he would work with and how he approached his career. What does it say about the 23-year-old who he hired to wire up all his shit? He must have had utmost confidence.

Speaker 3 (00:08:14):

Oh yeah, he was smart enough to recognize talent. I think that's how he was able to keep his career going. He put people around him that were better than him at things that he didn't know how to do or didn't want to know how to do. He didn't want to have to worry about certain things. He just worried about creating the work. I think that's super important. I think now with the way things are going where one person has to do everything, it's like, no, man, you got to delegate. You got to find people that are better than you at certain things and be self-aware enough to realize, no, this person is clearly better at this. I'm going to figure out a way to have them in my circle.

Speaker 2 (00:08:58):

Well, the music industry for a long time, and I think still, but for a long time, put out this myth, the myth of the lone wolf, and it's to degree sometimes when say there's a front man and the front man gets all the credit, but I can think of some famous examples like Trent Resner for instance. Trent Resner is known as Nine Inch Nails and no knock on Trent Resner. Obviously that guy is incredible, but Nine Inch Nails was always Trent plus somebody I believe, and I forget the guy's name, and that just goes to show how good of a job they did. But from everything I ever knew about nine Inch Nails is nine inch Nails was Trent plus very, very close confidence. And then obviously the team that was around them that I guess extended one ring out from the center. But even in those situations, it's not just Trent.

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Trent Resner is the company almost, and I don't know any actual lone wolves. I think maybe Andy Sne was one of the only ones, but even him, I think he had an assistant at one point. I just don't believe that anyone can do this, can do anything on their own in this world. You need other people. Other people are going to be the ones who decide if you're going to get the job, if you're going to get the money, they're going to decide whether or not to buy whatever product you're going to put out. They're going to decide whether or not you're going to get the chance to do what it is you want to do, whether it's on the level of the consumer or a gatekeeper, and not just that to really, really do something, you have to not just do the thing, whatever it is, play guitar or be a great producer and make a great product, whatever it is, that's not all there is to it. There's also marketing, there's also networking, there's also logistical stuff. There's so much to it. You can't do it all yourself. And so the best thing is to surround yourself with people who are way better than you at those things that you don't want to do.

Speaker 3 (00:11:25):

Even if you wouldn't get a drink with that person, you need those personality types that you don't have, and that was something Susan put in me. It was like she had a whole diagram of the four or five personalities you need for it to really work and take off. And that was always something that I was aware of. I'm not the guy that's going to go out and sell records and pitch stuff to radio people and take 'em out and do all that crap. That's just not my personality. But I know a ton of people that I can call that I'm like, yo, I've got this record. Let listen. If you believe in it, what can we do? Or someone that's as cold as, okay, give me $10,000 a month and we'll get this up on radio and it'll be climbing the charts because I have these relationships with these PDs, or I know the curators at Spotify and the amount of time that I've spent working in the studio and learning how to put together records.

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They've been out every night curating these relationships with these people and spending the time. And to think that you can make records full time and then also have the relationships that are a hundred percent, man, it's kind of next to impossible. You're spending 16 hours a day in the studio. There's no way that you can then go out for three or four hours and drink and build these relationships with people. Kudos to those who can, but something's got to give. So have people in your corner that all have the same goal and let them focus on what they do best and delegate.

Speaker 2 (00:13:04):

Even on the URM front, the same applies, and at the very, very beginning, we were the ones teaching all the classes. I did a lot of classes, Joey and Joel did them, and I used to give classes on Creative Live, but as URM developed, well, first of all, we didn't want to make URM about us. It was never supposed to be a guru situation. It started out being about us because that's all we could afford, and we were learning how to have an online company and an online school, but it quickly became that we featured the best producers and mixers in the game with the best bands. And I could have kept on teaching, but there's no way that I could have kept on teaching and also run the company into what it's become and what it's still going to become. You can't do everything. There isn't enough time of the day. And not just that, there are producers who are way, way better than I ever was or ever would become

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Who love production. They love mixing. I never loved it like that. I love what I do now, but I never, it's way better to have them giving the classes and me helping them put together the classes and me doing everything to make shit happen. That's a way better use of me than to have me teaching all the classes all the time. I did at the beginning, I had to, and I set the bar for how classes should go in this space, but if I was trying to do this all myself, I know there's some solo operators or solo operators who try to do the online education thing and not just in audio, but you'll see a lot of solo operators try to do these businesses and they can do okay, but they'll never be a major company or something. They'll never get to that next level where they're a serious, serious organization and it's because one person can't do that much. They can't. You need a team, so what better than to have a team that makes up for your weaknesses?

Speaker 3 (00:15:22):

And I think that takes a level of being self-aware. And I've heard it repeated on different podcasts, but what a weird realization or a harsh, at least for me, it was like you said, there are going to be better producers than me. Okay, that's a common, yeah, you always look up to people, but I'm not the best at teaching this, or I'm not the best at doing this. And that takes a certain cut of the jib to sit back and be like, well, for me it's like I am not a top line writer. I can help people, but no, I'd rather call someone in and help with that because that's all they focus on. So why wouldn't I, I'm going to, for pride's sake, sit there and be like, no, I wrote that. I wrote that. Even if it's not as good, that's just so fucking counterproductive. Reach out to people, ask for help. Pay people.

Speaker 2 (00:16:16):

The pride thing is very interesting because it typically is pride that stops somebody from delegating or bringing in experts, but you're sacrificing the long-term big pride for the short-term little pride. I call it big pride and little pride. So for instance, I would take a lot more pride in URM being a massive company who's helping producers all over the world go pro and become real. And then being considered, if we were to become the number one online audio school, there's a lot more pride in that monumental achievement than there is in the pride of I taught all the classes.

Speaker 3 (00:17:11):

That's an intangible revenue of you being going to sleep at night and be like, Hmm, I taught all those classes today. I'm going to sleep. But it's just like,

Speaker 2 (00:17:19):

Alright. Exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:17:21):

Cool. I mean, again, if that makes you happy and that you can sleep better, you are convinced that that's making this, that you taught all the classes cool. But I think big picture, it's a little shortsighted.

Speaker 2 (00:17:35):

It's very shortsighted, or it's the same as when you're working with a band and there's two guitar players, one who's better than the other and the one who's not better won't allow the better guitar player to track his rhythms for him over pride. And that's small pride as opposed to the big pride of making the best record possible and then your band getting bigger because people recognize what a sick record it is. You're trading one for the other. And I understand it in human nature, we are designed to go for what we can have here and now because I think that we're not as capable of imagining the future as a real thing. And especially when you're younger, as you get older, your ability to understand time and long-term actually develops the part of your brain that understands that actually physically develops further as you get older. So when you're under 25, that whole part that processes long-term consequences isn't even fully developed. So I think that there's a point of it where it's, maybe it's not even pride, maybe it's just

Speaker 3 (00:18:52):

Your wiring,

Speaker 2 (00:18:54):

Your wiring isn't there yet to totally understand. But one of the things that's beautiful about humans, what sets us apart is that we can transcend our own natures. And so even it's in our nature to go for the here and now and to make right now better that temporary fix we are capable of seeing into the future and recognizing that if we sacrifice a little bit now, that tomorrow might be better in a much bigger way.

Speaker 3 (00:19:29):

Yeah, I know. I didn't make that realization until I was 27, 28. It's the mistake,

Speaker 2 (00:19:34):

But it doesn't fully develop until you're 25.

Speaker 3 (00:19:37):

Exactly. I mean, that's kind of just reinforcing your point. Just looking at the way things are for myself now versus 25, oh my God, just the pride things that I would like. No, we have to do it this way or have to do it that. And it's just like at the end, it's like no one really cares other than you. And the people that are consuming the music don't care. Maybe a handful of people on a forum somewhere will give a shit, but you're not making music for them. They're not going to buy the record anyway. And again, that's just a small optic of it, of just looking at music. The only area of expertise I really have is how people respond and react and the inner workings of the studio politics and dynamics. But yeah, working with a band that's 19, 20 years old and there's all this pride shit, and the biggest thing I notice is with the younger bands is also setting creative limitations on them.

(00:20:29):

Like, no, we don't do that because that's not us, that mentality or it's just not self-serving at all. And it goes back to URM, if you would've just locked yourself lock and step into this certain mindset of like, no, that's not us, that's not URM. How are you going to grow? How do you know? What do you know that the shoe fits if you never even fucking try it on? And with the animation thing, for me, I've spent so long going for the record producing thing and making records and all this stuff, and I did this show and I loved it, and 25-year-old Alex would've said, no, fuck that. I'm not going to do that. That's not chasing the dream. And even at 31, 32 when I took the position at Bob's, when I was telling some of these bands that I took it, I was expecting them to be like, oh, you're giving up on the music thing.

(00:21:20):

And that was such a small minded way, and that was me, my insecurity projecting not to name Drop, but I was talking to Jack from all Time Low, and I said, I got this thing on Bob's, I'm going to take it. And he goes, that's insane. Run at that full speed. And that's not what I was expecting. I was expecting like, oh, so you're not going to be really doing music anymore. And it was just the total opposite from everyone I told. Everyone was like, dude, are they hiring? Do they need music written? I'll work on that show. I love that show. And then I ended up just genuinely enjoying it more than I thought I would. I thought it would be kind of super technical and not creative, and it turned out to be the opposite. I love the people I work with, and the environment at the show is great, and it might be something I pursue more so than making records.

(00:22:18):

I've turned down some pretty cool offers from Hopeless and that I was supposed to produce a new Devil Wears Prada, and I had to tell them I couldn't do it because this Bobs thing was so fulfilling to me in a way that I didn't realize it would be. And I think you have to kind of be open to those things, even though it's not this lockstep thing over this idea that you've created of yourself. You kind of got to be open for opportunities. That being said, if it had been any other show, I don't know if I would've taken it.

Speaker 2 (00:22:50):

Well, that idea that you create of yourself is sometimes a really a good thing, but sometimes it can be your undoing. And what I mean is

Speaker 3 (00:23:02):

Oh, absolutely. It just takes some really hard, not difficult, but just a really microscopic look at yourself of what points of this personality or this thing that this person that I want to be is actually beneficial and what part is actually hurting me.

Speaker 2 (00:23:21):

So I'm going to mention somebody that's controversial, and let me just say before I call this out that this is not related to the dude's speeches or books or anything like that. People are polarized on him, but Jordan Peterson has a, he's a clinical psychologist, so he has a part of his clinicals psychology practice is they have an online program called The Future, well, the Self-Authoring Suite. And again, just for those of you who might be freaking out or who are fans of his, both of you should just shut the fuck up. This has nothing to do with his books or his speeches or anything like that. I just had to that disclaimer

Speaker 3 (00:24:07):

Real quick, just so I'm up to speed. I've seen the name around. Just kind of give me a footnote. I think he's a conservative voice.

Speaker 2 (00:24:17):

No, no, I don't think so. He's a philosopher professor, a psychologist who just gives a lot of, he has some pretty outspoken viewpoints that I guess some people could interpret as conservative, but he's one of those people that on some things he's conservative and on some things he's not. And sometimes he says really brilliant things and sometimes he says, really not so well thought out things. Gotcha.

Speaker 3 (00:24:48):

Okay. Hey man.

Speaker 2 (00:24:50):

And he triggers people a lot and sometimes he says some things that are really, really brilliant and sometimes he doesn't. But the thing is he's a very, very intelligent guy. His practice, his psychological practice is several decades old. That's what I'm referring to here. They have this thing called the Self-Authoring Suite, which is a program online. It's like 15 bucks where you're supposed to examine yourself very, very deeply, future, present, past. And so it's about overcoming. It helps you examine emotional things that still keep persisting

(00:25:41):

And to better deal with them. Also, you reevaluate who you are and where you want to be. And I'm not doing it much justice, but it's a structured way to take a very long, hard look at yourself. And why I think that that's a good thing to do is because the image of ourselves that we create at some point in time, like say in our teenage years, isn't necessarily who you still are when you're 25 or 30 or 35 or 40. And it's very, very hard to break out of what you thought you were supposed to be.

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Whether you were doing what you thought you were supposed to be and do for yourself or for somebody else is very hard to admit that maybe that changed. For instance, if when you were 15, you started playing guitar and you wanted to be a rock star and you got good at guitar and you toured and you did all that stuff, and then you're 30 and you don't want it quite as much. You want other things, but you haven't worked at other things, so you don't really have hard skills. This is the one thing you know how to do, but you don't really want to do it anymore. And I'm saying 30 because that's the age that I've noticed that a lot of people start to wonder if they really want to keep doing music or if they really want to keep being in bands. And I have seen it go both ways.

(00:27:10):

I've seen it where some people are like, yeah, it's not me anymore. They go back to school and they find another career. However, I've seen other people who clearly the ship has sailed and they're not on it, but they think they can catch up to the ship in their little rowboat, and they refuse to see themselves for who they are now. And because it's difficult because they think that they are supposed to be this thing that they built up in their own minds, and they think that how other people see them is this thing, and it's scary. What if they quit music and all their friends and family think they're nuts and won't like them anymore? And what if everything will fall apart and who are they without this identity that they have for themselves, but that identity could be causing them to stagnate in their own lives.

(00:28:07):

And so I think it's very, very important to kind of realign yourself with yourself every so often. Every few years I do it. I actually haven't done self-authoring, but I looked at it, I heard about it, and I do stuff similar to what it is every few years, every time that there's a big change in my life or I want to, or I have a new set of goals and I really want to get aligned with them, I sit there and I examine everything the past, what is it about the past that I still hang on to? Is there something that happened 10 years ago that if it comes up, I still get pissed? That thing that I said I wanted, how often do I really think about it? A big one was, and I'm rambling and I'll get to my point, but the big one was guitar.

(00:28:58):

I started playing guitar when I was 13. I don't play guitar anymore. I stopped about three years ago, somewhere around 25, 26, I started to realize that I don't like guitar the way I used to, and I saw myself as a guitar player, so that was me. I'm a guitar player. So for a long time I just kept on going, but I played less and less, and so I was not getting any better. And so my pride in what I did was starting to get less and less. My confidence was starting to get less and less, but I couldn't shake this identity of being a guitar player. And so it was starting to really, really fuck with me, me, because something was totally incongruent between how I saw myself and where I wanted to go. It was just all a big scrambled mess.

Speaker 3 (00:29:53):

What does it ultimately boil down to is that it wasn't making you happy.

Speaker 2 (00:29:57):

What I wanted at the age of 15 is not what I wanted at the age of 35. And that's okay if you don't have to stick to the same things. There's no rule that says that just because you worked at something or wanted something that you have to want the same thing forever. And if you're not willing to examine that, you might have a much harder life in the same way that if you weren't willing to give this TV thing a shot, which would require you to identify something other than a producer, because when I met you, that was your thing, a hundred percent producer, producer, producer. If you hadn't been willing to take that psychological risk of having to re-identify yourself or redefine yourself, you would've never had this opportunity to do something that you love. And I guess it's the same thing with online education.

(00:30:48):

When my friend Finn asked me to come do a class for Creative Live, I thought it was lame, and I'd only did it for him. He was my friend, and you should help your friends. He was starting this channel and he didn't know any other producers. And so I went to Seattle and I did this class, but man, this was 2013. I was so not into doing it because I thought I, I was fucking lame. I had never expected that I would fall in love with this whole thing. And for everyone listening, I really suggest that you take inventory of who you are and where you're at compared to where you were, and think about where you want to be and who you want to be, and do this every so often because it's important to get aligned and not trick yourself.

Speaker 3 (00:31:37):

Yeah, I mean, thankfully I went through therapy in my twenties. Shout out to Dr. Deborah Posner and

Speaker 2 (00:31:45):

Deborah,

Speaker 3 (00:31:47):

And it's scary. And I think it comes, we're in a male dominated industry. Let's not kid ourselves. And they're very much as a boys club and showing signs of any type of psychological anything is portrayed as a sign of weakness. It's just an old thing that's always been there. I'm not bashing it. It is what it is, and we all know it's there. That's fine. Let's just kind of move forward from it. But she helped me make some realizations about myself and be able to hold the mirror up and it's fucking terrifying looking at yourself, what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? And just being super real and figuring out what truly makes me happy. And I was wrapping up some records last year, and maybe it was a case of burnout and some other things going on, and they were dream records just the way we did it, the bands I was working with.

(00:32:37):

But I was coming to the end of it and I was like, I don't know if I'm getting the same fulfillment I am, make finishing up these records that I normally would have, that intangible revenue, the warm, fuzzy feelings, and that's super important. Yes, money in the bank is great, but it's an intangible revenue of how does it make you feel at the end of the day as cheesy and not cheesy, but how basic that sounds. If you're not getting the same fulfillment that you were from doing something at 30, that you were at 25, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with you. Don't be scared of it. Maybe step back, take a look. What is this saying to me? Kind of pull your head up out of the sand. We all do it when we're in a record. You have the blinders on. You've got a goal.

(00:33:29):

You're running at it full speed, at the detriment of your health and personal relationships. But just step back if it takes a few weeks, if it takes a few months, if it takes a few years. But you need to figure out what makes you happy at the stage of life that you're in, not what you thought made you happy five years ago, but what truly makes you happy. Now, I've had certain personal changes in my life, relationship wise, and I had spent so much of my twenties just working in the studio that I feel like, and I'm not the only one here, this isn't a unique situation. I missed out on funerals and birthdays and weddings and things people were doing. And I mean, I've made some great things, but I kind of want to experience that a little bit more. And with the Bob's Burgers, I have more time for personal stuff, shit that it's great to post about on Instagram of all the crap you're working on and how great your life is. But there are some certain things that I just want for me that it's no one else's business. Why? That makes me happy. It just makes me happy. For me, it's mountain biking, which I just got back into again.

Speaker 2 (00:34:43):

I'm glad you did.

Speaker 3 (00:34:43):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:34:44):

I remember how much you were into that.

Speaker 3 (00:34:47):

Yeah, in my early twenties, I was at the downhill parks, whatever it is for you, if it's fucking knitting and that makes you happy and you want to quit making Death Corps records to go to fabric fairs, if that makes you happy, try to incorporate that back into your life. If it means maybe diverging from what you've been setting your whole self up for, do it. That being said, if all you want to do is make records, but it doesn't matter, do

Speaker 2 (00:35:18):

That too.

Speaker 3 (00:35:20):

You just have to hold up the mirror. What makes me happy now, is it sitting on the couch with my girlfriend watching Netflix a couple of nights a week, and I'm just so much happier for it that long-term sustainable happiness, then I'm going to do that because you can post something up and you'll get a thousand likes on it, but then it's a quick endorphin kick. It goes away, and then you're just chasing that. And that's not happiness. You'll go for three, four weeks, whatever, and not getting that, and then you're back being miserable again.

Speaker 2 (00:35:53):

Yeah, it's fleeting.

Speaker 3 (00:35:55):

It's so fleeting,

Speaker 2 (00:35:56):

And it just, it's fleeting and it's shallow.

Speaker 3 (00:35:58):

Yeah. And I don't, I see so much of that chasing out here in la, and we're the land of guys who are still trying to cut it in their fifties looking. I saw a guy last night at dinner nearly fall out of his Corolla looking like slash

Speaker 2 (00:36:18):

Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 (00:36:19):

And it was just like, I wish that guy had a friend to be like, dude, maybe it's time to focus. But then on the flip side of that, is him chasing that fucking dream? Is that what brings him happiness thinking, I'm going for it. I'm still going for it. Even if he's in a studio apartment in fucking Burbank, if he's still happy trying to be the next slash then that is what it is. I

Speaker 2 (00:36:47):

Would've my doubts on it.

Speaker 3 (00:36:49):

I know if this was a bet, I'd say, nah, dude's.

Speaker 2 (00:36:52):

Yeah, dude's probably miserable. So in 2010, I was on the final tour with my band, and it was in Europe with Fear Factory and High on Fire. And one thing that, oh, it was awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:37:08):

That's a brutal tour.

Speaker 2 (00:37:09):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:37:09):

I still can't believe they got a Grammy

Speaker 2 (00:37:11):

Grammy

Speaker 3 (00:37:11):

Winning high on fire. What? Good

Speaker 2 (00:37:14):

For them.

Speaker 3 (00:37:14):

I know. It's so crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:37:16):

I know. I never would've seen that coming.

Speaker 3 (00:37:18):

Yeah. But at least it wasn't Jethro Tall.

Speaker 2 (00:37:20):

Yeah, exactly. That was fucking fucked up.

Speaker 3 (00:37:24):

30 years later was still like, really? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:37:26):

Yeah. This still so weird that that happened. So I was on stage, and one thing that a lot of Americans don't realize about touring in Europe is that it's not as great as you think it is at first. You have to build those markets up. It's not like you just go to Europe and it's this mecca for metal bands. It's very expensive to go, and they don't accept you right away. First of all, you're an American band, and so you're already at a disadvantage. And second of all, the metal scene does not just accept you. You have to earn that respect. And that's true of metal scenes anywhere in the world.

Speaker 3 (00:38:05):

Yeah, I was about to say,

Speaker 2 (00:38:06):

But you're at a double disadvantage being an American. But anyways, so this tour was after several years of us coming to Europe, being first of five or first of four, and having the shitty spot and playing in front of a hundred people and things like that. And that's fine. But by that point in time on that Fear Factory tour, I remember we were playing London. There's 2000 people. It was awesome. It was crazy crowd and full. And we're doing it. It's finally starting to come together. Everything we worked for we're finally on a cool package and finally playing in front of thousands of people. And you know what? I was so bored at that show, so bored. I was just thinking about going home. The audio hammer was about to come up. It was about to happen. And I was so over touring that I was there on stage at this. It was not a bad show. I mean, the crowd was crazy and it was awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:39:22):

Did that rattle your cage a bit, or how long did it take you to realize I shouldn't be doing that?

Speaker 2 (00:39:27):

So I had been wondering, I had been already planting seeds for a couple years to get myself into a different situation, hence the audio hammer thing.

Speaker 3 (00:39:39):

So was it a conscious effort of a bale or was it you're doing it kind of subconsciously? Why am I setting these things up? I'm supposed to be in a band, I'm supposed to be doing this.

Speaker 2 (00:39:50):

No, no. It was more like I knew that there was an expiration date. I didn't know how over it I was, that's the part that was subconscious. But I did know that my band had an expiration date. I always felt like we were on borrowed time. We got signed way bigger than we ever should have been signed.

Speaker 4 (00:40:13):

And

Speaker 2 (00:40:13):

So I always felt like we were on borrowed time. And when we started on Roadrunner, I knew that from the get go that if we got signed a Roadrunner, we would only make it one record and that we would then be on a smaller label. I also knew that if we signed a Roadrunner, that it would set me up for the future in intangible ways. We also had an offer on the deal from prosthetic, which was a much,

Speaker 4 (00:40:40):

Was

Speaker 2 (00:40:40):

A good offer too. It was actually a really good offer, but it was much less brutal. However, it's arguable that no one would've ever heard about us, that we would've never gone to Europe and never made the connections. And since I knew that either way we go, the band's not going to last forever, should go with a Roadrunner one. And so really from the beginning, I knew that there was an expiration date, but there was a time period in 2009 when I went to the hospital. I got swine flu. I've talked about it before, but it was in there for 10 days and could barely move and was getting morphine to every four hours. And all I could do was sit there and think. And it was just like how much, when you have 10 days to think and you could possibly die, you think about a lot of different things you think about.

Speaker 3 (00:41:38):

There's some scary realizations.

Speaker 2 (00:41:40):

And it was just like, you know what I have said from the beginning that this thing has an expiration date, but that expiration date feels a lot sooner. I think it'll be here before we know it. And I need to start working this out now. I need to start figuring this out now. I still went ahead and tried really, really hard for the band. It's not like I stopped working for it,

Speaker 5 (00:42:12):

But

Speaker 2 (00:42:13):

I started planting the seeds, and that was in 2009. And then in 2011 is when I went to Audio Hammer. But point being that, so for a little while I was already working on getting out of there. But I guess the exclamation point at the end of the sentence was that show in London on the last tour where it was like, yeah, I was right. I am over this. This is not for me anymore. I remember being in the vehicle being like, God, what have we wreck? Not There was a time period where, and we have wrecked by the way, but there was a time period where the risk was acceptable. To me. It was like, this is dangerous to be on the road eight hours a night, like eight hours a night. That's a lot of driving. This is risky. I mean, maybe it's not as risky as a soldier or a cop, but it's risky because eight hours on the road is risky, and I'm okay with that. And then there came a point where I'm no longer okay with that. I'm not okay with being unsecured in a van or even a bus eight hours a day. It's not cool. It's not worth the risk for me anymore. So I started feeling that and then and then being on stage and being bored at what should have been one of the highlights,

Speaker 3 (00:43:37):

The crux of the, yeah, that this is what I've been dreaming about since I was 13 in my room,

Speaker 2 (00:43:45):

Wanting

Speaker 3 (00:43:46):

To tell everyone a fuck off. I'm going to go be this fucking huge thing. And it's so funny how so much of that motivation through our twenties comes from that 13 to 16, especially a lot of people in music and metal or probably people that were picked on. So it's this whole much of middle fingers up, I'm running at this, I'm going to prove all you fuckers wrong. And then you kind of hit 30 and you're like, oh, right. It's true what my mom was saying 20 years ago, these people don't matter, and I've already proven them wrong, gone, and I've done this. Well, who am I proving this to now? 13-year-old, Alex, that you're still cool. 13-year-old Alex was a pain in the ass, or 13-year-old, y'all was probably a pain in the ass too. I've never met, how often do you meet an awesome 13-year-old,

Speaker 2 (00:44:35):

And the fact is 13-year-old Alex and a don't exist anymore.

Speaker 3 (00:44:39):

No, those wants and needs are gone. Now you have at 32, I feel closer to 50 than I do 23. And I don't mean physically or mentally, it's just more like, okay, I need to prepare for

Speaker 2 (00:44:51):

In what you want for your life.

Speaker 3 (00:44:53):

Yeah, I need to prepare for just prepare. God forbid there's a couple of weeks where I can't work. I've set up now a certain level of comfort and quality of life that I want to make sure that if I decide to take two weeks off, whether it's health or I want to go to fucking France with my girlfriend, I can do it and I'm not freaking out and I can do it. And that's what's going to make me happy now is going on a vacation or doing a mountain bike trip. And it was probably the same for you. I know when I was on a tour bus, every time that goddamn driver hit the rumble strip, I was wide awake. I never slept. I don't know how people, God bless 'em, I never could sleep on any bus or van. I just was always waiting for a fucking spin out.

Speaker 2 (00:45:36):

Well, I guess I have had lifelong insomnia. So the sleep deprivation wasn't a result of the driving. It was a result of just me not being able to sleep. But I will tell you that there was this one time, I'm just going to divert for a second. This is funny. But speaking of, there was this one time I was on tour in Europe and I was thankfully on a bottom bunk, but I got thrown out of the bunk one morning or night or morning I think. And yeah, I got thrown out of the bunk. So I was like, what is going on? No one else got thrown out. And I hear the driver being like, fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh, shit, fuck. And then I get thrown around a little more. I'm like, what is going on? So I run up there to see, and we're on a mountain in a two lane road in reverse, and there's cars in front of us who are honking at us, who are coming down the mountain, and we are going down the mountain too backwards. And what happened was that he tried to get up the mountain and the bus couldn't do it. So partway through the mountain, it just stopped going forward.

(00:47:04):

I mean, this is one of those wind around the mountain type roads, so he couldn't turn it around. So yeah, we went about 15 miles in reverse down a mountain two lane road

Speaker 3 (00:47:19):

Wondering who put the shit in your pants.

Speaker 2 (00:47:21):

Yeah, I did. I'm just kidding. I didn't shit my pants, but I didn't wake anybody up for it. I didn't want to cause a panic. I felt like that would only make the situation worse. But that's what I mean by touring is dangerous. I mean, we could have just as easily gone over a mountain if the driver wasn't as good as he was. And that kind of thing happens on tour. We know people who have been killed or severely injured from it. But to your point, that didn't scare me that much. And that didn't stop me. That didn't happen. And then me, I started being like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Maybe I should go home. None of those thoughts. I thought it was fucking awesome. I was like, I'm going to tell people about this.

Speaker 3 (00:48:11):

Yeah, this is a war story.

Speaker 2 (00:48:12):

This is so cool. Yeah, I fucking survived that one. But man, now fuck that. Fuck that. Absolutely not. No, no, no, no. And so yeah, at around when I was over it, if you told me that something like that could happen, I'd be like, I'm not, no, not doing it, just not doing it. Not interested.

Speaker 3 (00:48:38):

It's like 25 of those risk receptors just fire in. You're like, no, no, no, no, this isn't cool. No,

Speaker 2 (00:48:48):

I think I was 27. But still. Let's change topics here for a second. I want to talk a little bit about Bob's Burgers. So you're currently working on Bob's Burgers, correct?

Speaker 3 (00:49:04):

That's correct.

Speaker 2 (00:49:05):

Which is amazing. Can you talk a little bit about the change in workflow and environment and I guess requirements between working in audio as a band person, I mean as a audio producer, engineer for bands versus working in a team full of people and major budgets and crazy deadlines?

Speaker 3 (00:49:32):

Yeah, it's vastly different. A couple of people have asked me, so what's it like? How would you just similar question. I would say it's a low pressure, high stress situation. So there are certain days where it's very relaxed, nothing's going on, but as soon as something hits your inbox, you need to deliver it as soon as possible, which is usually in the next 20 minutes. And it needs to be perfect. No, you're on this show and it's at the top of its game as far as mass marketed animation goes. You can't make mistakes. You got to be at a hundred percent. And that kind of comes from my bosses. Everything has to be delivered perfectly on time, but you're only expected to do what you're hired for. Obviously you jump in wherever it's necessary. It really is a team of people doing it. But yeah, there's just no margin for error. Your deadlines are so tight and there's just so much money on the line and that you just can't really fuck up.

Speaker 2 (00:50:34):

So the thing is that people who work with bands might be thinking, but I have deadlines and there's a lot of money on the line too. What do you mean?

Speaker 3 (00:50:47):

Well, you won't have your door kicked in by the head of animation by Fox. Where's my episode? So let's look at a band, a pretty successful band. They're probably doing 500 to a thousand cap rooms a night. There's probably 30 to 40 people on a grand scale that are relying on some level of income from that band, whether it's the crew, the day-to-day manager, the person who works at the merch company, that all is depending on that revenue to come in, right? With Bob's, you're looking at hundreds to thousands of people that are relying on that income as their sole income. So that's just kind of the responsibility there. You don't want to let down the writers. You don't want to screw up the animators that have to start on these storyboards that have their own deadlines. You've got the guys that do all the lip sync stuff and the timing before it gets sent to Korea for animation who have hard deadlines.

(00:51:43):

You've got the people at the network whose income rely from that show. I mean, that's just looking at it at a fiscal level. But there's also the legions of fans that expect a new episode on a certain date. The people that run the Bob's Wikipedia, they know more about the show than I think some of the people that work on the show, certainly more than I do that sit there and catch every little thing. It's just, yeah, there's not a lot of wiggle room. And especially now that we have other things going on. A grand scale, Lauren Bouchard who runs, who's created, he literally, his day is managed to the minute, and if that gets off, we're talking millions of dollars are in

Speaker 2 (00:52:29):

Question. Now what do you mean by managed to the minute

Speaker 3 (00:52:32):

His schedule of what he has, he's very involved, but now they've structured him. So he works on certain things at certain times. He has meetings with Apple or Fox, FoxNow, Disney, and he needs to do certain things for each show or for other projects. So from when he gets up to goes to bed, his day is packed. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (00:52:57):

And it could be like five minutes here, and then it'll take exactly 17 minutes to drive there. And then

Speaker 3 (00:53:04):

Basically, yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:53:05):

That kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:53:05):

They're calculating how long it takes for him to get from the record of Bob's back to the studio so they can have a meeting with X amount of people about this certain thing.

Speaker 2 (00:53:15):

And even if it's in the same building, it's a five minute walk.

Speaker 3 (00:53:19):

It's almost to that level. So,

Speaker 2 (00:53:21):

Well, the reason I'm asking is because that's how our Japan tour schedule was. So I've seen stuff like that in real life,

Speaker 3 (00:53:28):

And he needs to be at the top of his game too, because he has to deliver. So if his mind is getting pulled away from pointless crap or things that he shouldn't be worried about, that's just a domino effect. If he doesn't get these certain ALS or ALS takes that he needs for this episode to go through that aren't the right ones, that could totally slow down production. And then we've got Seymour, our editor, he might have to be there Friday night until midnight to get it delivered to Fox, or God forbid he doesn't get what he needs back from the animation fixes. We have to deliver it to Fox for an air date that Sunday night, and they need it within a certain amount of time, and they're doing rewrites and revisions up until the very last second. So it really is a razor's edge of getting it in on time.

Speaker 2 (00:54:20):

And let's talk about money real quick, obviously without getting super specific. So when you're working on a record, if it's a local band and say it's like 10 grand or under, I mean, that's still a responsibility to not waste their money and not to give them something great. And then if you're working with sign bands, I mean, sometimes the budgets get into the hundreds of thousands, but that's rare. I mean, in general, you're talking about 15 to $30,000 maybe a little more. The further up you go, the less and less bands that have that amount of money. So $50,000 budget, there's not that many bands that can command that a hundred thousand dollars budget, even less.

Speaker 3 (00:55:11):

Even fewer. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:55:13):

And that a hundred thousand dollars budget though, that's for the record, that's for the entire project for tv. That could be a fraction of the budget for a weekly episode.

Speaker 3 (00:55:26):

That's correct. I don't know what the exact number is, but I've signed an NDA, so I really can't talk about too much.

Speaker 2 (00:55:36):

Yeah, yeah, I understand.

Speaker 3 (00:55:37):

Especially the fiscal things, which is really hearsay. There's only maybe 20 people who know what the cost of a Bob's episode is, but yeah, and that's an all in we talking labels too. That's an all in budget usually, so there's no going to the well and asking for more, so you've got to get it done.

Speaker 2 (00:55:56):

Yeah. So I guess the point though, being that even if you can't discuss the financial details or whatever, that one episode off of a TV show that is generally has a higher budget than an entire album that gets done for a label

Speaker 3 (00:56:13):

Exponentially, but that that one episode will generate more revenue than probably that band's entire catalog, which is crazy to think of a band's 15 year career. And again, we're using that midlevel, not even that 800 cap room a night band, which is a lot of what metal and metal core is. Now, obviously you've got the bring mes and stuff, but yeah, 15 year career. And then I think this I can't talk about, but I think they were saying Bob's is like a billion dollar house now as far as if you look at everything with syndication and merchandising and everything like that.

Speaker 2 (00:56:55):

So that means that the pressure on you to not fuck up is much higher.

Speaker 3 (00:57:02):

And it's a pride thing too, whether you're doing the $10,000 album or working on Bob's, your work is a reflection of you obviously, so you don't want to fuck up. And you know that there's a line of people around the goddamn city, and even to get those budgets, the low records that want to take your job. So why wouldn't you deliver? Why would you make it difficult to work with you? I don't fully grasp that unless you're just so brilliant that people are willing to deal with you. But that's

Speaker 2 (00:57:33):

Rare. That's

Speaker 3 (00:57:34):

So rare. And even Prince, he took care. My buddy Fluff worked for Prince on Top, another person who I'm very, very close with, and he took care of his people. When you worked for him, you were paid handsomely, everything was taken care of. Susan would say when they were on tour, she get to her hotel room, her bags were there, she'd leave the room, go to work, they'd go to the next venue, next whatever, and her bags were back in her hotel room. She just didn't have to think about that. But he paid for that luxury that he, and I think that's kind of the difference between music and television is a lot of this stuff is you're kind of on your own. You're very much an island in the music world. You just got to figure it out and deal with everything yourself. Whereas with Bob's, it's kind of just taken care of, oh, my computer isn't working within 15 minutes, you've got it there, fixing your shit because we can't fall behind.

Speaker 2 (00:58:35):

What's really, really funny about that, it's so true, just when thinking about the URM summit. So we pay for our speakers, we pay them to speak because we don't want them to half ass their presentations. So we pay them to speak, we pay the flights, we play the hotel, pay the transportation to and from the hotel to the airport. To me, that seems like the standard thing. You should do that. How can you invite someone to speak at your event and not pay them for it, and are you expecting them to go out of their own pocket to come speak at your event? That's crazy. But just about every other music audio conference I know of just about, they have their speakers pay their own way, and that blows my mind. But that's a good example of what music can be like is you're on your own. And a lot of times people will not even pay for flights, which is insane to me. So I feel like in some ways that's way cooler, that you're part of something where they actually take care of you.

Speaker 3 (00:59:53):

And the personal time is pretty valued too. And this comes from the top. Janelle is the supervising producer on Bob's and Lauren's right hand woman, and she's like, have your private time. We want you to happy to be here. If we're working you to the grindstone and you're not happy to be here, we're not getting the best work, and we can't afford not to get the very best work out of everyone that's here. So have a private life, enjoy your private time, make sure you get everything done when you're here. But there's not going to be the 11:00 PM panicked phone calls.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):

I was going to say that's the opposite of making records, especially if the band is lodging at your house or you're recording at your house, you're expected to work or be on call 24 7,

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):

And it's kind of, is that just part of the job description? Is that accepted? And it is. It's part of the culture of being a producer. You can either accept that or you can fight it and turn your phone off at 10:00 PM when you go home and it's just the way you want to do things and it's the artists, there's no right answer, but yeah, I do kind of like having my personal time. That being said, I just finished mixing this Bad Omens record and because I care about the project, when those guys text me at one in the morning about a vocal thing, I'll answer, but they also show their appreciation. So I think you just really have to, it's a case by case basis, but I think every single band kind of demands that full.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):

Yeah. The thing is that you can turn your phone off at 10, but there's somebody else who won't.

Speaker 5 (01:01:44):

Right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):

And the thing is to, and I know this from everybody who has had a band lodge with them or work in their house, and I'm saying this because there's a lot of home studios now, is if you want to take a day off, I mean you have every right to take a day off. You have every right to end the session at a certain time and then be with your family or your girl or whatever. You can do that stuff. However, you can also create a really weird vibe between you and the bands you're working with because for some reason they expect you to be on call. They mostly all expect you to be on call for the thing. If they feel like working at 11 and they're full of inspiration and you're there and you're working the record, then why can't you just come do this thing?

(01:02:43):

You know what I mean? It's an expectation. It's like an unspoken expectation. And I know a lot of producers who are okay with that. That's a thing. And I used to be okay with it, and even now I don't work with bands anymore, but there's times where it's midnight and something comes up and I talk to a coworker every once in a while. I mean, I try to go to bed earlier, but it can still happen and it doesn't bother me and I still will go for it, but it used to bother me with bands because of the expectation right now there isn't an expectation now it's like we respect each other's hours and all that stuff, and so I'm happy to do the work late if it comes up and needs to be done, but I don't like the expectation and that's why I don't make a good producer.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):

I think as for the younger producers that are listening to this, I think it's really important you set expectations. If you know the band, they're their time when they're the most productive is between, I don't know, 5:00 PM and 1:00 AM. You can set up your schedule to work those hours. Obviously it's not ideal, but then they also have to understand that you're going to take a day, you're going to take Sundays, or I notice it more with the more established bands that they're more respectful of time. My middle of basement record was my anniversary and I said, Hey guys, in two weeks I'm taking the weekend off, so if you guys want to schedule some fun shit to do in LA, let's do it. But this was after me catering to their schedule. They were cool, their lovely human beings. It was the same with hands. I had to take two days for my Girlfriend's brother's wedding. I was like, I'm just letting you guys know I'm here to work when you're ready to go. So I know that you guys were one to 11. I will be here at 1230 ready to go. I'm not going to force you to get here at 9:00 AM or I'm done at six and then, oh yeah, I take these two days off. I think that's where things get twisted.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):

Yeah. However, there are producers who do the I work from nine to six and if you want to work with me, that's the way it is. However, they've

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):

Put in the hours already.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):

They worked to that. Yeah, they worked up to that point.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):

That's not something that you can start. I mean, if you want to start off your career that way, great, but I don't think it's a really smart one. You got to anything creative that you're getting paid for, you got to kind of bend a little bit and cater to the artist. We're in a client based. It's a client. You've got to serve them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):

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 and 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.

(01:06:15):

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 usage, your portfolio, 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 in, 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 Mixed 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. When I was first signed to Roadrunner, we had Colin Richardson mix the first album.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):

Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):

I know, so nice. And this was in 2006. I think he was probably 50 or so around then, and I got flown to London for it and we spent three weeks on the mix and he was my fucking hero and I couldn't believe that I hung out with him for three weeks. It was unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (01:08:02):

But

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):

I remember he worked from 10:00 AM till 7:00 PM every day, and he didn't take days off. He didn't want to. The hours were 10 to seven and that did not change. At seven 15, we'd go out to dinner, he'd buy me dinner. It was really cool, and he'd always show up for breakfast at the exact same time, and the hours were, the hours were the hours were the hours.

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):

There probably was something very secure in knowing that too.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):

Yeah, I loved it, but I asked him if he always did that. He was like, no, of course not. Earlier in his career, he would do the insane hours as he got on in age and experience, he was able to dictate the hours. I can tell you man, Colin Richardson's schedule, I had no issues with it whatsoever. It was Colin Richardson,

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):

But it was also, he could probably get more done in nine hours than most people could do in 72 hours of straight work.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):

Well, kind of. He's actually very slow. He was known for taking his time, and I don't mean slow inefficient actually, he's actually very efficient. He just takes forever because he wants to make sure that the tone is the best it can possibly be, and until he's sure of it, he's not moving on, and so you could spend three days dialing the kick with him. The thing is, when he's done, the kick is going to be unbelievable. I can remember Colin recorded trivium drums at my house in 2011. Was

Speaker 3 (01:09:45):

He still doing the small room thing because you had a pretty big room there for drums?

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):

I had a big room. It was a big room and it took him three days just to figure out where to put the bass drum and then another four days to get the bass drum sound. Man, it was glorious when he found it. The whole drum session ended up taking three and a half weeks. It's a long drum session. It was only supposed to be a week and a half, so that's kind of how things are with Colin. So only three weeks on my mix was actually really quick,

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):

And not to delve too much into that, but with a guy like that, when a week and a half turns into three weeks, were you then expected to pay for that extra week and a half or because it was of his doing that he was able to maintain the same financial obligation?

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):

Oh, no. Roadrunner paid for it, and not only did they pay for it, but they paid the extra studio time too at a $1,200 a day studio.

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):

That's great. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):

Different times.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):

You can still demand that, but the label has to have confidence in you that it's going to be worth it in the end.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):

Different times as in no one in their right mind would do that nowadays for a band that was unproven.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):

Right? Yeah. I mean, I can tell you from a recent thing where we had to go a little over and the label was happy to oblige, so

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):

Over by 30 grand,

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):

A 10th of that, a couple of thousand dollars. But

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):

Yeah, this was over by 30 grand on a baby band.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):

But you think about when that was going on, a new band would get like 200,000, two 50 to do their first record, 500 for the second, and depending on results, we could be seven 50 to a million on the third or fourth. It's a bit different now. It's not like you're getting 20 to 25. I mean, fuck, most are now 10 to 20 on an indie label for a starting record.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):

Well, our budget was 20 for the first one, and then they ended up paying 50 because of that 30 that went to Colin. That was unexpected because someone who did the original mix got fired and then Colin got brought in, and so just having him on was not even part of the budget. But anyways, my point just being back to what we were talking about, that Colin's schedule was his schedule and there was no arguing about it, but he was also Colin Richardson, the guy that invented modern metal production sound, and who am I to dictate anything to him.

Speaker 4 (01:12:25):

However,

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):

When working with bands as me a producer who was not Colin Richardson, I would have to bend to their schedule often or they'd get weird with me, and I know a lot of people that would happen with, so with Bob's burgers, I think that it's really, really awesome that your personal time is respected. So it's like when you're working on the Bob's Burger stuff, it's like they expect 110% and for you to deliver things at their insane standard because there's millions of dollars on the line and hundreds of people's careers and millions of fans, and however, when you go home, you go home.

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):

Yeah, my phone doesn't ring after five o'clock on Friday, and I don't hear anything until I walk in the door 9:00 AM on Monday morning.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):

There's a beauty to that. There

Speaker 3 (01:13:19):

Really, really is. I appreciate it, and that's why I come in swinging as much as I can every day.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):

So you said that with hands, I think that's what you were just talking about, how it went over a little bit and how with them

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):

It wasn't hands. I don't want to go into which band it was, but okay,

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):

So there was a band that you were just talking about though that you didn't mind taking the 11:00 PM phone call.

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):

Oh, oh, oh, I got confused. I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about the budgetary thing. It was Bad Omens that I was on their schedule.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):

Okay, so I'm just saying that that's okay if you decide it's okay, but as a general way of living your life always at the behest of other people's schedules, I feel like that can start to get old.

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):

It didn't start like that with them, to be honest with you. It started a bit more of a business relationship, and then as we became friends, it went both ways. The kind of doors opened up as far as communication went, but that was as trust was gained and things like that. It was almost like I was, I don't want to say the fifth Beatle with them, but there would be a lot of conversations with things that normally a mixture doesn't get involved with that we would talk about just because I gained a ton of respect for them and what their vision was, and I had information that they needed or that they had questions about, and I was happy to give it to them without any type of, other than just wanting the best for that band.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):

Understood. Let's switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about the technical side of what you do for Bob's because I think a lot of our listeners, they have some interest in doing stuff besides just working with bands. I know there's quite a few people who would love to work in television or in a video field that has audio with it, which is all of them except for silent movies, but those aren't too big anymore, and I'm interested too. I want to learn a little bit more about it. Could you walk us through, technically what's in a typical day for you?

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):

It changes day to day, which is nice, but the basis of what I do is I primarily focus on the dialogue, which is such a crucial part of that show by design. A couple other, obviously if it's anime, it's all about the crazy explosions and the sounds, but with Bob's, it's a very story-driven narrative heavy show, and Lauren has created it to where it's almost like a conversational show. He came from Dr. Katz and some other things, so let's say I'm basis, I'm putting an episode together, they record it live in three different studios. I'm responsible for them putting it all together, making sense of it, aligning the audio with reference tracks. So there's a thing called ISDN, which is a high speed internet line that you have to reserve. It's almost instant across the country, which is pretty crazy. Only a few studios have them, so there'll be people in New York, LA, Boston, and occasionally Chicago or Las Vegas, depending on who's on that show. And then they'll record the ISDN feeds from, let's just take Boston, they'll record the ISDN feed from Boston. Then I'll get the session from Boston, and then I will line it up with that ISDN line as closely as I can, and then I'll go through the entire episode, clean it up, and then just all the dead space. So I just have the lines and then in the back and the graveyard kind of area of the session.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):

One thing real quick, so about the ISDN line.

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):

It really is that fast. The reason I'm asking is because I've tried to do those sessions over the internet where maybe people are listening to your mix and giving mixed notes or things like that. It's always weird.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):

It's usually about, it's like a 10 or 20 millisecond delay. So it's like the difference between the record head and the repro head on a tape machine. So you can pretty much have a pretty naturally feeling conversation over ISDN, but you have to reserve, I believe you have to reserve them.

Speaker 2 (01:17:53):

How do the actors stay? I mean, 20 milliseconds isn't that bad. I guess if you're not doing stuff that has to be in phase like snares, you're not trying to align snares over an ISDN line in real time.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):

Well, that's why each studio records to their own session, and then I take those three sessions and compile them. So I'll take the Boston record, which is a normal mic to computer, and I'll line that up with the ISDN. It's close. It's pretty much spot on, so we're still getting the good quality audio. It's not like we're actually using the ISDN audio feed from Boston in the episode.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):

It's just like what we're using Skype for right now on this podcast for people listening, we are recording ourselves locally, but we're using Skype to be able to talk,

Speaker 3 (01:18:47):

Right? That's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):

Just on a grand scale,

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):

And instead of using the clap that we did at the top to line things up for your editor, it would be like you recording my feed and then using the audio I give you at the end of today and lining it up with that recorded feed.

Speaker 2 (01:19:07):

Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):

Yeah, so once everything is phased, as we call it, I'll go, like I said, go through and clean everything up. Once I've gotten rid of all the dead space and I just have the takes, I'll then go and put everything in an order of the episode and just all the takes laid out so the writers and my boss can go and pick with the writers and choose what lines they want or what takes of what lines they want.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):

And then what

Speaker 3 (01:19:37):

So standard animation is once they've kind of chosen the takes, they'll clean up all the dead space and we create what's called a radio play. So they'll pretty much map out the episode as much as they can using just the dialogue and maybe some rough sound effects, like a door closing or a gunshot or something. And then they'll usually spit out,

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):

So they're putting in what they can, like a door close or gunshot. Is it the final door close or is it like placeholder stuff?

Speaker 3 (01:20:06):

Placeholder stuff. I mean, every now and then something will make it, but there's a guy later down the line, his only job is putting in sound effects, and then they have the,

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):

So the real Foley

Speaker 3 (01:20:18):

And stuff, they have the sound effects, and then they have a Foley Walker who does all that stuff. So two guys will come together and make sure that everything looks good. If there's an explosion or a car door or tires, squealing, all that stuff gets taken up down the line. I think usually, don't quote me on this one, maybe when it comes back from color, but we'll get into that. So they create what's called a radio play, which is just as close as they can to a real sounding episode. We'll get printed out, it's usually 23 to 28 minutes long. We have very specific deliver guidelines right around 22 minutes. So that'll go to everybody, the writers, the producers, the directors, and they'll start reviewing it and right from there, they'll actually start picking alt takes. So they'll do pickups with the actors maybe the next week or in the following two weeks of like, Hey, can we get this line better?

(01:21:17):

Can we do this better? So we're constantly revising that radio play. The script's constantly getting rewritten, and this is common with all animation. Once they lock everything in as best as they can, at that point, things will go over to the storyboard artists and the directors and they'll start mapping out what the episode's going to look like. They're called thumbs, they're just kind of rough sketches of the perspective and how they want hands to move and heads to move. Storyboard. Artists will take it and kind of fill it out more, and then we kind of do a rough lock on that. We'll do a screening, and once it's kind of been approved by everyone, the timing guys will take a look at it and let the animators in Korea know where certain things need to be, let motions down to the frame, how hands need to move and direct instructions on that. Then they ship everything off, all the files off with the audio, and then we don't see it again for three to six months. Obviously we're still getting

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):

Oh, damn. So it's that far in advance.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):

Yeah, we're, we've already done the holiday stuff for next year,

Speaker 2 (01:22:33):

So does it blow your mind when shows like South Park, they managed to have something on that was in the news a week ago?

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):

We talk about South Park. That's brilliant. The way they're able to do that and stay so current, but I think they work for six months and then they're pretty much on a hiatus for six months, just letting their people recuperate.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):

I have a theory too, and I don't know maybe if you can confirm or deny this, that they have alternate versions. So if they're going to make fun of a president who just won an election, they're going to have a version of each that they can just insert. I don't know if that's true or not, but then they do stuff that you can't have predicted either.

Speaker 3 (01:23:26):

Yeah, I mean, I couldn't tell you. I know that just from what I've seen, if they're doing a whole episode in a week to two weeks, I dunno how the hell they would've time to do two different episodes. You know what I mean? Two different versions. I feel like if someone gets elected on a Wednesday, maybe the following Wednesday or the two weeks, they'll have an episode about it, but it's just the amount of work.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):

They're fast.

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):

They're fast, but that show is on what, it's almost 20th season. I think they just have a career there that's so dialed in. I know they have a vocal booth that they do all their a DR and records in right there at the studio. So I think they keep everything, I don't think they ship out for animation, and the animation is a lot simpler, obviously for some of the crazy stuff they do. But yeah, I don't think their animation is as detailed as Bob's is or Family Guy or The Simpsons. They can get away with the animation being a little rougher around the edges. I think that's part of the charm of that show.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):

Got it. The one thing choose, I've seen this in live action shows sometimes, and it just always blows my mind. Homeland, I don't know if you've ever seen it, but Homeland would incorporate the news in episodes that would come out a week or two later if there's a show about terrorism. That's what it's about. I don't know if you remember the horrible attacks in Paris, but a few years ago, but they talked about them within a week or two that was in the plot lines and they were referencing it. We can't have another Paris and stuff like that. It's just like, God, that's incredible. That able to move that fast.

Speaker 3 (01:25:28):

They must, I mean, mean you can get it done, but you're paying your editors and you're paying your crew to put in those super long days of rewrites and recuts and everything like that, so you can do it. It's just if you're willing to pay a guy double time, triple time for him being there 20 hours, I mean, obviously there's laws for union. I'm sure that show is where you have to give your crew six to eight hours of rest of off time or again, don't quote me or, it's one of those things you're paying them, you're putting their kids through college in a weak level.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):

So that's another kind of looping back to what we were talking about a little earlier. So yeah, your phone doesn't ring past five in general, but if it were to ring past five, you would be handsomely compensated for it, and you don't get handsomely compensated for the phone ringing past five when working with bands.

Speaker 3 (01:26:39):

No, no, no, you don't. But then they look at it as like, well, you should be thankful for being able to work with this band and yeah, that's fine too.

Speaker 2 (01:26:47):

I mean, you should be thankful for getting to work on a TV show like that too.

Speaker 3 (01:26:52):

Oh, I think I somehow captured a unicorn with Bob's, like I said in the beginning of the podcast, if it was any other show than Bob's, which I was a huge fan of before, I don't know if I would've jumped both feet in. It was kind of the universe.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):

So you wouldn't have done the full house remake?

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):

Only if Aunt Becky got me a scholarship.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:27:14):

Yeah, it was just like one of those,

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):

I'll talk to her,

Speaker 3 (01:27:18):

Dude.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):

I know, I heard she knows some people.

Speaker 3 (01:27:23):

I ran into her. It's the most LA thing ever. A couple of years back, I was at a pastry place in Brentwood and I looked back and there she was sitting and I looked back again and she gave me the like, yeah, it's me. Don't even think about saying anything. Kind of luck. And I was like, eh. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):

Was she with the president of Harvard?

Speaker 3 (01:27:40):

No, she was with what looked like two other well to do taken care of Brentwood mothers all probably left in their brand new White Range Rovers.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):

Not surprised.

Speaker 3 (01:27:52):

No, no, no. It's definitely the culture out in that area.

Speaker 2 (01:27:55):

Okay, so it comes back, it's six months later. It comes back from the animators,

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):

Then it goes to our editors, our picture editors, and they kind of go through it and make sure things are where they need to be, cut some things out, move them, move some things around, and then we're still doing a DR pickups. Well, we still don't like that line. Now that we see it in picture, it could be better or we want it this way.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):

So are you working on two episodes at once, the current one that you're working on and then the one that came back?

Speaker 3 (01:28:30):

I think at the most, I'll be working on four or five episodes. It's kind of calmed down now, now that we're at the end of the season, but I've never been overwhelmed. So this week I have to put together another episode from Scratch, and then we have some pickups for another episode. So they'll go in with H John Benjamin and like, Hey, we need to get some more takes on 10 lines. So continue putting together my episode. When that A DR comes in, I'll switch over to that, get it prepped, just kind of cutting out all the dead space and lining it up with where the line is in the, what's called just our guide audio track, and then send it off to my bosses, and then they'll sit with the writers and pick of the new takes, the version they want. They'll create an a f from that new audio and send it to our picture editor, and then he'll go and put the new dialogue into the episode and then that'll go out.

Speaker 2 (01:29:29):

Did you just say

Speaker 3 (01:29:30):

A-I-F-F-A? A F.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):

Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:29:34):

It's just like it locks it to the frame.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:29:38):

So we can communicate between Premier Avid and Pro Tools.

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):

Got it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:44):

Because our animatics are done in Premier, I think. I don't remember, and I don't want to say too much about the process for fur.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):

Yeah, yeah, fair enough.

Speaker 3 (01:29:53):

The hand of the mouse now that we're Disney coming down and chopping me in the head.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):

Yeah, yeah. I don't want you to get chopped in the head. So there's a lot of moving pieces and it seems like quite a complex operation, and this is something that you just got into, I mean, you didn't just get into recently, but you just jumped right in. Did you know that this is how TV works, or did you learn on the job?

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):

I had no idea. Honestly, the actual process of my friend Adam, who's been on Bob since I think season one, he showed me the ropes and how they kind of do things. Where I had the skill was the editing ability that from working from Dan, I can make anything sound right,

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):

Dan?

Speaker 3 (01:30:45):

Yeah, Dan Cornif. But yeah, it was just

Speaker 2 (01:30:48):

Shout out to Dan Cornif, by

Speaker 3 (01:30:50):

The way. Yeah, I miss him terribly.

Speaker 2 (01:30:53):

Love you, Dan.

Speaker 3 (01:30:53):

Yeah, it was honestly just the aptitude and comfort within the DAW and seeing, okay, that's how they have to do it. And then just plotting along as much as I could and practicing, I guess editing

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):

This confirms something that I tell people all the time. URM listeners who want to get jobs in the industry pay attention. I've always maintained that. If you're looking for an internship, I know this isn't an internship, but I'll tie the two together in a second, so just go with me. An internship, your skills are less important than your personality because

Speaker 3 (01:31:35):

Absolutely,

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):

Yeah, because you can learn skills. It's assumed actually that if you're going for an internship, you're obviously not going to be as skilled as the engineer and the producer or the mixer because otherwise you wouldn't be the intern. You wouldn't be going for that job. You'd be going for their job. So it's assumed that your skills aren't totally there, and if your personality is right, people will teach you, will show you the skills that they think you can pick it up fast. And the same applies if you're going to go engineer or get a job like you did if you have the basics that someone's looking for. So obviously you won it because your audio editing skills are world-class. However, in addition to that, you had a friend and they had to like your vibe. I know that you are into comedy and we've gone a comedy show together before. We've talked about comedy, a lot comedy, and actually in Metal Beard Club, which we did together, which we'll talk about in a little bit, you wrote all the copy and it was always hilarious. So you understand comedy kind of the way that,

Speaker 3 (01:32:55):

No, sorry, I still can't believe some of the shit you and you guys let me get away with Metal Beard Club,

Speaker 2 (01:33:00):

Man, it was hilarious. Well, it's kind of the same way that I say that. A drum editor needs to understand drums like a drummer. You can't just understand Beat Detective, you have to understand drums, you understand comedy. So I feel like even if you didn't have all the skills, say that someone wanted to come engineer for me and I was a producer, but they didn't know Beat Detective, however, they were really smart, they were really cool and they played drums, I would be fairly confident that I could teach them how to edit. Right. So I feel like you knew comedy, obviously you're cool to hang out with and you're very, very good at editing audio. So it was obvious that with a little bit of effort from their part, they could show you the ropes and you could pick it up. So you didn't go in there with five years experience working on TV shows?

Speaker 3 (01:33:59):

No, I beat out a bunch of people that had way more experience than I did, but it was funny. My other boss, Matt, he was just like, yeah, one guy came in and he was wearing too much cologne and was way too quick to show me all the shit he could do, and I just didn't want to hear it and I didn't want to smell him. Oh shit. All right.

Speaker 2 (01:34:18):

And this is a dude who probably has worked on a bunch of TV shows.

Speaker 3 (01:34:23):

Oh God, Matt has worked. He was Quentin.

Speaker 2 (01:34:26):

No, no, no, I don't mean the boss. I mean the guy who didn't get the job.

Speaker 3 (01:34:29):

Oh, yeah. I don't know the guy's history too much, but yeah, no, he had worked on a bunch of shit.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):

Okay, so he had more experience than you, but he smelled bad.

Speaker 3 (01:34:39):

Well, he smelled too good. He wanted to let, which was bad. Yeah, exactly. He wanted to let everyone know he had expensive cologne. What also helped too on the other show, paradise PD that I worked on was my timing just from editing so much music, I understood what they said when we need a beat here before this joke or put some breath in or the timing of this needs to be this way or that way, and I understood how things should feel, and I think that was an advantage too, was because of all the music editing and how musical I try to make my edits and the music background and the timing of it is so important. If everyone says comedic timing is like 90% of it. Where a joke has to land is super, super important, and that's really big to Lauren and how he wants, I haven't fully done an episode of Bob's yet because there's two guys that are there that are just hyper talented, have been with Lauren since day one. But that's something that all these guys that I've met, these showrunners is the way the show feels, the way that the characters interact with each other, the way they're talking, and I think that's a really big, what makes these picture editor animation editors or editing for film so important is the timing of

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):

It. So it's not just having the technical skills. And I think that's what I'm really trying to key in on. It's not just the technical skills and exactly the same as editing vocals for a song. If you don't understand what good vocals are supposed to sound like or how pitches work or how harmonies work, if you don't have it, if that doesn't make sense to you on a deep level, you're not going to do a good job editing vocals even if you know what every parameter in Melaine or autotune does. And same with editing drums. If you can't feel drums the way they're supposed to be felt and you don't understand what it is that a drummer's trying to do, and you don't know what drummer's tendencies are or what's even realistic or unrealistic, then you could have all the macros and key commands down and you could know everything about beat detective and elastic audio, or you could be a fucking ninja, but your edits are going to suck because you don't understand music and it sounds like the same thing. It's like, I think I bet you that the understanding of comedy and comedic timing is a lot more rare than people who know how to do the commands.

Speaker 3 (01:37:28):

Yeah, and Adam, he was a drummer in a pretty big punk band for years Tour the World, and I think that's why his timing is so good and why Lauren loves him so much. Matt's a drummer too, the same thing. They have the music backgrounds and they know how it should feel, but I can tell you, God, how many times Dan would send me back to my room and be like, no, this sounds too perfect. It sounds robotic. Yeah, Cornif recut, this recut, this reedit. I want superhuman, not robot.

Speaker 2 (01:38:03):

That's a big difference.

Speaker 3 (01:38:06):

Again, it's that last 2% and with anything, it's done at a super high level. There's tons of people that can do the 98, but what makes it the last two is the gray area that subjective decision making coming out of a fill. Should the drummer rush on that first snare hit of the chorus or that first kick hit of the chorus? Maybe it'll push the whole thing and make the chorus jump a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (01:38:32):

I want to adjust something you just said. So you said a lot of people can do the 98. I disagree. I think not that many people can do the 80 or the 85% and then you get a small few who can do up to the 98% and then an even smaller group who can do the 2%. Because I was just thinking about something, I watched a YouTube video yesterday about actors talking about what it takes to make it in Hollywood.

Speaker 5 (01:39:05):

Oh God,

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):

What was some pretty serious veterans? And the opening line was you may think you are a one in a million type person, but what that means is that there's seven of you in New York and only one of you can get the gig, so you have to be a one in 7 million type person. And then really it's more like one in a hundred million really if you're going to be a star. So really the kind of person you have to be good enough or to be the right kind of person for certain gigs. I mean, it's not one in a hundred million for the job you do, but to be good at editing in the first place, but then understand but comedy and then understand software and then also be able to hang out and be cool, not wear the cologne. That's a very, very small group of people.

Speaker 3 (01:40:17):

I think I've also been genetically gifted. I think people forget about that. I've always, even to when I was three years old, I was playing drums along with records and that's, I've always had a sense of rhythm. I think sometimes we forget about that. Sometimes it's just encoded in your gene. I think you just have to nurture it. And then again, the self-evaluation, like what's my skillset? I know I'm not the flashiest bass player, you know what I mean? But a lot of times I'll play on some of these records or a part and it just sounds better because my timing's a little bit better and I know how to play for recording and I've listened to enough that I know what it's supposed to sound like. So I've also been gifted in the gene realm. Maybe it's the half Latin side of me that I've gotten the timing thing really locked in for the most part, like feeling when something should be behind the beat, when should it push ahead of the beat and yeah, just shit like that.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):

Well, yeah, which makes you even more of a rare find, but I guess you can't control what gifts you're born with though. There are a lot of things you can develop with effort. I know a lot of people who have just worked really hard to develop certain skills and abilities and who have great careers. So I do think that in order to be a superstar at something, it needs to be a combination. And we actually talked about this in Susan's episode a lot is it's a combination of things. It's obviously talent, so it's, but a combination of talent along with the luck, along with your personality, along with all these different things put together. But you can't take the talent out of the equation if you want to be a superstar. However, if you want to just have a great career, as long as you don't have inverse talent or some hard work, you can make shit work. You can make it happen. As long as your personality is not fucked up

Speaker 3 (01:42:32):

And not everyone's going to be a superstar. There's going to be the blue collar audio guys, which is fine. Again, you just have to define, if you're whole dream is to be a superstar audio guy and you're just not equipped to do that, maybe take a look at your situation and figure out a way to be happy and still do audio. I mean, I don't think I'll ever be a Mutt Lang who will, we've got one, or even someone like Colin who's songwriting ability is far surpassed mine will ever be. I know I'm not going to be that type of audio person, which is fine. Who was a little 25-year-old Alex would've been bummed out, but 3-year-old Alex is like, no. Those are Colin's skills that he's nurtured and he's taken the time to really sharpen. I haven't done that. I've honed other skills.

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):

You know exactly what you are talented at too. Like you said, the rhythm thing, not just on drums, but on bass too. That rhythm thing is in your blood. And so developing that talent into real skills is something you've been able to successfully move into a career, whereas maybe you don't have the same gifts as Colin, and that's okay. Colin is extremely gifted when it comes to finding combinations of genres and sounds that nobody would've, you wouldn't have thought to hear them together. That's what I've noticed on a lot of his recordings is that, you know how when people blend styles, sometimes it just comes off really stupid or they're trying too hard or just doesn't always work. There's something about when he does it that it sounds obvious,

Speaker 5 (01:44:20):

Obvious

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):

As in how did someone not think of this before? That's such, it makes so much sense and that's a serious gift.

Speaker 3 (01:44:30):

Yeah, he's got gifts that I don't think he's even realized he has yet, and I think that's a big part of, obviously it's a major part of his success, but I know that they would be nights, and I think why we got along so well was we'd go and listen to a peer Gabriel track from, and then right after go to something, the new Khalid shit, and he'd be able to hone in on what was special about both of those things. These are things that I've listened to a million times and I didn't even catch it, but I think that's what makes him a serious, serious talent is like, oh, we should take this from this track from 85 and maybe we can use this thing from this track that was released two weeks ago and put it together and then we'll have this thing that's really, really cool. It's the deep molecular understanding of music. That's his gift and how it works together.

Speaker 2 (01:45:28):

Totally. But he's not just that he's not successful because of only that. For instance, we both know that he has worked his ass off for years and that he's had other careers building up to this. But there's something else that I've noticed from we're kind of slowly becoming friends and we got along real great on the podcast and then he came to the summit. He was in town and we hung out and we've, every time we talk on the phone, we have a business objective, but then we just end up talking for an hour anyways. And so getting to know him, and one thing I'm realizing, and this also ties into earlier on this episode, is he knows exactly who he is and he knows exactly who he's not. And he knows, for instance, the metal thing and how metal records are created. That's not him at all, and he knows it, and he can explain in detail how that's not him. And it is great to know that and is relevant because a lot of the bands he works with could go in a more hyper metal direction. They have the, I mean, maybe not dashboard confessional, but the bands that he does work with, a lot of them that you're known for, a metal producer could work with them too and take them in one direction.

Speaker 3 (01:46:55):

We could have done another gen record with hands like Houses. We did a pop rock record. That's what they wanted. That's what the label wanted, and that's why they hired Colin. And then they didn't want another, I mean, maybe that's what the fans wanted, but that's not what the band wanted. They didn't,

Speaker 2 (01:47:14):

Or that Papa Roach could have been, I mean, I know Papa Roach are chameleons and they've changed their styles many times, but they have a Papa Roach I guess, sound in a way that has always remained consistent and hasn't gone in certain directions. But the stuff I heard with Colin, somehow, it still has the Papa Roach sound in that it's them, and it seems natural for them to be doing what's on that record. But there's stuff on there that I have never heard them do before that I never would've expected to ever hear them do. And it sounds

Speaker 3 (01:47:50):

Genuine,

Speaker 2 (01:47:50):

Incredible. Yeah, it sounds totally genuine. See, that's a gift. That part's a gift, but everything else is hard fucking work and a personality that jives well with other people and smarts,

Speaker 3 (01:48:03):

And he's always thinking two, three years ahead of where he is at. I mean, obviously he's concerned about what's coming next week, but for him, the constant goal is always two, three years away

Speaker 2 (01:48:17):

And he's not afraid to turn something down in the short term if it will hurt him in the longterm, which is again, back to what we were saying earlier about defining who you are and thinking or thinking about the little pride versus big pride. He's very, very good at putting off the temporary pride for the bigger win.

Speaker 3 (01:48:40):

I think his father is a very successful ophthalmologist, runs his own company. I think that was ingrained from his dad. I think it's Colin's natural genetic predisposition to think like that. And I think he was also nurtured by his family that you were always thinking two years ahead. You're always thinking five years ahead. Yeah, I mean, that's what Susan said to me before I moved out to la. She goes, I called her. It was so funny, the whole situation with me coming out to la, the decision was made in three days. Colin called me on a Monday and said, come out, I want you out here. Help me make my records a room opened up at Steakhouse, the same studio, let me know. And within three days, I had sent my deposit and I guess, well, I guess I'm moving to LA in six weeks.

(01:49:31):

And then I called Susan during that time. I was like, Hey, if this doesn't work out, like yada yada, she goes, promise me this. Give LA three to five years, give it three to five years. Think plan ahead as far as you can. And then if it doesn't work out in three to five years, we'll talk. It's like, all right. So I just kind of jumped in with both feet and yeah, I think that's what makes him so strong is he'll be uncomfortable now to know that because he knows that in two years he'll be where he wants to be. Absolutely. Really what this, it's a war of attrition as I get older, I guess you could say from it now, but the amount of people I've seen doing it tapers and as you go higher, it gets even narrower. It's not like a linear thing,

Speaker 2 (01:50:20):

It's like a pyramid,

Speaker 3 (01:50:21):

But with it super thick at the bottom, and as you get to the top, it's more like the Eiffel Tower. As you get higher and higher and higher, it's narrower and narrow and it stays narrow. It's not like an even keel thing of it. You can see people dropping off the very top. It's super tall, but it's very, very narrow, and it really is kind of just who can be uncomfortable the longest. Absolutely. Really fight for being there. That's funny. I always think of that last line in that movie Blow is my ambition always far outweighed my talent. I knew I had a certain level of talent, and I've obviously worked with people that are way more talented than me. I was just able to outlast them. And I think that comes from mountain biking. I used to ride this thing on my bike when I was doing some racing and stuff. Too Tough to die, too stupid to quit. And that was always kind of the adage of like, no, I can be uncomfortable for longer, but I'm going to sit there and hone my skills. I had a buddy said to me, he was like, I remember in college we were always out partying and stuff, and you were sitting in your room fucking with snare samples. It's like, well, it just kind of paid off.

Speaker 2 (01:51:41):

It did. I totally agree about the benefit of being able to suffer more. For instance, something I did when my band was trying to get a record deal was I printed up 25,000 copies of our two song EP to hand out. And what I mean by that is that I did it on a CD burner first. I started on the CD ROM drive in my computer, and then I got one that had you put the CD at the top and then it burns the one in the bottom, and it was at two x speed. Then I got a four x, then I got one that had four burners at four x and and then I would print up the label that goes on it and stick it on the cd,

Speaker 3 (01:52:45):

Get that cracked version of toast.

Speaker 2 (01:52:48):

Yeah, I don't remember what I did, but point being 25,000, 25,000, and I'm not exaggerating. And sometimes some people helped me, they'd stay up all night and they would stamp the label on while I do the burning or whatnot, but 25,000 and it took a couple years or three years, and then we would go to a slayer show with two backpacks full with a thousand and just give out a thousand in two minutes and then we'd be done. But the other bands I knew who were doing that, they pushed out after 2000 CDs. I just kept going and going and going. And yeah, my tolerance for enduring pain is pretty high.

Speaker 3 (01:53:39):

That's what I'm noticing is just the ability to suffer in happiness almost. It goes back to our previous, what makes you happy? And I think you can attain such a high level of discomfort knowing that what you're doing is going to pay off, even if it doesn't. You got to just know that this is going to suck for now, but if I can just get through this, it'll totally work out. And every time I've done that, it's always somehow paid off. It's just such obvious cliches that we've heard a million times, but don't really resonate until it's worked out, is anything that's worth doing is hard or whatever the old adage is. And it's totally true. It's

Speaker 2 (01:54:29):

Totally true.

Speaker 3 (01:54:30):

And it sounds so just like repetition of the same old cliches, but just they're

Speaker 2 (01:54:36):

Cliches for a reason

Speaker 3 (01:54:38):

And you don't want have to go to bed. And my biggest fear is going to bed at night and knowing, what if I had done this? My girlfriend, she's like, when you sleep, you're dead. You're out. The only way I battled with insomnia too was working myself to the bone and then knowing that there's no, I did everything in my power that I knew how to do to the best of my ability. And if it didn't work out, it didn't work out. I tried.

Speaker 2 (01:55:05):

I'm kind of jealous of your ability to sleep. I have frequent nightmares and I scream in my sleep and have conversations and night terror. Yeah, sometimes I have to sleep in a different room from my girl just because of how loud I am and the screaming. But I want to key in on something you just said about feeling good, about letting go of something if you put the effort in. So I think another thing in addition to being able to endure more pain is knowing, first of all, it's how you deal with failure and how you approach it too. Because we're all going to have failures. All of us. There's no single person on earth who has not fucked up at some point in time. And in addition to fucking up, there's sometimes where you don't necessarily fuck up, but something just isn't right.

Speaker 3 (01:56:04):

The circumstances, you can't control that. Drive yourself mad and go crazy over the things you can control. That was my therapist, and I've got family that are in program in aa, and it's part of that. I'm not a religious person, but you control the things you can control and everything else at a certain point, you got to let go.

Speaker 2 (01:56:26):

Absolutely. But also there's certain things that just aren't right or that won't work out. And this brings up something that you and me did together that I want to bring up a metal beard club. So for people who are not aware of this of me, Alex, and this really smart dude named Sean had a company briefly, briefly meaning a few years called Metal Beard Club. And we made, well, Sean made the beard oil, but yeah, it was like beard oil and balm and stuff. And actually I maintained that it's the best quality stuff I've ever used.

Speaker 3 (01:57:10):

I still do too. I've tried some other stuff and I hate it.

Speaker 2 (01:57:13):

Yeah, I mean, whatever Sean did, man, Sean figured it out. And the thing that was interesting too was that when I first started working with you guys, you guys had it for a year or something before it came on. It wasn't that good. He got a lot better. At first, honestly, I was like, this kind of smells bad. But then over time, meaning, and by over time I mean pretty quickly, he just upped his game. And so we have this company, the product is amazing. We then rebranded it. The rebranding was amazing. We got a commercial done, which is fucking awesome. We had a good website, all that stuff. Even ran some ads and got a Facebook group. We were doing this stuff, but we could never get it to turn the corner. And there's a few things that I've thought about why that didn't work out, and you tell me if you think I'm wrong. So I think first of all, me and you, and I'm not going to say this about Sean because he did his part as far as work goes, he made all the fucking oil.

Speaker 3 (01:58:35):

He was the GU that held it together for as long as it did.

Speaker 2 (01:58:38):

Totally. But my company URM was taking off, and when we started working together in middle beer club, URM was kind of in its infancy. So it had already started getting bigger, but it was still maybe 25% the size that it is now and still growing. And so my schedule just did not permit for putting the energy into something that has to get off the ground. So for me, that was number one. And I know that with you, you were in a bunch of transitions, and then finally you move from one place move to another, the studio burns down, then you're in Missouri, then you're in New York, then you're back in Missouri, then you're in la. You're going through some constant transitions, but leveling up in your production career every step of the way. So every time you think you're almost out of the game, you would level up in a bigger way.

(01:59:47):

And obviously you need to make that your priority. And then you land this Bob's burgers thing, which is like the dream gig. And so how are you going to put the energy into a company that needs that? So you can't start a company. I think that people who say that you can are full of shit and they're just trying to sell you a product, like an information inspirational product. You can't do this shit. I mean, you can have another job while you're doing it, but you're going to need to work from 7:00 PM till 2:00 AM every night on the other business in order to get it off the ground. Me and you are not capable of doing that. Our main gigs were just way too demanding. And then on top of that, I honestly don't think that any of us, the three of us were even that passionate about metals and beards.

(02:00:49):

So I know Sean doesn't even like metal. You like metal to, like you said, you like metal if it's good, but you're not a metalhead. And I mean, I am the most metal out of the three of us, but even I'm not a metalhead metalhead. I used to be, and I certainly mean I've had a beard since I was 16, but I really don't care about beard culture. So I don't identify with groups or things like that. That's not me. And so I had a real hard time throwing myself into it because that beard culture thing is not who I am.

Speaker 3 (02:01:34):

I think what I learned is that if you're going to start a company, unless you're just like a venture capitalist and that's all you do, and you're able to put that hat on, especially with more of a culture brand that Metal Beard Club was. I think you have to be ingrained in that culture and live that culture

Speaker 2 (02:01:53):

A hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (02:01:55):

The way we talk about audio and music, and not just metal, but just music in general and the craft of making records. You and I could talk about that for hours. I don't know if I could talk about beards and beards and metal for hours.

Speaker 2 (02:02:13):

I could not. But there are people who can. There

Speaker 3 (02:02:16):

Are people who can. We never, I think that was a big thing for me was the connection to, I thought we had a great product, businesswise. Sean set us up brilliantly with the website and the way everything logistically was in place. I really think that I had an issue and it didn't until it failed. It took me some real, again, holding the mirror up in conversations with Sean. I just didn't connect with it the way I thought I would. I mean, I love certain metal bands in my studio. I've got the converged stuff up, but I don't get psyched on like, oh, look at this 91 Pantera video. Like, okay, no, that's great. It's cool. But we needed someone like that that went to the beard competitions, lived breathed eight, slept the beard culture and the metal culture. And even with our powers combined, I think we had not a great, just from a marketing, you and I, because Voltron of metal beards, you know what I mean? I had a beard. You have your beard. We like the product. I just don't think we were able to connect with people on a visceral level, and I think consumers are smarter than we give them credit for. And I think maybe they sniff that in because there was no personality, there was no call to action kind of guy that was on there every single day. You guys were with URM. There wasn't a Joel who could rally the troops. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (02:03:54):

Yeah. What's interesting though is between the three of us, we had all the other ingredients. You had the copy down. I could set up all the marketing technically, and I know all the strategies and tactics to make it work, and Sean created a great product and set up the business and we had all that minus

Speaker 3 (02:04:18):

The human connection,

Speaker 2 (02:04:20):

The connection, and that can't be faked and exactly right about URM. The reason, well not, there's lots of reasons, but the thing that URM had always and still does, is that the people who run it, we know what we're talking about and we are a part of that world and we have been a part of that world for years, years and years. We made something for our world that we knew our world needed

Speaker 3 (02:04:54):

And it was something you got excited about.

Speaker 2 (02:04:57):

Yeah, I still do get excited about it and I never have gotten excited about beards ever. I like having a beard. I like beards, but I don't like them that much. I don't care about them. I don't give a fuck if some dude has a beard or not. I've never gone up to a guy and been like, sweet beard, bro. I've never done that. I've had a bunch of people come up to me and do it. So my thinking was, everybody compliments my beard. Maybe I should get paid for it. That was my thinking.

Speaker 3 (02:05:31):

It's kind of weird that if you go into a business with, obviously with, lemme rephrase that. If you go into a culture type business with just the mindset of how can I flip a profit, it's going to fail. If you're going into a culture based business, you need to be about that culture 110%.

Speaker 2 (02:05:48):

Absolutely a hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (02:05:49):

If, like I said, if you're doing tech or if you're doing investing where, but even if you look at people that are in the tech world, the guys that are making it, they are like robotics. The founders. The founders, they like robotics, they love robots. They live, breathe, eat, sleep robots. They want to program stuff. Ai, that's all they talk about the ethos of it. We were just like, cool, we like metal, we like beards enough, we have beards.

Speaker 2 (02:06:14):

It can go together.

Speaker 3 (02:06:15):

Yeah, let's see if we can make some money. And it wasn't like, oh my God, let's do this for the culture of metal and let's bring this and maybe the beard stuff will come along with it. And I think that's, at least for me, I think that was kind of where we missed the mark. I could write funny shit for it all day

Speaker 2 (02:06:34):

And it was funny.

Speaker 3 (02:06:35):

Yeah, thank you. But I think the people in the groups kind of knew that there's that company, the bearded warrior, I forget the name, but they're run by ex-Marines and they had the culture down because they had a mission statement that they were passionate about, which was donating to Wounded Warrior and they had beards and that's a big part of military culture and I think they just lived, obviously that was a big part of them.

Speaker 2 (02:07:03):

Another good example is Black Rifle Coffee Company.

(02:07:08):

They are perfect, you're saying? Yeah, they do Wounded Warrior, but they're a company by military people that is marketed for military people and everything about it is congruent. Their messaging, their employees, everything and that they live for that shit. These are all vets, a lot of them combat vets. This is a real thing for them and the audience or the customer base knows that. They know it's legit and that's part of why, and obviously their products really good and they know how to market. And so all those logistical and business things, all those boxes are checked off, but they have the most important thing, which is product market fit. URM has product market fit and that product market fit is everything. And so Metal Beard Club almost had product market fit because there is a way to do, I still believe there is a way to do beard stuff for metal people. However, we weren't the people to do it because we didn't fit the market. Even

Speaker 3 (02:08:27):

With our backgrounds, like making heavy music being a part of that whole scene. We're not at every single metal show regardless of who's playing just pimping. And we didn't have anyone going to beard competitions in a fucking dim borer shirt repping the company. You know what I mean? Exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:08:48):

Right.

Speaker 3 (02:08:49):

And that would be the person who would be making the videos every day. And if we're talking total from a business standpoint, you need that voice, you need that person who's the identity of the company.

Speaker 2 (02:09:01):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (02:09:01):

Absolutely. That everyone can fall in line behind and us popping in on the Facebook group to regulate some nonsense or make jokes or engage with people. It seemed very detached. Even now looking back on it,

Speaker 2 (02:09:14):

It was detached.

Speaker 3 (02:09:15):

There was no face to it. And I think in 2019 you need a face to your company, an actual human especially again, going to a culture based company, you need a face, you need a personality. I think that's where we missed it. I don't think I was the right person to do it. I know you didn't want to do it and didn't feel you were the right person either. Sean said that he didn't feel comfortable doing it. I think we maybe have looked over that fact maybe because we'd all put a pretty significant chunk of change in, and Sean had put God knows how many hours perfecting it. I think we have a great product, but now we know. And now I'm sure if you start another company, which knowing you there's probably 15 ideas on your plate. You now know from the mistakes that we made with Metal Beard Club, what not to do.

Speaker 2 (02:10:09):

The funny thing is I already did kind of know that stuff, but sometimes when you're in it, it's hard to see it. And that to me is the biggest lesson. So to me, the lesson isn't you need product market fit. I already knew that and I would preach that to people, but the lesson was that you need to be doing this self-evaluation thing that we talked about earlier, whether you do the future authoring suite or you find another way to do it, whether you're a Scientologist or something and you go get clear, I don't know. No, but I'm saying you need to get self critical and do the self-evaluation thing for every aspect of your life and every time that there's something new that you're going to take on, you need to think about these things critically because really the big problem with Metal Beard Club is that it went on too long and it went on too long because we weren't being honest with ourselves. And the reason I wasn't being honest with myself is because I wanted to have a side hustle because I was seeing myself as an entrepreneur who and the entrepreneur curse, and I do really believe this and I have to thank my best friend, Finn McKenty, who's also our director of marketing at URM for helping me break out of this mindset. But entrepreneurs, their curse is that they try to do too much.

(02:11:40):

They will frequent, and this is true for the most successful ones or ones just starting out, is they think that they can do everything. And so they try to do way too much instead of taking the thing that's working and putting all their entrepreneurial energy into making that thing huge. And then once it's huge and you either sell it or you can move out of operations, then you find something else you can do. Or you get a side hustle that actually is only a few hours per week and is consulting or something like that. Something where it's a service and you can provide it and then it's done. I know somebody who is a very, very high up at some labels and he also has a management gig that he runs. And the reason that works is because there's very clear parameters for the management thing and it's just a service he's providing, so it's not like he has to develop a product and the supply chain and all this shit.

Speaker 3 (02:12:56):

Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but yeah, you're fighting a war on all sides, but you don't know where the line of demarcation is, so you're just constantly pushing and the only way for it to be successful is to constantly be pushing.

Speaker 2 (02:13:08):

Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:13:09):

There's no finite. Like, okay, if we get to here, this happens when our perspective career choices, we know how much we have to put in to hit a certain mark. There was no mark. We were looking for a light switch in a fucking windowless room.

Speaker 2 (02:13:24):

And I will say that even with URM, there's a little bit of an element to that because maybe the light is on in the room, but we're constantly trying to expand that room into darkness that surrounds it. So there's still an element to that. And so if you're already fighting that one war, you can't just fight another one too. I mean, you can do a few side battles,

(02:13:48):

But they have to be very limited in scope and they can't rob you of resources and they need to play right along with what you're doing. And so I know too many entrepreneurs who have one thing that worked out, and so then they want to start 20 businesses, and that's a recipe for disaster, and Finn helped me see that, and it got me in line. Now I am doing URM exclusively. Now, I do have a couple other things in the works, but a couple other things in the works are things that are very much in line with what I'm already doing and they'll make me better at what I'm already doing and they're very low impact. I don't have to start a company fucking starting a company from zero to even 25% of what URM does is a lot of fucking work.

(02:14:49):

You can't do that plus have another company that requires your full attention. So the reason I wanted to talk about this though is because it kind of brings our conversation full circle in that self-awareness of what your gifts are and what makes you happy and what you truly want in life and what you wanted at one point might not be what you want now. And how you do have to be able to walk on things that aren't right and how you do need to just learn what you can from these failures. That metal Beard Club experience for me kind of just sums that all up. It really does. I'm really happy we did it.

Speaker 3 (02:15:36):

Yeah, I think you spoke about this with Susan and I think in our current place where everything you do is for the world to see or you just want people to see certain things to make yourself look better, I think people have, sometimes they kind of don't look at themselves enough other than through this Instagram window and be like, okay, well this is who I am is this persona I've put on social media and they're miserable, and I think you got to find out what makes you happy and just go with that. Even if it's not great content, who cares? I didn't realize that until maybe this year with kind of stepping back from the music thing and this idea that I created of myself, of what I was going to be and who I was going to be and all this shit that I had talked myself up over a decade of doing it and I've had success and I wasn't as happy as I thought I would be getting the things that I wanted for so long.

(02:16:38):

So when the animation thing came along, I mean, I'm obviously talking from Dispersonal experience. I'm way happier now that I think I've ever been, even with Billboard Records and all this shit going on and all these great bands that I've gotten to work with. I'm happier now. I go to Bob's. I'm still mixing records full time, not full time. And man, I'm pumped. And it took a long time to get there and figure in a lot of self-examination. I'm happy I was able to do it at 32 and not 52. And I think just sit with yourself, turn your phone off and sit with yourself and think just even if it's 20 minutes a day and examine what makes you happy, if it's making records and being that guy, do it. If it's sitting on the couch with your girlfriend every night, do it. Or if it's knitting, fucking do it. Figure out a way to do it. I like mountain biking. I'm going to do that again. I went yesterday. It was miserable. I had a great time. I was coughing up blood, but god damn. Was I happy

Speaker 2 (02:17:40):

Coughing up blood, huh?

Speaker 3 (02:17:41):

I'm out of shape, man. I'm very out of shape.

Speaker 2 (02:17:47):

Okay, so coughing up blood. I'm glad you're alive.

Speaker 3 (02:17:52):

Yeah, no, I'll be fine. I just got to get rid of my bitch tits and everything will be okay.

Speaker 2 (02:17:59):

I'm going to say I think this is a good place to end the episode. I think we kind of came full circle, but I'm proud of everything you've done and I really hope that people listening who are trying to level up or at a crossroads in their career or just not sure what they want to do or unhappy in their career, or they have that voice telling them that something's got to change. I really hope that they take this as an inspiration to find some method to honestly examine themselves. And I mean, the reason I suggest doing a method that already exists, like I mentioned, the self-authoring suite or getting a psychologist, whatever it is,

Speaker 4 (02:18:54):

But

Speaker 2 (02:18:55):

The reason that it's good to use a method is because if you've never done this before, you may not ask the right questions. And this is all about holding the mirror up to yourself is all about asking the right questions because the right questions will get you the right kind of answer. And if we don't know what the right questions are, we could ask ourselves things that it's easy to, I guess, give yourself an embellished answer that gives you an answer that might be in line with what you hope it is, but not what it really is.

Speaker 3 (02:19:33):

Yeah, I think leaving yourself open to opportunities that maybe weren't in your original game plan and then realizing you're way happier with the way things turned out. If I had never moved to LA, I'd still be fighting for records in New York and not have progressed. Just got to take those risks and always be looking at yourself as objectively as possible, even if you don't like what you see.

Speaker 2 (02:20:02):

I know we're about to end this, but lemme tell you about something really funny on topic that just happened. So somebody contacted me that I haven't spoken to in 10 years recently. They want to start a podcast and they asked me for some pointers and I normally don't just take phone calls. Actually, I keep my phone ringer off at all times, but I didn't talk to him in 10 years and sure, why not? Let's do it. Let's catch up and I'll tell you how to start a podcast. But I'm not too sure how aware he is of what URM does

(02:20:47):

All the way. I'm not sure he understands the scope of it, but he knows that I have a podcast that's doing well and that's why he wanted to talk about podcasts and he knows me from the band days and stuff back in those days and he asked me how music's going, and I was like, I don't do that anymore. He's like, come on, you got to do it a little. And I was like, no, I don't do it at all. I haven't actually played guitar in three years. And he was like, no, man, you're hurting me by saying that you were so good. I was like, well, I'm flattered you say that, but

Speaker 3 (02:21:21):

Because you're crushing his dreams,

Speaker 2 (02:21:23):

But I don't want to do it anymore and I haven't wanted to do it in a long time. He's like, yeah, but you don't have that. What it was kind of like he didn't believe what I was saying to him. He had a hard time with it. And that identity we have that we define ourselves as, that's another reason that it's scary to redefine yourself because it's not just you. I mean, look, we all say that we don't care what other people think, but we do. We all care what other people think.

(02:21:56):

You can't avoid it. You are human in society and some people care too much what other people think, but we are aware of other people's opinions of us and what we're doing and shit. It's important what other people think of you. We'll make a difference in whether or not you get certain opportunities or the girl says yes when you ask her to marry you, what she thinks of you matters. So there are times where what other people matter think really does matter, and I think that that's why when we're talking about this self-examination thing, you might ask yourself the wrong questions because you're afraid of an answer that will make you do something that could get a weird reaction from the people you care about. So I know that it was scary for me and I got into a long depression over it that I'm actually the bad effects of the depression, I'm just now starting to get over. But it started when it started because a crisis of self definition I guess. And

(02:23:01):

Part of it was that what am I, if I'm not a guitar player and how are people going to react? Are they going to take me seriously? All these weird, stupid fears and I'm much happier now. I'm really glad I did that and fuck anyone who has a problem with it. However, it was just fascinating to me that first of all, that he didn't know that I don't do it anymore. But second of all, it's just like that's what I'm talking about. That reaction is what scares a lot of people. People are afraid of hearing, but you're so talented. I

Speaker 3 (02:23:37):

Think that's what I was projecting on when talking to telling people I was kind of semi retiring from making records that the thing I was in my head. But I think people need to realize you're not defined by what you do. You're defined in how you do it. So the same kid that was burning 25,000 fucking copies of ECD is now building this business. It's just different. You're not doing the same thing, but the way you're going about it is the same way and I think that's what's going to make you successful.

Speaker 2 (02:24:06):

That's what I tried to tell him was like, dude, he's like, but what about creative stuff? I was like, I do creative stuff. This thing I do now did not exist at one point in time. I created it

(02:24:20):

And I'm creating stuff for it all the time. He's like, yeah, but it's different. I was like, it's actually not different for me. It's not different. I get the same exact feeling I did with writing music and getting better guitar as I do when I do this stuff, and I'm not kidding that I really do get that same creative fulfillment and it's not for somebody else to tell me what gets me fulfilled, and I am rather, I don't get, it doesn't bother me emotionally anymore. I've done a lot of thinking about this. So somebody having that reaction used to scare me, and it used to make me want to hide myself and not tell them the truth about who I was, but I had to get over it and I did. I know that for a lot of people who are going to go do the self-examination, that that could come up and it's really, really scary. But as someone who has gone through that transition, I say, do it. And if you discover that your path is true, you want to keep playing guitar or you want to be a producer, more power to you do it. Most of my best friends are great producers and they are so talented and great at what they do, and just because doing that isn't what I love doing doesn't mean that they can't do that. In fact, my company needs them to,

(02:25:48):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (02:25:49):

Please keep doing it.

Speaker 2 (02:25:49):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (02:25:50):

I need your content.

Speaker 2 (02:25:52):

Yeah, don't stop.

Speaker 3 (02:25:53):

That also brings to light another thing of you don't want people in your life that don't think, not like the way you do, but have the big picture kind of mindset, like the way you're telling this dude, and I don't mean to attack him personally or anything, but him saying, oh, you're giving up the dream. Maybe that's not the right person to keep in your circle. You want people, you say, I'm doing this thing, I'm focused on it. This is what I get of it. The right personality or the right person for me would be like, that's fucking brilliant. Are you getting the same fulfillment? Yes, go for it. Are you happy? Yes. Run at that. Is it the same dream you had 15 years ago? No, but they understand that. They understand. Things change, and you just got to put the people around you that understand that

Speaker 2 (02:26:40):

I have that. Now, back in December, I had to do something that was very, very risky. For instance, just an example, I can't say what it was, but I had to do something that was very risky, that could have changed everything thing. It could have changed everything. There was that risk to it, but it had to be done, and it was the best thing for everything, and everybody agrees, and especially now, but when I told some of the closest people to me, like my parents and my girl that I'm doing this, they looked at me like I was a little crazy, but they all said, we trust you. If this is what you're going to do, we support you because you tend to know what it is you should be doing. It seems crazy to us and scary to us, but we trust you and we have your back. That's way cooler than

Speaker 5 (02:27:39):

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:27:40):

Yeah. It took a while to get to this point, but you should be surrounding yourself with people who have your back

Speaker 3 (02:27:50):

And ending on a Susan note. Slow growth is the best growth.

Speaker 2 (02:27:53):

I totally agree. Totally. Well, Alex, thank you for doing this. I know that we totally tried this episode a couple months ago and it failed, so I'm glad that we redid it and

Speaker 3 (02:28:08):

I think it turned out way better.

Speaker 2 (02:28:10):

Fuck yeah, so pleasure speaking with you as always.

Speaker 3 (02:28:15):

Yeah, man. Well come to LA soon. We'll go to another comedy show.

Speaker 2 (02:28:18):

I'm going to be in LA in August.

Speaker 3 (02:28:20):

Alright,

Speaker 2 (02:28:21):

Well I'll see you then.

Speaker 1 (02:28:22):

I'll get the tickets. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by JayZ Microphones. For over a decade, JayZ microphones has combined all the critical elements of world-class microphone manufacturing, patented capsule technology, precision electronics, and innovative industrial design. JZ microphone's, deep understanding of technology is informed by their open-minded, innovative approach. Trust us, sound can be glorious recorded. For more info, please go to jz mike.com to ask us questions, make suggestions and interact. Visit Academy and press the podcast link today.